Chapter Text
Buck has been screaming for hours. Christopher is gone. Nothing else registers. Nothing else matters. Not the way his wet socks rub against his shoes, or the gash on his arm, or the blood thinners still in his system. Not even the hoarseness of his voice, his throat still raw from the salt water forced down it in the spinning water, as he screams again, “CHRIS!”
It is getting darker and the only sign of Chris is broken red glasses, now wrapped around Buck’s neck. Chris would need them when Buck found him. Buck has to find him. No one has seen Chris, and the adrenaline is beginning to wear off. Chris is missing, and Buck feels tired. He hates himself for it. But he can’t search in the debris in the dark. He’d heard someone say the VA was being used to triage the survivors, and he can only hope that Christopher will already be among them. Maybe he’s there, safe and sound and drying off under a warm blanket, the 118 already there and laughing about how this would be just Buck’s luck. Here, have a day out in a tsunami to forget about being crushed by a ladder truck- you wanted to forget, right?
The VA is a mess of people, filthy and crying and coughing up water. He starts with a nurse with a tablet and a vest that says “triage” on it.
“My name is Buck, er, Evan Buckley, I’m looking for a little boy. Yellow shirt, curly hair, about this tall?” he gestures, “he has CP, cerebral palsy, he’s really mobile, but he lost his crutches, and-”
“His name?” The nurse cuts him off. Right.
“Christopher. Christopher Diaz. And he wears glasses, he can’t see-”
“There’s no one here identified with that name yet. Is there a number we can contact if we find him?” The nurse is short, but not unkind.
Shit. His phone is long gone, waterlogged and likely out to the Pacific by now. “His father. Eddie Diaz,” he says, giving her the phone number. “But he’s EMS, he might not answer. He’s with station 118.” He hopes that he’ll find Christopher first. Eddie is going to kill him. He can’t face Eddie until he knows Chris is safe.
The nurse nods and makes a note. “Okay sir, and can you describe your injuries?”
“Me? I’m fine,” he lies. He knows she doesn’t believe him.
“You should get checked out. You don’t look too bad, but head injuries and water in your lungs can catch up to you faster than you’d think. They’ll get you something clean to stop the bleeding. Head to the area marked as green,” she says, handing him a matching wristband. He nods and walks the other direction first. Chris could be an unidentified John Doe, unconscious in the red zone, and he needs to at least check. The blood loss can wait a few more minutes. He doesn’t look down as he passes the zone marked with black tape. Chris is alive.
He walks the rows of beds and cots set up surrounded by red tape, each step feeling more urgent. There’s blood everywhere. Buck’s seen blood before, he’s a firefighter, but it’s never been like this. The ground is soaked in dark blood mixed with seawater and the grime of LA streets, and the sounds of suffering threaten to pull him back under the ladder truck. He hears the unmistakable crack of someone’s ribs breaking under someone’s desperate but clinical CPR. It smells terrible, like pennies in sewage, so strongly he can taste it. There are children- so many children- but none of them are his. Many of them are too injured to even cry. He’s getting light headed.
He staggers out of the red tape, nearly stumbling into the tent being set up around the makeshift morgue. His vision blurs. He can’t face it. Chris is alive. He’s just not here yet. Maybe the 118 found him, maybe Hen looked him over and only found some bruises, maybe he’s already heading home with Eddie, maybe he’s already tucked into his bed, dry and clean and safe.
That’s the image Buck sees as he collapses.
~~~
Eddie freezes when he sees Buck sitting in triage. Because that can’t be Buck. Buck is with Christopher, and they are both dry and safe and very, very far from the ocean, watching the news and planning an elaborate breakfast for Eddie to eat when he gets home from his shift in the morning. The illusion shatters as Buck meets his eyes. He doesn’t know what to say, what to ask, all of his questions just seem unnamable and terrible, so he settles on, “What are you doing here?”
He scans his partner for injuries, hoping to gather any clues as to why he’s here, and more importantly, why his son isn’t. Buck is Buck, after all- maybe he saw the news and rushed down to help, injuries forgotten in favor of heroics. Typical. Maybe Chris is with Carla. Buck is damp and covered in caked on dirt and blood, an IV is hooked up with fluids and a blood bag. He looks like he’s been through hell. He looks like he’s been through a tsunami. Buck stands, clearly against medical advice, swaying as if his feet will be taken out from under him.
“Are you okay?” Eddie asks. It’s like his vision tunnels to be just Buck, cataloguing his entire body, checking off tick marks down his medical assessment routine. Buck seems fine. Eddie’s brain catches up. Carla’s on vacation. “Wait, where’s Christopher?”
The air seems to drop out of the room, out of the space between him and Buck. He can tell Buck feels it too by the devastated look in his eyes. Panic rises in his chest, his breathing tightens, dread clouds his vision. He frantically scans the nearby cots. Surely, Christopher was nearby. He was with Buck. He was safe.
“Eddie…” Buck starts, like the name is being ripped from his throat. Buck is looking past him, not at him. Eddie sputters something desperate, he’s not even sure what, the panic is taking over, rational thought is gone. “Eddie.” Buck says, more forcefully. He seems to be forcing himself to lock eyes with Eddie. It seems to be painful for him, and he's doing it anyway, like a penance. Eddie can’t make eye contact. He thinks he’ll break. He glances down at Buck’s neck, finally registering what he couldn’t process a moment ago while checking Buck for injury.
“Why do you have his glasses?” He chokes out, voice low, contained. These seconds feel like years – did he find Buck a moment ago, or a lifetime? – as his brain turns, trying to make sense of this. They were safe. And dry. Across town, nowhere near the sea. Buck is wet and standing right in front of him. Wearing Christopher’s glasses around his neck.
There’s an unimaginable emptiness between them where a little boy should be standing.
Buck’s lip trembles, his breath catches, and his eyes stare at Eddie unseeing. His voice shakes as he starts, “We um… me and Christopher, we were…at the beach, and um. And listen to me, okay, I swear to you,” Bucks voice is tight around the tears he’s so desperately holding back, so earnest in his sorrow, and Eddie doesn’t hear a thing. He just stares unblinking, frozen in time. His whole body tense with grief, the whole world suddenly still even as the chaos of the VA hospital continues around them. His breath seems to have stopped, he’s sure even his pulse has bottomed out, as his vision blurs with the anguish and fear of what Buck seems to be saying. He is looking at Buck as tears roll down his scarred face he does not see him, does not hear anything more. His world has stilled with grief, bubbled over with anger, fear, loss. Two broken men, looking at each other, but not seeing each other. They see only their lost child, see only flashes of Chris’ short life flashing in slow motion between them. Does he even remember what Chris wore this morning? Eddie desperately tries to pull up a mental image of Christopher this morning, beaming at his Buck as Eddie said goodbye, kissing his curls. But Eddie can only nod, a desperate nod behind the tears welling, everything welling inside him. A desperate, fast nod, just to show he understands what Buck is saying, he is listening and he knows. Christopher is gone.
“...okay, I- I tried...” Buck trembles. Eddie can’t look at him. He tries to force himself to, to flash his eyes up from the spot of wet asphalt he has fixed his gaze to. He’s been focusing on the little shimmer of reflected light on the ground, trying to ground himself. He can’t look at Buck while he tells him that his son is dead. Can’t watch Buck blame himself for it. Not when Eddie, knowing logically it's not Buck's fault, blames him for it too. Hates him, a little, for being there when his son isn't. Hates to think he almost lost them both today. His grief over Chris mixes in with the tight constricting fear of knowing he could have lost them both. He could have lost Buck again. So he can’t look at him. But he needs to try, because Buck needs to know it's okay, that he’s listening. And he needs to, needs to see the truth on Buck’s face. To make it real. A single glance at Buck, and all his brokenness, sends Eddie's eyes back down right away. It's too much. It's desolate. If he looks at Buck, it's real. If he looks at Buck, he’ll fall apart too.
Eddie loves him. But he loves his son more. And he couldn’t save him. Couldn’t save either of them. Just like he couldn’t save Shannon.
“...and I just...but I...Eddie I don't, I don't know how to say it, but um, he– he just– he…” Eddie shakes his head, looks past Buck in his grief. He knows what's coming. He looks past Buck with anguish trapped in his throat and sees a woman carrying a little boy. And he breaks, right as Buck does. “...he vanished,” Buck sobs.
Eddie is hit with a flash of hope as he studies the boy and the way he’s holding on to the woman, his converse familiar. Maybe he’s okay, miraculously delivered right to him, safe and in one piece. If it’s Chris, he thinks, I will never miss Sunday mass again. “Christopher?” Eddie says, moving towards the woman and the boy. Maybe he’s crazy, in his grief. Maybe he needs just one more moment of hope before he can accept his son is gone. Maybe it's really him.
The boy lifts his head. And it isn’t Chris.
A wave of panic washes over Eddie, pressing him into the ground as his heart races. He wonders if this is how Christopher felt as he drowned. He wonders if he’ll ever breathe again.
Hen appears above him. Her voice sounds distant as she talks. He hears something about hyperventilating, something about oxygen, and his vision swims. His ears are ringing. His throat might be closing. He might be dying, here, among the drowned. He wonders if it was peaceful, in the end. If it would be for him too. His vision goes black.
~~~
Buck can’t look at them. Hen attends to Eddie, fitting an oxygen mask over him and speaking calmly and gently so he won’t have another panic attack when he comes to. Chim steps aside with a crazed look, saying something about calling Maddie. Buck doesn’t want her worrying about him when she could be looking for Christopher, combing through the calls for anyone with his description. They could all be out looking for Christopher. They shouldn’t be wasting their time with him. Bobby is talking to the nurse who’d bandaged him up earlier. He nods at her, and walks back towards Buck. Bobby looks tired for just a moment, before he schools his expression to the neutral calm of a fire captain.
“You’re being discharged into our care. I’m pulling us offline as a unit. Hen, Chimney, you’ll finish out the shift with the 122. I’m taking these two home.”
Buck scoffs. “No, Bobby, I can’t- I can’t just leave. I have to find Christopher, he’s still out there, I need to find-”
“You need to rest. And recover. You’re no good to him dead, neither of you are,” Bobby says. He opens his mouth to argue, but Bobby continues before he can. “I will have Athena put you on house arrest, if I have to. Or you can listen to medical advice, for once in your damn life, and let us search while you recover. Just for one night, Buck, please.”
Buck’s eyes fill with tears. He glances at Eddie, who is sitting back up, staring ahead. Perfectly still. Buck follows his gaze. There’s nothing there but more chaos. More death.
“I have to look for him,” Eddie says quietly. He sounds panicked again. Buck looks away. He can’t bear to see the haunted look in Eddie’s eyes. He’s terrified of meeting them.
“I have to look for him. Why are you all just sitting around? We have to go, we have to find him!” Eddie is yelling now. Buck wishes he could cave into himself, like a structure collapsing after a fire hollows out the home inside. He feels nearly empty enough to do it.
“We will find him,” Bobby insists. He says it like he really believes it’s true.
Eddie spins around like he’s looking for something to hit. Buck thinks for a second it’s going to be him. But Eddie just runs his fingers back through his own hair, gripping his scalp, and lets out a scream that rattles around inside Buck’s hollow chest, finally toppling the last beam holding him up. Buck’s ears are ringing and the world goes quiet and he’s not quite sure he’s in his body anymore. He is somewhere distant and disconnected, underwater and floating down, where the pain feels ghostly and unreal. He floats in the stillness of it, this pocket of still calm waters, even as the agony of the tsunami rushes on, and on, and on around him. He wonders if this is what it feels like to drown. If raging water can gently rock you into oblivion.
~~~
Eddie is numb in the back of Bobby’s car. They’d searched for hours. They’d checked every bed in the VA, they had Maddie bending rules at dispatch trying to locate him that way, and when Eddie couldn’t do it, Bobby checked the triage morgue. They’d started to fan out from the VA, but it was dark, and the rescues were still chaos. After two separate stations had tried to rescue them thinking they were survivors, Bobby got a very firmly worded phone call from the chief ordering them to get out of the way of the responders on duty. Eddie is only in this car because the alternative was being detained for interfering with emergency personnel. He can’t find his son from jail.
Bobby has been shooting back concerned glances in the rearview mirror when he thinks Eddie isn’t looking, but he sees each one. Buck, freshly discharged, is being even less subtle about it from the passenger side, looking like a puppy that expects to be kicked. He’s just glad neither of them are trying to make conversation. There’s nothing to say. He can’t put on a show right now and pretend he’s okay. He’s barely keeping himself together as is, and he’s worried that if he makes eye contact with anyone he’ll break. He can’t break. He has to find Christopher, and so he needs to be strong and focused and collected. His son needs him to be put together right now.
So he’s looking out of the window in the backseat of Bobby’s car, hoping each Chris-sized shape they pass will be him, delivered to him as if by God himself. He clutches his St. Christopher’s medallion. The patron saint of safe travels. Eddie’s faith had been shaky at best in the last few years, but he found himself praying now- not words, just an aching plea for his son's return. St. Christopher carried people across rivers. He could carry Chris home too.
They pull up in front of his house. The porch light isn’t on. The house has a gravity to it, the emptiness caving in on itself and swallowing his home and all the air around it, sucking the breath from his chest. He freezes. He can’t go in there. He can’t spend the night alone. He should be out searching. The thought fills him with renewed panic. He can’t move. How is he supposed to go search? He can’t breathe, he can’t move, he can’t do this. Chris isn’t just gone, his absence is a vacuum, and Eddie thinks he might suffocate in the quiet house. He feels Buck’s eyes on him.
“Let me walk you in,” Buck says, soft and hesitant. Eddie still can’t breathe but he thinks he manages to nod. He hears Buck’s seatbelt slide off as he exits the car, coming around to Eddie’s door. Eddie looks away from him as he opens the door and climbs out by Buck’s side.
“Stay,” Eddie manages to choke out. He surprises himself. He can’t even look at Buck still. But he knows that Buck gets it. Eddie blames him and he hates him and he’s so relieved that he’s here, and that he doesn’t have to do this alone. He can’t even look at Buck, and being next to him feels like drowning, but the fear of being alone in this is much heavier. Buck looks at Bobby as if he’s lost. Bobby nods back at him.
“Okay.” It’s more of a whisper when Buck says it, but Eddie hears it. He can hear the brokenness in Buck’s voice, the guilt. He knows it’s there because he knows Buck. He wants to take it away but he can’t– Eddie’s not sure that forgiveness is possible. He can’t think that far ahead.
Buck follows him to the front door, Bobby’s eyes on them both, waiting to make sure they get inside before he drives off. Eddie fumbles for his keys. His hands are shaking too much, he can’t get the key to slot to the lock, he feels his breath quicken, he can’t even do this, how is he supposed to find Chris–
Buck takes the key from his hand and silently opens the door. Eddie feels a flash of anger. His son is gone and it’s Buck’s fault and here Buck is, helping him, when all he needed to have done was not go to the ocean today. If he had just stayed inland and gone to the movies, Eddie’s hands wouldn’t be shaking. He wants to scream. He doesn’t say thank you as he pushes past into the house. He doesn’t say anything.
Buck stands in the entryway unmoving, like a guest who knows they’re unwelcome, waiting for permission to come inside. Eddie hears Bobby pull away. He starts to take off his shoes, and peel back the still damp layers of his uniform. He needs a shower. He feels guilty that he’ll get one tonight and Chris won’t. That at best, Chris will get a sponge bath in some hospital, somewhere. If he’s still alive. He’s still alive. Eddie has to believe that.
“Eddie, I’m-”
“Don’t.” Eddie cuts Buck off before he can start apologizing. He can’t hear it, not now. It makes it too real. He has to keep it together, and he needs to make a plan of attack for tomorrow’s search, and he can’t do that if he’s carrying Buck’s guilt around with him too.
They stand in silence for a moment. There’s a chasm between them, threatening to topple them both. The rushing water had carved a crevice between them. Eddie wanted to take Buck in his arms, to feel his heartbeat and know he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive, but he knew Buck’s heart would only echo in the hollow of his ribcage. Someone had told Eddie once that when you’re a parent, your heart beats outside of your chest. He hoped his heart was still beating somewhere in LA, even if he couldn’t feel it pulse.
Buck doesn’t try to talk again. He does stay very still, as if afraid to move. As if he doesn’t want to disturb the quiet, doesn’t want to spook Eddie. Eddie’s afraid he might crumble if Buck gets too close. He peels off the rest of his outer layers, carrying them to the washer in the hall. There is too much to say to Buck. It’s not your fault. I blame you anyway. I wish Chris was here instead of you. I can’t imagine losing you. I can’t imagine losing Chris. How could you lose him? I don’t know how we’ll get through this. I’ll never forgive you. I can’t believe this is happening. It all cycles and spins in his brain like churning seawater and washes out of his lips as, “Please don’t track mud inside.”
And then he heads into his bathroom, shutting the door behind him. It slams, and echoes through the empty house.
~~~
Buck still can’t bring himself to move. He’s been moving all day, running and swimming and clawing his way through the streets and rushing water, but it’s here, these last few steps into the Diaz house, that feel insurmountable. He doesn’t deserve to be here. He needs to be out looking.
He thinks of the laws of motion. He’s been an object in motion all day, and now that he’s stopped, he’s not sure he has the energy to start again. He’s exhausted in the way only the ocean can make you feel, the phantom pull of the current still tugging against his body, threatening to pull him under. It’d be easier to let it take him. He fought the water all day for Christopher. Without him– why should he keep swimming?
He’s not sure if he’s swaying from the blood loss or if it’s just imaginary water, but he feels unsteady. He doesn’t want to pass out again, he can’t make it Eddie’s problem. He’s already failed him today, he can’t burden him further with this. Eddie can’t even look at him. Buck won’t make this about himself by passing out in the entryway.
He peels off his waterlogged shoes, and throws them out on the porch. He doubts they’re salvageable at this point, but maybe he could wash them, bleach them–
Who is he, talking about saving things? It doesn’t matter if he can save these shoes if he couldn’t save Chris. An image of Christopher falling off the ladder truck flashes before Buck’s eyes. He shakes his head as if it will clear the memory like an etch-a-sketch.
He forces his feet to move again. He’s not sure how he’s still walking. It feels like he has to manually control each leg, like that game he played with Chris with the octopus. He’s underwater again with the memory, drowning, dark water filling his lungs. He steps forward. Left. Right. Until he reaches the bathroom.
He’s sure his legs will give out when he flicks on the light to Chris’ pajamas crumpled on the bath mat. Buck knows Eddie hates when Chris does that, the hamper is right there– were they in a rush to come to his apartment this morning? Was Chris excited to see him? He leaves the pajamas where they are and swallows the bile rising in his throat. It burns against the tender skin. He deserves it.
He pulls his torn clothes off, and piles them carefully by the door where they won’t touch the pajamas. He doesn’t want the tsunami to mess up anything more in the Diaz home. He can’t let it touch anything else. He’s shivering. He turns the shower on–the water is rushing towards them there is nothing he can do they brace for impact he holds onto Christopher as tightly as he can the water roars, it's the loudest thing he’s ever heard and then he’s sure they’re dead and then they keep drowning anyway, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe he can’t–the flashback subsides, but his panic does not. The water is still rushing. He doesn’t know how he got on the floor. Gasping for air, he fumbles for the faucet, shutting it off abruptly, throwing him back into silence. He sits, still shocked, for a moment, before the sobs start to tear through him of their own volition, starting in some waterlogged part of his chest and picking up speed as they pour out of him. His entire body shakes with the force of each one. He tries to cry quieter. He can’t make this harder on Eddie. He doesn’t want Eddie to feel bad for him, to forgive him just to get him to stop.
The sobs clench against his stomach, he’s breathing and crying so hard he’s sure he’s going to throw up. He heaves over the toilet. The smell of the water seals it, and his stomach empties seawater and bile. He hasn’t eaten since before. He’s not sure he’ll be able to keep anything down ever again.
Buck sits shuddering over the toilet bowl, trying to calm his breathing, trying to ground himself. He’s not in the water anymore. He’s at Eddie’s. He’s safe, he’s mostly uninjured. Chris is missing. His breath picks up again. Chris is missing. We’re going to find him. Chris is alive. He has to say it, has to will it to be true. He wishes he had his phone. He wants to call Maddie. He wants to play tetris. He read somewhere, once, that playing Tetris right after a traumatic event could help with the PTSD.
He still needs to wash off. He braces himself this time as he turns the faucet again, and flinches when he hears the water run. He steels himself as he steps under the water. Flashes of the tsunami hit him like the world's worst montage. He pushes through. Chris will make fun of you if you find him and you haven’t showered. When you find him, his mind corrects. When.
He rinses, and shuts the water off with a finality. He controls the water here. It doesn’t control him. He reaches for a towel, ready to be dry. He’s ready to collapse. He pulls out the spare sweats and t-shirt he keeps in the guest room cabinet for the nights he crashes here after a shift. It’s a zoo shirt that Chris picked out. The fabric burns through his hands. He wishes they’d gone to the zoo today.
He dresses quickly and walks down the hall. The door to Christopher’s room is shut. He can’t look at it. He walks faster. His feet ache with every step. In the living room, Eddie has laid out blankets and a bottle of Advil on the couch, but there’s no other sign of him. Buck chokes down the guilt. Eddie shouldn’t be taking care of him. Buck lost his son. Bile rises in his throat again. He shouldn’t be here. He collapses onto the couch and he cries until his head is pounding. He doesn’t take the Advil. He deserves the pain.