Chapter Text
Chimney was just clearing the third floor when he saw him.
Hunched over muttering.
voice cracked and low. “I see him. I see—”
The floor groaned—a deep, awful sound like the earth itself was opening its mouth.
Then, in one sickening lurch, it gave.
Buck didn’t even have time to scream.
“BUCK!” Chim’s voice tore through the radio and the smoke. “BUCK!!”
The impact was brutal. Buck’s body crashed through splintered floorboards and fell almost a full story, landing in a heap of broken beams, soot, and crumbling drywall. The wind was knocked from his lungs. For a second, there was only the sound of crackling flames and the heavy silence of pain.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” Chim shouted into the radio. “Firefighter Buckley down—repeat, Buckley down through the floor. Last known position sector 4! We need immediate extraction!”
It felt like both a second and a lifetime later when Hen dropped down through the gap above, landing with practiced agility near Buck’s partially buried body. Chim followed, eyes wide, voice shaking.
“Buck—Buck, can you hear me?” Hen called, crawling toward him. “Talk to me!”
He was conscious, but barely. Blood trickled from his forehead, one leg clearly pinned under debris. His mouth worked as if he was trying to speak but couldn’t find the words—until suddenly, he shoved Hen’s hands away with surprising force.
“Don’t touch me—don’t—” he rasped, eyes frantic, red-rimmed. “The jacket. Bobby’s jacket. It’s right there! It was right there, I saw it!”
“Buck, calm down,” Hen said, gently trying to keep him still.
“You can’t pull me away! He left it—he left it for me!” Buck’s voice was rising, hoarse and desperate. “We have to go back! I have to get it! Please—please!”
“Buck, you’re hurt—badly. You fell through the damn floor—”
“I saw his name,” Buck yelled, tears streaking through the ash on his face. “N-A-S-H. I saw it! You have to believe me! You have to!”
He thrashed, despite the searing pain, despite Chim trying to brace his legs and Hen holding him down. He was like a man possessed—grief crackling through every nerve in his body, like he thought if he fought hard enough, he could drag himself back to that ghost in the smoke.
“I have to get it—I have to—he left it for me,” Buck cried. “He knew I’d come. He knew I’d—”
“Evan,” Hen said softly, heartbreak lining her voice as she gently placed her gloved hand on his chest. “He’s gone. Bobby’s gone. But we’re not going to lose you too.”
Buck shook his head, choking on sobs, not even hearing her anymore. His arms were still reaching upward—toward the jagged hole in the ceiling above them, toward the phantom of a man who had been his anchor, his mentor, his father in everything but name.
By the time the medics arrived, Buck was hyperventilating, too far gone in panic and grief. He tried to climb off the stretcher, slurring pleas through bloodied lips.
“Just let me—let me see it again—please—just let me hold it—”
They had to sedate him in the ambulance.
Even after he went still, unconscious and pale beneath the oxygen mask, his hands remained curled at his sides.
Like he was still trying to hold on.
Like he didn’t know how to let go.
⸻
He wakes up around 2:03 a.m., heart pounding and lungs aching with every shallow breath. The ceiling is unfamiliar—white tiles, a soft flickering glow from the overhead fluorescent light—and for a few seconds, he doesn’t know where he is.
Then it hits him.
The collapse. The fire. The jacket.
Bobby’s jacket.
He jolts upright with a gasp and instantly regrets it. Pain explodes in his ribs like shrapnel. His head pulses with a deep, sickening throb, the kind that blurs the edges of the world and makes everything too bright, too loud. There’s gauze around his temple, he can feel it sticking slightly with dried blood. An IV is still tucked in the crook of his elbow.
But none of it matters.
Because they don’t believe him.
Hen’s eyes had been wet, like she was mourning him already. Chim had said his name so gently, like he was something fragile and broken. Lucy had rested a hand on his shoulder and whispered, “You’ve been through a lot, Buck. It’s possible what you saw wasn’t really there.”
But it was.
He saw it. He saw NASH written across the back. The jacket wasn’t just similar—it was Bobby’s. And Bobby didn’t make mistakes. If he left it there, he left it for Buck.
He knows what he saw.
That clarity becomes a roar in his chest, louder than the pain.
He swings his legs over the side of the bed, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw clicks. Pain claws through his side, ribs grinding. His feet hit the cold linoleum floor with a soft tap, and he sucks in a breath between his teeth, pressing a shaking hand to his side. Breathing is harder now—shallow, panicked.
He’s been admitted for observation. He knows he’s supposed to stay.
But he can’t.
He’s done sitting in silence while everyone treats him like he’s broken. Like grief has finally cracked him open and turned his brain to static. He’s not hallucinating. He’s not sleep-deprived or delusional. He knows Bobby’s gone. He was there. He saw it happen.
But he also saw the jacket.
And he’s going back for it.
The hospital discharge papers are at the foot of the bed, unsigned. His own clothes are gone, cut away during triage, but someone’s folded a pair of gray sweatpants and a 118 hoodie—probably Eddie’s—on the chair by the window. There’s a Post-It stuck to the hoodie: “You’re safe. Just rest.” It’s Hen’s handwriting.
Buck pulls the clothes on slowly, every motion jerky and pained. The hoodie is too tight around his ribs, but he needs the warmth. He removes the IV with a wince, pressing gauze to the pinprick of blood that follows.
The hallway outside is dim and quiet, only a few nurses at the station. When they see him limping toward the exit, one of them—an older nurse with kind eyes—calls out, “Sir, you’re not discharged yet—”
“I’m fine,” Buck lies, voice hoarse. “I just need to go. I’ll sign AMA.”
The nurse frowns. “You really shouldn’t—your CT wasn’t cleared, and you still have—”
“I’ll be fine,” he says again, tighter this time, and when she reaches for his arm, he jerks away. “Please. I need to go.”
She doesn’t stop him.
By 3:10 a.m., he’s out in the parking lot. The air is heavy with summer heat and leftover smoke from some distant fire. Buck’s not sure if it’s real or just in his lungs.
He makes it halfway to the curb before the world shifts sideways beneath him.
The pain in his ribs flares so sharply he nearly blacks out, one hand clutching at the lamppost like a lifeline. He leans into it, forehead pressed to cool metal, sweat dripping from his temples. His legs tremble with the effort of holding himself upright.
“You’re okay,” he mutters aloud to no one. “You’re fine. You’re okay. You’re not crazy.”
He doesn’t have a car—Eddie drove him to work that day—so he orders a rideshare, feeding the address of the condemned building into the app. It feels wrong, somehow. Disrespectful. But Bobby wouldn’t want him to stop.
The ride is a blur. Every pothole jostles his ribs. The driver says something to him—small talk, maybe—but Buck only nods. He’s focused on the mission.
By 3:50 a.m., the building looms in front of him.
Caution tape flutters in the breeze. The entrance is boarded, charred wood blackened by the fire. The windows are shattered and the ground smells of smoke and something chemical. A faint orange glow still pulses within, but it’s nothing like the inferno from before.
Buck grips his flashlight and ducks under the tape. He slips in through a side door pried slightly open by the collapse.
Inside, the silence is oppressive.
It’s not like the call earlier that day—no radio chatter, no footsteps, no voices calling names.
Just his own labored breathing, and the flicker of his flashlight as he moves deeper into the wreckage.
He knows where it was. The far back corridor near the sealed lab. That’s where he saw it. He limps down the hall, bracing himself against the wall with each step. Everything hurts. His ribs are screaming, his head is spinning, but he presses forward.
The debris crackles beneath his boots. It takes him nearly fifteen minutes to get to the same spot. The floor where he fell through has caved even further, but the platform above is still partially intact. His flashlight cuts across scorched metal, shattered glass—
And then—
There.
Slumped against a beam, almost blending into the dark, is a charred but unmistakable turnout jacket.
He climbs. Slowly, recklessly. Over debris, through smoke-damaged beams. One foot, then the next. He’s not even sure how he makes it. But when he gets close enough, he reaches out a trembling hand, and—
NASH.
It’s there.
The letters are faded, soot-streaked—but they’re real.
He falls to his knees, pressing a hand to the patch, heart hammering in his chest.
“I told you,” he whispers, voice cracking. “I told you.”
He pulls it into his arms and doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feels the tears soak into the collar. The jacket is heavy. Smells like ash and something warmer—something familiar.
Bobby.
Buck sits there, shaking, clutching it like it might disappear again.
When the distant sound of sirens breaks the silence, he barely hears it. When someone calls his name, he doesn’t look up.
All that matters is that he was right.
Bobby left this for him.
And now he’s not letting go.
⸻
Eddie steps up to the nurse’s station, still in his uniform from the station, exhaustion buzzing under his skin. His voice is even, but barely.
“Hi. I’m here to check on Evan Buckley. He was admitted earlier tonight—head injury, possible cracked ribs.”
The nurse at the desk, a woman in navy scrubs with her hair in a tight braid, taps into her computer. Her brows furrow. She checks the screen again, then glances at Eddie.
“He’s no longer here.”
That makes Eddie blink. “What?”
“He signed out AMA. About forty minutes ago.”
“What?” he says louder. “You let him leave?”
Her posture shifts, straightening a bit. Defensive—but calm, professional.
“He was alert, oriented, and refused further treatment. I brought in the attending twice to try to talk him down. He was adamant. Said he wasn’t waiting anymore.”
“You couldn’t stop him?”
“No,” she says firmly, with the air of someone who’s had this conversation before. “He signed the forms. We followed protocol. He told us someone was coming to pick him up.”
“Well, no one was,” Eddie snaps, then reins himself in. “I—I’m sorry. I’m just—he’s not okay.”
The nurse softens a little. “He wasn’t steady. I’ll be honest. He was limping and short of breath. Still had dried blood in his ear canal. But legally, we can’t hold a patient who refuses treatment unless they’re a danger to themselves or others.”
Eddie presses his hands to his hips, breathing hard. “Did he say where he was going?”
She shakes her head. “He just kept saying he needed to get back. That people didn’t believe him. He was upset. Kept muttering something about ‘the jacket.’”
That hits Eddie like a punch to the chest.
“Did he leave anything behind?”
“We still have his wallet and phone—we tried to give them to him, but he didn’t want them.”
“Did anyone see what direction he went?”
She thinks for a second, then calls over a security guard who was on shift at the door. The guard shrugs.
“He left through the front entrance. Didn’t wait for a ride. Just walked straight into the lot. I thought someone was picking him up.”
“Damn it,” Eddie mutters under his breath. He pulls out his phone and starts dialing.
⸻
By 4:30 a.m. — the team is mobilized.
Hen is already en route, Chim’s on his way, and Athena is calling in a vehicle trace to see if Buck might’ve been caught on traffic cams nearby.
Ravi is quiet on the other end of the phone for a moment before finally saying, “He really left? Alone?”
Eddie rubs a hand over his face. “Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll help. If he went back to the scene, I’ll meet you there.”
Athena texts two minutes later:
Cruiser en route. ETA 15. I’ll start a grid search if he’s not there.
Eddie doesn’t wait. He drives like hell.
————-
They spot him before he sees them.
Slumped against the crumbling brick wall of the warehouse, Buck sits on the cold concrete with the old, filthy navy jacket clutched in his arms like it’s a lifeline. His hoodie is soaked through with sweat, and there’s a fresh scrape down the side of his face. His hands tremble as he tries to unzip the jacket, one clumsy tug at a time.
Eddie’s out of the truck before it’s even stopped moving.
“Buck!”
Buck jerks his head up, dazed, slow, clearly hurting. “Eddie?” His voice cracks. “You—found me.”
“What the hell are you doing?!” Hen shouts, already grabbing the trauma bag.
“Jesus, Buck, we’ve been looking everywhere,” Chim adds as he drops to his knees beside him, eyes scanning his vitals. “Your blood pressure’s gonna be in the dirt, your pupils are sluggish, and—are you limping?”
“I’m—fine,” Buck says automatically, but it’s a lie that doesn’t even bother hiding itself. His voice is hoarse, lips pale, pain etched deep into his face. But he doesn’t let go of the jacket. If anything, he pulls it closer.
“You left the hospital. Alone.” Eddie crouches low, biting the words out, equal parts rage and panic. “What were you thinking?”
Buck swallows, eyes glassy. “It was here. I knew it was here.”
“What was?” Athena asks, stepping forward just as the cruiser pulls up with flashing reds cutting through the dark.
Buck doesn’t speak.
He just holds up the jacket.
And suddenly — everything stops.
The team stares at it. The same jacket he had described back at the original call. Faded. LAFD Station 118 logo half torn. The name tag stitched in cursive, dark with dried blood.
Chim reaches out and gently touches the sleeve.
“This… this is real.”
“It was in the debris,” Buck whispers. “Buried under a vent panel. I saw it when the wind moved the dust.”
Hen swears softly, staring down at the proof in his hands. “We said—God, we said maybe it wasn’t real. That the adrenaline made you see things.”
“You didn’t believe me,” Buck says, not accusing — just hollow. “No one did.”
There’s a long silence.
And then Eddie says, softly, “We do now.”
Buck looks like he might cry. But instead of breaking, he carefully reaches into the inner pocket of the jacket, fingers shaky as he feels something tucked inside.
A folded, weather-stained scrap of paper.
He opens it slowly.
Hen leans over to see, then frowns. “What is that?”
Buck stares at the words scribbled in jagged handwriting.
Buck’s fingers dig deep in the inside pocket of the jacket—smoke-stained, stiff with age. He pulls out a crumpled, dirty scrap of paper. His hands shake as he hands it over to Athena.
The note’s just a long string of letters, no spaces, no punctuation:
CALLSIGNWOLF6NOTDEADHELDSOMEWHEREPLEASEFINDMETELLTHEMPHOENIXSTILLBURNSHELP
Hen squints. “What the hell is this?”
Ravi steps forward, voice low but sharp. “It’s a message. We just gotta break it down.”