Mal de Débarquement “sickness of disembarking”. It is the sensation that people feel after they get off a boat or after they have flown in turbulence, not the nausea and other symptoms that they have during the event.
Eddie couldn’t sleep. He was exhausted, god, was he exhausted. His eyes burned and itched and stared unfocused at the stripes of light creeping across the ceiling that filtered through the curtains from the street lamps outside. His body felt unsettled, skin crawling with the phantom rhythm of waves, a mix of the ghost of water lapping against his legs and the bob of the rescue boat. His back and shoulders and legs were sore from climbing and hauling and swimming.
Mentally, he was drained as well. He had known it would be a hard day - mass casualty natural disasters mean a long series of hard days, meant compartmentalizing, taking off the uniform, meant forcing his mind away from the scenes of gore and death and fear to refocus on his own life when his shift ended. He had been prepared for that. He had braced himself for the added difficulty of seeing the city he considered home devastated. Of streets he knew now submerged with debris and bodies. He knew that the following shifts would weigh even more heavily, as efforts moved from rescuing survivors to recovering bodies.
Nothing prepared him for seeing Buck outside the VA hospital with Christopher’s little red glasses hanging from his neck as a damning proverbial albatross.
It sickened Eddie that he hadn’t known Chris was in danger. That he hadn’t had some innate sense of wrongness that his baby might have died. That he hadn’t worried. It was utterly irrational but he felt guilty that his world hadn’t felt tilted off axis, he hadn’t been nauseous or gutted or dizzy somehow with an abstract sense that Christopher was in trouble.
Chris could have been dead and Eddie might have kept on living for hours without feeling that.
He kept spinning out horrible what-ifs. The terrible surprise he could have had if he turned over one of the hundreds of bloated, waterlogged corpses they were tagging and it had been Buck or Chris distorted nearly beyond recognition. How that would slot in beside Shannon’s bloody body in the snapshots of horror that haunted his mind.
It would have been bad enough to have not known that either of them was in danger and to then have found them dead, but what if he hadn’t even had that. There were still hundreds of missing people, many would likely be found as bodies in the coming weeks, but others would be lost to the sea.
How long would it have been before he had found out Buck and Chris were missing? Hours after the end of a shift when he unlocked Buck’s loft door to find it silent and empty? Would they have found Buck’s jeep abandoned? Or just Chris’s glasses tangled with seaweed and trash? How long would he have had had the strength to hold out hope? Hope for their survival? Hope for a body? Hope for closure? How long before he would have had to go through two more funerals? And how long would he have been able to wait before joining them. Would he have just laid on top of a too small coffin during the ceremony and had them just bury him alive then and there? Would he have had the strength to set his affairs in order - pack up his house, update his will, write a note, or would he have been selfish and left that all to his family to handle.
From the moment he had held his tiny newborn son in his clumsy-large hands he had never considered a world without him. And now, for two horrible, horrible minutes, he had. And he knew with certainty that he would not live long in that world.
He didn’t know what to do with these unwanted nightmarish thoughts that were consuming him in the dark. It was like his mind was backtracking to feel the fear and grief and worry he hadn’t known he should have been feeling. Drowning him now in a wave of hypothetical grief.
Because none of that happened. None of that was real. None of those dark avenues mattered.
Christopher was fine. Completely and utterly fine. Chris was in Eddie’s bed, snug under covers and wedged tightly in the space between Eddie’s arm and torso. Chris was fed and rehydrated and only a little scraped and sunburnt. Chris was wiped clean of the dirt and grime and salty crust of the day with a warm wet washcloth and changed into his softest pajamas and curled around one of his favorite stuffed animals.
Eddie could not be any more aware of his presence than if he had cracked open his ribcage to shelter him inside. Eddie could feel the gentle press of every even breath his baby continued to take. His precious head slowly making Eddie’s arm go numb and his treasured feet kicking into Eddie’s thigh.
The worst possible thing in Eddie’s world could have happened, but it didn’t.
Chris had been kept safe. Not by the random grace of god, not even by luck, but by the strength and love and dogged commitment of one man. Evan Buckley had performed a miracle.
And for all that Eddie was haunted by fears he hadn’t known he should have been feeling, Buck had not had the mercy of obliviousness.
Eddie would never forget Buck’s face in the harsh hospital flood lights. The guilt and fear and grief twisting under the layers of blood and dirt. Eddie had barely been able to look at him, afraid to make those feelings real and to share them. And Buck had been looking for Chris for hours, and Eddie could hardly bear to imagine the way that dread must have built up.
At least he could do something about that. He knew Buck. For all that the day had turned out to be, foisting watching Chris onto Buck’s plate had gotten him out of his sulking rut.
It had been hard to leave Buck at the field hospital. Harder still to get Chris to leave him, having to wait until his son was listlessly sleepy enough to pry away. But Maddie had been there to take over watching Buck breath, had stepped in to stroke his hair and hold his hand. And they had been informed that Buck would need hours more care. Eddie had waited, hopeful both patients would be released and he could simply bring them home tomorrow, but it hadn’t been that simple. The triage doctors had slated Buck for transport to an actual hospital, he’d need scans of his lungs, and leg, and consultation with several specialists. Chris needed a bath and a safe bed more than Eddie could justify needing to see Buck home safe as well.
And it seemed to have been the right call, considering his last texted update from Maddie had still been from a hospital room.
He wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t sure he’d manage to see Buck tomorrow. There were too many things to do for Chris that Eddie needed to handle with his brief time off. They needed every hand on deck for continued recovery efforts but Eddie had 24 hours before he’d return to duty. It would be easy to see Buck then for a drop-off, Chris still needed adult supervision, even more so with school cancelled for the rest of the week. And he and Buck would need each other.
But before then, Chris had physical needs in this aftermath. First thing in the morning Eddie would be setting up emergency appointments with his pediatrician, his physical therapist, and his therapist. He needed to call the school, he needed to call Carla and give her actual details. And he needed to tell his family. Abuela and Pepa would be no problem. He would fit in whatever meal was convenient around Chris’s appointments to come over and let them dote on Chris while he told them about the past danger. They could share in the misery and relief of not knowing until afterwards. Eddie felt choked with the desire to see them, to have his hand held, to have someone else who understood the magnitude without discounting the miracle.
He dreaded telling his parents.
He hated how certain he was that this would become ammunition for them. Never something they’d bring up to Christopher’s face, but he knew how his mother might turn this on him. Proof LA was dangerous and he should move back under their thumb in Texas. Proof he couldn’t handle caring for Chris on his own since he had needed to leave him with a coworker. Proof Eddie had bad taste in friends and was a poor judge of character since his coworker had taken Chris into a tsunami. Proof Chris was too traumatized and needed to be back in their coddling grasp.
His best plan was to call them while his Abuela and Tia were there, so they could attest to Chris’s safety to his parents. That maybe they would refute some of these critiques. He’d tell his sisters before his parents as well, they too might be mitigating forces, and he’d rather they hear about the incident from him rather than from his parents.
His phone pinged in the darkness, a burst of blue illuminating half the ceiling and casting long shadows suddenly into the corners of the room. Maddie had finally messaged one of their larger group chats, following their usual approach of risking waking someone up over withholding information until the morning.
Buck had been released from the hospital, no new concerns, no excessive damage done from his ordeal.
Eddie felt jarringly lighter, half-formed concerns he had not even realized were weighing on him suddenly alleviated.
Buck was physically okay, and Eddie could fix the guilt.
Buck was fine. Chris was fine.
Chris stirred next to him, perhaps from the light, perhaps from the change in the tension in Eddie’s body, but he twisted around, making a whining sleepy noise, brow scrunched shut. Eddie hauled him closer, head now pillowed on Eddie’s chest, arm flung around him and latched on to his shirt. Eddie felt overwhelmed with joy and gratitude and relief. He didn’t need to feel any new grief. His hand could still cover Chris’s head, still stroke through his hair, coarse from salt and sweat. He still had his baby and he knew exactly who he had to thank for that. And he knew exactly what best way to show that gratitude, that trust would be the precious commodity between them.
chimney taking bobby to the labor and delivery unit to see a baby he saved after he revealed he was suicidal -> buck taking eddie to the equine therapy center to see charlie (a kid eddie saved) after eddie had his ptsd breakdown
I think my preferred Buddie dynamic is that Buck knows and is sick with it and repressing it. And Eddie doesn’t know until it hits him over the head and then he immediately does something about it.
Like Buck is doing 4D chess in his mind to not think about being in love with Eddie. But for Eddie, it will be some catalyst that causes every thing to suddenly snap into place and he has a that’s so raven style vision but it’s all flashbacks and him realizing he’s in love with Buck and then immediately finding Buck and confessing to him and kissing him and Buck is like wait what’s happening you’re straight and Eddie is like no I’m not and Buck is like when did that happen and Eddie said five seconds ago and now are you going to marry me or what
NOBODY's character development goes as hard as Buck Buckley's. season to season you're like Yeah that's the exact same guy he was before. but put season1 Buck next to season9 Buck and you're like Oh those are two completely different men
