Chapter Text
Moira was still nowhere to be found. They raced around, putting out the fires and searching as they went, but it was proving fruitless. Buck hadn’t seen any sign of another person in this lab, and neither had Hen or Ravi.
“Eddie,” he spoke into his radio. “How ya doing?”
“We’re almost there,” Eddie responded.
That was something, at least. The search moved on, and Chimney joined them a couple minutes after. Eddie didn’t, and Buck figured he was getting Roz out of the lab.
There was a door, with flames visible through its skinny, rectangular window, and what sounded very much like screaming. Buck tried to get a good look inside, but really couldn’t. And no one responded to their calls.
Because it wasn’t a person screaming, as they found out when they forced the door open with halligans. There was a pipe engulfed in fire, and tanks of whatever they used to make the cryo room a cryo room were venting. The screaming wasn’t screaming, it was the sound a tank made as it was about to explode.
“That doesn’t look good, Cap,” Hen said.
“Fuck,” Buck swore, turning and pushing at her. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he had to get them all out of here.”Move, move, move!”
He herded them back down the short hall they’d come, towards the way they came in. They needed to get clear, they needed to-
“What about Moira?” Ravi had hung back.
“We’ve looked everywhere,” Buck told him. “We are leaving.”
“But she’s still in here!”
“Ravi, I don’t care!” Buck snapped. “I told you to move!”
“You heard him.” Chimney grabbed Ravi by the collar and tugged him forward. “Let’s go!”
They raced for the lab exit, but they didn’t move fast enough.
Buck felt the explosion before he heard it, the force of it lifting him off his feet and into the air. The last thing he thought, before darkness took him, was that maybe they really were cursed.
“Mi sol?”
Jell-O, Eddie repeated to himself as the silence over the radio continued unbroken. He was Jell-O, he was Jell-O, he was Jell-O.
“Dispatch, there’s been an explosion and I am cut off from my team.” Eddie pressed his forehead against the window, and stared into the destroyed lab. He slammed his helmet into the glass, and it didn’t even make a pleasing sound. “A security wall came down. I need another way through.”
“No,” Maddie said, and the word had Eddie curling his lip. “If the security wall was triggered, I’m not sure anyone’s getting out of that room.”
“Maddie, you’re not understanding me.” He will not snap at his sister-in-law, he will not snap at his sister-in-law, he will not snap at his sister-in-law. “I ask you for another way through, you give me another way through. That is how this works.”
“The automatic lockdown seals everything. It’s part of their safety protocols.”
“Fuck the protocols!” And he snapped at his sister-in-law. “There’s gotta be something on the truck that’ll get me in.”
He pushed off the window and started marching for the exit.
“No, Eddie-”
“I am getting back in there!” And he was getting Buck out.
“We will get them out!” Maddie said. “But we can’t risk injuring yourself. Or them! I have someone on scene who’s gonna help us.”
Eddie paused.
“Who?”
When Athena first heard what happened - an explosion at a research lab, the 118 trapped - her immediate reaction was to be thankful that Bobby was across the city from it. She was not sure if she could handle it, if he was trapped in there with the rest of them. She was already a mess of worry and fear as it was.
And anger.
“What do you mean you can’t open it?” she demanded, hounding the steps of the lab’s director through the command tent that had been set up.
“I mean that it’s just not possible right now,” Dr. Banting said.
“Then make it possible. You run this place, don’t you?”
“Yes, which means my first priority is keeping people safe,” he said. “Do you have any idea what’s on the other side of that door?”
“A bunch of people who are very dear to me.”
“Then maybe I should be dealing with someone else,” he said, doing his best to dismiss her as he headed outside.
Athena felt her temper flare.
“You are dealing with me,” she snapped as she stormed after him. “Now how do we get to them?”
He stopped walking and turned to face her.
“Sergeant, you have to understand.” Banting didn’t even look regretful as he spoke. “There is a very dangerous virus down there which may have been aerosolized in the explosion. If we raise the door right now, we risk releasing it on the public.”
Athena was distracted momentarily by the sight of LAFD turnouts on the walkway above, swarmed by blue hazmats. It was Eddie, of all people, who should not have been there at all. He was supposed to be at paramedic school or whatever.
He glanced down at her briefly as he marched towards decon. His face was a mask of stone, but there was anger seeping through the cracks. Which meant that he was as worried as she was, if not more.
“So what can we do?” she demanded of Banting, who’d tried to use the moment to run away.
“We just have to wait,” was his unsatisfying answer. “Until the filtration system can recycle all of the air in the lab.”
“And how long is that gonna take?”
“Well. Maybe a day,” he said. “Maybe a little longer.”
Yeah, no. That was not an acceptable time frame. Athena just had to figure out how to shorten it.
Consciousness returned to Buck slowly. Feeling first, the all encompassing ache of his body from being tossed like a ragdoll. Sound next, the drone of the alarms and the creaking of metal and someone’s voice, though he couldn’t quite parse the words yet. Sight came after, and he blinked his eyes until his blurry vision came into focus and he saw the utter devastation of the lab.
“...please respond. One Eighteen, do you copy?”
Maddie. That was Maddie.
“This is Captain Diaz, One Eighteen,” Buck answered as he pushed himself up and did a mental check of himself. It didn’t feel like anything was broken, but shock and adrenaline did wonders at hiding that.
“Buck.” Maddie seemed to have poured all her relief into his name. “Is everyone okay?”
“There was an explosion in the lab.”
Buck began patting himself down. Nothing sticking out, nothing misaligned, nothing coming back wet. He went to his gear next, doing his best to check for damages with gloved fingers that felt clumsier than usual.
“We’re aware. Any idea what exploded?”
“A refrigerant. At least it knocked the fire out.” No tears in his turnouts, not cracks in his SCBA mask, no- His fingers froze partway through checking the hose that connected his oxygen tank to the mask. His fingers froze on a hole in the hose. “Um. Um. Stand by for status.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck-
Wait.
Buck held his breath as he patted down the pockets of his turnout coat, looking for- Yes! The roll of duct tape was still there. He yanked it out with trembling hands, fumbling with the end until he could peel it and tear off a piece to wrap around the hose. Then he stuck another piece over it, for good measure, and then a third.
He didn’t find any other holes in the line, so crisis averted. Maybe.
“One Eighteen, sound off!” he ordered as he stood. “Chim?”
“I’m good, Cap!” Chimney called out from somewhere.
“Did Eddie make it out with Roz?”
“Yeah.”
Thank God.
“Hen?” Buck called. “Ravi?”
“Here Cap!” Ravi was at the exit, which was now blocked by a glass wall. “But there’s a little problem. The door’s broken.”
Ravi frantically pressed the button beside it, which was alive with red light. Buck stared at the glass wall, at the security wall, heart heavy and stomach roiling. He might not know for sure what it meant, but he could take a confident guess.
“I don’t think it’s broken, Rav,” Buck said. He could see Roz’s abandoned bubble suit on the other side. “I think it’s sealed.”
“We’re locked in?” His words were laced with the same growing panic that Buck was trying to suppress.
“We’re quarantined.”
(Don’t breathe in. Don’t breathe out. Hold your breath.)
Hen hadn’t responded yet. Buck glanced about for her and opened his mouth to call out once more. But then he saw her limp form several feet away and rushed to her, Ravi right behind him. There were metal shelves on top of her, and she didn’t respond. She didn’t even move when they uncovered her, but at least she was breathing. Shallow, but better than nothing.
“Chim!” Buck called out. “Kinda need you!”
“I’m right here, Buck.”
Wait. Buck had been far too distracted to notice it earlier, but… Why wasn’t Chimney’s voice muffled?
He stood from where he’d been crouched beside Hen and slowly turned, dreading what he would see. It was worse than he feared, Chimney standing there with his face completely uncovered. His helmet wasn’t even anywhere to be seen.
“Chim,” Buck said. “Where the hell is your breather?”
Chimney lifted up his shattered SCBA mask to show them.
“Must have gotten blown off,” he said, dropping it onto the floor.
(Don’t breathe in. Don’t breathe out. Hold your breath.)
Buck felt numb as he grabbed his radio and thumbed the button.
“Dispatch, One Eighteen accounted for. Wilson’s unconscious, and… And Han’s SCBA is compromised.”
“Did you say compromised?” Maddie just about screeched.
“Yeah, but don’t worry. I still have my face,” Chimney joked to her, heading over to Hen. “Alright, let’s get her flat.”
“How about your med kit?” Maddie asked as they worked to turn Hen over. “Do you have it?”
“His and Hen’s,” Buck answered for Chimney.
“Then grab any PPE you can find. And Chim, please, don’t take another breath until you’ve got it on.”
(Don’t breathe in. Don’t breathe out. Hold your breath.)
“Athena!” Eddie called as he took the steps to the ground two at a time.
He spotted the sergeant as he was marched towards decon, arguing with the director. He hadn’t seen Albert or the ambulance, and could only assume the younger Han took Allen on to the hospital. Which was probably for the best.
“Eddie. I thought you were being deconned?”
“I was, now I’m not,” Eddie said, falling into step with her. “Is there any news?”
“Chimney’s mask came off.”
“What?” He stumbled for a step. “How do we know? Do we have eyes on them?”
“Buck told us.” Athena stopped when Eddie did, and took in his obvious relief. “You didn’t know?”
“They took my gear away, I haven’t heard anything,” he told her. “So has Chimney been exposed?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The explosion could have aerosolized the virus, Eddie had realized while he was being decontaminated. Respirators could do it, too, if a CCHF patient was on a ventilator. It wasn’t something he had to be concerned about when he was in Afghanistan, because they didn’t have that kind of equipment on base, so he hadn’t thought of it as a possibility before.
Eddie followed her into the command tent for the hazmat team, the sergeant calling out for Dr. Banting and hurrying over when she spotted him.
“That thing on Sublevel Three,” she said. “Hemorrha- Whatever it’s called.”
“Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.”
“We have a man inside breathing it. How do you tell if he’s been infected?”
“He’d start showing symptoms,” Banting answered. “Fever, of course. Bleeding, confusion, tachycardia. It generally progresses from there.”
“Progresses to what?”
“Death. By organ failure or blood loss, whichever comes first.”
“Stop,” Eddie snapped, clenching his fists. By the man’s tone, it was clear he’d already written Chimney off as a lost cause. “Maybe that’s true in places without proper medical services, but not here. There were two and a half thousand cases in Turkey over a handful of years, and only a hundred and thirty-three deaths. There were forty-one cases in one outbreak, and only a single person died from it.”
The man looked taken aback at Eddie correcting him, and clearly had not been expecting them to actually know this shit. He also looked worried, but that was to be expected in this situation.
“I served in Afghanistan as a medic, I was trained on this,” he said. “And we won’t even know for sure if Chimney’s sick until days from now.”
“How many days?” Athena asked him, instead of the director.
But it wasn’t Eddie who answered.
“Typical incubation for CCHF is three to seven days.” There was an army officer behind them, several other uniformed soldiers filing in and relieving the civilians there of their stations. Old instincts had Eddie standing to attention. “Colonel John Hartman, US Army Infectious Diseases.”
An explosion at a Tier 4 lab would definitely garner their attention. Eddie was just surprised they’d gotten there as fast as they did.
“Colonel, Sergeant Athena Grant, LAPD,” Athena introduced herself, after Banting did. “This is Firefighter Diaz-”
“Formerly Staff Sergeant Diaz,” Eddie added, and the colonel gave him a respectful nod. “It’s my team that’s stuck inside, sir.”
“And we’re here to get them unstuck,” the colonel said.
“How?” Banting asked.
Colonel Hartman explained it to them as they moved from the command tent set up by the lab’s hazmat team to the army’s own. The 118’s trucks had been moved off to the side, and military humvees were parked in clean, precise rows in their place. Up above, on the walkway, army soldiers in tan hazmat suits were moving equipment into place.
“Modular clean room, submicron filters and 6,000 FPM air showers,” the colonel said. “We build it from the isolation unit right to the front door of the lab.”
“So you’re tunneling them out,” Athena summarized.
“We are. And we have biosensors detecting pathogens. The DOD doesn’t mess around with lab leaks.”
“To be clear,” Banting broke in. “There is no leak.”
“No, just a potentially aerosolized, incurable virus.”
“Sir, what’s the ETA?” Eddie asked.
“If my guys beat our record, I’d say about two hours.”
“Athena.” The group came to a halt at the sound of Maddie’s voice from Athena’s radio. “I’m patching you in with the One Eighteen.”
“Go ahead,” Athena said. “I’ve got some good news for them.”
“I wish we had good news for you.”
Eddie’s knees just about buckled with how much relief he felt at the sound of Buck’s voice. Athena had said they’d heard from them directly, that was how they knew about Chimney’s mask. But being told and actually hearing from them himself were two entirely separate things.
“It’s Hen,” Chimney said. “She’s got a collapsed lung.”
“What do you need?” Athena asked.
“An OR,” was Chimney’s response. “If she doesn’t get a chest tube in the next ten minutes, she’s gonna stop breathing.”
Eddie turned to Hartman at the same time as Athena, but the colonel shook his head. His face was grim.
“No one’s that fast,” he said.
According to Athena, it would take two hours for the military to get to them. Then however long it would take for Hen to be decontaminated and cleared, before she could even be taken to an OR. She didn’t have that long.
Which meant Chimney would have to do it himself.
They cleared off one of the tables that was somehow still standing, and then hauled her onto it. It was as gently done as they could manage, and after making sure her SCBA mask was sealed and unmoving.
“What’s next, Chim?” Buck asked.
“I need a spray bottle,” was the answer. “And a cup or some kind of container.”
“It’s a lab,” Ravi said, already rushing off. “I’ll find something!”
“Buck.”
Buck hurried to grab his radio to reply.
“Eddie!?”
“How is she doing?”
“Uh.” Buck had to refocus past how relieved he was to be hearing his husband’s voice right now. “Breathing’s shallow, but still breathing. What about up there? How’s it looking?”
“Army’s starting to build their yellow brick road.” It was Athena that answered, and he tried not to feel disappointed.
“Any idea how long they’re gonna take?” They said two hours, but surely they were trying to go faster than that.
“Mobile Command just went up,” Athena said. “I’ll radio once I find out.”
And then, a moment later,
“We’re right outside, Buck,” Eddie said. “Good luck in there.”
Buck closed his eyes and took a moment, before turning back to the mess with Hen. Chimney was muttering to himself and wiping at his forehead with a bare hand, before shaking his head as if to clear it before going back to digging through his medkit.
“Chim?” Did he look flushed? Sweaty? There wasn’t enough light to tell for certain, maybe it was just Buck’s paranoia. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the paramedic said, and then fumbled to get his phone out when it started ringing. “It’s Maddie.”
“Answer it. What are you looking for? I’ll find it.”
“A scalpel.”
Chimney handed him the kit, and then walked a bit away to answer the call. Buck dug through it, locating a fresh scalpel in its wrapping. Ravi returned from his scavenger hunt just before the call ended.
“Buck.” Why did Chimney sound like that? “You got that scalpel?”
Buck held it up for Chimney to see.
“You should hang onto it.”
“Uh.” Buck cocked his head, not understanding. “Why?”
“Because you’re gonna be using it.”
“I’m- What? No.” Buck shook his head. “You’re the paramedic, this is- this is your stuff. I’m just EMT trained.”
Chimney sighed, the kind of sigh that encompassed the whole body.
“Maddie pointed out,” he said, “that if I’m infected, then I could spread it to Hen when I cut into her. It’s too risky for me to do it.”
“No. No. Chim, you are asking me to do field surgery. To- To stick a tube into her lung. I don’t- Chimney, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what to do here.”
“I’ll walk you through every step,” Chimney promised. “But you have to do it. Okay?”
This was very much not okay. But Buck wasn’t being given very many options, especially once Chimney sequestered himself in the specimens room. Somehow, the glass walls and doors of that room were still intact.
“Alright,” Buck said once he and Ravi got Hen out of her turnout coat and onto her side. “Chimney, what am I doing?”
“Lift up her arm,” he said. Ravi did it, pulling Hen’s arm so it was over her head. “And you’re gonna cut the side of her shirt open.”
Right. Right, of course, Buck knew that.
He grabbed the scissors he’d found in the kit and began to cut, starting from the bottom hem. His hand trembled at the start, and he tried to ignore it. Eddie’s voice coming over the radio again helped calm his nerves a little bit.
“Ninety minutes on the tunnel.”
Buck paused long enough to thumb his radio and respond with,
“Copy. I’m gonna be busy for a bit, babe.” He dropped his hand from the radio and went back to cutting, until there was a long slit in Hen’s shirt up to her armpit. “Chimney, what now?”
“You’re gonna count her ribs. Stop when you feel the space between the fourth and fifth rib.”
“Chim.” Buck tried to keep from snapping at the man. “Counting from the top or the bottom?”
“Top, sorry. I’m not used to doing it like this.”
Buck wasn’t used to doing this at all. He counted ribs until his finger landed in the correct space.
“And now?”
“Sterilize the area with ChloraPrep.”
Done.
“Ravi, take the sterile water from the med kit. Dump it into the beaker.”
Done.
“Buck, take the tube out of the spray bottle Ravi found and sanitize it.”
Done.
“Go for your scalpel. You’re gonna cut between her ribs. Aim for the size of the tube. If it’s too big, we risk exposure.”
“Right, right. Okay.”
Buck took a deep breath (don’t breathe in, don’t breathe out, hold your breath) and brought the scalpel to the spot he’d disinfected. It was shaking, because his hand was shaking. God, he wished Eddie was here. Or Bobby. Either of them would know what they were doing better than he did.
Either of them would be a much better choice for this.
“Buck,” Chimney urged when he was frozen for a bit too long.
“Okay. Okay. Cutting between her ribs. Okay.”
The scalpel was sharp. It didn’t cut through Hen’s skin like a hot knife through butter, it sliced through it like water. Flesh parted as if it was being unzipped, blood pouring out in the blade’s wake. When the incision was the right size, or so Buck hoped, he could not get the scalpel away from himself fast enough.
“Now what?” Buck asked again.
“Now’s the hard part,” Chimney said. “You’re gonna stick your finger in and break through the muscle.”
Stick his finger into- Buck swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. If it was anyone else he was doing it to, if it were a complete stranger, this wouldn’t be as awful. But this wasn’t a complete stranger.
It was Hen.
“How- How far do I…?”
“You’re gonna have to push really hard. Until you’re through.”
Buck put a gloved finger to the incision and closed his eyes as he shoved it in. It was wet, meaty, warm. He felt things tear, and he heard something squelch. It was intimate in a way he never wanted to be with anyone.
“Cap,” Ravi said, sounding worried. “She’s not breathing.”
“I just- I just need to-” Buck twisted and pushed and felt something give, felt his finger breach the other side. “I’m in.”
“Ravi, clamp the tube and hand it to him,” Chimney instructed. “Buck, you’re sticking it inside the incision.”
“How- How far into the incision?” Buck asked.
“As far as your finger went.”
Buck ignored the red covering his finger as he took the clamped tube from Ravi. He fed it into the incision, shoved it in, until he thought it reached far enough. The next step was to secure it with the silk tape, until it was air tight. When he unclamped it, blood started gushing into the tube.
“Put the other end into the beaker and seal it, quickly.”
When that was done, when the blood was pouring into the beaker, it was just a matter of waiting. Waiting and holding their breath as they watched for Hen’s chest to rise. Waiting and holding their breath until Hen took one, too.
When she did, it was a deep, gasping breath. Her eyes opened and her head rolled as she tried to get a fix on her surroundings.
“She’s breathing, she’s awake,” Buck reported into the radio.
“Let the record show that Buck did everything,” Chimney said. “I’m just his incredible mentor-”
His words were cut off by his coughing. Wet coughs that shook his whole body. He took off the disposable mask he’d been wearing and stared at the inside of it dumbly, brow furrowed as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing. And then something dark began trickling out of his nose.
Chimney met Buck’s eyes through the glass, as both came to the same awful realization.