Chapter 3
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A surgeon, still in his scrubs entered the waiting room. "Family of Evan Buckley?"
The three of them rose and walked towards him. "I'm Eddie Diaz his medical proxy," Eddie said.
"The surgery went well, he'll be moved from recovery into a room on the surgical floor in about an hour and then you'll be able to visit," the surgeon said.
"Is he awake? Is his vision okay?" Eddie asked anxiously.
"We're hopeful but we won't know until he wakes up. He wasn't awake before I came in here," the surgeon replied. "The nurses will settle him in a room as soon as he's awake and coherent, and once that happens he'll be allowed visitors."
Buck was awake and sitting up but it was difficult to see his expression as they entered. The blinds were drawn and the lights off but even the light from the hallway made him wince.
"How're you doing Buckaroo," Athena asked gently.
"I feel like I got hit in the face with a bowling ball again," Buck said. "Would have preferred that."
"I know Baby, it's hard when the violence comes from a friend you trusted," Athena said sympathetically.
"He's so angry with me," Buck replied.
"I know he seemed angry but I think deep down he's mostly just worried so about Maddie that he can't think straight," Bobby offered.
"Are you mad at me too?" Buck asked in a small voice.
"No Buck, there was no justification for him hitting you no matter what he was feeling," Bobby said gently, aware of how damaging his taking Chimney's side would be to his relationship with Buck and it was easy now he'd seen Buck's face to be outraged that someone he knew had done this to the man he loved like a son.
"How's the concussion?" Eddie asked.
"I can't handle the light, but there's mostly only one of you now. That's good I don't think we could handle two Eddie Diazes," Buck replied teasingly.
Eddie and Bobby laughed. "I don't know we certainly could have used two Eddie's this week instead of that floater," Bobby said. "I had a word to the chief when I reported your injuries, we'll be getting two new floaters next week and one of them will be a paramedic or we'll be taken off the roster for heavy rescue."
"I'm sorry Bobby," Buck said.
"Neither of those circumstances are your fault, Buck. Standish didn't have the qualifications or the experience to fill in for Eddie or Chim. I should have complained earlier, and it certainly isn't your fault you've been hurt," Bobby replied. "When are you going to be allowed to go home, because I know you would have already asked."
"Tomorrow," Buck replied.
"You'll come home to my place. I don't want you alone with your bed upstairs with a concussion and fractured face," Eddie said.
"I don't want to put you out," Buck protested.
"If you won't go home with Eddie, then you'll be coming home with us," Athena said.
"You won't be putting me out, Chris will be thrilled to have you there for us to look after and I got the kitchen put
back the way you like it," Eddie replied.
Bobby laughed remembering the description of the 100's of muffins and the mess Ana had left him with. Eddie had brought muffins into share with the shift and Bobby had to admit they were a little dry and bland. Buck had solved that problem by bringing in some excellent home-made jams he'd bought at the market and smothering his muffins with butter and jam, and adding herbs and spices and cheese to the savoury muffins which he melted under the broiler eliminating any potential health benefits of the muffins. The jam was delicious, something Bobby intended to buy more of.
"I don't want to risk making trouble," Buck said.
"We'll keep the door locked, and if you see Chim's car you can call Athena and the LAPD. I won't let him hurt you again, but I'm sure Pepa or Abuela would happily have you stay with them until he's in custody if you want to make sure he can't find you," Eddie retorted.
"You think I should press charges?" Buck asked.
"Yes Buckaroo, I want you to press charges against Chimney," Athena said.
"I think that you should, Buck. I'll take you to the station to make your statement on the way home if the LAPD haven't come to take it before then," Eddie said nodding.
"But he's out of his mind worrying about Maddie, and I think he might have PPD too. I've been researching it and it can affect fathers too. I'm sure he didn't mean to hit me. He certainly didn't mean to cause all this," Buck said.
"He isn't listening to any of us. If you're right about the PPD, then pressing charges and having him arrested might be the only way to force him into getting the help he needs," Bobby replied.
"But facing charges for assault or battery could cost him his job and then how would he look after Jee-Yun?" Buck protested. "Maddie hasn't been working for months so they've probably gone through a lot of their savings."
"Are you going to be able to trust him to have your back in a dangerous situation? Because I don't think that I could trust him. So, we're going to have to make what happened official with the LAFD and they're not going to be happy that you didn't file charges when you should've," Eddie said.
Bobby agreed. "They're going to want him charged before they'll transfer any of you for something that happened off duty."
"No I don't trust him. Not to have my back when he's that angry and I don't trust him to have Eddie's back either once he knows Eddie's supporting me," Buck admitted in a small voice.
"Do you trust him not to be violent with your sister and your niece?" Eddie pressed.
"I don't know," Buck said miserably. "I want to think that he'd never hit them but then…"
"It wasn't in any way your fault, even if you had known where Maddie was wouldn't have justified him hitting you and I know you don't know anything more than Chim does. He should have trusted you," Eddie said, easily reading where Buck's thoughts had taken him.
Buck nodded but he didn't look convinced.
"Eddie's right, Chimney is in a terrible place but none of that was your fault," Bobby said.
"Hen said Chim's gone looking for Maddie. He was packing when she went around there this morning," Eddie said.
"Did he take Jee-Yun?" Buck asked worriedly.
"Yeah. Hen offered again to look after her but he refused, Hen said that he mentioned starting by planning to head for Hershey so maybe your parents will manage to convince him to leave Jee-Yun with them," Athena said.
"No," Buck replied.
"No, Maddie wouldn't have gone there, or no it wouldn't be good for Jee to stay with them?" Bobby asked.
"Well both, but Margaret and Phillip won't offer to take in Jee-Yun and Chimney knows better than to leave her with them'" Buck said. "Or at least he normally does and it wouldn't take more than an hour for their attitudes to remind him if he's forgotten. But it's too far for him to take Jee in the car. It's a forty hour drive."
"Where do you think Maddie would go? You've been really quiet about it at the station," Eddie asked.
"I have no idea. But she wouldn't leave Doug for years because she didn't want Margaret to be able to say I told you so. This will be the same, she won't go anywhere near Margaret Buckley," Buck replied.
"Would she have gone back to Boston? Where she trained and worked? She'd still have friends there," Athena asked.
"I don't know. She never talks about her life at college or anywhere she worked before coming to LA, or any friends she may have had. Doug was always possessive and wanting to know where she was all the time, I doubt he'd have liked her making close friends and I know she felt guilty for what happened to her boss when Doug was looking for her, I think she would have hesitated to contact any of them for fear they'd blame her. Even if she got over that they all must have known Doug was hitting her, why would she trust them to have her back this time," Buck said thoughtfully. "I think she's more likely to go somewhere she's never been before. To start over somewhere nobody knows her, without the pressure to be who she used to be."
"That's going to make her very difficult to find. Has she ever spoken about wanting to visit anywhere in particular?" Athena asked.
Buck slowly shook his head. "She talks about missing a real winter, but I always thought that was just like Bobby being nostalgic about snow. I don't know if she wants to move back east."
"She wouldn't have to move back east. The north of California gets snow in winter up in the cascade mountains," Bobby said.
"She's a bit of a city girl. Even though they moved back to Hershey, I don't think that it was her idea. I think that Margaret and Phillip helped them buy the house. She applied to colleges in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City," Buck replied. "I there probably was a trigger to her leaving Doug that had nothing to do with me but I think it could be significant that it happened and she came to me only after I settled in LA. It's the first big city I've ever lived in."
"It surprised me that you weren't all in on going to find her yourself but you didn't even want Chimney to go. Is there a reason you didn't want Chim to find her? A reason other than him hitting you today I mean," Bobby asked.
"No it wasn't because it was Chim and not me looking for her. If she finds out we're looking she'll go into hiding, and dig her heels in and refuse to come home," Buck said. "Like when I was nineteen, Maddie was going to come on the road trip with me and she changed her mind at the last minute. She got angry when I kept pressing her for a reason or to come and join me. I think that's why she stopped answering my calls and I didn't hear from her for more than three years. I want to leave her alone so she'll feel that she can come back."
"Do you want to put in a missing person report for Maddie?" Athena asked.
"Didn't Chimney already do that?" Buck asked surprised. "He said he talked to you about it."
"He talked about it and showed me the message Maddie left him, claiming that there was a suspicion that she'd been forced to make it, but I told him that there was no evidence of that, and adults are allowed to walk away from their lives. He mentioned thinking she was depressed and not thinking clearly but he didn't offer anything that missing persons would take as proof of that. He said she wasn't in therapy or receiving treatment. I told him I wasn't sure that even if missing persons located Maddie, they wouldn't give him her location unless she asked them to. The only information that he'd get if they found her was that she'd been found alive and unharmed. He seemed abnormally put off by that."
"Okay I can understand Chim being disappointed with that but he acted like they refused to even take her details and promise to look for her," Buck said.
"To be honest they would've taken her details but may not have put more than a cursory effort into the search unless he tells them about her PPD, and lets them contact her doctor. But now with his desperation to find her and you making a report I think I can convince them to take it seriously," Athena admitted. She chose not to tell him that the battery causing serious bodily harm and the clearly obsessive behaviour Chimney was showing would cause the missing persons department to want to check that Maddie had actually just left and hadn't been hurt or worse by her boyfriend.
"Can you get that started today? I don't want to wait until I get out of here," Buck requested.
"I'll get it done," Athena promised. "It would help if you pressed charges against Chimney as well though, since we don't have documented evidence of Maddie's PPD. They'll allocate the missing girlfriend of someone facing assault charges against his defacto brother-in-law a much higher priority." Athena deliberately used the more minor terms for the incident knowing that if Buck researched the actual charges that could be laid, 'Battery causing serious bodily harm' and realised it could be considered a felony he would withdraw the charges. Hopefully she and Eddie could prevent him from doing one of his research deep dives on the California penal law for violent crimes.
"Okay," Buck agreed.
"I also need your permission to send a message through to Maddie when they find her telling her what happened," Athena said. "She may refuse to receive it but I think that she should know about this before she contact's Howard Han."
"No, I don't want Maddie to know. She's going to be upset and she's got enough to worry about," Buck insisted. Underneath the worry for his sister's mental state and what knowing Chimney had hit him could do was the thought that she would still choose her boyfriend over Buck and Buck would lose her even if they did find her.
"Buck, Maddie is the survivor of domestic violence, she needs to know that her partner and the father of their child is capable of interpersonal violence. It would be wrong to keep it from her, especially as there is a chance that Chimney will find her before she comes home to LA," Athena said gently.
"You already admitted that you weren't completely sure he'd never hit Maddie or Jee. Maddie needs to be aware of that risk," Eddie added.
A/N: In reality the disappearance of someone like Maddie would be taken very seriously by the police and missing persons. The leading cause of death for mother's of infants is suicide. A statistic that both Chimney and Buck would have been aware of.
Any signs of PPD should be taken seriously. Please seek help if you or a loved one is experiencing post natal depression.
A/N2: Thank you to all those who reviewed, commented positively, followed, bookmarked or favourited or gave Kudos to this story for your support.