Buck walked up towards the loft of the firehouse, knowing that Bobby was cooking by the smell wafting down towards her. She smiled as she saw Chim and Hen sitting down by the counter to eat while Bobby stood by the stove.
"…barely drive, you rebar head?" Hen gestured to Chim with her utensil.
"Hey. All right, Buckaroo." Chim said as Buck grabbed a tomato from the counter between him and Hen. "If you were not a member of the LAFD, what would you be doing?"
"Uh, I don't know." Buck shrugged, her mind going blank not wanting to tell them about the whole SEAL thing, before she looked up at Bobby with worried eyes. "I'm not getting fired, am I?"
"That's inevitable." Chim muttered while Bobby shook his head.
"She'd be an actress." Hen declared.
"No, a model." Chim piped up. "No, no, no, a dancer."
"An exotic dancer." Hen smirked before her and Chim gave each other a high five as Buck walked over to sit down at the other end of the counter.
She felt a little hurt that everything they thought she would be doing if she wasn't a member of the LAFD had something to do with her body and her looks. Was that really how they saw her? Buck knew they teased her about how some of the people at the accident scenes reacted to her but she assumed it was just that, teasing.
"What's going on with you, kid?" Bobby asked, noticing the look on Buck's face.
"Just, traffic sucks in this town unless you're driving ten tons of engine with sirens." Buck quickly told a little bit of a white lie. It wasn't really what made her sad but it did annoy her. "It took me almost two hours to get from Abby's place to the call center downtown, then back here. Just told Maddie she needs to start Ubering."
"How's your sister settling in down there?" Bobby looked up from the food he was cooking.
"She's a Buckley." Buck smiled. "She is kind and strong, she was basically made to help people."
"I'm so happy for you!" Buck smiled brightly at Jackson two hours later. He had bumped into her in the locker room and with a beaming, almost, glowing smile, told her that Sarah, his wife, was pregnant. "When is she due?"
"The Doctor said that the due date is going to be around the 20th of April." Jackson almost vibrated on the bench. "She could tell us more accurately a little further along the pregnancy."
"You're going to make a great dad, Jackson, of that there is no doubt." Buck told him.
"You really…" Jackson never finished his sentence as everything started to shake around them.
"Go, go, go, go!" Buck started to push Jackson towards the door as the glass wall on her right broke, raining sharp shards down on her.
"Anybody else back there?" Bobby asked her as she made her way out of the locker room after Jackson.
"No." Buck told him quickly, doing her best to keep on her feet as the earth shook.
When the shaking finally stopped Buck took a deep breathe to steady herself. She had gotten used to earthquakes since she moved to L.A. but they weren't fun, especially the big ones like today.
"Everybody all right?!" Bobby called out to the rest of the station, getting affirmative answers from all around.
"I did not expect that." Eddie said slowly as he walked up to Buck and Bobby with Hen by his side.
"Welcome to L.A." Buck chuckled.
"Buck, you're bleeding." Eddie gasped as he focused on her.
"Huh?" Buck looked down at where Eddie was looking and saw several bleeding cuts on her right arm. "I hadn't even noticed. It must have happened when the glass wall broke during the quake."
"They seem to be superficial and most have already stopped bleeding." Eddie inspected her arm as Hen walked over to the ambulance to get things to treat her.
After cleaning the cuts and putting some antibacterial cream on them, they were off in the truck towards a hotel that had decided to do the whole 'Leaning tower' thing. Looking out of the window as they passed several places that looked half brought down, Buck felt sadness.
To distract herself from thinking about how many people were injured she turned to look at the people in the truck with her. Everybody looked a little shook but determined except Eddie who was looking down at his phone with a worried frown.
"Is everything okay?" Buck asked slowly.
"Yeah." Eddie looked up while gesturing with his phone. "There's no service. Text won't even get through."
"Who are you trying to get ahold of?" Buck wondered.
"My son." Eddie answered after a bit of hesitation. "I'm trying to reach my son."
"You have a kid?" Buck felt slightly shocked, he hadn't mentioned a kid before today.
"Christopher." Eddie held out his phone, showing a picture of an adorable blond boy. "He's seven."
"And super adorable. You are a lucky man." Buck almost cooed, then with a blush she continued. "I love kids."
"I love this one." Eddie looked down at his phone again. "I'm all he's got. His mother's not in the picture."
"He's at school?" Buck asked.
"Yeah." Eddie nodded.
"Then he is in the safest place he can be right now." Buck smiled softly. "After Northridge, FEMA spent $200 million retrofitting every school in the LAUSD."
"Thank you." Eddie said quietly as he grabbed Buck's hand and gave it a squeeze in gratitude.
The rest of the ride was quiet except for the wailing sirens and when they arrived at the hotel, Buck felt her eyes widen. She had seen a lot of weird shit since coming to L.A. but this was… unusual. The whole fucking hotel was sideways and Buck knew that there was going to be a lot of work ahead of them.
"You guys ever deal with anything like this before?" Eddie asked as the 118 gathered outside the truck and looked up at the sideways hotel.
"No." Bobby stated simply.
They listened as a mother and father argued with the rescue personal about going back into the hotel to look for their eight-year-old daughter, whose name was Kat and she was alone. Buck felt her heartstrings go out to them before turning her focus back to Bobby.
"They seriously think that's going to hold it up?" Buck asked with confusion as she watched people put up some iron poles.
"Let's go find the incident commander." Bobby began walking towards where the rescue operation center had been set up.
"Any word from Athena?" Hen asked with worry in her voice.
"Haven't been able to get a hold of her." Bobby's tone was clipped, like he tried to keep from saying more. "What about you? Karen? Denny?"
"Same." Hen shook her head sadly. "Cell phones are toast everywhere. The system must be overloaded."
As they walked over to were all the tents were set up a woman walked up to them with a serious look on her face. "Captain. Chief Williams, incident commander."
"Captain Bobby Nash." Bobby shook her hand. "How can we help?"
"Hotel manager said they were between checkout and check-in when the quake hit, so they were light on quests…" Chief Williams continued to update them on what was going on as she led them through the triage area.
"What did your engineers have to say?" Bobby asked as they come up to a map.
"Looks like we had a brittle failure in the prestressed concrete section of the building's underground parking garage, causing it to pancake at an angle." Chief Williams pointed at the map before turning and gesturing at the building. "Right now, the reinforced steel is the only thing keeping it from collapsing completely. One good aftershock…"
"And the whole thing could come down." Bobby finished for Chief Williams.
"After the schools a high-rise is supposed to be the safest place to be when an earthquake hits." Buck pointed out slowly.
"Not when you're built right on top of a fault line." Chief Williams sounded tired. "This quake was a 7.1."
"Northridge was just a 6.7." Hen pointed out in shock.
"7.1… that makes the larges in SoCal in 20 years." Chim spoke up. "And the last one was in Joshua Tree."
"How many crews do you have in there?" Bobby nodded towards the hotel.
"Not enough. We've put in a request for Heavy Rescue 3, but they're on their way to a freeway collapse." Chief Williams informed them. "We can use every hand we can get."
"Thank you." Bobby said to her as she was led away by another firefighter. "Okay, listen up." Bobby turned to the crew. "Here's how you make it to the end of the day. You don't worry about the things you can't do anything about. Focus on one task at a time. I can't order you guys to go inside that building and I'm not going to judge you if you decide not to."
Everyone stood quietly for a few seconds before Chimney spoke up. "Hen, you got a kid, so…"
"Yeah and I'd hope if someone whose job it was to save him had the chance, they'd to it." Hen declared strongly. "No matter what."
Eddie seemed to straighten his spine before he looked at Bobby with determination. "Where do you want us?"
Bobby looked at all of them proudly and was about to come up with a plan when a young police officer ran over to them, "Hey, you guys will want to see this!" before leading them to the other side of the building and pointing up.
"We could set up a bed street-side in case that window gives." Chim offered.
"Nobody works under that side of the building." Bobby shut that idea down. "Somebody's going to have to get him from the inside."
"Buck, would you say that's the 11th floor?" Eddie asked thoughtfully.
"I would." Buck agreed, then she pointed to another point on the building. "I bet we could take the ladder to that fourth floor, cut the distance in half."
Together they turned to Bobby for permission and he nodded at them, "Head on up."
As they climbed the ladder with Eddie leading the way, Buck was really happy that she wasn't afraid of heights, because that was one hell of a long way down.
"Hey Buck?" Eddie asked as he stopped by the window they were going to enter through. "How do you know so much about the retrofitting of the schools?"
"You know how some people enjoy binge-watching tv-series?" Buck asked slowly and continued at Eddie's nod. "Well, I enjoy research binges and sometimes I fall down the rabbit hole that is Wikipedia. Of course, I do enjoy binge-watching tv too."
Eddie smashed the window and did his best to get rid of all the glass so they wouldn't get cut, "I'm very happy that one your falls into the rabbit hole gave you the knowledge of the retrofitting. I mean, I'm still going to worry about Christopher, but now it doesn't feel overwhelming."
"I'm glad to be off help." Buck chuckled as she climbed into the pancaked building after Eddie.
They made progress up the inside of the high-rise and Buck had to admit that she was actually having a little bit of fun. Or, at least, as fun she could have considering the circumstances. It was almost like an escape room but extreme and Buck had always wanted to try the whole escape room thing but had never had the time or anyone to do it with.
"It's only six flights." Eddie said as he stopped in the stairwell. "Not exactly Mount Everest."
"You're not wrong." Buck laughed. "But while climbing Everest you don't have to worry about the mountain tipping over and crushing you like a bug."
"You seem to be in a good mood." Eddie chuckled as they kept moving.
"I know that it's weird, but this is like an escape room mixed with extreme sports." Buck looked up with a cheeky grin.
"You like those sorts of things?" Eddie wondered.
"Absolutely." Buck nodded. "Well, at least the extreme sports, I've never been through an escape room but I've always wanted to try."
"What extreme sports have you tried?" Eddie asked after a few minutes of silence to get Buck talking to him again, the silence unnerved him for some reason.
"I've only tried a few." Buck hummed. "Freshwater cave diving, bungee-jumping, skydiving, mountain climbing etc."
"You are a bit of an adrenalin junky, huh?" Eddie chuckled.
"I guess, but I don't see it that way." Buck shrugged but she could see where he was coming from.
"So, what are some extreme sports you haven't tried but want to?" Eddie queried curiously.
"Zip-lining is something I've wanted to do for a while." Buck told him. "I actually have a friend, well, more of an older brother, in Hawaii that promised that if I ever come to visit, he would take me zip-lining."
"He also an adrenalin junky?" Eddie chuckled.
"More so than me, actually." Buck laughed. "He's a former Navy SEAL that now runs the Governor's Special Task Force on Hawaii."
"You meet him through your SEAL training?" Eddie turned to look at her.
"Yeah, Steve was already leading the Task Force by then but as a favor to our training officer he came in to teach a few of our classes." Buck explained. "We became friends and then he even offered me a job on Five-0, his Task Force, when I quit the SEALs."
"Why didn't you take him up on his offer?" Eddie wanted to know. "Not that I'm sad that you didn't, if you did, we probably wouldn't have met, but… you know… I'm curious."
"I thought about it, but I felt like I needed to find myself before I committed to something." Buck hummed softly. "I did spend around a week with him showing me around Hawaii and even had dinner with him and his best friend."
"You still keep in contact?" Eddie asked as he stopped to take a breather.
"Absolutely, we try and call each other every other week." Buck stretched as best she could.
"Was he disappointed when you became a firefighter instead of joining his task force?" Eddie chuckled as he started moving again.
"Yeah, he complained very loudly." Buck laughed. "And then when he finally accepted that I wasn't joining his task force he complained about me choosing to be a firefighter in L.A. instead of in Honolulu."
"He really does sound like he's your older brother." Eddie smirked and opened the door as they finally arrived at the right floor. "All right, you ready?"
"Yeah." Buck smiled up at Eddie. "On three. One, two, three."
Buck and Eddie pushed themselves through the opened door, grunting as they hit the wall on the other side of the corridor.
"Hello!" Eddie called out. "Hello! LAFD!"
"In here!" A female voice called out before a male voice repeated it.
"This one." Buck gestured with a grunt.
Buck, who had been carrying the saw, made quick work on the lock, before telling Eddie to use the sledge hammer to open the door, which he did with a quick hit.
"Hello! LAFD!" Eddie called out again as the door swung open.
"We're in here!"
"In here!"
"Oh, God"!
With a steading breath Buck let herself fall into the room, first grabbing on to a handle before finally stopping by what she assumed was the counter or kitchen island.
"Thank God!" The woman who was closest called out and started moving. "Please, please, get me out of here!"
"Whoa, whoa, ma'am, I-I need you to just sit tight." Buck hurried to tell her. "I will come and get you, okay?"
"Okay." The woman agreed.
"A female firefighter?" The man pushed up against the window sounded shocked. "Uh, no offence, but I think this might be a situation where 'women and children first' does not apply."
Buck clenched her teeth as she caught the rope Eddie threw at her and she saw the annoyance in Eddie's eyes at the mans behavior as he made his way past Buck.
"Did you just say 'no offense'?" The woman sounded disgusted. "Everything about you is offensive."
Buck bit back a snort, "First date?"
"Yeah, God, he wishes." The woman sneered. "Amazingly, that sweaty, fat, pock-marked pig is married with five kids, didn't stop him from asking me to shower with him."
"Do you think Bobby would be mad if we accidentally forgot him?" Buck whispered to Eddie before raising her voice. "Man, have you not watched the news at all over the past year?"
"Personally? He would probably feel the same." Eddie whispered to Buck. "Professionally? He would have to wright us up, possibly fire us."
"That's what I thought." Buck huffed. "All right, you're good."
"Seriously," Eddie huffed as he started lowering himself down towards the man. "Catch up with the times."
"All right, fine, so I'm a dinosaur, a forgotten relic of a forgotten age." The man called back. "For God's sake, just get me the hell out of here. Hurry!"
Buck decided to concentrate on the woman while Eddie delt with the pig…eh… man. "I'm gonna throw you a rope, okay?"
"Okay." The woman sounded less scared now than when they arrived, which Buck saw as a good thing. "I'm gonna need you to try and secure yourself."
"Okay." The woman repeated.
"You ready?" Buck asked and at her agreement she threw the rope down towards her.
Suddenly a creaking and groaning sound could be heard through the whole building and Eddie called out for the man not to move, to not even breathe.
"Hurry, it's starting to crack." The man called out, doing the exact opposite of what Eddie told him to do.
"All right, I'm gonna come around to you." Eddie tried to get the man to calm down as Buck started to help the woman climb up towards her. "You need to stay totally still, sir, don't even talk."
"Oh, God." The man said, still going against Eddie's advice. "Please don't let this be the end."
"All right, I'm gonna tie this webbing around you and we're gonna get you away from the glass." Eddie told him slowly.
"Okay, okay." The man whimpered.
Then the building started to shake and the woman screamed in fright as Buck called out, "Aftershock! Aftershock!"
Buck did her best to hold both Eddie and the woman on the rope when she heard the glass crack and Eddie call out, "No, don't!"
Suddenly the knot the woman had tied around her midsection untied and she started falling as Buck screamed Eddie's name, the rest of it was a bit of a blur to Buck, she knows she somehow pulled both the woman and Eddie up to safety. And now they were climbing back the way Buck and Eddie had come, this time with another person with them.
"So, what's your names?" The woman asked. "I can't keep calling you male and female firefighter in my head."
"I'm Buck, that's Eddie." Buck laughed, knowing that she didn't mean to be rude about it.
"I'm Ali." Ali huffed. "I would say 'Nice to meet you' but honestly, I wish that I hadn't."
"Understandable." Eddie chuckled.
"That's it." Buck encouraged as she helped Ali along. "You're doing great."
"Why thank you, I do this all the time." Ali responded sarcastically before wincing. "Sorry, sarcasm is my fallback for pretty much everything."
"Same here!" Buck called out jovially. "Sarcasm is underrated."
"You use sarcasm almost every day, Buck, it's a part of your personality by this point, not just a fallback." Eddie told her with a smirk.
"Well… you're not wrong." Buck smirked back.
"You think he'll still be on the sidewalk when we get down there?" Ali asked quietly.
"No, and we're not going out that side anyway." Buck reassured her.
"Let's start moving a bit faster, you two." Eddie said. "We don't want to be here for the next aftershock."
"Wait, what do you mean, 'the next aftershock'?" Ali sounded scared and freaked out.
"Come on." Eddie coxed and held out his hand towards Ali.
They were using the handrails as some weird walkway and Buck did her best not to chuckle. She knew that Eddie would laugh with her if she explained her thoughts but Ali would probably be mad that she took this 'lightly', which she wasn't, just FYI.
"Oh shit!" Ali cursed as she made her way towards Eddie.
"You're going to be fine." Eddie reassured. "Buck is right behind you."
"Okay." Ali grabbed a hold of Buck's hand as Eddie scouted the way ahead.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me." Eddie cursed softly. "We're not getting out this way."
"Now what?" Ali asked.
Eddie looked at Buck who smirked and raised an eyebrow at him. He smiled back before answering Ali's question. "We go back up."
"Back up?!" Ali faltered with a disbelieving look no her face.
"Ladder 118, respond." Bobby's voice crackled over the radio. "This is Captain Nash, I need a head count."
"Ladder 118 responding." Eddie said into the radio. "Diaz, Buckley, we're good, Cap."
"Castillo and Jackson responding." Castillo called out through the radio.
Next came Jackson's voice, sounding a little breathless but fine, "Paulson, Marcus and Riley responding."
"Chimney responding." Buck snorted at Chimney responding, he was the only one who responded with their nickname instead of their last name.
"Hen, do you copy? Hen?" Bobby asked after no more responses came. "This is Captain Nash for Henrietta Wilson. Do you copy?"
"Is that a friend of yours?" Ali asked and all Buck wanted to do was snap at her that obviously Hen was a friend, they worked on the same Ladder for fuck sakes!
"Let's keep moving." Eddie said with worry hidden in his voice.
With that the three were on their way again, this time with Buck in the lead, going upwards in hopes of finding a way out that was at least somewhat safe.
The climb up through the building hadn't been easy, especially when both Eddie and Buck had to keep their eye on Ali at the same time. Finally, they made it to the floor which Eddie had indicated would be their safest bet to get out.
Buck pulled her way into the sideways corridor before helping Ali. "There you go. Easy."
Buck felt Eddie's hand on her back as he made his way passed where Buck had helped Ali lean against the wall to rest.
"Command said there's this egress on the north stairwell on this floor." Eddie said more to Buck than Ali.
"What if it's blocked too?" Ali wanted to know. "Can't you guys get a ladder into one of the windows?"
"It's too risky." Eddie made his way past where Buck was gathering her climbing rope. "Building shifted to much."
"Nah, we've got this, Ali." Buck smiled brightly. "We'll get you out of here."
"So, you have anyone waiting for you out there?" Ali asked as they moved further down the corridor. "Worrying about you or you're worried about?"
"Most of the ones I care about are in this building right now." Buck shrugged slightly. "My sister is a 9-1-1 operator, my best friend Abby is traveling Europe. The only one I don't know where they are is Carla, but she's one hell of a smart woman so I'm not really worried. What about you?"
"All I do is work." Ali said and uncorked a small liquor bottle from a cart, at the looks she got from both of Eddie and Buck who stopped working, she shrugged. "What? It's after 5:00 and it's not like it slowed us down."
"No but it might make your reactions slower." Eddie pointed out a little annoyed. "You probably have a high blood pressure right now, plus the adrenalin cursing through your body. That along with the alcohol, while not much, will have an effect."
"Oh come on!" Ali huffed with irritation.
"Ssh!" Buck called out.
"Don't shush me!" Ali snapped.
"Shut up!" Buck glared at her before turning to Eddie. "Do you hear that?"
"Is anyone there?" A weak male voice could be heard. "Help! Is anyone there?"
Buck and Eddie did quick work on the door and saw a man in a hotel uniform on his back by a wall. They made their way to the man, doing their best not to fall or slip in the tilted room.
"I knew help would come." The man sounded very relived.
"That's right." Eddie said as Buck stopped by the man's head. "We're here, we got you, buddy."
"All right, don't move. Just relax, okay?" Buck smiled down at him, glimpsing a name tag on his chest with the name Batari. "I need you to stay as still as possible."
"An angle as come to save me." Batari murmured as he looked at Buck with pain hazed eyes.
"Okay, we got to roll him over." Eddie declared. "On three. One, two, three."
Batari screamed in pain as they checked for spinal injuries. "I… uh, I soiled myself."
"Forget about that, okay?" Eddie told him kindly.
"Not my proudest moment." Batari said to Buck with a groan.
Buck looked up at Eddie who shook his head and with a silent communication Buck let herself slip until she was by the bed further down the room.
"Can you wiggle your toes for me?" Eddie requested.
Buck tried to find something to use as a backboard when Eddie come sliding down to her with a determined look in his eyes.
"Numbness in his legs, loss of bladder control." Buck looked at Eddie. "Spinal injury."
"We got to move him out now." Eddie told her.
"On what?" Buck asked a little desperately. "We don't have a backboard and ever millimeter counts."
Eddie started to look around him to try to find something they could use as an impromptu backboard. "You see anything?"
"Guys. What about this?" Ali's voice made both buck and Eddie turn towards her. "Ironing board."
"Could work." Eddie nodded but he looked sadly at Buck. "But how are we going to get him down the stairwell?"
"Maybe we don't use the stairwell." Buck said thoughtfully as she turned to Eddie with a smirk. "How do you feel about elevator shafts?"
"Buck." Eddie chuckled. "You're a mad genius."
"Aww, thank you." Buck fluttered her eyelashes at him. "That is so sweet."
"Come on." Eddie pushed her shoulder gently before moving towards Ali and the ironing board.
Fifteen minutes later Eddie looked down the elevator shaft with Ali. "At least we're not blocked by any debris."
"Or an elevator." Ali pointed out as Eddie turned halfway on his back to look up, Ali following his flashlight. "Um, how much do you think that weighs?"
"2,500. 3,000 pounds?" Eddie estimated as Buck looked into the shaft.
"I like our chances." Buck smiled cheekily.
The next few minutes were spent with Buck and Eddie rigging them all up to go down the elevator shaft. It was decided that Eddie would go with Batari first and Buck would follow with Ali.
"How you doing, Batari?" Buck heard Eddie ask as she looked down at them from where she working as a counter wight as she lowered Batari down, her legs dangling over the shaft drop.
"How you feeling?" Buck turned to Ali.
"Not dead yet." Ali answered.
"Yeah." Buck hummed, before calling down to Eddie and Batari. "You guys are doing great, you're almost there."
Eddie looked up and caught Buck's eye, "Eight more feet, Buck."
"All right." Buck lowered Batari the required feet.
"Get down here, Buck." Eddie called up towards her when he and Batari were on the other floor.
"All right, on my way." Buck turned to Ali. "You ready?"
Buck heard Eddie open the lift doors bellow them as Ali wrapped herself around Buck so Buck could lower them down. "You're okay. You're okay." Buck muttered to Ali to help keep her calm.
Another aftershock hit them suddenly and Buck could feel Ali panicking and as she looked up, she could see the elevator above them starting to move. "Eddie! Eddie, the elevator is coming down!"
"Let's go, Buck!" Eddie called out in slight panic. "Move your ass!"
"All right, here we come!" Buck called as she swung first Ali and then herself into the corridor where Eddie was waiting.
"I got you." Eddie whispered as he caught Buck in his arms as the elevator screeched passed them, her momentum making them fall to the floor.
After the shaking had stopped Buck sat up, not really registering that she was basically straddling Eddie, and smiled. "I told you I liked our chances."
The rest of the climb out of the hotel was relatively easy. Buck and Eddie shared a look as they heard first Bobby's request for equipment and then the order to evacuate, both of them knowing what Bobby and Chim would do and they agreed silently to help them.
After they leave Ali and Batari with the medics and report to Chief Williams, they ganged up against her to convince her to help them help Bobby and Chim.
"…and push it out the rest of the way." Buck heard the end of Bobby's sentence.
"Looks like we got here just in time, then." Buck called out to Bobby and Chim.
"Yeah, seems like they were planning on having all the fun without us." Eddie walked up beside Buck with a smirk.
"Heard you over the radio." Buck answered the un asked question. "You needed some equipment and available hands down here."
"You know you guys are disobeying a direct order." Bobby stated as he looked at them.
"And they'll be duly reprimanded, as soon as we're done here." Chief Williams spoke up as she approached with the rest of the ones who volunteered to help.
"Looks like you're going to have to reprimand yourself, as well." Bobby smiled at her.
"I'm seriously considering it." Chief Williams cast a glance towards Buck and Eddie. "Your people are very persuasive and persistent."
"Don't I know it." Bobby muttered as he raised an eyebrow at Buck.
"One shot, Captain." Chief Williams stated seriously. "Either way, no one's coming to rescue us."
Together they all worked as a team to safely and efficiently remove the cars that needed to be moved and the debris that was in the way, all in hopes of finding one Henrietta Wilson alive and well.
Eddie and Buck were the ones sent forward first, having the most training and as they finally moved the last concrete slab, they heard a dog barking and what Buck thought looked like a shih-tzu come running forward.
"Hen?" Buck called out hopefully. "Hen, are you there?"
Buck felt the relief curse through her as Hen walked forward with a young girl on her back, with a cheerful, "Hey, fellas."
"Hen!" Buck cheered and pulled her friend into a big hug.
"Buckaroo." Hen hugged back just as tightly.
A while later Buck stood by the truck, packing in their equipment as her phone pinged. Looking at it she saw several texts from Maddie before she turned to look at Eddie. "Hey Eddie, we got service."
Eddie quickly pulled out his own phone to make some calls and Buck smiled before she answered one of Maddie's texts,
All Good. You?
Made it through.
Proud of you, sis.
When they finally made it back to the station and had showered, the water turning grey from all the concrete dust on his body, Eddie gratefully accepted Buck's offer of a ride to pick up Christopher.
Having Christopher in his arms after the day he's had was the best feeling in the world. Pulling back from his son Eddie placed his hands on either side of Christopher's face. "Are you okay, mijo?"
"Yes, it was scary when the quake hit but everything turned out fine." Christopher smiled brightly.
"I'm glad." Eddie smiled before thanking the teacher who had stayed with Christopher. "What do you say, mijo, ready to go home?"
"Yeah." Christopher nodded.
"Me too, buddy, me too." Eddie chuckled.
"Who's that?" Christopher said as they approached Buck's jeep. "She's pretty."
Eddie looked up at Buck, her hair was up in a high ponytail instead of the tightly braided bun she usually had at work, some strands of hair falling into her blue eyes and framing her face.
"Christopher this is Buck." Eddie introduced as he opened the back door and helped Christopher in. "Buck, this is Christopher."
"It's nice to meet you Christopher." Buck smiled. "As your dad said, I'm Buck. I work with your dad."
"You're a firefighter too?" Christopher beamed. "That is so cool!"
The trip to Eddie's house was spent with Christopher and Buck talking about anything and everything, Buck never treating Christopher any different than she would any other child and Eddie couldn't thank her enough. They were basically lost in their own little world, ignoring Eddie and Eddie had nothing against it. He had never seen two people click together so perfectly as Christopher and Buck.
"I like her." Christopher stated as he waved as Buck drove away.
"I do to, kid." Eddie smiled and together they walked into the house, both of them tired after a taxing day.