This was written by Ghostie.
This was beta'd and edited by the great chucks_prophet from AO3.
He wasn't sure what had drawn him to the beach; back to the ocean; back to the recently destroyed Santa Monica Pier. Just three weeks ago, a tsunami had wiped it all away; pushed everything into the city and destroyed everything in its path, including himself and hundreds of thousands of others- one of them being Christopher. Buck knew he was never going to be over that day; the day he had lost the most important thing to him next to his best friend. Losing Christopher to the waves after they had both been safe hurt worse than getting his leg crushed by a ladder truck. He would take that pain and suffering a hundred times more if he could just rewrite history and protect Christopher from going over the edge back into the water and being lost. Hours spent searching the city for the eight year old, only turning up his glasses. Running into Eddie before he was ready; having to tell his best friend that he had lost his whole world. He would have preferred facing a firing squad over that.
Sure Christopher was alive and well - as well as he could be after surviving a tsunami - but someone else had found and reunited him with his dad at the VA hospital. He doesn't remember much after seeing Christopher in Eddie's arms and the pair showing up at his apartment the next morning. He knows his team had been there at his side at one point; knows Maddie had shown up, taken him home after he was deemed well enough to not need yet another hospital stay. He doesn't know how he had convinced his sister to not stick around once back at his apartment; doesn't remember showering or changing out of his wet and sand-gritty clothes. He was pretty sure he didn't sleep that night; sat at his dining table staring into nothing. Just... being.
The weeks that followed were a blur of anger, sadness, and betrayal.
Learning that it was Bobby keeping him from returning to work; basically calling him a liability because of the blood thinners. It hadn't been his fault - not entirely anyway. Freddie Costas had been the one to plant the bomb on their ladder truck in a plan of revenge against those who had sent his father to prison. He was the one to blame for that horrible night that had started this all for Buck. The months of recovery, multiple surgeries, hours and hours of PT - only to be set back again with a pulmonary embolism: blood clots in his leg that even his own sister didn't believe when he said he didn't think was more than leg cramps from the PT. But he proved during the tsunami that he could do his job while on the medication. He had dozens of cuts on his face and arms and torso from debris. A large enough cut on his left wrist that had required a few stitches. He had been on medical leave - an off-duty firefighter - bleeding in the streets as he searched for his best friend's son, and he didn't even need a blood transfusion or a stay in the hospital.
If that wasn't going to prove he was ready to return to work, he didn't know what would. But he had also decided after that day that maybe a little light duty to ease himself back in would be a good idea; after all, he had to heal from that day. Taking the role of a fire marshal hadn't been his first choice, but he knew it was a start in getting back to where he wanted to be; where he needed to be. Nobody seemed to understand his need to be a firefighter. It was the only thing he felt like he was good at. He had done so many different things in his young life; worked so many different jobs. None of them made him feel like he was making a difference, not like being a firefighter did. Not to mention they were his chosen family. He didn't want to be left behind by yet another family, which is how he currently felt.
Bobby didn't want him to come back until Bobby deemed him ready. But what if his captain - the man he looked up to as a friend, a mentor, a father figure - never thought he would be ready again? That had been his driving factor in filing the lawsuit; he just wanted a choice in his own future, and they had been taking it away from him. They hadn't even had the decency to sit down and just talk to him. If they had just talked to him! He knew he was reckless and impulsive - the lawsuit was a good example of his impulsiveness - but even he knew his limits being on the blood thinners. He knew he had to be more careful; had to look after himself better.
The lawsuit hadn't fixed anything; he knew it wasn't going to. It had been a risk; an impulsive risk; but he needed someone on his side to prove he was ready to work again. Maybe he should have gone to a different lawyer instead of Mackey. Maybe he should have gone straight to the higher ups himself. Bobby had gone over his head about his ability to work; he should have gone over Bobby's head to fix it. There were a lot of different things he could have or maybe even should have done that could have changed the outcome. The lawsuit had caused a rift between himself and his team, his family. That was his own doing, and he knew it.
Losing his family, the family he chose for himself years ago had hurt, but not as much as losing Eddie and Christopher. Hen and Chimney were like older siblings to him, but Eddie was his best friend. He never had a best friend before; not even as a child. When he had first met the other man, he never thought they would be friends enough to work together, and here they were a year later, the best of friends - only for him to mess that all up. He lost Christopher in the tsunami; he filed a lawsuit against the department, against his friends. It seemed like Eddie was never going to forgive him for that. He seemed to be the one taking it the hardest, if his angry tirade in the grocery store just yesterday said anything.
He never realized; never stopped to think Christopher needed him. The kid had his father, had Carla, his grandmother, and his great aunt. He had people to lean on in the way Buck thought he had that too with his team. Maybe he never had them to begin with, but he felt like he did, and that's what mattered right? He was always there for them to lean on, but when it was his turn, they were all too busy. He understood they all had their own problems; their own families outside of the team, but they never failed to see that Buck didn't have that. He had Maddie, but Maddie had Chimney and didn't need him like he needed her. He had Eddie and Christopher, but they had each other and didn't need him the same way - especially not after the incident in the grocery store.
Now here he was, in the last place he ever thought to find himself so soon after suffering through a tsunami. Crews and volunteers had cleaned the beaches of all debris days after the water had finally reseeded. The sand and sea would be open to beachgoers once again in only a few days; the pier sectioned off while the city worked on rebuilding permits. After that day, after surviving that day, he had no intentions of coming so close to the water again unless it was during work, where he knew he would have people around him to keep him grounded. Now he was settled on his knees, leaning back on his hunches in the sand right at the edge of the water; waves rolling in gently and soaking his jeans at his knees before returning to the ocean.
Staring out onto the darkened horizon, the only light around him was coming from the moon and the streetlamps behind him in the parking lot. He could feel the tears drying on his face. He hadn't cried for a few hours now; not since he had first found himself in this spot. He couldn't even remember how he had been out here. He doesn't remember driving, but he also doesn't remember walking. His phone was in his pocket, so maybe he had ordered an Uber. And why here, of all places? The beach was part of his nightmares these days, mixed with choking on blood and being crushed by ladder trucks. Most nights he wakes up choking on bloody water while trapped under the fire truck in the watery streets of Los Angeles screaming Christopher's name.
Buck looked down at his hands resting on his legs, at the metallic metal shining in the moonlight. The heavy weight of the gun in his hand both an odd sensation and a familiar memory. From his time in the SEALs training when he would go with friends to gun ranges for fun, to getting his permit to conceal carry during his travels once he had dropped out of training. He's been the owner of a single handgun since he was twenty-one. Once he had settled in Los Angeles all those years ago, enrolling in the fire academy and subsequently being placed with the 118, Buck locked the gun away in some sort of safe, be it in the frat-like house when he had first moved to town, to Abby's apartment, then moving with him when he stayed a week with Chimney, a few weeks with Maddie, and finally into his own apartment at the beginning of the year.
Maddie was the only other person outside of Abby and his SEALs buddy who had gone with him when they both did the weapon-handling classes. When she had come back into his life last year, learning about the true nature of her marriage to Doug, Buck wanted to make sure his sister was safe. His SEALs buddy wasn't around long enough to know Buck had tucked the gun away for safekeeping. Abby never wanted to know the combination - she had barely wanted to know there was a gun in her apartment in the first place. Maddie was the only other person he had told the combination too; so that in the event she would need it, she would be able to get it. But that had been when she was staying with him in Abby's old apartment; it was no use to her when she actually needed it when Doug had finally showed up.
But here he was now with it in hand, sitting on the beach, feeling like he had nothing more he could do. His family was done with him, and he was done with him. The last time he had done something like this, he had taken a razorblade to his forearm - scars now covered by thin black bands of ink. He was just seventeen then - twenty when he had them covered up. Ten years later, he was psyching himself up to do it again; to put an end to his suffering. He would no longer need to deal with the anger and the sadness and the stress of his life. His friends and family - if they were even still that - would no longer have to deal with his recklessness and impulsiveness and immaturity.
"Buck?"
He startled at the sudden voice; blinking rapidly and turning his head just enough to the side in order to see behind him. As soon as he saw them, he whimpered and turned to look back at the ocean. It was so calm; so different then just weeks ago when it was ravishing through the city. Looking behind him and seeing his found family: Bobby and Athena, Hen, Chimney and Maddie, and Eddie. He didn't want them here; didn't need them here. He wanted to be alone; to do this alone. He didn't want them to see him end it all; he didn't want one of them to have been the one to find him in the end. There wasn't anything he could really do about it now though.
"Stop," he croaked; hoping it was loud enough to carry in the silence of the night.
"Evan, what are you doing?" That was Maddie.
Buck shut his eyes and bowed his head low, his grip on the gun getting tighter. He shifted, his legs numb from the hours spent sitting in the sand. He tried to keep the gun out of sight of those behind him, but going by the short gasp and hitched breaths, he knew he had been unsuccessful.
"Buck, why do you have your gun?" Maddie pressed.
Buck shook his head. "Why are you here?"
"When I couldn't get a hold of you, I stopped by your apartment," Buck could hear the wetness in his sister's voice as she choked back her own sobs. "You weren't there. You left the safe open."
"How'd you find me?"
"I used the tracking app," Eddie spoke up, his voice sounded like it physically hurt him to speak.
He swallowed hard and nodded. He and Eddie had decided to download the Life360 app and share their locations with each other the day after the tsunami. Buck figured it was so that if something ever happened again then they would be able to find each other if they were separated. He knew it was Eddie's way of knowing that if he left Christopher in Buck's care again, he would be able to find his son - if Buck is able to keep him safe the next time - as long as he knew where Buck was. He hadn't even thought about the fact that Eddie would actually use it when it only came to finding Buck himself. Though having a freaked out Maddie call you looking for her brother who apparently had taken his gun and disappeared would be a good factor in clicking on the app to track his phone.
"Buck." It was Athena's turn. "Could you toss the gun aside so we can talk?"
"What's the point?" he asked, shaking his head again. "You should all just go."
"We're not going anywhere, Buck." Bobby spoke softly. "You need someone to talk to."
He could tell they were getting closer; trying not to spook him by moving too fast. He didn't want that; didn't need that. He wanted them to leave; didn't want them to see him break like this. But it was too late. They were here and clearly determined to stick around; just as he was determined not too. His head was a jumbled mess at this point trying to sort through his own thoughts. It felt like he was wading through molasses. It felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders and he was no longer strong enough to stand tall. He was at the end of his rope.
"I'm done trying to talk and nobody listening." Tears were silently rolling down Buck's cheeks again.
"Evan, please."
"I'm sorry."
He cocked the gun and in one swift motion he pulled his arm up; bringing the gun to the side of his head. His eyes were closed as he pulled the trigger; six voices screaming out simultaneously "No!"
And nothing happened. The gun had jammed. He swore under his breath, opening his eyes as he brought the gun back down to his lap in order to unjam it. Before he could even react, there were hands on him, on the gun, pulling it away. He screamed and tried to pull it back to him but it was no use. More hands were wrapping around his torso, a chest pressed hard into his back as he tried to shoot forward; grabbing for the gun that was disappearing out of his sight.
A large set of hands grabbed both of his and clasped them together hard; setting a deep pressure as he fought against them. His whole body was shaking as he tried to pull away from the bodies surrounding him. Tears blurred his vision but he knew that it was Eddie pressed against his back, wrapped around his torso, face pressed into the back of Buck's neck. He knew it was Hen and Chimney to his left as they helped Maddie on his right hold him down. Knew that it was Bobby on his knees in front of him; his hands clasping Buck's together in an effort to stop his fighting. Athena stood somewhere off to the side.
He heard the clip being released from the gun and the bullet that was supposed to stop everything for him being popped from the chamber. Tears still flowed, hiccupping whimpers still escaping his throat. He screwed his eyes shut and fell forward, Bobby catching him easily, keeping their clasped hands tucked between their chests as Buck felt Bobby's chin atop his head. Eddie had moved forward with him; his forehead never leaving the press into Buck's neck; his own knees pushed into the heels of Buck's shoes. Maddie's own forehead leaning into the side of Buck's head as she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, her nails digging uncomfortably into his hip.
He could hear hushed whispers all around him as they all spoke around him, but he couldn't make out the words. His head was clouded and there was ringing in his ears. His body had started to shake, but he was unclear if it was from the cold sea air or his exhaustion. He felt a hand gently stroke into his hair, scratching at his scalp and he couldn't help mewling and arching into the touch. The hand never released and slowly and carefully continued to scratch at his scalp. He felt the sixth and final body press into his space, between Bobby and his sister: Athena had joined the circle that was now keeping him together.
He doesn't know how long they stay there; it could have been minutes; it could have been hours. Hell, it could have been days; it was all just a blur to him now. It's not until he seems to almost be falling asleep, using Bobby's chest as a pillow, that someone shifts. Hen and Chimney are the first to release him, followed by Athena and Maddie. He felt them all slowly pull away like they feared he would lunge again. Lunge for what, Buck didn't know. Athena had taken the gun, had taken the bullets out, and more than likely had tucked it all away in her pockets. There was no chance Buck was getting them back again. Clearly he had a death wish, but that had been his choice. When Athena wrangled the gun from him was when he knew he lost the fight for it.
Bobby and Eddie were the only two not to fully release their hold on him. Eddie had pulled away enough to stand but kept his hands just under Buck's arms. He didn't understand why until Bobby had finally released his hands and grasped at Buck's elbows instead. He heard Bobby count to three and suddenly he was standing, or at least they tried to get him standing. His legs were numb and cramping from being in the same position for so long, and they didn't want to support him. It didn't matter because as soon as he was at least standing straight, Eddie and Bobby were on either side of him, each supporting him with an arm slung over his shoulders. Together they turned him towards the parking lot. It was messy and slow, Buck tried to help release some weight, as best he could but it wasn't much. He left his chin tucked into his chest and his eyes closed; he couldn't bear to see the looks on their faces.
It wasn't until he heard a car unlocking and a door opening that he realized they were in the parking lot. He leaned more into Bobby as he felt Eddie remove himself from his side; then allowed Bobby to maneuver him into the backseat, where Eddie was waiting to wrap his arms around Buck's shoulders and pull him into his side. Buck rested his head on Eddie's shoulder and sighed deeply. He heard the door close and suddenly it was silent; he couldn't even hear the waves crashing into the sand anymore. All he could hear were his own hiccupping breaths, and Eddie's slow and even breathing of Eddie's heart as Buck curled his hand on the man's chest and fisted into the material of Eddie's shirt.
Much like the night of the tsunami, Buck doesn't remember them driving away from the ocean. He doesn't remember them pulling into the driveway of the Grant-Nash household. He doesn't remember the team shuffling him into the house, into the guest room, nor does he remember Bobby and Eddie bullying him out of his shoes, jeans, and t-shirt. He does vaguely remember Eddie telling Bobby to keep his socks on because Buck felt uncomfortable sleeping without socks, and being tucked into the bed. He doesn't remember Maddie curling up beside him or Eddie bringing a chair from the dining table in to sit diligently over them through the night.
He does remember waking up to his own choked sobs and Maddie and Eddie calming him back into sleep. He does remember waking more tired than ever when the sun shines through the blinds of the window. He does remember watching Eddie sit in the chair in the corner of the room, his own red rimmed eyes never wavering as they stared back. He does remember Maddie sitting on the toilet in the bathroom while he showered, watching Bobby make breakfast and refusing help - not even so much as letting Buck step into the kitchen because of the knives.
Most importantly he remembers his team - no, his family - talking through what had taken him to the ocean that night with a gun in hand, ready to end it all. He remembers agreeing to talk to a therapist, one of his own choosing after confessing what had happened with Dr. Wells almost two years ago. He knew it was going to be slow and he was going to have more bad days than good for a while, but he also knew that if he still had his family, he could make it. He had therapy sessions alone and sessions with a group - mostly strangers, but sometimes his team would join in order to know where his head was and how to help him better.
Through therapy, Buck had come to the conclusion that though taking his own life had seemed his only way from hurting anymore, had been what he thought was his only way to fix all his mistakes, that in doing so would have caused so much more pain for those he loved. That pain would have stayed with them long after he was gone and buried and there would be no way of fixing that type of pain because he wouldn't be there, and that would be on him. He couldn't fathom the idea that his last ditch effort to release his own pain, he would be causing so much more to everyone around him.
Buck did not return to active duty as a firefighter with the 118 until the new year...
But he did return.