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Maddie steps through the door to Buck's bedroom, ready to take her turn at his bedside, and it isn't a surprise, the scene she's confronted with, but it makes her breath catch all the same. Eddie is with him, on the bed instead of next to it, propped against the headboard, his long legs stretched out across the comforter and Buck curled underneath, his head pillowed on Eddie's chest.
Eddie raises his free hand, one finger to his lips, and Maddie comes closer as quietly as she can. Buck is sleeping, his hair sweaty against his pallid forehead, his cheeks flushed a hectic pink, but he looks peaceful, at last.
'Okay?' she whispers as she takes a seat in the chair by the bed.
Eddie smiles, his voice pitched low, 'yeah. He's been out maybe twenty minutes. Hoping he'll at least get an hour of sleep this time.'
'He should be over the worst of it by now,' says Maddie, cataloguing the softness in Buck's limbs, no longer rigid and shaking.
Eddie nods, his chin dipping to his chest, looking down at Buck and when he looks up his eyes are so wide, shining, 'Maddie, I'm so sorry. I should have—,' he bites back the emotion, shaking his head as if to clear it, 'I should have noticed. I knew he wasn't okay but I let him convince me he was dealing.'
'He's my brother,’ Maddie says, her voice split clean down the middle, ‘I didn't see it either.'
She is so glad Buck went to Chim. She is so glad that he has a whole family, currently sleeping on the floor of his living room, willing to step up and help him without question because they love him so deeply, but part of her still sees it as her job, her responsibility, to take care of this boy she raised. She left him to wander state to state when she was with Doug and Buck helped her escape so she could be there for him and for herself again but she has her own family now, her kids and Chim, Buck slightly less at the center, although no less loved, and the guilt she feels for not seeing him struggling will stay with her for a long time. She is so glad he has Eddie.
'I know but I'm—.'
Eddie searches for the right words and doesn't find them but it's written all over his face. Maddie wasn't sure before now, where Eddie's feelings were, but in this moment it couldn't be more obvious so she finds the words for him.
'At first,' she says, eyes on Buck, hoping their conversation doesn't wake him, 'after Jee was born and when I felt so lost, I did everything I could to hide it from Chim. When you're that close to someone, you'd do anything not to burden them.'
Buck murmurs something unintelligible, smearing his face against Eddie's chest and Eddie's hand comes up to cup the back of his head, soothing through his curls until he quietens.
‘Still, I should have known. I was in that desert too. No one could walk away from that unaffected.’
‘You saved him and you were there for him after, when he was ready.’
'I love him,' says Eddie firmly and then with less conviction, 'do you think—?'
Maddie looks at her baby brother and the man he has made his home in, wrapped up in each other, a set, a pair, a question and its answer.
'You should ask him,' she says, 'when he's feeling better.'
She stands, heading to the door because Buck doesn't need her right now, 'if you need some rest, you come find me.'
'I'll sleep better here,' Eddie says, already shifting to lie down more comfortably beside Buck.
Maddie nods, she'll sleep better too, knowing that Buck is loved, in every way he deserves.