When she heard him say that he was planning on going back to work instead of just being grateful that he was alive and still able to walk at all, something inside of her snapped. How dare he want to put her through this again? Did he think that it was acceptable that she had to watch with everyone else on the news as he screamed in agony, that she was stuck here at the apartment and not able to do anything to help?

No. This was not acceptable. But he would learn.

She had told him that she needed some time to think about whether she could handle staying in this relationship. But she knew she wasn't going to back out of it. She would help him realize that he didn't need to be a firefighter again.

She reached out to her friend Sheila for advice on how she could get Buck to learn his limits. Sheila suggested adding a little bit of eyedrops to his meals to keep him down. She said that she did that for Charlie all the time, and it was a perfectly safe way to get Buck to stay home instead of trying to play superhero again. It was going to be even easier to keep him from being suspicious too because he was going to need her help with making meals.

Yes. That's what she would do.

"Is it just me, or has Buck been really sick all the time lately?" Chimney asked as they loaded up in the fire engine.

Hen adjusted her seatbelt as she replied, "No, it's not just you. Anytime I go to see him or Facetime him he always seems exhausted and sick. You can see it in his eyes."

"Yeah, I've noticed it too," Eddie agreed. "It's nice that his girlfriend decided to stick around after all and help him out. I can't imagine if he didn't have someone there to try and support him through this."

"So, speaking of Buck, does anyone know what he's doing today?" Hen asked.

Eddie checked his phone. "Him and Christopher are planning on going to catch a movie, but Buck just got him loaded up on sugar. I give it a couple hours before he learns to regret all of his decisions."

"Don't you mean, before you regret all of his decisions?" Chimney asked him.

"Nope," Eddie said with a smug grin. "Buck gets to deal with the sugar rush and he's going to be the one putting him to bed."

Hen laughed as she shook her head in pity for the man.

"Hey Eddie, have you heard anything new from Buck about how his physical therapy is going? I know he's still wanting to try and get cleared to be back in the field," Bobby asked from up front.

Eddie slowly shook his head. "He's trying, hell, he's putting his whole heart into it, Bobby. But with how sick he's been lately he just has no energy right now. It'd take a miracle to pass the tests and he knows it. He's hoping it's just a side effect from all the medication they have him on at the moment."

Then, their phones began blaring and Bobby got a call on the radio. Tsunami.

"Alright guys, we're going to be needed down at the pier. The 126 should already be there, but we lost contact with them. For now, we're going to focus on grabbing anyone we can before the next wave."

Buck was going through the day from Hell. It had started out alright, Eddie had dropped Christopher off because he was tired of Buck being mopey about always feeling like crap. He had ended up needing to sneak off to puke before him and Chris left to get ice cream, but it wasn't too bad after that.

Then, they went to the pier. It was mostly fun, though it did feel a little like the universe was mocking him when the 126 ended up responding to a call because of someone with heat stroke from his costume. Naturally, that wasn't the end. Because a tsunami hit. And he got separated from Christopher.

He was kicking himself for taking Chris out here. If he wasn't so weak from being sick all of the time, he could have done something. He would have been able to swim fast enough to catch up to Chris or he might have never lost a hold of him when the wave receded.

His feet were aching, his leg was screaming at him, and he wanted to cry at the thought of having to admit to Eddie that he couldn't find his son. It didn't help that the volunteer at the field hospital suggested that he look in the morgue for him because he wasn't one of the living they had. Did she know he was among the dead? Was this her way of trying to avoid being the one to tell him?

He ended up having a brief conversation with Maddie, hoping that she would have a solution for him. Somewhere new to look, maybe. But all that did was just make him feel guiltier because now she was panicking about him and was planning on rushing to get into this shitshow. But then Eddie turned up.

And he tried. He tried to explain. He tried to tell him that he hadn't quit looking, that he didn't mean to lose him. That he understood if Eddie never wanted to see him again, but to please let him keep looking for Christopher. But then Eddie looked right past him, no longer taking in what he was saying.

"Christopher!"

He turned around and saw him. The curly hair, the tired smile, the yellow shirt. It was him this time. It was actually Christopher.

His legs gave out from under him and he barely noticed when he was caught by his team. He hadn't even noticed the rest of them arrive. They helped get him to a bed in the camp, and it turned out that his arm had been steadily pouring blood. He vaguely remembered someone asking about it, but all he had been able to focus on was finding Chris.

"Mr. Buckley?" a brunette woman asked him.

"Yeah?"

"Hi, I'm Dr. Wright. I see here that you are taking blood thinners after a crush injury, correct?" she asked.

He sighed. "Yep, that's correct."

She nodded. "Okay, now I heard that you got sliced up pretty good in the wave, and that they gave you some stitches, do you mind if I take a look at your dressing real quick?"

He stretched out his arm towards her, but ended up dropping it back down to the bed quicker than he usually would have. His arm was shaking like crazy and he didn't want to bring attention to it.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Hmm, can you hold your arms up for me? Just straight out in front of you."

It was impossible to ignore the shaking then.

"What other medications did you say you were on?" she asked him.

He ran through the list with her, wondering where she was going with this.

"You shouldn't be dealing with this shaking. That's not a typical side effect of any of those medications. Here, I'm going to put you on the list of people that needs to get transferred as beds open up-"

He opened his mouth to argue that he didn't need to take up a bed from someone that actually needed it, but she just shooshed him.

"As I was saying, you're getting transfered. I want your blood work done, and I want them to go through it with a fine tip comb this time. There's something that must have not shown up on your previous tests. But don't worry, Mr. Buckley. We'll figure it out."

Ironically, he was starting to think that hospital food was making him feel better. It didn't really make sense- everyone knew that hospital food was the worst. But he was feeling healthier than he had in months.

He told that to Maddie, and she immediately left to get his doctor.

"This is ridiculous. I just said that I'm starting to think that the food here is actually helping me get better. Why is that so crazy that you had to get a doctor - no offense, Dr. Martin."

The man snorted.

"No, I've got to say, I agree with your sister on this one. Of course they're trying to make sure that it's a healthy diet and balanced meals, but oof. I can't handle hospital food myself. But, this is making me curious. Maddie, would you be willing to run over to Buck's house and get me a few samples? A bit of the water from the pipes, some food in the fridge - preferably leftovers if there are any, and go ahead and grab a box of something like cereal too."

After grabbing his keys to the apartment, Maddie took off and left him alone with Dr. Martin.

"Now why do I get the feeling you wanted an excuse to get her to leave?" he asked.

Dr. Martin pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards.

"That's because I did. She's hovering and needs something else to focus her mind on. And if I'm right, there's going to be something interesting that gets found at your apartment. But tell me, Buck. Are you currently using any substances?"

He jerked back in surprise. "What? No! That would ruin my chances of ever being a firefighter again. Besides, wouldn't you have seen that in my lab work?"

The doctor just nodded, "Well that's unfortunate. It would've been an easy answer at the very least. But no, the test don't always catch everything. Sometimes people can be creative on what they decide to use."

Dr. Martin stood up then, and tapped on his chair. "Well, I'll leave you be for a bit. Try and get some sleep. I'm sure you'll be wanting it by the time your sister gets back."

With that ominous warning ringing in his ears, he decided to take his advice and get a nap in.

His nap didn't seem to last very long, because the next thing he knew, he opened his eyes to see Athena Grant sitting in a chair next to his head, and his sister's horrified face standing in the doorway.

"Um, is something going on? I promise, Athena, I haven't broken any laws. I've literally been stuck in this hospital bed," he joked.

Athena's lips twitched like she was fighting off a smile.

"Honey, I have some tough news for you. We figured out why you've been so sick recently."

He stared at her, trying to figure out why Athena would be the one delivering the news instead of his doctor.

"Buck, it was Ali. She's been poisoning you with eye drops. We believe she must have been adding it to your meals."

What?

"This-this doesn't make any sense. Why would she do that? Why-why would you think she would do that?" he asked.

"We have her in custody right now. So far it sounds like her excuse is that she wanted to keep you sick enough that you wouldn't be able to go back to work," Athena explained.

Now that they knew what the problem was, he was able to get the proper treatment relatively quickly. It wasn't an instant fix, considering she had been poisoning his meals for months. At this point, he was considering therapy just so he didn't end up too paranoid to enjoy Thanksgiving with Bobby and Athena after this.

Ali ended up agreeing to a plea bargain - after they denied her attempt at the temporary insanity plea. After all, temporary shouldn't stretch out for months, and if she was insane she wouldn't have gone to the lengths she did to hide what she was doing.

The one good thing that came out of it? When a couple years later Eddie met a young boy named Charlie and his mom Sheila, he didn't immediately blow it off when he saw the bottles of eye drops in the kitchen. Although it didn't click for him immediately, it did help him put the pieces together since he had already seen the symptoms. In the end, Charlie was able to get away from his mom and get the help he needed to recover.