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The doctors say it’s going to come back.
Buck asks them twice, just to be sure. Then he sends Chimney to ask them again, and then he asks another time.
Confusion is normal, after an injury like this. His scans don’t show any reason for legitimate concern. His memories should return within a few hours, and until then, the best thing to do is just keep him calm.
It doesn’t feel like a good enough answer. Keep him calm, they say, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
Buck needs a breather, by the time they get Bobby set up in the hospital room. He trades duty with Hen, stands out in the hall and forces himself to take slow, deep breaths, to fight down memories of Captain Nash down and two, three, lift, memories of Bobby’s unfocused eyes set on him, the name that had come spilling past his lips.
Bobby?
Buck can still hear it. He can still see it, the mistaken recognition that had lit up Bobby’s face. The relief there, the pure outpouring of love.
The look of a father who had found a way around the impossible, who had seen his son again.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been in the hall by the time Hen returns to his side, a gentle hand coming to rest on his arm. It nearly startles him out of his skin; he looks over, recognizes the look on Hen’s face, and nearly begins a silent plea for her to not say the words aloud.
Hen, no doubt, sees the look on his face. She knows what it means, she’s always known how to read him, far too well—and Buck’s not exactly in his most fortified state, his best walls torn down the second they’d pulled Bobby out of that rubble.
The second Bobby had laid eyes on him, and called him by his son’s name.
“He’s asking for you,” Hen says, as gently as those words could possibly be said, and they still feel like a bullet right through Buck’s chest.
For me, or for him?
Buck doesn’t ask the question, but his lips curl tightly anyways with the effort of keeping his emotions on lock.
“They gave him something to help him relax. He’s calmer, now, but he’s...” From the corner of his eye, Buck watches Hen’s gaze flicker back in the direction of Bobby’s room. “He’s still asking.”
Of course he is.
Of course he is. Buck draws in a slow, unsteady breath, and pointedly does not look at Hen, because the dam cannot break right now, not if he’s going back in there.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” he confesses, and hates the way his voice sounds, scratchy and raw and wrong. It’s not wholly the truth. He knows that he can do it, because he knows that he will do it, because—it’s Bobby in there, of course he will. He shakes his head a little and tries again. “I don’t know—how to do it, Hen.”
The hand on his arm squeezes gently. Buck thinks Hen would probably pull him in for a hug right about now, if she didn’t know that it would shatter him completely.
“You do,” she says instead, and that almost does the trick.
Buck has to fight to take a breath, and another, and another, until his heartbeat slows down marginally.
“You know exactly how. You do it every day, Buck.”
She’s right, is the awful part. Buck knows exactly what to do.
It’s just that doing it might just make him break, just this once.
He swallows harshly, and pretends that it does anything for the lump in his throat or the scratch in his voice.
“—Athena’s coming?” It’s the only thing left to ask, with Buck as resigned to his fate as he is. He knows the answer already, but it’s still reassuring to see Hen nod.
“On her way right now.” Hen pauses, for just a beat. The hand on his arm goes still, maybe too still—and then she’s speaking up again, quieter and more cautious than before, like he’s a scared deer who might bolt if she moves too fast.
“You don’t have to,” she says. They both know it’s a lie, though it’s nice of her to say it, anyways.
Buck takes one final, long inhale, and tries again to smile. The muscles of his face feel foreign, not quite his.
“I know,” he lies, and before he can think better of it, before he can convince himself otherwise, he’s down the hall and stepping carefully into Bobby’s room.
Chimney is there. That’s where Buck’s eyes go first. It’s easier than looking at Bobby, and Buck knows just where to find him—the shitty hospital chair pulled up right to the edge of the bed, destined for occupation by a never-ending rotation of firefighters until the day that Bobby walks out of here.
Chimney looks at him with such pity that nausea’s rising in his stomach again, and he almost says something, just to make him stop looking at him like that—
But Bobby beats him to it, his voice hoarser than it should be and quieter, too, like he’s about to shatter an illusion. Like he himself doesn’t quite believe whatever his concussed, drug-addled mind is construing in front of him.
“—Bobby?”
Buck steps further into the room. There’s no avoiding looking at Bobby, now. Buck tries his damnedest to keep it to purely clinical details, at first—the IV in his arm, the tubing on the side of his bed, the bandage covering a laceration on his head—but at a certain point, he has to meet Bobby’s eyes.
They’re more focused than they were before, when they’d first pulled him out of the rubble. More focused than on the ambulance ride over, when Buck had held his hand and told him over and over again to breathe, it’s okay, you’re alright, stay calm. He looks lucid, except—
There’s something shining in his gaze, something so limitlessly hopeful that it threatens to take Buck out at the knees, to crush him into pieces and turn him to dust if he doesn’t say something.
“Hey,” Buck says, slow and even and careful. He’s the one going up against the scared deer now, but—
There’s no fear at all, in Bobby’s gaze. No doubt, no uncertainty. Buck speaks, and the look in Bobby’s eyes turns into one of all-encompassing love.
Buck can’t remember a time he’s ever been looked at like that—like he was everything, all the good in the universe wrapped up into a bundle and given freely.
“Bobby.”
Bobby repeats his not-name, and a beat later, he smiles as if he’s in awe. Buck registers, out of the corner of his eye, that Chimney is standing, quietly and carefully slipping out of the room, and he thanks whatever fucked-up God is out there for that. There’s no way to make this easy, but it’ll be easier, he thinks, if it’s just them in the room.
Buck and Bobby.
Bobby and Buck.
Bobby and Bobby.
“Look at you.” Bobby says the words like he himself can’t believe them, like he cannot comprehend that his son is standing in front him right now, older than he’s ever been—but he does believe it. Buck can see it in his eyes, in the gentle smile on his lips, the way he shifts to sit up just a little bit more even as the drugs in his system undoubtedly encourage him to slouch. “Look how tall you are, kid.”
Buck kills the distance between them as mercifully as he can. He takes Chimney’s spot, sitting in the chair beside Bobby’s bed, and Bobby’s eyes stay trained on him the entire time, like he’s some mirage that will disappear if he blinks too hard.
He is a mirage, Buck thinks, but Bobby doesn’t have to know that. Bobby never needs to know that.
“Six foot two,” Buck offers, mostly because it’s the only thing he can think to say.
Bobby’s lips press together a little more tightly, but the smile doesn’t slip for a moment.
“Taller than me,” he says, and it’s true, and Buck wonders it’s possible to feel your own heart breaking. “You finally started eating your vegetables, huh?”
It’s not a conscious thing. The muscles of his face move all on their own, until he’s smiling, too, a tight, terrible smile that matches Bobby’s. He blinks hard.
“Yeah,” he says, quiet and with the barest hint of shakiness. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
Bobby laughs at that. It’s breathless, quick, still somehow disbelieving, and his eyes are still locked onto Buck. Buck wonders what it is that he’s seeing.
Is it Buck at all?
Is there some piece of him, the barest shred, that can make Bobby smile like this, like he has the whole world in his hands?
“Good kid,” Bobby says, and— Buck has heard those words before, said with the same inflection, the same tone. The wind is knocked out of him; the world is buzzing in his ears, but not loud enough that he can’t hear Bobby going on. “—you were always such a good kid, buddy. You and Brookie. Best kids I could’ve asked for.”
There is nothing in the world that Buck could possibly say to that. His heart stills, and then maybe stops, and it’s through blurry vision that he notices Bobby’s blinking, slow and heavy.
Something to help him relax, he remembers Hen saying, and he doesn’t know if he should feel relieved, or like he’s losing something he’s never even had.
“—it’s okay if you’re tired,” Buck says, quiet and careful, and his voice only breaks a little on the word tired. “You can go to sleep. It’s okay. I’ll be right here, yeah?”
For a moment, he thinks Bobby might protest. There’s something in his eyes, for just one instant—a flash of desperation, a hand reaching out to grasp at something that’s already slipping through his fingers.
Just as soon as Buck sees it, Bobby blinks and it’s gone, evaporated into nothingness.
“You’ll be here,” Bobby says, slow. His breathing is deep, steady; he doesn’t have much longer, and suddenly, Buck is struck by how badly he doesn’t want him to go. “Okay.”
It happens fast. Buck’s body moves, again, outside of his own volition. He leans over, reaches over, pushes aside some tubing, and—Bobby’s hand is in his, just like that, coarse and calloused with blood coursing through it.
Although Bobby’s eyes were falling shut a minute ago, they open again now, fixed on Buck’s hand in his. Another small, tired smile passes over his face, and this one hurts the most, Buck thinks, as Bobby gives a faint squeeze to his hand—once, twice, three times.
“Love you, kid,” Bobby murmurs, as if it were as natural as breathing, barely able to look at Buck through half-lidded eyes, fighting off the last dredges of wakefulness.
There’s only ever one thing to say. Buck swallows hard, and keeps his voice steady.
“I love you too, Dad.”
The corner of Bobby’s lip twitches once, into something that Buck wants so badly to call a smile—and then, slowly, his expression relaxes into the unburdened ease of sleep.
Buck doesn’t pull his hand away.
Hours later, Buck is in the hallway, trying not to think very much about anything at all, when Chimney comes out of Bobby’s room wearing the widest smile he’s seen in a long time.
Rule number one of waking up in a hospital is don’t crowd the patient, but the 118 have never been very good listeners, and it’s a matter of seconds, not minutes, before they’re gathered around his bedside—Hen on his right, Chimney on his left, Athena in the chair beside his bed, and Buck, standing still and a little unsteady, at the foot of the bed.
It’s the same Bobby as a few hours ago. He’s well. He’s alive, for one thing, and from the looks of it, mostly lucid—he smiles over at Athena, laughs at a joke Chimney makes that Buck can’t quite hear. He’s aware and alert, knows where he is and who he is, and the only question, really—
“Buck,” Bobby says, and it’s gentle, but it’s enough to pull Buck out of his stupor. He blinks, and forces himself to meet Bobby’s gaze, swallowing against the unspoken question hanging in the balance between them.
“Hey,” Buck exhales, and—yeah, okay. He can do this. He’s Buck, he can do this. He gets a smile onto his face, and reminds himself of the important points: he’s alive, he’s well, he’s here.
“—how are you feeling, Cap?”
Coming off a concussion and a fairly strong cocktail of drugs, Bobby’s more Bobby than he has any right to be.
“Like new, kid,” he says, and it sounds natural, only—only on that last word, kid, something falters. For a moment, Bobby stares at him—just stares, and Buck can’t help but try to understand what he’s seeing—
But then, just like that, Bobby’s smiling, a small, tight smile. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly—but there’s a shine in his eyes, one that sends Buck reeling back to hours ago, to the way Bobby had looked at him then.
Him, but not him—only it’s got to be him now, Bobby knows it’s him, Bobby said his name—
“—I had the funniest dream,” he says, half wondrous, half marveling, and this time, when Bobby looks at him—he knows, beyond a doubt, that it’s him that Bobby is looking at. “I think you were there.”