Chapter Text
The call came at the end of a busy shift, at the end of a busy night at the end of a busy week. Well, the start of a new week actually. The 24 hour shift had begun at the start of Sunday, and now - before the Monday sun had risen - the 118 answered what had to be their final call. As the alarm began to blare, a groan rippled through the firehouse as tired firefighters summoned the last of their caffeine-fuelled energy and jogged to the vehicles. Despite their weariness, the job came first. They had lives to save - they couldn't dwell on something as mundane as tiredness.
It was only a one alarm fire, but they knew that it would be a tough call when they heard they had to deal with a blazing home, one containing a trapped family. As they pulled up to the scene, Bobby began to direct them. Hoses were grabbed, positions were taken and paramedics were on standby to aid the victims within the rapidly disintegrating house. The fire had been burning for several minutes before they arrived, and nobody had made it out so far. Dispatch said that three of the four family members were huddled together in the living room, which was where the call came from, but the father had been upstairs when the fire began. No calls had come from him, and the woman and her two children were becoming increasingly desperate as they didn't hear even a hint of his voice echoing from another room.
“Buckley, Diaz suit up; you're going in.” Bobby ordered, already distracted by trying to prevent the flames from spreading to other homes.
Buck and Eddie grinned at each other, despite the fatigue that hung behind their eyes. They would soon forget about it, when the adrenaline kicked in. It was strange, Buck had once thought, how easy it was to run into fire with Eddie. It was as if every instinct that told him to stay away from the heat was quickly reassured by the knowledge that he wasn't diving in alone; he had Eddie Diaz by his side to watch his back. They just clicked, working together effortlessly. Buck swore that Eddie could read his mind sometimes, they were that in sync. They pulled on their gear, checking each other automatically to make sure they were both safe. Well, as safe as they could be, given that they were about to run straight into a burning building.
Buck was worried the second he crossed the threshold. He had no idea why; it wasn't like he hadn't done this dozens of times before. He shook himself mentally. This was neither the time nor the place to be distracted by mysterious feelings or unsettlement. He was probably just tired.
The house was a nice suburban home, or at least it probably was when it wasn't in the process of burning to the ground. The soot stained walls were decorated with assortments of books and photographs and certificates, proof that lives had been lived and loved in this space. The house seemed to be three floors - the ground floor, the upstairs and the attic. They had the location of three of the four people inside; it was finding the fourth that would be difficult.
“LAFD! Call out!” Eddie yelled, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask.
“In here! We're in-”
The faint reply was cut off by a fit of coughing, but it was all they needed. The two of them rushed towards the source of the voice, bursting into the room. Huddled on the floor was a woman of around forty, clutching her two young daughters. Ashes and soot covered their faces, the woman's dyed blonde hair now streaked with grey. Neither of the children could be older than eight or nine; their cheeks wet with tears and their bodies pressed into their mother. She sobbed in relief as she struggled to rise to her feet, gently pulling her children up with her.
“Hi,” Buck smiled, even though nobody would be able to see it. “I'm Buck, this is my friend Eddie, we're gonna get you all out of here, okay?”
“Come on girls, let's go. It's all gonna be alright now, see. That's it, come on.” The mother gently encouraged, ushering her children along as the five of them navigated their way through the flames.
“Cap, we've located three victims, heading out now.” Eddie said into his radio, still walking them through the house as Buck took up the rear.
As they escaped into the cold night air and paramedics rushed over to them, the woman whirled around to face them, urgency in her eyes.
“My husband,” she choked out, voice hoarse with smoke. “He was upstairs, I don't know what happened to him. My husband is still in there! You've gotta help him, please, I can't lose him.”
Buck nodded, trying to keep his voice and stance steady and even.
“It's okay, we'll find him, I promise. You need to go with the paramedics now, you've inhaled a lot of smoke. Take care of your kids, we'll get him out.”
Grabbing his radio, he watched the woman let the paramedics work as he gave Bobby the rundown of the situation. He was growing impatient, since every second wasted was a second more that a man was trapped. He could be dying right then and there.
“Buckley, Diaz, be advised that the infrastructure appears to be unstable. The first sign of collapse, you get out of there, understand?” Came Bobby’s response. His tone was completely professional, but Buck could still hear a hint of care in it. “Don't put yourself at any more risk than you have to.”
“Copy that.” Buck replied somewhat reluctantly, knowing that he couldn't really afford to get himself killed before his sister got married. Maddie would never forgive him if he died before he could watch her walk down the aisle. And if she would be angry, Chimney would probably drag him back from the grave just to kill him again for upsetting her. Strangely, the thought made Buck smile. It was good that Maddie finally had somebody to fight for her.
Buck and Eddie went into the flames once more, this time taking a different path. All the information they had indicated that the father was upstairs, possibly unconscious since nothing had been heard from him. There was one slight problem there - the stairs had caught fire since they had rescued the first three victims.
“Cap, we need hoses in here to put out the staircase, we're never going to get up there and back down like this.” Of course Eddie had a simple, practical solution. He was definitely the less reckless of the pair, although considering both of their track records that wasn't saying much. Or perhaps it was saying a lot about just how reckless Buck was.
As soon as the hoses had knocked down the flames, Buck was raring to go. Bobby was cautious, warning that the stairs were unstable, but there wasn't enough time to position the ladder truck and climb up that way. So, despite Bobby's reluctance, Buck and Eddie took the stairs, relieved to find that none of them collapsed beneath them.
The upstairs was hotter, far hotter, than the ground floor. The flames leaped up at them, swarming Buck's vision and stinging his protected eyes. The smoke clung to his face, sweat dripping from every pore as he fought his way forwards, though he didn't know quite where he was going.
“LAFD!” He heard echoing through the blaze, from a voice that he knew to be his own, but he felt strangely detached. It was as if someone else was controlling his body whilst he watched from afar, a puppet at the mercy of the strings. He screwed his eyes shut painfully tight for a second, before opening them and continuing. Now was not the time. When there was no response, he called again.
“LAFD! Is anyone there?”
Still nothing.
He heard Eddie doing the same, the two of them yelling into the blazing inferno in the hopes that someone might reply. They pushed on and on, the heat levels rising and the visibility becoming worse and worse. All Buck could see was a vague orange haze, consuming the walls and windows and doors. The temperature grew nearly unbearable, his head spinning and screaming at him to get out. But still, he was a firefighter. That meant putting the pain aside and moving forwards, because there was someone out there who needed his help. Nobody else was dying, not today. They had lost too many people that shift. Buck was not going to let that poor woman lose a husband, those scared children lose a father and countless other faceless entities lose a loved one.
Buck was starting to lose hope of ever finding him, before he heard the sound. It was faint at first, but as he moved towards it Buck became certain that he could hear a consistent, unnatural banging. Sets of three, over and over - bang! bang! bang! Someone was making themself heard. Buck kept going, following it until he was almost certain he'd found the source - hidden behind a door. Blistering flames were gnawing at the carpet beside it, but the door itself had not yet been set alight. It was closed, and discoloured from smoke and soot, but there was some sort of cloth shoved under it. Somebody was in there, someone smart enough to keep the smoke out. Calling Eddie over, he grasped the doorknob and tugged it open, revealing a bed, a closet and a man, bloodied fist knocking a rhythm into the wall. His body was tense, standing like he was ready to fistfight the flames themselves. But, upon seeing the firefighters, he seemed to slump, some of the tension in his muscles seemed to release from the relief of being found. Of being saved.
“My wife… my kids… you need to find them.” He doubled over, coughing and wheezing. His voice could barely reach above a whisper. “Please… I can't… can't lose them.”
Buck gently put an arm on his shoulder, steering him towards the fire-choked corridor.
“It's alright, they're already out, they're safe. They're all okay, and they're going to be even better when they can see that you're okay too. Let's get you out of here, alright?”
The man nodded and started moving, inhaling deeply before stepping towards the smoldering doorway; Buck kept supporting him by the arm in case he fell. Buck breathed a quiet sigh, hopefully things would go smoothly from here on out. He didn't allow himself to register these thoughts, of course. It wouldn't do to jinx them when they were so close, no matter how insistent Eddie was that jinxes weren't real.
The floor creaked with each step and Buck forced himself to remember that it was normal, that some houses always creaked regardless of whether or not they were on fire. He kept going, one step at a time, ignoring the sweltering heat and the words ‘unstable’ and ‘collapse’ that reverberated through his skull in Bobby's voice.
It all happened so fast after that.
The floor’s creaking became more and more insistent, but this time it mingled with groaning from the ceiling and crackling sounds that had nothing to do with the flames. Buck could feel tremors through his shoes as the building shifted and shook. He glanced up only to see a fine rain of plaster falling from cracks that shot through the ceiling. They had to get out of there, now. He started pulling the man forwards, dragging them out whilst signalling to Eddie with his hand. Telling him to go, to get out of there right that second. Himself he could risk, but Eddie had a son waiting for him at home. This man had a wife and two daughters waiting for him outside. He had to get them out, no matter what. Just a few more steps and they'd be in the relative safety of the corridor. More walls, less weight on the ceiling. Of course, the corridor was currently on fire, so he couldn't really call it safety, but it was definitely safer.
Two steps from the doorway, the floor groaned loudly and Buck knew he was about to fail. It was going to give way and they were all going to fall. There was only one thing he could do. Eddie was in front of him, the man was beside him. He had to get them out as quickly as possible.
“Eddie!” He yelled through his oxygen mask, “The floor’s about to go, get out of here!”
Without pausing to see the confusion and panic in his best friend's eyes, Buck threw the still coughing man forwards with all his strength, shoving Eddie too as he did so. They both stumbled into the smoke filled corridor, a safer place to be in Buck’s mind. Buck took one step forward and-
Creaks became cracks.
The wooden floor splintered beneath him and, almost in slow motion, he fell through with a cry of shock. He felt a jolt hit his stomach as he slipped into open air and for a second he was weightless, neither falling nor flying, simply existing in the space between solid masses. For a second the whole world was just a whirl of red and orange and black, swirling around before his eyes as a scream sounded from above. For a second he was totally at peace, not afraid or angry or in pain.
Then the second passed, and the moment broke. He crashed to the floor, pain spiking through his body. His helmet had caught on the remaining floorboards, jerking it off of his head. It fell beside him, coming down with a thud. The world was a spinning blur around him, and Buck found himself closing his eyes to lessen the nausea. He lay there, the heat blistering his skin and air scraping his lungs with every agonising breath.
After a few seconds, he forced his eyes open. He blinked furiously, trying to steady his vision. Experimentally, he twitched his fingers and toes, thankful to find he could move them all. He didn't seem to have lost mobility, and he was in pain pretty much everywhere. Buck would have felt relieved if he weren't in the middle of an active fire, which was getting closer and closer to him every minute. He almost felt like he was back in the tsunami, the water rushing over his head and keeping him pinned. However, Buck had learned from the tsunami to keep on fighting, even when it seems like all hope is lost and it would be easier just to drown. He knew to keep looking forwards, to move on because there's nothing more dangerous than to be left behind. Alas, there was something else that the tsunami had taught him, something that he couldn't have avoided or prevented.
No matter how bad the first wave was, the aftershocks always bring the worst.
A fine white powder sprinkled itself across Buck’s oxygen mask. Not ashes, they weren't grey enough…
Plaster.
With an almighty crash, the first floor’s ceiling collapsed, breaking through the floor to heap itself on top of Buck. The last thing he saw was a support beam slamming right down between his eyes before darkness swallowed him up.