Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter One - It’s Gotta Get Easier And Easier Somehow…

A year is a lot longer than people realise. 

In the space of a year, the Santa Monica pier was completely rebuilt. The wreckage from the tsunami was completely cleaned up and the rest of Santa Monica was on its way to being back to how things were before the disaster, back before the city was ravaged by water and so much was torn apart. Los Angeles slowly but surely continued with their lives, recovering and moving onward with the memory of what had happened still in their minds even a year later. The city had been advertising the reopening of the pier for the past month; they planned a big ceremony where they invited survivors to talk about what they experienced before the Mayor cut the ribbon and opened the new pier to the public, signalling a new era for the city post-disaster. For so many people in California, the day was a symbol of recovery, of moving on. 

For the 118, it was not. The reopening of the pier a year after the tsunami was a reminder, and not a good one. 

A-shift all had the day off, a specific request made to the chief and for good reason. Everyone went over to the Grant-Nash house at lunch time, the mood sombre and quiet. The kids weren’t playing games, the adults weren’t happily sharing stories. There was food, but it didn’t hold the same love that it normally would. There was also no alcohol. There hadn’t been alcohol in the Grant-Nash household in twelve months and there never would be again. It was no party, no celebration. It was a remembrance. 

Because one of them never came home that day. 

One of them never made it out of the carnage. One of them was never found. Twelve months later and still there was no sign. No call. But there was also no body, and no body meant there was still hope. Still hope that maybe, just maybe, they would get that phone call. Maybe they would be found, brought home. 

But until then, everyone sat in the Grant-Nash living room. They leaned on one another for support, hope still strong but the grief almost stronger, relying on each other to stay afloat. They sat around and waited as Athena sighed at her phone and placed it down on the coffee table. 

“Are they coming?” Hen asked, her voice the only one in the room as all faces turned to Athena, who shook her head. 

“Christopher won’t leave his room,” she said sadly, and the hearts of everyone in the room broke. 

A few neighbourhoods over, Eddie was sitting on the floor of the hallway with his back against Christopher’s bedroom door. His eyes were dry, streaky tracks staining his cheeks where he had cried so much he ran out of tears. Through the closed door, he could hear sobbing, his son crying out for the one person who wasn’t there. He felt useless, wanting nothing more than to give Christopher exactly what he wanted but powerless to do so. He wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his head on his knees, curling up impossibly small. 

Buck was missing. It had been twelve months since anyone last saw him. Twelve months since Eddie forced Buck to get out of bed, out of the apartment, and out of his depression, only to shove him right into the very disaster that would-

No. No, there was no body. No body meant hope. 

Now, everyone was just waiting on a miracle.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two - The Only Chance I Wish I Had to Take

Eddie wasn’t sure exactly how long he had been sitting there in the hallway, but when he finally came back from his daze, blinking back into the world, he found his house silent. Slowly uncurling his body, his joints protesting the movement after being in one position for so long, but Eddie pushed through it. He slowly got to his feet, his hand finding the handle of Christopher’s door, and he gingerly twisted the hand and pushed the door open so he could peer inside. Christopher was fast asleep on his bed, his arms wrapped around the teddy bear Buck bought Christopher for Christmas last… no, not last year. Last year was spent curled up in bed under the blankets avoiding phone calls from the team listening to his son sob asking him why Santa didn’t find Buck and bring him home. 

Closing the door, Eddie stumbled into the living room and collapsed onto the couch. It had been a year but Eddie didn’t have it in him to suggest that maybe it was time to move on. This wasn’t like with Shannon; there was no funeral to nail home that Buck was gone. There wasn’t even a body to confirm that he was dead. There was just nothing. Christopher, in his young mind, couldn’t make the connection that Buck being missing for so long likely meant that he wasn’t coming home. His desperation to find Buck after being separated during the disaster had convinced him that Buck was still out there waiting to be found. 

Eddie couldn’t bring himself to tell Christopher that it had been too long.

He was still in denial himself. First Shannon, then Buck, it was just all too much to accept in such a short amount of time. With Shannon, Eddie had felt alone, unable to talk to anyone about how he was feeling. With Buck, Eddie had the 118 he could turn to when he needed to cry on someone’s shoulder, but he still felt alone. Maddie had lost a brother, her cries still haunted Eddie’s dreams. Hen and Chimney had lost a brother too, though not to the same extent as Maddie, yet it was just as difficult as Chimney was trying to be strong for Maddie and Hen had to explain to Denny what was going on all without breaking down herself. Bobby and Athena lost a son, which Eddie knew hit differently for Bobby. He had never seen his captain cry before, but seeing the man broken, curled up in his wife’s arms on the floor of the firehouse kitchen, sobbing so loudly Eddie could still hear him even when he ran to the bunk room so no one would see his own tears, it was rough. Eddie, however, had lost more than just his best friend. He had lost more than just his partner, his right hand man. 

He had lost his heart. 

It was ripped away from him like the waves ripped apart his family. Buck and Christopher were Eddie’s everything, Eddie knew it back before the tsunami, before Shannon’s death, even before Shannon came back into their lives. He had known, right from the day Buck and Christopher met after the earthquake, that those two boys were going to be his entire world. 

Half of his world was gone, missing, probably dead. The other half was grieving so badly that it felt like he was slipping away too. 

It had taken Eddie a long time to accept what he was feeling. He started having panic attacks at work, they would hit out of nowhere and seemingly have no reason behind them. Eddie thought he was having a heart attack the first time. Bobby sat him down and begged Eddie to go see a therapist. “If not for yourself then for Chris. For me . Please, Eddie, I can’t lose anyone else.” 

Eddie went to therapy. Frank was nice, and he helped Eddie to come to terms with all that had happened in such a short space of time, helped him to work through his anger at Shannon for leaving again - even though it wasn’t her fault this time - and his anger at Buck for leaving too - even though, once again, it wasn’t his fault - and get to the real reason: Eddie was angry at himself. Angry for not being a better husband and father to Shannon and Christopher which resulted in her leaving in the first place, for not being a better friend to Buck and seeing that he had been struggling with the ladder truck bombing until Buck pushed himself too much and nearly died on Athena’s back porch. Angry at himself for forcing Buck out of his apartment that day last year, for putting Buck in danger in the first place. He was angry at himself. 

Frank also helped Eddie to see why he was angry. Eddie had denied things for so long because of a multitude of reasons including unresolved trauma left over from his childhood, but Franks helped Eddie to accept something, even if that something was too difficult to hear. 

Eddie loved Buck. He was in love with Buck.

“He loves you too,” Maddie told him when Eddie broke down at her apartment after he accepted the truth, “he’s been in love with you for months, he just never thought you’d feel the same.”

Buck was gone. Eddie never got to tell him. 

Instead, Eddie spent months accepting the fact that he was never going to find love again, and he was okay with that, because his heart belonged to Buck and it would never belong to anyone else.

Knocking on the door snapped Eddie back to the present. He got up from the couch and approached the door, glancing through the peephole. It was Bobby. Eddie opened the door and let his captain inside. 

“Hey, how’re you holding up, kid?” Bobby asked him once the door was closed behind them. Eddie shrugged. 

“About as well as you are, I bet,” he replied. The tense smile Bobby had plastered on his face disappeared, leaving behind a haggard and bereaved frown. Bobby had, for an entire year, kept up a brave face in public. Whenever people saw him, he was still the same Captain Nash he had been before the disaster. Only this time, there was sadness hidden in his eyes. Sometimes he shut himself in his office to be alone for a bit, other times was absent from conversations, and sometimes Hen even had to take over lunch duty because Bobby didn’t have the energy to cook. He tried to be strong for everyone, but it only backfired. Eddie had gone over one evening on a whim because he needed the company of someone who understood, and he found Bobby staring at a bottle of, thankfully unopened, Jack Daniels. The guilt he felt for everything - he blamed himself, saying that if he hadn’t stopped Buck from coming back to work, or if he had just been honest about it, Eddie wouldn’t have needed to force Buck out of the house in the first place - and the grief over losing yet another child nearly pushed Bobby back over the edge, but like the captain had done for Eddie, Eddie begged Bobby to speak to someone and seek help too. 

Bobby clapped Eddie’s shoulder and wordlessly, the two of them made their way into the living room, sitting down on the couch in silence. 

“I thought Maddie would be here too,” Eddie said after a while. 

“She cried herself to exhaustion, Chimney took her home,” Bobby explained, “but she wanted to be here.”

The gathering at the Grant-Nash household had been planned as a whole family affair, but Maddie and Bobby going to Eddie’s afterwards had always been the intention. Though the disappearance - not death. He could still be alive - of Buck affected everyone, it hit the three of them the hardest and Christopher even more so. All three adults knew they were going to need support that night, support from one another, and Eddie didn’t want Christopher to have to sleep in a strange bed on such a day. 

“Chris asleep?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, he hasn’t left his room all day,” Eddie sighed, wrapping his arms around his chest, “I tried to help him get ready to go to yours but he refused, saying he didn’t want to go because it was like we were saying Buck was… t-that he was gone for good. Slammed his bedroom door in my face.” He left out how what remained of Eddie’s heart had shattered into a million pieces when his son started wailing, crying out for Buck. He left out how Christopher had screamed “I hate you!” through the door when Eddie tried to comfort him, and it stabbed Eddie in the chest with such a force that he honestly felt like he had been hurt with a real weapon, collapsing to the floor outside his son’s door. 

“Eddie-”

“No,” Eddie turned to look at Bobby, a fire in his eyes as he firmly shook his head, “no, I know what you’re going to say. I can’t, Bobby! I cannot tell Christopher that there’s a chance Buck might be dead, I can’t! It will kill him. I-I know I should and I know it’s not fair to keep giving him hope but I-I just-” he cut off, biting his lip to suppress a sob that threatened to escape, “I just can’t do it. He needs to keep hoping, Bobby. I need to keep hoping.” 

An arm wrapped itself around Eddie’s shoulders and Eddie willingly leaned into the embrace Bobby gave him, hiding his face from the world as though maybe if he just hid long enough he could compose himself properly. It didn’t work. He was crying again, and honestly, Eddie’s didn’t even realise he had any tears left to cry. 

“I’m not saying you need to give up hope,” Bobby began quietly, his voice filled with emotions Eddie couldn’t name, “God knows I’m not and neither is anyone else, but Eddie,” Bobby pulled away just enough so that he could look Eddie in the eyes, not that Eddie made eye contact with him, “if we keep his hopes up like this, and we find out that Buck is dead-” a sob tore its way from Eddie’s throat at the mere thought, “-then it’s only gonna make things worse.”

Eddie knew what Bobby was saying made sense. Christopher was the only one in the family who still had this blind hope that Buck was completely fine, just missing. The rest of the kids all understood the likelihood of Buck being found alive a year later, but as Bobby said, no one was giving up on hope. Eddie certainly wasn’t. Until he saw, with his own eyes, that Buck was dead, he refused to accept it. 

“Daddy?” came a voice from down the hall. Eddie shot up and turned around to find Christopher standing in the doorway, leaning against the door frame with a piece of paper in his hand. He didn’t have his glasses on, and was still wearing the same pyjamas from that morning. 

“Hey, mijo ,” Eddie said after clearing his throat, plastering a smile on his lips as he beckoned Christopher to come join him and Bobby on the couch. The boy tottled into the room and sat down on his dad’s lap, throwing his arms around Eddie with such force that Eddie would have fallen over had he been standing. 

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Christopher said softly, face buried in Eddie’s neck, “I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t hate you, I just miss Papa.”

“Papa?” Eddie questioned gently, trying to keep his voice as level as possible despite the fact that he wanted to cry again because Buck had been a dad to Christopher since the day the two of them met. 

Christopher gave a small nod, “I wanted to ask Bucky to be my papa when we got home from the pier, but…” he trailed off, sniffling. Eddie just held his son tighter. Buck being a part of their family in that way, being Christopher’s dad and helping Eddie raise their son together, it was all Eddie dreamed of. “I drew this for him,” Christopher shifted in his spot on Eddie's lap until his back was pressed against his dad’s chest, his hands carefully opening the folded piece of paper to reveal a drawing of two stick figures sitting on top of a firetruck surrounded by water that the boy showed both adults on the couch. One figure had glasses and the other had a pink smudge above his left eye. At the top of the page, Christopher had written “Me and my Papa” in crayon. It was beautiful, and Eddie told his son that as he wiped away a tear that threatened to fall. 

“Is it true that Papa might not be coming home?” Christopher asked, so quietly that Eddie almost didn’t hear him. Eddie sighed. 

“I’m sorry, buddy, but yeah,” he admitted, “it’s been so long. It’s possible we might never find your papa.” It’s possible that Buck had run out of his nine lives, that the tsunami on top of the ladder truck bombing and the embolism was just too much for his body to handle in such a short amount of time. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth sooner, I just didn’t want you to be any more sad.”

He didn’t want Christopher to be sad at all, ever, but having lost two parents in the space of just a few months, it was difficult. Christmas and Christopher’s ninth birthday had come and gone in that time and still the wounds were as raw as if they were yesterday. 

“Can we put Papa on the ofrenda this year?” Christopher’s question caught Eddie off guard. 

“On Dias de los Muertos ?”

“Yeah. We didn’t last year, we only put Mommy up there, and I don’t want Papa to be gone but… but if he is, then we need to put him on the altar with Mommy.”

As always, Christopher continued to find new ways to surprise Eddie. Blinking back tears, Eddie pressed a kiss to his son’s curls. “I think that is a great idea, mijo . Do you wanna light a candle for Papa tonight?” 

Christopher nodded, and so with another kiss to his son’s hair Eddie got up and hurried to the dining room where he kept the candles for this such occasion. Placing one of them into the candle holder, he rummaged around for a lighter and once he found one, he took both items back into the living room. As he paused to turn off the lights, he heard Christopher say “you can keep the drawing, Grandpa, I think you need it more than I do,” and watched as Bobby pulled Christopher in for a hug. 

With the lights out, Eddie rejoined Christopher and Bobby on the couch. He placed the candle on the coffee table and lit the wick, the flickering flame the only light in the room. Christopher reached for Eddie and Bobby’s hands, sandwiched in between the two of them as they watched the flame dance in the darkness. 

It was in the darkness that Eddie thought of Buck again. For the first time in a long time, Eddie closed his eyes and he prayed.

Please, God. Please. He can’t be gone. He just can’t. I need a miracle. I need him to come home. 

The candle eventually burned out. The three of them sat there in the darkness for a moment before Bobby got up to switch the lights on again, mentioning making something for them to eat before disappearing into the kitchen. It was only at the mention of food that Eddie realised how long it had been since he and Christopher last ate something. All day long, time had escaped Eddie because of how caught up in his own head he had been. So focused on Christopher and not himself, Eddie hadn’t even considered that he needed to eat or drink. Now, he was feeling the effects of his decisions. 

“Daddy?”

“Yes, mijo ?”

“Um…” Eddie turned to look at his son and paused. He had never seen Christopher look so nervous, but the boy was picking at his fingernails and completely avoiding Eddie’s eyes. “Um… I-I saw online t-that people were posting pictures of people they lost last year, a-and I… I was thinking, maybe we could post a picture of Papa a-and ask if people have seen him?” 

Maybe getting Christopher his own phone for his ninth birthday wasn’t a good idea. Eddie had wanted to keep Christopher in the dark as much as possible regarding the tsunami aftermath, the trauma all too recent in their minds, but all his friends had phones and Eddie hadn’t wanted Christopher to feel left out at school. Giving Christopher a direct link to the internet and everything he had been trying to defend his son from hadn’t been a great choice. 

However, as Christopher looked up at him with his big, pleading eyes that Eddie knew was a look Buck taught him, he couldn’t find it in his heart to say no. 

“Of course we can,” he said with a fond smile, reaching for his phone on the coffee table as Christopher smiled for the first time all week. 

Eddie didn’t use Instagram very often, only to post the occasional photo of Christopher and Buck when they hung out. Buck was the one who posted daily about his life for the internet to see, happily sharing every photo of Christopher he had without any hesitation with a hundred hashtags underneath each photo. With just a few clicks, Eddie was in his gallery trying to find a photo for the post, scrolling through every image of Buck he could find. They all felt… subpar, like none of them were good enough as they didn’t show the world the Evan Buckley Eddie knew. 

Until he found one. The photo wasn’t like all the selfies he had of Buck and Christopher from when the two of them stole his phone, this one was different; it was of Buck and Christopher sitting at a park table next to one another, ice cream in hand and sprinkles all around their lips, Buck laughing whilst Christopher grinned brightly at him. Eddie couldn’t remember what they had been talking about which made Carla snap the photo and send it to Eddie whilst he was at work, but the photo was one of Eddie’s favourites. 

He chose that photo, along with one of just Buck on his own in his uniform where you could see even the smallest details, like his tattoos and birthmark, clearly. Christopher approved of the choices, and with the photos chosen, time came to write a caption. 

For a moment, Eddie wasn’t sure what to write. He wasn’t sure how to properly express everything he wanted to say about Buck, every emotion he felt towards the man who had stolen his heart, and at the same time he felt that no matter what he wrote, it wasn’t going to be good enough. So, he just wrote. He typed away until he was satisfied with what he read on his phone screen, and as soon as he got the thumbs up from Christopher, Eddie uploaded the post. 

“As firefighters, you lose people. It’s a part of the job and you learn to accept that losses are inevitable no matter how hard you fight to save everyone. However, you never expect to lose those you love. My partner, Evan Buckley, is a member of the Los Angeles Fire Department, and he went missing after getting caught in the 2019 Santa Monica Tsunami while off duty and spending the day with our son. He is still missing to this day, a year later, and we have received no word from him. We are still looking for Evan, and though it has been a year, we are not giving up hope that we can find him. Today, Los Angeles healed its wounds from the disaster and began to move on, but my family and I cannot do that until we know what happened to Evan. We just want him to come home, or to receive closure should the worst be true.

We miss you, Evan. If you’re out there, please come home. Christopher and I, and the whole 118, love you and we miss you so much. We are waiting for you and we will keep waiting for you until you come home. You will be found x”

Twenty five miles away, the night shift was starting at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Doctors and nurses were switching out with those who were taking over their shift, and upstairs in the Intensive Care Unit, the nurses were looking over the charts of their patients. Like every day, the patient names were the same, and as it had been for a whole year to the day, room 221 had the name John Doe on the door. The patient in question was a man who had been brought in from the coast, trapped in floating debris from the Santa Monica Tsunami, but he had traumatic brain injury and an infection from an open wound that led to the doctors having to put him into a medically induced coma so he could recover. However, when time came to bring their John Doe out of his coma, he didn’t wake. Though breathing on his own and with brainwave activity on the monitors, he would not wake up. 

However, as the shifts switched out and the world outside that hospital room continued as it had done all year, the one constant inside room 221 changed. A twitch of fingers, a blink of an eye, the beeping of the heart monitor growing faster and faster and faster before the patient’s eyes flew open and he shot upright, a scream on his lips as he cried out. 

“Christopher!”

Chapter Text

Chapter Three - Please Don’t Take My Sunshine Away

Making the Instagram post had some unfortunate consequences.

What was meant to be a time of grieving became three days of nothing but destroyed hope. People hoping to genuinely help began reaching out to Eddie via social media with good intentions, but with each text message, each phone call, each “hey, I think I saw that guy a few weeks ago” took Eddie on a wild goose chase around the city on days when he was meant to be at home with his family. Some people recognised Buck from calls with the 118 and began contacting the firehouse, some to give condolences and some to try and help find him. The phone in Bobby’s office started ringing non-stop and every time, Bobby found himself making a note of whatever lead he was given just in case. Just in case. 

The whole thing was heartbreaking. For three days, Bobby felt his heart break over and over and over again with every false lead and it was just exhausting. Every time, hope would swell up in him and every time, it would come crashing down like a smack to the face because Buck was still missing. With each passing day and each phone call, Bobby felt himself slipping. 

After Buck went missing, Bobby did his best to stay strong. The whole situation hit the 118 hard, especially Maddie, Eddie and Christopher. The others were affected by Buck’s disappearance too but for those three, it was like their whole world had been ripped from them. For Bobby, it was very much the same. After losing Marcy and the kids six years ago, Bobby never thought he’d get another chance at a family. He moved to Los Angeles for a fresh start whilst still struggling to accept what happened in Minnesota. Then he hired a fresh-out-of-the-academy probie who walked up into the firehouse loft with a big smile and a puppy dog attitude and the ability to cause Bobby to go grey prematurely. Buck helped Bobby to get help, to accept that he was allowed happiness even though those he loved were gone, and as the years passed that reckless and irreverent kid who Bobby had fired wormed his way into the captain’s heart right next to the rest of Bobby’s kids. Losing Buck broke Bobby, but he hid it.

Bobby had tried to be strong for everyone else’s sake. He was the one who held people when they broke down, wiping away tears and soothing cries only to cry himself to sleep at night when Athena was working. He was the one who took care of the kids when their parents needed time to process things, even though his mind was still reeling from everything. Bobby was the one who kept it together, but only because he had to. 

Until one day, it all came crashing down. The pain of losing yet another child coupled with the guilt Bobby felt because if he had just been honest with Buck about who stopped him from coming back to work, maybe the kid wouldn’t have been so depressed that Eddie forced him out of the house and maybe he wouldn’t have been in the tsunami in the first place, it built up and up and up until it exploded. He stopped going to his AA meetings, stopped talking to his sponsor. If not for Eddie popping by for a visit out of the blue, Bobby would have opened that bottle of whiskey and thrown away everything he had worked so hard to achieve. In the end, it was only the fact that he knew Buck would be disappointed in him for slipping that got Bobby to pour the bottle down the sink. Eddie begged him to seek help, and at first Bobby had been hesitant to do so, but then one day at work when Athena came for lunch, it hit Bobby like a punch to the stomach and, right there in the kitchen, he broke. Seeing his family around the table, everyone except for the one he wanted to see most, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

The very next day, Bobby went to his first therapy appointment. The months that followed were long and difficult, and whilst he had refused to give up hope, he had accepted that he loved Buck like a son and wished he could have told him. He accepted that what happened was not his fault, though that one was difficult to come to terms with. He accepted that there was a possibility that, no matter how much he may wish it, his son was never coming home. 

In doing so, he had been able to move forward. Not on, but forward. He went back to his meetings and reached out to his sponsor again, getting himself back on track. He was able to finally find a “permanent” new member for the team after months of either Lena Bosko from the 136 or the new probie Ravi from B-Shift covering. Lucy Donato was great, and though she was filling the empty spot on the team that Buck’s absence left behind, it never felt like she was taking his place, rather that she was a new addition to the firehouse who just happened to also work on A-Shift keeping Buck’s space warm for him. Everyone took a little while to warm up to her, but Donato understood the boots she was walking in. The team was able to take the first steps towards healing, and Bobby was happy to lead them down that path. 

Still, Bobby held onto hope. He didn’t want to accept that another child was dead and he wouldn’t, not until he saw a body, but there wasn’t much more Bobby could take. He sighed and shoved his phone into his pocket, rubbing a hand down his face. Another text from Eddie. Another dead end. Eddie had checked out another lead between dropping Christopher off at school and his therapy session at midday, but it had only ended in heartbreak, once again. Bobby wasn’t sure how much more of this Eddie could take before he crumbled but the man wasn’t willing to give up. Neither was Bobby. 

The captain let his head fall into his hands, elbows resting on the desk before him. He’d disappeared into his office after their last call; a simple two-car collision with no casualties where a boy’s leg was trapped between the seat and the dashboard. The dad who had been driving had refused to be seen to until his son was out of the car and safe. The drive back to the station was silent and tense and Bobby knew exactly what everyone was thinking when they sent worried glances his way. They knew he saw that father and son and thought of Buck, and they were right. The call hit harder than Bobby expected it to. 

He’d gone into his office as soon as they got back to calm down, compose himself before facing the world again. He appreciated that his team cared about him, but sometimes it was just too much. They would all tell Hen and Chimney when they got back from the hospital and Bobby was bound to have two worried paramedics knocking on the office door before he knew it. He just wanted some time to himself before then. The texts from Eddie just made that horrible feeling in his chest even worse. It was as though the universe was taunting him, reminding him of what he had lost. Maybe it was a good idea to book another appointment with his therapist for his next day off, and perhaps stopping off at church after shift would do him some good. 

When his phone rang again, Bobby pulled it from his pocket and expected to see Eddie’s name at the top of the screen. He sighed when he saw yet another number he didn’t know calling him. A part of him didn’t want to answer it, he didn’t want to listen to another good Samaritan tell him about how they might have seen Buck at the grocery store a few days ago. People were only trying to help but it was getting too much to bear. However, Bobby answered the phone and mentally prepared himself for the conversation he was about to have. 

“Nash speaking.”

“Hello, is this Captain Robert Nash?” a polite male voice asked from the other end of the line. 

“Yes, this is he,” Bobby said as he reached to grab a pen from the pot, ready to take notes on whatever the caller had to say.

“Hi, my name is Nick, I’m a Nurse Practitioner at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. I have you listed as the emergency contact for Evan Buckley.”

Bobby froze. Hand still outstretched, his entire body went still and if not for the way his hand was clenched around his phone, he was certain would have dropped it in surprise. 

“...I-I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” He asked once his brain came back online. 

“I’m a Nurse at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. You’re listed as the emergency contact for Evan Buckley, and I’m calling to inform you that Evan has woken from his coma and he gave us permission to contact you.”

Coma? Long Beach? 

Bobby must have been silent for too long because the nurse, Nick, continued, “Would it be possible for you to come to the hospital as soon as you can? The doctor would like to speak to you about Evan’s condition.“ 

“Uh, y-yes, I’ll be there right away!” Bobby said, rising from his seat. Nurse Nick didn’t stay on the phone for much longer, just enough to tell Bobby which ward to go to, and as soon as the call ended, Bobby lowered the phone from his ear. 

It didn’t seem real. After so long and so many false alarms, this just felt like one big joke. Like someone had seen the post in Instagram and decided to capitalise on their grief with a sick prank. Knowing what kind of people lived in the world, it wasn’t in the realm of possibility. Regardless, Bobby grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and his keys from their place on the desk. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the office, the door behind him closing with a click. 

All heads in the loft turned to Bobby. Hen and Chimney were back, the two of them by the coffee machine with three mugs between them. “You okay, Bobby?” Hen asked in that motherly tone she used on all her patients. Bobby nodded. 

“I’ve gotta head out. Chim, you’re in charge until I get back.” He said. 

“What’s going on, Cap?” Chimney asked him with a frown. 

“It’s probably nothing,” the captain said with a wave of his hand, “probably just another dead end, but they asked for me specifically so I’m gonna go check it out. I shouldn’t be long.”

The look on Hen’s face said it all she needed to say, even before she spoke a word. A look that filled Bobby with dread and guilt as his friends, his coworker, his family, spoke with soft shaking words. “Bobby…”

He got it, he really did; it had been a year and here he was still chasing down leads as though Buck was just going to miraculously show up one day completely unharmed. He couldn’t keep going like this and he knew it. 

Maybe it was time to stop. 

“This is the last one, Hen,” he told her, “I… I can’t keep searching, I know, just… just let me do this last one, okay?” 

Hen sighed, but then nodded. “Keep us updated, okay?” she told him. With a nod, Bobby headed for the stairs. He stopped long enough to kiss his fingers and press them to the framed photograph they had of Buck hanging up on the wall - it was their good luck charm, pressing a kiss to the memorial portrait every time they entered or left the firehouse on shift. Chimney swears all the bad shifts they’ve had are the ones where someone forgot to complete their little ritual - before he walked to his truck, climbed inside, and pulled away from the firehouse. 

Long Beach Memorial Hospital was right near the coast and about as far away as physically possible from the firehouse. The GPS in the truck said Bobby would be there in an hour and ten minutes and he had every intention of getting there within the hour. He was probably going to get in trouble with the chief for leaving as he did, shoving authority to Chimney and disappearing from the firehouse in the middle of his shift, but Bobby didn’t care. If this was really going to be the last time, then he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, especially if it was just a dumb joke. 

But there was this nagging voice at the back of his head. It sounded an awful lot like Buck, and it was telling Bobby that something wasn’t right. Sure, some sick freak might go through the trouble of faking being a nurse at a hospital to pull an elaborate prank on a grieving father, but the rest of the facts didn’t seem to line up with that conclusion. Long Beach was a long way from Santa Monica. In searching for Buck, they had called every hospital in Los Angeles and the areas around Santa Monica, but they hadn’t thought to look in Long Beach. Why would they? No ambulance would have taken Buck all the way to a hospital in Long Beach, even if the other hospitals around the disaster zone were at capacity. Sure, if it was a prank, then the prankster would probably choose Long Beach just to force Bobby to drive for an hour to fall victim to the joke. 

Then there was the “coma” detail. A coma would explain a lot; if the hospital couldn’t find any way to identify Buck then there was no way anyone could be contacted until he woke up. Speaking of, how would the caller have known that Bobby was Buck’s emergency contact unless they had access to Buck’s medical records, or they took a lucky guess. No, it couldn’t be a lucky guess. No one knew that. Buck and Bobby didn’t share a surname nor was the fact that Bobby saw Buck as his son a public fact in any way. 

Bobby’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and he pushed the gas pedal down just a bit more. Hope was blossoming in his heart again. 

He only hoped that this time, it wouldn’t be crushed. 

The drive seemed to draw out and Bobby impatiently drove through the city, ignoring the fact that he may have broken more than a few traffic laws as he did so. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, Bobby was pulling into the hospital parking lot. He jumped out of his truck and strode towards the hospital, his pace quickening with every step. People moved out of the way when they saw him. He walked right up to the reception desk and asked for directions to the Inpatient Care ward and was told to go up one floor and follow the signs. 

Bobby didn’t bother to wait for the elevator. 

Soon, he was pushing through the doors to the Inpatient Care ward. The ward was quiet and the waiting room mostly empty, and near the doors was a woman in scrubs sitting behind a desk typing away on a computer. Bobby took three strides over to the desk and cleared his throat to the nurse’s attention, and she looked up at him from behind her glasses with a kind smile on her lips. 

“Hi, how can I help you?” She asked. 

“Hi, I’m Captain Bobby Nash, I’m here to see Evan Buckley.” Bobby said. 

A look of surprise appeared on the nurse’s face, but she turned back to her computer. “And what is your relationship to the patient, Mr, Nash?”

“He’s my son.”

The words were out of Bobby’s mouth before he even realised it. 

“Have a seat, honey, I’ll call your son’s practitioner down.” The nurse told him, reaching for the phone nearby. Bobby didn’t sit down. He stood next to the chairs in the small waiting room occupied by just a few other people, folded his arms over his chest, leaned back against the wall, and waited. 

It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t. Or, it was so elaborate that Bobby was about to have his world end, again, in the middle of a hospital ward. No. No, that wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a joke.

Bobby had no idea how long he was standing there for, but he snapped his head up when he heard someone call out his name. At the doors to the ward was a man in scrubs and a clipboard. Bobby pushed off the wall, took a few quick steps over and shook the hand that was offered to him. “Thank you for coming. I’m Nick, we spoke on the phone.”

“Hi, um, w-where is he? Where is my son?” Bobby’s voice broke as he asked but he didn’t care. 

“I’ll take you to him now,” Nurse Nick said, opening the door to the rest of the Inpatient Care ward open. The rest of the ward was as quiet as the waiting room had been, the silence only broken by the soft beeping of machines from rooms and the thumping of Bobby’s boot heels on the linoleum floor. “It really is a miracle,” Nurse Nick told Bobby, “I’ve been in charge of Evan’s care since he was brought to the hospital last year. We had no idea who he was so we just called him “Mr. John Doe” until we got his name from him this morning.”

All of a sudden, like a slap to the face, Bobby felt his heart drop. What if it wasn’t him? What if there had been a mix up? Was Bobby really about to see Buck lying in that bed, or could this be a big misunderstanding and there was a stranger in that hospital room? It could be anyone in there. The hospital could have messed up, or the person in the hospital bed could have lied. If it isn’t Buck in the room, when where is he? Is he still missing? Dead? Was he really about to have to go back to the firehouse with the knowledge that his last search had ended in failure and his son was still-

Nurse Nick stopped in front of room 221. He knocked three times on the door but when he got no answer, he opened the door and peered inside. “Evan’s fallen asleep again,” he said softly, opening the door fully so Bobby could go inside. 

Heart racing, Bobby stepped up to the door. 

He gasped.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four - There Can Be Miracles When You Believe

He looked so small on the bed. Even with the blankets tucked in around his body, Bobby could see just how much body mass had been lost over the past year. He seemed impossibly skinny, in a way Bobby had never seen before. His hair was longer, curlier, and he had a small beard that looked as though it had been well taken care of despite the lack of any trimming. His face looked rather gaunt, though not so much so that he looked deathly, but he looked peaceful. He wasn’t in any pain, just sleeping. 

It could have been anyone, but right there above the left eyebrow, in stark contrast to his pale skin, was a pink birthmark that Bobby adored so much. 

Buck was alive. 

Bobby’s knees nearly gave out beneath him. 

He stumbled to the bed and reached for the hand resting on the mattress. It was warm, a strong pulse beating beneath the skin. Buck’s chest rose and fell with every breath he took, light exhales escaping his lips. There wasn’t a scratch on him, not a mark or a cut or a bruise. No bandages, no stitches, no staples. Bobby raised a hand to cup Buck’s cheek and the young man leaned into the touch, still fast asleep. 

Bobby choked on a sob. He leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to Buck’s birthmark and let the tears freely fall, burying his face in Buck’s curls as his cries shook his body. With his hand firmly yet so gently wrapped around Buck’s hand, two fingers pressed to the pulse point on his wrist as though the second he pulled away the pulse would stop completely, Bobby perched himself on the edge of the bed and leaned in as close as he could physically get, just needing to hold his son in any way possible. 

He was alive. He was alive. 

He was alive! 

“Oh my God,” Bobby cried. All of a sudden, it was as if everything hit Bobby at once. As he pressed kisses to Buck’s forehead, temple, hair, all he felt was relief and joy and pure, pure love. Everything he had dreamed of in the past year was here, in his arms, sound asleep as peaceful as can be. Bobby had been right to hold onto hope, he’d been right to grip ahold of those loose threads of dreams that just maybe Buck was still alive somewhere. He was right. 

Bobby pulled back just enough so he could wipe his tears and turn to Nurse Nick, who was still standing by the door. “I-Is he…?”

“He’s fine,” Nurse Nick told him, approaching the bed, “all his injuries from the tsunami have completely healed. He’s got some side effects of the coma, mostly the muscle atrophy from not moving for so long, but the doctors are confident that he will make a full recovery once he's able to start physiotherapy.”

“How did he even get here? H-he was at the pier! I-”

“The coastguard found him at sea. They set out heading for the disaster zone when they saw some debris floating their way. Evan must have gotten caught in the debris because it dragged him all the way from Santa Monica down here. His arm was trapped and he had a nasty cut from a piece of metal, but that’s healed completely now.” Bobby glanced at Buck’s arms. He hadn’t noticed before but there, on Buck’s right arm right next to where Bobby was holding his hand, was a long, thin, pink scar trailing up the back of his forearm. “When he was brought in, your son had a traumatic brain injury and we had to put him into a medically induced coma to let it heal. He also had hypothermia, broken ribs, and had swallowed some water, and because of the blood thinners it took us some time to stop his injuries from bleeding. However, everything healed and we tried to bring him out of the coma after a few weeks, but he wouldn’t wake up, even after he came off the ventilator.” Nurse Nick shook his head, frowning, and Bobby could tell this was something that had puzzled the man for a while. “He was in our ICU until a few days ago. He woke up and scared the crap out of the night shift.” Bobby couldn’t help but chuckle. That sounded like Buck. 

God, couldn’t the universe give Buck a break? It was bad enough the crap the kid had gone through as a child - Bobby didn’t know much about Buck’s parents or his life in Pennsylvania, but he knew that it wasn’t great. Bobby had been able to work out that the reason why Buck plastered on a happy-go-lucky attitude all the time was to hide his insecurities - he then had a ladder truck dropped on him, had to suffer through months of physical therapy only to have an embolism, and then get caught in a tsunami of all things. From what Nurse Nick had said, it sounded like Buck had gone through the ringer trying to get out of the water after jumping off the firetruck after Christopher. He looked completely unharmed, however, and Bobby could only acquainte it to how much time had passed. 

“He was in and out of consciousness for a few days but never awake long enough for us to get a name. He just kept mentioning the tsunami and asking for someone named Christopher,” Nurse Nick continued, “do you know who that is?” 

“His son,” Bobby explained, “They were at the pier together. Christopher said Evan saved him and they climbed on top of a firetruck, then he went back to save others. But then the tide receded and the truck shook, and Christopher fell off and into the water again.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, perfectly fine now, though missing his papa.”

Nurse Nick sighed in relief. “That’s good, Evan will be happy to hear it when he wakes up.” 

“How, um, how did you know to call me?” Bobby asked the nurse, whose brow furrowed. 

“Don’t you know about the hashtag?” Nurse Nick questioned, and Bobby shook his head. The nurse walked over to the bed and retrieved his phone from his pocket, tapping away for a quick moment. “It’s all over social media. The entirety of California has been searching for your son.” Nurse Nick passed Bobby his phone. 

It was Twitter. At the top of the screen was a hashtag that read “#youwillbefound” and as Bobby scrolled through the tweets, he found them to all be about Buck. Eddie’s instagram post, the one begging him to come home if he was still out there, had been shared around the internet and it seemed like everyone from all corners of the world had spread the post as much as possible. It explained the hundreds of phone calls, the leads from strangers who were trying to help. People sent their condolences, some said they prayed for them, and just in general people wished the best. 

“One of the other nurses, Linda, was on twitter when she saw the post. Came running to find me. We had just gotten access to his medical records when he woke up properly and we were able to confirm his identity. That was about an hour before I called you. I asked if I could contact someone and he specifically asked for you.” 

Bobby placed a hand over his mouth, tears blurring his vision again, as he scrolled through the tweets. A small gasp slipped from his lips and he had to hand the phone back before he started crying again, his hand instead finding its way to the blanket Buck was tucked under which he fisted tightly. “Thank you,” he told Nurse Nick, who just smiled. 

 “I’ll leave you two be. If he wakes up or you need anything, just press the button,” the nurse instructed politely before he departed the room, closing the door behind him.

Once the door was closed, Bobby got up just long enough to remove his jacket and place it on the back of the chair he dragged to the side of the bed. He took a seat and leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the thin mattress of the bed and interlocking his fingers underneath his chin as he just stared at Buck’s still sleeping form. He needed to call Athena, and Eddie, and Maddie, and the others, but he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to leave the room or take his eyes off of Buck for a moment in fear that he wouldn’t be there when he got back. 

Closing his eyes, Bobby silently sent a prayer to God and reached out to take Buck’s hand again. As he did so, Buck’s head lulled to the side and he muttered in his sleep, nothing coherent, just a small mutter before he smiled and softly burrowed into the pillow. 

Bobby sobbed. 

He leaned forward and rested his head on his folded arms on the edge of the bed, ignoring how his back was certainly going to kill him later for being hunched over in such a way. Still holding onto Buck’s hand, he squeezed tightly and just cried, not caring about anything except the fact that his son, his baby boy, was alive and everything he had hoped for had come true. After so long, after months of trying to accept that maybe it was time to move on, Bobby was happy that he chose to keep holding onto that sliver of hope inside of him. If he had given up, if he had ignored the phone call or chosen not to go to the hospital, he wouldn’t be holding his son’s hand waiting for him to wake up so he could hug him properly and never let go again.

What if he had let go? He was so close to moving on, to letting go of hope. This was the last search. After this, he was going to stop searching. He was going to give up. He nearly gave up. The thought made Bobby cry harder, body shaking with each sob. He was going to give up on his son, and the thought made him feel sick. 

No, he couldn’t think about that. He didn’t give up. He didn’t. He held on and it paid off, even when he should have moved on, he held on. His baby was alive. That was what mattered. He was alive, and he was okay, and he was going to come home from the hospital with him and everything was going to be okay. It was all going to be okay. It had to be. 

It had to be. 

Something shifted under his hand. It was faint, barely there, but fingers very weakly curled around his hand. Bobby’s head shot up, and blinking away his tears he gasped. 

Head lulled against the pillow, eyes barely open, Buck gave him a smile, frail but still as bright as Bobby remembered. “Hey,” he rasped, before he started to shift on the bed, attempting to sit up, but his arms didn’t want to cooperate and he slumped back against the pillow with a wince. 

Immediately, Bobby was out of the chair, his hands hovering over Buck as the young man kept trying to push himself up into a sitting position, but his body wasn’t cooperating. “Hey, hey! Take it easy, kiddo,” he said softly, reaching to the side of the bed for the controls so he could adjust the bed and get Buck upright. As soon as he was vertical, Buck reached out and Bobby immediately took his outstretched hand. 

“B-bobby, Bobby-”

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Bobby asked him, brow furrowing as he leaned in closer, but Buck just fell forward into Bobby’s chest and lifted his arms as best as he could, hands tangling up in Bobby’s shirt. 

“You’re here,” he gasped. 

Bobby wrapped his arms around Buck and held him as tightly as he dared, burying his face in Buck’s hair. Buck shifted and burrowed into Bobby as though he couldn’t get close enough, and Bobby felt himself tearing up again. He’d lost count how many times he’d cried so far that afternoon and honestly, he wasn’t certain he ever stopped. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if he kept crying, he didn’t care if anyone saw him crying, he didn’t care. He just cared about the young man in his arms and for the first time in a year, Bobby felt himself able to breathe again. 

His son was alive. 

He gasped through his tears, squeezing Buck tighter, holding him as close as physically possible in his arms, tucking his son under his chin. He ran a hand through Buck’s hair, letting it get tangled up in the greasy curls. He looked up towards the ceiling. “Thank you,” he whispered to God, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Buck asked, his voice still sounding hoarse which Bobby assumed was from a year of disuse. Bobby pulled away just the slightest bit, keeping Buck in his arms but making sure he could look the young man in the eyes. 

“I’ve just missed you so much,” he admitted, drying his eyes on the back of his hand, “this past year has been hell, we searched everywhere for you but couldn’t find you and I-I thought I lost another son and I-I just couldn’t…” he trailed off, hanging his head for just a moment. God, he didn’t want to think about the past year ever again. He just wanted to hold on tightly to Buck and never, ever let him go. 

“... but, I’m not your son?” Bobby’s head snapped up. He found Buck staring at him, brow pinched, confusion clear in the hazy, tired eyes. Bobby just brushed the curls from Buck’s forehead and cupped his cheek. 

“Yes you are,” he insisted, “you’ve been my kid for so long. You may not be mine legally but that is a technicality we can fix with a form, a judge and a few signatures.”

A tear slipped down Buck’s cheek and Bobby swiped it away with his thumb, then leaned in and pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead, his lips lingering there for a while, before he pulled Buck back into his arms once again. 

“I love you, Dad,” Buck said, words muffled slightly where he buried his face in Bobby’s shoulder. 

“I love you too, son, so so much,” Bobby told him. He pressed another kiss to Buck’s hair, then his temple, then his birthmark, and watched as Buck’s smile only grew bigger and bigger. “God, I have missed you so much,” he gasped. 

Buck’s smile fell, replaced with a terrified look that Bobby never wanted to see on his son’s face again. “Dad, t-they… they said i-t’s been a year, and-”

“Hey hey hey,” Bobby cooed, gently stroking Buck’s hair, hoping to dispel any panic from his son’s mind. He couldn’t even imagine what it must be like, to wake up and suddenly be missing an entire year of your life, “it’s okay. It’s okay, I promise. I know that’s a scary thought, I know, but it’s all gonna be okay.”

“Is everybody okay? I-Is Chris okay?!”

“He’s fine. He’s perfectly fine, we found him and he’s safe. He’s at school right now.” 

“Oh thank God,” Buck visibly deflated, a shuddering breath escaping his lips as he slumped back against the pillow behind him like his strings had been cut, tension completely disappearing from his body, “c-can we call them? I-I wanna see them.”

“Yeah, of course!” Reluctantly, Bobby pulled away from Buck so he could turn around a reach into his jacket pocket for his phone. “Eddie’s not at work today so let’s call your mom and she can go pick him and Maddie up, yeah?”

Buck nodded, eyes big and wide and hopeful, and it took all of Bobby’s willpower to not start crying again. Instead, he just perched himself on the edge of the bed again and quickly dialled Athena’s number. Buck reached out and took Bobby’s hand, and the captain squeezed tightly. 

The phone started ringing. It rang twice before Athena picked up. 

“Bobby, where are you? Is everything okay?” Athena asked him.

“Everything’s okay, it’s more than okay,” Bobby told her, giving Buck another smile, “I’m at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, room 221-”

“The hospital?! What is going on? Are you hurt-”

“Honey, Buck’s alive.” 

Getting a call from Hen in the middle of her shift was not uncommon for Athena, but when that call expresses worry that Bobby might not be okay and that he left work two hours ago and isn’t responding to texts, it can be panic-inducing. 

Athena doesn’t like to admit how hard the past year has been for her. Finding her husband at the field hospital and learning that Buck and Christopher had been on the pier felt like a stab through the heart, and the ensuing weeks of constant searching took its toll. None of them stopped looking; on their days off they would be in Santa Monica helping with the clean up, searching for any sign of Buck, calling hospitals and - with heavy hearts - morgues trying to find their missing boy and only ever came up with heartbreak. 

Athena had allowed herself to break. She hated every second of it, but she let herself break down because her children did, and they needed to know that she understood how they felt. More than a few times, Athena held May and Harry after giving them bad news about Buck. Her kids lost their big brother, Athena lost a son, and as much as she wanted to keep clinging to hope, she realistically knew that she couldn’t, that the only way she was going to heal was if she accepted that Buck wasn’t coming home. 

That didn’t mean she didn’t feel grief. That she didn’t feel regret. Buck had wormed his way into her heart with his bright smiles and his kind heart and his bad jokes. He had become a big part of her family and Athena loved him like he was one of her own children. Before Buck went missing, Athena didn't know what it was like to lose a child. She didn't know the heartbreak, the gut-wrenching scream inside of you at the thought of your baby never coming home. Bobby did. He had already lost two kids, and now he lost another. Losing Buck hurt Athena. It destroyed Bobby. So whilst her husband broke down, Athena held strong.

Just because she accepted Buck was likely never coming home didn’t mean she didn’t miss him every single day. It didn’t mean that she didn’t pray to whoever was listening for a miracle, for her son to come home. She was always on the lookout for news that could relate to Buck, listening for anything around the station about a case linking to an unidentified male from around the time of the tsunami. Lou Ransone was even looking out for Athena, flagging anything similar if it came across his desk. She still fought to find her son, but she was also prepared to let Buck go should she have to. 

However, she knew Bobby wasn’t. She knew that Bobby, like Eddie, was still desperately searching for Buck and she knew that it was only a matter of time before he broke again. That was why, when she got the worried call from Hen, she booked it to the firehouse and called dispatch to let them know she was taking lunch. That was how she found herself sitting at the dining table Hen and Chimney opposite her, with her hands folded together under her chin as she listened to them explain how Bobby left nearly two hours ago after the bad call and hadn’t contacted them. 

“He didn’t say where he was going?” Athena asked, and the two paramedics shook their heads. 

“No, he just said he was going to look into a lead and left,” Chimney said. He had his arms folded over his chest but he looked very worried, so did Hen. 

“He told us before he left that this was the last time,” Hen continued, “that he wasn’t going to keep actively looking after this, but Athena, we’re worried that something’s happened. If the lead was another dead end then I’m worried he’s not doing well. We’ve texted him, we’ve tried calling, nothing.”

Athena let out a sigh. It was worrying. If the lead was really the final straw then Bobby would be one of three places: church, home, or a bar. If he was at church, he would have texted Athena like he always did and she hadn’t heard from Bobby all day. If he was at home, Harry would have texted asking why Bobby was home so early. That left only the worst option, unless there was an option that Athena wasn’t considering, and she was considering everything because she did not want her fears to be true. Bobby nearly relapsed six months ago but he reached out and got help instead, and it was only because he reached out that he didn’t, but that was back when everyone still believed that Buck was definitely out there somewhere. It was back before so much time had passed that it would take a literal miracle from the universe for Buck to come back home. From what Hen and Chimney were saying, it seemed as though Bobby was on his last straw. Getting bad news now from another dead end could send him over the edge. 

“Right,” she said, “let’s make some calls. I’ll try Bobby’s cell again, you two start calling around his old haunts and see if he’s there. Hopefully we ca-” Ringing from Athena’s pocket cut her off. She reached for it immediately, hastily answering the call when she saw Bobby’s name at the top of the screen. 

“Bobby, where are you? Is everything okay?” Athena asked him.

“Everything’s okay, it’s more than okay,” Bobby told her, “I’m at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, room 221-”

“The hospital?!” Athena was out of her seat in an instant, and so was Hen and Chimney. “What is going on? Are you hurt-” Athena was halfway to the stairs when Bobby’s words stopped her in her tracks. 

“Honey, Buck’s alive.” 

She froze. Chimney bumped into her, obviously not having expected Athena to stop walking. 

… What?

“Robert Wade Nash, if this is some kind of sick joke-”

“No! No no no, uh, I-I’m switching to video call.” A beeping noise against Athena’s ear had her pulling the phone away and accepting the video call invitation. The image came to life and Athena let out a loud gasp, hand slapping over her mouth. 

Bobby was half-sitting in a hospital bed, leaning back against the pillows with one leg still touching the floor, arm outstretched as he held the phone up to show Evan Buckley plastered up against his side, bright but tired smile on his lips, head resting on Bobby’s shoulder. 

“Hi, Momma,” Buck said. 

Athena gave a shuddering cry, eyes blurring with tears. She quickly scrubbed them away so she could see clearly. “Hi, baby!” 

Behind her, Athena barely registered the twin gasps of surprise from Hen and Chimney or the way they crowded around her so they could see Buck better, asking him all sorts of questions. Athena only had eyes for Buck. Buck, who was smiling brighter than she had ever seen him smile. Buck, who despite looking a little worse for wear was still the same Buckaroo he always has been. Buck, who was alive and had been found. 

“Where are you two?” Hen asked Bobby and Buck. 

“ Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Room 221, Inpatient ward,” Bobby said. 

“Okay, we’re on our way!” Chimney told them. 

“Wait, we’ve still got four hours left of our shift,” Hen said with a frown. 

“Uh… I-I’ll see if I can get us taken offline.” Chimney disappeared into Bobby’s office. Hen ran to the balcony and shouted “BUCK’S ALIVE!” at the top of her lungs, and the entire firehouse erupted into chaos and cheers. 

Athena sidestepped all the chaos and walked to her car, still on the phone. “I’m on my way, baby.”

“Can you bring Eddie and Maddie?” Buck asked her, “please, I-I really need to see them.”

“Of course! I’ll go pick them up right now.”

Buck smiled happily, then turned to look at Bobby with big doe-eyes. “Dad, I’m tired.”

“Go back to sleep, baby,” Bobby instructed softly as he stroked Buck’s hair and gave him a kiss on the temple, “we’ll all be here when you wake up, okay?”

“Hmm, okay,” Buck burrowed down into the blankets and curled up next to Bobby, who wrapped an arm around Buck and pulled him in closer.

Athena blinked back more tears. She opened the door to her patrol car, gave a quick wave goodbye to Hen, and climbed inside. “I-I gotta go now, baby, but we’ll all see you soon, okay? I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Momma,” Buck said sleepily. Athena blew both her boys a kiss and after saying goodbye, the call ended. She tossed her phone onto the seat next to her, radioed dispatch letting them know she had a family emergency, and tore out of the fire station parking lot. 

Her heart was racing in her chest. She flipped on the lights and sirens. 

LA traffic could go screw itself. Her baby needed her, and Momma was on her way.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five - In Case You Don’t Live Forever, Let Me Tell You Now…

Eddie was having the third worst day of his life. 

The first worst day was the day of the tsunami, the day he found his son at the VA field hospital without Buck. That day is the worst because it’s the day that half of his heart got ripped away from him. The second worst day was just three days ago, when he had to listen to his son wail and cry out for the one person who couldn’t be there whilst Eddie sat outside listening to Christopher’s heartbreak. 

Today was the third worst for a lot of reasons. It was Wednesday and Eddie had let Christopher have the previous two days off school because he was still sad. However, he had to go back to school today because Eddie had therapy and both Carla and Abuela were busy. Christopher kicked up a fuss, as Eddie had expected him to, but a morning cuddle and cry on the couch had them both feeling a little bit better, enough that Christopher got dressed for school.

After dropping Christopher off at school, Eddie went back to his search. He had been chasing down leads for days after his Instagram post about Buck leg to phone call after phone call and message after message. None of them turned up anything useful, every single time Eddie got his hopes up, they were ripped from him again. Today was no different. Today Eddie drove to meet someone who said they thought they saw Buck just a few days ago, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Another false alarm. His heart panged painfully in his chest when the lead turned out to be a dead end, and he climbed back into his truck and drove to his therapy appointment with Frank. 

Therapy had been good for him, despite his initial resistance to the idea. Eddie had the idea that he had to be the strong one all the time drilled into his head for so long that he thought therapy was pointless, until he went and Frank was able to tear him apart at the seams by the third appointment. Anger issues, abandonment issues, his self-worth being tied to how much he provides for people, internalised homophobia, internalised ableism - that one, Eddie was still working through, but he had slowly some to terms with the idea that maybe an assessment for Autism wasn’t a bad thing - and there was probably more. Frank helped Eddie to work through every one of his issues, even if it was an ongoing thing, but there was one thing that Eddie still wasn’t prepared to address. 

It had been a year. 

Buck had been missing for a year. 

“I’m not suggesting you move on from Buck,” Frank said to him in their session when Eddie brought up the anniversary of Buck’s disappearance, “I’m suggesting you move forward. Buck will always be an important part of your life, and that’s okay, but allowing yourself to cling to the hope of something you know is unlikely is only going to hurt you and Christopher in the long run.” 

Eddie knew that what Frank was saying was right. Logically he knew it. But his heart didn’t want to accept it. His heart didn’t want to accept that Buck was gone, because it meant accepting that he had lost someone else who he cared about. First Shannon and now Buck, it was too much. 

But he understood. He understood. 

Eddie left Frank’s office with bloodshot eyes and tear tracks tainting his cheeks. He gave the receptionist a polite smile and ducked into the bathroom in the waiting room. He gripped a hold of the sink so tightly his knuckles turned white, head bowed as he let out a shuddering gasp, hunched over the basin. Most of his therapy sessions ended this way, with Eddie feeling like he had been hit in the face with a brick by his emotions, but he splashed some water on his face and took a few deep, steadying breaths. 

He hated feeling like this. He hated feeling like he had been dragged through fire and hated feeling so raw after every session, but Frank was doing a world of good and Eddie knew that deep down. He just hated how it made him feel. Hated how he felt collapsing and curling up on the floor after every session. However, he would save the breakdown for when Christopher was in bed later. 

Frank was right. It had been a year. He knew he was clinging to the last threads of hope that buck would just miraculously turn up completely fine and he knew that it wasn’t healthy, but letting go of hope meant letting go of Buck. It meant moving forwards and that led to moving on, and Eddie feared that moving on would mean forgetting. He didn’t want to forget Buck. He didn’t want to forget how monumental Buck has been in making Eddie the man he is today. He just couldn’t do it. 

But Frank was right. It was only going to hurt himself and Christopher in the long run. When the inevitable happened - and God, that made Eddie want to cry even more - and Buck was found, accepting that he was gone would hit even harder if he was still holding on. 

Eddie bit his lip. He sighed, sucked in a deep breath, and once he was certain he looked decent, he left the bathroom and reached into his pocket for his phone. He needed to talk to someone, anyone. Like he did for all his therapy sessions, Eddie has switched his phone on silent aside from a few select numbers for emergency reasons, like Christopher’s school. However, he found himself pausing in the middle of the waiting room as he found himself with seven missed calls from Athena and five from Maddie, as well as a voicemail and a series of texts. 

Eddie pressed play on the voicemail. Athena’s voice played out, her words shaky as though she had been crying.

“Eddie, it’s Athena, I’m on my way to pick you up. I’ve got Maddie with me too.” There was a shuddering breath. “It’s Buck. We’ve found him. Call me when you get this.”

Eddie nearly dropped his phone. 

They found Buck?

They found him?

Why was Athena crying?

…No… No, no, no. 

As he dialled Athena’s number, Eddie ran out of the waiting room and to the stairwell, more tears blurring his vision. No. No, this couldn’t be happening. No. Eddie took the stares two at a time and barrelled through the doors. His phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing and all the while he ran his heart was breaking all over again. 

They found Buck. 

Eddie’s phone had just connected through to Athena as he burst through the front doors of the building and out into the parking lot, where he found Athena and Maddie waiting next to Athena’s patrol car. Maddie was pacing back and forth, arms wrapped around her chest, eyes red and puffy. Athena had her thumb looped through her belt and her phone to her ear, but she too had red eyes. She noticed Eddie at the doors and gently tapped Maddie’s arm to get her attention, nodding Eddie’s way. 

Eddie faltered. His face crumpled and his knees went weak. He dropped his hand from his ear, phone in a death grip in his hands and just shook his head. “No…” he whispered, stumbling towards the two women. “No, no, please-”

“No no no,” Maddie interrupted, grabbing a hold of Eddie’s arms tightly, “no, Eddie, he’s alive. Evan’s alive!”

…Alive?

Eddie hadn’t realised he had zoned out until Maddie waved a hand in front of his face. It was only then that Eddie realised she was crying, just like he was, but she was smiling so brightly like he hadn’t seen in months. Her smile was so bright it rivalled the sun, and Eddie couldn’t help but return it. 

A small part of him, that nagging voice in the back of his head, was telling him not to get his hopes up, but that voice was being mostly drowned out by the racing of Eddie’s heart and screaming in his mind that was just cheering in delight. I knew he wasn’t gone! The voice cried, sounding an awful lot like Christopher, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!

Eddie happily accepted the hug Maddie gave him, burying his face in her hair for a moment before looking over her shoulder at Athena, who was smiling just as brightly. “Our boy is in Long Beach,” she said, “Bobby’s with him now and the others are gonna meet us there.” Without another word she opened the driver’s door. Eddie and Maddie pulled apart, but only enough so they could join Athena in the car. Without hesitation, Eddie got in the back with Maddie, who shuffled up as close as possible to him. 

In moments, Athena was pulling out of the parking lot and they were driving to Long Beach, sirens blaring. Eddie ignored them, and the world outside. Buck was alive. He was alive! They found him! Everything Eddie had been hoping for for twelve months, everything he had yearned for, it happened. They found Buck. The how was irrelevant, at least in that moment in the back of the police cruiser, all that mattered was that Eddie was on his way to see Buck and he honestly felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest if his pulse got any faster. 

A hand touched his own and Eddie looked down at the space between him and Maddie to find Maddie lacing her fingers in his own. He squeezed tightly, reassuring and comforting for the both of them as they shared a smile. 

Buck was alive. 

They were on their way. 

Athena had only just parked the car by the time Eddie and Maddie were climbing out and running towards the entrance of Long Beach Memorial Hospital. They briefly stopped to ask the receptionist which floor the Inpatients ward was on and hurried - not ran, thank you very much. They were in a hospital and knew better than that - up a floor until they came across directions to the correct ward. It was only Athena grabbing Eddie and Maddie by the arms and pulling them back that stopped the two of them from bursting through the doors like madmen, a stern look reminding them that there were patients recovering through those doors and they needed to be respectful, so together the three first responders opened the doors and stepped into the waiting room. 

Bobby, Hen and Chimney were standing not a few paces away. Eddie caught the tail end of their conversation, of Chimney saying that he “called the chief. Once he heard it was Buck, he called for reinforcements and let us leave immediately. Ravi and Lucy are keeping us updated at the moment.” When the three firefighters spotted the three new arrivals, there were hugs in greeting all around. 

“Where is he?” Eddie asked immediately. Bobby clapped his shoulder. 

“Room 221,” was Bobby’s reply, gently steering Eddie towards the doors that led them out of the waiting room and down the ward. “He fell asleep about an hour ago. Even being awake for a short amount of time exhausts him at the moment but he’s doing okay and he’s really excited to see us all.”

It was less than a minute before Eddie was being pulled back again, this time by Bobby who turned both Eddie and Maddie’s attention to him. “Before you go in there,” the captain began, “I just wanna warn you that he’s lost a lot of weight and muscle mass. He’s very weak physically and has some muscle atrophy, and his voice still sounds a little hoarse from disuse, but he has no injuries and he’s perfectly okay.” 

Bobby’s words made worry bubble up inside Eddie. All throughout the ride to the hospital, Eddie had wondered how this all happened as it did. How did Buck end up in a hospital in Long Beach a year after he disappeared? As much as he wanted answers, he wanted to see Buck more, so he nodded in understanding and let Bobby open the door to room 221. He poked his head around the frame, his face visibly softened, and he beckoned everyone inside. 

Maddie’s hand found its way back to Eddie’s. He squeezed tightly, gave her a smile, and took the first step into the room. 

He nearly collapsed right there and then. 

Instead, Eddie took the three strides it took to get to Buck’s bedside and took Buck’s hand in his own. He did a quick once over, his medic training taking over for just a moment as he took note of Buck’s body and any injuries present, but just as Bobby had said, there wasn’t any. The long pink scar on Buck’s right arm was concerning, but there was nothing else. Bobby was also right about Buck having lost weight and muscle mass. His hair was longer, he had a beard that Eddie would admit looked amazing on him even if it needed a bit of a trim. More importantly, he looked peaceful. He was asleep, lightly snoring underneath itchy hospital blankets, as opposed to mechanically breathing with help from a machine. The top part of the bed was up so Buck was sitting more upright as opposed to lying down, his head tilted to the side as he slept soundly.

Maddie, who had taken up the other side of the bed to Eddie, started to cry as she pressed kisses to Buck’s hair. Chimney was at her side with a hand on the small of her back, and the touch was enough to get Maddie to turn around and bury her face in Chimney’s chest as she cried and babbled that “he’s alive! He’s alive, Howie, he’s alive!” Chimney couldn’t take his eyes off of Buck, even as he was comforting Maddie. Athena was clinging to Bobby, standing just off to the side but not too far away, giving the rest of them time to be close to Buck before she swooped in to fuss over the sleeping man. Hen was at the foot of the bed with the clipboard of all Buck’s charts in her hands, thoroughly checking it over as she perched herself next to Buck’s feet, one hand on his ankle. 

Eddie collapsed into the chair next to the bed, the one with Bobby’s coat draped over the back. Buck was alive. He was alive and he was right there . Eddie was holding his hand . 

Eddie wanted to kiss him so badly. 

However, as Buck slept, Eddie took what he could get. He brought Buck’s hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss to the knuckles, eyes never leaving Buck once even as he asked Bobby “How?”

“Debris carried him down the coast,” Bobby explained to them all, “the coastguard apparently found him and brought him here. He had a TBI and an infected cut on his arm so the doctors put him into a medically induced coma to let him heal, but when they tried to bring him out of the coma, he just wouldn’t wake. Until three days ago. He woke up, scared the crap out of some nurses, and was then in and out of consciousness until this morning when they were able to confirm his ID and call me.”

“So, at the firehouse, when you left? That was to come here?” Hen asked, and Bobby nodded. 

“I am so happy I did. I nearly didn’t. I told myself this was the last lead and I-I-” Athena pulled Bobby into a tight hug, 

All this time, Buck had only been an hour away. He had been alone for a whole year, no one by his bedside because no one knew where he was. Could he hear anything? Did he wonder where his family was? Did he think they abandoned him, that they didn’t care? No, no, they did care! They did care, they just didn’t know where he was! Eddie felt himself starting to tear up again. He brought Buck’s hand back up to his lips and just held it there, squeezing his eyes shut tightly, willing the tears to go away because how could he be crying when the love of his life was right there, right there, right there in front of him. 

The weight that had been crushing Eddie for the past year finally felt like it was being lifted from his shoulders. Finally, after a whole year, Eddie felt like he could breathe properly. Christopher was going to be ecstatic when he found out! He needed to call Carla, ask her to bring Christopher to the hospital, but he didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to leave Buck’s side lest he wake from the dream he was in and find himself back home, alone, Buck still missing. He didn’t want to do anything that could shatter this. He just wanted Buck. 

On the bed, Buck shifted. He moved his head from one side to the other and the movement made Eddie’s breath hitch. Buck’s eyes slowly blinked open. Eddie watched as the Buck’s eyes cleared with each blink and when he finally saw Eddie, a smile broke out on his lips. “Hey,” Buck breathed out. 

Eddie leaned in instantly, pausing momentarily just inches away from Buck with his hands outstretched, before he leaned in and kissed Buck with everything he had, hands framing Buck’s face, a year's worth of love and emotion and feeling pressed into a single action. 

For a moment, Buck didn’t react. He didn’t move, he didn’t do anything. But just as Eddie was about to pull away and apologise with a shattered heart, Buck deepened the kiss and an arm wrapped itself around Eddie’s back loosely. Eddie couldn’t stop himself from smiling when they finally broke for air. He laughed, so did Buck, and Eddie dove back in for another, even more passionate kiss. 

“I love you,” Eddie said when he reluctantly pulled away. Buck’s eyes went wide and Eddie just peppered kisses all over Buck’s face, repeating “I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over and over again between each kiss. Eventually he just rested their foreheads together, their breaths mingling. 

“I love you too,” Buck told him, his voice still hoarse from sleep. 

Eddie laughed again. His laughs turned into sobs and he collapsed on Buck’s chest, hands gripping the hospital gown tightly in his fists. He felt Buck wrap his arms around him as best as he could but the touch was light, barely there, reminding Eddie of how weak Buck must be feeling after a whole year in a coma. Eddie just held on tighter. 

“I thought I lost you, Evan,” he gasped, “I-I thought I was too late, t-that I’d never get to tell you- Buck I-'” he choked back a sob and sat up a bit so he could look Buck in the eyes, hands slowly finding their way back to cup Buck’s cheeks, “ aye cariño! Te amo mucho, eres la luz de mi vida, mi sol, la otra mitad de mi corazón, te amo y quiero casarme contigo, te amo, te amo! ” Eddie continued to babble in Spanish as he buried his face in the crook of Buck’s neck. 

A hand made its way underneath Eddie’s chin, and with clumsy movements, Buck tilted Eddie’s head up and captured his lips in another kiss, not as passionate but still as heartfelt and strong. Well, as strong as Buck could physically manage given his current condition. 

It was perfect. 

Buck was perfect. 

Buck was alive . 

And Eddie was never, ever going to let him go.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six - And We Will Come Back Home, Home Again

Eventually they pulled apart. Eventually, Eddie moved off of Buck’s chest and took a hold of his hand again, pressing yet another kiss to his knuckles. It was here, in between the fond smiles Buck was sending Eddie’s way, that someone cleared their throat and made the two of them jump. Eddie, so focused on Buck, had completely forgotten that other people were in the room and they were both suddenly faced with the knowing looks and smirks from the others. “You got that on camera, right?” Chimney asked Hen, who was typing away on her phone and who just nodded with the biggest grin on her face. 

Eddie felt his phone go off in his pocket at the same time as everyone else’s. She posted it to the group chat. 

Eddie couldn’t even bring himself to be annoyed, he was just so freaking happy. 

Buck turned his full attention to the others as they all began to fuss over him. Hen and Chimney immediately did their own assessment, hands inspecting every inch of Buck that they could see, asking him how he was feeling. Only once they were satisfied did they each give Buck a hug, and a kiss on the temple in Hen’s case. Maddie threw her arms around her brother the second the two paramedics stepped aside, clinging onto Buck and crying just as much as Eddie had been even as Buck comforted his sister. 

Maddie was reluctant to let go of Buck but she did eventually, just enough to make space so Athena could approach and cup Buck’s face in her hands. “Hi, Momma,” Buck said with a smile. Athena pressed a kiss to Buck’s forehead. 

“Hi, Baby, I’ve missed you so much,” Athena cooed, hand stroking Buck’s hair. He leaned into the touch. 

“Wow, you guys really missed me, huh?” Buck joked, but the room immediately grew serious. The happy smiles everyone had turned to pain and Eddie squeezed Buck’s hand even tighter. 

“Don’t even joke about that,” Athena scolded lightly but with all the love and care of a mother to her child in her voice, “things have not been the same without you. You’re the glue that holds us all together, and without you we crashed and burned.”

Buck looked as though he was about to cry at Athena’s words. “I.. I-I’m sorry-” 

“No no no, Evan,” Eddie was quick to jump in, “you’ve got nothing to apologise for, it’s okay! You needed to heal, and that’s okay, it’s not your fault.”

“B-But it was a whole year! A-and th-the pier and the t-tsunami and-” the heart rate monitor Buck was connected to started to beat rapidly as his pulse skyrocketed and his breathing hitched. In an instant, Eddie was off the chair and sitting on the edge of the bed, hands either side of Buck’s neck in a firm but gentle touch as he eased Buck into calming down, leading Buck through some slow, soothing breaths. Behind them, Bobby had corralled the others to the other side of the room where they all watched with worried eyes, all of them wanting to be next to Buck and provide him with comfort but no one wanting to overcrowd and overwhelm him. 

The day had been a roller coaster of emotions for everyone. A little freak out was to be expected, even more so for Buck. 

Eventually, the heart rate monitor slowed back down again as Buck leaned into Eddie’s embrace. They sat there for a little while, Eddie’s arms wrapped protectively around Buck as he stroked a hand through the younger man’s long curls, gently swaying from side to side whilst whispering sweet nothings into Buck’s ear. 

The idea of losing a whole year of your life wasn’t something Eddie - or really, anyone in the world - could really comprehend. Waking up suddenly to find out that you’ve lost so much time, it sounded terrifying. For Buck, one minute he was panicking over Christopher having fallen off the firetruck they were taking refuge on, and the next minute he was waking up in a hospital room twenty-five miles away, a whole year later, alone and confused and most likely afraid. He didn’t know where he was or what was happening, he just knew that Christopher wasn’t there. 

Eddie had freaked out when he found Christopher at the VA hospital. He hadn’t even known his son was in danger. He couldn’t imagine what Buck must have been feeling. 

Three sharp knocks sounded on the door. It opened and a doctor poker her head into the room. “Well, look who’s looking better!” she said with a bright smile as she entered the room, nodding in greeting to the others in the room with Buck. 

“Dr. Goodwin!” Buck greeted with a tired smile, “I’m feeling much better now,” his hand tightened around Eddie’s as much as he was physically able to and the man couldn’t help but press a kiss to Buck’s hair. “Still taking time out of your day to come visit me?”

“Hey, you may not be an ICU patient anymore but you’re still my patient,” Dr. Goodwin picked up Buck’s chart from the end of the bed and started looking it over. 

“Hey, how’s your twins? You find out the gender of the second baby?” Buck asked the doctor. Dr. Goodwin paused where she was looking over Buck’s chart, turning to look at Buck with a quizzical frown. 

“I… never told you about my twins?”

“Ah, uh, y-you did,” Buck corrected, “when I was… asleep. You’d talk about your twins debating names for if the second baby ended up being a boy or a girl. Didn’t your wife want another girl?”

“...Yeah, she did. You could hear me?” Dr. Goodwin asked, expression turning to surprise. 

“Yeah, I heard a lot,” Buck shrugged, “honestly, you and the nurses always talking to me and the fact that I didn’t know whether Christopher was okay is probably the only reason I managed to wake up.”

The hearts of everyone in the room panged painfully. That was just a heartbreaking thought; Buck could hear what was going on around him all the time he was asleep, and none of them were there with him. 

Panic returned to Buck’s face and his eyes widened. “Christopher!” he gasped, turning to Eddie, “w-where is he-”

“Hey,” Eddie stroked Buck’s hair again, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, “Chris is fine, Carla should be picking him up from school about now.” Christopher was going to be over the moon when he found out Buck was okay, “you want me to go call them, have them come here?” 

Buck nodded. 

“Well, whilst your husband is doing that, someone from therapy’s gonna come and check you over, and if you’re feeling better than this morning, we'll see about getting you in shower with some help from one of the techs before your son arrives, how's that sound?" Dr. Goodwin asked, and Buck nodded again. The doctor turned to the others in the room. “One of you can stay, but everyone else will have to step outside for a minute, please.”

Everyone agreed that Maddie should stay, so the others all hugged Buck quickly before they left the room. Eddie stayed a little longer, if only to kiss Buck again and promise that he was going to be right back as soon as he called Carla. He didn’t want to go anywhere but he also didn’t want to get in the way of the doctors as they checked Buck over. Eddie wanted to get Buck out of the hospital as soon as possible but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Buck could barely stay awake, let alone sit upright. His hands were another matter. Buck’s fingers twitched and moved stiffly, like Christopher’s did after he just woke up or when he was extremely tired. Buck was going to need twenty-four/seven home care for a while, and Eddie was more than happy to provide it. 

Bobby, Athena, Hen and Chimney all went back to the waiting room, but Eddie left the hospital to call Carla. Once he was outside, Eddie found a bench and let his head fall into his hands. His heart was racing and his mind reeling, everything just all hitting him at once like the fresh air of Long Beach as he left the hospital. Buck was alive. He was alive, and he was okay, and he was missing Christopher, and-

Eddie reached for his phone and hit Carla’s name in his contacts. He put the phone up to his ear and listened to it ring, the line eventually being picked up as Carla’s voice greeted his ear. 

“ Hi, Eddie, you okay? We just got home from school pick up.” Carla said. In the background, Eddie could hear Christopher giggling. 

“Hey, Carla,” Eddie said shakily, “can you put me on speaker? I need to talk to you both.” 

“Sure, honey,” there was a bit of shuffling and soon Christopher’s cheery voice rang out like music to Eddie’s ears. 

“Hi, Dad!” Christopher called out, “are you on your way home? Carla’s gonna make mac and cheese!”

“Hey, buddy,” Eddie said with a smile, “Uh, n-no, I’m not on my way home. Hey- I’ve got something I need to tell you, something super big and important.”

“Is it a good thing?” Christopher asked. 

“Yes, mijo , it’s a really, really good thing.” 

“What is it?”  

Eddie drew in a deep breath. “It’s about Papa.”

“Did you find him?!” Christopher’s excited shout, with the ups and downs Eddie had gone through in the space of just a few hours, hit Eddie like a truck and he broke out into a crazy grin. 

“Yes, mijo!” he said, “we found him!”

“I knew you’d find him, Daddy!” Oh, how Christopher’s words made Eddie’s heart swell. Christopher hadn’t sounded so happy in months, maybe since even before Buck went missing. “Where is he?”

“Uh, P-Papa’s in the hospital at the moment- He’s fine!” Eddie rushed to assure his son and Carla, “he’s okay, he’s been in the hospital all year which was why we couldn’t find him. But he’s awake and he’s asking for you.”

“Can we come see him now?” Christopher asked. Eddie nodded, then remembered neither could see him. 

“Of course! I’m gonna text Carla the hospital address and room number. Do you think you could pack a bag for Papa with some clothes and things to make him comfortable?” 

“Yes! I’m gonna go do that now!” There was a scraping of a chair and Christopher’s voice disappeared as he ran out of the room, leaving just Eddie and Carla on the phone. Butterflies awoke in Eddie’s stomach. Carla hadn’t said anything yet. 

“Carla?”

“Just give me a minute, honey, this is a lot,” Carla said, voice choking up with emotions. Eddie stayed silent until Carla spoke again. “...He’s okay?”

“He’s okay?” he confirmed.

“Oh thank God,” she gasped. “We’ll be there right away, honey, you hang tight. You need me to bring you anything?”

“Uh… n-no, I’m good.”

They weren’t on the phone for much longer. Christopher called out to Carla for help packing a bag and Carla hung up to go assist, leaving Eddie sitting outside on the bench by himself. 

Soon. Christopher and Carla would be there soon. His family was going to be reunited after so long. 

By the time Carla and Christopher arrived, Buck had been seen by his doctor and the physiotherapist who helped Buck to carefully get to his feet. He wasn’t strong enough to stand for very long nor could he take a step, but he was sitting upright and could lift his arms, and that seemed to be enough for the doctors to allow him to take a shower with assistance from the technicians. When they were all finally let back into Buck’s hospital room, he was looking a lot more like himself and Maddie was towel-drying his curls, much to Buck’s distress because “you’ll damage the curls, Mads, stop it!” Everyone laughed wholeheartedly and Buck was smiling too, and that was all everyone had hoped to see for a long, long time. 

Nobody had planned on going anywhere, but it was getting late and not only did they have shifts the next day, they also had kids to get home to. Hen and Chimney, though reluctant to do so, said their goodbyes and headed home for the evening. Athena called Michael and explained everything, and he was more than happy to have Harry and May for the night. The three of them planned on video calling later once Michael had told the kids what was going on. 

Bobby and Athena went to find something to eat, leaving just Maddie, Eddie and Buck in the hospital room. Maddie was still fussing over her brother whereas Eddie just kissed Buck’s cheek and temple as much as he could. Buck just kept leaning into his touch and Eddie just felt elated each time he did. He still expected Buck to just disappear at any moment, like he would wake up from whatever dream this was and Buck would be gone forever again, but he paid those thoughts no mind. He just savoured having the love of his life in his arms. They had yet to talk about them, about what all this meant for each other, but all that could come later.

Eddie’s phone pinged. Carla had just parked the car. Eddie slipped out of the bed and kissed Buck’s birthmark, noticing how Buck’s smile turned to a worried frown. “W-where are you going?” Buck asked.. 

“Carla and Chris are here,” Eddie told him, and suddenly the smile was back and even bigger than before. Eddie kissed Buck again, this time a short but sweet kiss on the lips, and stepped out of the room. 

The familiar sound of crutches caught Eddie’s attention and he looked up just in time to see Christopher hurrying his way, Carla following close behind with a bag sling over her shoulder. “Daddy!” Christopher called out, and Eddie knelt down to greet his son. “Can we see him? Can we see him?”

“In a minute, buddy, I need to talk to you first,” Eddie said, putting an arm out to stop Christopher from running around him and into the hospital room. Christopher didn’t seem happy by this at all, but he waited as Eddie took a deep breath. 

“Mijo, Papa’s been in the hospital for the past year,” he began slowly, “he was asleep for a long time.”

“Like how he was sleeping after he hurt his leg?” Christopher asked, his voice so quiet that Eddie nearly missed it. 

“Yeah, like after he hurt his leg,” he confirmed, reaching out to place his hand on Christopher’s arm, “now, because he was asleep for so long, he’s feeling really achy, like you do when you first wake up before you do your stretches. He gets tired really quickly so he might not be able to stay awake for very long. So, when we go inside, you can hug him but you’ve gotta be really careful, understand?”

“I understand!” Christopher chirped, and he made to move around Eddie but was stopped again.

“Not so fast, buddy,” Eddie said, pulling his son’s attention back to him. “This next bit is really important, okay?” Christopher nodded, and Eddie felt himself falter for a moment. “... Chris… uh…” There was no easy way to explain, especially not to a nine-year-old, “buddy, for us, the tsunami was a year ago, right? But for Papa, because he was asleep for so long, his brain is a bit muddled and for him the tsunami was just a few days ago.” Christopher’s brow furrowed, but Eddie pushed on. “The last thing Papa remembers was when you fell off the firetruck, so he’s still really worried about you. So, when we go and see him, you’ve gotta remember that he’s still a little bit confused, and that’s okay, we’ve just gotta help him to understand things. Got it?”

“Got it!”

Eddie had no idea what he did to deserve such an amazing son. He stood back up again, pressing a kiss to his son’s curls and placing his hand on Christopher’s back before he knocked on the door and slowly turned the handle. Eddie stepped inside first; he found Buck and Maddie watched him intently, Buck’s eyes wide and his hand squeezing Maddie’s tightly. Eddie moved aside so that Christopher and Carla could enter the room too. 

The second Christopher rounded the door, he abandoned his crutches. “PAPA!” he screamed and ran as fast as he physically could to the bed. 

“Christopher!” Buck gasped, forcing himself upright as much as possible as he reached for Christopher. Eddie hurried forwards and scooped his son into his arms, depositing the boy on the bed where Maddie had helped her brother to sit up properly. Immediately, Christopher threw his arms around Buck and burrowed into his chest, crying his heart out.

“Are you okay?” Buck asked him, pulling back enough so he could inspect every inch of Christopher’s body, “you’re not hurt, are you? You’re not cold o-or scared or-”

“No, Papa,” Christopher said gently, “I’m fine now. Daddy made sure of that.”

Buck’s head snapped to Eddie, tears gathering in his eyes. “‘Papa’?” He asked. 

Eddie’s heart melted. He retook his seat next to Buck on the bed, leg dangling off the edge, wrapping an arm around Buck’s shoulders as he kissed Buck’s temple. “You’ve always been his papa, Evan,” he said softly. 

That was all Buck needed. He peppered kisses all over Christopher’s face, the young boy’s giggles echoing throughout the room. Buck, though his arms were still heavy and sore and his fingers still clumsy, hugged Christopher as tightly as he physically could. “Oh, thank God you’re okay! You’re okay! I’m so sorry I lost you!” 

“Papa!” Christopher cried, “you saved me!”

“But I-”

“That’s how he remembers it,” Eddie interrupted, getting Buck’s attention as Christopher burrowed deeper into his papa’s embrace, “you saved him, Evan.” 

“Daddy said your brain is a little bit muddled because you were asleep for so long,” Christopher spoke, and the two men turned their focus to their son, “that you missed a lot, but it’s okay, we’ll help fill you in on everything.” He reached a hand up, gently cupping Buck’s tear-stained cheek. “You’re gonna be okay, kid.”

And the dam broke. Buck sobbed heavily and curled up as best he could on the bed, Christopher tucked into his chest, Eddie’s arms wrapped around them both. Eddie buried his face in Buck’s still-damp curls and briefly closed his eyes, just letting himself enjoy the moment with the two boys he moved more than anyone else in the world. When he opened his eyes again, he found Carla and Maddie at the foot of the bed, phones in their hands. Carla seemed to be recording, Maddie was snapping photos, and Eddie didn’t have the heart to care. 

“I love you, Papa,” Christopher said. 

“I love you too, baby,” Buck replied, kissing Christopher’s forehead, “so, so much.” 

Christopher refused to move from Buck’s side for the rest of the evening. Athena and Bobby returned from their food hunt with snacks and coffee, and there were more tears from Buck when Christopher called Athena “Nanna”. Christopher talked and talked and talked to Buck, telling him everything that had happened over the past year, about his friends and his school and really anything that came to his mind, and Buck just listened to it all. Not once did his attention stray far from the little boy in his arms, even when others were talking. 

The hour started to get later and later, and the excitement of the day quickly caught up to everyone. Christopher started dozing in Buck’s arms and Buck was barely keeping his eyes open either. Carla, Bobby, and Maddie all offered to have Christopher overnight so Eddie could stay in the hospital with Buck, but Eddie wasn’t ready to let either of his boys out of his sight. 

Carla knew this, of course she did, so when she packed a bag for Buck, she also packed a change of clothes for Eddie and Christopher too. 

The others didn’t stay for much longer. Carla said she would check in on the boys tomorrow and left for home. Athena was Maddie’s ride home so they left not long after, but not before they were promised they would be kept in the loop and both women gave Buck a hug and a kiss goodbye. Bobby stayed a bit longer; he was reluctant to leave Buck alone and Eddie understood the feeling all too well. They’d only just gotten him back, no one wanted to let Buck out of their sights any time soon. 

Eddie gently shook Buck from his dozing so he could get him into something more comfortable than a hospital gown. Bobby gently took Christopher from Buck’s arms and the boy just curled up on Bobby’s lap as they took a seat on the couch nearby, gently muttering to one another. Once Buck was a bit more awake he let Eddie help him upright, not fighting when Eddie basically man-handled him into some sweats and his old LAFD hoodie. The hoodie might have once been Buck’s, but Eddie had worn it so much after losing Buck that it had basically become his, even long after the smell of Buck’s shampoo and cologne faded. The way Buck practically snuggled into the hoodie - that he practically drowned in thanks to how much weight he had lost over the year - made Eddie smile despite the pain he felt in his heart. Once Buck was comfortable, Eddie grabbed the blanket Carla had also packed. Bobby carried a now-asleep Christopher back over and laid him down next to Buck, tucked under his papa’s arm, and Eddie tucked them all in. 

In no time, Buck fell asleep too. Eddie slumped in the chair next to the bed and his hand found Buck’s again, and he just watched his boys sleep. 

For a whole year, Eddie had wanted nothing more than to see this exact thing: Buck and Christopher, reunited, curled up together. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a lot to take in. A lot. The whole ordeal kept flashing through Eddie’s mind over and over again; the missed calls from Athena, the ride to the hospital, seeing Buck alive… all of it felt like a dream. Or a dream of a dream. 

A hand landed on Eddie’s shoulder. “It feels surreal, doesn’t it?” Bobby asked. Eddie nodded. “You want me to stay?”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Eddie said, “I-I’ll keep you updated.”

“I’ll take you off the rota for the next few days, at least until we know more,” Bobby told him, wrapping his arm around Eddie’s shoulder to give the man a hug before he moved around the bed and to Buck’s other side. He pressed a kiss to Buck’s curls, carefully stroked Christopher’s hair so as not to wake him, and patted Eddie’s shoulder once more before he too left for home. 

Eddie got up from the chair, but only long enough to dim the lights before he returned to the spot vigil next to the bed. He debated momentarily whether the couch would be a better option - it looked like one of those pull out futon beds some of the long-term patient wards had - but it was on the other side of the room and that was too far away for Eddie’s liking, so in the chair he stayed, preparing to bunker down and sleep right there next to his boys. 

Tomorrow he’d ask about when Buck could go home. He’d find out about the therapies and the rods in Buck’s leg and the blood thinners and all the medical stuff which didn’t matter right now. Tomorrow, Eddie would make plans with Carla and Abuela and the rest of the 118 to get things ready for Buck at home, sorting out the house and moving Buck’s belongings out of Athena’s garage. It was going to be a long recovery, that was no question, but Eddie planned on being there every step of the way. There was gonna be pain, tears, therapy sessions where they’d both end up curled up on the couch wanting nothing more than for everything to just be over, but they’d get through it. Buck had Eddie, he had Carla, he had Maddie, and the 118 all by his side. 

It wasn’t gonna be easy, but then again, nothing in their lives ever was, but Eddie had high hopes. He didn’t care how long it took, he just knew that one day, eventually, Buck was gonna be back on that fire truck with him. But that would come later. That would come tomorrow. Until then, Eddie held tightly to Buck’s hand, got as comfortable in the chair as he could, and went to sleep. 

Buck was finally home.