Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eddie didn’t know why it’d happened. He didn’t know how it started. He didn’t even know, at that moment, what day it was anymore.

All he knew was that the man had been on top of Buck, wailing on him with his fists, and Buck hadn’t fought back.

He hadn’t fought back.

How could he? Even from across the yard Eddie could see Buck had been so punch drunk it wasn’t even funny.

“Eddie?”

Eddie stared down at his fingers as he curled them into his palms, pressing his nails until there were red crescents in the skin, before he uncurled them into stiff claws.

His knuckles were swollen.

“Eddie?”

The man punched out a bleated whimper from Buck against the sickening harmony of the smack of knuckles against wet skin.

Eddie’s knuckles were swollen and his hands were so cold, even though the heat of the fire at his back was suffocating in the humid morning air.

“Buck, do you have eyes on the homeowner?”

“Eddie!”

“You stupid fucking—”

Eddie’s ears burned.

Eddie’s stomach dropped down to his feet when Buck finally moved. A weak stretch of his arms as he tried to push the man off when he wrapped his hands around Buck’s throat.

A warm hand clapped down on Eddie’s shoulder and he flinched back with his fists raised.

Bobby stared at him, brows furrowed but not letting go of where his hand was tethered to Eddie’s shoulder. A surprised but understanding look broke through the clouded expression thundering across his face as he studied Eddie. 

“You good?” Bobby asked even though he knew the answer because Eddie was definitely not good.

Not even a little bit.

Not when he was rooted to the spot like his boots had melted in front of a burning house that some psychopath owned while Buck was being rushed to the hospital and a relief crew was taking over for the 118 so the police could question them.

Question Eddie.

It was like slamming his body into cement as Eddie tackled the guy into the ground.

Eddie didn’t know if he could lie—not to Bobby— so he settled on a tight lipped nod instead.

“A detective is going to ask you some more questions,” Officer Williams said, his eyes darting between Eddie and Bobby like he didn’t trust that Bobby’s hand on his shoulder was going to be able to contain the curdling rage simmering in Eddie’s blood. “But I’m going to need to take your statement. Can you tell me what happened?”

The events of the past morning swirled in Eddie’s gut like hot tar that threatened to drag him under in a whirlpool of emotions.

Can you tell me what happened?

Of course, he could.

He’d been there for the front row show.

Did he want to? Absolutely not. He didn’t even want them to have happened in the first place.

But the sooner he answered their questions, the sooner he could get to the hospital.

To Buck.

Eddie looked around as he settled heavily into his boots and clawed his way out of his head. He started to smell the smoke and the fire over the scent of the blood that had been lingering in his nose. He took in the way the relief crew had seamlessly stepped in to put out the house fire engulfed behind them that warmed Eddie’s back. He saw the way the squad cars littered the street and Bobby’s expression was pinched tight with worry as he stayed behind with Eddie and got the rest of the crew moving to put out the fire until help arrived.

Eddie’s knuckles ached as he curled them into fists again.

“Buck went around back to get the homeowner who was trying to save his stuff,” Eddie said to an unflinching Williams. “I went back to check on him when he didn’t respond to our calls.”

The man’s knuckles punched out a spattering of bloody spit from Buck’s mouth.

Eddie pressed his nails so hard into his hand he was sure he was bleeding.

“When I got back there, the homeowner was beating the shit out of Buck.”

Bobby’s hand turned impossibly tight on Eddie’s shoulder.

Locked elbows covered in calluses and grass stains turned white as the man squeezed around Buck’s throat.

Eddie clenched his jaw through the surge of his rage.

“Then that bastard tried to kill him.”

It was rattling how simply walking into a room could flood Maddie with a sense of déjà vu. Memories of her stomach dropping to her feet as Omar uttered the words “pinky promised” like a key into a padlock she kept tucked to her chest. They tickled at her restraint as she tried to brace herself for the worst. 

And it was the worst.

So much worse than she anticipated. 

“Buck,” she said as she lost all the air in her lungs. 

“M-Mad-die.” His voice croaked on the second syllable of her name and cracked in relief at the end. 

Buck listed forward like her mere presence was a magnet and he had no choice but to get closer but the nurse that was administering another dose of pain medicine in his IV caught him before he could fall off the bed.

“Oh Buck,” she said again, his name strangled in her throat as she crossed the room. 

Both of his eyes were black and swollen, with a bruise creeping down from his left eye all the way down to his cheek. A cut on his brow was bleeding sluggishly along with another split in the skin across his jaw. His nose was too swollen to tell if it was broken but it was a miracle his jaw wasn’t by the knot across his mouth that split the skin of his lip too. 

But all that was painful and superficial and fixable. It was the lost disbelief on Buck’s face she wasn’t so sure about. The bruises made the blues of Buck’s eyes shine like beacons in a stormy night, reflective of the glassy drug induced haze clouding his gaze. But it wasn’t the bruises that made Maddie hesitant to touch him. It was the fear. The lost, betrayed fear as he wordlessly begged her for answers with an unyielding faith that Maddie could explain it to him. She’d seen it so many times when they’d been growing up. When the why to all of Buck’s questions were too heavy to be trusted for him to carry. 

But she didn’t have an answer for this. She didn’t know how to explain to him what happened. Not until someone could explain it to her first and no one seemed to have the answer. 

Her hand hovered over his face, the heat of his injuries seeping into her fingertips even then, and Buck let out another croaked sound that tore her apart inside. Buck leaned into the space separating them and Maddie moved to catch him but a firm hand stopped him. 

“I’m sorry, but you can’t touch him,” the nurse said.

Buck’s lips wobbled as he blinked up at her and Maddie’s heart broke in two. 

“Please,” Maddie said, sucking in the urge to cry herself as she turned to the nurse. “Please... if I wear gloves? I used to be a nurse—”

Maddie asked even though she knew the answer already and the nurse was nothing but remorseful as she shook her head. 

“Not until he’s been documented.”

And being told to sit in a chair on the other side of the room was maybe the hardest thing she’d ever done. The whine that slipped past Buck’s lips pushed Maddie over the edge and her tears slid down her cheeks before she could stop them. He reached out for her and the nurse caught him again before he could fall off the bed. 

“It’s okay,” the nurse said, practiced and soothing. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“I’m right here, Buck.”  

“M-Maddie,” he cried, quiet and scared. 

“I’m right here, Buck. I’m right here.” 

“It’s okay. You can see her,” the nurse said when Buck started to cry. 

Thin, never ending tears because he didn’t understand why Maddie was so far away beneath the pain and the drugs. Maddie leaned forward as far as she could in her seat. 

“I am right here, Buck.” Maddie sucked in a breath to steady herself and brushed her own tears from her face. “I am right here. I’m not going anywhere. It’ll be okay. I’m right here.”

She kept up her litany of issues all the way through as a second nurse came in with a pair of sterile scrubs and a forensic camera. She carried her voice through the soft spoken directions the nurses gave as they went down Buck’s body to document every bruise, every tear, and every scratch on his skin. She pushed her words through the shuddering whimpers that croaked into the room every time Buck jumped with the flash of the camera. She praised and encouraged and comforted every sniffle, every cry, every broken off sob that slipped past the ruins of Buck’s resolve. 

Buck did it all. He held out his hands so the camera could capture the defensive wounds. He closed his eyes so the flash could catch the damage to his face. He held out his trembling hands so they could clean beneath his finger nails for DNA. He swallowed down the terror as they lifted his chin up with latex covered fingertips to measure the hand marks on his throat. And he did it all without looking away from Maddie. 

When it was finished, when all of Buck’s wounds had been documented in their rawest form and his uniform was packed into evidence bags, Maddie was up and out of her seat like a shot that’d been fired into the sky. Maddie caught him as he fell apart, burying his face against her stomach as he cried for real. He was getting blood and grime on her shirt but she didn’t care. 

“You did so good, Buck. You did so good.” 

The nurses had been saying it the entire process but the only person it mattered from was Maddie. The heaving cries that slipped past Buck’s lips had to be murder on his throat. 

“It’s okay, Buck,” Maddie said, running her hands through his disheveled hair. 

Chim had said that they’d been woken up for the call. Buck probably had rolled into the engine with a good deal of bed head. 

He was so cold against her. Buck shivered and pressed into the heat of her stomach to hide.

Shock, her mind provided. Shock and disbelief. 

But she would give him every inch of her warmth if it meant taking the pain

Bobby had been in that position too many times to count and he was getting sick of it. His legs were locked and sore in a too small, overused chair that had lost all comfort in the cushion beneath him. His elbows braced on his thighs as he clamped his hands together and prayed, watching the doors for any sudden movement.

Sometimes he couldn’t help but wonder if God was punishing others because Bobby hadn’t finished his penance. Was He that cruel that He took His fury out of Bobby’s friends, his family, the people he cared about because Bobby had made the decision to stop damning himself for past mistakes that had left a deep wound on his heart?

Bobby didn’t think so. He didn’t like to think so anyway.

But there he was again, lost in the communion of his faith, as he waited to hear news about Buck.

Eddie had been taken back to get his hand x-rayed after that swelling across his knuckles had grown double in size. Persuading him to let the doctors take a look had been a feat that Bobby had taken because Eddie had been insistent on wanting to see Buck. Bobby had only managed to get him to agree with the promise that he would come get him even if he was in the x-ray machine when Maddie or the doctor came. Hen and Chimney were giving their statements and reports to police. Maddie was with Buck and Bobby was alone.

Alone with his thoughts and the memories of Eddie’s tight cry for help over the radio and Buck’s bloody bruised body crumpled in the grass.

It was supposed to just be a simple house fire.

Bobby sensed her walking in the way he could always sense his wife when she was near. Athena’s presence whenever she walked into a room was always powerful but for Bobby it was like a kiss of warmth from a bonfire that soothed his too cold skin. She could cure the buzzing in his blood with a simple look and make him forget his troubles for a moment with just her smile.

Bobby stood up as she strode through the doors, searching around the busy waiting room before her eyes landed on him and she hurried over to him.

“Hey,” she said, relief in her exhale as she pulled him into her arms.

Bobby dropped his head down into her neck and inhaled the scent of her, letting the smell of her lavender and rosemary shampoo take him back to when he was kissing her goodbye for his shift and none of this happened.

“How is he?” Athena asked into his shoulder, rubbing her hand up and down his back.

“It’s not great. I don’t know the details. Maddie’s back with him. He’ll live but he…”

Bobby swallowed through a shudder as he remembered how small Buck had looked curled on the grass.

The metal of her badge pressed into his hip.

Bobby frowned and pulled away. Athena’s badge was clipped on full display, shiny and bright under the fluorescents. 

“I thought you were off today.” 

In fact, he knew she was off because they had plans for a breakfast date after his shift.

“I clocked in when I heard what happened.”

Athena scanned Bobby for any injuries with a sharp casting of her eyes before she shook her head.

“What happened?”

Guilt settled like rocks in Bobby’s stomach. “We got called to a house fire first thing this morning. Neighbors said they saw the homeowner in the back trying to save his things and I sent Buck to get them.”

Admitting that tasted like vinegar at the back of his throat, burning his tongue hot with anger at himself that he’d sent Buck back alone. The rest of his memories were flashes of the team operating like normal. Lines being set up, neighbors being ushered back, fire hydrants being opened. Normal. It’d all been so painfully normal, running like clockwork until Eddie had shouted for help. 

Bobby shook his head. “When he didn’t respond, I sent Eddie back and by the time he’d gotten there, the homeowner had nearly knocked Buck unconscious and he…”

Bobby couldn’t even bring himself to say it. The words were trapped in his throat as if the hands themselves had been wrapped around his windpipe and squeezed.

Bobby could still hear that scared, wounded sound that slipped out of Buck’s lips with a crack of a cry as Hen and Chimney hovered over him.

Bobby didn’t even realize he’d been holding his breath until Athena’s warm palm rubbed his chest to work it out of him. His exhale crashed through his lips and he dropped his gaze to the floor to see if it had shattered beneath his feet too.

Buck had been…

“I never should’ve—”

“You break the team off countless times,” Athena said, catching Bobby before he could drift away in his own self-condemnation. “You couldn’t have known that this would happen. But Bobby you can’t say things like that. I know you’re feeling all kinds of doubt and guilt but you’ve got to keep that to yourself right now.”

Bobby’s frown deepened as he looked at her again.

“Bobby, listen to me,” Athena said, settling her hands on the crooks of his elbows. “The DA has already got a whiff of this and is going to send an ADA sooner rather than later.”

Bobby shook his head as he tried to understand what she was getting at. Assaulting a first responder while performing their duties was already a misdemeanor assault charge and the fact that they were in the hospital meant Bobby would wager a guess it would move up to battery. That could go either way, from a misdemeanor to a felony whatever the DA decided to do, so it didn’t surprise him that their office would be sending a prosecutor over to investigate. It wasn’t common for them to experience an attack to this degree but it happened. Except Athena’s lips were tight across her mouth, serious and pressed into a flat line, like there was something different.

“I don’t—"

“The man that attacked Buck was Lawrence Malloy.”

“The boxer?” Bobby still wasn’t following. 

Lawrence Malloy was an amateur boxer making his way up to the professionals one punch at a time. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he was becoming LA’s own Rocky with popularity that skyrocketed overnight. But Bobby didn’t understand what that had to do—

It clicked on his brain and sent off the alarm in Bobby’s chest that warned him of danger danger danger . 

Athena nodded as she watched Bobby come to the same conclusion she had. 

“The DA is going to make an example out of him.” 

Lawrence was a thug with a string of charges trailing behind him every night he went out and partied too hard, wreaking havoc with his fists. He was in the news more for his exploits than his fighting, and the notoriety was starting to surpass the recognition of his talent. 

“This entire mess is going to be a circus and Buck is going to be the center of it all.” 

A full recovery. That’s what the doctor said. Buck would have a full recovery. No reconstruction surgery was necessary and Buck would have a full recovery where the bruises would fade and the skin would heal. 

He didn’t say anything about hole splitting through Buck’s chest. He didn’t say anything about how Buck’s world was still rocking with no end in sight. 

A full recovery.

Buck should be glad. 

Instead, he was terrified. 

Buck sucked in a breath and stared down at the IV in the back of his hand as he picked at the tape. 

It was taking everything Buck had not to rip it out. 

He wanted to go home. He knew he couldn’t go back to work but he wanted to go home. He wanted to be anywhere but in that bed where the words full recovery were floating around like a bird trapped inside and smashing against his skull to get out. 

Maddie, like always, understood before Buck even had to ask and even if she hadn’t, he would’ve begged anyway. She’d left about fifteen minutes ago to look about getting Buck discharged. The doctor had wanted to keep Buck overnight for observation and to make sure his throat didn’t swell but Maddie had said she was pretty sure they’d let him go if someone stayed with him. Which at first, made Buck ache even more when all he wanted was to be alone to lick his wounds and try to piece back together what little control he had. But then when Maddie left, leaving Buck in his prison of a hospital room, it was the exact opposite. 

Being alone was a mistake. He should’ve asked if any of the team were waiting. Bobby or Hen or Chimney. Anybody.

Eddie.

He knew the procedures and the protocols. They prepared you at the academy about what would happen if you faced an assault on the job. The others would need to be questioned. Buck was going to have to give a statement. Everything would need to be documented. Buck didn’t really think they would be as intense as when he’d been processed by the nurses who documented what felt like every inch of his body but he’d never been attacked by a homeowner either.

“Sir, for your safety, I’m going to need you to—”

Buck didn’t even see the first fist but he felt it. He felt it like a rock being slammed against his jaw that sent him dropping to the ground in a heap as blood filled his mouth. He didn’t even get a chance to raise his arm before the next punch landed.

His heart monitor ticked up in speed as his heart jumped in his throat and begged him to breathe. Buck sucked in another inhale and held it tight in his chest before he let out a shuddering exhale. His body screamed at him and he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like after the pain meds wore off but the throb was something he was used to. It was something he could lean into as it pulsed throughout his body. Familiar.

Buck breathed again and again and eventually he didn’t have to put so much work into it. 

A full recovery. 

Yeah right. 

Buck licked his lip and grimaced at the sting from where his skin had split.

A knock at the door pulled Buck’s gaze away from his hands in his lap but the relief of not being alone anymore was fleeting when he saw who it was.

Or rather, who it wasn’t.

Instead of his team or Maddie, there was a man stepping through the threshold with a whistle through his teeth as he winced.

“He really did a number on you, kid,” the man said and Buck’s stomach twisted at the reminder.

He hadn’t gotten a chance to see his face but he could tell it was probably bad.

“Uh… Can I help you?”

Buck tried to rack his brain through the catalogue of faces in his memory but he came up short. Maybe he was a department rep? But he didn’t really look like one. Department reps were usually all white collars and no nonsense expressions. This guy was in an over pressed button down and a suit jacket that looked like it’d been thrown on in haste. He was tall but not as tall as Buck with a wide chest and big hands propped on his hips. Close-cropped hair framed a square face with a mouth that was too small and too thin and a nose that looked like it’d been broken too many times to ever be perfectly straight.

“Don’t worry about me, kid,” the man said with a wave of his hand. “I’m here to help you. My name’s Simon Saffrey.”

Definitely not a department rep then. A name should’ve made Buck feel a little better but it didn’t.

Simon stepped closer to Buck’s bed and the hot burn to adrenaline boiled throughout his blood and simmered beneath his skin until his hands trembled. Buck shifted, pulling away before he could stop himself.

Simon froze, his cool grey eyes studying Buck’s face with such an intensity that Buck started to wonder if Simon could see the hole ripped open across Buck’s chest, too. Simon sucked in a breath between his teeth, making his lips twitch consideringly, before he dragged his gaze back up to meet Buck’s.

Buck’s face throbbed once, hard enough for him to wince, and his stomach went hollow.

“How much?” Simon asked.

Buck blinked. He didn’t know if it was the hits to the head or what but all of his warning bells were ringing crystal clear through the haze of his confusion.

“Uh… What?”

“How much?” Simon asked again, drawing out each word like he was painting them across. “How much to make this go away?”

Make this go away?

Make what go away?

“I don’t—”

“Simon Saffrey, I know you aren’t trying to bribe an assault victim.”

Athena’s voice was like a swooping angel that Buck didn’t know he needed until he heard it. The stunning clarity of his current positioning slammed into Buck with a wallop: Buck stuck in a bed with a total stranger that gave off all the worst kind of vibes that slid across Buck’s skin like grime, standing between him and the door. Simon arched a brow as he turned, looking at Athena as she stood in the doorway with her badge on full display.

Bobby brushed past them and stepped in between Buck and Simon with that easiness he’d perfected a long time ago.

Bobby had this way of showing his full height and broad shoulders without it being too much of a display of dominance. It was a skill worth having because Buck had seen Bobby deescalate countless scenarios with the calmest of voices while still taking charge of the space like he commanded it.

And he was standing between Buck and Simon like he was taking charge of Buck’s space again.

“I think it’s time you go,” Bobby said calmly.

Simon tilted his head up to level Bobby with that gaze, that intense gaze that pinned Buck to the spot and left him feeling raw and exposed, and smirked at him.

“I was just talking to the kid,” Simon said, almost like he was swallowing a laugh.

“Well, now you’re done talking,” Athena said as she stepped aside. “You can leave now, or I can arrest you for tampering with a witness. Up to you.”

Simon lifted his hands up, feigning innocence even when he was still laughing with that silent huff in his voice.

“I’m going. I’m going,” he said before he stepped out of the room and walked away without another glance.

Athena watched him leave and Buck’s heart slammed against his chest with another protest.

He’d been holding his breath again.

But while the soothing security that came from Bobby and Athena was like a balm to his bruises, it also brought a tension that was so thick, it was suffocating.

“What’s going on?” Buck asked, his voice a croaked imitation of his normal sound as the heavy anticipation dried out his throat.

Bobby and Athena didn’t say anything at first, sharing a look between each other before they turned to Buck. The twin looks of concern were just as bad.

“Are the doctors keeping you overnight or are they cutting you loose?” Athena asked instead of answering.

“Maddie is getting my discharge papers,” Buck said before he shook his head. “I-I don’t— What’s happening? What’s going on?”

“I’m going to see if I can speed up the process,” Athena said, disappearing down the hall where Maddie had gone.

The itch to run, to hide, to do something scratched at Buck’s legs as he pushed himself to sit up but Bobby settled him back onto the bed with a steady hand.

“Buck… Buck… It’s okay.”

Bobby’s calmness had an instant effect and Buck slumped back as Bobby sat on the edge of his bed.

“Bobby…” The name fell from Buck’s lips in a strangle.

Like a plea or a prayer or maybe a little of both because everything was upside down and turned inside out and Buck couldn’t find his footing.

“Everything’s okay, Buck,” Bobby said even though it was a lie.

Nothing was okay. Time felt like it was standing still and flying by at the same time. Buck could remember so clearly waking up that morning and throwing on his turnout gear but it also felt like a million years ago.

“Chimney’s going to find you some clothes while Maddie and Athena work on your discharge. Eddie’s getting his hand looked at in the ED. He’s fine.” Bobby stressed when Buck sat up because no one had told him Eddie had been hurt. “Hen’s with him now.”

But none of that explained why everyone was moving with a combined urgency or who that guy was or anything.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Buck said, picking at the tape as the urge to rip his IV out came back in full force.

“I’ll explain everything once we get you out of here,” Bobby promised.

That didn’t make Buck feel any better.

Eddie had tried not to be annoyed that it was Hen who came to tell him that Bobby and Athena were making a break for it with Buck before the press showed up, but he didn’t do as great of a job when it came to the doctor who kept insisting he wanted to splint Eddie’s hand.

“ Just as a precaution—”

But Eddie already had to wait around in the ED for hours just to hear that his hand was in fact not broken, merely sprained, and that was about the limit of his threshold of patience.

It’s not like you could blame him. The resident had left the tape out and Eddie had waited ten minutes before he reached across and wrapped his wrist himself.

Hen caught him with the tape in his teeth and arched a brow that said more than words ever could.

Apparently, Bobby and Athena had gotten Buck and Maddie out in the nick of time with Chimney driving away just as the first news van parked across the street.

Hen and Eddie hadn’t been as lucky.

The crowd of reporters had nearly doubled in size when they left. One glance at their LAFD shirts had the cameras and microphones thrust in their faces and Eddie tucking his wrapped wrist down by his side.

“What the hell is going on?” Eddie muttered, turning his head away so they couldn’t capture it on camera.

“I don’t know,” Hen said as she spotted Karen waiting for them. “Athena just said something about the DA making a field day out of this whole thing. They wanted to get Buck out of here before the press could find out his name or room number.”

Eddie shut off his mind as Karen drove through LA, murmuring something with Hen that he would’ve been able to hear had he been paying attention but he couldn’t. Eddie’s mind and body had been wired into fight or flight mode the moment he went around to the back of the property to look for Buck and it hadn’t turned off since. He was bone tired and spent but the restlessness was creeping up his legs again as he willed traffic to go faster.

Something shiny that smelled like heaven was thrust under his nose and Eddie’s stomach rumbled.

“Eat,” Karen said with a no nonsense edge that she aimed directly at Eddie from the rearview mirror.

His eyes crossed as he took in the breakfast burrito Hen was holding out to him, shaking it until he took it in his hands.

Eddie almost spat out the first bite. It tasted like ash on his tongue, even though his stomach cramped at the mere thought of throwing it away. They hadn’t eaten in hours and he was starving, but the adrenaline had left a bitter taste in his mouth that he couldn’t shake.

“Here,” Hen said, pulling off her lipstick-stained lid and handing Eddie a hot cup of coffee. “Drink.”

Eddie was running on autopilot and did as he was told. The sharp taste of the black coffee overpowered the lingering panic and made the next bite easier to swallow. The caffeine made him feel a little more human and cleared his brain from a fog that had settled over it the moment he’d been sent back into a small room by himself and forced to sit down.

Eddie looked up and saw Hen watching him as she ate her own burrito.

“Thank you,” Eddie said, shaking off the rest of the numbness.

Hen tipped her head and waited until Eddie took another bite.

“You okay?” she asked, quiet and leading.

Eddie couldn’t bring himself to mind. They’d all been there when the world rocked hard to the left.

“No,” he answered honestly because lying felt like a cop out. “You?”

“Not even a little bit.” 

Karen reached out and squeezed Hen’s knee, driving them the rest of the way to Buck’s loft.

Eddie took off like a shot, shoving the rest of his burrito in his mouth, and not waiting for Hen to say goodbye to Karen. It was rude and later he would apologize for that but he needed to see Buck. It’d been... he didn’t even know how many hours and their early morning wake up call had bled into late morning where too much time had been stretched when Eddie should’ve been by Buck’s side. He didn’t bother with the elevator and took the stairs two at a time until he reached Buck’s floor, before he was hurrying down the hallway and knocking on the door. He didn’t have his keys. He didn’t have anything because he didn’t think to stop at the station. But all that could wait as he planted his hands on the door frame and heaved through the exertion of having climbed five flights of stairs too quickly.

“It’s me,” Eddie said so they didn’t think he was a reporter and Eddie listened to the shuffling on the other side of the door before it opened.

It wasn’t even the bruises that ripped at Eddie’s heart, and the bruises looked bad now that they’d settled into Buck’s skin. So bad that just looking at them made Eddie’s teeth ache as if he’d taken the punches to the face himself. They were breathtaking in their intensity. 

But that wasn’t it. 

No, the thing that got him, the thing that almost took him out at the knees was the way Buck opened the door slowly, timidly and with his face half-hidden by the door like he was scared of Eddie. More like he was scared of whoever was behind the door. But in this case, it was directed at Eddie. It flickered away into something more hesitant as Buck’s eyes— bluer from the darkness surrounding them— dropped to the floor. 

“They look worse than they feel,” Buck said and Eddie didn’t believe it for a second. 

The croak in his voice was the thing that finally broke Eddie’s resolve and he was crossing the threshold in an instant. He pulled Buck to him and Buck folded awkwardly in his arms like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. But he ducked his head down, tucking his nose into the hollow of Eddie’s throat, and inhaled his scent. 

Eddie felt the flutter of Buck’s lashes against his skin and then something wet that he refrained from commenting on. Buck’s arms curled around his waist and his fingers latched onto the back of Eddie’s belt loops like they always did when Buck needed a longer hug than normal. Like he was afraid Eddie would pull away too soon. 

Eddie wouldn’t dream of it. 

A hurricane could spin in the center of them and it wouldn’t be enough to pull Eddie away. 

And this wasn’t a hurricane but it was close. It’d been enough to rock Buck’s world— their world— and Buck was still lingering in the aftershocks of the shaking. 

“Hi.” Buck mouthed against Eddie’s collarbone and Eddie ran his hands up Buck’s back.

Athena was out on Buck’s balcony with her phone pressed to her ear but Bobby was brewing a pot of coffee and looking at Buck’s mugs with a hilarious degree of focus, giving them some privacy.

Buck had changed into some sweats, but his skin reeked of smoke and grass and sweat with the chemical film of hospital Eddie knew he hated.

“Let’s get you in the shower, yeah?”

Buck nodded mutely and let Eddie lead him into the bathroom.

Eddie turned the water on hot and let the bathroom fill up with steam as he stripped. He’d snagged a pair of Buck’s sweats and t-shirt to steal along with some loose sweats and an overstretched sleep shirt for Buck. He knew Buck always felt a little weird wearing pajamas in front of everyone but they’d be easier to put on than jeans.

Getting Buck out of his clothes was a slow process filled with hitched breaths and bleated whimpers, but they managed. When he was free, Eddie turned the temperature of the water down a little and picked at the tape that he’d wrapped around his wrist.

Buck made a wounded noise at the back of his throat at the sight of Eddie’s wrist. 

“Just a sprain,” Eddie said as he unwound the tape. 

He’d put a compression glove on it later. 

Eddie clenched his fingers and moved his hand around despite the ache before he turned back to Buck and checked him over himself to see what he would be working with.

“Stitches?” Eddie asked and Buck shook his head before he shuddered, closing his eyes as he curled his arms in front of him.

Eddie didn’t know what to feel looking at him. Sadness. Anger. Grief. His heart was on a rollercoaster through all of them as he tracked the deep bruises around Buck’s throat, volleying up to the split lip and swollen face where even more bruises were crashing into each other like weather fronts. His eyebrow was split like a bolt of lightning between his black eye and the bruising on his jaw where he’d been sucker punched. 

The butterfly stripes looked too clean and clinical against them. 

But there were bruises on his arms and his chest too. Defensive wounds from when he tried to get away. 

And that bastard just kept chasing after him. 

Buck looked small. So painfully small like he was trapped in a cower. 

And scared. 

Buck looked scared. 

“Come on,” Eddie said, running his fingers through Buck’s hair. “This will help.”

Eddie had nursed a few of his own punch mark craters in his own soul to know that eventually the worst part of it all was the soreness you couldn’t shake afterwards. It settled deep in your bones and made existing practically impossible. There was no position to get comfortable in and no way to forget it. 

Maybe that had been why the release had been so addictive when he fought. He carried his bruises like a secret because feeling them meant not having to feel the gaping hole left behind by Shannon. 

Eddie maneuvered Buck more or less inside. But beneath the spray, they melted into each other like they always did. Buck dropped his face back into the hollow of Eddie’s throat and sighed, relaxing as the heat seeped into his muscles and wetted his hair. 

He tucked his arms up in between them and burrowed against Eddie’s chest. Eddie ran his fingers through his hair again. Grass and dirt slid down the slope of Buck’s back but it was the occasional catch of dried blood that turned the water near the drain a pale pink that really got to him. 

The reality of what happened— what was happening still— finally set in. 

Eddie swallowed down the urge to scream and focused on scrubbing shampoo with gentle fingers across Buck’s scalp. Then he rinsed and repeated the same process with the conditioner. 

The heat and the ministrations curled Buck’s hair up into a sea of swooping slopes. Eddie pressed a kiss against the crown of his head and lathered up his hands with Buck’s soap before he started on his back. Buck flinched when Eddie’s fingers touched his spine and Eddie couldn’t help but wonder when that wouldn’t be a thing Buck did anymore. 

Eddie kissed the side of his head, his jaw, and the slope of his shoulder as he worked to clean lower before he turned Buck to his side. He cleaned his hands, kissing each of his fingers afterwards, then his palms and rewarding them with a kiss too. He cleaned his arms and left a kiss at the bolt of his shoulder before tucking them back against his chest. Then they took a break and Eddie just held Buck for a moment, swaying them through it and rocking Buck until he relaxed against Eddie again. 

“Step back for a sec,” Eddie said and softened the request with a kiss when Buck’s fingers flexed as if he wanted to hold on. 

He cleaned his chest, leaving a trail of kisses in wake of the suds, before he dropped down to his knees. He nudged Buck back against the wall and cleaned his stomach, his hips, his groin, sealing each with a promising kiss that the way Buck was feeling wouldn’t be forever. 

He kissed the soft skin of his knee as he lifted Buck’s leg to clean it and did the same to the other to kiss the barely there scar on his calf to remind him that he had fought through worse. Buck made a soft sound that slipped out of him and pawed at Eddie’s shoulders until he stood up. 

Eddie dropped the soap back onto the tray and cradled Buck’s face with gentle hands.

Buck rolled his lip with his teeth, mindful of the split.

It didn’t escape Eddie’s notice that Buck hadn’t said a word yet.

Eddie tipped Buck’s head down and pressed a kiss against his forehead where the bruising didn’t reach. A longer, lingering kiss that Buck leaned into as if Eddie’s lips were the only thing holding him up.

“I—” Buck croaked through a tangle of emotions lodged in his throat. “I… I don’t understand what I did.”

Buck sucked in a wet breath and Eddie dropped his forehead to rest against his.

“Nothing,” Eddie said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Buck.”

“That almost makes this worse,” Buck whispered, running trembling fingers against Eddie’s chest.

“I know.”

But it was the truth and what was the phrase people said? Truth hurts? Well, the truth was they’d been doing their jobs— Buck had been doing his job— and someone decided to hurt him for it.

None of them were strangers to the brutality of the world they were trying to help. They’d all had their fair shares of being swiped at for offering a helping hand, being barked at when all someone wanted to do was yell, and even getting lashed out at when they intervened.

It came with the territory.

You didn’t become a helper in the world without a few bruises.

But this had been different.

This had been an explosion of rage that had nothing to do with them and Buck had paid the price.

Eddie’s eyes narrowed on the hand shaped bruises around Buck’s throat and fought down the simmering rage inside of him that wanted to hit something back.

But that never solved anything. Hitting things only ever hurt people even if it felt good at first. It left bruises and Buck had enough of those.

Buck felt marginally better after being held by Eddie under the hot steam of the shower. Even putting his clothes on was less of a task as Eddie helped him pull on a loose t-shirt.

And if he was a hundred percent and there weren’t people waiting for him in his loft, he would definitely do something about the stirring feeling in his gut at the sight of Eddie in a pair of Buck’s sweats, the waistband rolled around his hips to keep the material from pooling around his feet.

The bathroom felt like an oasis Buck was tempted to never leave, but he knew that wasn’t an option. He let Eddie take his hand, melting into the feeling of Eddie swiping a thumb across his knuckles, before he lifted his fingers to his lips and kissed them.

“It’s going to be okay,” Eddie promised and kissed Buck’s fingers again to seal the deal. “C’mon.”

Stepping out of the bathroom was way more exposing than Buck would’ve imagined but the break from the humid steam of their shower came with a price of cold reality slapping him in the face. Bobby and Athena were murmuring something to each other, faces stricken that only slightly relaxed when they saw Buck and Eddie walking out of the bathroom. Buck’s stomach dropped into a twist.

Buck scanned the space for Maddie but other than a spread of takeout breakfast foods, Bobby and Athena were the only ones there. The absence of his sister chiseled that hole in his chest wide open again.

He wondered if Eddie could feel the trembling of his hands.

Eddie squeezed his fingers around Buck’s as if to answer, yes but it’s okay.

“Maddie went to go pick up your Jeep from the station and get you some groceries,” Athena said as if she could read his mind.

Buck hadn’t ruled out that possibility.

“Hen and Chimney went with her to pick up your truck and things too,” Bobby added with a slight nod to Eddie.

Eddie murmured his thanks as he maneuvered Buck into one of the barstools with a guiding hand at the small of his back. It set Buck’s teeth on edge a little, to be honest, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. Not when it felt like the only thing keeping him together was the heat of Eddie next to him.

Bobby set a plate in front of him and shoveled a helping of eggs and hash browns onto it.

For a minute, Buck thought someone was about to cut his food for him too, but they didn’t, and Buck shoved the irrational annoyance misdirected at his friends back down to simmer in the dark parts of his soul where all the other nasty mean things that he kept locked up there lived.

Bobby did the same to Eddie, which made Buck feel marginally better, while Athena handed him a wrapped pack of ice for his hand. The two watched them expectantly and Buck hesitantly let go of Eddie to pick up the fork and eat a few bites.

The eggs were bland and rubbery on his tongue and nothing like the ones Bobby made. Bobby mixed fresh cut peppers and onions in his eggs that lit up his taste buds when he took a bite on the toasted sourdough bread. That’s what they were supposed to have for breakfast. But one wrong press of his fork against his split lip reminded him all over again what had happened. A pepper probably wasn’t a good idea for a while.

Buck took another bite and forced down a swallow through his tight throat.

They ate in silence for a while with Athena propped up on the counter with her elbows, hands curled around a coffee cup, and looking down at her phone every few minutes. Bobby was reading through the printed out list of care that the doctors had sent Buck home with for what Buck was pretty sure the fifth time.

Buck ate as much as he could before his throat felt like it was going to close up on him and set his fork down with an audible click that drew all three of their gazes. He grimaced beneath the scrutiny and again tried to shove down the bitter taste of frustration.

He didn’t know what he wanted more: to be surrounded by people who made him feel safe or to be alone so he could lick his wounds in private.

He didn’t know which was worse, either.

Athena’s phone chimed and she lifted it up to look at the text before Buck could see. Her mouth twisted down into a frown and she shared a glance with Bobby.

“What?” Buck finally snapped.

Athena and Bobby shared in their silent conversation for a beat longer before they turned in sync to look at him.

“He made bail, Buckaroo,” Athena said. 

Buck stiffened but at least he didn’t burst out screaming, so that was a plus. No, the screams he kept trapped in his chest and ignored as they crashed into his ribcage, begging to be released. But he couldn’t. Not with everyone there watching him, waiting for him to fall apart. 

“I’m so sorry,” Athena said with a shake of her head. “The judge granted it an hour ago. He’s been ordered to stay away from you but I can have a patrol car—"

“No,” Buck said too quickly and everyone shifted as they caught it. 

Buck forced a smile onto his face, a small one that didn’t pull at the bruises but would hopefully let everyone buy into what he was so desperately trying to pretend. 

“No, thank you, but I’m fine.”

He wasn’t. Even with his history of hiding away from his own feeling until he could pretend they weren’t there, Buck knew he wasn’t. But he wished everyone else thought otherwise. Maybe that way Maddie would stop staring a little too long at his swollen skin like she was facing a haunted mirror of the past. Maybe then Bobby and Athena would stop hovering around him on the edge of too close, like they were prepared to catch him in case he crumbled. Maybe Eddie would stop looking so guilty that it hurt worse than the bruises themselves. 

It wasn’t working, but Buck could pretend. 

“Doc said I’m going to be out for a couple days until the swelling goes down. How soon after I’m cleared can I come back to work?” Buck asked even though he was afraid to hear an answer. 

Bobby’s only stumble was the too-quick double blink as he tilted his head but he knew why Buck asked. They’d gotten past their mutual betrayals a long time ago. Bobby had wounded Buck because he didn’t want to see him hurt. Buck had lashed out at Bobby because he hurt him anyway. They could see that now. And Buck would trust Bobby with his life, but he still had trouble trusting him with this. Vice versa with Bobby and knowing that Buck’s impulsivity stemmed not from lack of thinking, but from thinking too fast and not caring about the consequences for himself. 

They were doing better at thinking about the consequences for the others though and that was a battlefield they could walk together. Asking was Buck’s way of meeting in the middle of no man’s land. 

“No one would judge you for taking some time, Buck. Your spot will still—"

And Buck had heard that before and sorry, but he just didn’t believe that. He wanted to and he tried to but he didn’t. He wasn’t there yet. 

Buck shook his head. 

“I’m good. Promise.”

Eddie’s hand settled onto his thigh and squeezed, but he didn’t try to talk Buck out of it. But Buck needed the weight of his turnout coat. Buck needed the security that came from doing his job and remembering that at least, for the most part, he could do it well. He needed the sharp pierce of the bell and wailing siren to assure him that that man’s fist didn’t break his shield in half. 

“I need this. Please—"

Bobby held up a hand. 

“Okay, Buck, okay.” Bobby calmed him before Buck could do something even more humiliating than getting his ass kicked and started begging. “Let’s give it two weeks. Just until your face heals up. I don’t want to make you or anybody on our calls uncomfortable. I promise you this isn’t a punishment.”

It felt a little like one but Buck knew that was more him than anything else and the relief of knowing that he could go back, that he could put his uniform on, outweighed that insecurity. 

“So, what—” Buck’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat with a grimace as the bruises wrapped around it twinged. “So, now what?”

Bobby sucked in a breath and turned to Athena.

“The man who attacked you, Lawrence Malloy, is a high profile arrest, so the DA is wanting to make an example out of him. If Malloy pleads not guilty then there will be a trial. You’re going to have to give a statement to the police and prosecutors. You too, Eddie.” Athena added with a pointed look towards Eddie.

“There will be an investigation by the department, too,” Bobby said and Buck bristled as his stomach plummeted. “You aren’t in trouble. They have to do it just to have a record of what happened. You’ve got me plus a union rep who’ll be by your side through the whole thing.”

“What about the reporters?” Eddie asked.

Athena’s frown turned into a scowl as she shook her head. “They’ll find something more interesting in a day or two. From what I know, they don’t have your name Buck but I would suggest camping out here for a few days until it all dies down.”

Hence why Maddie was grocery shopping. All the puzzle pieces started sliding into place and he finally felt like he was understanding why everyone had been so evasive when they all but smuggled him out of the hospital.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel like he was the last one to know and that was irritating in a way he didn’t think it would be.

Athena flexed her hips as she pushed to stand upright and Buck caught a glimpse of her badge again.

“What about the guy?” Buck asked, remembering with a slight chill beneath his skin of the way that man—Simon Saffrey— had studied Buck in that bed. “The one that tried to bribe me?”

Eddie’s hand tightened over Buck’s thigh as he swiveled to stare up at him but Buck kept his gaze on Athena.

“He shouldn’t be in contact with you from now on but if he does then you need to let me or Bobby know immediately,” Athena said seriously. “He shouldn’t have even been allowed through the hospital doors to begin with.”

“Who are you talking about?” Eddie demanded, turning to look at Athena and Bobby.

“Simon Saffrey,” Athena said. “He’s Lawrence Malloy’s manager and a snake. He gets Malloy out of trouble more times than the sun rises in a year. He probably thought he could pay you to drop the charges.”

“Maybe I should.”

Buck knew they were a mistake the moment the words slipped past his lips. Three sets of eyes pinned him to the spot as Bobby, Athena, and Eddie stared back at him.

Buck dropped his gaze down to his plate and picked up his fork to play with the eggs so his hands had something to do.

“What do you mean, Buck?” Bobby asked, patient as always.

Buck shrugged. But he could still feel their stares like they were being branded on his blemished skin and a surge of anger bubbled in his chest again.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” Buck said, his throat burning as he forced himself to keep the heat out of his words. “I was just trying to do my job.”

“Buck…” Eddie said and Buck finally squirmed his leg out from under Eddie’s hand.

It was all too much and too suffocating and Buck just wanted to get in bed and stay there until the bruises on his face disappeared and everyone forgot what happened.

“Buck.” Athena said Buck’s name like she was stretching it out from a cramped position.

Soft and tired but understanding all the same.

Buck dared to look up at her and saw all those things in her expression.

“You’re right,” she said with a nod. “You didn’t ask for any of this. But that doesn’t make it okay either.”

And Buck knew that. He did. But if it meant going back to the way things were, where life made sense again, then maybe it should be.

“Would you rather it’d been one of us?” Eddie asked, his voice low and even and Buck shot his eyes up to glare at him.

“Of course not.”

But Eddie didn’t flinch. His eyebrows lifted as he tipped his head.

“Then that means it shouldn’t have been you either.”

Buck sighed. His skin felt too tight across his shoulders and he was just so tired. Tired and sore and… embarrassed .

“It shouldn’t happen to anybody,” Bobby said quietly.

Buck nodded because he didn’t know what else to say to that either.

Besides, it was out of his hands so the idea that he could just agree to let anything go was nothing more than a wish in a dried up wishing well.

The facts were printed on reports and his uniform had been stained with the evidence.

Buck had been responding to a fire at a residence with his team.

Buck had been attacked while in uniform.

Buck had been beaten up while trying to do his job.

Buck was now in the epicenter of a mission some DA had to make a point.

Buck was now a thing and he hated it.

Buck’s fork fell with a clatter that time and he lifted his hands to cover his face as he broke down. But he stopped short before his palms could press into the bruises. The other barstool groaned as Eddie pushed it back before he pulled himself into Buck’s space. Buck welcomed the heat of him again as he tipped to the side into the strength of Eddie’s chest.

“What do you need?” 

Buck squeezed his tired eyes shut as the hot press of tears burned behind them. 

What didn’t he need? He needed another dose of painkillers to take the edge off of the throbbing consuming his face. He needed his sister to come back to tell him that he was going to be okay. He needed the last eleven hours to rewind so that when he woke up in his bunk to the sound of the alarm, he knew not to go into the back of that property alone. He needed for everyone to stop looking at him. He needed everyone to keep looking at him in case he shattered apart. There were too many things that he needed. 

But what he wanted? 

That was easy. 

“You. Please don’t leave me.”

Eddie shushed him with a kiss onto his forehead where his lips lingered for a long time against Buck’s skin and soothed away the burn of humiliation that blushed into his cheeks. 

“I’m right here,” Eddie said, so quiet even though it was just the two of them. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

And that time when Buck folded against Eddie it was so much easier. He went limp with relief from a tension he didn’t know he’d been holding until it released him. Eddie’s arms curled around him, strong and steady, against the hammering of Buck’s own heart. 

“Can you stay with me tonight?” He asked, feeling guilty for asking for more. 

“Do you want to stay here or my house?”

And while Buck felt at home in Eddie’s house, he also wasn’t ready to venture past the safety of his own bubble yet. 

“Here?” Buck shivered as Eddie’s hand moved up and down his spine. “I don’t want Chris to see me like this.”

He didn’t want to chance the possibility of the man who attacked him to track him to Eddie’s house either, and that realization was enough to stoke the hot fear in Buck’s chest again until his lungs were almost too tight to breathe. Buck knew that was an extreme fear. But every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was the unfiltered rage burning the man’s skin bright red above him.

Maybe he should see if Athena could have a patrol car…

The thought of the request made Buck’s stomach flip. He would be fine.

But he knew he was asking a lot and even though the thought of being left alone was enough to send him into hysterics, he didn’t want to make Eddie feel guilty if he couldn’t. 

“It’s okay if you can’t—"

Eddie shook his head as he tightened his arms around Buck. 

“He can stay the night at Pepa’s tonight. He’ll be okay.”

It was uncomfortable being half out of his seat and half on top of Eddie with Bobby and Athena watching them but Buck didn’t want to come out of his embrace again. He didn’t think he could. Eddie’s fingers drifted up to card through his hair until he burrowed close and for once, the aches and pains drifted away into the lulling nothingness except for Eddie’s breathing and Bobby and Athena quietly cleaning up.

Two weeks. He just had to get through two weeks.

Buck lasted four days being cooped up inside before he was practically climbing the walls.

Athena had been right. The media frenzy had been insane with Buck’s attacker being a semi-celebrity and the DA’s office making a grandstanding show of their resolve. They were charging Malloy with felony battery and second degree attempted murder. Malloy was facing his third strike which meant even if the second charge didn’t stick, he’d be facing a prison sentence for a quarter of his life, minimum.

Buck’s stomach hollowed out every time he saw the news banner at the bottom of the screen read: attempted murder.

If you asked him, that seemed a bit extreme, but no one had and the hole in his chest turned brittle with bitterness a little.

“He did try to kill you, Buckaroo,” Chimney had said one night when he and Maddie came over for dinner and kept Buck company.

Buck tried desperately not to snap.

“They have to do it so they have some leverage in case he pleas.” Maddie soothed away some of the irritation with that. “They’ll probably drop the charge later on.”

Buck felt like he was in one of those balloons that was trapped inside another balloon. The ones that were stretched tight with helium and kids banged around to watch the smaller balloon bounce against the walls.

Like he wasn’t on the outside looking in.

He was inside, trapped there, with everyone else looking in on him.

He hated it.

But Athena had been right. Without his name—the DA had kept a tight lid on that and Simon Saffrey couldn’t leak it without revealing that he tried to bribe Buck— the press found more interesting things to focus on after a few days.

Four days trapped inside were four days too long in Buck’s opinion. The swelling had gone down some but the bruises had deepened in color on his skin with creeping edges of green and yellow around the splotches.

People were going to stare.

It was a stupid thing to be stressed about but it was true. There was more purple and green covering his face than his actual skin tone. The hand marks on his throat felt like they were circling tighter every time he stared at them too long.

But Buck was going crazy and he missed his friends. They stopped by in shifts to keep him company. Maddie and Chimney most nights but Karen and Hen had stopped by for brunch and Bobby and Athena had checked in separately. Eddie had spent most nights with Buck when he could, holding him close and giving Buck a few hours of peace where even his shadow didn’t make him flinch.

It just wasn’t the same.

But people were going to stare and if anyone asked about the cold sweat that glistened his skin with the thought of leaving his apartment well that would have to remain an unsolved mystery.

Maddie was the one who threw him the lifeline. She always did.

“Come on,” she said in lieu of greeting that fourth day where Buck had spent more time pacing and cleaning every surface of his apartment than actually resting like he was supposed to be doing.

“Uh…” Buck blinked as she bullied her way inside and up the stairs to his closet. “W-Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” Maddie said as she rifled around for a zip up hoodie and held it up with her purse. “Hoodie or make-up?”

Buck’s brows dipped down in the middle, confused. “What?”

Maddie rolled her eyes and shook her purse and the hoodie.

“Hoodie or make-up? Which one is going to make you feel more comfortable going out with your bruises?”

Something warm settled in Buck’s chest at his sister’s ability to just know him, even when he didn’t feel like he knew himself sometimes. But then the cold sweat dampened the small of his back and he retreated back.

“I—” Buck gapped before he shook his head. “I don’t think…”

I don’t think I can.

It was unspoken, but the words hung between them like a dense fog that was easy to get lost in.

Maddie’s gaze softened.

“Yes, you can.”

And if Maddie said he could, then Buck was going to try. He settled on the hoodie and tucked the hood up over his face before they even stepped out of the apartment. He kept his head down but his eyes wide as he scanned everywhere as they walked to the car. Nobody was around and he couldn’t help but feel like maybe Maddie planned it that way. He let her bundle him into the car and drove him through the early evening traffic of LA with nothing more than the radio and the comfortable chatter of Maddie’s day to fill the void. It was nice getting to go out after so long. But Buck felt like he was looking at everything through a hazy film. Familiar but different in ways he couldn’t help but feel like he missed.

If you asked Buck what the greatest feeling would be, what the one thing that made him truly settled in his skin and so unbelievably happy he didn’t even notice it, it would be the feeling of the rush of air in an open cab. Maddie’s Jeep when they would escape their parents and drive around town with the humid summer air blowing their hair everywhere. The speed of Buck’s bike when that invisibility that left him like a ghost to everyone around him. The cab of the truck when he and the team would race from one call to the next with tight rubber around their ears where their voices were tinny and teasing through the headset.

The windows were up though and Buck was too… he didn’t know.

He shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was when Maddie pulled up to their destination. The same jittery excitement that he felt the first time he pulled up to the station in a blue Jeep that was on its last set of miles, fluttered in his stomach.

Maddie parked the car in one of the spots and Buck was practically tripping over himself to get out.

The seatbelt clipped Buck’s jaw and the twinge of pain rippled into a throbbing ache.

That’s right.

The bruises.

“You okay?” Maddie was turned in her seat, trying to see but Buck kept his face towards the window.

He clenched his jaw and rode through the worst of it.

“Fine.”

Buck knew that if he asked Maddie to take him home, she would. She would do it without question and without judgement.

But Buck would judge himself. He would judge himself and he would question everything he did with the rest of his life if he went back to hide.

Walking into the fire station with Maddie felt like stretching his legs for the first time in months. The familiar scent of polish and rubber and the hints of a smoky aftertaste that hung onto their clothes no matter how many times they scrubbed them settled into Buck’s skin and oozed away the tension that had set in his shoulders. He bit down on the inside of his cheek as he stepped through the bay doors before he pushed his hood back and ran a hand through his curls. If he’d known where they’d been going then he would’ve styled them more. And maybe he would’ve picked the make-up instead.

Sure, he knew they’d already all seen the aftermath and even worse they’d been there for the initial impact.

Buck couldn’t quite remember what happened after he started to lose time when fingers wrapped around his throat. It came in flashes and fleeting brushes against his memory. Hen’s worried expression as she clipped a c-collar around him. Chim’s palpating fingers against his face, looking for any severe breaks. The gurney. The sound of Bobby’s voice shouting over the otherwise quiet morning. Murmured instructions to document everything from someone to a nurse in the ER.

The smell of Bobby’s sauce spiced the air and made Buck’s mouth water.

“Hey!” Chimney crowed from his perch on the stairs. “Look who’s here!”

Buck’s cheeks heated with a blush as everyone cheered for him as he walked up the steps with Maddie behind him. Maddie leaned in to kiss Chimney and Buck scanned the loft until he spotted Eddie walking towards him with a small grin.

Maybe it made him stupidly in love the way Eddie’s smile could still make him weak in the knees but Buck didn’t care.

“Hi,” Buck said, breathless as Eddie slanted forward to give Buck a quick peck of his own.

“Hi.” Eddie echoed back before he stepped aside to let Buck through.

The table was decked out with all the fixings. Plates, napkins, forks and knives, with massive bowls of food lined down the middle. Baskets of bread warmed the entire dining area with scents of butter and garlic. A massive bowl of salad with the big tongs was a mix of colors after being tossed.

Athena was there, dressed in uniform, and helping Bobby shred some fresh parmesan. Guys on his shift and even a few people who weren’t on shift were there setting the table and getting ready to eat.

Buck swallowed past the knot of emotions in his throat.

It was a full family affair.

For him.

That meant a lot.

Bobby caught his eye with a knowing smile and tapped on the back of a seat for Buck to sit down.

“Couldn’t have family dinner until everyone was at the table.”

By the time they were finished, Buck was so full that he could’ve fallen asleep sitting up. He hadn’t really been able to eat a lot of hard foods the first couple of days and his jaw was sore from how much garlic bread he’d shoved in his mouth, but it was totally worth it.

Even though the dinner was an unspoken occasion, a soft opening to the welcome back party Buck knew they were planning, it was still so ridiculously normal that he almost would have cried. No one talked about what happened but no one actively tried to avoid it either. The whole thing was effortless in the way people who spent way too much time together could master. People clapped Buck on the shoulder and teased him and all the things he’d been craving for days. The egg shells everyone had been walking on around him had seemingly been swept away in a sea of pasta sauce and garlic.

Miraculously, the alarm didn’t go off once, meaning Buck didn’t feel as bad about sticking around. Athena had to leave early when the call for a field sergeant was requested at a domestic disturbance and eventually those who had stopped in to say hi and eat, left one by one. Even then when it was just his team and Maddie, Buck was settled in a way he hadn’t been in a while. He helped Bobby clean and the mindless task of washing the dishes while talking about nothing and everything with Bobby, was refreshing.

But Buck’s hoodie felt too soft against his skin every time he latched onto the way the navy blue uniforms flexed against someone’s shoulders or legs.

“You’ll be back soon,” Bobby said as if sensing the twinge of longing that pulled at Buck’s heart. “Just a few more days. Have you scheduled your appointment with Frank?”

“Next week,” Buck said, toweling off his hands.

It wasn’t that he disliked Frank. But seeing Frank came with a degree of scrutiny that made Buck squirm every time he sat in the chair opposite him. He knew Frank wouldn’t judge. Maddie had even told Buck a few times how he’d helped her shift through the old aches of Doug’s abuse.

“It was like stretching a muscle you hadn’t used before.” Maddie had said. “ You were sore for a few days but it was the good kind of sore. It was like unlocking another part of myself.”

So, rationally, Buck knew it would be fine.

But irrationally, the fear that Frank would tell Buck that it was his fault, that he should’ve known better than to engage with someone so agitated while alone, was still there.

Why didn’t you fight back harder?

Buck had been asking himself that every time he woke up. It wasn’t really a big reach to think that someone else would come to the same conclusion too.

“He’s just there to help,” Bobby said, again as if reading Buck’s thoughts.

Buck licked his tongue over the scrabbed split of his lip and nodded.

After a few hours, Buck almost didn’t want to leave. But he could feel the pain meds starting to wear off. The throbbing in his jaw was starting to pulse in time with the ache behind his eyes.

Buck made the rounds and scanned the bay floor for Eddie so he could say goodbye. He was working the twenty-four hour shift so Buck wouldn’t see him for another day. Another kind of ache settled in his chest that he wouldn’t be by Eddie’s side but he pushed that down to deal with later. Besides, a kiss from Eddie would make the separation better. It was a scientific fact and Buck wouldn’t hear any objections to it.

Buck circled around the ladder truck, half expecting to find Eddie on his hands and knees as he packed the compartments with a military precision. Something about old habits or whatever. Buck just thought Eddie was a little anal-retentive when it came to clean lines and symmetry.

Buck rocked onto his heels when he saw him. Everything in his stomach churned, threatening to come up again as bile burned at the back of his throat.

Fingers wrapping around his throat, squeezing with such a fury, he choked on it.

Lawrence Malloy stood in the threshold of the bay doors looking like he would rather be anywhere else.

He looked more put together than when Buck first saw him that fateful morning. Instead of boxers and a ripped up muscle shirt, he was dressed in slacks with a button down that threatened to burst at the seams. His face was freshly shaven and that wild rage that had burned in his eyes was dulled by boredom. A boredom that lit up a little when those eyes landed on Buck.

Buck’s body went cold all over and his lungs screamed at him to breathe.

Malloy tracked the bruises on Buck’s face, his lips quirking up in that almost mocking smirk like his manager, and Buck went dizzy with the realization that he was being assessed. Like Malloy was taking the stats of Buck’s bruises and stacking them into a pile with the rest of his fights.

Every warning bell in his head was telling him to run. Run run run! Run now! Run fast!  

But Buck was still there, rooted to the spot like his shoes had melted to the floor.

“Just the guy I was looking for,” Malloy said and took a step forward.

Eddie’s back filled Buck’s vision as he stood in front of him.

“Back up,” Eddie said, his voice a harsh bark to the normal soft sweet murmurings Buck loved.

Malloy’s lips twisted up into a smirk and those same dark eyes beneath a sharp brow sized Eddie up.

“I’m not here to start anything,” Malloy said even though his tone definitely challenged that. “I’m just here to thank the man who saved my life.”

Buck couldn’t breathe.

“You have a funny way of showing it,” Eddie said, his shoulders a fine line of trembling fury as his fists curled at his sides.

Like a righteous angel, standing guard with his wings flexed to hide Buck from view.

“Heat of the moment,” Malloy said before his head tipped and he pinned Buck with another stare. “You mind calling off your guard dog? I want to talk to you.”

“You aren’t supposed to be here.” Eddie all but growled.

Malloy’s eyes tightened with an impatience that soured the amusement on his face. “How else am I supposed to apologize, huh?”

Apologize? He wanted to apologize?

He didn’t sound like it and Buck didn’t think he would be able to hear it over the roaring in his ears. Even cleaned up, dressed to impress, and looking like any other douchebag you saw walking the streets of LA, Malloy looked like a nightmare incarnate. He was a nightmare. Buck’s nightmare.

A nightmare that had been haunting Buck for the past four nights when he tried to sleep and found a new spot on his pillow that was uncomfortable. A nightmare every time the bruises on his throat looked like they moved and he remembered the phantom squeeze.

And now his nightmare was in the one place Buck felt safe.

An apology? Buck didn’t want an apology. He wanted Malloy to leave.

“I-I-I…” Buck’s throat dried out and Malloy looked like he was two seconds away from laughing as he caught onto Buck’s stutter.

Where was Maddie? Where were the others?

Buck tangled his fingers in Eddie’s back belt loop.

“Please go,” Buck said. “You aren’t supposed to talk to me.”

Malloy snorted. “Here I was thinking we could handle this between men and put this whole bullshit to bed.”

“I don’t have anything to do with that!” Buck protested because if he did, he would’ve pretended it never happened.

“You attacked him in uniform in front of witnesses,” Eddie added. “You should’ve thought of that before you laid a finger on him.”

“I’m done talking to you, pretty boy.” Malloy snapped and the amusement slipped from his expression into one of the shades of rage that Buck vividly remembered.

A whimper threatened to fall out of him and it was taking everything in Buck to keep it back.

“What are you going to do about it? Hit me too?”

“Eddie,” Buck said so quietly it could barely be considered a whisper. More like a catch of air in the middle of his throat because he didn’t know whether to exhale or inhale. “Don’t.”

“You should listen to him, Eddie. ” Malloy sneered out Eddie’s name in a way that made Buck’s stomach twist. “I’m not afraid to wipe the floor with some punk ass—”

“If I remember correctly,” Eddie cut him off. “It was you passing out three seconds into the first chokehold.”

Buck watched as the wrath surged up from Malloy’s shoes into his shoulders as he got ready to lunge and Buck clamped his finger around the back of Eddie’s pants to pull him away before he could touch him. Malloy was his nightmare but Malloy touching Eddie was his worst nightmare.

“You fucking—”

“ Hey!”

Bobby swooped in like a raging storm, tall and imposing, but with the calmness he possessed in almost all things.

“Go.” Bobby pointed to the door and didn’t move, even when Malloy’s aggression zeroed in on him.

Malloy relaxed, lifting his chin as that smirk settled back on his face, but his arms were still tight at his side like he was ready to swing at any minute.

“You sure you want to go down this road, kid?” Malloy asked, his eyes on Bobby but his words aimed like a sucker punch to Buck.

He was waiting on an answer that Buck couldn’t give. He didn’t want to go down that road. He didn’t even want to be on the road. But Malloy took away not only his security but his choice in the matter.

Malloy sniffed and stepped back.

“Suit yourself.”

And then he turned on his heel, got into a car where Simon Saffrey was in the driver’s seat, and drove away.

Buck’s name was leaked thirty minutes after Malloy pleaded not guilty.

Thirty minutes was all it took before the news reports flashed a banner of breaking news and threw up a picture of Buck’s face— his department headshot—onto the screens with his name in big bold letters.

Bobby’s office phone had never rung so much in his entire tenure of being captain of the 118. News reporters wanting a comment. The chief wanting an update. The department’s media team reminding him once again to let them handle it and maintain no comment. They had to keep the bay doors closed and had a few officers clear the drive just to get the trucks in and out when they got a call.

And Buck… Bobby couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the kid so shut down. The bruises were still vivid across his skin making his eyes bright and blue. But every glimpse of emotion was fleeting, welling up in those eyes before Buck shoved them down with a stiff lip. The DA’s office was sending the prosecutor to speak with Buck personally but with the slip of his name to the media, Buck had been reluctant to meet them at all.

It’d been Athena’s idea to have the meeting at the firehouse.

“It’ll do him some good to be somewhere he feels safe but also keeps anyone from tracking that lawyer to his loft.”

Which was how they ended up sneaking Buck in through a side door before promptly settling him upstairs to wait for the ADA. The team moved with a hesitation in their step but put on a brave face as if it was just like any other day.

Bobby cooked breakfast that Buck only picked at but he would take what he could get when Eddie coaxed him into getting a few bites. Once everyone had broken off to start their chores, Buck curled up on the couch and stayed there. Like he was trying to stay out of the way.

The ADA hurried inside with a huff as she lugged a stack of files in her arm and scampered up the steps. Short black hair was cut into a straight line at her chin that curled around a small delicate face and big almost navy eyes that almost glowed against her pale skin. She looked almost pixie like, small and impish in the way she held herself in a room. But Bobby knew that looks could be deceiving.

Dana Ward was like a hawk in silk. She’d been making quite the name for herself, taking on big cases for even bigger wins for the DA, who was happy to use her ruthlessness in the courtroom to get himself reelected.

Those almost glowing eyes scanned over everyone in the loft— Bobby, Chimney, Sorreno— before she landed Buck who was uncurling himself from the couch. Her sharp eyebrows arched high onto her forehead as she took in Buck’s face and Buck wilted under the scrutiny with a wince.

“Mr. Buckley,” Dana said with a blinding smile that stretched a little too wide across her face. “Dana Ward. District Attorney’s office. Thank you for meeting me.”

“Sure,” Buck said as he shook her hand in a tone that said he would’ve rather not.

Bobby understood though. They were all on a speeding train they never wanted to be on that no one would let them drive with a turbulence that wouldn’t stop. It was the very definition of being out of control.

Dana’s eyes flicked back to Bobby and the others with a tightness across her smile.

“Is there somewhere private we could talk, Mr. Buckley?”

Buck flashed a panicked look over at Bobby, opening and closing his mouth, before he shifted nervously on his feet.

Chimney popped his gum once and made a quick exit with Sorreno.

“You can use the loft,” Bobby said with a wave to the table they had cleared. “I’ll just—”

“Can Bobby stay?” Buck asked, his voice squeaking a little.

Dana looked like that was the last thing she wanted but Bobby settled back onto his heels and waited. She could object but Bobby wasn’t going to leave Buck if Buck didn’t want him too.

Dana nodded once.

“Of course.”

Bobby watched as Buck’s shoulders visibly relaxed before he looked up at him from beneath his lashes and gifted Bobby with a small smile.

Dana made herself home, spreading her files out across the table and pulling out a legal pad with endless scribbling already covering the first handful of pages.

Bobby let Buck sit down first and settled into the seat beside him. Immediately, Buck’s knee started to bounce as his hands tangled themselves in his lap. Dana didn’t pay them any mind as she flipped through a few folders with the efficiency of a woman on a mission. Bobby watched with a passing curiosity, keeping one eye on Buck and an ear out for the crew, while he looked over notes like:

Opening statement should include service record

Police reports

Incident report

Witness statements & Previous complaints

Dana pushed one of the folders out of the way and Bobby’s stomach turned. A shiny, glossy photo spilled across the table in front of them like a tear across the sanctity of the security of the firehouse. Buck froze with a choke, his face pale like he was going to be just as sick as Bobby felt, as the image of Buck stared up at him. It was one of the photos taken at the hospital when the nurses had processed him. His head was tipped back, exposing the angry red and purpling marks of the hand prints around his throat, but his eyes were red from crying and pointed to the side where he was looking at Maddie out of frame.

Bobby shot his head up and caught Dana watching Buck with a brief arch of her brow before her face smoothed out and she shuffled the picture out of sight.

Hot, angry bile burned at the back of Bobby’s throat.

She’d done that on purpose to gauge his reaction.

“Sorry about that,” Dana said even though she didn’t sound sorry at all as she wrote a note down on her tablet and flipped the page before either of them could see. “Though, they will be a part of the evidence submitted to trial. We might be able to swing having you conveniently in the restroom when they’re presented but—”

“I don’t—” Buck shook his head but Dana bulldozed on as if he hadn’t spoken.

“So, everything will be pretty straight forward. We’ll have opening statements, present evidence, you’ll testify.” Dana waved her hand over her files. “We’ll go over your testimony before you do so that when Mr. Malloy’s attorney questions you, you’ll be prepared to—”

“Do I have to?” Buck asked, flinching when Dana’s eyes turned sharp. “Do I have to testify?”

A fine tremor had settled into Buck’s hands, working up his arms into his shoulders, and Bobby couldn’t help but feel like he was watching Buck splinter in front of him.

“I was just trying to do my job,” Buck said. “I-I never wanted any of this.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice, Mr. Buckley,” Dana said, cutting Buck off. “I don’t want to have to subpoena you to the stand, but I will. If you still refuse then you can be held in contempt.”

Deep flares of protective fury tightened around Bobby’s heart as he watched Buck deflate.

“Hang on a second—” Bobby started but Dana ignored him.

“I don’t want to have to do that, Mr. Buckley,” Dana said. “But Lawrence Malloy brutally attacked you while you were in uniform and serving your duties as a firefighter.”

“He was there for that. Don’t condescend him.”

Dana’s gaze cut over to Bobby, but he didn’t let her see him squirm. He hardened her glare with one of his own and met it head on.

“Mr. Nash, you’re here as a support—”

“No. You do not get to come into my firehouse and try to manipulate my firefighter into being a puppet for your grandstanding spectacle, and you certainly don’t get to pull stunts like you just did with the picture.” Bobby snapped. “Buck is cooperating and he asked you a question. You will show him the respect he deserves, especially since your office already made a mess of things as it is.”

Dana’s nostrils flared but her smile remained unmovable. She folded her hands together on the table.

“I needed to see how he would react.”

“Well, don’t do it again,” Bobby said.

Dana tipped her head.  “Understood.”

Buck shot Bobby a grateful look.

Dana’s expression softened as she turned her attention back to Buck. Buck shifted in his seat, playing with his fingers in his lap.

“It would help our case if the jury saw you in the courtroom, Mr. Buckley. Is there a particular reason that you’re nervous about testifying?”

Her tone was better but barely and Bobby still didn’t trust that this wasn’t also an act. Buck bit down on the corner of his lip that wasn’t split and shrugged.

“I…” Buck sighed, looking worn down and tired again. “It’s just that when the guy that did this came by the other day—”

The sharpness was back in a flash.

“Lawrence Malloy contacted you?” Dana asked, sitting up and grabbing her cellphone.

Buck blinked at her, his shoulders lifting up to his ears as he nodded. “He wanted to apologize…”

But Dana’s mouth stretched into a confident grin as she abruptly stood up.

“Mr. Malloy just violated a court order,” she said before she stepped away, pressing her phone to her ear.

Buck slumped in his chair and dropped his chin down to his sternum with a sigh.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Bobby,” Buck whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.

Bobby settled a hand on Buck’s shoulder and Buck leaned into the contact like it was his only guide line in the smoke.

“I know, Buck.”

Bobby knew what he meant because even though he’d been in his fair share of courtrooms, testifying for prosecutors whenever they needed a witness, in all his years, Bobby had never had to go through something like this. They were in a whole other world and out of their depths that even he felt like he was drowning a little. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Buck had to be going through.

“But I know you can get through this, and you’ve got the whole team behind you.” He didn’t know if it was what Buck needed to hear or if it made it any better, but Bobby did know one thing: it was true.

If anyone could get through a shitstorm like the one they found themselves in and were being forced to ride out, it was Buck.

Buck sucked in a breath and held it long enough for Bobby to start to worry before Buck let it out on a long exhale. The tension melted away from Buck’s shoulders and he sniffed back his resolve as he sat up.

Buck nodded and the doubt that had lingered in the shadows under his eyes disappeared.

At least, for the time being.

“Thanks Bobby,” Buck said and when Dana came back to the table, Buck met her gaze with a steady one of his own.

Ever since the attack, Buck hadn’t been left alone for more than an hour at a time.

But after Malloy cornered him at the station, Buck hadn’t been left alone for more than a minute. The former, Buck didn’t think was on purpose but the latter was definitely intentional.

Buck didn’t really know why. Malloy was arrested and held in contempt for violating a court order and the news cameras thankfully turned their attention onto him, replaying the footage of Malloy walking into jail with his head held high and a smirk on his face. Buck was pretty sure he heard about how Malloy had turned himself over peacefully and dressed in a three piece suit like he was walking into a match at least fifty times already.

Fine by Buck. Malloy could’ve been wearing three day old pajamas for all Buck cared if it meant he went to sleep at night knowing there was a guarantee that he wouldn’t be ambushed again. Buck kept reminding himself that he only had to face him one more time, when he testified, and then he could pretend like none of this had happened. Just one more time where Buck had to face that sneer as Malloy laughed at him.

The knock at Buck’s door was tentative at first but settled into a determined rap of knuckles. Buck braced himself for another well intentioned, not at all planned visit from one of his friends or Maddie.

But when he checked the peephole—something he didn’t used to do half the time— Buck felt the tight clamp of mild annoyance twist into something else. Something more inevitable that he’d been hoping to ignore.

Taylor was as beautiful as always, with her long red hair twisted in a curtain of hot iron curls that spilled over her shoulder. On TV, Taylor was always dressed to impress with smart blazers over silky blouses and vibrant colors that brought out the blue in her eyes. She always described her style as her uniform; her kind of turnout coat. It made her feel strong and empowered when she could be the one thing put together while capturing chaos on camera.

She was in jeans which meant she hadn’t come from work, and the blue sweater was big and chunky like she could slip her hands into the sleeves. She looked cozy and relaxed and Buck always liked that look on her the best.

But the horror creeping into her expression as she took in his face was all wrong.

“Buck…”

Buck ducked his head down as he stepped aside to let her in.

“It looks worse than it is.”

Buck had been saying that a lot, even though Dana had told him to stop. Something about not minimizing his injuries for the defense to manipulate or something. Whatever.

“Are you…” Taylor stopped as she shook her head and Buck couldn’t help but feel grateful that she didn’t ask.

That was all anyone was asking him these days and he was sick of it. Sick of the shock that turned into pity. Sick of the walking on eggshells around him like they thought it was going to break.

He was just… sick of it.

Taylor looked like she didn’t know whether she wanted to hug him or start throwing something.

“I…” Taylor blinked out of her stare and waved her phone with a flick of her wrist. “I tried to call.”

Buck’s phone had been switched to silent and hidden upstairs in his loft where he hadn’t looked at it in hours. Ever since his name had been leaked, his phone had been flooded with messages and voicemails from people who wanted to send their get wells as thinly veiled attempts to hear what happened.

“Hey man! I saw what happened on the news. Let me know if you need anything. That’s so crazy it was Lawrence Malloy. Was he on steroids?”

“Buck! Oh my God! How bad was it?”

“Can I interview you for my podcast?”

“Yeah sorry,” Buck said as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’ve had a lot of calls with… everything.”

Taylor’s eyes softened as she puckered her lips, tracking the creeping yellow and green lines of the bruises.

“Are you in any pain? Did the doctor—”

“No… No. I’m okay. It barely hurts,” Buck said and he sounded just steady enough that maybe anyone else but Taylor would’ve believed it.

Something flashed across her expression in a flutter of emotions that Buck couldn’t quite catch before it was gone. Taylor was good at that. Buck knew because he’d seen when she wasn’t; when the swell of emotions built up too high in the back of her throat until it spilled out before she would squash it back through sheer will alone. Buck knew what it was like to choke those feelings back. How the instinct to smother them until they turned into nothing more than embers was the same as breathing. It was a coping mechanism; a way to survive in a world that took big feelings and mangled them up until they were unrecognizable.

It’d been nice to find someone who wanted to survive just as desperately as he did. It’d been the spark that they recognized in one another early on and developed into a friendship that went beyond the pretenses of polite company. Taylor was frank and brutal in her honesty but never cruel or expecting of anything. Buck liked having someone he could open up to who would call him an idiot and mean it in the best way.

“You want something to drink?” Buck asked, already moving to where he’d started brewing coffee and then forgot about it as the morning stretched on.

There was something that had come into the room when Taylor stepped inside his loft and the heaviness of it made his hands twitch.

“Buck…”

Buck dropped his head into the fridge and found the creamer in the back that was thankfully still good. He wasn’t quite ready for a trip to the grocery yet.

“Buck, I need to—”

Buck held up the creamer and shook it. Taylor’s mouth dropped into a thin line.

“Buck, we need to talk,” she said and Buck bit down on his lip hard enough to taste blood on his tongue.

Up front and to the point.

He’d always liked that about Taylor.

Didn’t make it hurt any less.

The inevitable feeling turned heavy on Buck’s chest, making it harder to breathe.

“It’s you?” Buck asked, his voice falling flat as the sharp confirmation settled over his lungs. “You’re the one doing the story?”

There’d been another voicemail on his phone that he’d hoped he could’ve ignored.

“Hi, Mr. Buckley. My name is Tonya Cahill. I’m a producer with Channel Eight News. We’d like to set up a time with you to speak with one of our reporters about the attack you went through. Please call me back at…”

Taylor, for her part, at least pretended to look sorry.

“I had to, Buck.”

An ugly snort fell from Buck’s nose as he shook his head.

“What does that even mean? I thought we were friends.”

“We are!” Taylor reached over the counter for his hand, but stopped when Buck pulled away. “We are, Buck. That’s why.”

The tightening of his chest twisted some more.

“Buck… I…” Taylor dropped her gaze down to the counter before Buck watched as she built up her resolve and met him with a professionalism she always seemed to carry in the shade of her lipstick. “Buck, listen to me...please.”

Buck shook his head.

“No, Buck, please. Listen to me.” Taylor insisted. “If there’s anyone who knows what you’re going through, it’s me.”

Buck waited for her to elaborate but when she didn’t, he found himself trapped in another hole he’d fallen into again. There’d been a part of Buck who had hoped that he’d been wrong but he never learned. Never.

“Buck, please,” Taylor said. “I’m doing this for you.”

And for some reason, that was the thing that made something in Buck snap. He’d been trapped in a nightmare for almost two weeks of people making decisions for him and staring at him like he was a tragic freak. Like he was something breakable that people feared had already been broken.

Hot, burning anger flamed up in his chest with a flashover instantaneousness he couldn’t even begin to control.

Buck never wanted this. He never wanted the bruises or the defending warriors or the people staring at him and pitying him and promising they were doing all these things and riding on the whirlwind of his torment for him. He was trapped in the center of a tornado where the air was thin and destruction picked up speed in every direction.

No one asked what Buck wanted because no one cared.

“No, you’re doing this for you. Telling the stories? Even the ones they might not want you to tell? That’s what you said, right?”

The sound of Buck’s voice was low and mean. Harsh in the flatness as the heat of his anger smoldered in his throat.

Taylor’s nostrils flared like she was physically suppressing saying something she would regret and Buck almost wished she wouldn’t.

“Buck,” Taylor said evenly. “They were going to make you a freak show. This was the only way I could control the story—”

But Buck didn’t care. It was too much. It was all too much. He didn’t know if he wanted to scream or be sick or what but he knew at that moment that he didn’t want to be around anyone.

He wanted to be alone.

“Get out.”

“Buck—”

Buck pointed to the door.

“Get. Out .”

Taylor looked like she was about to argue and again, he almost wished that she would. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel like even Taylor thought he was glass.

Another flash of emotion dashed across Taylor’s face, something a little like hurt that panged a soft spot in his heart, before she flattened her expression into something neutral and turned to walk out the door.

“The victim of Lawrence Malloy’s attack is a four year veteran of the department with several notable rescues, including the 7.1 earthquake that toppled a high rise hotel in downtown Los Angeles just two years ago. LAFD officials have said that the firefighter is expected to make a full recovery and is eager to return back to duty to serve the community. Lawrence Malloy, if found guilty, could face twenty-five years to life in prison. Back to you, Chuck.”

Taylor’s face disappeared as Maddie turned off the TV with a silent press of the remote. Maddie watched Buck for a moment as he blinked at the dark screen in disbelief. Disbelief and the earth-crushing guilt that made Buck’s shoulders slump. Those shoulders had been up to his ears since she’d come over to watch the report with him. She already knew Buck felt bad about the way he handled things with Taylor. Anger was never something Buck could stomach. It burned bright and hot when it did, and Maddie could still remember the sound of those doors he slammed through that fateful day she hid from him in an ER room back in Pennsylvania. But the anger always fizzled out before it could dwell too long. She always admired that about him.

But maybe that was part of the problem.

“Well, that went better than expected.”

Buck closed his eyes as he hung his head, pressing his chin to his sternum. The bruises were healing nicely but the shadows made him look so young. So painfully young.

“She didn’t mention my name,” Buck said.

“No.” Maddie shook her head. “No, she didn’t.”

Taylor hadn’t mentioned Buck’s name. She hadn’t divulged any personal information. She didn’t even show Buck’s image in her news report. Not even the clips she had from the footage of the piece she did on the 118 that launched her career.

Everyone else had been clawing over themselves to show repeated footage of Buck’s rescues caught on camera or his department photo.

But not Taylor.

Taylor had spun the story so that it focused on Malloy and had taken Buck completely out of the spotlight.

The guilt thundering around Buck’s mood was palpable.

“Hey.” She tapped under his chin until he looked up at her. “You are allowed to be upset about all of this.”

Buck shook his head. “She tried to tell me and I just—”

“Lashed out?” Maddie guessed. “I know the feeling.”

Buck stiffened when he heard Maddie’s meaning. Big, blue eyes that were simmering with frustration and pain stared up at her as Buck shook his head.

“That isn’t the same. Doug was—”

“—Giving me the same bruises you have right now.”

Buck sucked in his lip and blinked.

“Big, ugly meaningless bruises,” Maddie said as she curled her hand around Buck’s trembling fingers. “For no other reason than because he was angry at the world and wanted to take it out on me. I didn’t understand why and instead of dealing with that, I thought I had to hide them but all that did… was make me angry too.”

Maddie didn’t think there was ever going to be a time when she forgave herself for all the times she would lash out at Buck for noticing small things. A bruise, a sharp tone, patterns of behaviors that were red flags even earlier on in her relationship. In the end, she’d done it to protect him. Maddie never wanted Buck to carry the burden of her misery on his shoulders because she knew that if he knew, he would’ve done so without asking. But the acceptance of that, of knowing that you would do the same thing over again, didn’t take away the pain from the hurt you caused.

But Buck never let himself stay angry. He moved on or tried to fix the problem or found something fast that could speed him past the aftershocks of his anger.

“You know you’re allowed to be angry, right?”

Maddie could tell from his expression that he didn’t. The guilt and shame clawed up his throat and bled into his face that still looked so breakable even in his resilience.

Buck’s tongue dashed out across the top of his lip and he dropped his gaze down to his hands.

“I was just trying to do my job,” he said so quietly that Maddie almost didn’t hear it.

Maddie nodded and Buck’s fingers curled into fists as he pulled them out from hers.

“You were,” she said.

“I…” There it was. That faint igniting spark she’d seen time and time again. “I… didn’t do anything wrong!”

Maddie shook her head.

“No, you didn’t.”

Buck dealt with anger the same way that stars burned. Hot, bright, and already dying by the time you saw it. She watched as Buck sucked in a breath and held it, before he released all the hot air that had been swirling in his chest since the moment he got out of that fire truck in front of that house fire. Buck slumped as all the tension slipped away. He curled his legs up to his chest and teetered to the side until his overgrown body was pressed against Maddie’s smaller frame. She held him close and rubbed away any of the lingering feelings he didn’t like out of his shoulders.

“I just want it to be over,” Buck said, his voice thick with longing.

Maddie drifted a hand up into his hair and scratched her nails against his scalp. Buck shivered before he went limp beneath her ministrations.

“It will be soon.” Maddie promised. “It’s almost over. You testify for the DA, you heal, and then you go back to work to do what you love.”

“It’s just…” Buck shuddered as he sighed. “The job was the one thing I could trust, you know? And now it feels like... it’s slipping away.”

“It’s not.” Maddie squeezed Buck a little tighter. “Even beneath these bruises, you’re still you. You’re still Buck.”

Buck burrowed against her and for once, Maddie couldn’t help but be struck by how big Buck had gotten. He was small, folded up against her, but he was so long. Muscles packed onto his shoulders and into his back where he’d been long and skinny as a kid. But he was still the same Buck. Still the same little brother she held onto when the world rocked too hard.

“I don’t feel like it,” Buck confessed. “I don’t feel like me anymore.”

“You will.” Maddie was sure of that. More than she was sure of anything in her life.

Buck would feel like himself again. He’d just been holding onto the star of his anger for so long that he didn’t know how to get out of the too-tight jacket he’d slipped on. But it was off now, and eventually, Buck would stretch out of his cower.

Eddie made a little sigh in his sleep as he nuzzled closer to Buck’s back, his nose rubbing against the slope of Buck’s throat.

Buck stiffened before he could help himself but Eddie just settled again.

Buck hated that he did that; froze whenever something drifted too close to his throat. It didn’t matter if it was Eddie or a shirt collar or even the breeze on the back of his neck. He still froze. The bruises were fading and they hardly ached at all anymore but still he froze as if he was experiencing those hands wrapping around his neck and squeezing for the first time.

But he wasn’t.

He was in bed with Eddie. Eddie, who was pressed up against Buck’s back with his leg slotted between Buck’s and an arm slung around his waist as he held him close. The heat wasn’t from unfamiliar palms but Eddie’s breath as it fanned across his skin. The bed wasn’t as hard as the ground had been beneath him.

He wasn’t there.

Buck laced his fingers through Eddie’s and lifted their hands to his chest as he tried to find sleep again but nothing was working.

Sleep was a privilege of stability and Buck couldn’t remember what it was like to walk on solid ground.

But maybe it was because he hadn’t tried.

Even beneath these bruises, you’re still you. You’re still Buck.

Maddie was right. Buck had been knocked down.

It was time to get back up again.

Buck would be called to the stand to testify in a little over forty-eight hours and it was time he started to remember who he was.

He was Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley. Brother to Maddie. Boyfriend to Eddie Diaz. Member of the LAFD.

Not a victim.

He was a fighter. He fought. And he would continue to do so until he was back where he belonged. Helping people, doing his job, and facing the world even when it tried to knock him back down.

“This is Taylor. Leave a message.”

Taylor’s voicemail was short and to the point and it was the fourth time Buck had been sent to it that day as he pulled into his parking space. Buck sighed as the sharp tone beeped in his ear and dropped his head onto the steering wheel in defeat.

“Hey Taylor, it’s Buck,” he said. “Listen… I know you’re probably ignoring my calls and I don’t know if it’s because you're still mad at me or because of some reporter's unbiased rule or something but… I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Buck grabbed his things from the passenger seat and cradled the packaged leftovers to his chest that Bobby had sent him home with. Not that Buck was going to be able to eat them. Buck didn’t think his stomach would be able to untwist itself from the nervous knots that made something in his chest flutter.

But he took the leftovers anyway to make Bobby and the others happy, since they all felt bad that they had a shift the night before he was supposed to appear in court. Buck had tried to reassure them it was fine. He’d see them in the morning when they got to the courthouse and he was already looking forward to the lunch Bobby was going to throw together at his and Athena’s place afterwards.

Sleeping without Eddie at his back was going to be impossible, but Buck was so close to the finish line he could taste it.

Maybe he would see Taylor there, too.

“Also… I wanted to say thank you. You know for… trying to help. We’re getting together at Bobby and Athena’s tomorrow after I testify if you want to come and uh…”

The stupid thing about voicemails was that less than thirty seconds listening to yourself talk felt like lifetimes.

Buck cleared his throat.

“I’d understand if you didn’t. I know you’re working. But if you did that would be cool. Give me a call. Bye.”

Buck blew out a sigh through his nose after he hung up the phone, slipping it into his pocket. Buck stacked the two containers of leftovers in his arms and grabbed the sheet of paper that had his instructions for his appearance in court for the following morning before he stretched out of his Jeep. It really was kind of laughable how calm and collected Bobby could be. But give the man some Tupperware and he stacked all his worry with food until the lid barely fit.

It wasn’t lost on Buck that Bobby’s meatloaf just so happened to be on the menu the day Buck visited the fire house to distract himself from the fact he was supposed to testify in the morning, but he couldn’t say he minded. Now that he’d broken away the grating anger that had simmered in his gut for too long, the hovering and the pampering wasn’t as infuriating as it had been.

Besides, if that meant getting—

All of the things in Buck’s hands fell to the pavement. He sucked in a breath, inhaling sweet fumes that lingered on his tongue and sent his head spinning, before he could stop himself. Buck clawed at the rag, at the arm attached to the hand pinning it over his face, with a shout but the sound was muffled and muted before turning syrupy and slurred.

An arm curled around his waist and pulled him away from his Jeep. No, no. That wasn’t right! That was…

Buck lurched forward and tried to twist out of the unforgiving grip, but his knees gave out beneath him and sent his back falling against a heavy chest. He threw his head to the side as his lungs begged for clean air but the rag stayed like it’d been attached to his skin.

Time had been stretched like taffy as his vision swirled.

Someone was dragging him away. Someone was… There was a hot breath on his neck and Buck didn’t want it there. He didn’t…

Buck grunted, squirming to break free as his feet got tangled up beneath him but lifting his head was proving to be more difficult with each passing second.

Everything was getting darker.

Everything was getting… farther away.

What…

Buck pitched to the side and everything turned grey, until finally, it all went dark.

Eddie latched onto the too-tight knot of his tie as he hurried up the steps to the courthouse and loosened it enough so he didn’t feel like he was sucking in air through a noose wrapped around his throat. They’d gotten a call first thing in the morning that ran late and had them running for a mad dash into the showers before piling into their cars. They would’ve gotten there faster if the ADA didn’t insist on them showing up in their dress uniforms.  Reporters had been barricaded across the steps with a few cameras pointed close enough to probably catch the way Chimney had all but slipped running up the steps before Bobby had caught him, but they didn’t care.

All they cared about was getting inside the courtroom before court was in session so that Buck had people he could look out to from the lonely place on the stand.  

Buck had been in good spirits the night before, but if Eddie had to wager a guess, he would bet that Buck probably hadn’t slept a wink.

The clapping of their shoes against the marble floor of the courthouse pounded against Eddie’s heart.

Eddie saw Maddie first, as she stared down at her phone, before he saw Dana Ward scowling beside her. Chimney stiffened and hurried forward.

“Maddie?”

Maddie looked up at the sound of Chimney’s voice but the relief was short lived. She lifted a shaky hand that Chimney took instantly.

“What’s going on?” Chimney asked, looking down at Maddie’s phone when she held it out to him.

Dana whirled around to Eddie with such a sharpness that he was surprised she didn’t hiss at him.

“Where the hell is he?”

Something in Eddie twisted viciously in his chest. 

“I’ve tried calling but he won’t answer,” Maddie said as she tapped out another text on her phone. The big Buckley eyes that could turn into pools of glass with a single teardrop were flooded with worry.

“Buck’s not here?” Hen asked.

“No,” Dana bit out before her gaze swung around to Bobby and Eddie again.

If looks could kill…

But Eddie didn’t pay her any attention as he slipped out his phone. His goodnight text message had been left unanswered, which was unusual, but nothing to panic about. He pressed the phone to his ear and listened to the connection ring before he was dumped into voicemail.

“Hey! You’ve reached Buck. I’m probably out on a call right now but leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you.”

“Buck?” Eddie sounded breathless even to his own ears. “Babe, it’s me. Call me back when you get this.”

“Where the hell is he, Nash?” Eddie heard Dana demand as he dialed again.

“He was supposed to be here.”

Voicemail again.

“I swear to God if he ran—”

Eddie called again.

“Buck wouldn’t do that!”

Voicemail. Again.

“I knew I should’ve put him under watch. The moment he asked if he could get out of testifying, I knew I should’ve had people watching his ass.”

Eddie’s heart slammed against his chest as he dialed Buck’s number.

“You want to tone it down a bit? Maybe something like a two. Buck isn’t on trial!”

Voicemail.

Something was wrong.

Eddie knew it like he knew his own name.

Something was deeply and desperately wrong.

Buck couldn’t see anything. The duct tape over his eyes made sure of that. He’d read somewhere once that when you cut the dependency of one of your senses, you magnify the others. It hadn’t said anything about the way panic made those senses unbearable. Buck was left to fixate on everything that he couldn’t see. The sweat and musty dust that itched at his nose. The cold, worn down concrete that shifted to stiff carpet beneath his fingers. The unforgiving duct tape around his eyes and wrists pinning them beneath him. The hands around his ankles dragging him.

Buck kicked out and the grip around his legs turned into steel.

“Shit! He’s awake!” 

Buck kicked out again, scrambling his pinned hands beneath his back against the ground as he tried to get away.

“Stop-p—” Buck’s tongue felt clumsy in his mouth and the rest of his words fell out into a bleated squeak, but he was too freaked out to care about how humiliatingly small it sounded.

Someone yanked on his legs and dragged him further across the carpet. The fibers burned across his skin with a sting that was only amplified by the overstimulation. Buck had no sense of time or space and the weight on his chest he’d worked so hard to push off was back, just as punishing.

“Get him inside.” Another voice barked before Buck was heaved with a twist.

Buck’s back tightened uncomfortably at the awkward angle but no amount of withering on the ground was alleviating the pressure. Muscles knotted and screamed at him up and down his spine and into his hips. Buck gnashed his teeth together as he cried out. His third kick was less to get away and more to ease the pull, but it did the trick. His heel landed on a jaw if he went by the surprised grunted huff and Buck wiggled away. His legs dropped and the relief on his back was instant but his foot clipped something hard and metallic that crashed out of hollowed echo. His foot throbbed but he didn’t linger in the pain. Buck dug in his nails into the carpet beneath him, clawing to get away, as he kicked out wildly again. But without being able to see, all he managed to do was swing through open air before he smacked his foot into a wall.

“You little—”

Buck couldn’t see the man or the other one but he knew they were too close with a screeching alarm bell in his head that sent all the hairs on the back of his neck up. He kicked again and dug his heel into the ground to push himself away but strong, huge hands clapped around his ankle and jerked him back. Something in Buck’s ankle popped and the pain from that was harder to ignore as he cried out. But the grip didn’t let up and turned punishing around the joint before another hand grabbed his other ankle. The two were shoved together and Buck’s back screamed again as his legs were hoisted up, pushing his weight onto his shoulders. More duct tape clapped from a roll and wrapped around his ankles, pinning them together in an unforgiving tether. Buck grimaced on the pull on his hips but the discomfort was short lived before whoever was holding him, dropped them back down to ground.

Another set of hands lifted Buck up into a sitting position before something cracked and a calloused hand latched onto his chin, forcing his head up. Whoever was holding him was too close. Buck couldn’t see but he knew it. He knew it and it made his skin crawl as those fingers turned bruising.

“Drink.” The voice ordered and Buck’s teeth clipped what felt like the opening of a plastic bottle before water started spilling down his throat. “Don’t swallow.”

Too late!

Buck gasped as he choked, trying to stop from swallowing whatever they were giving him. His mouthful spilled out as he coughed and dribbled down the front of his shirt with spit.

The person holding him sighed in annoyance, sending a plume of hot breath across Buck’s soaked skin.Whoever was holding him was too close. Buck couldn’t see, but he knew it. He knew it and it made his skin crawl as those fingers turned bruising.

“If you want that taste out of your mouth, then stop being a pain,” the voice said before he tipped more water into Buck’s mouth.

Buck didn’t know what he was talking about but he also wasn’t interested in drowning either so he did as instructed as best he could.

“Now swish,” the voice said, pushing up under Buck’s jaw until he closed his mouth.

Buck did and grimaced as he felt the filmy after taste of something in his mouth ruin the taste of the water. It was sickly sweet in an almost rotten acidic way and Buck swished harder to get it out. The hand on his chin twisted his face to the side and tilted it down.

“Spit.”

The fingers on his jaw turned bruising again in warning and Buck spat the water into what sounded like an empty trash can. The hand on his jaw barely waited until he was finished before his face was wrenched forward.

“Now drink and swallow.”

More water and Buck was half-tempted to spit it out out of spite, but the cool liquid felt nice against his dry throat. Buck drank what he could before he turned his mouth away and more water splashed down his front and onto this chest.

Something crashed again, hollow and loud, and Buck flinched as the report ricocheted through his skull with a clatter. Another rip and Buck found his mouth covered with rows and rows of duct tape that pulled tight on his cheeks and matted into his hair. His lips tingled against the adhesive and Buck huffed out a grunt through his nose when more tape was wrapped around his head. 

“Calm down,” the voice said, which was easy for him to say because he could see and wasn’t being smothered with layers of duct tape. “Calm down before you make yourself sick and suffocate. I’m not cleaning up your puke.”

Someone shook Buck’s head as a beefy hand smoothed out the lines of tape over Buck’s mouth. 

Buck didn’t even realize he’d started to hyperventilate until then but his chest twisted unbearably tight as he struggled to catch his breath. His nose was clogged from the musty musk in the air and his heart punched at his chest in protest as the dizzying lack of oxygen became more apparent. Buck forced himself to suck in a breath through his nose and pushed it out on a shuddering whine before he did it again.

“Good,” the voice said and Buck didn’t think his captor particularly cared either way, not by the drawled boredom in his annoyed tone, but Buck did it anyway.

Buck was shoved away, but instead of ending up on the ground, his back met the wall and Buck squirmed away. A corner in the wall dipped behind him and Buck shoved himself as far he could go.

“Comfortable?” There was almost a mocking edge to that question that cut deep across Buck’s resolve and sent heat into his face.

There was a pause as if they were expecting him to answer and Buck’s skin prickled with a shiver he couldn’t suppress before it wrecked across his shoulders.

They were watching him.

Whoever… however many people… they were all watching him. Buck couldn’t see it but he knew they were.

Buck had never felt smaller and he dragged his tied legs up into his chest.

Someone hummed, pleased. Punishing fingers clipped the front of his chin and lifted his head up, exposing his throat.

Buck swallowed.

“He really did a number on you,” the voice said, appraising before he let Buck go. “Behave and I’ll let you go in a little under twenty-four hours once this mess is over, kid.”

Twenty-four hours? How was—

A patronizing hand slapped across Buck’s face with a chuckle and the bruises that hadn’t hurt in days flared to life across his skin.

Someone murmured something that Buck couldn’t hear and boots stomped across the floor before a door slammed shut. A suffocating claustrophobia settled in almost immediately and Buck curled up in the corner as he tried to ride through the panic that threatened to consume him again.

The trial. The thing that had been eating Buck up inside and twisting his stomach into knots for days. The microscope tilted towards the sun that he’d been dreading having to go under. The thing Eddie and Maddie and Bobby and everyone had been coaching him through his fear and anxiety for days. The trial he was supposed to testify in and then everything would be all over and he could go back to his normal life.

It was too much. It was too much and he couldn’t move! The tape around his wrists and ankles was unforgiving and getting tighter and tighter around his eyes and mouth. The terrified bleated squeak that whistled past his lips was humiliating but Buck didn’t care. He wanted to go home. He shoved his face against his shoulder, trying to work off the tape, but it didn’t budge. 

Buck had been floating in the unknown, doing everything he could to stay afloat as he treaded water, and it wouldn’t stop. He wanted to go back to that day where he was still in bed before the call and tell Bobby he’d stay man behind. Anything to feel an ounce of normality and safety that he could trust again.  

Something was wrong. Taylor could practically smell that something was wrong; her neck prickled the moment she stepped out of the courthouse bathroom and saw Sergeant Grant walking across the lobby with a purpose in her stride. Captain Nash was dressed in his freshly pressed uniform that had crisp sharp lines and without a wrinkle to be seen but his expression was pinched with worry as he met his wife.

“There was no sign of him at his loft.”

Buck?

Buck was missing?

Taylor had been trying to steer clear of Buck and the 118 while she sat in the courtroom during the proceedings. She had a job to do and she intended to do it, but Buck had also been her friend and she hated that he’d been put in this position.

Buck also had no concept of discretion so Taylor had kept clear from him. If she didn’t hear anything then she didn’t have to report anything. The waters were choppy but she’d mastered steering them a long time ago.

“We put a BOLO out on his Jeep but—”

Taylor kept her head down and ducked behind a pillar as the Assistant District Attorney, Dana Ward, stormed across the lobby.

“Where the hell is he?”

If Sergeant Grant was intimidated by the fury that was practically steaming off the ADA, she didn’t show it. One sharp eyebrow arched on her forehead.

“That’s something I would like to know as well.” Sergeant Grant shifted her weight back onto her heels. “Your people were the ones who made a spectacle of this but then didn’t request protective custody for Buck? I know this isn’t your first rodeo, so why was that?”

Ward was practically vibrating as she scowled. “If he’s spooked, then this entire case is—”

“He didn’t,” Captain Nash insisted. “Buck wouldn’t do that.”

“Then find him!” Ward spat before she turned on her heel and marched back into the courtroom.

Taylor should text her producer. Buck not showing up wasn’t breaking news, but the fact that no one could find him?

The media was going to spin into a feeding frenzy when they found out.

… If they found out.

Something wasn’t adding up. Buck wouldn’t not show up to testify. He was mischievous in a way where a rule could be bent just enough for Buck to get caught up in some good trouble, but he was driven by such a need to do good that it overpowered anything else. Even his self-preservation. Hell, he’d even kept calling her to apologize after their fight—she didn’t even blame him for being mad— but she’d…

Taylor yanked her phone out of her pocket and pulled up her voicemail.

“Hey Taylor, it’s Buck. Listen… I know you’re probably ignoring my calls and I don’t know if it’s because you're still mad at me or because of some reporter's unbiased rule or something but… I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

She could hear him getting out of his car. Taylor looked down at the time he’d called.

8:32pm. Yesterday.

He’d invited her to lunch.

Shit.

“We will recess until eight am tomorrow morning. Ms. Ward, I better see your witness tomorrow or we will continue without them. Court is adjourned.”

Eddie’s pulse jumped with the clap of the gavel, but he was up on his feet and dialing Buck’s number again before he even made it outside. 

“Hey! You’ve reached Buck. I’m probably out on a call right now but leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you.”

Hot points of pressure burned at the back of his eyes as he slipped them closed and forced himself to take a deep breath.

Eddie didn’t pray often. It was something he grew up with and had the motions memorized in his muscles. He found himself making the sign of the cross every time his stomach flipped with that lurch of adrenaline he got sometimes on the job. But praying was saved for dinners with his abuela and the worst times on his job when he knew he was about to step into a possible horror show.

He’d prayed that entire morning that Buck would come running through those doors.

He didn’t.

The sharp click clack of Dana Ward’s heels against the marble felt like knives against Eddie’s heart. His palms got hot as he curled his fingers into his fists and he whirled around to face her.

“You should’ve protected him!” Eddie hurled the accusation at her with so much heat, but all it managed to do was stoke the fire of his anger even more.

“Eddie—” Bobby held up a hand but Eddie shook him off.

Bobby’s touch was grounding most days but, at that moment, it was too heavy on his shoulder.

Ward shot Eddie an unimpressed glare before ignoring him to turn to Athena.

“I want him found, Sergeant Grant,” she said. “If Mr. Buckley isn’t here tomorrow then I can’t guarantee that his attacker will be found guilty. Get it done.”

She turned her back on them and disappeared down the halls. It took everything in Eddie to lock his knees and keep from chasing after her to scream. None of this would’ve happened if she had listened! She’d set Buck up to be a show pony from the beginning and now he was missing and—

“Take a breath, Eddie.”

But Eddie couldn’t. Didn’t Bobby get that? Eddie couldn't take a breath. He couldn’t breathe! Not when the worrying panic was clawing up his throat and threatening to suffocate him.

Not when no one was doing anything!

Eddie needed some air or he was going to lose it.

“Eddie… Eddie!” Bobby called after him but Eddie walked out of the courthouse without a second glance back.

The wind picked up with a gust that left his skin raw and Eddie torn inside out.

He should’ve insisted on taking his shift off. If he had then Buck wouldn’t have been alone and all of this would’ve been over by now. They would’ve been driving to Bobby and Athena’s, tired and worn out but stupid and giddy that everything was over. Eddie flexed his hand at his side.

Buck would’ve slipped his in Eddie’s and laced their fingers together.

Instead, Eddie’s hand was empty because Eddie hadn’t put up more of a fight to get his shift off.

“Stop self-loathing and follow me.”

The words were murmured low and quiet but cutting all the same as a flash of red hair brushed past Eddie and headed towards the parking garage.

“I can’t talk right now, Taylor,” Eddie said. “And I’m not com—”

Small delicate but strong fingers latched onto his wrist and pulled so hard he stumbled after her.

“Be quiet and come on!” Taylor pulled Eddie until he was beside her before she let go of his hand. “Get out your car keys and don’t make a scene.”

Eddie didn’t know if Taylor forgot that he wasn’t Buck and wasn’t about to just blindly follow her into whatever chaotic trouble she usually got into with his boyfriend.

His boyfriend who was missing.

Which Taylor would’ve put together after she heard the judge in the courtroom.

Most of the media were spread out across the courthouse steps but the frenzy started with a flurry of lights and shutters as Dana Ward walked out to make a statement. Taylor should’ve been front and center. Instead, she was sneaking him away.

“Do you know where he is?” Eddie asked under his breath, scanning the area to make sure they weren’t being followed.

“I have a hunch,” Taylor said, stopping in front of the entrance of the parking garage to let Eddie lead the way to his truck.

The sharp thud of his locks disengaging sounded like a thunderclap in the deserted garage but Taylor slipped into the passenger seat.

“And if I’m right,” Taylor said when Eddie started the truck. “Then Buck’s in trouble.”

That was all Eddie needed to hear to throw his truck in reverse and pull out of the garage.

Buck’s shoulders ached from how long his hands had been pinned behind his back but when he tried to twist his wrists, all that managed to do was make his fingers twitch painfully from where they’d fallen asleep and gone numb.

He still couldn’t see but the few hours left alone had been comforting in the fact that they hadn’t moved him. That was good. There were statistics somewhere about the chances of finding a missing person were higher if they weren’t moved but Buck’s thoughts had been scrambled as the seconds in darkness ticked by. Shouting and cheering echoed through the wall where he’d rested his head but his cries for help had been unanswered and most likely ignored before a thundering bass of music drowned him out.

His stomach had stopped growling about an hour prior, he thought but time was meaningless when he couldn’t even track the day and Buck was pretty sure he’d go insane if he kept counting the minutes in his head.

How long had he been there? How long had he been out?

They were all questions Buck didn’t have the answer to and no one seemed willing to give him the chance to ask. It was like they’d tucked him away in the room and had forgotten about him.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

Something metal crashed to the ground and made the wall shudder against Buck. It sounded like… weights? But he didn’t know.

He sucked in a breath and pulled his knees up closer to his chest. It wasn’t much but the comfort of the smallness and the stretch of his back from being curled tight helped a little. It helped him feel less alone. Without being able to see or move, the room Buck was in pulsed in his mind as it grew and shrunk. Too big for one person. Too small for Buck.

It was all mind tricks, Buck knew, but his mind wasn’t on his side and he couldn’t get it to stop.

The door opened with a bang and Buck yelped as he jumped before he could stop himself. Someone outside of the room chuckled deep in their nose. Embarrassment flushed up Buck’s chest at the sound. His shirt was still damp and sticking to his skin and the music from outside was splitting Buck’s skull in two. Footsteps marched across the room before a hand latched onto Buck’s jaw and squeezed hard enough to bruise when he tried to pull away.

“Looks like you’re stuck with us for another night, kid.”

Buck’s heart sank into his stomach.

These people were never going to let him go and he hadn’t been deluding himself otherwise, but there’d been a glimmer of hope. That maybe they would let him go. That maybe they were telling the truth. That maybe there was a chance…

Buck had just been trying to do his job! That was all! He didn’t ask for any of this. For the trial, the bruises, none of it!

Buck ripped his face from the hand holding his jaw and winced when those same fingers snatched him back by his hair. Buck grunted as his head was forced back, twisting to try and get away.

“Don’t go being a brat when you’ve been good so far. I’ve got plenty of guys out there who could do a lot worse to you than Malloy.”

Did he expect Buck to say thank you?

Screw that.

Buck didn’t care anymore.

The muggy scent of sweat and plastic filled Buck’s nose again as the sound of more weights being dropped with a clink .

A gym.

Buck would know the smell of it anywhere.

He was in a gym?

That meant he had to be close to a road somewhere, right? If he could just…

The hand on his hair pulled him up until Buck was nearly off the ground. His scalp screamed at him and he tried to squirm away to ease the agony. A whine slipped out high in the back of his throat before he could stop it and that snickering from outside started up again.

“What’s it going to be? You going to be good or are you going to keep being a brat?”

Buck had no intentions of being good, but he knew he was in no position to fight back. He gulped as he tried to nod as much as he could. The hand on his hair released him and Buck dropped to the ground in a heap. His scalp throbbed so hard it felt like even his hair hurt but he scrambled up back into his corner and ducked his head to press against his knees.

The laughter was back and the humiliation of that scalded across Buck’s skin, but he let them. Work smarter, not harder right?

He let them laugh and think he was pathetic and scared and whatever else stroked their ego to justify hurting someone. Buck listened to them as they left and the moment the door was closed and he was almost positive he was alone, Buck pushed through the pressure in his arms and got to work trying to twist his wrists free.

“We should call the cops,” Eddie said for the third time as Taylor checked to make sure her make-up wasn’t running.

The adrenaline racing through her veins had started to make her sweat and she couldn’t let a line be out of place for this to work. Make-up was an armor and the smudge of a lipstick or streak in an eyeliner was a chink that could easily be exploited. She couldn’t let that happen.

“You will. As soon as I get inside,” Taylor said, dragging her nail to clean up the slight smear on the wing at the corner of her eye.

“You are not going in there alone.”

Taylor could feel the heat of Eddie’s glare against the side of her face and she could see what Buck meant about Eddie bossing him around. It was kind of hot but not her thing and especially not when she was about to talk her way into some testosterone fueled evil lair.

Taylor slapped the visor up and turned to meet Eddie’s sternness with her own stubbornness.

“I hate to break it to you, Eddie, but you’re dressed like a firefighter.”

Eddie dropped his gaze down as if he was only just remembering his uniform blues and shiny badge pinned to his chest. The knot on his jaw jumped as he clenched it. He shook his head.

“Then we wait until the cops come. You’re not going in there alone.”

“In there” meaning Simon Saffrey’s private gym where his up and coming stars that weren’t quite ring-ready but were training to be, worked out. It was right on the edge of town and a place Lawrence Malloy hadn’t stepped foot in, in years.

It was also the cleanest business Saffrey had that wasn’t a front for anything else the DA hadn’t been able to pin on him.

It was a gamble—there was a very good chance Buck wasn’t inside— but it was a gamble Taylor was willing to bet her career on.

She was if the number of ignored calls on her cell from her producer was anything to go by.

“You and I both know it’ll take way too long for the cops to get a warrant. They have no probable cause and my hunch isn’t going to give them anything. This is just our way of speeding up the process. Wait till they let me in and then call. Worst case scenario they can arrest me for trespassing.”

“Worst case scenario is you end up hurt , Taylor!” Eddie argued, his knuckles turning white from where he was gripping the steering wheel.

“And best case scenario is we find Buck, Eddie.” Taylor shoved her phone in Eddie’s face. “Look. He called me last night. Look at the time.”

Eddie’s eyes crossed as he took her phone and held it away so he could read the screen.

“If he was taken then he’s been with these guys for over twelve hours.” Taylor pressed. “Look me in the eye and tell me you want to wait another second.”

Eddie’s mouth thinned as the fight drained away but the idea of waiting in the car was still hovering over him like a dark cloud.

“Eddie,” Taylor said, curling her hand around her phone as she ducked down to meet his eyes. “Trust me. These guys can’t scare me.”

Taylor opened the door before Eddie could ask her anything else and slipped out on gravel.

“Call Sergeant Grant when I get inside,” Taylor said before she slammed the door closed on his face and settled the fluttering nerves in her stomach down with an iron fist.

On the outside, the gym looked closed. Big rusted garage doors that they must have opened during the summer were chained shut and the two double doors that looked like an entrance were closed. But the lot full of cars and the echoing murmuring of men’s voices said otherwise.

Taylor spied a single door with a window that looked like it was an employee entrance. Taylor steeled herself. Straight spine, purring smile, and a demure tilt to her chin.

She was Taylor Kelly and these men didn’t scare her.

Taylor knocked, hard and loud. Something clattered and a few people murmured something inside but no one came to the door so Taylor knocked again. Longer this time so that they knew she wasn’t going away.

A shadow crept up into the fogged glass as someone stepped up and Taylor stepped back as they opened the door.

He was big. Like bodybuilder big. Broad shoulders, broad waist, and even broader thighs with a square jaw and a mean expression on his face.

There was a fresh bruise darkening on his chin too.

His eyes racked up and down Taylor with a slow drag before the meanness twisted into something hesitant and suspicious.

“Yeah?”

“Hi,” Taylor said with a slow drawl. “I’m Taylor Kelly and I was wondering if Simon Saffrey was around?”

Taylor watched as the recognition of her name settled in before the suspicious came back tenfold.

“He’s not here.”

Taylor puckered her lips into a pout and clicked her tongue to the top of her mouth.

“Damn, I was hoping to get his side of the story.”

Big Guy, who looked like he could pick Taylor up with one hand, narrowed his gaze until his eyes were slitted.

“You a reporter or something?” He asked.

Being a woman in the media was hard and Taylor could get just as many stories and uncover just as many hard truths as her male coworkers. But she was also aware that she was gifted with bright blue eyes that she could bat to make the process easier.

“Taylor Kelly. Channel Eight News.” Taylor said, batting her eyes with a bashful grin.

It worked, the way it usually did, and Taylor watched as some of the suspicion chipped away.

“I’m doing a story about the case and I wanted to get a few quotes from some of the people who know Lawrence Malloy well so that I can really have both sides. See if I can help anyway, you know?” Taylor tiptoed the line of her half-truths. She knew without a doubt that she was infringing on a police investigation and the last thing she wanted to do was give Saffrey a chance to use her deception as a get out of jail free card.

“You want to help Renny?”

Taylor hummed. “I want to write the truth. Everyone’s been trying to get a quote from Mr. Malloy but he’s already going through so much right now. I wanted to get a full picture. Who better to ask than the ones closest to him?”

Big Guy scanned the street behind her and frowned.

“Where’s your van? Don’t you guys drive around in those things?”

Taylor shrugged and flicked her hair over her shoulder that brought his attention back down to her.

“Sometimes. But I prefer to work alone. If I can get some good quotes from you all then I could persuade my producer to make this into a segment itself. Maybe get you guys on TV.”

The guys who worked out at this gym were like NFL draft hopefuls who usually didn’t make it out anywhere near grass, but the ambition was still there. The dream that one day they’d have what Lawrence “Renny” Malloy had. Taylor knew all about the wildness of ambition.

Taylor watched as he processed that and waited.

Five… four… three… two…

“C’mon,” Big Guy said and opened the door for her.

Taylor didn’t look back at Eddie but she could feel the heat of his gaze on the back of her spine.

Call in the cavalry, Diaz. I’m going to need it.

Taylor was met with a nose full of musky sweat as fans circulated the air of the gym. It was hot and humid without the doors open. At least half a dozen men were working out on various equipment with two more up in the rundown ring sparring. Music was blasting in the corner from an outdated set of speakers that were tilted on their side.

Someone wolf whistled and Taylor smothered down the way her skin crawled at the sound.

“Hey Callum!” Big Guy called to a man that was standing in the corner of the ring and observing the two sparring.

Callum turned and glanced at Taylor with an unimpressed arch of his brow. He said nothing and barely even moved to look at her. But Taylor could tell he was in charge.

“This chick from Channel Eight News wants to talk to us.”

Flint struck across Callum’s expression as a barely contained ripple of rage crossed it.

“You brought a reporter inside?” He snarled as he dropped from the ring.

The mood shifted immediately and Taylor locked her legs in place to keep from stumbling back.

“I’m not trying to start any trouble,” Taylor said easily even though the panic lurched up in her throat and almost choked her on it. “I just wanted to get a few quotes about Lawrence Malloy so I could write from both perspectives.”

All eyes were on her as Callum stormed across the gym up to her.

“No comment,” Callum said before he reached up to grab her arm.

Taylor pulled back before he could.

“Don’t touch me.” The panic in Taylor’s throat seized up in her muscles and sizzled in her blood beneath her skin.

But Callum didn’t follow. Instead, he almost smirked.

“So, you’re scared after all. Here I was thinking Taylor Kelly wasn’t scared of anything.”

I’m Taylor Kelly and these men don’t scare me.

Her mantra banged in her head over and over again.

Taylor tilted her chin up and met his smirk with one of her own.

“I don’t like to be grabbed like I’m a damsel in distress. I’m here to try and ask the questions no one is asking your friend. Everyone’s painting Lawrence Malloy as a kind of monster and I don’t want to do that. I want to show the truth.”

Callum’s smirk simmered into something hot and weighted that was as transparent as clean glass. She knew that look like the back of her hand.

“You want the truth?” He asked and crossed his arms over his chest when Taylor nodded. “Renny is a parasite. He sucks the life out of everyone around him and then gets by on brute strength and his own prickish personality. He’s a hack and an attention whore and I hope he rots in prison for as long as the judge sends him away, because that’s what happens to brats. They go to time out. Maybe then we can actually get some fucking work down and get these guys with real talent back on Simon’s list of priorities instead of cleaning up Renny Fucking Malloy’s messes.”

Taylor arched a brow and filed that away for later. For now, she could play Callum’s little dance if it meant buying the cops some more time.

“So, then why are you still cleaning up Saffrey’s messes?” Taylor asked. “You’re Callum Doyle, right? Recruited at nineteen. Forced to retire from an injury to your neck at twenty-four. You’ve been on Saffrey’s payroll as a trainer ever since.”

There.

The flicker of doubt flashed across Callum’s gaze beneath the heated steel like a flash bomb in his eyes.

Gotcha.

“You’ve done your homework.”

Taylor hummed and added a little heat to her own gaze to meet Callum’s. Taylor knew how to bat her eyes to get what she wanted but she also knew how to play guys like Callum like a fiddle. They didn’t know if they hated her or wanted to fuck her and she kept them jumping from one foot to the other to keep it that way.

“I have. Which means that I know that while Saffrey’s been cleaning up Malloy’s messes, you’ve been cleaning up Saffrey’s. You’ve been stepping in at important matches, making deals that would pass their deadlines because he’s too busy looking the other way, saving his ass time and time again. So, why do it?” Callum said nothing and Taylor stepped up to him so they were toe to toe.

She was Taylor fucking Kelly and guys like Callum didn’t scare her.

“I personally can’t understand why you didn’t just open your own gym. You know the business. You have the connections. Your guys seem loyal to you.” Taylor waved her hand at their growing audience before she laced her fingers in front of her. “So, why do it? Why keep cleaning up Saffrey’s messes? Unless you owe him somehow?”

Callum’s stillness was screaming volumes and Taylor tilted her chin up.

“You know, my story doesn’t have to be about Malloy. I could highlight your guys, paint a pretty picture of just how inept Simon Saffrey is.”

A dark rumbling chuckle fell from Callum’s lips as his smirk sharpened almost into a sneer. “I think you might end up regretting that.”

The threat fell heavy between them but Taylor refused to pick it up. The tension was thick in her lungs making it hard to breath but Taylor didn’t falter. She didn’t flinch. She met Callum’s gaze head on.

And then she fell back and waited for Callum to fall into her trap.

Taylor dropped her gaze to Callum’s strong shoulders and chiseled jawline and drew it across with a lingering, pointed stare that was so full of meaning, she could’ve dragged her fingernail across his jaw.

Callum’s mouth quirked up as she let him weigh the heat of her study.

“I think you should go, Ms. Kelly,” Callum said but the edge of his threat from before was gone.

Taylor sighed out a purr and cocked her hip as she shrugged.

“Had to try.”

Callum’s smile dipped into the side of smug.

“It was a good one,” he said.

Taylor reached into her purse and pulled out a pen and her card. Time to see if she’d caught Callum in her trap. If she could get Callum, then the others would underestimate her and Taylor knew that an underestimated woman was an invisible one.

“Well,” she said as she wrote one of her fake numbers on the back. “If you change your mind… Here's my number.”

The guys around them crowed with another series of whistles that cut through the tension but Taylor kept on her guard anyway. She was flirting with a would-be kidnapper after all.

Callum took the card and the bait.

The wolf whistles pierced up in excitement and Taylor gave Callum one last flick of her gaze before she turned on her heel and started to walk out with a sashay her hips.

“Actually,” Taylor said as she turned back around with an apologetic smile. “Do you mind if I use your ladies’ room? Traffic is killer on the way back to the studio.”

Callum flicked the card against his finger, a cocky little smile taking over the broodiness of his face.

“Make it fast,” Callum said with a huff. “Down the hall and to the left.”

It took everything in Taylor’s control not to run but she kept her stride even and unbothered knowing that she was being watched as she went. The hallway Callum pointed to her too was lined with offices and equipment rooms. The stench of a locker room was noticeable by the bleach that burned at the back of her nose. She turned left and spotted the falling restroom sign on a door that looked like it’d seen better days. A noticeable dent the size of the fist kept it from closing all the way and Taylor opened it with a push of her hand. The squeak was loud and she winced as she let the door closed so they thought she went inside.

Taylor held her breath and waited. Then…

The jeering swooped up into the air as the guys went back to their work out.

Taylor’s heart flipped up into her throat and lodged itself there as she crept back down the hallway and tried the first door she found. She didn’t have much time. Charm always had a curfew and she was ticking closer and closer to midnight.

A closet. Not there.

Taylor closed that and silently inched further down the hallway to the next. If she found anyone she wasn’t supposed to then she’d say she was lost. It didn’t matter. She had to find Buck.

She knew he was there but the question was where.

The next two doors were empty and Taylor froze as the metal clink of weights dropping onto a mat roared through air and into her ears.

Her heart slammed against her throat as she tried another door. An equipment room and no Buck.

He had to be there. He had to. She couldn’t be wrong. Taylor refused to be wrong. But she was running out of time. She would have to run back to the bathroom because she knew Callum would be listening for the door.

Taylor checked to make sure no one was looking before she crossed the hall and stepped through what seemed like an abandoned part of the office space. Open doors revealed storage and what was probably a trainer’s office but one door was closed shut.

Taylor sucked in a breath and held it tight in her chest before she hurried forward and tried the handle. The door swung open and Taylor’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness before she saw him flinch back into the corner.

“Buck…” The exhale of air fell away at the rush of his name from her lips and Taylor’s legs nearly gave out under her.

He was tied up with layers of duct tape around his mouth and eyes to keep him from seeing or crying out but he was there. He was alive. He was alive. The relief was dizzying.

No. She could not give up the tight grip on her adrenaline she had. They weren’t safe. They weren’t even close. Taylor held up her phone and took a picture of Buck for evidence before she hurried inside and closed the door, locking it behind her.

“Buck,” Taylor whispered and Buck sucked in a sharp breath through his nose as he tried to find her through the blindness. “It’s me. Hold on!”

Sirens blared in the distance and Taylor’s pulse skyrocketed as she heard someone throw out a curse. She looked around for a weapon, anything to protect them, but there was nothing. The small room looked like it’d once been an office but stripped of anything useful.

Plan B then.

Taylor threw her bag to the ground and wedged herself behind the desk. The metal groaned as she pushed her weight into it and if she listened carefully, Taylor was pretty sure she could hear someone coming down the hall. Taylor’s heel slipped from beneath her as it gave out and Taylor flung her shoes off before she shoved her foot into the wall and pushed with all her might. The desk slid across the floor and blocked the door just as a rattling shout made the frame shake.

“The door’s loc—"

Taylor’s hands shook as the door rattled again but Taylor ignored that and dropped to her knees beside Buck. The sirens outside were louder and the banging against the door were screaming in her head in a cacophony of noise. She snatched up her phone and pressed down on Eddie’s contact before she turned the call on speaker. Buck was letting out a litany of small nonsensical sounds as he tugged on his arms behind him and Taylor pushed him forward to brace against his knees.

“ Taylor!” Eddie’s voice rang out over the speaker. The police sirens were even louder on his end.

“I found him! Hold on Buck,” Taylor said as Buck tried to rip his hands free of the tape.

He’d almost gotten it but the layers had twisted tight into the soft skin of his wrists.

“ Buck? He’s there?”

The sound that slipped out of Buck was too close to a sob and Taylor clawed at the tape around his wrists until his hands were free. Buck groaned but reached up to paw at his face with what Taylor was sure were numb fingers trying to find a seam.

“You lying bitch!” Callum shouted from the other side and Taylor jumped at the venom in his words.

“ Taylor?”

“Let me, Buck. Let me,” Taylor said as she pushed Buck’s hand away and picked at the edge with her nail. “I’m sorry. We’re in the third on the right, Eddie!”

Buck flinched when Taylor’s nail slipped but she grabbed his jaw before he could get too far and ripped a tear through the layers. Buck’s lips parted with a gasp when his mouth was free.

“T-Taylor?” He whispered as if he couldn’t believe it was true.

“It’s me, Buck. Say hi to your boyfriend. I’ve kept him stewing in the car,” she said, trying for a joke that fell flat as she clawed his ankles free.

“Ed-die?” Buck croaked and Taylor snatched up her phone to put it in his hands.

Buck pulled his knees up close to his chest as he cradled the phone.

“Buck? Oh, thank God. Are you okay?”

Buck sucked in a wet breath at the sound of Eddie’s voice and Taylor reached up to try and gently peel the tape off over his eyes.

“Eddie?”

“I’m coming, babe. I’m here. Just hold on!”

The desk moaned as it rocked when someone kicked the door. Taylor yelped and shrunk away so the door wasn’t to her back anymore. Her hands were trembling too much to even function and she was pretty sure she scratched Buck when she tried to get the tape. Buck jerked away from her with a hiss.

“Sorry!” Taylor said as she cradled his jaw and tried again. “Any time now on the cavalry, Eddie!”

“I’m going to fucking—” Something cold pierced through Taylor’s heart as that threat directed at her shot through the door.

Buck’s arm curled around her waist and pulled her down behind him. The door shook with a roar as another foot kicked and then—

“LAPD! Get on your knees now!”

“There might be a little irritation around the skin but don’t worry,” the paramedic said with a smile. “You’ll keep both your eyebrows.”

The skin around Buck’s eyes and mouth felt stretched thin and raw against the cool breeze caressing against it. He nodded his thanks and curled the shock blanket around himself a little tighter. Buck had insisted he didn’t need it but one stern arched eyebrow from Eddie and a peck on his lips that melted him into putty on the inside, and Buck was letting the blanket be settled across his shoulders. He tracked across the army of squad cars and police officers until he found Eddie in the crowd. He was so close yet too far away to touch. It was taking everything Buck had not to reach out for him because he knew without a doubt that Eddie would come running in an instant. But Eddie was being questioned by a detective and Buck needed to be patient. Everyone had been pretty respectful of his need for space after a couple of officers had helped him limp out of the gym to an ambulance where a paramedic eased off the tape covering his eyes. He’d twisted his ankle in his struggles and the throb was almost unbearable now that adrenaline was wearing off.

Besides, Maddie was on her way with the others so he wouldn’t be adrift in a sea of LAPD for long. The guys that had been at the gym had all been arrested and sent away in squad cars with Taylor’s picture of him— the one of him wrapped up in duct tape and cowering in a corner that he never wanted to see—on her phone as the nail in the coffin to get them all talking.

Speaking of Taylor…

Taylor spied him searching for a lifeline and stomped her way over to him in Eddie’s extra boots. She looked ridiculous in her crème silk blouse and smart pressed capris in comparison to Eddie’s muddy work boots that swallowed her ankles but somehow, she made it work.

She huffed out a sigh as she dropped onto the bench beside him.

“Well, that was crazy,” she said with a flippant toss of her hair over her shoulder. “I mean not the craziest I’ve seen with you but pretty high up there.”

She was trying to get him to laugh, aiming for a joke like she was poking for one in the middle of his ribs, but all Buck could focus on was the memory of the way her cold fingers had shook against his face.

“Taylor…”

What was there to say? A thank you wasn’t enough. A sorry was too late. But he owed her both and the words were trapped on his tongue.

He glanced down at her hands and spotted the fine tremble she was trying to hide.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

She curled her fingers into her palms, locking them into tiny fists on her lap. Taylor sucked in a breath.

“When I was a sophomore in college, I was jumped on my way back to my dorm.” Taylor said everything to a point in the distance she was fixated on in front of them. 

Her eyelashes fluttered with the barest pucker of her lips before she muscled down whatever emotion that was battling to break free back beneath the depths of her soul and hidden behind Taylor Kelly, Channel Eight News. 

“It was two guys that were on the football team. I saw their faces. I reported them to campus police, then local police when campus police said there was nothing they could do about it.”

Buck didn’t dare move. Taylor was unbreakable as ever, determined clench of her jaw and a fierceness in her eyes that still wouldn’t look at him. 

But she also just… looked so small. Small and angry and hurt. So devastatingly hurt. The kind of hurt that stings in your chest and never really goes away. 

Buck knew because Buck had the same kind of hurt swirling in the hot feelings in his chest too. It never went away. You just got better at forgetting about it.  

Taylor looked up at him and the intensity of the blue in her eyes made Buck jump. Small and contained but a jump all the same. Just like jumping at his own shadow. 

More like jumping from his reflection.

“They said there wasn’t enough evidence,” Taylor said with a painful smirk. “I had two black eyes, a split lip, and twelve stitches across my hairline but they didn’t have enough evidence. Never mind the fact that these two had a track record of harassment the length of the campus, or that there was camera footage of them following me from the stadium. There wasn’t enough evidence to pursue any further investigation. Here’s some pepper spray and a pamphlet for self-defense classes. Maybe try not to walk by yourself so late at night.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“When… When I heard you were missing, I knew you wouldn’t have run.” She glanced up at him and the smile she gifted him was small and honest. “And all I kept thinking was… someone was trying to silence you, too.”

Buck swallowed past the knot of emotions in his throat, recalling what she had said when they’d fought in his kitchen.

“If there’s anyone who knows what you’re going through, it’s me.”

It was kind of impossible to imagine Taylor as weak and helpless but maybe that was the point. That’s what Buck had been made to feel: weak and helpless. But he was neither of those things. Neither was Taylor. So many people had tried to take away his voice and Taylor had done everything she could to let him keep it.

“Thank you,” Buck said and he meant it.

For everything.

For trying to spare him the humiliation of the media frenzy. For trying to give him back control of his story. For giving him space. For finding him. For keeping Eddie out in the car and safe. For throwing herself in front of him against her worst nightmare.

Taylor blinked in surprise and her shoulders drooped as the tension from before seeped out of them.

“Any time, Buck.” And he knew she meant it too. “But you definitely owe me a new pair of shoes.”

Eddie’s boot flopped as Taylor kicked her foot up and the laugh that barked out of Buck’s chest hurt in all the best ways.

“Yeah, okay. Fair enough.”

The almost-week spent in protective custody had been torture with Dana Ward having Buck under lock and key. But he only had one more morning before he could go home and move on with his life.

One morning to say what he needed to say, relive some of the worst moments of his life, and then he was home free.

Callum Doyle flipped on Simon Saffrey and Lawrence Malloy in under ten minutes in the interrogation room. Something about blackmail and unfulfilled promises. 

The bruises around Buck’s throat were nearly gone and so were the memories of the way those fingers had tried to choke the words into silence.

He spotted his team, his family as he was escorted into court and Buck smiled at them when the encouragement snuffed out whatever heated glare Malloy was aiming at him. He couldn’t hurt him anymore and Buck wouldn’t let him hurt anyone else.

Just one more morning and then Buck was free.

He placed his right hand on the Bible.

“Mr. Buckley, you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the case now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

Silence.

It was a symptom to a fevered powerlessness that clung to your body like an infection.

Buck didn’t feel powerless anymore.