Buck stared at the ceiling of his eerily quiet loft apartment feeling numb and cold.

He shouldn't be here, he knew that. And he also knew that he shouldn't have left in the middle of the night to find a quiet and some other place to think.

And maybe it was a bad idea.

Maybe he should've just stayed at Bobby and Athena's. But he couldn't.

The place reminded him of so much happy memories with Harry, and to have his younger brother look at him uneasily, with a hint of trepidation and with no recognition at all in familiar dark brown eyes he no doubt inherited from their mother made Buck's skin crawl and his heart break.

It wasn't Harry's fault he couldn't remember him.

Some kid thought it would be a great idea to trap his brother in an abandoned dark room at the school's old building. And knowing his brother as well as he did, Buck could only guess that the prank triggered his fight or flight instinct and even might have brought him back to a day none of them would want to relive, which was the most obvious thing to Buck considering what his brother had been through with the Hudson case barely even a year and a half ago.

The whole thing was caught in the CCTV and Buck remembered watching Harry's frantic movements when he finally managed to get out of the room, remembered how Harry slipped and hit his head a little too hard against the pavement when he fell.

Harry had suffered a nasty concussion from the fall and was unconscious for almost three days before he came to.

Buck happened to be sitting with him, re-reading the previous chapters of one of the books they'd been reading together for weeks now out loud when Harry whimpered and slowly opened his eyes.

He remembered the way those familiar dark brown eyes, a perfect replica of Athena's, looked up at him along with an apprehensive expression before Harry asked who he was with no recognition in those dark eyes.

Buck remembered the doctor asking his brother basic questions; his name, how old he was, his birthdate, the present date, what was the last thing he remembered, and finally who were the people in the room.

He remembered the way Harry's eyes lit up with recognition as he was able to name Bobby, Athena, May, and Michael. But then, when his eyes landed on him, the apprehension which was then mixed with confusion was back in those dark eyes as he furrowed his brows together, before looking at his doctor and then at their mother as he spoke, tone uncertain.

He's that firefighter Bobby works with, isn't he? The one who saved you, Mom, right? But why.. Why's he here?

Buck remembered the way his heart stopped beating for a moment when he heard those words, remembered how his grip tightened around the copy of Jeffery Deaver's The Bone Collector he held in his hand.

Because if that was all Harry could remember about him being in their lives, then that could only mean he really did not have any memories or even know Buck at all.

He remembered how the doctor spoke up right on cue, immediately directing the conversation away from the line of questioning, and saying something about more tests and monitoring overnight to make sure Harry had no brain bleed or other complications.

When Harry's scans came back clear, the doctor assured them that the memory loss was just temporary and that his memory would soon clear up and will be able to remember who Buck was again. She added that having Harry and Buck spend time together and doing things that they usually do together might help him remember.

And so, that's what they did.

Harry had moved back in from his dad's and spent most of his days in the house with Buck, especially when both Bobby and Athena were on their shifts. May would visit more on the weekends to spend some time with them, too, as did Maddie who Harry was able to remember about two weeks after he got discharged from the hospital.

That improvement heightened Buck's spirit and he had high hopes Harry would be remembering him soon.

But he didn't.

Not yet, at least.

Or that was what Buck kept telling himself.

It's been almost three months and Harry still hadn't shown any signs that he was remembering Buck at all. He had been cleared to go back to school about two weeks after his discharge, though he only went back once Athena had gone to the school and had words with the principal as well as the other kid's parents. Suffice to say that before Athena left the principal's office, the kid who instigated the prank was taken off the soccer team, suspended for five days, and was required to attend school on an alternative campus for a month where they have very few privileges and was also removed from all classes and activities with Harry.

And even when Harry finally returned to school, still, the only thing he knew about Buck was that he was the firefighter who shot the suspect with the firetruck's hose that saved his mother's life during a home invasion call that happened over five years ago that Buck himself still remembered vividly up to this day.

Suddenly struck by just how many years' worth of memories of him Harry was missing had Buck bolting up right from where he was lying on his bed in the loft. He took a shaky breath and blinked away the tears that were pooling at the corner of his eyes as he shuddered.

He hasn't stayed in his apartment since Athena had brought him home from the station that day, and now that he was here in the middle of the night, the chill was starting to seep into his bones and the silence was starting to get too deafening for his current state of mind.

Buck shook his head rather aggressively and got up from his bed, pacing back and forth as he attempted to stop his panic at the thought of Harry never really getting those memories of him back.

The last time they saw each other was the night before the accident when Harry stayed over at the house for the weekend. The thirteen-year-old had decided to have a sleepover in Buck's room on his last night instead of sleeping in his own bedroom upstairs.

The two of them had stayed up almost all night with the goal of finally finishing The Bone Collector when their mother, who had just gotten home from her night shift, opened the door to check in on them as she and Bobby were wont to do whenever they got home from night shifts and immediately ordered both of them to bed when she saw that they still had their noses buried in the book, even going as far as threatening to take the said book away if they didn't do as they were told and that was enough for the brothers to do as they were told.

When Athena left the room, Harry faced him and made him promise they were going to finish the book together tomorrow evening when he gets home before his dad picked him up from the house after dinner. Buck remembered smiling in the dark and bringing his pinky up close to Harry's face so he could make it out and waiting for his pinky to lock with his, which his brother did, tightly.

They never got to finish it, and they haven't still.

Because Harry couldn't remember any of the memories they had together.

He couldn't remember the movies they'd watched together, the number of science, history, and literature discussions they'd had together, the number of videogames they'd played and finished together, and the reading hobby Buck had managed to influence him and even started doing together.

Those were some of the memories that Buck would always hold on to when he was feeling the need to hurt himself.

A feeling that he was starting to feel more prominently at the moment.

Buck sucked in a breath as he paused in his pacing, suddenly feeling cold even when he could feel the fabric of both his t-shirt and hoodie clinging to his skin as it got soaked in his sweat as if he had just run a freaking marathon.

Suddenly feeling restricted, Buck removed his hoodie, letting it fall on the floor in a heap as he resumed his pacing, fingers immediately searching for the rubber band on his wrist only to find it bare and he froze mid-step.

"No. No, no, no, no, no," Buck repeated as he stared at his wrist sans rubber band, breath hitching when he realized that it really wasn't there and the need to hurt suddenly increased ten-fold.

Eyes immediately took stock of his bedroom and Buck walked over to his bedside drawers and started rummaging inside in hopes of finding a rubber band or any elastics. He didn't want to venture downstairs into the kitchen where he knew he had a stock of the bands because he didn't know if he could trust himself to be that close to anything sharp in his current state, and the kitchen was the easiest destination for him to get ahold of something like that.

Buck continued going through the contents of the drawer until he found a box of markers he had for the mini whiteboards he bought for when he and the kids used to play Pictionary or Jeopardy downstairs.

He'd heard about drawing on your arms as another alternative to curb the desire to add another line to his already scarred arms. He never really tried it as he found the band snapping an effective alternative for him, but right now he really needed something in place of rubber bands.

So Buck grabbed one of the markers from the box, uncapped them, and started shakily drawing lines against his skin. The way the black ink marred his skin, the way it stood out quite starkly against his pale skin like the tattoos he has on his body did so little to suppress the growing need to feel something sharp against his fragile skin.

Frustrated and steadily growing more panicked, Buck drew in a sharp breath and threw the marker across the room with a resounding crash as it came in contact with something he had on display.

But Buck couldn't care any less about that because the urge to really mar his skin with something sharper than a marker's dull bullet tip was getting more and more difficult to ignore.

You promise you'll call when you feel like doing it? Or just when you feel down and need someone to talk to?

Harry's voice suddenly reverberated in his head, providing a bit of comfort and a minute shield and respite from the unpleasant thoughts that were swimming in his head.

It was something his brother had asked of him shortly after his first weekend at the house following Buck's first setback since he started living with the Grant-Nashes, and he had promised to do so when he just felt like it, or when he felt down or felt like doing it, and even everything else in between and even sealed the promise by locking pinkies together.

Between Maddie, May, and Harry, the pinky promises had become more of a staple in his relationship with the youngest despite it being something that was originally between him and his older sister and with the occurrence being less prominent in his relationship with his younger sister.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Buck reached for his phone on top of his bedside drawer as he pressed his back against the wall facing his bed and slowly slid down to sit rather unceremoniously on the floor. He shakily long pressed the power button to turn the device on as he had turned it off the moment he arrived at his apartment because he didn't want anyone to find a way to contact him or locate him using it.

He knew it was a dick move, and he knew he probably had stirred up quite the panic in the household with his family by now when, inevitably, one of his parents would eventually check in on him in the night.

But Buck had needed to get out.

To breathe.

To get away just for a little while.

But right now, as he sat there on the floor of his loft in his eerily quiet apartment soaked in his own sweat, heart pounding and thoughts increasingly spiraling out of his control, all Buck could think of was to call Harry despite the fact that his brother still hasn't regained any memories of him.

As soon as his phone finished booting up, about fifty or so text notifications exploded on his lock screen, most of which were from Athena and Bobby, and some from both his sisters.

Buck licked his suddenly dry lips as his eyes drifted to the top of the screen to check the time.

12:56 AM

He'd been gone for about two hours now.

Buck was just about to open his contacts to find Harry's name on the list when his younger brother's caller ID popped up on the screen. He could only stare at his screen for a moment before he eventually answered the call.

Buck? Evan? Ev, are you there?

Buck froze as his breath hitched. Harry has never called him by those two names since the accident. He's always been Buck to him since that was the only name he could remember of him, and there was no way he would call him that post-accident. Their parents, siblings, and everyone else they both knew only ever called him Buck around Harry after what happened, only being addressed as Evan or Ev by Maddie or May when it was just one or both of them with him in private.

Where are you, Ev? Mom and Bobby have been worried sick. I'm here in my room, they don't know that I'm awake but I heard them. They've been calling everyone, asking if you showed up at their doorsteps. I think Bobby left to look for you. And.. And I'm pretty worried, too. Please talk to me.

The sound of Harry's voice along with the familiar hint of concern and worry in his voice as he called him by that nickname only he, Maddie, and May only ever did finally made the tears fall to his cheeks and Buck pressed a hand to his mouth to muffle the sobs coming out of him.

He tried to open his mouth to reply, but only sobs came out and he immediately pressed a hand against his lips once more in an attempt to stifle his sobs, but it was all for naught.

Hey, it's okay, Ev. I'm here. I'm right here. Just listen to my voice okay? It's alright if you can't talk right now, but just listen to me, okay? I remember bits and pieces of you now. I think I have been remembering you the past few days, but I couldn't make sense of any of it so I decided to keep it to myself for a little while, just until I could understand the memories you know?

Buck couldn't reply even if he wanted to as the onslaught of his tears rendered him incapable of doing so. The words he wanted to say were stuck in his throat and the whirlwind of emotions that he was feeling at the beginning of the night up until his brother's admission just now was making his head swim.

But also hearing Harry admit that he was remembering him had quieted down some of his spiraling thoughts and even allowed him to focus on what he was saying instead of the urge to hurt himself.

I don't think I'm remembering much yet, but I think what I can remember so far is important to my relationship with you, and I think it's one of the things that really strengthened it. I remember you visiting me here at the house. I remember feeling a bit frustrated with everyone else because they kept on talking about the.. the Hudson something.. case I think it was and they kept asking how I was and I remember how irritating it was. But you? You were just there. We played video games and ate ice cream like it we normally do, I think. I remember that you asked Mom's permission to take me out and you asked me where I wanted to go and we went to the place where he took me.

At this point, Harry's voice faded into the background and the sobs Buck had been keeping to himself burst out. He remembered that day all too well.

He had felt that Harry was feeling a little too enclosed in the house, feeling too suffocated by everyone's continuous hovering which ultimately led Buck to ask Athena if he and Harry could go out for a few hours, with a promise of coming back in time for dinner.

Their mother had been hesitant, of course, but she eventually agreed and gave them her permission with the condition that he texted her an update every now and then. Buck remembered beaming up at her and promising he would before he and Harry took off.

They spent the majority of their time at the site where Jeffrey Hudson had taken him and one look at Buck was all it took for Harry to fall to his knees and cry his heart out.

..and Maddie and May have been–

Harry's voice eventually faded back into his consciousness and he couldn't help but cut him off. "Ha-Harry?"

I'm here, Buck. I'm right here. What's going on?

"L-Loft. Tell M-Mom I'm a-at the l-loft," Buck managed, voice cracking as he held the phone tightly against his ear.

Harry didn't answer, but Buck heard the sound of blankets being thrown off, feet hitting the floor, and the sound of the door opening as Harry brought his phone with him in search of their parents in the house.

His brother must have found them because Buck could hear their voices more distinctly over the line and he closed his eyes as he listened to Harry relay what he had just said to them. For a moment, Buck could hear other footsteps over the line before he heard the distinct sound of the phone being passed over and his mother's voice reached his ear.

Buck, baby?

"I-I'm sorry. I'm s-sorry, p-please. I-I'm sorry, M-Mama," Buck choked out as tears sprung anew in his eyes, gasping as he let out a guttural sob.

Hey, hey, hey. Buck, honey, calm down. Breathe, baby. Breathe.

There was something about his mother's voice that he could not quite pinpoint but would always find solace in. It felt like she was the only anchor to his reality, an ineffable force that would always make him feel that he was safe from the horrors the world has to got to offer.

"I.. I..," Buck tried and failed to speak as the guilt he suddenly felt became a little too overwhelming, and the sense of safety he had briefly felt when he heard his mother's voice evaporated in a flash as the myriad of dark thoughts he thought he had managed to conquer tonight were slowly beginning to swallow him whole once more.

And just like that, Buck suddenly found his grasp on reality slipping.

The faint glow of his bedside lamp dimly illuminated the space that was his bedroom and Buck suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on him. He pulled hard on his disheveled hair once, twice, and focused on the pain as he shut his eyes tight.

He can barely hear his mother's frantic voice from the other end of the line as his thoughts brought him back to why he was there in his apartment in the first place. All at once, the desire to hurt came back a hundred times worse than it initially had and Buck gasped as he opened his eyes and dropped his phone.

He looked around wildly, heart pounding against his chest quite painfully as it raced against his ribcage. Mustering all the control he has left, Buck got up on his feet and went downstairs to the kitchen. He pointedly avoided looking at the knife block as he went straight to the drawer where he knew he had the elastics.

Buck hastily grabbed the box and, with every ounce of self-control he had left, dragged himself back upstairs into his bedroom. He dumped the contents of the box on his bed and wore three thick ones, immediately snapping them over and over against his skin as he tried to even his breathing.

The fine line between reality and what was happening inside his head blurred and Buck couldn't help but feel dragged by the force of his thoughts. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him, telling him that there was something wrong and that he had to fix it in the only way his thoughts knew how.

And he wanted to.

God, he wanted to.

Buck shook his head aggressively at the thought.

No.

"C-Come on, Buck. F-Fight," he berated himself, fingers snapping the bands on his wrist a little too harshly than he should.

"Fight i-it, p-please," he begged desperately to himself, eyes closing as hot tears ran down his face, feeling a little too frustrated and desperate to silence the thoughts that were taunting him into going into his bathroom across the hall and grabbing the razor that he just knew was still there.

Then, suddenly, through the dark haze in his head and through the buzzing he had in his ears, Buck was able to make out the sound of his apartment door opening and closing with a bang followed by the distinct sound of rapid footsteps coming up the stairs and his name being called.

Buck turned around, his tear-stained face coming face to face with–

"D-Dad," the younger man choked out as he got up and rushed towards the man who easily caught him in his arms, holding him close and tight as Buck allowed himself to finally break down.

Buck clung to his dad, hands gripping tightly on the older man's shirt as he sobbed against the man's shoulder. In the safety of his dad's arms, he allowed himself to fall; allowed himself to feel the multitude of emotions he had been keeping to himself for the past months since Harry woke up in that hospital room and looked at him with no sign of recognition at all in those dark brown eyes of his.

Bobby, for his part, kept his arms around his boy as tight as he could as he held him close, fighting the parental urge to immediately look him over in favor of providing a physical grounding force he knew his son no doubt needed at the moment.

So he stayed where he was, an arm wrapped around his boy as he cradled his head with the other, gently running his hand soothingly on the kid's unkempt curls on the back of his head as he cried against him.

Waking up to Athena's distressed call of his name had been quite jarring, more so when she told him that Buck was nowhere to be found. They had called everyone they knew, asking if Buck had somehow ended up on their doorstep to which all of them answered in the negative.

He and his wife had watched over the last few weeks how Harry's lack of recognizing Buck as the days went by had started to slowly get to their eldest son. They had been meaning to sit him down and get him to talk about what he was feeling on the matter for a few days now, but their shifts just didn't seem to align and they had decided to wait until they were both off.

Unfortunately for both him and Athena, they had waited a little too long and their son could not hold down the fort any longer and acted upon his, no doubt, evergrowing thoughts and emotions on the matter before they had the chance to talk to him about exactly just that.

Bobby gently shushed him when he heard the kid spew apologies left and right, opting to rub circles against his back to help calm him down. They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity until Buck gently pulled away just enough to look at him.

No words were needed as Bobby gently pressed a kiss on his boy's forehead and led him to the bathroom, making sure to grab all of the razors and dumped them into the bin. He sat the kid down on the closed toilet seat and grabbed the washcloth from where it was hanging near the sink, wetting it and wringing out the excess water as he went.

He crouched down in front of Buck and wordlessly began wiping off the tear tracks on his face, wiping the whole of his face and neck before rinsing the cloth and repeating the process one more time, and hanging the cloth back after.

Bobby crouched down in front of his kid once more, coffee-brown eyes meeting tearful puffy baby blues as he looked at him and his hand reached out to hold the kid's shaking one. Buck didn't need any more prompting as he automatically opened his mouth, knowing by now what his dad was about to ask.

"M-My name is Ev-van, I-I'm twenty-n-nine years old. I-I'm in the b-bathroom o-of my l-loft apartment in L-Los Angeles, C-California, and I'm.. I'm with m-my dad. I am s-safe," he managed through his post-breakdown haze.

Bobby gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand. "That's right, kiddo. You're safe."

Buck nodded shakily in response, not really trusting himself to speak again without bursting into another round of tears as his hand gripped his dad's tight, afraid to let go; afraid that his dad was just a figment of his imagination, that he was not really there and that his mind was playing tricks on him.

"Your mind isn't playing tricks on you, Buck. I'm right here with you, I'm real, and I'm not going anywhere, kid. Not now, not ever. Remember?" his dad said, effectively pulling him away from his thoughts.

"Y-Yeah, I remember, Dad," Buck whispered in reply before the two of them were startled by the sound of Bobby's phone suddenly ringing.

Bobby reached his left hand over behind him to retrieve his phone from his right back pocket as his right hand was currently occupied. One look at the screen had him answering the call in no time and his eyes met his son's as he spoke through the receiver.

"Athena, hey," he said, eyes never leaving Buck even as the kid averted his eyes at the mention of his wife.

The fire captain squeezed his son's hand in quiet reassurance when he felt it shake against his, the gesture prompting the younger man to meet his gaze once more.

"Yeah, I'm right here with him. Harry did? No, this was the last on the list of places that I had in mind when I went looking for him," Bobby relayed as he held the kid's gaze, making circular motions with his thumb against the back of Buck's hand holding his in a soothing manner.

Buck managed a weak smile at the gesture and wordlessly listened to the one-sided conversation he could hear, smiling wider when his dad told his mother a joke in an obvious attempt to lift his spirits up.

He didn't really find it funny, but Buck found himself smiling wider at the familiarity of it all which further helped ground him to reality in addition to his dad's pulse that was steadily thumping against his as he held his hand.

When the father-son duo got home, it was to see the whole family in the living room. Maddie and May had apparently both driven home to keep their mother and Harry company, but they all knew it was also to make sure that Buck was doing okay after his sudden disappearance.

Athena immediately pulled him in for a hug, her arms tight as she pulled him closer before cradling his face in her hands and pressing a soft kiss on his forehead. There were no words exchanged, and Buck just knew his mother knew that he was mentally beyond exhausted to even try and hold that conversation.

Maddie and May came up to him next, sandwiching him in their hugs and whispering words of comfort to him as they both held him close. His younger sister held him far tighter before letting him go while his older sister held him a bit longer and Buck was more than willing to let her.

The youngest of the lot was the last to run towards him, throwing himself against Buck's torso as he wrapped his arms tightly around the older man who, for a moment, was shocked to his core before immediately wrapping his arms around his younger brother just as tight.

The longer he held on to his younger brother, the more undone his emotions became once more. Most of which were emotions that he had been feeling for the past few months since Harry came home but always chose to put aside for the sake of keeping it together for Harry, and some, an overwhelming sense of relief at the fact that Harry had finally managed to remember him as well as the kind of relationship that they had before he forgot all about him.

And there, surrounded by his family, Buck allowed himself to feel the emotions that he had tried to bury over the course of the last three months. He whispered apologies against his brother's hair as he held Harry for as long as the youngest allowed him to, breathing in the familiar scent of coconut on his hair thanks to the coconut shampoo he had somehow managed to influence his younger brother to use.

Buck didn't know it yet, but in the coming days and weeks, Harry was going to gradually regain his memories of him and with him. The thirteen-year-old would wake him up with the familiar chant they both made up to prank their sisters into waking up in three days, then he'll ask Buck to pick him up from school and have ice cream on the way home as they always did a week and a half later, and Buck would be dragged to his room to find Harry's own set of pillows on his bed, a sleepover quite reminiscent of the night before the accident would be initiated and they'd both get to finally finish The Bone Collector before the clock struck twelve.

At that moment, Buck didn't know any of it, all he knew was the here and now.

And here, at home, was where he should've been all night.

Buck closed his eyes and just breathed as he tried to shoo the thoughts of what almost happened earlier in his apartment and just focused on the now.

He was back home and he was with his family.

He was safe and his family was safe.

It was just one of those days.