Work Text:
The first time their paths cross, it’s by way of two stories’ worth of debris knocking him out cold, nearly burying him alive.
He walks in on his own two feet, still bleeding from the stubborn cut on his brow that won’t close no matter how hard he presses the gauze. He hovers by the nurses’ station, eyes big and searching, like he’s not quite sure which way he’s supposed to go.
Maybe he doesn’t, she realizes.
Just a kid, maybe a couple years older than her son. She recognizes the type – every fire station has one of those. Young and brave and stubborn as a mule, dead set on the idea that he can come out of anything unscarred.
Until one time he doesn’t.
It’s hard to act invincible when there’s fresh blood on your gums.
Towering over most of the crowd shuffling in and out of the ER, he rolls his shoulders and dips his chin, trying to make himself seem smaller.
Like a puppy, she thinks, when he meets her eye – a Great Dane puppy that never quite figured out its size, still trying to climb into your lap every chance it gets.
She steps toward him with a pair of latex gloves at the ready, gesturing toward the exam nook at the far end of the ER, the one they usually reserve for first responders trickling in from all over the city.
He follows her line of sight, then looks back at her and gives her a smile.
She’d have fallen for it eagerly, ten years ago. For the easy charm, the stark blue eyes, the way he stands tall, basking in attention, returning it tenfold, making you feel like the only person in the whole world worth looking at.
Ten years later, she likes to think she’s learned better. That this particular kind of wisdom arrived together with the soft lines settling around her mouth and the stubborn silver threading through her temples.
“I’m okay,” he says, like he believes it. “I just need someone to clear me so I can get back out there. My captain –”
“– is gonna lose it if you walk out of here and collapse two blocks away,” she cuts in, raising an eyebrow.
He huffs a quiet laugh, glancing off to the side.
She knows this type, too – the ones who try to bulldoze through whatever the universe throws their way. The kind that rarely makes it past thirty.
It’s easier, with them, to pretend it’s about the rules, authority. Not about their own good.
His mask slips almost immediately after, exhaustion bleeding through.
From the way he’s guarding his left arm, she’d put money on a dislocated elbow. From the shallow, labored pull of his breath, she’d add fractured, or at least badly bruised, ribs, and call it a day.
“Let me take a look,” she says, offering a smile she usually reserves for younger patients. “If you’re actually fine, I’ll sign you off and you can go be a hero somewhere else.”
He hesitates for half a second, then gives in and moves toward the wall of flimsy curtains doing close to nothing for privacy. As she follows him, her eyes catch on the name across the back of his uniform.
“Should we call anyone for you, Mr. Buckley?”
“No, I – it’s fine. Just my captain.” He drops onto the bed with a quiet exhale. “And, uh… Buck’s good.”
She makes a small note of that – not the words themselves, but the sentiment. Like the full name doesn’t quite fit him yet, like it belongs to someone else.
“Sam,” she offers in response, glancing up from her gloved hands. “In case you ever end up back here.”
He flashes her a grin, a little crooked, a little too quick, like it doesn’t even register with him as a possibility.
“Nice to meet you, Sam.”
She hums, noncommittal, already reaching for his right arm, which, now that she’s had a closer look, is definitely not fine.
Buck hisses as she helps ease it out of his sleeve.
They always come back.
There are smoke inhalations, superficial burns, lacerations along both forearms, bruised ribs, pulled muscles – scattered across a few months. Not close enough together to raise alarms about premeditation, but close enough to make a pattern show.
Close enough to worry her.
Sam’s cleaning him up again, the angry laceration along his shoulder this time, where a slab of concrete caught him on its way down, nearly taking his arm with it. The X-ray came back clear, but it’s the kind of injury that lingers. The kind that aches deep.
He’s not meeting her eyes when she asks if he needs anything for the pain.
She hands it to him anyway.
The boy’s used to getting hurt, Sam realizes early on, but not to having his knees kissed better. It always seems to catch him off guard when people offer to take even a fraction of his pain away. Like maybe he thinks he’s supposed to keep it.
She’s gotten into the habit of lingering a little longer when he’s in during her shifts, finding an extra five minutes to sit at the edge of the bed, to ask a question that isn’t strictly medical.
It’s not a chore, really. He’s easy to talk to. That is, once whatever dam he builds inside himself cracks and it all comes spilling out – stories, half-finished thoughts, jokes at no one’s expense. He talks with his whole body, hands cutting through the air, eyes bright despite everything.
One time, she asks him what he’d be doing if he wasn’t doing this. He takes it the wrong way at first, launching into a list of odd jobs, all things he tried before landing here.
She lets him go for a minute, smiling, then cuts in gently. “I mean now,” she says. “If it wasn’t firefighting, what would you pick?”
For the rest of the visit, he’s quieter than usual, turning the question over in his head while she works.
On his way out, he lingers in the doorway, fingers hooked into the hem of his turnout jacket like he’s anchoring himself there.
“Something with kids,” he says finally.
Sam looks up from his chart.
“A teacher, maybe. Or, I don’t know. Coaching, something like that. Just –” Buck shrugs, a little self-conscious now. “Helping them figure stuff out.”
The smile comes easy.
“You’d be good at that,” she says, because it’s true. “You’ve got the energy for it. Kids respond to that.”
He ducks his head, a faint flush climbing his neck, and slowly backs out of the room.
Two fingers up in a lazy salute, and he’s gone before she can say anything else.
Sam watches him go for a beat longer, then looks back down at the chart.
Quietly, she finds herself wishing he’d take that path. Stop ending up here every other week, bleeding and breathless, needing stitches and someone to tell him to sit still.
But some people don’t know how to choose the easy road.
And some don’t think they deserve to.
She finishes filling out his chart and waves the next patient in.
Sam recognizes his voice as she cuts back through the waiting room – the uneven cadence of it, the way it pitches higher when he gets defensive.
She walks into the exam area with a smile already pulling at her mouth. She can’t help it. Buck’s one of her favorite parts of this job. She hates seeing him hurt, like any of them coming through those doors, but if he’s going to end up here, she’s glad it’s her patching him up. Making it a little better, even if only for a little while.
She pushes the curtain aside –
– and stops.
Buck is perched on the edge of the bed, turnout jacket off, slung over the back of a chair.
The chair that is occupied.
That’s new.
Buck is always brought in by someone from his team. Usually one of their EMTs, Chimney, who has half the staff in stitches every time he opens his mouth. Or their captain, Nash, steady and calm in a way the whole ER finds refreshing amidst the chaos.
But no one ever comes this far.
Sam catches herself, finishes pulling on her gloves, and steps closer.
“What’ve you got for me today, Buckley?”
She says it lightly, teasing, and she knows he can hear it. It’s his third visit this week alone; it’s honestly getting ridiculous, she sees him more than her own family at this point.
“If you wanted to see me that bad, you could’ve just asked me out.”
There’s a choked sound from the chair. A muffled laugh, quickly swallowed.
Buck’s eyes flick, just once, toward the man in the chair, and then he flushes so fast it’s equal parts alarming and endearing.
“I’m fine,” he says, each word coming with its own zip code.
He always does that. It’s their routine, their little dance. He tries to bolt, she gives him a reason not to, without calling him out. He acts like it doesn’t hurt, she pretends she doesn’t notice the way his jaw tightens, the tremor in his hands.
This time, though, it doesn’t get that far.
“What you are is stubborn,” the guy in the chair says. If there’s meant to be an edge to it, Sam can’t find one. “You took a pretty bad hit to the head, Buck. The helmet came off. You should let them check you out.”
Buck rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even try.
That’s new, too.
Sam studies him for half a second, then gestures. “Okay, chin down.”
He complies, angling his head just enough for her to see the swelling already forming, a thin thread of dried blood tracking through his hair. He hisses when her fingers gently probe the area.
Behind her, the chair scrapes against the floor as the other firefighter gets to his feet.
“He didn’t let me clean it,” he says.
“Eddie, stop.”
“If you die of infection because you were too –”
“No one’s dying,” Sam cuts in, glancing over her shoulder with a quick, easy smile. “Not on my watch.”
Eddie exhales through his nose, sharp and contained. He lifts both hands in a small surrender but doesn’t sit back down right away. Instead, he hovers, watching her hands.
Buck doesn’t look at him again, but something in his shoulders loosens. He doesn’t argue when Sam sends him for imaging. Doesn’t resist when another nurse brings in the wheelchair – which, without fail, is usually where the real fight starts.
Today, he just lets it happen.
Sam watches him get wheeled down the hall, disappearing around the corner. She feels a small, quiet pride at the way everything went, knowing full well Buck’s compliance has nothing to do with her.
Her gaze drifts back to Eddie, still standing in the middle of the room, unsure what to do with himself now that Buck is gone.
She clicks her pen.
“You can wait here, if you want. It’s gonna take a while.”
He nods once, then drops back into the chair, like he’d been waiting for someone to tell him he was allowed.
It’s one of those days where sitting down is a luxury none of them can afford. Ambulances keep screeching into the bay, spitting out more patients, sirens barely cutting out before the next one arrives.
The air smells like antiseptic and blood, panic and shock. Sam moves quickly through the room, scanning, slotting herself wherever she’s needed most, when a hand catches her by the elbow.
“Isn’t that your boy?”
She blinks, thrown off mid-step, her gaze following the direction of the other nurse’s nod.
It’s a live news feed. For a second, the image doesn’t fully register, just color and motion. Fire, smoke, a crowd held back at the edges of the street, a safe few hundred feet away.
A helicopter shot, somewhere downtown. She recognizes the neighborhood.
The camera cuts, tightening on a body sprawled beside a fire engine. Sam steps in, angling the monitor, bracing a hand against the table as she leans in.
“What happened?”
“A bomb.”
The word lands heavy, sinking into the room like a stone. Conversations around them falter, thin out. The air shifts, making space for that particular kind of tension that comes with something big. Something violent.
The feed cuts again, now from a rooftop angle.
The side of the truck comes into view. 118.
Sam’s stomach drops.
On the screen, the body splayed on the ground moves, and even though the footage carries no sound, later she’ll swear that in that moment, she heard him scream.
Buck looks so small against the side of the truck. His hands claw at the asphalt, searching for something – anything – to hold onto, to help pull himself out.
He’s all alone, Sam thinks, the thought sinking its claws into the tender center of her chest. Both hands fly to her mouth to smother the sound threatening to break free.
A steadying hand lands on her shoulder, squeezes once.
Sam blinks hard, forcing back the sting in her eyes.
The space around Buck suddenly fills with motion – black and yellow and white, bodies moving without hesitation, pushing past their own fear to reach him. The crowd breaks formation too, people rushing in, hands bracing against the side of the truck.
They lift.
They pull him free.
Buck disappears onto a gurney, then into the back of an ambulance.
Somewhere behind her, someone says quietly, “They’re bringing him here.”
Sam tips her eyes to the ceiling and finally breathes.
She finds herself in the doorway of Buck’s room the day after his surgery. Pulmonary embolism this time.
She’d stood off to the side earlier, listening as the doctor spoke with his sister – a beautiful, composed woman with kind brown eyes. Her hand had been wrapped tight in Chimney’s the whole time, the two of them leaning into each other in a way that looked solid, right.
Sam slips into the room just after visiting hours, when the last of them file out.
She knocks softly.
Buck doesn’t look up.
“Hey.”
He sniffles, clears his throat, then glances over at her with a small, wavering smile.
“I know, I know. You guys are getting tired of me showing up here.”
“Sick of you, you mean,” she corrects lightly, settling on the edge of his bed.
He lets out a breath.
“I fucked up.”
He’s probably not wrong. From what she’s pieced together, if he’d paced his recovery, things might have gone differently.
But then again, going slow has never really been his thing.
They sit in silence for a while, the TV murmuring quietly in the corner. Buck keeps his eyes on it, but he’s not really watching. There’s that familiar faraway look, the one he gets when he disappears into his own head.
“I’ll probably never be a firefighter again,” he says finally, quiet, almost to himself.
Sam doesn’t miss a beat.
“Good,” she says. “Maybe that’s when you finally give your plan B a shot.”
His head turns toward her, brows pulling together.
“My –?”
“The teacher thing. Or coaching. You said you wanted to work with kids.”
Recognition clicks in. Buck lets out a wet laugh, rubbing at his chin. Some of the tension in his shoulders eases, like something heavy just shifted enough for him to breathe. Sam gives herself a small internal pat on the back for that.
“Whatever comes next,” she adds, nudging his knee lightly with her elbow, “you’ll be okay. The job’s not everything. You’ve got people, and quite a few of them.” She tilts her head toward the door. “I’ve seen the visitor log.”
He nods slowly, like the idea is still settling.
Sam watches it happen in real time.
In all the years she’s known him he’s grown a lot, but this part never quite caught up. He still doesn’t know what to do with being cared for, loved.
She wishes he could’ve seen it earlier. The waiting room during surgery – his family pacing, praying, holding onto each other, eyes locked on those doors like they could will him back through them faster. Maybe then he’d understand.
Sam nudges his knee again until he looks at her.
“I might know a guy in Jell-O procurement,” she says, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “Raspberry or lemon?”
He scoffs, then shoots her a mock-offended look.
“Lemon. Obviously. I’m not a psychopath.”
Sam huffs a quiet laugh.
He’s going to be alright.
Buck’s not wearing his turnouts this time, but neither of them comments on it.
The burns are mild, superficial, but they’re going to be a bitch to heal, given the placement. Both palms out of commission for weeks. Maybe a month.
Sam gives him a look – she hasn’t said a word since he showed her the damage – and he’s the first to break, glancing away, unable to hold it.
“Grabbed a pot off the stove,” Buck mutters.
She didn’t ask, her mind still half-occupied with the argument she’d had with her son at breakfast, the words still lingering like a bad smell.
He’s distracted too, Sam can tell. His mind is snagged on something, chewing the same thought over like it’s some eternal, flavorless piece of gum. She can almost hear the gears grinding.
His phone starts buzzing on the bed beside him. Buck glances at it and groans.
Sam keeps working the cooling gel into his palms, careful and methodical, before moving to wrap them.
The phone keeps ringing.
And ringing.
And ringing.
She ties off the bandage and nods toward it. “Want me to step out?”
Her eyes catch the screen for just a second.
Eddie.
Buck watches it ring for another beat, then the screen goes dark. He stares at it a moment, like he’s waiting for it to change its mind, then gives a small, deflated shake of his head.
“I’m not –” He exhales. “We aren’t supposed to talk right now.”
He doesn’t offer anything else, and Sam doesn’t push.
She finishes up, securing the last wrap, and steps back.
Something’s off. She can see it in the way Buck seems hollowed out, thinner in a way that has nothing to do with weight. Like something has been scooped out from inside, some source of internal light extinguished, leaving him a little dimmer around the edges.
She almost calls after him when he heads for the door.
Almost asks.
But the curtain shifts, and another patient is already being ushered in.
Sam’s out back grabbing her second coffee of the shift when the overhead page calls her back to intake. She checks her watch – it’s been less than five minutes, for Christ’s sake – and dumps the coffee straight into the trash, still too hot to drink.
Being paged by name like that is too specific. If it were a mass casualty, it’d be all hands on deck. So it’s not that.
She turns it over in her head as she cuts through the corridors – and then she catches the 118 across the back of a jacket in one of the exam bays, and it all clicks into place.
“He asked for you,” one of the newer nurses calls after her as Sam veers toward the unit.
Buck looks wrong immediately. Splayed across the bed at an odd angle, like his body isn’t quite holding itself together right. Sam doesn’t even need to reach his side to know this isn’t just another injury.
Captain Nash has him pinned, both hands firm on his shoulders, holding him down against the mattress. “Buck, stay down. Please.”
Sam grabs gloves, snaps them on.
Bobby registers her and starts talking without looking up. “Structure fire. Possible CO exposure.” His voice is controlled, a little clipped. “He took a bad fall inside.”
Buck thrashes against his grip, eyes wide and unfocused, tracking something no one else can see. His face is ashen beneath the soot, sweat cutting thin tracks down his temples. His lips are parted, breaths shallow and rapid.
“Cap, let me go,” Buck chokes out. “I gotta go back. He’s still in there.”
“Buck.”
“I can get to him.” He shakes his head hard. “I just – I just need –”
His tongue drags over his lower lip – pink-red, Sam notes – and then his focus snaps to her face.
“Sam, tell him,” he pleads, like she can fix whatever this is. “He’s still in there. I have to –” He breaks off, breath hitching. The next word comes out desperate. “Eddie.”
In her peripheral, she sees Bobby shake his head.
“Buck, we’ve been through it.”
Sam catches his eye, and he exhales, quieter now. “He’s just confused.”
She nods and moves. “Can I get high-flow O2 in here?” she calls to a passing nurse.
Bobby steps back, giving her room.
She takes Buck’s hand and clips the pulse oximeter onto his finger.
“Buck, look at me.”
He does. A smile spreads across his face like an oil spill on still water.
“Sam.”
“Yeah, buddy. It’s me. I need you to keep looking at me, okay?”
She clicks on her penlight, checks his pupils – reactive, slightly sluggish. Her fingers move to the back of his head, finding the swelling there. A bump, but nothing immediately alarming.
“Tell me what happened.”
She’s not asking for more details, just to hear him talk.
“Fire,” Buck says, breath catching. “Storage – storage place. Floor –” He gestures weakly. “Gave out.”
“Okay. Good. Keep going.”
“I – I was right there. And then –” He squeezes his eyes shut, reaching for the memory, which can’t be easy in this state. “Smoke. Couldn’t – couldn’t see –”
Then something shifts. His whole body locks up. “Eddie was right behind me,” Buck pushes, voice climbing. “He was right there – I came out – he didn’t – I didn’t –”
His breathing spikes.
The second nurse steps in with the oxygen mask, but Buck bats her hands away.
“No, wait – no –”
“Buck.”
“Please, Sam.” His voice breaks. “Please, just – just help Eddie.”
The words blur after that, tripping over each other, but that one line stays clear. Over and over, in a voice Sam has never heard from him before.
He thrashes, shoves their hands away, and it takes three of them to hold him down.
“Buck.”
The voice cuts through everything. Through the accumulated noise of the ER, through every fragment of chaos in their unit. It hits Buck like a wave – his whole body reacting, stilling for half a second in recognition.
Sam turns just in time to see Eddie step into the room.
No uniform, no hair gel. Shirt on crooked. He looks like he woke up and ran straight out the door. He doesn’t stop to ask questions or wait for permission – three long strides and he’s at Buck’s side.
“Eddie.” Buck chokes, immediately reaching for him. His fingers find the hem of Eddie’s shirt and curl in tight, clutching like he might disappear if Buck lets go even for a second. “You – you were – I couldn’t – I couldn’t find you. I tried. I’m sorry.”
Eddie’s eyes flick to Bobby for half a second, then lock back onto Buck. “I know,” he says, voice lower than usual, soft. Aiming to comfort. “I know, Buck. It’s okay. I’m right here.”
His hand comes up, settling heavily on Buck’s shoulder.
“I’m out. I’m good. Let them take care of you now.”
The shift is immediate. Buck’s shoulders loosen; he stops trying to push himself upright. His breathing is still rough, his O2 still low, but the edge of panic dulls just enough for them to work.
As the other nurse leaves to hand off the labs, Sam takes a moment to steady herself and fill out Buck’s chart. In the corner of her eye, she sees Buck’s hand drift up, almost mindlessly tugging at the oxygen mask.
“Buckley,” she warns.
He doesn’t stop.
“Buck,” Eddie says, voice still even but with a finer edge now. “Leave it.”
Buck’s hand stills, then slips back to his lap.
And it doesn’t come up to bother the mask again, like all it took was Eddie being the one to ask. Like Eddie holds some decoding key, some private frequency no one else has found the channel for.
As Sam later wheels Buck out to imaging, she catches Eddie murmur to Bobby from the doorway behind them:
“Told you a day off was a stupid idea.”
She doesn’t smoke often, but it’s one of those days.
Sam doesn’t even need the nicotine that much – it’s the ritual. Being outside. Breathing in, breathing out. Letting her eyes go soft somewhere in the middle distance.
People move around and past her, like water around a rock, and she thinks, distantly, that she feels like one on days like this – ancient, mossy, unmoving. Others come and go, move on, sign off. She stays, waiting. For what, she couldn’t say. Maybe just to greet another batch of unlucky ones, to try and make the worst day of their lives a little better.
She crushes the cigarette against the edge of the trash can and turns back toward the hospital building just as the fire engine pulls into the lot.
She recognizes them right away. The bounce in Eddie’s step, the way he half-turns mid-stride to look at Buck, not breaking the thread of whatever they’re discussing. Buck lagging half a step behind, a bright, easy smile on his face. The one Sam has only ever seen directed at Eddie.
They gravitate around each other as they climb the stairs, like there’s some low magnetic pull between them they can’t quite get free of. Eddie reaches the door first, holds it open, lets Buck go through, then follows him in.
As they disappear into the building, Sam thinks about all the pain those two carry between them. She wasn’t there for all of it – all she gets are glimpses, fragments of their team’s conversation in the waiting area – but even the pieces she witnessed, put together, would probably be enough to break most people.
And yet, here they are. Cracking jokes half of which no one else gets, smiling, even laid out in a hospital bed, bleeding and rattled.
Maybe that’s the only way, Sam thinks, climbing the stairs. To find someone to share the weight with. Maybe that’s the only thing in the whole universe that defies the laws of physics – the total mass somehow getting lighter when it’s split in two.
It’s all over the news. Every screen in the hospital is tuned in – staff and patients alike, caught in the same loop.
A firefighter has been shot.
It’s not the kind of sentence that lands right. Not in the middle of the day, under a clear, indifferent sky, like it was nothing.
From the footage, Sam recognizes the intersection. She drove through it on her way in this morning.
When he arrives, it’s not in an ambulance, it’s in the engine, and there’s so much blood she doesn’t recognize him at first.
Eddie.
He’s rushed straight through, swallowed by the double doors into surgery.
The waiting room goes quiet in the gurney’s wake. There’s the low hum of the vending machines, the distant glug of the water cooler, voices dropping to murmurs –
– and then a sob.
The raw, ugly sound of something held together too long finally giving way.
Sam turns. She doesn’t recognize him right away either. It’s been a while, and he’s not wearing his uniform, and then there’s the blood – dried and fresh both, splattered across a face gone too pale.
“Buck?”
She steps toward him just as the last of his composure slips.
His face crumples. His whole body follows, like someone cut his strings.
She catches him by the elbow before he can go down, steering him toward the row of chairs along the wall.
“Eddie,” he chokes out, the name breaking apart between sobs as he folds into himself, trembling hands covering his face.
His whole body shakes with it, and Sam rubs slow, steady circles into his back.
And when he leans into her – collapses, really – she doesn’t hesitate. She just holds on.
Time stretches. It feels like forever, but is probably only minutes before the doors fly open, voices rise, boots hit the floor. The 118 arrives, and the world starts again on its course.
Sam gives them space, and asks the nurses on the next shift to text her when there’s news.
She’s on her way to a late lunch when he catches her eye – all six-feet-plus of him, restless in her waiting room. She knows Buck isn’t there for himself, because he just keeps pacing, wearing a groove into the hospital floor, sending irritated glances at the clock above the door.
When he spots her, his face lights up.
Okay. So not bad news.
Sam lets herself smile and heads his way.
“Tell me you’re here to take me out to lunch,” she says, putting on her best pleading face and lifting the plastic container in her hand. “If I see another tuna sandwich this week, I’m gonna riot.”
He laughs, full and bright.
It’s a rare sound. Most of the time she sees him, he’s bleeding, or braced against pain, or trying very hard to pretend he isn’t. She wishes she heard it more. Wishes he had more reason to – the world would be better for it.
Buck rubs the back of his neck, cheeks going a little pink.
She huffs a quiet laugh and nudges his arm.
“I’m kidding,” Sam adds in a bright voice. “Mostly. The tuna thing is very real.”
She’s just about to ask what he’s doing here when his attention snaps past her. His whole expression shifts, sharpens, zeroing in on whatever’s behind her.
He makes a quick apologetic gesture and steps around. “So, what’s the verdict?”
There’s a low groan in response.
Sam turns just in time to see Eddie leaning slightly into Buck’s outstretched arm as they make their way toward the doors.
“Just like I told you,” Eddie says, shooting Buck a look that somehow carries all the way across the room. “It’s just a pulled muscle.”
“Could’ve been a hernia.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“Could’ve been –”
“Buck.”
Eddie stops. Buck stops with him – immediate, automatic – like there’s something tethering them together, the space between them barely there at all.
“I’m okay,” Eddie says, quieter now. His hand is still resting against Buck’s arm. “You can stop worrying.”
Buck rolls his eyes, but it’s softer this time.
The rest of the conversation dissolves into the noise of the waiting room as they disappear into the crowd and out through the doors.
Sam stands there a beat longer, watching after them, then looks down at her sandwich and groans.
She’s almost done for the day, the promise of forty-eight hours off putting a spring back into her step, when the bay doors burst open and a gurney comes through. There’s a particular aura that follows the bad ones in, and Sam feels it on her skin before she even looks up.
There’s an EMT on top of the patient as the gurney comes through – shoulders pumping in a steady rhythm, heels of both hands locked over a bare sternum, working the heart.
Sam’s breath catches.
No matter how many years she’s been doing this, CPR still makes her pause. So much riding on something so simple. Will there be years ahead for the patient, or is that it.
“Okay, down. We’ve got him.”
The EMT hops off the gurney, and Sam’s eyes snag on the number across his back.
Her feet move before her brain catches up, a step forward, then another.
Pads are already going on, pressed to the patient’s chest.
“Clear!”
The shock cracks through the air.
Sam’s gaze lifts, searching the faces in the lobby.
Wilson. Han. Nash. Diaz.
Oh.
“We’ll do our best,” one of the nurses says as they push the gurney past, straight toward surgery.
“Do more!” Eddie snaps after them, the words tearing out of him.
Sam catches it then – the shine in his eyes, the way the rest of the team stands frozen, taut, like their bodies haven’t quite caught up to the fact that they’ve stopped moving.
She wants to ask.
What happened this time? What line did Buck cross now?
But she never does; it doesn’t feel like her place to ask.
The surgery doors slam shut, and Eddie blinks, resurfacing.
His eyes find hers. “Sam,” he says, almost a whisper, his lip trembling.
And there’s so much in it she almost takes a step back.
She wishes there were something she could promise him, something within her power. She’d like to be holding the red string of Buck’s life in her hand and decide for how long it shall run. But life if cruel this way, so all she can do is offer a soft, reassuring touch to his arm.
The others close in around Eddie then, pulling tight – an instinctive formation. An island of hope in a place that’s seen too many endings, refusing to witness another one.
Sam’s been walking past his room whenever there’s a moment of quiet in her shift. She never goes in, but just passing this close – knowing he’s on the other side of the door – settles something in her.
She sees the doctor come and go, watches him gather the family in the waiting area. Catches fragments of what he tells them about Buck’s condition.
You should be prepared for the worst, he doesn’t say it outright, but it’s there, hanging in the air. It’s about managing expectations, Sam reminds herself. Patients don’t wake from comas every day. No amount of blatant hope changes that.
She runs into his parents in the cafeteria line downstairs. From the brief exchange, they seem pleasant. Normal. Then again, pleasant people don’t usually let their kid move through the world like that – absorbing blows, welcoming them like something precious, pressing hard into bruises like they’re meant to be preserved.
She runs into his sister again and thinks, distantly, how she wishes it were under different circumstances for once. She’d like to meet the woman who loved Buck on behalf of herself and both their parents, who gave him enough to become the person he is now.
She’s checking the logs when a voice carries from down the hall. She looks up and sees a woman chatting with one of the newer nurses, cheerfully leading her off. She’s seen it play out a hundred times – a deliberate distraction, so someone else can slip in after visiting hours.
Sam’s eyes sweep the corridor, looking for whoever is meant to slip past –
– and her stomach drops.
Eddie is moving through the crowd toward the ICU, one hand hovering protectively near a boy on crutches at his side. He holds the door open for him, and before they disappear into Buck’s room, they both glance back, checking if anyone noticed.
The boy has curly hair and that same stubborn, determined set to his jaw – so familiar that, for a second, Sam wonders if she somehow missed it. If Buck had a kid all along, and she never knew.
They look so alike.
In her periphery, she spots Buck’s doctor heading down the hall toward the room, and, without thinking, she steps into his path. Asks him something routine, something she’s known the answer to since her first week on the job.
This she can do for Buck. Not fix it, not wake him up – just make sure the people who love him get to be there, by his side, until one day he does.
A torn calf muscle is no picnic, but it’s nothing compared to the other things he’s been in for over the years.
The new guy – Ravi, she remembers – is serving as a crutch as they stumble in through the glass doors. Sam tracks them across the lobby and into the exam area, something in her chest pulling uncomfortably at the sight.
“I’ve got it,” she says, lifting a hand to gently stop the other nurse already heading their way.
She makes it to the room just as Ravi is stepping out.
“If you need anything, holler,” he says over his shoulder, then nearly walks into her. He gives her a quick smile, gestures her in, and steps aside.
Sam walks in and scans the room out of habit – corner to corner, left to right – looking for a pair of dark brown eyes to match her own. Concern or irritation: that’s always her first read, the one that tells her how much room there’ll be for small talk.
“No Eddie today?”
Something raw flickers across Buck’s face when he looks up, startled out of his thoughts by her voice, but it’s gone just as quickly.
“No. Uh. No Eddie.”
She doesn’t push. Just gets straight to work.
Buck stays quiet through it, teeth clenched against any sound that might slip out. He’s in more pain than he’s letting on, she’s sure of it, so she slips him something stronger without comment.
“The good news is it should heal on its own,” she says, jotting notes in his chart. “You know the drill. No pushing through the pain. No marathons for a couple of days unless they’re on Netflix.”
He doesn’t react, just nods, gaze drifting past her shoulder.
“Any time you’re off your feet, keep it elevated. Ideally above heart level.”
Another nod.
“Now, I know you’ve got stairs in your apartment, so maybe –”
“No. No stairs.”
That pulls her up short.
He blinks, like he’s only just caught up to the conversation, then frowns when she raises a brow.
“I moved.”
“Oh.”
Her first instinct is to say congratulations, but something in the way his shoulders draw in – like he’s bracing against her next words – makes her stop.
He clears his throat when the silence stretches.
“My new place is accessible. It won’t be a problem.”
Sam lowers herself onto the edge of the bed beside him, chart tucked to her chest.
“We’ll need to watch for clots,” she says.
He nods, dismissive. “Yeah, yeah.”
“This is important,” she presses, a little firmer. “I know it’s been a while, but with your history –”
“Sam, I know.”
“If your calf gets more swollen, red, or warm, you come in. Immediately. Sharp pain anywhere – you come in. Shortness of breath –”
“Let me guess,” he cuts in, a faint edge to it, “I come in?”
She doesn’t smile, but her eyes soften.
“Will Eddie pick you up?”
There it is again, that flicker. This time, though, he doesn’t catch it in time.
“No, I’ll –” Buck looks away. “I’ll call an Uber.”
Sam nods, accepting it, even though she’d rather someone were keeping an eye on him.
Then, like he can’t quite stop himself, Buck adds, quieter:
“He’s in Texas.”
“Visiting family?”
Buck opens his mouth like he’s about to answer, then just shakes his head.
That makes her pause.
“Oh. I didn’t know he was looking to go back.”
Buck shrugs. One shoulder only, eyes still fixed in his lap.
Sam blurts, before she can think better of it, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” he lies.
It’s such a blatant lie, but Sam allows him to have it. Sometimes all there’s left is repeating that things are good, again and again, until some part of you forgets it’s not true.
She’s almost out of the door, when she glances back and asks, “Should I bring you the forms?”
Buck looks at her, momentarily thrown. “What?”
“To update your emergency contact,” she clarifies. “Maybe have someone local.”
For a second, he just stares at her, like the idea has never really occurred to him. Like part of him was still holding onto the concept of Eddie just visiting, with a return ticket with a date already filled out.
He gives her a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“No. That’s, uh, fine.”
Sam holds his gaze for a beat, then nods. “Alright.”
She steps out to get him a crutch.
This time, it’s Hen.
No one really knows what’s wrong, but it’s serious enough for all of them to show up. Tight, full-body hugs are exchanged, and then the waiting room fills with the rustle of low, worried voices.
Sam is sorting through patient files when another nurse leans in beside her, expression tight.
“They can’t lose another one.”
Sam frowns, her gaze drifting to the 118 gathered close around Karen, like they can shield her from whatever’s coming.
“Another one?”
“You don’t know?” The nurse’s voice drops, rough at the edges. “Captain Nash, he –”
Sam’s eyes shift, landing on Athena, who’s holding Karen’s hand in both of hers, thumbs moving in slow, steady circles over her knuckles.
“No,” Sam exhales, something tightening in her chest. “I didn’t know.”
She blinks a few times, chasing the sting from her eyes, and looks back down at the papers in her hands.
The 118 has always felt like a family unlike any other firehouse she’s seen. They show up, always, even for the smallest things. The way their lives bleed together beyond the job is obvious even in the fragments she’s caught over the years.
And at the center of it, Captain Nash.
The way he cared for people, for the world, it stuck. It spread. He was the glue, the force that held them together through everything. Sam feels something unexpected settle in her chest as she looks at them now –even in his absence, that force still holds.
The doctor returns with an update, and the shift is immediate.
Shoulders drop. Breaths release.
Not okay, but better than it could’ve been.
She walks in and an involuntary smile curves her lips. It feels like stepping back in time – to Eddie’s first month with the 118, when he dragged Buck in to be checked for a “tiny bump” that turned out to be a full-blown concussion.
Buck is sprawled on the bed now, half-turned like he’d been trying to get up properly and just gave up partway through.
Eddie sits beside him in the chair, same as always. He’s leaning into the armrest, one hand pressed to his side, and when he looks up at the sound of her coming in, he winces.
It takes Sam only a few seconds to take it all in. Cuts and scrapes across both their hands and faces, the wrong kind of pale to Buck’s skin. A thin sheen of sweat on both of them, the kind that comes from pushing through pain instead of resting through it. Bruises too, yellow-green ugly things, not more than a week old.
“Okay, boys,” she says, snapping on her gloves. “What’s the story this time?”
Buck lets his head fall to the side, offers her a tired, crooked smile.
“Where do I even start?”
Sam rolls her eyes – fond, despite everything – and gets to work. As she does, she’s given the short version of the whole thing, sparing the details, and it’s still enough to make her blood run cold.
When Buck talks about his captivity, he does it with a smile that says can you believe it, like he got the wrong order at a drive-through, or someone cut him off in traffic. Not like he was run off the road in the middle of nowhere and taken by two psychopats trying to mold him into the shape of their braindead son.
But when he gets to the part about hearing Eddie’s voice outside, something shifts. It’s subtle – his shoulders draw in, just a fraction, his focus slips. Like he’s no longer fully in the room, reliving that moment again inside his head, stuck in a loop.
Like that’s the part that actually scared him, Sam thinks. Like that’s what stayed. The kind of wound that doesn’t heal clean, that lingers under the skin regardless of how much time passes.
In Sam’s periphery, Eddie goes completely still. Spine straight. Hands locked in place. His gaze fixed on the floor, his expression set into something controlled and tight enough to pass for calm – if you don’t look too closely.
It’s only after Buck is wheeled out for imaging that the tension finally breaks.
Eddie sinks back in the chair, like whatever was holding him upright just gave out. His hand drags down over his mouth. Then he blinks a few times and looks up, like he’s only just remembering where he is and that there’s someone else in the room.
Sam pats the bed lightly and smiles.
“Hop on, Diaz. Your turn.”
He lets out a quiet exhale, shaking his head, jerking his chin toward the door. “I’m good. I’m here for him.”
She gives him an unimpressed look and pats the bed again.
Eddie sighs in that reluctant way she knows too well, already pushing himself to his feet with a groan. He knows better than to argue with her.
She works through it quickly. Checks the face, the ribs, the leg. Everything’s healing as it should, so she moves to his arm and starts cleaning the cuts.
They both keep their eyes on Eddie’s arm as she works, on the careful swipe and tap of gauze against his skin, and it makes the next words come easier.
“That must’ve been terrifying,” Sam says, quietly.
Eddie hums low in his throat. His jaw shifts, working around something he’s not ready to say aloud yet. Sam doesn’t push.
Unlike Buck, who fills every silence before it can settle, with Eddie it’s always a waiting game. He lets it sit, ferment. Takes his time.
When he finally speaks, his voice comes out rough, scraped raw.
“There was a point.” He swallows, shaking his head once, like he could dislodge the memory. “I thought – I thought I wasn’t looking for him anymore. Just a body.”
The words land heavy between them.
Sam’s hands still.
For a second, it looks like that’s all he’s going to give her. But then the last of his composure cracks, his voice raw in a way she’s never heard from him before. “But I couldn’t leave him out there. I had to bring him home.”
“Oh, Eddie.”
She tilts her head just enough to catch his gaze.
His eyes are almost black in the harsh hospital light, gleaming with a promise of tears. He does that thing he always does when it all is getting too much – presses his tongue into his cheek, face scrunching, like he can hold it all in if he just tries hard enough.
“You saved him,” Sam says quietly, still holding his hand in hers.
She knows how trauma works, how easy it is to get stuck at the lowest point, to replay it until it’s the only thing that feels real. How it sucks you in like a bog or a quicksand or a current, and the more you fight it, the deeper you end up being sunk.
The only way out of those moments is forward, is the truth, and upward. Slowly, one step at a time, and often with a friendly hand helping to keep your head above the surface.
“And not for the first time,” she adds, her voice coming out softer. “You’ve been saving him, Eddie, in one way or another, since the day you two met. That boy who ended up in my ER all those years ago? He wouldn’t have made it this far, if it weren’t for you.”
Eddie reacts before he can stop himself. Something tight in his face loosens, just slightly. His jaw shifts, a breath catching halfway in his chest like it can’t decide whether to settle or break. His fingers flex in her hold.
Sam feels it, and for a second she wants to say more. There’s so much she could say. But the curtain pulls back, and the nurse wheels Buck in, and the moment splits clean through.
Eddie slowly withdraws his hand, gives Sam a small, fleeting smile, then pushes off the bed and steps past her.
“Everything good?”
Buck grins, a little crooked, a little worn.
“Yeah. Good as new,” he says, like that’s ever been true with him.
Sam chuckles softly, shaking her head.
“Take it slow,” she warns, pointing between the two of them. “No jumping back in headfirst. No proving anything to anyone. Or I will be seeing you again, and frankly,” she lifts a brow, “you two are no longer welcome here.”
Buck huffs a laugh. “Rude.”
“I’m dead serious, Buckley.”
There’s a quiet beat where they just look at each other, smiles lingering a little longer than called for. Like after all the horrors, it’s this – the familiar rhythm of trading quips in an ER room – that finally feels like home.
Eddie glances at Buck then, something softer settling behind his eyes. “Ready?”
Buck pushes himself up from the wheelchair, a grin pulling back into place.
“Never been readier.”
As they turn to leave, Eddie reaches out without thinking, offering his hand to steady him.
Buck takes it just as easily.
Sam watches them go, their shoulders brushing, steps falling into rhythm the way they always do. Eddie still reaches the door first, holds it open, lets Buck go through. Then sends the last quick glance over his shoulder, and follows him out.
Sam lets out a quiet breath and turns back to her charts.
It’s a quiet day in the ER, like LA finally decided to give them a break for once.
Patients still come in at a steady pace, but everything moves with an ease – a dance they’ve practiced so many times it no longer requires thought. Just muscle memory and instinct, carrying them from one case to the next.
In the lull between a mild steam burn and a kidney stone, Sam drifts back to the nurses’ station. There’s a cup of coffee waiting for her there, long gone cold by now.
She doesn’t reach for it, something else catching her eye.
An envelope, resting on top of the patient files. Her name written across the front.
She just looks at it for a moment, then blurts, “What’s that?”
The other nurse glances up from the computer. “No idea. Someone must’ve dropped it off while I was making rounds.”
Sam picks it up, turning it over once like that might give her a clue, then tears it open along the side. She slides the contents out onto the counter.
A card falls out first. Heavy paper, matte, off-white. Minimalist but not plain, clean. No florals, no gold leaf. Just neat, centered text in simple black print.
Two names. A date.
For a second, she just stares at it, the meaning arriving half a beat too slow.
When it lands, her hand flies to her mouth, a smile breaking through before she can stop it. “Are you kidding me –”
There’s something else tucked inside the envelope, and she pulls it out. A single sheet of paper, folded once. She unfolds it slowly, smoothing the crease with her fingertips like whatever’s written there might be fragile, like it might fall apart if handled too roughly.
Her eyes drop to the page:
“Sam,
We figured you deserved more than just a card.”
The words don’t settle right away – they rush ahead of themselves, her brain trying to read too fast, stumbling over the lines. She blinks, forces herself to start again from the top, anchoring herself in the neat, blocky handwriting.
With every line, something in her chest expands. Her heart fills so quickly it almost aches – bright, familiar in a way that catches her off guard. It’s the same kind of love she’s only ever known once before, fierce and all-consuming, the kind that had once been reserved entirely for her son.
Her vision blurs, and this time she doesn’t fight it.
“There were a lot of moments that could’ve gone differently for us, a lot of times we could’ve lost each other. You were there for more of those than you probably realize.
So thank you, Sam, for keeping us in one piece long enough to figure things out.”
At the bottom of the page, two names:
Buck, a little messy, a little slanted.
Eddie, steadier, sharper, pressed in close beside it, the ink nearly touching.
Her lips tremble into a smile as she lets out a shaky breath, then gathers the letter and the invitation together, holding them to her chest.
She stays like that for a moment, just breathing. Letting her mind wrap around the whole thing.
Then the rattle of a gurney rolls in through the doors, snapping her back into motion, back into the hospital, into the world where someone is still having the worst day of their life.
She leans over the counter and places the card and the letter carefully beside the computer, tucking them against the photo of her son and his family.
“Sam!”
She looks up immediately. “Coming!”
She pulls on her gloves, the smile still lingering, and runs toward the chaos.