Word Count: 3,756
Warnings/Spoilers: This chapter includes discussions of depression, suicidal ideation, and excessive alcohol consumption.

Once Buck had returned to the firehouse, he knew he should have a shower. Who knew what was inside the water that covered him? Yet the thought of voluntarily adding more water to his skin made him shudder, memories and nightmares blurring and tugging at the edge of his awareness and threatening to draw him deeper and deeper.

He gathered the spare uniform from his locker and headed for the showers, peeling soaked fabric from his shoulders and hips because more than anything he was just desperate to be dry. His shirt hit the floor with a thwap and he took the time to trace over his skin to check for any cuts or bruises, relieved when he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary although he'd have to ask Hen to replace the bandage around his arm again.

By the time he was changed into dry clothes, rubbing a towel against his hair as he emerged from the bathroom, he felt slightly less of a wreck. He went in search of coffee upstairs, the towel snug around his shoulders for a source of comfort in the absence of a hoodie.

"Buck!" Hen swept her arms around him as soon as he approached the kitchen, a hand pressing against his cheek so she could gaze into his eyes. "How are you?"

He shook her off him as politely as possible, adjusting the towel around his neck to catch any lingering drops from his hair and avoid the harmless dripping that made him shiver for reasons other than it tickling. "I'm fine. How's William?"

Her face slipped, the glint in her eyes fading, and he knew without her saying anything that it hadn't been a good outcome. He nodded at her wordlessly, turning towards the coffee and pouring himself a mug. He could feel Chim staring at him from the table and wondered if the guy had already texted his sister about what had happened in the elevator. If she didn't know, he probably owed her a call to let her know he'd cheated death again before she found out through someone at the 118.

"I'm okay," he said to Chim, hoping the words seemed believable enough, as he drifted to the couch and sank into the cushions. He was halfway through the mug, lost in musings about William, and questioning if he should have sent William before the first guy, and all the memories that rattled at the cages, when the alarms shattered the silence again. Part of him wondered if he even had to go, if he could just stay where he was until the end of shift, but some shifts were a non-stop barrage of problems and people in need and he knew he had to get up and keep going because that was his job. That was the job he'd fought to return to. Someone else needed him. He could fall apart later.

He abandoned his unfinished coffee near the sink as he moved through the molasses of time and space to descend the stairs and haul himself into the truck when all he really wanted to do was sleep until next week. He noted Bobby yelling for the ambulance to accompany them but everything seemed distant and less real. His jacket was still in the truck, slung over the back of his chair and damp. He tried to adjust it in such a way that he didn't have to feel the wet material anywhere near his skin while the engine rumbled to life. He stared out the window at the blur of the streets and cars and people outside, his thoughts still drifting to William, to the elevator, to the desperate feeling of being trapped as they raced to the next call.

The truck slowed and then stopped on a bridge. Buck glanced out the window to see the array of cars being held up by something ahead of them. It also meant that the truck was blocked, which rarely boded well.

"We get out here and walk," Bobby announced and Buck climbed out of the truck, blinking against the light reflecting off all the cars before he started following Chimney. "Buck!"

He turned. "Cap?"

"I told you to take an extra few minutes to put on your rappelling gear. We've got a potential jumper. I need you and Eddie on this."

Buck's eyes slid from Bobby's to Eddie over Bobby's shoulder, who was cinching ropes and carabiners around his waist for the second time that day. He could only hope that the person this year didn't have a gun or a dressing gown on with nothing beneath it. He couldn't handle either of those today.

He silently put on the required gear and walked half a dozen steps in front of Eddie, who seemed to deliberately lag behind.

"I don't want that!"

He flinched at the voice, high-pitched and female, but kept walking. He could see a few police officers nearby, chatting with Bobby who was probably getting the most up-to-date details. He waited, hearing the clank of Eddie's equipment stop behind him.

"Another crew have already set up below, so if she falls off then it will be fine. Ideally, we get her back up and then off to a psych hold for 72 hours," Bobby explained and Buck nodded, biting his lip and then trying his best to steel himself to another conversation that played far too close to his emotions after the call this morning.

He approached the overpass slowly until he could see sunlight dancing off blonde hair below. He looked towards Eddie, the unspoken question probably obvious in his expression.

"You did better at this than me last time," Eddie said quietly and, well… That was true but it didn't mean he had the confidence to be able to pull it off again. Not when he still felt wobbly from this morning. Not when his jacket was heavier than usual, the damp fabric brushing over exposed skin and making him want to burn the damn thing.

But this girl needed him and that's what the job required, so he leaned over the edge and guessed that the girl couldn't have been much older than May.

"Hi," he said, startling her into covering her chest and leaping back a couple of steps. Her eyes were wide, red with tears, and her bottom lip was quivering. "I'm Buck. What's your name?"

She stared at him and he passed his belay line towards Eddie, feeling Eddie's hands catch the rope and then secure it to his own harness. He wanted to climb down already but he didn't feel like freaking the girl out more.

"Can I join you?" he said and she continued staring at him, fresh tears streaking down her face. He glanced towards Eddie, who gave him a thumbs up. Inhaling deeply, he slid one leg over the railing.

"No! No, don't come here!" the girl cried, shrinking in on herself to crouch against the narrow floor. "I don't want- Please- I- I don't want anyone else getting hurt."

He tugged at the rope and shot her a smile. "I won't get hurt. This prevents me falling and getting hurt, and that right there?" He pointed at the giant yellow inflated mattress beneath them. "That's in case you slip so that you don't get hurt."

The girl shook her head, a sob bubbling past her lips, but Buck felt a whole lot better when his feet hit the platform. He gave a couple more tugs of the rope and Eddie let loose enough slack so that he could kneel beside her.

"So I still don't know your name," he said, looking out at the highway below, "but I'd really like to listen to you."

She sniffled and tugged at her hair. "N-No, you don't. You just wanna take me away."

"I mean, I'd like you to be safe," he agreed, gesturing towards the mattress. "And even with that there, I think we can do better. Do you want us to call someone? Your mom or dad?"

"They're d-dead."

Oh.

"They… They d-died in the tsunami."

Oh shit.

He curled his hands by his side, wondering if this day would ever stop stabbing him in the heart and the guts, and gradually lowered himself so he could sit on the platform, legs hanging off the edge. He felt a tug on his rope, a warning tug from Eddie, which he guessed was a nice acknowledgement that Eddie cared in some way even when everything between them lately felt raw and fragile.

"Were you in the tsunami too?" he said, leaning his head against the wall and gazing at her. Now that he had a closer look, he was starting to think she was very similar to May's age. His heart felt sore at the thought of May losing Athena, or Bobby, or Michael.

She nodded, a shuddering breath leaving her lungs. "We- We were in our c-car and…I w-was able to get out the back w-window but they…they drowned inside it b-because they couldn't g-get their d-doors open and I- I was stuck on top of the car for hours a-and it… It… I c-can't…"

"H-Hey, I get it." He shivered with his own memories of being stuck on top of the fire truck with Chris, of the guy in a car he'd promised to come back to after saving the woman clinging to a tree, only to discover he couldn't get the door open either with the pressure of the water still swirling against the car. It was only a few hours ago that he'd felt like he was in that same space again, terrified of drowning and feeling utterly helpless as he felt the rising water creep up his body. "I was there too. Right in the middle of it."

"You went in as a rescuer. That doesn't-"

"No," he said, a little sharp and drawing her surprised eyes towards him because as much as he didn't want to talk about the tsunami today, he wanted to think about the elevator even less. "I was on the pier. I saw the wave coming. I was there."

"Y-You- You survived the pier?"

He nodded, swallowing against the lump in his throat and struggling to remember how to breathe regularly when she looked at him like that. It hurt to remember. It hurt to voluntarily find himself back in that place again. If they had any other tsunami-style calls today, he was telling Bobby to go to hell and deal with it without him. This was too much on his first 'official' day returning to calls.

"Wow," she whispered, turning her attention back towards the highway below. "I- How do you- H-How do you cope with it?"

He didn't think admitting to the many times he drank himself to sleep was a smart idea, or how he'd taken out a lawsuit that nearly cost him all his friends, so he shrugged. "I'm not sure I am," he said, fiddling with his harness. "Some days are more difficult than others. Most nights are awful. Today has been rough," he said with a brittle smile that she tentatively returned. "But I- I'm just trying to keep going, as best as I can. To keep fighting."

He looked towards her again, at her tear-stained and flushed cheeks. There was a glimmer in her eyes that he recognised, the haunted survivor look that he had seen in Christopher's expression after Eddie had kept dropping him off for babysitting duties. He wished he could erase it. Time after time, he wished he could make it go away.

"I don't know h-how to keep going without them," she conceded, her voice wobbling. "I'm all a-alone now. I don't want to go to c-college anymore. I don't know h-how to live anymore."

He held out a hand to her and after a long moment where she seemed to struggle with knowing what to do, she threaded her fingers between his.

"I don't know how to keep going sometimes either," he said, squeezing her hand. "But there'll be something, okay? Maybe you don't see it just yet, but there'll be something."

She clung to his hand the entire time that Eddie helped haul him back up to the overpass, and then she wrapped her arms around his chest while he held her against him, running fingers through her hair and trying to find any words of wisdom that he thought might provide comfort. He could feel Eddie's eyes on him, and he knew the rest of the team had to be watching too, but he ignored it all because right now, this girl had his attention and this girl needed him and this girl was capable of expressing the grief that Buck hadn't even begun trying to process.

"Victoria," she whispered when she pulled away, rubbing at her face and meeting his eyes with an unsteady smile. "My name. I- I know I should probably thank you but I'm not feeling a lot of gratitude."

"You don't need to thank me." He lightly squeezed her shoulders, offering an unsteady smile of his own. "You just need to fight a little longer, okay?"

She nodded and he let Hen draw her towards the ambulance, watching Victoria go with a pounding heart and erratic breathing.

"Hey, nice save," Bobby said, clasping at and rubbing his shoulder. "You okay?"

He wasn't. He wasn't sure when he'd last been okay. After today, he wasn't sure if he'd ever be okay again. Every memory, every nightmare, was hitting him simultaneously and threatening to make his knees give out on him. The damp jacket wasn't helping. He needed to get rid of it.

But he tried to find a smile and nodded, fingers already loosening his harness. "I'm fine, Cap."

He missed the look exchanged between Bobby and Eddie behind him, and the way Eddie's mouth opened and closed a few times around words he couldn't speak. And Buck didn't think he'd even be able to reply if Eddie had spoken to him. Eddie might have claimed they were part of a team but Buck still felt so disconnected, so alienated from months of jokes that had developed in his absence which he no longer understood. It wasn't that the team were being cruel; they simply didn't realise he felt like he was on the outside of everything.

The return to the 118 was silent and he'd drifted to subsequent calls in a daze, following Bobby's orders and Eddie's lead because he didn't trust his own thoughts. He thought he could remember eating dinner but maybe that had been last shift? Had he spoken to anyone at the firehouse after the call with Victoria? He could dimly recall engaging in decision-making conversations on subsequent calls but what about the idle chit-chat to fill in time between the blaring alarms? He couldn't remember. And he knew that was his fault, that the lawsuit had forced him to put up walls that he hadn't yet been able to remove, and he knew that the calls with William and Victoria had pierced his layers, seeping under his skin and rattling at the cages of his soul. Talking to anyone else about irrelevant information after exposing the vulnerable parts of himself to a stranger had been impossible and the loss of William from something that should have been preventable stung.

But even now that he was back on the job properly, he didn't feel like he could talk to anyone with any real degree of freedom. It hadn't even dawned on him until he was greeted by the silence of his apartment that the same sort of silence greeted him when he clearly interrupted a conversation or how Eddie had been steadfastly ignoring him most of the shift when Buck had been dealing with small children demanding Halloween candy.

There was a pain in his chest that hadn't abated for the past few weeks but thinking about Eddie's dark eyes and the furious press of his lips at the grocery store seemed to flare the ache to life. It pulsed in his stomach and sent ripples of pain into his throat, down to his fingers, and made his toes curl in his socks. Eddie said he was forgiven, said he was part of the team, but was he really?

The only way he'd found to dull the pain, the thoughts, and the memories of the tsunami was a whole lot of alcohol. Surely he still had a bottle of vodka somewhere in his kitchen…

He curled onto his couch with the bottle, sipping silently and staring at the blank screen of the television in front of him. His phone buzzed periodically with messages from Maddie, asking how he was and if he'd eaten and whether he wanted company. He managed to deflect her gentle inquiries enough that she conceded to being available if he needed and then the phone fell mercilessly quiet, unlike the thoughts and memories that flickered behind his eyes.

The water lapped higher and higher, passing his shoulders and creeping up his neck. He tried tilting back his head, tried to keep his mouth higher than the water, but his nose brushed against the roof of the elevator and there were scant inches of space to breathe. The metal groaned and clanged threateningly and he scraped at whatever surface he could, searching for a way out, searching for anything that might save him, searching for-

He jerked awake just as the elevator gave way beneath him and he flinched at the shattering sound of glass. It took him several fuzzy seconds to realise the glass wasn't someone breaking in, or the tree outside piercing his kitchen window, but his own erratic movement hurling the vodka bottle towards the kitchen and scattering shards across the floor. An arc of liquid and splashed puddles were also necessary messes to clean up.

He stood, a ripple of pain skittering down his leg because he'd been curled and cramped for too long, and shuffled forward to avoid lifting his feet and stepping on a piece of glass. The last thing he really needed was to have to bandage his foot or ask Hen to come over and peel glass from his sole. He didn't need anyone asking questions about why he'd been drinking, or how the bottle had broken, or why he hadn't been in bed. He needed Bobby to believe he was okay and he needed everyone else to believe it too.

Even as careful as he tried to be, his fingers still caught a few too many sharp edges. Once he was mostly done with gathering the worst of the broken pieces, he was forced to hold onto a towel with his fists set against the top of his head and tried to ignore the trembling of his shoulders when he looked at the red streaks that stained his palms and reminded him of another time when he'd extended bloodied hands to strangers in desperate attempts to locate Christopher.

He wondered if it was too early to go running because he suspected he wasn't going to be able to find any extra sleep.

Buck had learned the easiest way around the cuts to his fingers had been to pull on t-shirts and sweaters but what he'd been afraid of in the downtime was the next shift and the battle that the buttons of his shirt would pose. He'd been one of the first to arrive simply because he knew it would take longer, because the bandaids around his fingers made everything about poking buttons through buttonholes more complicated. Sometimes his senses were dulled and sometimes the shiny plastic slipped over the bandaid and sometimes he pressed against a cut that was painful.

So he might have been one of the first to arrive but he was also the last to finish getting dressed.

"What's wrong with your hands?" Eddie asked as he re-entered the change room to dig out his LAFD fleece.

"Nothing?" Buck attempted but the lie sounded flimsy to him as he successfully poked the last button into place.

Tan, calloused hands grasped his and turned them palm up, exposing the litany of bandaids. "If you're calling this nothing, then-"

"I dropped a glass," Buck said, because at least that lie had been rehearsed for days and almost sounded believable, "and I was clumsy picking up the pieces."

Eddie stared at him with narrowed eyes, thumbs brushing over some of the pads of his fingers. It was laced with a sense of care Buck hadn't felt from Eddie in weeks, ever since the lawsuit, and his eyes dropped because maybe all his fears were painted across his cheeks and-

He frowned, fingers curling around Eddie's. "What happened to your hands?"

A couple of knuckles were split and there was some speckled bruising spreading towards Eddie's left sleeve. Eddie tried to pull away from him but Buck held on, his gaze lifting to assess the look in Eddie's eyes that he didn't recognise, didn't understand, and most definitely didn't like.

"I didn't strap properly before taking on the bag in the gym," Eddie said and it was too smooth, too calm, and such a blatant lie that it made Buck realise that Eddie couldn't possibly have forgiven him if they still weren't talking to each other about anything that actually mattered. They were both steeped in secrets and even though his skin had prickled at the contact, it didn't feel good to hold on to Eddie anymore. The person in front of him almost seemed like a stranger with the unfamiliar set of his jaw and the creased brow.

"Well, you'd better make sure you do it properly in the future," he said, letting his grip fall away so he could tuck in his shirt and fix the fold of his collar. "If you break your hands, lives will be lost, Eddie."

Eddie stared at him with something unreadable in his expression before they left the change room and moved upstairs for coffee and second breakfast. Buck wasn't sure if he was more curious about Eddie's distance and bruised hands or if Eddie had questions about his silence and questioning glances but they managed to participate in whatever conversation Hen, Chim and Bobby had going.

The sirens rang just before they were finished eating and Buck was almost grateful for the distraction of a suspected gas leak at one of the nearby malls.

~TBC~