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Buck wakes to a world of pain and a deafening ringing in his ears.
A groan slips out of his mouth before he can stop it, and another noise that would probably embarrass him in any other situation tumbles past his lips as he tries to sit up. Gravity pulls him back down quickly, though, and he can’t do much more than groan again and scrunch his face at the weird angle he’s fallen back into.
“––Buck!” A voice breaks through the fog, through the never-ending shrill sound in his ears. “Come on, guys, say something!”
It’s a familiar voice, one that usually brings warmth and sarcastic comments, but right now it’s taking a tone that Buck’s only rarely heard.
Fear, total and unfiltered.
“Hen?” he croaks out, the walls of his throat sticking to each other as he forces the word out.
“Buck!” Hen answers in another shout, but this time a slightly lighter one. “Oh, thank God –– are you okay?”
Buck tries to answer, wants to, but as soon as he opens his mouth again he’s shaken by a violent cough; one hard enough to resonate through his entire body and make him acutely aware of each and every injury.
“Breathe, Buck,” Hen says, sounding so far away as Buck tries to get his lungs back under control. “Breathe. You’re okay.”
“Wh’t happened?” he eventually gets out, opening his eyes and immediately closing them again with a wince.
“Earthquake,” Hen answers, and Buck’s head is clearing just enough for him to hear the tremor in her voice. “I think the bridge collapsed. We––” She’s interrupted by her own cough. “We were on our way to the hospital, remember?”
Buck frowns, reaching a hand in the general direction of her voice. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart. Just–– just stuck.”
The words are enough to force him to finally keep his eyes open, and Buck is met with a terribly confusing sight.
Because it’s their ambulance, there’s no doubt about it, but everything inside of it is wrecked, the shelves sprawled out on the metallic floor, the gurney flopped on its side, and all of their medical equipment laying around the vehicle.
Something is painfully digging in Buck’s back, and it takes him another breath to realize that it’s one of the back door’s handles.
“Where are you,” he half-asks, half-calls, his brain still trying to make sense of what his eyes are seeing.
“Driver’s seat,” Hen answers, and Buck looks at the far away rectangular window that separates the front of the ambulance from its back.
He’s looking up, he realizes, because the handle is digging into his back and gravity feels misplaced and Hen’s voice is coming up from the driver’s seat. He’s looking up because something terrible happened and the ambulance is sitting on its rear.
“Buck.” Hen calls, and Buck has the feeling that he missed some of her words.
“Yeah?”
“I need you to find Chim for me, can you do that?”
Buck’s entire body goes rigid.
“Chim?”
“He was in the back with you, sweetheart,” Hen answers, the emotion clear in her voice. “So I need you to take a look around, okay?”
Buck nods, dimly wondering if Hen can see him through the rearview mirror, and swallows around the dryness of his throat as he forces his neck into motion.
It’s dark in the ambulance, not enough to be a problem, but Buck still has to squint to see past the headache and the dim light.
Before he can actually try to make sense of the mess, there’s movement on his right.
“God,” Chimney groans, and Buck’s head snaps to the side as he realizes that his friend is lying right next to him, face smushed against the dusty window of the backdoor.
“Chim?” Hen calls as Buck springs into motion, wriggling until he can get on his hands and knees and be somewhat useful.
“Here,” Chimney answers a few beats later, just as Buck reaches a hand toward his friend from the awkward position he’s stuck in. The older man plants a palm against the door and feebly tries to push himself up, to no avail. “Ow. Jesus.”
“Calm down, Chim,” Buck says as he brings a hand to the nape of Chimney’s neck. “I’m gonna help you.”
“I’m alright,” Chimney coughs out, blindly waving a hand that almost slaps Buck’s face. “What the hell happened?”
“No back or neck pains?” Buck asks him, looking around to see if there’s a c-collar in reach or if he’s asking a useless question.
“My whole entire body’s a pain, Buckley,” Chimney drawls, and he starts to feebly turn around before Buck can open his mouth to stop him.
It’s a long and awkward process, mixed with many grunts and mostly rendered possible by Buck’s help, but eventually they get Chimney on his back, tucked between the wall and the back of the ambulance. The vehicle groans around them the entire time, which Buck does his best to ignore as he leans back on his heels with a sigh, digging his shaking fingers into his thighs.
“What’s going on back there?” Hen asks.
Chimney sighs. “I’m asking myself the same question, my friend. Can someone tell me what the hell happened?”
“Earthquake.” Hen and Buck answer at the same time.
“It’s always the earthquakes,” Chimney sighs again, features tight and forehead shiny with sweat. He blinks a few times, then looks at Buck with glassy eyes. “Where’s Agnes?”
Buck frowns, and then feels his stomach drop at the reminder.
Agnes, the old lady that they were on their way to bring to Cedars-Sinai, with her apartment full of cats and her terribly worrying heart rate.
Agnes who was lying on the gurney when the earthquake hit.
Buck turns his head to the right, eyes wide as he stares at the overturned gurney propped against the wall. He’s moving before he’s really aware of it, grabbing the edge of the stretcher and pulling it toward him, revealing…
“No,” Buck breathes out as he’s met with a pair of empty irises, the old woman’s face slack with death as her head limply drops to the side. A bitter taste burns the back of his throat. “Hen.”
“Breathe, honey,” Hen says almost immediately. “Chim?”
“Dead.” Chimney confirms after a few seconds, sounding strangely winded. “Definitely dead.”
“Damn it,” Hen mutters, a slight tremble in her voice.
Buck swallows, the bile rolling back down his esophagus to mix with the remnants of his lunch. It takes all of the strength he’s starting to run out of, for him to take his eyes off of Agnes’, and he gently pushes the gurney back in its original position before turning back to Chimney.
His friend is watching him as Buck settles back into position. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Buck nods, but aborts the movement when his head throbs along with it. “Just––”
He trails off at the sight of blood on Chimney’s hands.
And Buck jumps into motion again.
“Chim, what the––”
“It’s okay, looks worse than it is––”
“You’re bleeding––”
“What the hell is going on?” Hen’s voice cuts right through theirs.
Buck slaps Chimney’s hands away and reveals a uniform shirt soaked with blood. He looks up, clenching his jaw at Chimney’s pale face.
“He’s bleeding –– stomach wound.” Buck answers as he rips off his own uniform shirt and balls it up to press it against the wound, the cold air chilling against the dampness of his LAFD t-shirt that’s sticking to his skin with sweat.
“What?”
“It’s fine,” Chimney answers. “I don’t think it hit anything major.”
“Chimney,” Hen sounds like she’s gritting her teeth. “I mean this with all the love in the world, but you’re a fucking idiot.”
“Love you too, Hen,” Chimney breathes out a laugh that turns into a groan when Buck presses down harder.
“It’s not stopping,” Buck whispers when the blood reaches his fingers, the fabric of his shirt already soaked. “Hen, it’s not stopping.”
“Okay, okay.” She answers, her voice suddenly sounding even further than it actually is. “Let’s keep a cool head, okay, Buckaroo? You’ve been training for situations like these, yeah?”
No. Buck has been training for many different scenarios in order to pass his paramedic exam, but being stranded in an overturned ambulance with his soon-to-be brother-in-law bleeding out under him has never, ever been part of any program.
“Yeah,” he answers anyway, his voice nothing more than a breath as he raises his head to look around the mess surrounding them.
“A bleeding abdominal wound,” Hen says slowly. “What’s your first step?”
Buck swallows around the lump in his throat, looking up at Chimney just in time to see him mouth the words Pack the wound dramatically.
Buck resists the urge to smack him on the head and takes a look around the messed-up ambulance, looking for wherever the box of sterile gauze might have landed.
“Buck?” Hen calls after a moment, and Buck realizes that he forgot to answer her.
“Yeah, pack the wound. Sorry, I’m just looking for––”
Buck straightens, and looks up as far as his neck will allow him to.
It’s not that far –– the ambulance isn’t a big place, anyway, and Buck is, by all means, a tall man. But between the ringing in his ears that’s yet to quiet down and the bone-deep soreness of his body, Buck might as well be asked to swim all the way to Japan.
He takes another deep breath, and forces himself to his feet. The ambulance immediately rocks on its hinges, and both Hen and Chimney shout as Buck nearly falls back down, slamming a steadying hand against the nearest wall at the very last second.
“God!” Chimney shouts, but Buck’s too busy blinking black dots away to really acknowledge the pain in his voice.
“You’d think being buried in rubble would at least give us the luxury of stability,” Hen groans.
“Wait, we’re buried?” Chimney asks.
“We’re definitely nowhere near the outside,” she answers.
“Do the others know where we are?”
“I’ve tried radioing but all I got was static. The quake probably messed with the lines again.”
“Did you try the ambulance’s radio too?”
“Do I look like I was born yesterday?”
Buck lets their conversation fade to the background as he slowly tests the vehicle’s balance, pushing down on one foot and then the other, before he grabs on to a notch in the wall and reaches up –– to no avail.
He drops his arm back down with a wince, a sharp pain in his side that definitely doesn’t just mean bruised ribs, and finds another notch higher in the wall.
This time, he doesn’t just reach up, but propels himself as gently as possible and climbs his way to the shelf, teeth gritted as his body screams at him to stop and rest.
“You okay, Buckaroo?” Hen asks after a minute, and Buck realizes he might have been grunting his entire short way up.
He snatches the box of gauze off the railing. “Peachy.”
From where he’s barely holding himself up, he can see the rubble covering the windshield, but also the side of Hen’s face, the frame of her black glasses and the dust covering her temple. He wants nothing more than to keep climbing, to go to her and make sure she’s okay –– but he’s already got a very-much-not-okay paramedic a few feet down, and a six foot man trying to climb through the ambulance’s squared window might very well be the thing that would send them all flying.
So Buck swallows, and just asks. “You? You’re okay?”
“I’m okay, Buck,” he can hear the smile in her voice. “Let’s just make sure the absolute idiot that serves as my best friend stays okay too, yeah?”
“I heard that,” Chimney says, and Buck snorts, making sure there’s nothing else useful that’s stuck up here (Hen) before climbing back down, barely suppressing a groan as his feet meet the ground.
“Okay,” Buck says as he kneels down. “Hands off, Han, let me see.”
Chimney groans as he does as told. “You’re definitely funnier when you’re not concussed.”
Buck shoots him a glance. “I’m not concussed.”
“Right,” Chimney sighs as Buck starts working. “And I’m not bleeding out in the back of an overturned ambulance.” Buck glares up at him, and Chimney raises an eyebrow. “You can’t even properly focus on my face, buddy.”
“It’s fine.” Buck looks back down at his work, packing the wound as neatly as he’s learned to do, thanking the stars for his newly acquired medical skills but still wishing someone more experienced than him (Hen) would be here with them.
He leans back when he’s mostly satisfied with his work, but can’t escape the grip of worry around his heart that tightens at the sight of all the blood his friend has already lost.
“This isn’t gonna hold forever, guys,” he says, scrunching his eyebrows as he looks around. “We need to get out of here.”
“How?” Hen asks, and Buck can actually hear her tap her hand against the steering wheel. “We’re stuck under a pile of rubble, our radios aren’t working, the rest of LA is probably in as much of a mess as we are and we don’t even know if our team––”
“... ptain Nash to Ambulance 118, come in.” Bobby’s crackling voice spreads like a breeze of fresh air throughout the vehicle. “Repeat, this––Captain Nash, Ambulance 118, do you copy?”
They all react at the same time, but Hen is faster.
“This is Ambulance 118,” she nearly shouts into her own radio (Buck presumes). “We copy, Cap. We’re here.”
A few beats of silence follow, almost long enough for their burst of hope to die down, until…
“Copy that, Firefighter Wilson,” Bobby says, and even through the radio, there’s no denying the relief in his voice. “Glad to hear your voice. Everyone okay down there?”
“No,” Hen answers with a laugh, but it’s dripping with stress. “No, everyone’s not okay, Cap. We lost Agnes and Chim is in critical condition.”
“Okay, I’m not quite there yet,” Chimney grumbles and Buck raises an eyebrow at him.
“Critical condition?”
“Bleeding stomach wound,” Buck answers into his own radio, fingers struggling to find the push-to-talk button. “He’s okay for now, but he’s gonna need medical attention ASAP, Cap.”
Their radios are silent for a beat, till Bobby’s voice crackles through again. “–en? Buck? Do you copy?”
Buck sighs, clenching his jaw as Chimney lets the back of his head knock against the wall.
“We copy, Cap,” Hen says again.
“We lost you for a second,” Bobby says, and he sounds even more scrambled than he did a minute ago. “What were you saying?”
Buck swears he can hear Hen swallow. “We need help, Bobby, and we need it now. How long till you can get to us?”
A beat. “Stand by.” They all grunt.
The ambulance falls into a tense silence, only interrupted by the sound of their breathing and the eventual cracking of metal around them.
It’s Chimney who breaks the silence first. “Be honest with me guys, is it worse to die because your girlfriend’s psycho ex-husband stabbed you in the stomach, or because you accidentally stabbed yourself in that very same spot with a pair of medical scissors?”
Buck frowns. “Wait, you stabbed yourself?”
“Yeah, I was grabbing them right before the quake hit. What did you think happened?”
“I don’t know,” Buck shrugs. “I thought maybe you landed on a––”
“Guys, I swear to God––”
Hen’s interrupted by Bobby’s returning voice.
“The 133 just arrived on scene, we should be starting to dig any minute now. We’ve got no visual of the ambulance, though, so I’m afraid you guys might be at the bottom of the pile.”
“Of course we are,” Buck can’t help but mutter, nervous eyes meeting Chimney’s for a fleeting second.
“It’s gonna take us a minute to get to you,” Bobby continues, unaware of Buck’s comment. “You said Chimney’s in critical condition?”
“Stomach wound,” Buck repeats into his radio. “He’s mostly stable for now but I couldn’t do much more than slow down the bleeding –– it’s not gonna last.”
“Is he conscious?”
“Painfully so, yes,” Chimney answers before Buck can, bloody fingers coming to grab Buck’s radio, his own probably lost to the mess around them.
“How we doing, Chim?”
“As fine as a guy who just got stabbed for the second time in his life can be, Cap. You’re getting us out of here?”
“That’s the plan. Hen, anything you can do to keep him stable?”
“Not with my own two hands, Cap,” Hen answers. “I’m pinned behind the wheel. Buck’s in the back with him.”
“Then he’s in good hands,” Bobby says, and Buck’s stomach churns at the implication that Chimney’s wellbeing depends on him and him alone. “Anything else I need to know?”
Buck takes the control of his radio back. “Is everyone okay? The rest of the team?”
A beat. “Everyone’s alright, Buck. We were further behind and barely on the bridge when it started collapsing. Eddie and Ravi are already harnessed up and on their way down.”
“Hey guys,” Eddie’s voice echoes through their radios, and Buck swallows down the sudden and ugly urge to cry, because he shouldn’t even have been in that damn ambulance to start with, he should be out there, working with his partner and–– “We’re gonna start digging as soon as the 133 is ready, so be aware there might be some movement and shifting in the rubble. Hang in there.”
“Copy that,” Hen answers after a moment. “Can’t wait to see you guys.”
“Okay,” it’s Bobby speaking again, and if hearing Eddie’s voice had been a punch to the guts, his absence leaves another kind of pressure behind Buck’s eyes. “I’ll radio in every fifteen to check on you three. Don’t hesitate to radio before if anything’s wrong.”
“Copy that,” they all answer, Hen the only one to actually say it into her radio.
Silence falls back onto them, and Buck is suddenly all too aware of the uncomfortable position he’s in, knees digging into the wall-turned-floor on either side of Chimney’s body and face quite too close to a dead woman’s own for it to be okay. And the more he thinks about it, the more he needs to move, to stand up and stretch his legs and do something, because his brain is buzzing and stress is crawling under his skin.
He moves one knee, and the entire ambulance groans with it.
Chimney looks at the ceiling. “I think you’ve used up all your moves, Buckaroo.”
Buck grits his teeth –– it sends spikes of pain right through his brain. “It’s not like the ambulance is going anywhere.”
“Tell that to the metal beam that’s staring me right in the face,” Hen answers, and it’s frightening that Buck can picture the exact expression on her face. “I’d rather not take any chances if we can help it.”
“Got it,” he answers with a tight nod. “Not moving.”
Silence comes back, and Buck starts chewing on the inside of his cheek, eyes drawn back to the poorly-made bandage around Chimney’s chest and the slowly growing stain of blood on its white fabric.
He thinks back to what he knows, what he’s seen, what he’s heard from when this happened the first time around. When, after finding Chimney on the brink of death in front of Maddie’s house, Buck had spent countless sleepless nights looking up the possibilities, the ones that kept his friend alive and the ones that wouldn’t have.
If there’s one thing Buck learned from all that, it’s that stomach wounds are tricky –– they can take you in minutes like they can slowly kill you in days.
The bleeding has slowed down, but maybe there’s more internal bleeding they’re not seeing. Maybe the scissors hit an artery. Maybe it nicked Chimney’s stomach and septic shock will get him, maybe his spleen––
“Hey, Hen,” Chimney calls, promptly snapping Buck out of his spiralling. “Did you find Karen’s gift yet?”
Hen groans. “We’re already in a stressful enough situation, Howard, please don’t make it worse.”
“So that’s a no.”
“I just can’t figure it out, alright?” Hen exclaims.
Buck frowns. “Karen’s birthday isn’t til August.”
He hears the thud of Hen letting her head fall back against the headrest. “It’s not a birthday gift –– it’s an anniversary one.”
“Oh, cool,” Buck says. “Is it a big milestone or something?”
Hen snorts. “Or something, yeah; it’s our ten-year anniversary.”
“Silver year,” Chimney adds, and Buck tries not to focus on the sweat collecting on his forehead.
Buck shakes his head. “Not silver. Silver is twenty-five years. Ten years is actually tin.”
“Of course you’d know that,” Hen answers with a smile in her voice. “So, Walking Wikipedia, what’s your diagnosis? What should I get my wife?”
“You should get her a bust of herself made out of aluminum,” Chimney answers before Buck can. “Or like, a lot of soda cans.”
Buck shrugs, moving ever-so-slightly to try and keep his legs from falling asleep. “I mean, you don’t have to make it about tin or anything. You could just take her out on a nice date.”
“That’d be great, but we’re talking about me taking out the mastermind of dates on a date. Do you know how hard it is to do better than the outings Karen’s put together for me?”
“Doesn’t have to be about doing better than her,” Buck answers with another shrug. “As long as it comes from your heart, right?”
“Hurts me to admit that the single man is right, Wilson,” Chimney says with a raise of his eyebrows. “But the single man is kind of right.”
“It can come from my heart and still be better.”
“Goddamn family of overachievers,” Chimney mutters.
“I heard that.”
“Okay,” Buck interrupts, raising a hand to rub against his face but aborting the movement when he remembers his fingers are covered in Chimney’s blood. “What about remaking one of your most important dates? Like the one at the Observatory?”
A beat. “How in the hell do you know about that date?”
“Karen told me about it at Josh’s birthday party.”
“Oh,” Hen snorts. “You mean the party where she got so drunk on mojitos that she actually threw up in a potted plant outside the bar when I tried to get her into the car? Yeah, I’m not surprised.”
“She did tell me it was the date that really sealed the deal for her,” Buck answers, and watches as a disgustingly fond smile stretches Chimney’s chapped lips. “Might be a great trip down memory lane.”
“You know,” Chimney sucks in a breath. “You have worryingly good date ideas for someone with such a poor love life.”
Buck chuckles as Hen answers, “Hey, be nice to the guy that’s trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’ll have you know that it’s not so poor anymore,” Buck adds with a raise of his own brows. “In fact, I have a date tonight.”
Chimney’s eyebrows shoot up. “I’ll be damned –– Evan Buckley’s back on the dating scene?”
“Where did you even meet them?” Hen questions.
“Is it a Tinder date?”
“It’s not a Tinder date,” Buck answers with a shake of the head.
“Ooh,” Hen continues, “Is it one of your exes? Did the What’s Your Number technique actually work out?”
Buck drops his head with a sigh. “It’s not an ex, Hen. And I still have no idea what that movie is about.”
“Maddie didn’t mention you meeting someone new,” Chimney observes with a frown.
“Well maybe Maddie doesn’t know about it,” Buck retorks.
Wrong. Maddie knows every single detail about this date and has been sworn to complete and utter secrecy, a promise which Buck is pretty satisfied to see she’s respected even with Chimney.
“Who is it, then?” Hen asks.
Buck bites his lip. “Doesn’t matter,” he shrugs. “I won’t be making it tonight anyway.”
A silence follows, their light-hearted conversation damped by the reminder of their current predicament.
“Maybe you should try to text them,” Hen says after a while. “So they don’t think you stood them up.”
“Forgot my phone in the bunk room,” Buck answers. “And the lines probably aren’t even working right now." And they won’t be making it to the date either, he doesn’t say.
The ambulance groans around them, and Buck takes it as a sign that the rescue team is finally getting to work.
“Hey,” Chimney says, one hand coming to weakly pat Buck’s arm. “Look on the bright side: if this one ghosts you, you can blame it on the universe.”
Buck slaps his hand away.
*
“Captain Nash to Ambulance 118, come in.”
Buck lets Hen answer this one, too busy playing a feeble game of rock-paper-scissors with Chimney to grab his radio.
“Go ahead, Cap.”
“Rescue team is slowly progressing through the rubble, but still no visual of the ambulance. How are you guys doing?”
“Same as fifteen and thirty minutes ago, Cap.”
“What’s Chim’s status?”
Buck sighs as his paper loses to Chimney’s scissors, and brings a hand to his own radio. “Still conscious but still bleeding, Cap.” Buck tries to keep his voice steady because Chimney is watching him with the smug smile of a winner, but his eyes are starting to focus less and less on Buck’s and the bandage he’s already changed twice is already starting to stain again. “Any idea on how much longer till you guys get to us?”
A beat. “Hard to say, but we’ve already…”
Bobby’s voice trails off just as Buck feels it –– a slight vibration that rumbles through the walls of the ambulance, discreet, but a terrifying omen for what’s to come.
His eyes meet Chimney’s wide ones as Bobby’s shout echoes through the radio.
“Aftershock, guys, brace yourselves––”
And the next second, chaos erupts.
The walls start shaking, the rubble around them groaning hard enough to cover Hen’s shouts, and Buck’s elbows hit metal a little too roughly as he drapes himself protectively over Chimney’s body.
Everything that had survived their original fall succumbs, boxes and tools dropping onto Buck’s back as he shakingly covers the back of his head with his hands.
“Buck!” Chimney shouts, his voice too close to Buck’s ear. “Watch ou––”
Something heavy suddenly lands on his back, and for the second time today, Buck’s world goes black.
*
Buck groans, pulled back to consciousness by an insistent tap against his left arm.
“Buck,” someone says, clear pain dripping from their voice. “I really need you to wake up, buddy, come on.”
Buck groans again, and peels one eye open. Everything feels terribly wrong, between the dull pain in his back and the muffled voice screaming over a radio.
“Buck,” Chimney calls again, and the choking sound that comes with is enough to snap Buck back into reality.
“Mh,” he grunts, moving his arms in a herculean effort to try and push himself off the weirdly soft ground.
“Fucking hell,” Chimney wheezes out as the voice on the radio –– Bobby –– keeps on shouting. “Watch it, Buckley.”
And that’s all it takes for Buck to understand that the ground isn’t actually soft; it’s the body he’s laying on that is.
“Shi’,” he mumbles, and he’s finding it embarrassingly hard to think and formulate words. “Chim?”
“Right here, bud,” Chimney answers, his strangled voice right next to Buck’s ear. “You alright?”
“Hurts,” Buck answers before he can stop himself, because his entire back is on fire and his head hurts even more than it did before and he’s stuck ––
“Yeah, h––hurts here too,” Chimney breathes out. “Do you think you could try and–– and sit up, or something?”
Buck offers the best nod he can, and gives pushing up another try. There’s a heavy weight on his back, and whatever sense of gravity he was starting to have before the aftershock, he’s lost –– because the ambulance has clearly moved and everything is leaning to the left.
He can’t help the pained moan that slips out as he feels his injured ribs shift with the effort, but a few moments of struggle later, he’s somehow managed to push himself off Chimney, limbs already trembling with exhaustion.
“Fuck,” he grunts. “Wha’s––”
“One gurney and a dead person,” Chimney answers before he can ask, and Buck tries to focus on his friend’s face but everything is blurry and dark. “Guess this is the part where I thank you for acting as my personal shield.”
Buck feels hands patting at his chest, and forces himself to bend his head just enough to see Chimney grab the radio strapped there and bring it to his mouth.
“This is Han,” he says, effectively cutting off Bobby’s calls. “We’re still here, Cap.”
A beat of silence, and Buck tries to picture Bobby looking up to thank the sky like he always does. “Copy that, Chim. Gave us quite the scare. Everyone okay?”
“Okay ’s a terribly relative term,” Chimney answers while Buck uselessly tries to turn his head to take a look at the gurney pinning him down. “Didn’t think things could actually get worse yet here we are. And I don’t know what happened to Hen.”
Buck freezes –– Hen. Guilt squeezes the air out of his lungs as he looks back at Chimney, suddenly hit with the realization that Hen has in fact not said a single word since he woke up.
Hen who’s stuck in the driver’s seat and who talked about a metal beam staring her right in the face.
He tries to sit up again, terror guiding his body, only for Chimney to cry out as the entire ambulance starts rocking on its hinges.
“Let’s–– not do that,” Chimney wheezes out, his free hand coming to grip Buck’s trembling shoulder.
“What happened?”
“What happened is that we’re fucked, Bobby,” Chimney grits out, banging the back of his head against the wall. “And time is truly becoming of the essence.”
Buck frowns at the words, and then looks down at Chimney’s bandaged abdomen; and at the worrying red stain slowly spreading across the white dressing.
“Chim,” he whispers, trying to bring one hand to press against the injury but finding himself horrifyingly unable to move even a finger.
“Yeah,” Chimney grunts. “I know.”
“We’re gonna do everything we can to double time it,” Bobby says after a moment. “The aftershock actually cleared some of the debris out for us, I think we’ve gained some time.”
“Good, because we’ve clearly lost some,” Chimney answers through gritted teeth, and Buck watches helplessly as he tries to press his hand that’s not holding the radio against the bleeding wound.
“We’re coming, guys,” Bobby says, tone stern. “We’re getting you out.”
He doesn’t say anything after that, and the sudden silence leaves Buck all too aware of each and every ache in his body. His ribs, his pounding head, his screaming legs that had been crouched for way too long and are now shaking along with his arms at the effort of staying on his hands and knees. He can feel something warm trickle down his right arm, and one quick glance at it shows him a cut on his biceps, so inconsequential compared to the rest that Buck can’t even feel its pain yet.
He takes a breath, as deep as his ribs and the weight of the gurney pressing down on him will allow him to, and lets his eyes close for a second.
Maybe if he thinks about it hard enough, Eddie’s voice will come through the radio again. Maybe Hen will say something to them. Maybe Buck’ll open his eyes to the ceiling of his loft, or the dim light of the bunk room, maybe this is all a terrible nightmare that’s about to come to an end.
“Talk about quality bonding time, uh?” Chimney says after a while.
Buck can’t find the strength to answer him.
“Come on, Buckaroo. Eyes open.”
Buck sighs, but does so, peeling one eye open and then the other to find Chimney staring right back at him. They’re uncomfortably close to each other, and Buck can see the way his throat bobs as he swallows, can see the grey peppering his black hair, the sweat dripping from his shiny forehead.
The unusual paleness of his skin and the glassy look in his eyes.
Somewhere behind Buck’s back, Hen’s radio crackles with Bobby’s desperate calls for her. Buck clenches his jaw.
“You think she’s okay?” The words are out before he can stop them.
He doesn’t miss the flash of worry that crosses Chimney’s face. “I don’t know, Buck. She might’ve just passed out from the pain like you did.”
“Yeah, well I woke up.”
“Because I woke you up,” Chimney counters, the words slightly slurred. “We just–– we can’t think all worst case scenario right now, alright? I can’t––” he cuts himself off, looking up with a shake of the head. “She’s gonna be okay because I’m not letting her be anything else, got it?”
Buck nods, a tight movement that resonates throughout his entire body. They stay quiet for a while, the silence rhythmed by Buck’s grunts and Chimney’s ragged breath.
Buck glances down. “Chim, the bleeding’s getting worse.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that,” Chimney huffs, looking anywhere but at Buck. “I think I’m going into shock.” He chokes out a laugh. “God, I’m an idiot.”
“You’re only realizing that now?” Buck taunts, but it’s heatless, lost between his shallow breaths and the mist in Chimney’s eyes.
Chimney brings a clumsy hand to rub his own face. “I bought a ring.” He admits, the words so low that Buck nearly doesn’t catch them.
“A–– A ring?”
Chimney lets his hand drop back down, a tired laugh escaping his lips. “Three months ago. I went to the mall with Hen, and I bought a ring. I had to steal one of Maddie’s to get her finger size right, and then I just… I didn’t do anything.” He pauses. “Things just–– kept getting in the way, you know? You nearly died, then your parents stayed, then my parents stayed, and then the thing with the neighbors, and then I started thinking, what if it’s too soon? What if I say the wrong words, or––or ask the wrong question, and she leaves me again?” Chimney laughs again, but it’s wet and wrong. “And now it might actually be too late. I should’ve known the universe wouldn’t give us a break. I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“It’s not too late,” Buck immediately says. “Hey, look at me.” He waits until Chimney does so to continue. “It’s not too late. No worst case scenario, right?” Chimney doesn’t nod. “We’re all walking out of here, the three of us. We’re walking out of here and you’re gonna go home, Chim. I’m not letting my niece grow up without her dad, you hear that, Han? This isn’t happening.”
Chimney doesn’t answer –– just stares at him, a few uncontrolled tears disappearing into the hair on his temples.
Buck swallows around the growing panic squeezing his throat. “And she’s gonna say yes, Chim.” He nods, uncaring for the pain it spreads across his spine. “She’s gonna say yes because she loves you, and because this is the only step left to this life you’ve been building together.”
Chimney stays silent for a while, and that’s when they hear it –– the sound of rocks being moved, of people shouting and of tools being used.
Buck suddenly has the feeling that they’ve been hearing it for a while, the movement of the rubble and the rescue team approaching, but all of a sudden it’s like a bubble has been popped, and the enclosed life of the ambulance is merging back into the real world.
“There!” Someone yells, their unrecognizable voice still terribly far away.
“Buck, Chim, come in,” Bobby calls through the radio.
Buck waits for Chimney to reach for his radio.
A beat.
“Captain Nash to Ambulance 118, do you copy?”
Buck looks up, and finds the closed eyelids of Chimney facing him.
“No,” he breathes out, pressing his fingertips against the metal. “Chim, come on. Chimney, open your eyes. Jesus, HOWARD!”
“Wh––” Chimney jerks awake, and immediately grimaces. “Ow, wh’t th’hell, man.”
Buck lets out a shuddering breath. “Fuck’s sake, man, don’t do this to me. Stay awake.”
“Trying,” Chimney mumbles, his eyes already starting to slip close again.
Buck slams his index against the wall, literally unable to do more. “Well, try harder! They’re coming. You hear that? The rescue team is here, so you better stay with me till we get out.”
And Buck’s mind is a whirlwind. Because Hen still hasn’t said a word and he has no idea how the team will even get to them and if they will get to them in time and Chimney is dying and Buck can’t move and––
“Eyes open,” he says in the loudest voice he can, effectively forcing Chimney’s eyelids back up. “Talk to me, Chim.”
“You talk,” Chimney drawls out, and it frighteningly reminds Buck of Jee-Yun pout whenever things don’t go her way.
“Okay,” Buck answers, trying to block out Bobby’s fourth call out to them. “Alright, I talk, and you listen, yeah?”
“Sure thin’,” Chimney nods, unfocused eyes landing on Buck’s face. “Be int’resting.”
Buck smiles, and it pulls at his dry lips. “Interesting, uh?” The ambulance groans around them, voices getting closer and closer to the vehicle. “What about my date?”
“Tinder date?”
“Fuck off, Han. It’s a big deal, actually –– I’m pretty nervous about it.”
“Not Veronica 2.0?”
Buck actually laughs; more of a wheezed breath than anything, but still. “Not Veronica 2.0, no.” When Chimney doesn’t say anything, he continues, “If I’m being honest, I think this guy might actually be–– it for me.” Chimney raises his eyebrows. “It’s… we’ve known each other for a while now, a––and things just feel right when we’re together, you know?” Buck pauses to take a deep breath, trying to ignore the way his voice is starting to tremble along with the rest of his body. “Like–– Like I could do anything when I’m with him. Don’t know why it took me so long to realize that.”
Chimney is watching him closely, his tired eyes scanning Buck’s face with whatever strength he’s got left.
“Who?” is all he asks.
And before Buck can answer, a familiar voice interrupts them.
“There–– I see them, Cap!” Eddie yells from somewhere near the front of the ambulance, and Buck’s entire body almost gives up under the relief. “We’re here, guys, we’ve got you.”
“Eddie,” Buck calls with a weak voice that would embarrass him under any other circumstances. “Eddie, Hen––”
“I’ve got a pulse,” Rosie says before he can finish, and Buck drops his head as Chimney lets out a shaky breath. “But she’s not responding.”
“Okay,” It’s Bobby, and Buck is getting whiplash from hearing his voice in real time and not on the radio. “Ravi, try and secure the vehicle, Rosie, get those Jaws working and get her out of here, John, I need you to climb back up and get us what’s necessary to cut the boys a way out of there. Buck, Chim, how we doing?”
Buck feels like crying. “Not good, Cap. Could really use a hand down–– down here. Chim’s––”
“Peachy,” Chimney slurs out.
Blood is still spreading across the dressing, turning white into red as Chimney’s skin slowly pales. Buck swallows.
“Running out of time,” he finishes, a bitter taste on his tongue as he watches Chimney blink sluggishly.
“What about you, Buck?” Eddie asks as he moves around, the calmness of his voice underlined with dripping worry.
Buck licks his dry lips fruitlessly. “Tired.”
“Can you move at all?”
“Some fingers,” Buck answers, and talking is becoming more and more of a grueling effort.
Bobby and Eddie start conversing in hushed voices, soon drowned out by the deafening sound of the Jaws of Life against the metal of the vehicle.
“Okay,” Bobby announces when the Jaws stop for a second. “Buck, Chim, Eddie and Ravi are coming down to you.”
Buck finds himself unable to answer or even to nod, his entire body frozen by the effort and his heart squeezing because they’re so close to getting out, to making it, but still so very far because Chimney’s eyes are closing again and––
“Chim,” he grits out, all the air leaving his lungs along with the word. “C’mon.”
Chimney blinks at him. “Maddie…”
“Yeah,” Buck pants. “Soon.”
“Tell her…”
“You’ll tell her yourself, Chim,” Eddie’s strong voice cuts through their hushed conversation. “We’re all going home tonight.”
A pair of booted feet lands gently next to them, and Buck almost breaks at the sight. The ambulance rocks ever so slightly, but it’s nothing compared to the way it moved whenever Buck tried to get up.
“Okay,” Eddie says, and he’s so close, close enough to touch, close enough to help. “Securing the gurney,” he continues, audibly tying knots. “Buck, anything I need to know before we lift it off of you?”
Buck drops his head. “That there’s nothing I would love m––more than that.”
Eddie chuckles, and it’s the warmest sound Buck’s ever heard. “Copy that. Done, Ravi, you can go ahead.”
There’s a screeching sound, and all of a sudden it’s like Buck is weightless, goosebumps taking over his entire body as a wave of cool air brushes against his sweat-drenched back. He lets out a whine, the abrupt feeling of freedom so dizzying he finds himself unable to do more.
A gloved, familiar hand comes to rest on his shoulder.
“Hey,” Eddie says softly. “Can you move?”
“I don’t know,” Buck answers, because it’s true –– he’s not even sure he can bring his head up anymore, let alone move an arm or a leg.
“Okay,” Eddie reaches for something behind his back, and the unmistakable sound of velcro rips the air. “Let’s get a c-collar on you and then I’ll help, yeah?”
Another pair of boots land next to them as Eddie secures the collar around his neck, and Buck watches as Ravi’s hands find their way to Chimney, finally doing the work Buck couldn’t do himself.
“Pulse is erratic,” Ravi observes, hands moving around as Buck feels Eddie’s own come to rest against his ribs.
“Okay,” Eddie says, fingers firm against Buck’s skin. “I’m gonna––”
All of a sudden, and without warning, Buck deflates.
His arms and legs give up like a rope snapping, and if not for Eddie’s grip, he would've dived headfirst onto Chimney’s body.
“I got you,” Eddie suddenly says as he maneuvers him away from Chimney and Ravi, and Buck suddenly realizes that he’s crying, or yelling, or maybe both because his entire body feels like it’s been set on fire and the ambulance is rocking around them and––
“Breathe, Buck,” Eddie’s voice is close to his ear, warm hands twisting him around until he’s laid down on the door, in a position not so different to Chimney’s. “I’ve got you, you’re okay.”
Buck tries to take a breath, but ends up almost choking on it.
“Everything okay down there?” Bobby calls as Buck coughs.
“Chim needs transportation ASAP, Cap,” Ravi answers somewhere on the right.
“Rosie’s coming to you with the backboard, get him situated while John and I make an opening.”
“Copy that.”
Buck blinks a few times, watching as Rosie’s blurry form squeezes through the squared window that leads to the back of the ambulance, a red backboard in hand as she lowers herself to their level.
“Hey guys,” she says as she lands between Buck and Chimney. “Talk about a Friday night, uh?”
“Tell me about it,” Eddie answers next to Buck’s head. “I have a date for the first time in months and a natural disaster happens.”
“Might be a sign,” Ravi says.
Eddie’s eyes find Buck’s for a short moment. “I don’t believe in signs.” He looks back at whatever he’s working on.
Ravi and Rosie huff out a laugh, and Buck offers him a weak smile before focusing back on the squared window where he can guess Bobby and John’s forms.
He’s rudely interrupted by a bright light in his face.
“Ow,” he mumbles, trying to move away but soon blocked by the c-collar.
“I warned you,” Eddie says, and Buck gives him a frown. “Did you lose consciousness?”
Buck thinks for a few seconds. “Twice.”
“Twice?” He doesn’t need to look at Eddie to see the raise of his eyebrows.
“S’cond time was just because of the pain. Where’s H––”
“Hen’s okay, Buck. She’s out and probably already on her way to the hospital.” Eddie answers, and Buck’s eyes get caught on the red backboard ascending the tight space of the ambulance.
It feels surreal, watching Chimney being taken away after the eternity they’ve spent stuck mere inches from each other. He watches as they carry him through the square that’s been turned into a rectangle by John and Bobby’s handiwork, and keeps his eyes on them until the red disappears from sight.
“What’s your name?” Eddie’s question drags him back to the enclosed space.
Buck frowns. “Y’don’t know my name?”
Eddie stops in his tracks to look down at him with a small smile. “I know your name. I wanna know if you know your name.”
The words get to him like Buck’s brain is made of quicksand, and by the time he finds the answer, Eddie’s expression has gone from mild concern to something worse.
“Buck,” he answers, and when Eddie raises an eyebrow, he adds, “Buckley.”
Eddie nods, lips in a tight line. “Good, that’s good. What about the year?”
“Eddie.”
“What?”
“Y’know I have a concussion, leave me alone.”
“Then find us another topic of conversation, because your backboard’s still a minute out and I’m not letting you fall asleep.”
There’s a slight pinch in the crook of Buck’s elbow, and he finds himself wincing at the sensation, cool saline soon starting to spread under his skin.
Buck swallows. “Chim bought a ring,” he says, before he can truly think about it.
“Yeah? He told you that?”
Buck tries to nod, to no avail. “Said he was too scared t’ask.”
“I mean, I get being scared –– it’s a big step.”
“Maddie’d say yes.”
“I have no doubt.”
A silence follows, rythmed by the constant chatter emanating from their radios and the movements above the ambulance. Buck takes in a breath, as deep as he can, trying to ignore the way it pulls at his ribs and echoes through what feels like every single muscle in his tired body.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Buck answers. “Jus’... full body workout.”
Eddie chuckles, but it sounds empty. “Yeah, I bet. That gurney wasn’t light. You did a pretty amazing job.”
“Couldn’t help Chim.”
“Buck.” A gloved hand lands on his forearm. “You did everything you could’ve done, and you did it well. Most people wouldn’t even have been able to lift that gurney off in the first place.”
Buck swallows, turning his eyes to the right to find Eddie –– Eddie who’s crouched next to him, with his face covered with dust and his steady brown eyes watching him.
“Natural disaster, Buck. Do I need to give you the old speech again?”
“Who’s the old speech?” Bobby asks as he makes his way through to the back, effectively snapping Buck’s eyes away from Eddie’s.
Their captain lands, passing the blue backboard over to Eddie as he crouches down to lay a hand on Buck’s bent leg.
“Hey, kid. How are you holding up?”
Buck grimaces at the ceiling, unable to turn his head to look at Bobby. “Could really use some fresh air.”
Bobby laughs, and two pairs of hands grab onto Buck as they slowly maneuver him onto the board.
“You’re getting that fresh air soon, Buck,” Bobby pats his leg as he and Eddie work to secure him down. “Ravi, ready?”
“As I’ll ever be, Cap.” Ravi answers from somewhere above.
“Okay, let’s wrap this up, then.”
Buck’s eyes focus on the red rope hanging from the ceiling that suddenly goes taut, and the change of position that comes with the lifting of the board has him closing his eyes against a brutal wave of nausea.
“Still doing okay, Buck?” Eddie asks, still close to him despite the movement.
“Yeah,” Buck grits out, trying to block out the sensation but terribly failing. “Chim?”
“Got his own private flight to the hospital,” Bobby answers somewhere under him. “We won’t know much till he’s out of surgery, but Rosie seemed optimistic enough.”
Buck can’t find it in himself to do more than hum his answer, teeth gritted against the motion sickness that’s getting worse with every shift of the board.
He feels sick yet strangely at peace, because Hen and Chimney are out and as safe as they can be, and for the first time in what feels like eternity –– Buck can let go.
Because he’s got Eddie by his side, and Ravi and Bobby around him, and there are no people on earth that Buck trusts more to keep him safe.
“Eyes open, buddy,” is the last thing he hears Eddie say before Buck finally lets unconsciousness drag him away.
*
After that, it’s a blurry game of Buck waking up and going down again, his eyes opening long enough during the trip to the hospital for his skin to crawl at the sight of ambulance walls surrounding him again. Everything is blurry, but Buck knows that Eddie is there the entire time, a grounding presence that zeroes in on him every time he opens his eyes.
The next time Buck truly comes back to consciousness, he’s laying in a terribly uncomfortable bed, the white ceiling staring back at him with too-bright LEDs.
He takes a minute to breathe, to take account of the pounding in his head and the state of his body. The pain is muffled compared to what it used to be, but Buck still isn’t sure he’d be able to move even a finger if he tried.
The curtain he hadn’t realized was surrounding his bed opens, revealing the busy emergency room and Eddie.
“Hey,” Eddie says as he closes the curtain after himself, making his way to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
Buck watches him take a seat on the small stool next to him, words knocking together around his head as he tries to string together a sentence.
“Like I drank a whole bottle of tequila and then got hit by a semi-truck,” he eventually gets out, voice sounding and throat feeling like he tried to eat a handful of gravel. “What’s the damage?”
Eddie leans forward, elbows resting against the side of the bed. “Not much yet –– the hospital’s flooded with earthquake victims, you’re still on the waiting list for a CT.”
That’s when Buck realizes dumbly that he’s still in his uniform, dust and blood wiped off his skin but still seared into the fabric of his clothes. He tears his gaze away before he can think too much about it all.
“Chim?” He asks, letting his head sink back into the pillow.
“Just got out of surgery, doctors are optimistic.” Eddie’s mouth is pressed in a thin line. “He was flown into another hospital, Maddie’s there with him.” And before Buck can open his mouth to ask: “And Hen is awake and alright, but also in another hospital.” He shakes his phone. “I just got off the phone with Karen.”
Buck huffs. “Talk about stretched resources.”
“It’s fine,” Eddie shrugs. “Definitely not as bad as the last earthquake. Most of the city was barely even affected, we just… happened to be in the wrong area.”
Buck turns his head slowly, letting his cheek rest against the cool pillow as he takes his first good look at his best friend. His hair is a mess, and his five o’clock shadow is mixing with the dust he failed to wipe off the sides of his face. He’s unsurprisingly still in his work clothes too, one of his shirt’s long sleeves slightly ripped and revealing a bandage on his bicep.
Buck frowns, reminded of blood trickling down his own arm. He looks down.
“Hey,” he says, feebly raising his right arm to show off the white gauze there. “We match.”
Eddie watches him for a second before letting his face break into a tired smile. It makes the wrinkles around his eyes deeper, and Buck can’t help but stare at the way the shitty hospital lights are making Eddie’s brown irises look golden, almost the same way they do when the sun hits them just right.
Eddie has the most beautiful eyes in the world, and so, Buck tells him just that.
“I see we’re at the no-filter part of the concussion,” Eddie chuckles in answer with a shake of his head, though Buck feels a warm hand wrap around his own.
“You’re saying that like I’ve usually got one of those,” Buck answers, smiling when Eddie squeezes his fingers lightly.
Their eyes find each other again, and Buck has to swallow down the terrifying ball of love trying to force its way out.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hey,” Eddie answers, voice quiet. “You scared the shit out of me, you know that?”
“I’m sorry,” Buck squeezes his hand back. “To be fair, I really thought getting struck by lightning would, like, give me at least a few years of no natural disaster related accidents.”
Eddie snorts. “A few years? I was hoping a lifetime.”
“Damn, Diaz, still setting your expectations that high after everything that’s happened?”
“I don’t think wanting you safe and alive should be that high of an expectation,” Eddie answers with a one-shouldered shrug, but Buck can see the unease in his face.
“Hey, I’m okay,” he says, bringing their linked hands to his chest and doing his best to suppress a wince at the effort. “I’m here.”
Eddie smiles, but it’s forced. “Yeah. I know you are.”
They look at each other again, and just for a moment, it’s like the entire world melts away and nothing exists outside of those drawn curtains.
But other things do exist, and Buck wants to slap himself at the sudden realization.
“Chris?” He asks suddenly, effectively breaking the moment.
“He’s alright,” Eddie answers. “His school was barely affected, and Pepa picked him up at four.”
Buck nods. “Okay, so you should go get––”
“Buck.” Eddie waits until Buck takes the hint to look at him. “I just called him. He’s okay, he’s safe, and he very kindly told me that I wasn’t allowed to leave your side until after you got discharged.” He raises his eyebrows like he’s just won a case. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy. Plus,” he bends down to retrieve something from the ground with his free hand. “I wasn’t going home tonight anyway, earthquake or not.”
He straightens up, dropping two hospital sandwiches near Buck’s legs before looking back at him with a half-smile.
“It’s not Michele’s margherita and we’re definitely not drinking any wine tonight,” Eddie says with a nonchalant shrug. “But Friday’s not over yet and, well, we did have a date.”
Oh. Buck looks down at the sandwiches and blinks once, twice –– before love finally overflows and he can’t keep it in anymore.
“Buck?” Eddie straightens in his seat, and Buck has the sudden realization that he’s crying.
He brings a shaking hand to his face. “You absolute cheesy motherfucker, what the fuck is wrong with you,” he breathes out, wiping at his eyes.
Eddie chuckles, warm and so close, and Buck drops his hand to look at him again.
It’s insane, he thinks, all this love between them. This unspoken feeling that has been there for so long, for probably as many years as they’ve known each other, and that they’ve spent so much time trying to ignore, or bury, by fear and uncertainty and ignorance.
Five years, and suddenly Buck’s skin crawls at the idea of waiting a second more.
“Since we’re already doing everything backwards and wrong,” he sniffs. “Will you maybe kiss me before our first date officially begins?”
Eddie frowns. “I think the date might’ve begun the second we entered the hospital.”
“Eddie.”
“Kidding, kidding,” Eddie raises a placating hand, standing up from his stool to come sit on the edge of Buck’s bed.
“Hey,” Eddie says again, his warm hand finding Buck’s cheek.
“Hi,” Buck answers, reciprocating as best as he can by laying his own hands on Eddie’s forearm, ignoring the way it pulls at his IV line.
They stare at each other for a moment more, blue eyes melting with brown despite the short distance that still separates them.
And when Eddie closes it and what’s left of their worlds finally collides, well.
Buck might just never let go of him ever again.