Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hospitals had a sound to them. A texture of silence.

It wasn’t quiet, not truly—not with the squeak of rubber soles over linoleum floors, not with the low hum of fluorescent lights, the soft click of monitors cycling through vitals, or the rustle of lab coats brushing past one another like leaves on dying trees. But beyond that—below the architecture of necessity and triage—there was the stillness. That unnatural hush of held breath. Of prayers half-formed. Of questions no one wanted to ask out loud.

Bobby Nash sat with his hands folded so tightly his knuckles had gone bone-white. He hadn’t moved in… God, he didn’t know how long. The worn fabric of the hospital couch bit at his spine, and the air conditioner coughed every so often, like a smoker trying to disguise regret.

A clock on the far wall ticked. Tick. Tick. Tick.

No updates. No news. No Buck.

Across from him, Hen had pulled her legs up onto the chair, knees drawn to her chest like some ancient form of self-protection. Her arms looped around her shins. She hadn’t spoken since they’d arrived. She stared into the middle distance—through the coffee machine, through time, through the weight of knowing something terrible had happened and not being able to fix it.

Eddie stood.

Because Eddie couldn’t sit. Because motion meant survival. Because stasis felt like giving up.

He walked to the corner of the waiting room—then back. Then again. A soldier in retreat inside a foxhole that reeked of bleach and fear. His hands kept curling and uncurling. He didn’t even seem aware he was doing it.

And then there was Chim. Fidgeting. Always fidgeting. Bouncing his leg, tapping his phone even though no one had texted. Running his thumb along the edge of a cup of vending machine coffee that had long since gone cold.

No one touched the coffee. Or the snacks. Or the stack of glossy pamphlets with their cheerful, pastel-blue What To Expect After Trauma titles.

The only thing they expected now was the worst.

THREE HOURS EARLIER

Tunnel Collapse – Echo Park

The shriek of metal groaning under weight had been the first warning. The second came in the form of dust—thick, blinding dust that rose like a dying star, spinning out from the darkness of the cracked earth.

“Get out! MOVE!”

Bobby’s voice tore through the static of the radios, but time wasn’t linear in that moment. It fractured. It spiraled. It scattered into pieces too jagged to hold.

Eddie had grabbed the kid—the teenager with the broken leg—and shoved him out ahead. Hen was already hauling a mother with a fractured clavicle up a narrow passage carved into the debris. Chim was guiding the engineer, blood slick across his scalp, inch by inch toward the edge of the collapse.

And Buck—

Buck had gone back.

Of course he had.

“There’s still someone in the truck,” he’d yelled, face streaked with soot and ash, sweat cutting clean lines through the dirt. “I’ve got them—just go!”

He disappeared down the corridor like a shot from a cannon. Gone into the dustcloud like it was a veil instead of a warning.

Bobby had gone after him. He always did.

But the second cave-in came faster than the first.

And Buck didn’t come out.

—

Bobby’s eyes flicked toward the hallway. Still empty. No nurse. No doctor. No news.

Hen spoke, finally. Voice like sandpaper. Low. Measured. Fragile.

“He shouldn’t have gone back in.”

Eddie stopped pacing. His spine straightened like a storm had passed through it.

“Yes, he should have,” Eddie said. “You know he should have.”

Hen looked down. Pressed her forehead to her knees.

“That doesn’t mean it should’ve been him .”

Eddie didn’t answer. Neither did Bobby. Chim just rubbed his face, hand shaking a little.

The air shifted then. Some invisible weight redistributed itself between them, but no one could breathe easier.

It had taken an hour and fifteen minutes to dig Buck out.

They’d heard the sound of tapping first. Faint. Rhythmic. Like Morse code from the other side of the world.

Then a voice—hoarse, barely audible—saying “I’ve got a pulse on her. She’s breathing. But I’m stuck.”

Rescue workers had gone wild with energy, digging like maniacs, fueled by adrenaline and faith and that ridiculous, reckless hope Buck always seemed to carry in his back pocket.

But when they pulled him out, the world had gone still.

He hadn’t spoken. His eyes were open but unfocused, lips cracked, and one leg bent at an angle that defied mercy. Blood soaked the front of his turnout coat, chest rising too slowly—too shallow.

They’d loaded him into the ambulance without ceremony. That was always the scariest thing: when the paramedics stopped narrating. When it got quiet .

—

Back in the waiting room, Bobby leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. His palms dug into his forehead like he could press the worry out of his skull.

He was a captain. A leader. A husband. A man who’d held too many hands through last breaths. But this—

This was Buck.

And Bobby could not bury another child.

“Maybe he’s in surgery,” Chim said suddenly, almost to himself. “That would explain the delay. They don’t always tell you until they’re done. You know, depending on—on how bad—”

He broke off. Bit his lip until it turned white.

Hen whispered, “We should’ve pulled him out faster.”

“No,” Bobby said sharply. “We did everything we could.”

The words were too clean. Too practiced. They didn’t taste right in his mouth.

Eddie slumped into a chair. First time he sat since arriving. And the moment he did, his shoulders collapsed. His head dropped back, gaze fixed on the ceiling, as if answers might be carved into its tiles.

“I told him I’d be right behind him,” he murmured. “I was right behind him. And then…”

His voice faded. Not into silence—but into guilt.

Chim said nothing. Just reached into his pocket and pulled out Buck’s phone, dirt-smudged and cracked.

He had grabbed it when they’d loaded Buck into the ambulance. Just instinct.

Now it sat in his hands like a relic. Like a broken star.

The screen blinked. A missed text from Maddie.

How’s it going down there? Buck okay?

—

The waiting room doors opened.

All four of them stood up at once, as if pulled by some invisible thread of dread and hope intertwined.

It was a nurse. Middle-aged, tired, kind. The kind of kindness that had frayed at the edges.

She looked at Bobby first, recognizing him from when he’d signed the papers.

“He’s out of surgery,” she said. “He’s stable. In the ICU.”

Four separate lungs exhaled. Four separate hearts didn’t quite slow down.

Bobby stepped forward. “Can we see him?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. He’s still under sedation. But someone will come get you when he’s awake.”

Hen made a sound. A laugh, maybe, or a sob. Some choked hybrid of disbelief.

“Thank you,” Bobby said, his voice a rasp.

The nurse gave a small nod, then left again. The doors whispered closed behind her.

And for the first time in what felt like centuries, the team sat back down.

Together.

No words.

Only the slow sound of breathing.

And a silence that, finally, wasn’t suffocating.

Chapter Text

The first thing he remembered was the taste of dust.

It filled his mouth like ash from a burned-out sky. Gritting against his teeth. Nestling in the back of his throat. He tried to cough, but his lungs refused him—half-collapsed like the tunnel around him.

For a moment—just a moment—there was nothing but the sound of settling debris, of concrete sobbing under its own weight, and the rhythmic pulse of something wet against the side of his head. It might’ve been blood. Or water. Or time bleeding out.

Then the pain came.

Sharp. Merciless. An electric scream along the length of his leg where the beam had landed, pinning him to the earth like he was a butterfly on display. Something was wrong with his ribs, too. Breathing felt like stealing. Every inhale was met with resistance. Like his lungs were being taxed for daring to function.

Buck opened his eyes to darkness.

And then, dimly, shapes formed. His helmet light—cracked, flickering—still glowed weakly above him, casting the wreckage in a sickly, uneven hue. Rebar bent like fingers from the walls. A mangled hand of steel reached toward him from a collapsed support beam.

And just to his left, under a rain of concrete dust, the girl lay still.

“Hey,” Buck rasped, reaching out instinctively with one arm. “Hey, are you—can you hear me?”

His fingers brushed her wrist. Pulse. Weak, but there.

He wasn’t alone. That mattered. He needed that to matter.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. It didn’t matter if she could hear him. “You’re not alone. I promise.”

PRESENT – ICU

The antiseptic scent of the ICU felt too clean. As if the room had scrubbed itself of the chaos that had delivered Buck here. As if the world could erase trauma with a mop and diluted bleach.

Bobby stood just outside the glass, watching the machines breathe for Buck.

The ventilator made a soft hiss with every inhale. His chest rose mechanically, not naturally, not the way it did when he was laughing at something Chim said or yelling mid-rescue. His skin looked too pale beneath the fluorescent lights. His lips cracked. A slow IV drip curled clear fluid through plastic tubing, and Bobby had to look away when he saw the bruises flowering beneath the tape.

He didn’t want to cry.

So he focused on data. The numbers on the monitor. The blood pressure. Oxygen saturation. All just numbers. All just lifelines in digital form.

Eddie appeared beside him, silent.

“He’s still here,” Bobby said softly.

Eddie nodded. “Barely.”

They watched through the glass like it was a mirror into some other world—one where none of this had happened.

“I should’ve stopped him,” Bobby murmured.

“No,” Eddie replied. “You couldn’t have.”

“He’s my responsibility.”

“He’s our family ,” Eddie said. His voice was rough, stripped raw by hours of fear. “There’s no protocol for this.”

Bobby exhaled through his nose. Folded his arms. Closed his eyes.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “There really isn’t.”

FLASHBACK – TUNNEL INTERIOR

Buck kept talking. To the girl. To himself. To the darkness.

He told her about the beach. About the time Chim got stung by a jellyfish and tried to hide it. About how Eddie hated olives but ate them anyway when Chris made pizza. About the night shift traditions—taco runs and Hen’s playlists and the soft, weird sense of home they’d built out of chaos.

He kept her name in his mind: Lily.

He’d caught it right before the second collapse. Just seventeen. College-bound. First responder ride-along. Wrong day, wrong tunnel.

Her breath rattled beside him. He didn’t know how bad her injuries were. He couldn’t move to check. But she was alive, and that was enough.

The weight on his leg pulsed in time with his heartbeat now. He could feel the bones grinding when he shifted. And it was getting cold. Not around him— in him. That dangerous, creeping chill of blood loss and adrenaline drain. He tried to stay awake. Counted backwards. Names of fire stations. Names of cities. Every nickname Eddie ever gave him.

The light on his helmet died with a quiet click.

And darkness swallowed them whole.

PRESENT – ICU ROOM

Hen stood at Buck’s bedside now. She’d scrubbed in. Wore the gown, the gloves. Her fingers shook as she reached for his hand.

“Hey, Buckaroo,” she murmured, brushing her thumb gently across the back of his hand. “You gave us a hell of a scare.”

No response. Just the quiet beep of monitors. But his skin was warm. Not clammy. That counted.

“I know you hate the waiting room,” she said, smiling faintly. “Always pacing. Always impatient. I figure that’s why you’re doing this—just to turn the tables on us, huh?”

She laughed, but it cracked down the middle.

“You held on,” Hen whispered. “So now we hold on. Deal?”

She bent and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“Deal.”

FLASHBACK – RESCUE POINT

They found them by miracle.

A sliver of open space beneath the debris. A flicker of Buck’s shattered radio pinging on a scan. Bobby had screamed his name until his voice broke. And then—a knock. Soft. Barely there.

Chim had led the dig team. He didn’t stop. Didn’t blink. Dirt under his nails. Blood on his sleeves. When they pried the beam from Buck’s leg, the scream had torn from his throat like something primal. But he didn’t let go of the girl’s hand. Not until she was safe. Not until she was lifted aboveground.

Then, only then, did Buck’s eyes roll back, and he went limp.

PRESENT – ICU

Chim entered last. Quiet. Hesitant.

He stood at the foot of the bed and didn’t speak for a long time.

Buck looked so young like this. So still. The lines of laughter and fire and chaos erased beneath the hospital whites.

“You always were the loudest,” Chim said finally. “Even now, it’s too quiet without you.”

He ran a hand over his face.

“You held that tunnel like it was the last thing you’d ever do. And maybe it was. But, damn it, Buck—you didn’t die. So now you have to wake up. Because we don’t know how to be us without you.”

A monitor chirped, shifting slightly. Chim froze.

And then—

Buck’s fingers twitched. Just barely. But enough.

Enough to shatter the stillness.

Chapter Text

The light was soft when it came.

Not the clinical burn of fluorescents or the sharpness of search beams slicing through smoke—but something gentler. A warmth that didn’t hurt. It filtered through Buck’s eyelids like dawn behind heavy curtains, asking permission rather than demanding it.

There was a hum too. Low. Steady. Machinery, probably. But beneath it… breath. Familiar.

He wasn’t alone.

His body hurt in ways that didn’t have names. Pain wasn’t isolated now—it had bloomed into something vaster, cellular. A diffuse ache settled into every inch of him, stitched to his bones and lungs and eyelids.

And yet—he surfaced. Slow and heavy as if he’d been dreaming under ice.

Buck’s eyes fluttered. Blinked. Blinked again. The world returned in fragments: ceiling tiles, white as old bones. A monitor’s pulsing green. The rasp of oxygen through tubes.

Then a face.

Not a nurse. Not a stranger.

Eddie.

His best friend sat in the visitor chair, elbows on knees, hands clenched like he was praying or bargaining or both. His eyes were fixed on Buck as though willing him to breathe.

“Eddie,” Buck croaked, though it came out more like air than sound. His lips cracked. His throat rebelled.

Eddie looked up, startled. And then— his face crumpled.

In one breath, he was standing. In two, he was at the bedside, clutching Buck’s hand like it might disappear.

“You’re awake,” Eddie whispered, voice fractured. “Jesus, Buck, you’re awake. ”

“Water?” Buck rasped, wincing.

Eddie was already on his feet, pouring, holding the straw gently to Buck’s lips. It was warm. Metallic. But it was something .

When Buck sank back against the pillows, he finally took in the full picture. Tubes. IV lines. Dressings on his ribs. A weight around his leg that felt wrong. Heavy. Immobilized.

“I didn’t die?” he asked, voice barely audible.

“No.” Eddie’s jaw tightened. “But you tried like hell.”

They shared a silence thick with what hadn’t been said. What they both knew now too well.

Outside the Room

Bobby stood just beyond the glass, arms folded, staring at the boy he considered a son. The relief that poured through him was staggering—like floodwaters surging through a cracked dam.

Beside him, Hen let out a shaky sigh. “I told you. He’s too damn stubborn to go out like that.”

Chim was quieter, chin tucked, hands in his pockets. “He’s awake. That’s all that matters.”

But Bobby’s silence held more than relief. It held guilt. Worry. The weight of a man who had let it happen on his watch .

Hen saw it. She stepped closer, voice low. “You did everything right, Cap.”

Bobby’s eyes didn’t leave Buck. “Sometimes doing everything right still isn’t enough.”

Inside – Later That Night

The room was dim now. The sun had finally set behind the city skyline, bruising the sky in lavender and slate.

Buck stared at the ceiling as if answers might reveal themselves in the seams of the plaster. He was alone for the first time since waking.

The girl—Lily—was alive. He’d asked. Her condition was serious but stable. That helped. Not enough, but something.

His leg was broken in two places. There was talk of surgery. Maybe more than one. The doctors had said he was lucky. That word echoed in his skull like a joke with no punchline.

Lucky.

Lucky meant breathing. Lucky meant Eddie hadn’t had to drag him out lifeless. Lucky meant Maddie wouldn’t be getting that call.

But all Buck could think of was the moment the light on his helmet died. The cold. The silence. The way he’d whispered stories to keep the girl breathing when he wasn’t sure he could anymore.

He didn’t feel lucky. He felt… hollow.

The door creaked.

Bobby entered quietly, a plastic cup of ice chips in one hand. He didn’t speak right away—just sat in the chair, settling into the moment like a man who’d come from far away.

Buck turned his head. “Hey, Cap.”

“Hey.”

They sat for a beat. The machines filled the air with static rhythm.

“I messed up,” Buck said eventually.

“No,” Bobby said firmly. “You saved her. You held on. You did what you always do.”

Buck laughed—but it cracked. “Almost died doing it.”

“You lived,” Bobby said. “You came back. And we needed you to come back.”

Buck turned away. “I just… I can’t stop hearing it. The creak. The sound right before it fell. It keeps replaying.”

“That’s normal.” Bobby leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Trauma echoes. You survived something not everyone does. You’ll hear it until you don’t anymore.”

Buck closed his eyes. “I don’t want to be scared all the time.”

“You won’t be. Not forever.”

Bobby reached over, placed a hand gently on Buck’s shoulder.

“And you’re not alone in this.”

Two Days Later – Waiting Room, Revisited

They returned there—not to wait, but to breathe.

All of them. Hen, Chim, Eddie, Bobby. No longer held in limbo. This time they came back with Buck.

He was in a wheelchair, pale but alive, his right leg braced and bandaged, arms thinner than before.

They sat in the same spots.

Hen passed him a Jello cup. “Hospital tradition. You live, you get the green one.”

Chim handed over Buck’s cracked phone. “You owe Maddie about twenty texts.”

Eddie leaned against the wall, arms crossed—but his eyes never left Buck. Not once.

And Bobby… Bobby just smiled.

They didn’t say much. There wasn’t much to say.

But this time, the silence wasn’t the weight of not knowing.

This time, it was the space between heartbeats. Between family.

It was the quiet of healing. Of having made it through.

And when Buck finally laughed—a low, fragile, real laugh—they all joined in.

The tunnel was behind them.

And the light had come in.