Chapter Text
When he was finally discharged from the hospital and he, Maddie, and Chimney got back to Los Angeles, they went back to Maddie’s apartment. After everything, knowing that Doug was currently sitting in a jail cell over ten hours away, Maddie finally felt safe to come back here for longer than to just pick the odd item up.
It was weird, Buck thought as he followed her inside. He knew that Doug had taken him from here, but he didn’t really remember Doug taking him from here. Either way, knowing that that night was only three weeks ago, Buck had expected Maddie’s space to look more… messy, or in the process of rebuilding. And sure, some things were still slightly out of place, but not that out of place.
“I guess Bobby and Eddie actually did manage to get the door fixed while we were away,” Chimney said as he followed Maddie and Buck into her apartment.
Maddie nodded. “Yeah, I’ll have to thank them for that. They also fixed the coffee table.”
So maybe the place was a bit more out of sorts after Buck was taken.
Buck thought that, once he would have gotten back to familiar surroundings, things would start feeling normal again, even though, with the loss of his hand, things would never actually be ‘normal’ again.
He was wrong though.
His second night in the hospital, Buck woke up in the middle of the night to a nightmare. It had taken Maddie nearly ten minutes to get him reorientated and his breathing down to normal.
Buck had thought that by getting back to more familiar grounds in Los Angeles, whatever one-off nightmare he had had in the hospital would stay a one-off thing. Maybe it was because he was in Maddie’s apartment, where this whole nightmare started, maybe it was some other weird psychological thing, but the nightmares continued, even getting worse.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Maddie told him after the third night that he had woken up mid scream. “I’m not kicking you out or telling you that you need to find a place of your own right now, but if it means not having any more nightmares, I’m sure Chimney or someone would let you move in with them for a while.”
Buck thought about it for a second, eventually deciding that, no, he couldn’t do that. “I had a nightmare in the hospital, I’ll probably still have them wherever I go for a while,” he said. “And waking up from them, seeing that you’re safe and not hurt… it does a lot to help me calm down.”
Buck really hadn’t meant to put tears in Maddie’s eyes by telling her that, but it looked like she was on her way there despite the fact.
“I- I’m sorry-” he said.
Maddie waved her hands and wiped her eyes. “No… it’s- it’s alright,” she said, “I just… wasn’t expecting that.”
“Yeah,” Buck nodded. They were probably going to have a lot of moments like this going forward.
“So, what do you have planned for today?” Maddie asked as she got dressed to go into her shift at the dispatch center, her first shift back since everything happened.
“Got that doctor’s appointment,” Buck said as he finished the bowl of cereal. After getting discharged from the hospital in Utah, he was instructed to schedule an appointment with his PCM, someone he hadn’t seen since Abby had cut into him and given him a tracheotomy.
“That’s today?” Maddie said as she quickly turned her head to look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have waited until tomorrow to go back in.”
Buck waved her off. “It’s okay. Bobby said he could drive me,” Buck said. He had tried to drive his Jeep exactly once so far this last week, and well… Buck certainly did not have enough skills with one hand to do that yet. Which was one of the things he was going to his doctor’s appointment today for - a referral to occupational therapy so he could figure out how to do everything with one hand.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to go with you?” Maddie asked, right as she was about to leave.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Buck reassured her. “If anything goes wrong, Bobby’ll be there.”
He had met up with Bobby the day after getting back to LA, five days after getting rescued from Doug. Bobby’s reaction to seeing Buck was almost exactly like what Buck imagined it would be.
Almost as soon as he saw Buck, just like with Maddie, he immediately wrapped Buck up in his arms in a tight hug.
Then, also just like with Maddie, when the hug broke apart, Bobby’s eyes immediately zeroed in on Buck’s missing right arm.
Buck had figured when he got dressed that morning, that if he wore a hoodie it would make his arm less noticeable. It wasn’t the entire arm that was missing, only his right hand and about half of his forearm. Though apparently it wasn’t as unnoticeable as Buck first thought.
He was going to need to get used to a lot of people he knew looking at him like that, he figured. When Chimney brought up food to his room that first day in the hospital, he had hid his surprise at Buck’s arm pretty well. Maddie probably told him beforehand. But now there was everyone else.
Maybe he would eventually get used to the looks, but Buck thought that would be a long time coming for now.
This morning though, maybe it was because he had spent a lot of time around Bobby the past couple of days, the man finally didn’t look at him with a mix of pity and sadness.
Bobby was going to drive him to his doctor’s appointment today, one that Buck hoped wouldn’t take too long, despite everything he was going to need to go over, and then they were going to get lunch somewhere.
Buck couldn’t wait until they were at the second part of their plans.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Bobby asked as he drove into the parking lot and began looking for an open parking spot.
Buck thought about it for a second. While he would like Bobby to go in with him, it had been over a week since he was rescued from Doug, and in all of that time, he hadn’t really done anything by himself except use the bathroom and take a shower.
Doing this alone though, it would be a good first step, Buck thought.
“I think I’ll be alright on my own,” Buck said. “But if you could like… wait in the lobby or something?”
If Buck remembered correctly, he had only ever been in this place once, for a follow up appointment after Abby performed a tracheotomy on him, but he did recall them having a coffee shop on the first floor back then.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Bobby said as they both got out of his truck and started walking into the building. “Just remember, you change your mind at any point and just call or text, I can be right up there with you.”
Buck nodded, giving Bobby a small smile. “Thanks Bobby,” he said as they split off from each other in the lobby, Bobby turning left to the small coffee shop, Buck going up the stairs that led to the second floor where his doctor was located.
Sitting in the waiting room alone, Buck started to feel a bit antsy. It felt like there were eyes watching him, though he knew there were only three other people in eyeshot of him and none were paying him any attention. The receptionist he had checked in with five minutes ago was talking to a woman standing across the check-in desk about making a follow up appointment from what little Buck could overhear. There was a man sitting across the room, reading a book as he waited to be called back to his appointment. None were paying him any attention, but just like every other time Buck had stepped out of Maddie’s place, it felt like there were eyes watching him.
Maybe it was because, before he was taken, Doug had been watching him and Maddie for weeks and neither of them had been any the wiser. But he had been caught, Buck told himself. The police caught and arrested him, and he was sitting in some jail cell in Utah right now, nowhere near here.
“Evan Buckley?” a voice called out his name.
Buck flinched at the sudden disruption from his thoughts, but no one seemed to notice it. He stood up, walking over to the nurse who had called his name and followed her as she led him to an exam room.
Sitting on the exam table, Buck tried to hold himself back from recoiling as the nurse took his vitals. Considering how she made no comment as she took his blood pressure and temperature, Buck thought that he had done a pretty good job with it. “Your doctor will be in in a couple of minutes,” she said just as she was about to step out of the room.
“Right, thanks,” Buck said, nodding.
When a knock sounded on the door a couple of minutes later, Buck was surprised, only just stopping himself from jumping up.
“Mr. Buckley?” the doctor said as she walked in.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Buck said. “You can call me Buck.” He had only been to this doctor once before, a couple weeks after the tracheotomy when he was getting signed off to return to work. She was one of the ones the LAFD ‘s medical insurance referred him to, one who worked with a lot of fire fighters.
Now though, he was here for a completely different reason than a tracheotomy, a reason that was going to completely put a stop to his firefighter career.
“So, usually I ask my patients what brings them in today, but I think that we both know what brings you in today,” she starts with.
“Yeah,” Buck gave her a small nod. “The hospital said they would send over all the records they took.” The dozens of pages of records they had taken.
“Yes,” she nodded. “We received your report from the hospital the other day and I had the chance this morning to look over it. How about we start with looking at the burns and cuts it reported?”
Buck nodded, as he showed him where they were along his legs, arms, and back. Thankfully, other than the two places he needed a handful of stitches removed, she was able to examine them all without actually touching him.
“The burns and cuts are all healing nicely,” The doctor said as she looked at Buck’s back, and motioned for him to put his shirt back on. “They might leave some small scars, but in another year, most will probably be unnoticeable.”
Buck nodded his head, not exactly happy with that answer, first losing his arm, now he’ll probably have scars all over his back and legs. But he should’ve assumed that would be the case.
“Now, let's talk about your arm,” she said. She pressed a couple of links on the computer, bringing up images from the X-rays and MRI he had taken when in the hospital in Utah.
“Considering the circumstances this was performed under, I would say this was done surprisingly well. Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” she said. And Buck had no idea what that meant about Doug, he was still the crazy madman who cut his hand off, even if he did it ‘well.’
“But still,” she continued, pointing to the end of the bones in his forearm. “The way this bone was broken and left there, it could create problems for you in the future. It also appears that your muscles and tendons were cut clean through, with very little clean up.”
Buck nodded, he had no real idea what went into a legit amputation, especially an unnecessary one, but what she was saying sounded like it was right to him.
“So then… where do I go from here?” Buck asked.
“In addition to physical and occupational therapy, I’m going to give you a referral to an orthopedist who I recommend you consult with to discuss some of the potential issues I just mentioned,” she explained. “I imagine they’ll most likely want to perform another surgery on the limb.”
“Surgery?” Buck asked.
“Yes,” the doctor said. “Following most amputations, it’s important for patients to go into physical therapy to stretch the remaining muscles in their limbs to regain as much range of motion and strength as possible. This is something that needs to be done the sooner the better. I understand that you lost track of time while you were in captivity, but combined with the late start to rehabilitation and the rudimentary amputation, your muscles have already indicated some signs of atrophy, and I’m sure you’ve noticed some tightness when you try to straighten your arm.”
Buck nodded, that wasn’t something he had missed.
Buck didn’t know how he felt about the idea of surgery. It was bad enough when Doug was doing the amputation on him while he was fully conscious. The idea of being put under completely while people cut into his arm again?
It was sending chills down his spine.
Ever since he had been rescued two weeks ago, he still couldn’t stand the feeling of someone touching him. The only touches he could stand so far were the small and brief ones from Maddie and Bobby, the pat on the shoulder, the quick two second hugs. Even sitting here right now as the doctor was palpating and twisting his arm, Buck wanted to get up and run out of the building.
“How… how much is this really needed?” Buck asked, nervous as to what the doctor would say. He knew that usually when they pointed something out with this tone of voice, it was something important that needed to be done as soon as he could schedule the surgery.
The doctor let out a small breath as she began to explain. “Usually I would tell you to have this surgery completed and move onto physical therapy as soon as you’re able to schedule it,” she said, and it was just as Buck thought. “But considering everything you went through recently, I can understand why you would be hesitant to have it done.” Buck nodded, telling her that all of her thoughts and reasonings were correct. “I will highly recommend that you get this procedure done though,” the doctor continued. “This will give you more use of your arm. Whether you decide to get a prosthetic or not, this will give you a greater quality of life.”
Buck was left thinking about everything she had said regarding the surgery as he walked out of the building after the appointment and found Bobby sitting in the lobby on the first floor.
“Hey,” Bobby said as he stood up and walked over to Buck. “How did the appointment go?”
Buck was silent for a moment, just looking down at his arm as they stood in the lobby. He opened his mouth, about to explain everything they talked about to Bobby, then closed it again. “Can we talk about this in your truck?” Buck asked. “I don’t want to talk about it out here.”
Bobby’s eyes widened ever so slightly before he schooled his features. He nodded, then gestured in the direction of the building’s exit. “Sure, we can talk about it all out there.”
They headed outside and to Bobby’s truck.
Buck was silent for a couple minutes as Bobby started up the truck and began driving. When they got to the second stoplight, Bobby asked, “So, how did the appointment go?”
Buck swallowed, thinking over everything the doctor had said and deciding what he wanted to start with. “They want to do a surgery,” he mumbled. “To stretch out the muscles and tendons or something like that, said it would give me more range of motion in my arm, and less problems in the future with the way the bone was left in there.”
“Well, what do you think about that?” Bobby asked.
“It sounds terrifying,” Buck said.
Bobby nodded, knowing exactly where Buck was coming from.
“I can only imagine why you’d feel that way,” Bobby said.
Buck nodded. “She said it didn’t have to happen right away, at least,” Buck said. “It can wait for a little bit. I’d need to talk to a… what’re they called? Orthopedic doctor first.”
“Yeah, it makes sense,” Bobby said. “How about you just start with meeting the doctor first, see how much of a priority it would be?”
Buck nodded, that seemed like a really good idea, actually. And the doctor he saw today said that it wasn’t something he needed to run into right away.
“She also wants me to start seeing a therapist,” Buck said as Bobby pulled onto the highway.
“That’s not surprising,” Bobby said. Buck turned his head from the windows to look at Bobby as he raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been through a major traumatic event,” Bobby said. “That’s enough to warrant anyone to see a therapist. Add in your arm, your life isn’t going to be the same again, it makes sense for any doctor to recommend therapy when something like that happens.”
Buck sat on that answer for a moment. “I just… after last time…”
He didn’t have to tell Bobby what he was referring to by ‘last time.’
Of course, back then, almost a year ago, Buck hadn’t realized just how big of an infraction Dr. Welles had committed when they had sex in her office. It wasn’t until a week after the appointment, when Bobby had asked how it went and Buck had sheepishly admitted that he wound up sleeping with her, and Bobby looked pissed, that Buck knew a line had been crossed. At first, Buck had thought Bobby was mad at him, the whole thing happening right after he told Bobby that he didn’t want to sleep with every woman he met. Though Bobby had repeatedly assured Buck that he wasn’t mad at Buck, but at the therapist herself.
It had taken Buck a while to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t his fault that he had slept with Dr. Welles, that in fact he was a victim in the whole thing and she had taken a gross advantage over him. But now that he had, he really didn’t like the whole idea of ‘going to therapy.’
“You can pick from a variety of therapists,” Bobby said. “You can even do it over a video call. And it doesn’t have to be long term. Just try one or two sessions.”
Buck hummed as he thought it over. The video option might be a good idea, he thought. He wouldn't even need to get a ride or figure out how to drive one handed to get somewhere that way. “I might look into the video option then,” he said.