Chapter 1
Buck
7th June
The house creaked with the kind of silence that only came when it knew it was being watched. The clock above the fridge ticked out seconds like slow drops of water, but it was the only sound that dared speak. Buck stood in the kitchen, barefoot on the cold tiles, still in the clothes he’d worn to work. His jacket hung limp on the back of a chair, one arm dragging along the floor like it had collapsed under the weight of waiting too long.
He stared at the kettle as it boiled. Steam curled up and vanished; the water inside rattled, bubbling with urgency, but he didn’t move until it clicked off. He poured it anyway. Half-heartedly. Tea he wouldn’t drink.
The mug in his hands was chipped — one of Chris’s old favorites. It still had a worn Superman sticker on the side, half peeled away. Eddie had insisted on keeping it, even after Chris said he didn’t care about superheroes anymore. They used to fight over who got to use it in the morning. Now it just lived in the back of the cabinet, untouched.
Just like everything else here.
Buck set it on the counter, untouched, and leaned his weight against the sink. He looked out through the window, the reflection of his own tired face staring back at him. His eyes looked hollow. Not the kind of hollow that cried. The kind that had stopped remembering how to.
It had been six months. Six months of learning to live like a ghost in a house that had once held warmth and noise and life. Six months of missed calls and quiet texts and the empty ache of pretending this distance wasn’t personal.
He remembered when Eddie used to call every night. Video calls that stretched until one of them fell asleep mid-sentence. Chris would sometimes pop in with his newest game obsession, demanding Buck join them online later — even though he always forgot how bad Buck was at playing. Now, a week might go by before his phone lit up with a message from Chris or Eddie. Sometimes longer.
Their last call had been… what? Four days ago? Buck blinked, trying to remember what they talked about.
Something about Eddie joining a new gym. About the basketball court by their house in El Paso finally opening up. Eddie had mentioned Diego again — how he’d helped Chris with something at school. How they were going out for sushi to celebrate. Eddie had laughed when he told the story.
He hadn’t asked about Buck’s week.
He hadn’t noticed the long pause when Buck said, “Yeah, I’m doing fine.”
Didn’t ask why his voice sounded like gravel.
The tea had gone cold.
Buck exhaled through his nose, slow and steady. He could feel that quiet pull behind his eyes — the one that said cry if you need to, but nothing came. Not anymore. He was past tears. Past anger. What he had now was older, heavier. It was the deep ache of being forgotten.
He turned from the sink and padded down the hallway, flicking lights off as he went. Each room he passed still looked the same as when they’d lived here — the three of them. Chris’s shoes were still in the closet. Eddie’s old LAFD hoodie still hung over the kitchen door. Sometimes Buck wore it around the house just to feel something. He told himself it was because it was soft. Comfortable.
The couch sagged in the spot where Eddie used to sit. The TV hadn’t been turned on in a couple of weeks. There was no one to watch it with anymore.
Buck didn’t go to his bedroom. He stopped instead at Chris’s room — and pushed the door open. The light was dim, coming in from the hallway, but it was enough to see the mess still left behind. The room hadn’t changed. Not really. Posters on the walls, a half-finished Lego build on the shelf, clothes folded in the drawer. He kept it exactly the way Chris had left it. Like maybe, if he held onto it long enough, they’d come back.
But they weren’t.
Not here, anyway.
Eddie didn’t talk about LA anymore.
Didn’t say when we come home. Didn’t say I miss it or I miss you or anything that might’ve given Buck something to hold onto. Now it was just updates about life in El Paso. About how things were finally settling. About how good it felt to breathe.
Buck shut the door.
Back in the living room, he curled into the corner of the couch and pulled a blanket over his lap, his crocheting half-finished on the cushion beside him. He picked it up, let the yarn run through his fingers. Soft. Comforting.
It was meant to be a tiger. Chris had asked for it a year ago. Buck hadn’t finished it. He didn’t see the point anymore. He sighed, putting the half finished project away in a box, and pulling out different yarn, and the pattern he found online of a cow dressed as a paramedic. He had seen a charity online that made teddies for children on calls who had undergone traumatic events.
His phone buzzed once on the coffee table. He didn’t look at it. He already knew it wasn’t Eddie.
He leaned back against the cushions and closed his eyes, letting the weight of the silence wrap around him like a second skin, as he began his new project. And in the stillness of his empty home, Buck waited for sleep to come. Or morning. Or maybe just something that would feel like hope again.
Chris
29th May
The laptop balanced on Chris’s knees wobbled slightly when he shifted his weight on the couch, but he didn’t care. His grin stretched wide, bright and easy, the kind that had been missing for too long. On the screen, Buck smiled back at him — a little tired-looking, maybe, but he also knew Buck’s shift had run over a lot, so he was probably just feeling the aftereffects of a tough shift.
“—and then Dad totally ate it trying to jump a hedge when we went horse riding.” Chris said, mid-story, laughing. “Like, I told him it was a bad idea, but he was all ‘nah, I got this,’ and then boom — face-first into the grass. Diego was crying from laughing. Luckily the only thing Dad bruised was he ego.”
Buck’s smile tightened a little at that, but Chris didn’t notice. He was too busy basking in the simple joy of being heard.
“Diego’s awesome,” he added, fiddling with the edge of the couch cushion. “He’s like… so much cooler than Dad’s other friends here. Not as show-offy. And he actually listens when I talk about games and stuff. Plus, he and Dad are, like, best friends now. We’ve been to the zoo a couple times, and Diego took me to a baseball game, and there’s this ramen place they both love. We go every Friday.”
He paused for a breath, watching the way Buck’s fingers rubbed absently at the seam of the blanket on his lap. Something about it flickered in Chris’s chest — but he didn’t know what. So he kept going.
“Dad’s been really happy lately,” he said, more softly now. “Like… not just faking it. It’s different, you know? Before, it felt like he was always waiting for something to get better. But now he’s just… here. I think it’s the first time in forever that he’s not sad.”
Buck nodded once, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Chris noticed that.
He blinked.
“Are you okay?”
Buck hesitated. “Oh. Sorry, Chris, I—uh, something just came up. I gotta head out, Maddie needs help with stuff for the baby.”
“Oh. Okay.” Chris sat back, trying not to sound too disappointed. “We can call later?”
“Yeah,” Buck said. “Yeah, sure. Stay safe, alright?”
“You too.”
The call ended with a soft blip. The screen went black.
Chris stared at his own reflection for a moment — a little blurrier now. He frowned, suddenly unsure why his stomach felt weird. Maybe it was just the silence.
Buck
Buck sat alone in the living room, the blanket still draped over his lap, the weight of Chris’s voice echoing louder than the silence that followed it.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. He just stared at the screen. And for the first time — truly the first time — he let himself accept that Eddie wasn’t coming back. Not as anything more than a memory he had to stop feeding.
7th January
Dr Copeland’s video box was lit up on Buck’s ipad screen, her background the same calming blue-and-white space it always was — a softly blurred bookshelf, a framed print of some kind of plant. She had her glasses on today, hair pulled back, pen in hand like always.
Buck sat hunched over at his kitchen table, hoodie pulled over his hands despite the spring heat. He’d debated canceling. Twice. Even hovered over the “leave meeting” button when the connection started lagging at the beginning. But now he was here, blinking against the harsh light of the screen, feeling like a ghost of himself.
“I’m not in crisis,” he said, before she even asked.
Dr Copeland nodded slowly. “I didn’t think you were.”
Buck fiddled with the corner of the notepad in front of him — blank. Like always. He kept it there to look like he was writing things down. It felt like a good prop.
“I just…” He exhaled through his nose. “I don’t know. I think it’s getting worse.”
She didn’t rush him. She never did. Her voice stayed calm, steady, just slightly distorted through the speakers. “What makes you say that?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked past the laptop, out the small window above the sink. The sky was soft today, a little overcast, like it couldn’t commit to whether or not it wanted to rain.
“Everything feels louder,” he said finally. “Like… when I’m alone, it’s like my brain won’t shut up. It just keeps going. And I used to be able to push through it, you know? Distraction. Calls with Eddie. But now…”
He trailed off, throat tight.
Dr Copeland adjusted slightly in her chair on-screen. “Now those things aren’t happening as much?”
Buck nodded, jaw tense. “Yeah.”
“He’s still in El Paso?”
“Yeah. And I get it. I do. Chris needed him. But he’s only been gone a couple weeks and…I don’t know, it feels like I’m numb all the time. When we call, all we seem to do is talk about Chris, and how Eddie can fix the relationship between the two of them. Sometimes it’s like I’m interrupting something. Like I’m this… old chapter he’s trying not to reread.”
His voice cracked at the end, just enough that he had to look away from the screen.
“I don’t think he’s coming back.”
***
It sat heavy in the space between them — the silence only broken by the faint hum of his refrigerator and the occasional flicker in her video feed.
“Have you been thinking about hurting yourself, Buck?”
He didn’t flinch at the question. She always asked it the same way. Direct. Gentle. Unafraid.
“No,” he said. “Not… not like that.”
“Can you say more?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I think about… not being here. Just… being gone. Not dead, really. Just… not existing. Like, if I could just fall asleep and not wake up, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. Or I walk into a 5-alarm fire and all I can think about how easy it would be to just…stop fighting.”
Dr Copeland didn’t look surprised. Just… sad, in that patient way that made him feel like she actually cared.
“That’s what we call passive suicidality,” she said. “It’s not about making a plan. It’s about wishing the pain would stop, or that you could disappear from it. It’s serious, Buck. It means you’re at a breaking point, even if it doesn’t look like one.”
He nodded, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw white stars bloom.
***
“I’m tired,” he whispered. “I’m so tired.”
“I know.”
She gave it a beat before she added, carefully, “I want to try something different. Something practical. Would you be open to hearing about it?”
Buck let out a shaky laugh. “What, more breathing exercises?”
“No,” she said, with the hint of a smile. “A dog.”
He blinked.
“Wait—what?”
“A psychiatric service dog,” she clarified. “Trained to recognize when you’re overwhelmed. To provide deep pressure therapy. Help ground you. Wake you if you’re dissociating. They can even bring you water or your meds when you’re stuck in a low.”
Buck stared at the screen. “You’re… serious?”
“I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think it could help,” she said. “This isn’t a pet. It’s a support system. A partner. Something warm and alive that reminds you that you are, too.”
A lump formed in his throat so fast it caught him off guard.
“You think I’m that bad off?”
“I think you deserve better support than what you’ve had,” she said, voice firm. “And I think you’ve spent too long trying to survive without a lifeline. You have spent most of your life believing that your only purpose is to put yourself on the line to save other people. And even since you started at the 118, you have had some pretty traumatic things happen. I think that you have been struggling for a lot longer than you give yourself credit for. Plus your ADHD is about more than just the hyperactivity, and the hyperfixations. It also comes with issues with being more sensitive to rejection and struggling with being burnout from ‘masking’ to fit in with other people.”
He didn’t answer.
So she continued. “I’ve already started the paperwork. You’d meet with a matching specialist in a couple of weeks. I’ve also written a letter of recommendation for your department. It outlines that you’re not a risk to yourself or anyone else. It details the dog’s tasks — and makes it very clear that it’s not meant for active calls.”
Buck swallowed. “You think HQ will go for it?”
“I think if you bring them the letter, they’ll understand it’s not about weakness. It’s about safety.”
He nodded slowly. A beat passed. Then another.
“What kind of dog is it?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Dr Copeland smiled — not wide, but real. “You’ll get to meet a few. They’ll help find the right one for you. One that matches your energy. Your needs. Your heart.”
His throat tightened again.
And for the first time in a long time, he let himself hope for something.
Even if it was just paws on hardwood, warm weight across his legs, and the kind of love that didn’t need to be explained.
13th January
The waiting room outside Alonzo’s office still smelled like burnt coffee and industrial-strength cleaner. The same cracked vinyl chairs lined the wall, the same fire safety posters framed above them — sun-faded and curling at the corners.
Buck sat stiffly, his paperwork clutched in both hands, the therapist’s letter neatly stapled to the top. He’d read it so many times over the last few days that he could probably recite it. Every line felt too revealing. Too much. He was anxious about what Chief Alonso would say, concerned that he might pull Buck from active duty. His foot bounced restlessly until the door finally creaked open.
“Buck,” said Alonzo, nodding him in. “Come on in.”
Chief Alonso was the kind of man whose presence filled a room — not with volume, but with steadiness. The Fire Chief, thirty years in the field, calm under pressure in a way that made everyone else feel a little more stable by association. Buck had only met him a handful of times in passing — commendations, the occasional visit to the station, once after the tsunami, when the Chief had thanked him for putting himself on the line to save all the civilians when he himself was off-duty— but the man always remembered names, always looked you in the eye when he spoke.
Buck stood, spine straightening out of sheer instinct. “Chief.”
Alonso waved a hand. “Relax, kid. You’re not in trouble. Close the door behind you.”
The office was lined with photos — stations, teams, a few older shots from deployments years before. There was a framed print on the desk that read “Leadership is service, not status.”
Buck handed over the folder, still trying not to fidget.
“It’s a request,” he said. “From my therapist.”
Alonzo nodded, accepting it without hesitation. “I’ve read the summary already. Wanted to hear it from you, though.”
Buck hesitated. He hated how vulnerable this made him feel — like admitting something had cracked, even if he was doing everything right to patch it.
“It’s for a psychiatric service dog,” he said. “Trained. Certified. Not for active duty — they’d stay at the station during calls. Crated, calm. Their job would just be… support. Day-to-day. I wouldn’t be bringing them unless I had the okay from everyone.”
Alonzo had already flipped open the folder, skimming the letter with a focused kind of calm.
“Dr Copeland,” he muttered. “There are a few firefighters that see her, so I’ve read a few of her evaluations before. She might not be officially a department therapist, but she is good all the same. She’s sharp. Doesn’t sugar-coat things.”
Buck nodded. “Yeah. She doesn’t.”
Alonzo read for another moment, then closed the folder gently. No judgment. No hesitation. Just a thoughtful pause.
“I think it’s a good idea,” he said simply.
Buck blinked. “You… do?”
“I’ve been in this job a long time, Buck,” Alonzo said. “I’ve seen guys destroy themselves because they thought asking for help made them weak. You’re not just asking — you’re already in therapy, you’ve done the homework, you’ve brought in the paperwork — this is one of the most responsible requests I’ve had in months.”
Buck let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“The letter makes everything clear,” Alonzo continued. “No on-call obligations. Tasks are practical, safe. And frankly, I think having a dog around the station might do more good than harm for everyone else too.”
He leaned back, a small smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. “Besides, there is a fire captain at station 27 that adopted one of the retired search dog that’s basically become the station mascot. They’ve got him a cot and everything.”
Buck huffed out something like a laugh. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’d be surprised how much morale improves when there’s someone around who doesn’t talk back and always wants to share their lunch.”
That drew a real laugh from Buck, low and brief but genuine.
“I’ll approve it,” Alonzo said, reaching for his pen. “Send me the name once the dog’s assigned and we’ll get a badge made up. Might even have some spare vest patches around here somewhere.”
“Patches?”
“Sure. If the dog’s going to be part of the house, they ought to look the part. I’ll find something.”
Buck stared for a second — overwhelmed not by the approval, but by the ease of it. By how simple Alonzo had made it feel to say yes, you’re allowed to take care of yourself.
“Thank you,” he said, voice quieter now. “Really.”
Alonzo offered a firm nod. “You’re doing the work, son. That’s what matters. I can’t foresee an issue with a certified service dog joining you at work.”
As Buck left the office, folder in hand, something inside him shifted. Not everything — the weight was still there. The ache. The grief. The not-quite-healed pieces.
But something in him stood a little taller.
And for the first time in a long time, he felt like he could breathe easily.