Chapter Text
Athena is enjoying some “me time” on her day off. The kids are at school and Bobby’s at work, so she got her nails done, is treating herself to a nice lunch, and has a plan to catch up on some yard work later. Working in the dirt and seeing the vibrant flowers bloom always fills her with a sense of peaceful accomplishment. It helps ground her, make her realize what’s important, and let go of things that aren’t; a skill that’s all too important in her line of work.
She’s just leaving the restaurant, sun shining warm on her face, when her phone rings, an unsaved number.
She doesn’t know who it is, but it looks familiar, enough to make her feel like there are ants crawling under her skin.
She doesn’t hesitate before sliding to answer. “This is Athena Grant-Nash.”
“Mrs. Grant-Nash, this is the nursing station at Cedars-Sinai. We have you listed as the emergency contact for Evan Buckley. There were complications with his surgery, are you able to come in?” A polite voice asks, and Athena freezes.
Surgery? What surgery is she talking about? Buck hasn’t mentioned anything. Plus, when did he list her as his emergency contact? As far as she knew, that was still Maddie and Bobby.
She doesn’t have time to wonder too hard about this, already jogging to her vehicle. “Absolutely. I’m already out and about, so I can be there in about 15 minutes.” She promises, and then she and the nurse hang up.
She goes over everything that’s happened over the last year when it comes to Buck, as if the answers to her earlier questions are hidden in between the lines of a riddle she hasn’t found yet.
She and Buck weren’t very close before the ladder truck bombing. They knew each other, of course, and were a sort-of family of their own, mostly through Bobby and their own connections to him.
That changed after the tsunami, though. She stopped over at his loft a few days after to check on him, and sure, he tried to hide it, but the bags under his eyes and the exhaustion in his limbs would’ve been clear to a blind person.
She barely had to push, just led him to the couch and leveled him with her well-worn “mom” look, and he was spilling everything.
How lonely he’d been, how he hadn’t really seen or heard from anybody at the 118 in weeks, how they barely texted him, how Eddie only called or came around when he needed help with Chris.
Buck didn’t blame any of them for that, he said he understood, that life got busy and everybody else had their own families and their own things going on, but how he felt so alone.
She stayed there for over an hour and a half, letting him vent and then hanging out with him until she had to go on shift. Since then, she’s made an effort to reach out to the young man more often, getting her information from the source instead of relying on Bobby or Hen to tell her what’s going on.
Buck doesn’t always tell her what’s going on, like he doesn’t want to place any of his issues on her shoulders. Nothing she’s said has made him understand that she’s more than happy to be there for him, that she’s come to care about the boy more than she’d ever thought she could, especially after their first meeting.
Then, that dinner with Bobby happened, and she was ready to smack her fool husband upside the head for lying to the kid.
She was surprised about the lawsuit, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Buck had texted her updates after his appointments, she knew how excited he was to return to work after everything he’d been through in the previous year.
She’d thought that Bobby was going to talk to Buck about why he was nervous about letting him back - even if she thought it was unfair to take his own trauma out on Buck, but she understands how much her husband loves the boy, even if neither of them are able, nor willing, to put it into words yet. It made dinner a little awkward when she realized they hadn’t talked about it yet, and she’d done her best to de-escalate the tension, to no avail.
Bobby refused to listen to her when she tried to talk to him after the dinner, the stubborn man so sure that he was doing the right thing, no matter what anybody else said.
She almost laughed at the look of absolute shock on his face when Buck served him with the papers of the lawsuit, like he couldn’t understand why Buck was fighting so hard to come back, even after the boy had told Bobby himself just days prior that he’d never stop fighting to come home.
Bobby voiced his irritation, but she was quick to shut it down, reminding him that all of this could have been avoided if he had just talked to Buck, or, even better, not stood in the way of his return to work in the first place.
After that, once he realized that she wasn’t sympathetic to the consequences of his own actions, he didn’t talk to her about the lawsuit in too much detail.
She’d texted Buck, reminding him that she was there if he needed her, but was unsurprised that he didn’t reach out.
Even if she wasn’t technically part of the 118, she was still Bobby’s wife, and she’d bet her career that he had avoided contacting her in a misguided attempt to not put her in the middle of their dispute.
After the lawsuit was resolved and Buck went back to work, she thought everything would go back to normal.
It didn’t.
Buck was still dodging more of her calls than he was taking, and Bobby always got a sour look on his face when she asked how work was going, answering that it was “fine”, and then quickly changing the subject.
She had given Buck plenty of time and was planning on stopping by the next time their off days aligned.
While she’d rather not be called to the hospital for it to happen, she’s hoping that this trip can shed some light on the situation.
First things first though, she thinks as she enters the hospital a few minutes later, she needs to figure out the reason the young man she’s begun to think of as one of hers is in the hospital for this time.
She’s pointed to the correct floor and told to ask for Dr. Cooper once she arrives, promising that the doctor would be able to shed some better light on the situation.
She debates on if she should call Bobby yet as she slides into the elevator, but she decides to wait until she figures out what’s going on before calling in the cavalry. Plus, they’re all on shift for a few more hours, so it’s not like they’d be able to come right now anyway.
The doctor is at the nurse's station when she arrives, waiving her over to the waiting room and consulting her chart before she answers Athena’s questions.
“Mr. Buckley scheduled an appointment with our office a few days ago, stating that he’d been having some discomfort in his leg again. After one embolism, it seems he recognized the symptoms and took the steps to prevent another one. Unfortunately, it seems that the regime of blood thinners we currently have him on isn’t working as well as we’d hoped, and he threw another one before we could schedule any surgery to break them up.” Athena gasps quietly, images of Buck coughing up blood in her backyard all too vivid as they flash across the back of her eyes.
Dr. Cooper is quick to reassure her. “Luckily for Mr. Buckley, it seems he knows exactly the best places to throw a clot, since he was already here in the hospital at the time, and we were able to get him taken care of.” She promises, and Athena can’t hide the heavy sigh of relief she heaves at the words.
The doctor gives her a small smile and then continues, her face switching to something more serious as she explains the “complications” they’d mentioned on the phone earlier.
“Unfortunately for Mr. Buckley, it seems that there’s more than just one clot. I believe it was mentioned on his past ER visit that they suspected overexertion was the cause for the previous clots?” She clarifies, and Athena thinks back.
“That’s what the doctor said, but he’s been really good about it. He’d been working an administrative job up until about a month ago. He was off work for quite some time, and he just recently went back to active duty. Do you think that’s the reason for these clots?” She inquiries.
The doctor's eyebrows furrow thoughtfully. “No, we believe that the metal in his leg is the reason for the clots, but you’re saying that he was doing administrative work up until recently?” She asks, almost like she’s hoping she misheard, not that Athena can understand why.
“Yes, that’s what I was told. Bobby, my husband and Buck’s captain, thought that would be safer for him, checking out various firehouses and being in an office, instead of running around, fighting fires and climbing trees and whatnot.” Athena answers, something in her gut tightening as the doctor's face tightens in what looks like disbelief and anger, before she schools her expression again. “Was he incorrect?” Athena demands, narrowing her gaze.
Cooper huffs a breath out in a humorless chuckle. “Well, inactivity in an area, especially after a crush injury as severe as Mr. Buckley’s, is a well-known cause of blood clots. In that respect, it almost would have been better for him to be out fighting fires and keeping his blood moving.” She informs Athena tightly, and then mutters, almost to herself: “I guess that could also explain the number of clots we found.”
Athena watches, chest tight with several swirling emotions, trying to wrap her mind around all the information she’s been given, when Dr. Cooper shakes her head lightly, as if to clear it, and then turns back to Athena, calm and serene expression firmly back in place. “That doesn’t matter as much now though, if he’s back on duty. We believe that the metal rods in his leg are the reason for the clots, which is where you come in. We’d ask Mr. Buckley, but this is a decision we need to make as soon as possible. Option one, he can up his dose of blood thinners and that should prevent further clots. Option two, we can go in and remove the rods. It is another surgery, but his leg is fully healed from the initial injury, and we can take him fully off of the blood thinners then. We’d schedule a follow-up, to make sure everything is in shape, and that the clots were only caused by Mr. Buckley’s reaction to the metal in his leg, but we’re as sure as we can be about the cause.” Dr. Cooper pauses, and then readjusts, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, expression considering, like she’s trying to determine if Athena is trustworthy enough to share a secret with.
She must make a decision, because her voice is considerably lower when she says the next part. “If I’m being honest here, Mrs. Grant-Nash, I don’t know why those rods were put in in the first place. There was a different way to handle crush injuries like this. It might have been a riskier surgery, but the healing time would have been less and he wouldn’t have run the risk of clots. In addition to that, I don’t know why they weren’t removed after the first clot. Do you know if there was a reason for that, was it a preference of Mr. Buckley’s?”
Athena takes a few deep breaths to calm herself and considers. “Not to my knowledge, no. As far as I know, they were certain that Buck had overexerted himself, so they weren’t looking any further into possible causes. As for the initial surgery, you would have to ask his sister, she’s the one that made all the decisions. Although, if Buck learned about all this, I guess that would explain why I’m now the one in charge of these decisions.” She huffs, rubbing her forehead at the excess of information just dumped on her head.
She shakes her head and shoves that all aside. She doesn’t need to deal with the past now, she has a decision to make.
She remembers Buck lamenting about the injury, only then remembering him grumbling about a different surgery, so she squares her shoulders and sits up straight. “Tell me about the process of taking the metal out.” She requests surely, smiling softly when Buck’s doctor looks relieved and begins to walk her through the process, explaining the steps, the risks and the aftercare. She lists the pros and cons for each option, and in the end, Athena goes with her gut.
“Take them out.”