Chapter Text
Buck almost died on a Tuesday.
It was stupid, really, how ordinary the day had been before that. There should have been a warning, Buck thought later. Some ominous shift in the air. A strange feeling in his chest. A bird flying into a window. Something dramatic enough to make sense of the way the rest of the day cracked open and swallowed him whole.
But there hadn’t been.
There had only been breakfast.
Theo had wanted waffles shaped like dinosaurs, which Buck did not own, because apparently regular waffles were apparently “disappointing.” Buck had promised to look into dinosaur waffle makers, which was how he ended up standing in his kitchen at seven in the morning with a five-year-old on his hip, half a banana in his mouth, and his phone open to a shopping page.
“You don’t need a dinosaur waffle maker,”
Eddie had said from Buck’s couch, where he’d somehow ended up after dropping Christopher at school early and stopping by with coffee. Like that was normal. Like Buck’s house was just a second home he could drift into before shift.
Theo had gasped like Eddie had suggested they cancel Christmas.
Buck had pointed at him. “Take it back.”
Eddie had only raised his eyebrows. “I’m just saying, a waffle is a waffle.”
“That is exactly the kind of joyless statement I would expect from someone who eats protein bars voluntarily.”
“They’re convenient.”
“They taste like compressed sadness.”
Theo had nodded gravely. “Sadness bars.”
Eddie had looked between them, betrayed. “I bring coffee and this is how I’m treated? I might have to start bringing my coffee elsewhere.”
Buck remembered laughing.
That was the part that stuck with him afterward. Not the sirens. Not the collapse. Not the hospital. That laugh. Theo’s sticky fingers on his cheek. Eddie’s smile tucked behind the rim of his coffee cup. The ridiculous warmth of an ordinary morning he hadn’t known he needed to memorize.
By lunchtime, they were pulling up to a construction site where half of a partially renovated building had folded in on itself.
The scene was chaos in the way rescue scenes always were at first, all shouting voices and dust and heavy machinery gone still in the middle of unfinished work. Workers stood huddled near the street, some bleeding, some crying, some staring blankly at the wreckage like their brains had refused to accept what their eyes were seeing. A foreman met them halfway, hard hat crooked, face grey beneath the dust.
“Two missing,” he said, voice shaking. “One was on the second floor when it went. Another was in the lower west section. We heard him shouting a minute ago.”
Chim was already giving orders before Buck had fully stepped out of the engine. Captain Chimney Han had settled into command better than any of them had expected and exactly as well as Bobby probably would have known he would. There were still days Buck looked toward the front of the truck and expected to see Bobby there, calm and solid and impossible to rattle. There were still days the absence hit him hard enough to steal his breath.
This wasn’t one of those days.
Not yet.
This was a day for moving.
Hen took triage. Eddie moved with Buck toward the west side, tools in hand, dust catching in his eyelashes. Ravi and the rest of the team started working with another unit to shore up the unstable sections. Chim’s voice cut through everything over the radio, steady and sharp.
“Buckley, Diaz, assess the west pocket. No heroics. I want eyes before bodies, understood?”
Buck glanced at Eddie.
Eddie glanced back.
“No heroics,” Eddie repeated, in the exact tone of a man who knew Buck personally.
Buck scoffed. “I’m deeply offended by the implication.”
“You should be deeply supervised.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
Buck would remember that too.
The banter.
The ease of it.
How they could walk into danger and still sound like themselves.
They found the trapped worker wedged behind a collapsed support beam, pinned but conscious, his breath coming fast and shallow. His name was Luis. He had a wife, a toddler, and a baby due in October. He told Buck all of that in the first two minutes, like he needed someone to know, like facts could anchor him to the world.
Buck crawled in as far as he could safely go, shoulder scraping concrete, dust filling his mouth. “Hey, Luis. I’m Buck. That’s Eddie behind me. We’re going to get you out of here.”
Luis laughed once, wild and terrified. “You promise?”
Buck didn’t make promises on calls.
He knew better.
He’d learned better.
He made one anyway.
“Yeah,” he said, reaching for Luis’s hand. “I promise.”
Behind him, Eddie went still.
Buck didn’t look back.
They worked carefully. Slowly. Too slowly for Buck’s liking, but the whole structure groaned whenever anyone put weight in the wrong place. Chim kept asking for updates. Eddie kept answering, his voice clipped but calm. Buck focused on Luis, on keeping him talking, on making sure he didn’t look down at the blood soaking through the man’s pant leg.
“You got names picked out for the baby?” Buck asked.
Luis swallowed. “If it’s a girl, Sofia. If it’s a boy, Mateo.”
“Good names.”
“My wife likes old names.”
“My son’s name is Theo,” Buck said, because Luis looked like he needed something human to hold onto and Buck had plenty of Theo to share. “He’s five. This morning he told me regular waffles were disappointing.”
Luis blinked, then barked out a shocked laugh that turned into a groan.
Eddie’s voice came from behind Buck, softer now. “That sounds like Theo.”
Buck smiled despite the dust and the fear and the too-tight space around them. “He’s very advanced.”
The first crack sounded like a gunshot.
Everything stopped.
Buck felt it through the floor before he understood it, a deep shudder passing through the broken bones of the building. Dust rained down from above. Somewhere outside, someone shouted. Eddie said Buck’s name, low and urgent.
“Buck.”
“I know.”
“Back out.”
“I almost have him.”
“Buck.”
There it was again. Another crack. Louder this time.
Luis grabbed his wrist. “Please.”
Buck looked at him.
Looked at the beam.
Looked at the narrow space behind him where Eddie waited, tense and ready and terrified in the way only Eddie could be terrified: quiet, controlled, all of it burning under the surface.
Buck should have backed out.
He knew that.
He knew.
Instead, he shifted forward another inch and got both hands under the beam brace.
“On three,” he said.
Eddie swore behind him.
“Buck, don’t—”
“One.”
“Buckley, report,” Chim snapped over the radio.
“Two.”
The ceiling screamed.
“Three.”
Buck shoved.
Luis moved.
Eddie lunged forward and grabbed the back of Buck’s turnout coat, dragging Luis with his other arm, and for one impossible second Buck thought they’d done it. He thought they were clear. He thought they were lucky.
Then the world came down.
There was noise first.
Too much noise.
Then pain.
Then nothing.
---
He woke up to pressure.
Not sight. Not sound. Pressure.
Weight across his back, his legs trapped at an angle that made his hips ache, his left arm pinned beneath him. He tried to inhale and got dust instead. Panic sparked bright and immediate in his chest.
No.
No, no, no.
He forced himself not to thrash.
Training first.
Panic later.
“Buckley?” Chim’s voice crackled through his radio, warped by static. “Buckley, Diaz, respond.”
Buck tried to answer. Coughed. Pain exploded through his ribs.
“Buck!”
That was Eddie.
Not over the radio.
Close.
Too close.
Buck dragged in a breath that felt like glass. “Eddie?”
“Buck.” Eddie’s voice broke on his name, and that scared Buck more than the dark. “I’m here. I’ve got Luis. He’s clear. Are you pinned?”
Buck blinked, trying to make his eyes adjust, but there was nothing to adjust to. Just darkness and dust and the horrible awareness of his own body compressed under debris.
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Little bit.”
“Little bit?” Eddie demanded.
Buck tried to smile. It hurt. “Medium bit.”
There was a pause. Then Eddie’s laugh, sharp and breathless and not amused at all.
“Chim,” Eddie said, louder now, into his radio. “Buck’s trapped. Conscious. West pocket. I need rescue support now.”
“We’re working on it,” Chim replied. His voice was controlled, but Buck could hear the strain underneath. “No one moves anything until collapse assessment clears it. Diaz, do you hear me? Do not make it worse.”
Eddie didn’t answer immediately.
Buck knew him well enough to know that meant Eddie was considering doing exactly that.
“Eddie,” Buck whispered.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Wow,” Eddie said, voice too thin. “You’re giving that speech?”
“Learned from the best.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“You.”
Another pause.
Then softer, closer, like Eddie had crouched near the opening. “Stay awake for me.”
Buck closed his eyes.
Bad idea.
He opened them again. Still dark.
“Bossy.”
“You love it.”
Buck’s chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the weight pressing down on him.
He wanted to say something. Something stupid, probably. Something deflecting. Something that would make Eddie snort and call him an idiot.
Instead, another section shifted above him.
Buck felt it.
Eddie heard it.
The entire pocket groaned.
“Buck?” Eddie said.
Buck couldn’t answer right away. His breath caught, shallow and useless. Something was wrong. More wrong than before. His vision, despite the dark, started to blur at the edges.
“Buck,” Eddie repeated, sharper.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yeah.”
Eddie cursed again, and Buck would have teased him for his language if he could have found the energy. Theo had recently started repeating things with devastating accuracy. The last thing they needed was Eddie teaching him construction-site vocabulary.
Theo.
The thought landed like a blade between his ribs.
Theo with syrup on his shirt.
Theo asking if firefighters were careful.
Theo asleep with his dinosaur tucked under one arm.
Theo, who had already lost two parents and did not deserve to lose another.
Buck’s breath hitched.
“Eddie.”
“I’m here.”
“Theo—”
“No,” Eddie said immediately. “Don’t do that.”
“If—”
“No.”
Buck swallowed. His mouth tasted like concrete and blood. “Just listen.”
“I am listening,” Eddie snapped. “I’m listening to you breathe, and you’re going to keep doing that until we get you out.”
Buck wanted to laugh. Wanted to cry. Wanted to be anywhere else.
“Tell him I tried,” Buck whispered.
Silence.
Then Eddie’s voice, wrecked and furious.
“You can tell him yourself.”
Buck tried to hold onto that.
He really did.
But the dark was getting heavier.
Eddie kept talking. Buck thought Hen’s voice came over the radio at some point. Chim’s too. Tools started somewhere above him, careful and distant. He heard his name again and again, like everyone had decided that as long as they kept saying it, he would have to stay.
Buck.
Buckley.
Evan.
That one was Eddie.
Buck wanted to tell him not to sound like that. Like losing Buck would cost him something he didn’t know how to survive.
But then the dark finally won.
---
The next time Buck woke up, the world was too bright.
Hospital bright.
Terrible fluorescent bright.
He knew the ceiling before he knew anything else, which was maybe the most depressing indictment of his life choices imaginable.
“Oh, good,” he rasped. “My second home.”
Someone made a noise beside him.
Maddie.
Buck turned his head slowly, because everything hurt and his body seemed deeply opposed to the concept of movement. Maddie was in the chair next to his bed, eyes red, hair falling loose from the clip she only used when she’d been running her hands through it too much.
“Hi,” Buck said.
Maddie covered her mouth. Then she laughed and cried at the same time, which Buck thought was unfair because it made him want to cry too and he was pretty sure crying would hurt.
“Hi, yourself,” she said, reaching for his hand. Her fingers trembled around his. “You absolute idiot.”
“That’s fair.”
“You scared the hell out of us.”
“Also fair.”
Her grip tightened. “Don’t joke.”
Buck stopped smiling.
Maddie didn’t say things like that often. Not really. Not unless she meant them.
So he looked past her and saw Theo curled in the chair by the window, small body folded awkwardly under a blanket that was definitely from Maddie’s house. Jee-Yun’s, probably. It had cartoon clouds on it.
His son was asleep.
His little boy.
His entire impossible heart.
And beside him stood Eddie.
Eddie was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, still in his uniform pants and LAFD shirt, hair a mess, face pale beneath the exhaustion. There was dust at his collar and a bruise along his jaw Buck didn’t remember seeing before. He looked like he had been standing there for hours.
Maybe he had.
Their eyes met.
Something moved across Eddie’s face too quickly for Buck to name. Relief, maybe. Anger. Fear. All of it.
“Hey,” Buck said, quieter.
Eddie pushed off the wall. “Hey.”
“You look terrible.”
Eddie huffed. “You were crushed by a building.”
“And yet somehow I’m pulling it off.”
Maddie made a strangled sound. “Evan.”
Buck winced. “Okay. Tough room.”
Theo stirred at Maddie’s voice. His eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first, then landing on Buck.
For one second, he froze.
Then he scrambled out of the chair.
“Dad!”
Maddie caught him before he could launch himself fully onto the bed, thank God, because Buck had bruises in places he hadn’t known could bruise.
“Careful, buddy,” Eddie said gently.
Theo climbed up with Maddie’s help and tucked himself against Buck’s side with the extreme caution of a child trying very hard to be brave. That made it worse somehow.
Buck wrapped his good arm around him.
“Hi, Spiderman.”
Theo’s face crumpled.
Buck’s heart went with it.
“You didn’t come home,” Theo whispered.
The room went silent.
Buck looked at Maddie.
At Eddie.
Then back at Theo.
“I know,” he said, voice rougher than before. “I’m sorry.”
“You said you always come home.”
Buck closed his eyes for a second.
He had said that.
One of those desperate parent things said in the dark after nightmares, when Theo had woken up crying for the parents who were never coming back, and Buck had been trying to build safety out of words alone.
“I said I would try my hardest,” Buck corrected softly, because he couldn’t lie. Not about this. Not after everything. “And I did. I promise I did.”
Theo pressed his face into Buck’s hospital gown. “I don’t like your job.”
Buck stared at the ceiling.
He had no answer for that.
Not one that would make sense to a five-year-old.
Not one that made sense to him, right then.
Eddie moved closer. Buck could feel him there more than see him, steady at the bedside, one hand resting lightly on Theo’s back.
“Your dad helped save someone today,” Eddie said.
Theo sniffed. “But he got squished.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “He did.”
Buck opened one eye. “Wow. Thanks for the support.”
Eddie looked at him, and for a second the teasing fell away.
“But he came back,” Eddie said.
Theo lifted his head. “Because you saved him?”
Eddie’s throat worked.
Buck watched him swallow.
“Because we all did,” Eddie said.
Buck knew what that meant.
He knew what Eddie wasn’t saying.
He had been close enough to hear Buck stop answering.
Close enough to dig.
Close enough to be scared.
Theo seemed to accept this. He tucked himself back against Buck and held on.
Buck held him as tightly as his body allowed.
Across the bed, Maddie wiped her eyes.
Eddie looked away.
And Buck lay there, bruised and breathing, surrounded by people who loved him, and felt something cold settle deep in his chest.
Because he had come home.
This time.
They kept him overnight for observation, which Buck protested on principle and everyone ignored on principle.
By morning, he had a concussion diagnosis, two cracked ribs, a strained shoulder, a collection of bruises that looked like modern art, and strict instructions not to return to work until cleared. Chim came by with Hen and Ravi after shift, all three of them looking exhausted and too relieved.
Chim stood at the end of the bed and glared.
Buck blinked. “Is this a captain glare?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not bad.”
“Don’t patronize me. I learned from Bobby.”
That shut Buck up.
It wasn’t painful exactly. Or it was, but not in the obvious way. Bobby’s name could still do that sometimes, walk into a room and change the temperature. Buck saw it hit all of them. Hen looked down. Chim’s jaw tightened. Eddie’s eyes flicked to Buck and away again.
Bobby would have been there.
That was the thought Buck couldn’t stop having.
Bobby would have been at the foot of his bed with his arms crossed, looking disappointed and grateful in equal measure. Bobby would have told him he was proud and angry and making him grey. Bobby would have brought soup. Something homemade. Something that tasted like safety.
But Bobby was gone.
And Buck hadn’t learned enough of his recipes.
The thought came out of nowhere and lodged beneath his ribs.
He hadn’t learned enough.
There had been so many Sundays when Bobby had cooked and Buck had hovered in the kitchen, stealing bites, asking questions, getting shooed away, promising he’d write it down next time.
Next time.
God, he hated next time.
Maddie drove him home the next afternoon because Eddie was on shift and because Buck had been outvoted in the matter of whether he was allowed to drive himself. Theo stayed glued to him from the moment they picked him up, one small hand gripping Buck’s sleeve in the car, at the pharmacy, in the elevator, all the way into his house.
Buck pretended not to notice.
Maddie very clearly noticed and said nothing, which was how Buck knew she was worried.
She made dinner. Or reheated dinner Eddie had apparently left in Buck’s fridge before going back to the station, because of course he had. There was a note taped to the container in Eddie’s handwriting.
Don’t eat only cereal.
There are vegetables in this. Cope.
Buck stared at it for too long.
Maddie leaned over his shoulder. “Subtle.”
“It’s dinner.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said ‘mm-hm.’ That’s worse.”
Theo, sitting at the table coloring a dragon purple, looked up. “Eddie said vegetables make you strong.”
Buck pointed at him. “Eddie says many things.”
“Eddie is right.”
Maddie laughed into the cupboard.
Traitors. Both of them.
That night, Buck read Theo three stories instead of one. Then Theo asked if he could sleep in Buck’s bed, and Buck said yes so quickly it was embarrassing.
He woke up four times.
Once because his ribs hurt.
Once because Theo kicked him in the thigh.
Twice because he heard the collapse again in his sleep.
Each time, he lay still until he remembered where he was.
Home.
Bed.
Theo beside him.
Breathing.
Alive.
The last time, he didn’t fall back asleep.
He watched the pale light creep slowly across the loft and thought about Luis. About the beam. About Eddie’s voice in the dark. About Theo saying you didn’t come home.
By the time Maddie arrived to take Theo to school so Buck could rest, Buck felt like his skin didn’t fit right.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly while Theo hunted for his shoes.
Buck smiled.
It was automatic.
He hated that.
“Yeah. Just sore.”
Maddie looked at him like she could see every lie he had ever told.
“Evan.”
“I’m okay,” he repeated.
Her face softened, which was somehow worse than suspicion. “You don’t have to be.”
Theo ran in before Buck had to answer, shoes on the wrong feet, backpack dragging behind him.
Saved by footwear incompetence.
By the third day at home, Buck was losing his mind.
He couldn’t work. He couldn’t lift anything. He couldn’t go for a run. He couldn’t clean because Maddie had threatened him with bodily harm. He couldn’t cook because Eddie had apparently meal-prepped like Buck was preparing for winter. He couldn’t even spiral productively because people kept checking in.
Hen texted him a meme of a raccoon in a neck brace.
Chim sent three separate reminders not to die on his watch because paperwork was annoying.
Ravi asked if Buck wanted him to bring over soup and then immediately followed it with, “Not because I think you’re fragile. Because soup is good.”
Eddie texted the most.
Not constantly.
Just enough.
Did you take your meds?
Drink water.
Theo ate lunch?
Chris wants to know if Theo can come over this weekend.
Stop pretending you’re asleep, I can see the read receipts.
Buck should have found it annoying.
He did not find it annoying.
That was annoying.
On Friday night, Theo stayed with Maddie and Chim. It was supposed to give Buck a full night of uninterrupted rest. Instead, the house became too quiet the second the door closed behind them.
No cartoons.
No tiny footsteps.
No Theo asking questions with terrifying emotional accuracy.
Just Buck and the silence.
The silence was not kind.
It filled itself with things Buck had been avoiding.
The moment the ceiling cracked.
The pressure across his back.
Eddie saying stay awake for me.
Theo’s face in the hospital.
Bobby’s empty place at the foot of the bed.
Buck turned on the TV. He didn’t watch it.
He opened his phone. Closed it.
Opened his messages with Eddie.
Closed those too.
His body ached with exhaustion, but sleep felt impossible. Every time his eyes drifted shut, he was back under concrete, breathing dust, trying to remember if he had told enough people enough things.
At 2:13 a.m., Buck gave up.
He went to the kitchen slowly, one hand braced against his ribs, and opened the drawer where random things went to die. Batteries. Takeout menus. A screwdriver he didn’t remember buying. Crayons. Half a pack of birthday candles. Three notebooks, all belonging to Theo.
He took the least destroyed one.
The cover had a stegosaurus sticker on it and the words THEO BUCKLEY written in wobbly letters across the front. Inside, the first few pages were filled with drawings. A dog with wings. A house with five chimneys. A family picture where Buck had enormous arms and Eddie was inexplicably holding a sword.
Buck smiled despite himself.
Then he found a blank page.
For a long time, he just stared at it.
It felt ridiculous.
Dramatic.
Like something a person did in a movie after receiving a terminal diagnosis or turning forty, not after getting mildly squished at work and being told to take ibuprofen.
Except it hadn’t felt mild.
Not in the dark.
Not when he’d thought about Theo.
Not when he’d tried to tell Eddie what to say if Buck didn’t make it out.
Buck picked up a pen.
At the top of the page, he wrote:
Buck’s Bucket List
Then he immediately grimaced.
“Oh, that’s awful.”
For some reason, the terrible name helped. Made it less frightening. Less like a confession. More like a project.
Buck was good at projects.
He tapped the pen against the table and tried to think of something easy. Something that didn’t feel like opening his chest and laying everything out under fluorescent lights.
The first thing came with the smell of garlic and onions.
Learn more of Bobby’s recipes.
Buck stared at the words until they blurred.
Bobby had cooked like it was a language. Like food could say the things people were too scared or too stubborn to say out loud. I’m proud of you. I forgive you. You’re safe here. Sit down. Eat. Stay.
Buck knew a few of the recipes.
Not enough.
He hadn’t written down the chili properly. Or the pancakes. Or the stew Bobby made when someone was sick or sad or both. He had pieces of them scattered through memory, fragments of instructions in Bobby’s voice.
Little more cumin, Buck.
No, not that much.
Patience. Low heat means low heat.
Buck pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes.
“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”
One item down.
Not crossed off.
Just written.
That was enough.
The next one came easier.
Learn to surf.
He snorted as he wrote it. He lived in Los Angeles. He had survived tsunamis, earthquakes, lightning, lawsuits, comas, and parenthood, but he had somehow never learned to surf.
That seemed like an oversight. Also, Theo would think it was cool, and Buck had recently become extremely vulnerable to anything that made Theo look at him like he’d hung the moon.
He wrote:
Take Theo camping.
A proper trip. Tent, campfire, marshmallows, dirt everywhere, Theo asking if bears could climb trees and Buck lying awake all night because yes, actually, some bears could climb trees.
Maybe Eddie and Chris could come.
The thought arrived gently, naturally, like it belonged there.
Buck didn’t write that part down.
He wrote:
See the Northern Lights.
That one made him pause.
It had always lived in his head as a someday thing. Someday, when work slowed down. Someday, when money felt easier. Someday, when life stopped catching fire.
He almost laughed.
Life was literally always catching fire.
Someday was a terrible plan.
The easy things were done after that.
Or maybe easy was the wrong word.
They were simple.
Concrete.
Things he could schedule, learn, plan, buy gear for. Buck liked things with steps. Research. Lists. Supplies. He could do supplies.
The next ones were harder.
His pen hovered over the page.
The TV murmured nonsense in the background. Outside, a car passed on the street below. Somewhere in the building, pipes knocked in the walls.
Buck wrote:
Go to therapy.
Then leaned back like the words might bite him.
He had been before. Sort of. Enough times to know how much he hated sitting in a room and having someone look at him like his deflection had an expiration date. Enough times to know it helped, which was worse.
He did not want to talk about the collapse.
Or Bobby.
Or Theo’s parents.
Or the way fatherhood had cracked him open and filled him with a love so huge it felt dangerous.
He especially did not want to talk about Eddie.
Which meant he probably needed to.
“Great,” Buck muttered. “Love that for me.”
He added:
Deal with my grief.
That one looked too big on the page.
Too vague.
Too impossible.
Buck considered crossing it out. Grief wasn’t an errand. You couldn’t complete it. Couldn’t check it off like buying groceries or learning to pitch a tent.
But maybe dealing with it didn’t mean finishing it.
Maybe it meant not letting it live in him untouched forever.
He left it.
Then:
Tell people I love them.
His throat tightened.
Because he did. Love them. All of them. Maddie, who had raised him and lost him and found him again. Chim, who had become his brother in every way that mattered. Hen, who saw too much and let him pretend she didn’t until she was ready to destroy him with one sentence. Bobby, even now. Athena. Ravi. Christopher. Theo.
Eddie.
Buck’s hand stilled.
The pen hovered.
His heart did something deeply inconvenient.
Eddie was easy to love.
That was the problem.
He was easy to rely on. Easy to trust. Easy to fold into every future Buck imagined before he realized what he was doing.
Eddie at breakfast.
Eddie on camping trips.
Eddie in hospital rooms.
Eddie’s handwriting on leftovers in Buck’s fridge.
Eddie’s voice in the dark, refusing to let him go.
Buck stared at the page.
“Nope,” he said aloud.
He absolutely did not need to write anything about Eddie.
Eddie was covered under people. General people. Normal people. Family people.
Best friend people.
Buck nodded to himself.
Then wrote:
Figure out what Eddie means to me.
The second the words existed, Buck dropped the pen like it had burned him.
“Oh, come on.”
He stared at the sentence.
It stared back.
Ridiculous. Dramatic. Completely unnecessary. Also possibly the most honest thing on the page.
Buck reached to cross it out.
Stopped.
Because the thing was, he already knew what Eddie meant.
Sort of.
Eddie meant home, but not in a simple way. Eddie meant someone saving the last cup of coffee because he knew Buck would want it. Eddie meant Christopher’s laughter from another room. Eddie meant silence that didn’t ask anything of him. Eddie meant a hand on his shoulder when calls went bad. Eddie meant being called on his crap and forgiven for it before he even apologized. Eddie meant emergency contacts and school pickups and family dinners and knowing where Buck kept the spare key.
Eddie meant too much.
That was the problem.
Buck rubbed both hands over his face and immediately regretted it when his ribs protested.
“Future Buck problem,” he decided hoarsely.
He picked the pen back up and drew little boxes beside each item because that made the whole thing seem more official and less like an emotional breakdown in stationery form.
☐ Learn more of Bobby’s recipes
☐ Learn to surf
☐ Take Theo camping
☐ See the Northern Lights
☐ Go to therapy
☐ Deal with my grief
☐ Tell people I love them
☐ Figure out what Eddie means to me
There it was.
His life, apparently.
Or the life he wanted, maybe.
The one he hadn’t run out of time to have.
Buck sat at the kitchen table until the TV switched itself off and the loft fell quiet again. The fear was still there, tucked beneath his ribs with the bruises. The grief too. The uncertainty.
But there was something else now.
A beginning.
A small, stubborn line drawn between him and the dark.
He closed the notebook carefully and rested his palm on the cover, over Theo’s crooked name and the stegosaurus sticker peeling at one corner.
The list was embarrassing.
It was probably a terrible idea.
It was definitely going to become everyone’s business the second Hen found out, because Buck had the survival instincts of a golden retriever near traffic.
But for the first time since the collapse, he felt like he had something to do with all the fear.
Something to build from it.
Something to follow.
Buck looked toward the stairs, where Theo would be sleeping tomorrow night, safe and warm and probably sideways across Buck’s mattress.
“I’m still here,” he whispered.
To Theo.
To Bobby.
To himself.
Then he opened the notebook one more time, stared at the last item until his chest hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with cracked ribs, and shut it again.
One thing at a time.
One breath.
One box.
One impossible, ridiculous life.