When he saw her again it all came rushing back, slamming into him, washing over him, damn near drowning him in painful memories. The horrific sounds of rending metal, the bright explosion of glass like twinkling stars falling to earth. The nauseating smells of water steaming on hot engines mixed with the smell of gasoline and the sickening, sweet smell of blood. They all assault him and suddenly he is back - eighteen years before.
He's on his knees in the pouring rain, blood blinding him as he crawls along the hard pavement groping for the bright patch of color on the rain soaked street. Pain is ripping through him where a jagged piece of metal has torn through his chest, puncturing his lung. Breathing is unbearable but he has to get to the little bit of color before it's too late.
Car doors slam around him as others begin to stop but he can't hear them. The horrendous explosion of sound still rings in his ears. The bright pink splotch of color grows dim and shaking his head he wipes the blood from his eyes to clear his vision so he can crawl the few remaining feet. His shaking hands reach out to clutch the bundle to his chest, the pink fabric turning red with his blood. Pink is her favorite color.
From the beginning he knew his baby would be a girl, as far back as the first time he laid his hands on his wife's baby bump and felt the faint flutter. After that, he never bought anything that wasn't pink; pink booties, pink nighties, pink overalls with bright flowers and hot pink sneakers as she grew older and started to walk. Just the day before he had bought her a little pink baseball cap to cover her crown of golden curls.
He kneels on the wet ground and smooths back those curls from her forehead and knows that his wife will kill him for letting her get so wet. He holds his daughter tighter to him and tears begin to run down his face as sirens scream around him. Two paramedics rush up in the downpour, fingers reaching out for pulse points. They try to take her from his arms, to see to his head wound but he hits out at them to keep them at bay. He knows that if he holds on to her tight enough, long enough, she'll be okay.
After a while he's loaded into an ambulance and taken to a nearby hospital and still he holds her gently but not as tightly as his strength ebbs. They try to take her again just as his wife rushes in through the doors, her uniform soaked through from the rain. A second police officer, her partner and his best friend, is right behind her.
A doctor hurries up to her and her face is suddenly as still as death as she listens. Her knees start to buckle and her partner steadies her until she composes herself. Turning to him, her facade purely professional, unreadable, she starts across the tiled floor to the small area where he sits. Coming up to him she smiles sadly and reaches out for the toddler.
"It's all right," she says softly, "I'm just going to take her home, put her to bed. They'll stitch up your head and then you come home, too."
He knows she's safe now, her mama will take care of her. He lets his baby go and his wife takes the child gently from his strong, protective arms. She brushes bloodied dark hair back from his forehead before she turns to go.
"Oh, my God!" An emergency room nurse sees the blood still seeping from his chest wound, bubbling where his breath leaks out.
Looking down he notices the blood for the first time. Looking up he sees his wife's face as she turns back to look at him, as she hugs their daughter to her breast. Tears course down her cheeks, her beautiful face now so full of pain that he actually feels his heart turn painfully in his chest and darkness closes in on him.
A day doesn't go by that he still doesn't think about them both, his ex-wife's face ravaged by unspeakable suffering as she held their baby girl, his child's eyes closed as if in sleep; dead just days before her second birthday.
Their marriage, like their only child, had not survived. He hadn't been able to cope with the loss, the pain and, most especially, the guilt. The speeding driver, who had actually been at fault, had died at the scene and he was left to shoulder the burden of his own guilt alone. He could have waited until the rain stopped. He could have taken another route. He could have done a million other things but he hadn't.
After emergency surgery and weeks of healing and physical therapy, he'd recovered fully from his injuries and was deemed fit to return to duty. Instead he left the Miami Dade Police Department and started to drink in earnest. When he was drunk he could forget for a while. Like his physical scars, the physiological wounds would start to heal over but as soon as he sobered up again he felt the need to pick at the scabs and to let his soul bleed once more, to grieve anew. It was a vicious circle, so much so that he was unable to comfort his grieving wife although she had needed him desperately.
He never stopped loving her but could never bring himself to reach out to her. She, in turn, hadn't stopped loving him and, more importantly, hadn't blamed him but she couldn't save him either. Finally, out of desperation, she had turned to another man and, as unfair as it was, he could finally blame her for something.
He had walked away from everything; his wife, his career and a cemetery where a shiny, colorful pinwheel planted in the earth near a small marker spun in the warm breeze and reflected the bright Florida sun. A pinwheel he never saw.
"Buck, are you all right, man?" J.D. Dunne's voice cut through the darkness to bring him back into the light before he was stuck there forever.
It had taken him years to move on from that dark place and to suddenly be thrown back there shook him to his core. He absently rubbed the faded scars under his shirt. The gash in his scalp only hurt on particularly bad days - like today.
The woman who had triggered his sudden emotional meltdown stood shoulder to shoulder with Chris Larabee. She was even more beautiful than the day he'd first met her. Her glorious thick blonde hair was tucked behind her ears as she bent over the paperwork on Chris' desk and only a few wrinkles; tiny laugh lines really, creased the corners of her eye. He was thankful she'd been able to laugh through the years.
Buck willed his own tears back down deep inside and continued on to his desk, a look of melancholy on his face.
Watching him, Nathan Jackson looked to Josiah Sanchez who just shrugged his broad shoulders in return. The office Romeo was definitely off his game, he thought, as Buck continued to stare at the woman in Chris' office for some time. A range of emotions ran across his face, none of which was the bright eyed leer reserved for any female brave enough to enter Team Seven's bullpen - Buck Wilmington's private game reserve.
"He sick?" Josiah asked J.D. nodding his head toward the man in question.
"He was okay when we got here," J.D. assured the two of them and wondered briefly himself what had gotten into his friend. "Who's that in there with Chris?"
Josiah leaned back in his chair, placed his large hands behind his head and told him, "DEA SAC outta Florida. Gonna work with us breaking up some Mexican connection that's been runnin' skag from Mexico to Miami via Colorado."
"Colorado is a little out of the way, is it not, Mr. Sanchez?" Ezra asked from his seat as he sipped his Starbuck's coffee.
Turning to the undercover agent, Josiah replied, "That's precisely why they're running the stuff through here."
Vin Tanner checked his watch, stood up and started to make his way to the large conference room for the meeting Chris had called for zero nine hundred sharp. Nathan, Josiah, Ezra and J.D. followed suite, each grabbing up notebooks, pens and coffee cups as they did. Only Buck remained at his desk staring at his computer screen, rereading the same email over and over, never comprehending a single word, his mind a million miles away.
"Bucklin!" Vin said sharply and slapped the desktop. "Meetin'!"
The tall, lanky agent just nodded mechanically and got up to follow.
