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1. Maddie
Maddie sighed and dialled in the number that she’d had memorised since she was a child. A number she hadn’t had much reason to use in the past few years. She hadn’t had any reason to call it, not since her baby brother was begrudgingly given a cell phone of his own that she could call him on.
But now she was free of the reason why she hadn’t called that number. Now she was apparently committing to settling down here, on the other side of the country, where her little brother had made a home for himself.
Now she was starting a new chapter in her life, and it was probably something her parents should know about.
The phone rang, and rang, and rang. And then it went to voicemail.
“You have reached the home of Philip and Margaret Buckley. Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Hey mom, dad, it’s Maddie. This is my new number. I, errr, I left him. I left Doug. Took what I could carry and ran. And I don’t want to say exactly where I am, but… I’m safe here. I really feel like I’m safe. And Evan’s here too, and he’s doing good. So good, like you wouldn’t believe. I think… I think that once I’m more settled, I’m going to start divorce proceedings against Doug. End it for good with him. Maybe then we can talk, try and be a family again? I love you.”
Maddie let out a shaky breath as she ran out of time. Hopefully they’d listen. Hopefully they’d reach out to her.
She wasn’t holding her breath. Evan hadn’t changed his number or his email address in the whole time since he’d run away, and they hadn’t contacted him once.
But that wasn’t surprising, if she thought about it. They’d barely noticed him when they lived together, so even if he’d only moved as far as Lebanon they wouldn’t have kept in contact with him.
She slumped down against the wall. Her family was messed up. But maybe, just maybe, it could be fixed.
–
2. Buck
Buck scowled at his phone. He had to make this call. He really, really had to.
But he didn’t want to. Pressing that contact was something he hadn’t done since… before Montana. Actually, the last time he remembered trying to dial that number was before BUD/s. After that he’d just given up.
But this wasn’t for him, it was for Maddie. So he sucked it up, and he pressed that name.
As he expected it went to voicemail. Like every other time he’d called them since he ran away at nineteen with practically nothing to his name.
“You have reached the home of Philip and Margaret Buckley. Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Hey, errr, it’s Evan. And, and, and I know you don’t want to hear from me, but… I know Maddie called you, told you she, she left Doug, found me in Los Angeles. Well Doug found us too. He stabbed one of, one of my friends, left him pretty badly hurt actually, and he’s kidnapped Maddie. I don’t know where he’s taking her, or what he intends to do to her, but he’s got her and it’s probably not very, not very good. So, errr, I’m going to, to help find her. And I’ll, I’ll call you either way, when I know. Bye.”
He hunched over in the uncomfortable hospital chair, ignoring the pitying look of the officer that Athena had left to guard him. He hated this. He hated that Chimney was hurt. That Maddie was gone. That Doug had found them, just as Maddie thought she was free of him.
And he hated that he couldn’t even keep his stupid stutter under control for one lousy voicemail. He had something important to say, and he couldn’t even say it without tripping over his words like a stupid child. He was less capable than a freaking seven year old.
It didn’t matter. They’d probably delete it as soon as they heard his stupid voice anyway.
–
3. Buck
Allowing himself to relax in a slightly more comfortable chair than before, Buck ignored the pointed looks from others at his blood-stained state as he pulled his phone out. It was like they’d never seen a guy with blood down his shirt before.
Athena was still talking to her local colleagues, so she wasn’t going to hear him embarrass himself if he called now. So he pressed that contact again, for the second time in a week.
“You have reached the home of Philip and Margaret Buckley. Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Hey, it’s Evan again. I, I don’t know if you listened to the last message I left, but, but, we found her. We, we found Maddie. Me and this awesome cop I know called Athena. She couldn’t work the, the case herself officially because she, she’s Maddie’s friend too, and she’s dating my Captain who, who is also my friend’s Captain too, but she didn’t treat me like, like a kid and make me sit and, and wait. We tracked them down, and, and, and we found her. But Maddie had to, had to kill Doug. He’s dead now, and, and Maddie is in hospital. We, we’re in Big Bear right now, but we’ll be, be going to LA when, when Maddie is stable for, for transport.”
Buck ended the call, and closed his eyes. While he could hope that his voicemails would at least be listened to, even if they didn’t deign to contact him back, he knew they wouldn’t be. They’d be deleted as soon as they heard his voice, and then when they did bother to get in touch with the child they actually loved they’d blame him for their lack of knowledge about what was going on in her life. What had happened to her.
And they still wouldn’t actually give a damn about him.
–
4. Maddie
Maddie curled up as much as she could in the passenger seat of Josh’s car. She’d been all set to drive herself to the hospital to see Evan, but Sue had given her and then Josh that look, the one that made you feel like re-evaluating all of your recent life choices, and Josh had quickly snatched Maddie’s keys from her hand and picked up his own instead.
“Sue’s right. You’re in no state to drive,” he’d said as they waited the eternity it took for the elevator to reach the parking garage. “Buck would never forgive himself if you got into an accident while driving to see him.”
He was right, damn him. But that didn’t ease the restlessness under her skin as she watched the city lights flash by.
“Do you two have any other family who might want to be here?” Josh asked. Maddie raised her head. Oh, yes, she hadn’t told them that her parents weren’t exactly the loving types where their youngest was concerned. It wasn’t really her business to spread around. But she’d found out that dispatchers were as gossipy as ER nurses, and if she didn’t call her parents he’d definitely latch onto it.
“You have reached the home of Philip and Margaret Buckley. Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Mom, dad, it’s Maddie. I don’t know if it’s made the national news, or if you watch the news at all, but Evan had an accident today. At work. It was a bad one. I’m heading to the hospital now, but he’s probably going to need surgery. I was watching the news here, from dispatch, and it looked bad even from a distance. I’ll let you know more when I’ve spoken to his doctors. Love you, bye.”
The car was silent for a few moments after Maddie ended the voicemail. And then Josh huffed.
“He’s called Evan? Seriously?” Josh shook his head. “You think you know a guy, and then…”
Maddie felt a small smile break through her worry. Yeah, you think you know someone.
“Wait, you didn’t really think his name was Buck Buckley, did you?”
“No, but I didn’t think he was an Evan!” Josh exclaimed. “He just slipped a few places on my hotness ranking. That is such a boring name.”
“Ewww, no, my brother is not on any hotness rankings, except in the ‘untouchable’ category, thank you very much.” Maddie swatted gently at Josh’s arm, while they were still stopped at a red.
Her friend, at least, knew how to keep her from worrying so much.
Even if he was disgusting, talking about her brother like that.
–
5. Maddie
Maddie collapsed onto her couch, every muscle in her body screaming with the tension that had been singing through her the entire day.
A freaking tsunami had hit LA. And the warning systems had just failed completely, and left thousands of people completely vulnerable. And while she’d spent the entire day feeling grateful that her brother had been safely in his apartment, no longer a firefighter, no longer throwing himself into danger like he had his entire like, it turned out that he had been right in the thick of things, and he had been risking his life to help others. Even without the uniform, he still had the drive to do the right thing.
Speaking of the right thing, there was one last chore Maddie had to take care of before she could go to sleep.
“You have reached the home of Philip and Margaret Buckley. Please leave a message after the tone.”
“Hey, mom and dad, it’s Maddie. Again. So, don’t worry, me and Evan are both safe. I was at work when the tsunami hit, safely tucked away in dispatch. I stayed there even after my shift ended, because the next shift were quite understandably having trouble getting in. And I wanted to keep an eye on Howard, because he was out there doing his job, and he was putting in the overtime like every other first responder in LA. Evan was out there too, and even though he wasn’t there as a firefighter he did amazing work. He was looking after his best friend’s kid for the day, they were on the pier when it hit, and Evan saved them both and then even more people too. Because that’s what Evan is, he protects people and he helps them. I wish you could see that about him. I love you. Bye.”
Maddie let the phone drop from her hand. She’d charge it in the morning. But right now, she needed sleep.
And hopefully she wouldn’t have too many nightmares about the thought of her brother being trapped in a natural freaking disaster.
–
+1. Maddie
Massaging her bump, Maddie took a deep breath as she picked up the phone. After several years in LA, contact with her parents was still sporadic. They had started picking up the phone more often than not, but they still never made an attempt to initiate contact.
And they still didn’t call Evan or answer his attempts to call them. Not that he tried very often, he’d given up years ago.
Which was what Maddie wanted to fix. Before this baby was born, preferably. She wanted her brother and their parents to get along, to fix this rift between them so that her child could have its uncle and its grandparents in its life.
She felt a small spark of guilt about doing this while Evan was on his way to Texas to fight wildfires there, but she smothered it. This was for the best. It would be a done deal, they’d be here, or almost here, by the time he got back from special deployment. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d put up with it, for her sake.
“Hi, Maddie, I didn’t realise it was that time of the week already.” Lies. Margaret Buckley was well aware it was time for their weekly call, especially as Maddie had managed to avoid every single one of the landmines on their last call.
“Hey mom. So, I was wondering… would you like to come and visit before the baby is born?”