Chapter Text
Rook came back with a visitor’s badge, the plastic still warm from the printer. He didn’t say anything as he clipped it to Eddie’s jacket, just gave a brief, assessing look like he was measuring how much trouble this would cause him later.
“Had to put you down as a personal contact,” he said quietly. “You’re in on the temporary access form—no family status, no next-of-kin privileges. It’ll get you through security, but that’s it.”
He glanced down the hallway before continuing. “Seventh ward. Room twelve. Maddie went grab coffee so she’ll come up eventually. You’ve got awhile before visiting hours are up. After that, someone’s going to start asking why an American civilian is visiting a patient in Germany who he’s not legally connected to.”
Eddie just nodded, the weight of the badge against his chest feeling like both an anchor and a key.
The walk through the hospital was a blur of green linoleum and the low hum of German and English. Eddie moved on autopilot, his mind empty of everything but the beating of his own heart. Ward seven. Room 12.
The door was like all the others. A small, wired-glass window. He stopped before it, his breath catching. For a second, the fear was paralyzing. What if Rook was right?What if the sight of him sent Buck spiraling back into some dark place?
He made himself look.
The room was dim, the slatted blinds cutting the evening sun into golden bars across the floor. And there, in the bed, was Buck.
He was asleep. Eddie’s heart clenched. He was so still. Paler than Eddie had ever seen him, even after the ladder truck or the lightning. The vibrant, life-filled man was muted, reduced to angles and bandages and the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest beneath a thin hospital blanket. One arm was in a sling. An IV line snaked from the other. He looked young. And breakable.
But he was here. He was real. Flesh and blood.
Eddie’s hand went to the door handle. The "deal" echoed in his head. If he’s asleep… the only time he felt safe enough to really sleep was when you were there.
Eddie pushed the door open. The sound was a soft whoosh, but Buck didn’t stir.
He stepped inside, letting the door sigh shut behind him, closing out the world. The only sounds were the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor and the faint, ragged sound of Buck’s breathing. Eddie stood there for a long moment, just drinking him in, confirming with every sense that this wasn't a dream.
He moved to the chair he saw near the door—a simple, utilitarian thing with a thin cushion. He set his duffel silently on the floor and sat.
He didn't know what to do. He couldn't hold his hand—not with the IV. He couldn't touch his shoulder—bruises and breaks were mapped beneath the gown. Any touch felt like an invasion.
So he did what felt most natural. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and simply watched. He watched the flutter of Buck’s eyelids in dream. He watched the slight twitch of his fingers on the blanket. He studied the new lines of pain around his mouth, the unfamiliar gauntness of his cheeks. He committed it all to memory, not the terrible parts, but the alive parts. The proof.
Time lost meaning. It could have been two minutes or twenty. The golden bars of light on the floor slowly stretched and faded into grey twilight.
Eddie finally moved. Slowly, giving Buck every chance to wake, he reached out. Not for Buck’s hand, but for the edge of the blanket near his wrist. He found a small patch of skin that looked uninjured, on the inside of his forearm, just below the IV tape. With a touch so light it was barely there, Eddie laid the tips of two fingers against that warm, living skin.
He bowed his head, closing his eyes, just for a second. Letting the reality of it—the warmth, the steady pulse he could feel beneath his fingertips—seep into his own bones. You’re here. You’re alive. I’m here.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that. But eventually, the rhythm under his fingers changed. The breathing hitched, deepened.
Eddie looked up.
Buck’s eyes were open.
They were hazy with medication and sleep, but they were focused. Not on the ceiling. Not through him. On him.
There was no shock. No gasp. No smile. Just a slow, deep blink, as if clearing a lens. His brows drew together slightly, a faint, confused furrow.
Eddie didn’t move his fingers. He didn’t speak. He just held his gaze, letting Buck see him. Letting him recognize.
Buck’s eyes traveled down from Eddie’s face, over his shoulder, to where Eddie’s hand rested against his arm. He stared at that point of contact for a long, long time. His throat worked.
When his eyes lifted back to Eddie’s, the haze was clearing, replaced by a dawning, staggering wonder. And a vulnerability so profound it stole the air from the room.
His lips parted. A whisper, cracked and dry, barely more than a breath of sound.
“…Eddie?”
The sound of his name, in that ruined voice, shattered the last of Eddie’s composure. A hot tear escaped, tracing a path down his cheek he didn’t bother to wipe. He nodded, his own voice failing him for a moment.
“Yeah,” he finally managed, the word thick. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Buck continued to stare, as if Eddie were a mirage that might dissolve. The confusion in his eyes began to melt, not into joy, but into a deep, bottomless exhaustion and a relief so immense it seemed to physically hurt him. A sheen of tears glossed over the blue.
“You’re… here?” he whispered again, needing the confirmation.
“I’m here,” Eddie said, his voice firming. He applied the gentlest, most deliberate pressure with his fingertips. “Right here.”
Another slow blink. A single tear escaped the corner of Buck’s eye, disappearing into his temple. He didn’t look away. He seemed to be anchoring himself in Eddie’s gaze, in the touch on his arm, as if they were the only real things in the universe.
“Christopher…” Buck breathed, the name a prayer, a fear.
“Is safe. He’s with Abuela. He sends his love. A million times over.” Eddie answered the unasked question. “He knows I came to see you.”
Buck’s eyes squeezed shut, a soft, broken sound escaping him. When he opened them again, the raw need in them was almost too much to bear. “Don’t…,” he started, then stopped, swallowing hard. “Don’t go?”
It wasn’t a plea. It was the terrified, core-deep question of a man who had lost everything, asking if this one, solid thing would stay.
Eddie leaned in closer, his other hand coming up to very carefully cup the side of Buck’s face, his thumb brushing away the tear-track. He held his gaze, pouring every unsaid word, every sleepless night, every shattered and rebuilt hope into his own eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Eddie said, and it was a vow, quieter than a whisper but louder than a shout. “I’ve got you. Now sleep.”
Buck’s breath hitched once, a final surrender. His eyes fluttered closed, the unbearable tension finally leaving his body. He turned his head a fraction into Eddie’s palm, a nuzzle so slight it might have been imagined. Within moments, his breathing evened out, deeper and more peaceful than before.
He was asleep. Not retreating. Not hiding. Resting.
Eddie stayed. He didn’t move his hand from Buck’s face until he was sure he was under. Then he carefully resumed his position, his fingers resting once more on Buck’s arm, a silent sentinel in the gathering dark.
There had been no confession. No grand speech. Just a name, a touch, and a promise.
It was enough. It was everything.
Outside the door, Rook, who had been watching through the window, let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He saw the bowed head, the point of contact, the absolute stillness of the scene. He gave a small, solemn nod to himself, turned, and walked away.
–
The room was perfectly still. Eddie had no idea how much time had passed—only that the grey twilight had deepened into full night, and the only light now came from the dim glow of the monitors and the strip under the door.
Buck’s sleep was deeper now, his face slack, the lines of pain smoothed away by rest and medication. Eddie’s fingers still rested on his arm. He’d made his promise to the sleeping man. He’d keep it.
The door opened with a soft click. Maddie stood there, backlit by the hallway light. She took in the scene—Eddie in the chair, his hand on Buck, his posture one of utter exhaustion and devotion. Her expression softened, then tightened with regret.
She moved quietly to his side. “Eddie,” she whispered.
He looked up at her, his eyes dark and weary but clear. He already knew.
“I just talked to the charge nurse,” Maddie murmured, her voice barely audible. “They’re strict about ‘family only’ overnight. Especially with his… classification. I’m sorry.”
Eddie didn’t flinch. He didn’t argue. He’d served; he knew how these things worked. Regulations were a wall you couldn’t argue with. It was a miracle he even got to get this far. He’d also spent the last six months living in the consequence of Buck’s secret, a secret built on rules just like these. To fight them now would be to disrespect the very system that had given Buck back to him at all.
He gave one slow, accepting nod. His gaze returned to Buck’s sleeping face. Carefully—so carefully—he lifted his fingers from Buck’s arm. The point of contact broke, and the air felt colder.
“Tell him I was here,” Eddie said quietly. “When he wakes up. Tell him it was real.”
“I will,” Maddie said, her voice soft, eyes shining. Then, gently, “You should go before shift change. Come back at eight—they’ll open visitation again then.”
Eddie nodded. He stood, his body stiff from hours of stillness, and shouldered his duffel, the familiar weight grounding him. He took one last, lingering look at Buck, committing the calm of his sleeping face to memory, trying to overwrite the fear he’d been carrying for months.
“I’ll be back at eight,” he said.
—
The night passed in a haze of thin sleep for Buck, tangled in dreams that were more sensation than story—shifting sand, the smell of antiseptic, and a persistent, grounding warmth on his arm that he couldn’t place.
He surfaced slowly, dragged awake by the dull, familiar throb of his body and the soft sounds of morning in the hospital. He blinked, the ceiling tiles coming into focus. For a moment, there was just the blankness, the quiet internal hum of hurt.
Then memory, not of what happened, but of the night, filtered in.
A presence. A deep, solid calm. A touch. A voice, weathered and sure. I’m here.
Eddie.
It had felt more real than any dream he’d had in six months. More real than the nightmare about the door. It had felt like a lifeline thrown into the silent, grey sea he’d been drowning in.
But that was impossible. Eddie was in Los Angeles. Eddie was with Christopher. Eddie was living in the wreckage Buck had left behind. He wouldn’t be here. He couldn’t be here.
The hope that had sparked was immediately doused by a wave of crushing logic. It was a hallucination. A cruel, perfect trick of the pain meds and a desperate, lonely mind. He’d conjured the one thing he wanted most, the anchor he didn’t deserve to have.
Maddie stirred in the cot at the foot of his bed, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “Hey,” she said softly. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”
Buck didn’t answer that. He turned his head on the pillow, his eyes searching hers, wide and vulnerable with a hope he was terrified to voice.
“Maddie.” His voice was a dry croak. He swallowed, tried again. “Last night…”
He couldn’t finish. Saying it out loud would make its falseness more painful.
Maddie understood instantly. She got up and came to his bedside, pouring him a cup of water from the pitcher. She held the straw for him. He took a sip, his eyes never leaving her face.
“Last night…,” she prompted gently.
Buck looked down at his arm, where the ghost of a touch still seemed to linger. “I had… a dream. I think. It felt…” He shook his head minutely, dismissing it. “Never mind. Stupid.”
“It wasn’t a dream, Ev,” Maddie said, her voice firm and gentle.
Buck’s head snapped up. The air left his lungs. He stared at her, every muscle frozen.
“He was here,” Maddie continued, her smile small and teary. “For hours. He just sat with you. He held onto you like you were the only thing in the world. He didn’t leave until they made him.”
The world tilted. The solid hospital bed seemed to sway. The impossible was true.
“Eddie… is here?” The question was a breathless, disbelieving thing.
“He’s at a hotel. He’ll be back when visiting hours start.” She brushed his hair back from his forehead, a gesture she hadn’t dared in days.
Buck’s vision blurred. He blinked rapidly, looking away, toward the window where the dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky. A storm of emotion crashed over him—relief so profound it was dizzying, a gut-deep shame that Eddie had seen him like this, and a longing so acute it was a physical ache in his chest.
“He shouldn’t have,” Buck whispered, the words automatic, a reflex of unworthiness.
“Stop,” Maddie said, not unkindly. “Just stop. He needed to come. For himself, as much as for you. You don’t get to decide that for him.”
He looked back at Maddie, a new, fragile clarity in his eyes. “What time do visiting hours start?”
“Eight.”
Buck gave a single, slow nod. He looked toward the door, as if he could see through it, down the halls, to where Eddie was. A tiny, determined light flickered in the blue depths, cutting through the fog of pain and medication.
“Okay,” he said softly.
For the first time since she’d arrived, Maddie saw her brother not just existing, but waiting.
He'd drunk the water Maddie gave him. He'd submitted to the morning vitals check with minimal grumbling. He'd even managed a few bites of the gelatinous oatmeal.
But his eyes kept flicking to the clock on the wall. 7:32. 7:46. 7:58.
The door clicked open at 8:02. Eddie stood there, looking like he’d maybe slept for an hour. His dark eyes found Buck’s immediately, not with a question, but with a deep, knowing assessment. He saw the performance before it even began.
Buck’s heart thudded painfully. He grasped for the script, for the old, reliable cover.
“You know,” Buck said, his voice rough and cracked, “For a guy who used to give me so much grief about my ‘dramaticism,’ this is pretty dramatic. Intercontinental flight? Couldn’t just send a ‘Get Well Soon’ balloon like a normal person?”
Eddie didn’t smile at the joke. He stepped inside, his gaze never leaving Buck’s face, seeing the tightness around his eyes, the slight tremor in the hand resting on the blanket. He closed the door and leaned back against it for a second, just looking at him.
“Would you have preferred the balloon?” Eddie asked, his voice quiet, devoid of its usual teasing reciprocation. It was a genuine question, cutting through the bit.
Buck blinked, the forced smile faltering. “I… what?”
“The balloon,” Eddie repeated, pushing off the door and dragging the chair close. He sat, the movement heavy with a fatigue that wasn’t just from travel. He leaned forward, his voice dropping, not into a joke, but into something more intimate and more serious. “If I’d sent a balloon, you could have ignored it. Pretended it didn’t mean anything. This…” He gestured vaguely between them, at the very fact of his presence in thie room. “…you can’t ignore this, Buck. So are we doing the joke thing, or are we skipping to the part where you stop pretending you’re fine for five seconds?”
The air rushed out of Buck’s lungs. The shield of humor cracked under the direct, gentle hit. He looked away, his throat working. The silence stretched, thick with everything unsaid.
Eddie didn’t press. He just waited, his presence a silent demand for honesty.
Finally, Buck’s eyes flicked back, wide and vulnerable. The attempted smirk was gone, replaced by a raw bewilderment. “I don’t… I don’t know how to do the other part, Eddie.” The confession was barely a whisper. “The ‘fine’ act… it’s the only script I have right now that doesn’t end in screaming.”
Eddie’s expression softened, the sternness melting into profound empathy. “Okay,” he said, his own voice rough. “Okay. Then we’ll do the joke thing. But we’re both gonna know it’s a joke, alright? We’re both gonna know you’re not okay. And that’s okay.”
He reached out then, not for Buck’s injured arm, but slowly, giving him every chance to pull away, and laid his hand flat on the mattress near Buck’s hip. A point of contact. An anchor in the pretense.
Buck stared at that hand, then back at Eddie’s face. The permission to be not-okay, stated so plainly, was a kind of mercy he hadn’t realized he needed.
He took a shaky breath. “The food here is really bad,” he said, the words still a deflection, but the tone was different now. Softer. Realer.
Eddie’s lips quirked, finally, in a real smile. He picked up the thread, keeping it light but letting the truth hum beneath it. “Yeah? Worse than my first attempt at lasagna?”
“Nothing is worse than that lasagna,” Buck said, a ghost of his real smile touching his eyes. “That was a war crime. This is just… a tragedy.”
“Noted. I’ll file a complaint with the German culinary authorities.” Eddie’s thumb stroked a small, soothing arc on the blanket. “So, the jokes. Hit me with your best shot. But just so you know,” he added, his gaze holding Buck’s with unwavering honesty, “I didn’t come five thousand miles for the stand-up routine. I came for the guy behind it. Even when he’s quiet.”
Buck’s breath hitched. The humor had been a wall, and Eddie had just calmly pointed out the door in it. He didn’t have to tear it down. He just had to acknowledge it was there.
“The guy behind it is… a little rusty, it-it’s been a bit,” Buck admitted, the words feeling dangerous and true.
“I’ve got time,” Eddie said simply.
-
The jokes had slowly sputtered out, leaving behind a fragile, exhausted honesty. Buck had finally succumbed to a heavy sleep, his face softer in rest, one hand curled loosely near where Eddie’s had been on the blanket.
Eddie felt scraped hollow. Seeing the performance up close, hearing the fear in the spaces between the jokes, loving someone so clearly in pieces—it was more draining than any 48-hour shift. He needed air that wasn’t sterilized.
He gave Maddie a silent nod and slipped into the hallway. He didn’t head for the exit. He just leaned against the cool wall a few doors down, closing his eyes and tipping his head back, letting the reality of the last hour settle into his bones.
“He’s in the bargaining phase.” said a voice Eddie didnt know.
Eddie opened his eyes and Brick stood a few feet away, holding two paper cups of what smelled like truly terrible coffee. He offered one.
Eddie took it automatically. “Bargaining?”
Brick took a sip from his own cup, his gaze fixed on some point down the hallway. “The stages of grief. For himself, who he was, you know? Most people do it forwards. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.” He glanced at Eddie. “He’s always done it backwards, he’s always gone against the textbook.”
Eddie stared at him, the words clicking into place with the force of a revelation. “Acceptance was first?”
“In the field, yeah. You accept the hell you’re in to survive it,” Brick said, his voice like gravel. “Then the crash. The depression. That’s what Maddie walked into. The mind finally registers the cost. It has to shut down.”
“Then the anger,” Eddie said, thinking of the reports from Maddie, the venom with which he’d turned off the Pier feed, the storm of fury in the room with his other teammate just before he had arrived.
“Anger’s fuel,” Brick said simply. “It means the engine is trying to turn over again. It’s not pretty, but it’s movement.”
“And now the jokes,” Eddie murmured, looking down at his coffee. “The act. The… bargaining?”
“Exactly,” Brick said, his low voice like gravel shifting. “He’s trying to negotiate his way back to you. To them. ‘If I can just be the guy who makes the stupid jokes, if I can pretend it didn’t break the mold, then maybe I can fit back in the old space. Maybe they’ll take me back.’” Brick’s eyes, usually so impassive, held a flicker of something pained. “They’re a sign he’s fighting. He’s using the only tool he thinks he has left—the personality everyone liked. He was stuck there for a long time last time.”
Eddie’s grip tightened on the paper cup. “What broke him out of it?”
“Reality,” Brick said simply. “When the act fails. When he realizes the old jokes don’t fit the new cracks. That’s when the denial hits—not of what happened, but that he can ever be who he was. That’s the dangerous part.”
He turned his head, his gaze fixing on Eddie with sudden, stark intensity.
“Your job isn’t to talk to the act. You’re here to be there for the man behind it, even when he can’t hold it up anymore. And when he tries to retreat into that denial, to become some new, ‘fixed’ version of himself… you pull him back. You don’t let him pretend to be someone else. You remind him who he is. All of it.”
Eddie felt a lump form in his throat. All the glib comments were cries for help. See? I’m still me. Please want me. And Brick was telling him that soon, the message might change to I’ll be whoever you need me to be, and that would be the real crisis.
Brick’s gaze grew distant again. “He’s bargaining because he still believes, somewhere deep down, that he can sand down the new edges and fit back into the old mold. But the mold is broken. The bones will heal. The mind will scar. The man who comes out of this… he’ll be him. But he won’t be the him we knew. And when he truly sees that?” Brick’s jaw tightened, a rare show of pure emotion. “That’s when he’ll need an anchor. Something real to tether to, so he doesn’t get lost building a whole new person out of shame.”
He crumpled his empty cup, the sound loud in the quiet hall.
“Eddie, listen, I know he lied to you. That’s a real wound, I get it. You have every right to it. But right now?” Brick’s voice dropped, it cracked. “Right now, the performance is costing him everything he has. So I’m asking you, as someone who helped pick up the pieces last time: let the trying be enough. Don’t make the secrets the battlefield. Not yet. That can come later, when he has the strength to stand in it. Right now, he can’t even stand on his own.”
Eddie stared at the tiled floor, the truth of it settling like a cold stone in his gut. The betrayal, the grief—it was all there. But it was a luxury of the strong. Buck was in no shape to face it.
"I'm not angry he lied," Eddie said, his gaze unwavering. "I'm angry that he thought his darkness was something he had to carry alone. That he looked at us—at me—and decided he had to protect himself from us knowing, didnt think we could help him carry it.
“You’re here now,” Brick said, his voice thicker than before. “That’s what matters.” He looked down the empty hallway, his gaze turning inward. “Last time… last time it was just us. And we were all so tangled up in our own damage, we could barely hold each other together.” He paused, the silence heavy with the memory. “People like us… we don’t tend to have much family waiting, it was a factor when we were chosen for our unit. So we really only had each other to rely on...”
He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft, almost gentle. “But look at him now. He’s got his sister back. He’s got a team–a family–back home waiting on him. He’s got you, sitting by his bed now.” Brick met Eddie’s eyes, and there was no resentment there, only a deep, settled certainty. “He doesn’t need to be glued back together by people who are just as broken. He needs to be reminded how to be whole by people who remember what that looks like, who’s never seen him like that before. That’s you. That’s them. That’s his life. We brought him back to it. Our part… it’s done.”
Eddie absorbed Brick’s words. “He’ll need you too,” he said quietly. “Not to fix him—but to remember who he was. You’re his family. And by extension… you’re ours now, too. He’s going to need all of us.”
Brick gave a single, slow nod. Relief seemed to ease the tension in his shoulders. “We’ll be around,” he said, and it was a promise. “I’m… really glad you said that, actually.”
He paused, and his expression grew more grave, shifting into something more urgent. “There’s something else you should know. Another one of ours is coming back. Name’s Ree.”
Eddie waited, but no context followed. Just the name.
“She’ll be on the flight back with him back,” Brick continued, his voice low. “She’s not… visiting. She’s moving to L.A. for good. Rook offered her the Kid’s old room.”
Brick watched Eddie process this. “She’s a big part of why he is the way he is. The good parts, and… the broken ones. They have a lot of history to sort out. It’s messy.” He let out a slow breath. “I’m telling you because she’s going there and going to be in his life. And that means she’s going to be in yours, and your team’s, whether anyone’s ready for it or not.”
He met Eddie’s eyes squarely, his gaze earnest. “She was recommended for the fire academy. Just like the Kid was. She’s trying to build something, too. It’s gonna be a lot for everyone to get used to.”
"I cant wait to meet her, then."
–
Eddie returned at exactly 1 p.m., after lunch and the inevitable round of doctor visits. He found Buck propped up a little higher, a model car on the table slightly more assembled.
“Back so soon? Couldn’t stay away from the five-star cuisine?” Buck quipped, but his eyes were watchful, assessing Eddie’s reaction.
Eddie remembered Brick’s words: Your job isn’t to talk to the act. He didn’t play along with the bit. He just pulled the chair close and sat, meeting Buck’s gaze with a calm, steady look.
“How’d the physio go?” Eddie asked, bypassing the joke entirely, his tone neutral, interested.
Buck blinked, thrown. The script had been ignored. “Uh. Fine. Took three steps. Felt like a toddler. Or a drunk. Maybe a drunk toddler.” He tried to reinject the humor, a nervous edge creeping in.
“Three steps is good,” Eddie said, simply. He nodded toward the model. “Making progress?”
“It’s got a lot of parts,” Buck deflected, his fingers fumbling slightly with a tiny piece of chrome. “Like, an unreasonable amount. Who needs this many parts?” He was pushing, trying to lure Eddie into the familiar banter about over-engineering and pointless details.
Eddie just hummed in acknowledgment, his eyes soft on Buck’s trembling hands. “Looks tricky. Want me to hold that piece for you?”
It was such a practical, quiet offer. Not a joke, not a probe. Just help.
Buck stared at him, the forced smile finally fading into something more confused and vulnerable. He slowly handed over the tiny part. “Thanks.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Buck focusing on fitting a piece into the chassis, Eddie holding the next one ready. The only sounds were the model’s soft clicks and the distant hospital hum.
Then, a sudden, sharp clang of a metal cart from the hallway. Buck flinched violently, his whole body seizing. The model piece flew from his grip, skittering across the floor. A choked gasp escaped him, his face going pale, his eyes darting to the door wide with a flash of unguarded, animal fear.
The performance shattered.
Eddie didn’t say “It’s okay.” He didn’t say “You’re safe.” Platitudes were worthless here. He just moved. Slowly, deliberately, he reached out and placed his hand, palm up, on the blanket within Buck’s line of sight. An offering. An anchor.
He said nothing.
Buck’s ragged breathing filled the room. He stared at Eddie’s hand, then at his face, searching for pity, for panic, for anything that would make this moment worse. He found only calm, patient waiting.
After a long, trembling moment, Buck’s good hand came down and gripped Eddie’s, his fingers ice-cold and desperate. He held on like he was drowning, his eyes squeezed shut, riding out the aftershock of the adrenaline spike.
Eddie turned his hand, lacing their fingers together, applying a gentle, steady pressure. I’m here. You’re here. That’s all.
Slowly, the tension leaked out of Buck’s shoulders. His breathing evened. He didn’t let go, but he didn’t open his eyes either. The silence now was different—charged, raw, but real.
“Sorry,” Buck whispered, the word barely audible.
“Don’t be,” Eddie said, his voice just as quiet. He didn’t let go. “You want me to get the piece that flew away?”
A weak, shaky huff of air—not a laugh, but the ghost of one—escaped Buck. He finally opened his eyes, red-rimmed but clear. He shook his head minutely, his grip tightening almost imperceptibly. “Leave it. It’s… it’s just a stupid model.”
“Okay,” Eddie said.
He didn’t move to retrieve it. He didn’t try to restart the conversation. He just sat, holding Buck’s hand, in the quiet aftermath of the broken performance. The bargain had failed. The fear had shown through. And Eddie was still there.
It was the most important thing he could have said without saying a word.
–
The quiet held. Eddie had produced a worn deck of cards from his pocket—PX purchase, still smelling of cellophane. They’d played a few hands of Go Fish, Buck’s questions soft and distracted, Eddie’s answers calm. It wasn’t about the game. It was about the rhythm. The shared, mundane focus.
Buck had just laid down a pair of sevens when he paused, his hand hovering over the cards. He didn’t flinch or tense. He just went very still, his gaze drifting to the wall. “They’re coming,” he said, his voice flat.
Eddie followed his look to the empty doorway. “Who?”
Before Buck could answer, the door opened. Hawk entered, followed by Colt. Their presence changed the air in the room, charging it with a professional gravity that the quiet card game had dispelled.
Hawk’s eyes flicked to Eddie, a brief, acknowledging nod, before settling on Buck. “Kid. You’re looking more vertical.”
“It’s an illusion,” Buck muttered, but the old, reflexive bitterness wasn’t there. It was just a statement of fact.
Colt moved to the foot of the bed, picking up the chart, his medic’s mask in place. “Vitals are stable. Pain levels?”
“Manageable,” Buck said, the standard answer. Then, surprising even himself, he added a quiet, “Six.”
Colt’s eyebrows lifted slightly. Honesty about pain was its own kind of progress. He made a note. “Good. That’s good.”
Hawk stepped closer, his hands clasped behind his back. The casual opener was over. “We need to talk about the path home. The MEDEVAC flight is scheduled for seventy-two hours from now. A private charter, medical crew, the whole nine. It lands at a private terminal in Burbank. We can have you at the rehab center by evening.”
Home. The word should have sparked something. Joy, relief. For Buck, it only sparked a deep, reverberating dread. Going back meant facing everything. It meant proving he could fit back into the outline of the life he’d left. He said nothing.
Hawk continued, his tone careful but inexorable. “There’s a condition. Before we can get you on that plane, Command needs your final operational debrief. A sit-down. Just you, me, and the JAG officer. They’ve held off as long as they can.”
The air went cold. Eddie remembered what Rook had said when giving him the summary since Buck had woken up: He told them to back the fuck off. That had been the anger talking, drawing a line in the sand.
Buck’s jaw tightened. He looked down at the cards in his hand, his thumb rubbing slowly over the edge of the queen of hearts. The silence stretched. Eddie braced, waiting for the refusal, the fury, the retreat.
It didn’t come.
Buck let out a long, slow breath, one that seemed to deflate him by inches. He placed the queen carefully on the discard pile. “When?” he asked, his voice hollow but clear.
Hawk exchanged a glance with Colt. This wasn’t the reaction they’d prepared for. “Tomorrow. At nine. It’ll be in the secure conference room on the second floor. Three hours, max. We get it done, we sign the paperwork, and you’re officially in the wind. Just a civilian with a complicated medical history on his way home.”
Buck gave a single, sharp nod, his eyes still on the cards. “Fine.”
Just… fine.
It was the opposite of a meltdown. It was surrender. Not the desperate kind, but the weary, strategic kind a soldier learns—accepting the necessary misery to achieve the objective. The objective: Get home.
Colt leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “It won’t be pleasant, Kid. But it’s a box to check. A last one. Then it’s done.”
“I know what it is,” Buck said, finally looking up. His eyes found Eddie’s, just for a second, and in them was a bleak apology. Sorry you have to hear this. Sorry this is my life. Then he looked back at Hawk. “I’ll be there then.”
Hawk studied him for a long moment, then nodded, respect in his gaze. “Alright. I’ll let them know.”
They left, the door clicking shut behind them, leaving the room feeling both emptier and more crowded.
The cards were forgotten. Buck leaned back against the pillows, looking suddenly more exhausted than he had all day. The brief, hard-won peace of the afternoon was gone, replaced by the grim shadow of tomorrow.
Eddie watched him. He wanted to rage at the machine that demanded this of a broken man. He wanted to promise it would be okay. But he knew neither would help.
So he did the only useful thing he could think of. He reached out and gathered the scattered cards, his movements slow and deliberate. He squared the deck, tucked it back into its box, and set it on the table. A small, tidy closure.
“You want me here after?” Eddie asked, his voice low. “After the debrief. I can be right outside. Or here.”
Buck’s eyes were closed. “They won’t let you in the secure wing.”
“I’ll be in the waiting room downstairs. Or right here if they bring you back. You just say the word.”
A muscle feathered in Buck’s jaw. He gave another small, tight nod. “Here,” he whispered. “If you… if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” Eddie’s response was immediate. A promise.
Buck finally opened his eyes, the blue dulled by pain and anticipation. The bargaining stage was over. This was the grim, grinding work of acceptance. “It’s just a box to check,” he repeated, as if trying to convince himself.
“Yeah,” Eddie said. He didn’t offer false comfort. He just met his gaze, steady and sure. “And then you get on the plane. And then you come home.”