Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Los Angeles

2005

When Bobby puts in his transfer papers, he isn’t looking for anything except not here. He will take anything except the tearing bite of Midwestern winters, the perpetual darkness that is November through March. Too many figures loom in that darkness: Marcy, wrapped in gauze and white like a ghost except for the places where the burns have wept through the bandages. Robbie and Brook, still and pale and perfect, black ringed around their little mouths, turning them into bottomless wells. If Bobby stays in that darkness, he will be swallowed by those mouths. And he can’t let that happen.

Not yet. 

“Somewhere warm,” he tells his captain. And, “Anywhere that will have me.”

He supposes LA is as good a place to die as any.

At first, Bobby doesn’t think so. When he arrives at his new station, the 143, the people who greet him there seem almost garishly alive to him. Bobby knew LA had a reputation for being looks-obsessed, but he had no idea that obsession would have spilled into the firehouses: most of the men and women he worked with in Minnesota looked like they had either just walked straight out of a fire or straight out of a three-night bender, regardless of how long it had been since they’d seen the inside of a flaming house or a bar. Here it is all bright white teeth, perfectly toned bodies, hair that is cut and coiffed so perfectly every one of them must have a standing appointment with a beautician. No firefighter, Bobby thinks as he shakes manicured hand after manicured hand, has any right to such clean fingernails. And on top of that they’re all so cheerful: they clap him on the back, repeat his name over and over like they’re memorizing it—which, he eventually realizes, they are—and try to draw him into their social circles immediately. Come out for a drink with us, Nash, or, I’m throwing steaks on the grill this weekend, see you there?

It’s enough that Bobby almost doesn’t come back the second day. If he didn’t have work to do he probably wouldn’t. But he has reasons to. One hundred and forty-eight of them.

So he comes back. And then he keeps coming back. He brushes off the invites, politely but firmly, every time they are offered, until he eventually gains the reputation he was after: quiet guy. Antisocial guy. Does his job well but nothing more guy. 

The shiny happy people stop bothering him after a while.

Being on the outside has its advantages. Not just the ones Bobby is seeking. As a supremely unattached observer, he is eventually able to see what all that buff and shine is covering up. LA, the people in LA, all of it is a movie set: press too hard on any facade and it will topple over. And what are all these shiny, happy people afraid of? 

The same thing everyone else is: they are afraid of death. But where in Minnesota you outrun death by bundling your family up somewhere safe and hunkering down for the long winters (or, in absence of a family, crawling deep into whatever bottle you can get your hands on), in LA you outrun it by pretending it isn’t there. You get injections and fillers and surgeries that make you feel for a little while like even age can’t catch you. You scream from every rooftop and social media page and cramped audition room to be seen, to be worshipped, because if you are loved hard enough by enough people, you become immortal. 

It’s only once Bobby realizes that everyone in LA is terrified of dying that he’s able to really settle in. Because there’s something ironic that happens when so many people are grinning so hard in the face of death, pretending they can’t see it in hopes of becoming immune: death creeps in harder. It fills the corners; it rises into the rafters. It waits in every mirror and behind closed doors, more ready than ever because it knows the people it’s after aren’t ready for it. 

People are incautious here. They leave kettles on the stove. They check their makeup in the rearview mirror while going eighty miles an hour on the highway. They let their kids wander into the road because they spotted a celebrity, or thought they had a good opportunity for a selfie. In their certainty that death can never touch them, they invite it in at every juncture. And that is where Bobby comes in. Bobby, who knows that death is everywhere, waiting. Who, when his work is finished, will welcome it with open arms.

It makes him sharp to it. He knows where to look for death, knows how to get out in front of it. He pulls people out of wrecks. He performs CPR on them in the middle of the road. He slings them over his shoulders and runs with them through the smoke and the flames. And every night he goes home to his barren apartment and three empty place settings and he adds tics to his notebook. Counting down the lives. Counting down the days. And when that is done, he does what he does best these days—better, even, than he does saving lives. He drinks until he blacks out.

Bobby isn’t stupid. He’s been on this planet for thirty-eight years, and he likes to think he’s pretty good with people—or he used to be, before his accident, before the pills and the booze and the loss of the only people who ever actually meant something to him—so he knows he’s striking a delicate balance. If he is going to be the quiet guy, he also has to be the guy who is great at his job. Especially if he is also going to be the guy who comes into work every morning with a raging hangover. And he is great at his job. Just like he is great, at this point, at pretending not to be hungover. 

But still, five months into his tenure at the 143, Bobby’s new captain—Captain Durgess—calls him into his office. They exchange niceties (How are you? Still adjusting to the LA heat? Anything you’d like to bring up now that you’ve been here a while?) and then, just when the tension is starting to gnaw at the base of Bobby’s skull, making sweat drip down the back of his neck, Durgess finally gets to the point.

“Well, Nash,” he says, leaning back in his seat and folding his hands over his stomach. Durgess is a big man, but still well-groomed like everyone else at the 143. “The long and short of it is, I’m a little worried about you. Ah—socially.”

Bobby waits. His fingers itch. His rosary is in his pocket, but he knows better than to pull it out in the middle of a work meeting. He already has a reputation as a weird loner; he doesn’t need to be known as the weird religious loner on top of that. 

Durgess waits too, but when it becomes clear that Bobby isn’t going to offer anything, he clears his throat and goes on. 

“I recognize that settling into a new place can be a big task,” he says. “And I’m not expecting you to throw any dinner parties. But a big part of this job, whether we like it or not, is community outreach. And I’ve gotten some feedback that your—ah—outreach skills might need a little tuning up.”

Bobby thinks back to their most recent call: a Barbie-blonde socialite who had driven her pretty white Jeep halfway off an overpass in rush hour traffic. Bobby had been the one to pull her back to safety, but when she’d started dropping not-so-subtle hints that she’d like to pay the favor back, and not in money, he’d walked away without a word. So, he gets that he might not get the most glowing reviews. Still, he thinks, what kind of ridiculous town leaves reviews for the people saving their lives? What does that even look like? Great rope technique, not super perky. Three stars.  

“If you need me to talk to anyone,” Bobby says, “anyone who’s upset, I’m happy to do that.”

But Durgess waves a hand. “No, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to offer you an opportunity to get out of your shell a little. Without having to dive into any extracurriculars."

So he has noticed that Bobby has turned down every single social opportunity since starting at the 143. Bobby clears his throat. Tries not to think about the half-empty bottle of scotch under his kitchen sink, waiting for the moment the bell rings at the end of his twenty-four hour shift.

“What do you need me to do?” he says.

Durgess grins, displaying all of his blindingly-white teeth. Relieved, clearly, that Bobby isn’t fighting him on this.

“We do a program here, occasionally, for young men who are—how do I put this? In danger of straying onto the wrong path in life. Pre-teens and teens. None of them have done anything terrible, understand. Mostly we’re talking about chronic truancy, but you know how that sort of thing gets out of hand when left unchecked. We run a little camp for them here over the summer. Just two weeks, but it does wonders for their self-esteem. Training drills in the morning, then work in the firehouse in the afternoon. Home by three, all that good stuff. I’d like you to run it this year.”

The sweat on the back of Bobby’s neck turns to ice. But a part of him thinks, Of course. Of course it wouldn’t be as easy as just keeping his head down and waiting for the moment when it can all be over. But he hadn’t expected his punishment to feel so on-the-nose. This just feels like God laughing at him.

“Sir,” he says evenly, “I don’t know how much you—”

He cuts himself off. Because he really doesn’t know how much of his history Durgess knows. When he put in for transfer, he asked his old Captain in Minnesota to simply write personal reasons on the forms.

“I’m not always the best at working with children,” he says.

“Ah,” says Durgess, dismissive, “they’re not really kids. Hell, teenage boys? They’re barely even people. Just make sure they get one good meal while they’re with you and then keep them moving, you won’t have any problems.” He claps his hands together, as though that settles the matter. “Really, Nash, can’t thank you enough. I’ll get you the info from previous years. That’s all. Back to all that good work.”

And, though he says this lightly, Bobby really isn’t stupid: he knows when there isn’t any room for argument.

He leaves, gets through the rest of his shift, and drinks himself stupid when he gets home.

Just like always. 

Three weeks later, Bobby finds himself swallowing dread as he steps out of the locker room and into the apron, where ten boys of varying heights stand in an unruly cluster, shoving and laughing and immediately reminding Bobby of nothing so much as the packs of wild monkeys that roam the streets of certain parts of India, stealing food from tourists. Robbie was obsessed with those monkeys when he was about ten years old. He used to beg Bobby to plan a trip to see them, until one evening, exhausted from a long shift with an aching back, Bobby had snapped that they couldn’t afford it. 

Great, Bobby thinks. As though it wasn’t bad enough to be surrounded by these living, breathing kids who are already older than his son ever will be, he is already reminiscing before any of them has said a word to him. Remembering even more of his parenting mistakes. Add to that the fact that, as long as he is on babysitting duty he won’t be going out on any regular calls, and this is going to be a very long couple of weeks.

But, because he has no choice, Bobby takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and faces them down.

“Quiet,” he says. 

Bobby is almost as surprised as the boys seem to be when they all turn to him, a little wide-eyed. He has always had an authoritative voice. Back in Minnesota, he was on the fast-track to becoming captain whenever his old captain retired. He left that dream behind when he left the Midwest. But apparently, he still has the voice. 

He jerks his head at the engine. “Line up.”

The boys do, some of them sniggering, some of them rolling their eyes. Once they are in something resembling a line, Bobby sizes them up: they are all that kind of long-limbed awkwardness that bespeaks early puberty, none of them older than fifteen if he had to guess, some of them maybe as young as twelve. They are all dressed in ratty clothes, faded jeans and t-shirts, though he can’t tell if that’s due to general unkemptness or if it is just the style of the day. They all seem to have the same floppy, hair-in-your-eyes haircut that teenage celebrities all sport, and all of them are desperately trying to appear bigger, more assured of themselves, more in control than they already are.

He aches for his son. He only allows himself to ache for a second. 

“Well,” he says, “you all know why you’re here, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But if you think you get to slack off for two weeks while your parents get to breathe a sigh of relief that you’re out of their hair for the time being, you’ve got another thing coming. These next few days are going to be as fun as you make them. They’re going to be hard work either way. Sound good?” He sees a few more eye rolls, but ignores them, going on before anyone can snark back. “Great. I’m Bobby Nash. You can call me Bobby. Your turn.”

He goes down the line, nodding at each boy in turn and checking their name off on his list when he mumbles it. But by the time he reaches his third Evan, he stops. 

“How many of you are named Evan?” he says.

One more boy, in addition to the three he’s already passed, raises his hand. Nearly half. And he thought LA types were annoyingly original when naming their kids.

“That’s not gonna work,” he says. “I need to be able to call you out specifically, especially when we’re on the ropes course. You’re Evan.” He points to the oldest-looking of the Evans. “You’re Ev.” Ev, who is on the younger side, groans, but doesn’t object. “You, what’s your middle name?”

The third Evan becomes Kevin, which Bobby thinks is just especially cruel on his parents’ part, but he doesn’t say so. Finally, he points to the final Evan.

“You got a middle name, kid?”

Evan number four has got the longest hair of any of the boys, but it’s a tangle of curls rather than the usual floppy mop. There’s a hole in the toe of one of his converse, a smudge of what looks like a birthmark over his left eye. Just from looks alone, Bobby is expecting him to be the quiet one: he’s tall for his age—which, according to the roster, is just shy of fourteen—but scrawny, and has the greasy look that Bobby has always associated with loners.

But Evan number four grins the second he’s addressed, a glint suddenly lighting up his eyes—like the whole world is a joke, but he’s the only one clever enough to be in on it. 

“No, sir,” he says. “I guess my parents didn’t hate me enough to name me ‘Evan Kevin.’”

Evan Kevin flushes. A few of the boys laugh, which makes Evan number four look supremely pleased with himself. Bobby frowns hard at his roster, just for a second—long enough, he hopes, to cover up the fact that Evan number four has just said exactly what he was thinking a moment ago. 

“Your last name’s Buckley?” he says. Evan number four nods. “Great. From now on, you’re Buck.”

Evan number four—Buck—pulls a face. “I’m not a fucking lumberjack,” he says. 

“No,” Bobby agrees. “What you are is a runner.”

“What?”

Bobby jerks his head at the door. “Ten laps around the station. Five for being a smartass. Five for swearing. And before you object, I’ll add five more for any talkback.” He snaps the cover shut on his clipboard, matches the kid’s sullen look with a broad, cheerful grin. “And welcome to the 143.”

Buck scowls, but he takes off without a word. Bobby sets the other boys off toward the locker rooms, where the LAFD has kindly provided them with a set of shorts and a t-shirt emblazoned with the LAFD shield. If he was feeling generous, he would have let Buck change before he set him running. But, as Bobby stands in the doorway and watches the kid puff past again and again, glaring at Bobby each time he does, there is something satisfying in watching the kid’s curls grow damp with sweat, in seeing him hitch up his frayed and torn jeans every few steps. He is, Bobby thinks, the first thing that has looked real since he got to LA.

If he can’t spend the next two weeks working off his debt, he’s at least going to make the most of it for these boys. He’s not going to screw up any more lives than he already has. And, he realizes, as a sweaty, scowling Buck heads back inside—scowling even more deeply when he sees the pile of clean workout clothes waiting for him—maybe this actually can be a good thing. He has the chance to make a difference in lives other than his own, but the perfect built-in excuse to continue keeping others at arm’s length while he does. What kid is going to want to get close to the hardass firefighter making their life miserable?

Two weeks, Bobby tells himself, and then it’s back to the plan. 

After all, LA is as good a place to die as any. And if he has to live just a little bit to get there—well, that’s a price Bobby has always been willing to pay.

Chapter Text

Hershey, Pennsylvania

2001

(Four Years Earlier)

Memories come before waking, vague, fuzzy around the edges. They are sense impressions, more than they are thoughts: an orange bottle, his hands slipping on the white cap. Linoleum on his cheek, hard and cold. A feeling in the pit of his stomach, like dread, like loss. His father’s voice, far away and wobbly like an old radio, though he still recognizes the familiar tone of it: disappointed, as usual. 

Slowly, the words become clear, like they are making their way forward from far back in a tunnel. You have to be brave for your brother now, Evan. What have we said about TVs in the bedroom, Evan? You know how much this means to your mother, Evan.

“Evan? Evan, are you awake?”

Gradually, Evan comes to understand that this last voice is not his father’s. It doesn’t sound like his mother’s, either. This is confusing, like a dream is confusing in the second or two after you wake up—dream logic gone, real-world logic not quite there to replace it. It takes him a minute to realize why: his eyes are closed. 

Opening them is hard. He feels like his head has been dipped in cement. When he finally manages to pry his lids apart, he still can’t really see anything—just hazy impressions. Fluorescent lights. Neutral colors. A lot of windows. The shape of someone sitting next to his bed. But even though it is fuzzy, Evan knows right away where he is. He’s spent half his life in hospitals. 

“Maddie?” he murmurs. His throat feels almost as thick as his eyes. 

He’s woken up in hospital beds before, though not as often as he’s sat next to them. He can’t remember ever waking up feeling this bad, though, like someone is sitting on his limbs, his stomach. Last time—which wasn’t all that long ago, he doesn’t think—it was the nausea of sedation and the dull ache in his hips, but the nausea wore off after he’d thrown up twice, and the ache… well, that’s actually still there. Maybe he just fell back asleep, only that doesn’t make sense. He’s pretty sure they already let him go home.

“Mom?” he says, a little louder this time. 

Someone takes his hand. Theirs is small and smooth and unfamiliar.

“No, honey, I’m not your mom. Can you hear me?”

Evan blinks hard a few times until his vision clears. And sure enough, the person sitting next to him is not his mom. She looks a lot younger than his mom, but is probably older than Maddie. She’s wearing jeans and a blouse and has a clipboard on her lap. She smiles at Evan when he looks at her. 

“Hey there, Evan,” she says. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Evan frowns and looks around. He is definitely in the hospital. Some of his memory slips back, like a gear clicking into place. The bone marrow transplant. He remembers getting put to sleep by a doctor in scrubs that had teddy bears all over them. He remembers waking up again, in a room just like this one: cheery paintings on the walls, smell like rubbing alcohol all over, so strong it makes him want to gag. But he remembers other things, too. Sitting in the back seat of his dad’s car, trying not to throw up while they drove home. Scratchy blankets on the couch. Groceries on the counter. His mom, kissing him on the cheek. He went home. He doesn’t know why he’s back.

“Where’s Maddie?” he says. 

The woman sitting by his bed smiles a little more widely, though it doesn’t look particularly happy. 

“My name is Deandra,” she says. “I work for an organization called Child Protective Services. Do you know what that is?”

Evan shakes his head, though the sound of it makes his heart beat a little faster. What does he need to be protected from?

“Where’s Maddie?” he says again.

Maddie should be here. Evan remembers now: she was at school when he went to the hospital, and their mom told him not to call her because she had a test. But she told him she would be there as soon as the test was over, and it must be over by now, because somehow a lot of time has passed without Evan even knowing it. Maddie will know what’s going on. She’s the only one who doesn’t treat him like a stupid little kid all the time. She can explain everything.

But Deandra only leans forward a little and says, “Who’s Maddie?”

“My sister. Is she with Daniel? Did it work?”

Deandra looks at something on her clipboard. 

“Daniel’s your brother?” Then, when Evan nods, “He’s doing just fine. You’re a very brave young man for what you did for him.”

Evan waits, feeling more scared with every second, even though he’s relieved that Daniel is okay. Deandra still hasn’t said where Maddie is, and if Maddie isn’t here, something must be really wrong. Maybe his mom and dad died in a car accident. Maybe Maddie did. Is that why he’s here?

“Oh,” says Deandra, seeing the tears in his eyes, “oh, honey, don’t cry. Everyone is okay, don’t worry.”

“Maddie’s okay?”

“Maddie’s okay,” she says firmly, even though a minute ago, she didn’t know who Maddie was. “Do you remember what happened, Evan?”

Evan shakes his head. His heart won’t stop pounding, even though Maddie’s okay. He can hear it in his head, ka-THUMP, ka-THUMP, almost drowning Deandra out. 

“So.” Deandra crosses her legs, uncrosses them. “You remember giving your bone marrow to your brother?”

Evan nods. 

“You got a little sick after. You know what an infection is?”

Evan nods. He’s ten years old, of course he knows what an infection is. Infection is why his mom and dad told him he had to go home after his operation instead of staying with Daniel. Infection is the thing they’ve been scared of for Evan’s whole entire life. Only, it wasn’t Evan they were scared would get sick.

“Well, that’s what you had. Your sister brought you to the hospital because you had a really high fever. You’ve been here for a couple of days now. Do you remember any of that?”

Evan shakes his head again, and his throat aches. Maddie brought him here? But where is she now? Why won’t she just tell him?

“Okay,” says Deandra. Then she pauses, and takes a deep breath. “There’s something I have to tell you, Evan.”

Evan knows that tone of voice. It is the exact same tone of voice the doctor used a year ago, when she told his mom and dad that Daniel’s cancer was back. He can still hear his mom’s sobs, echoing around in his skull. He braces himself, just like he did back then, by holding his breath. 

“When you came in,” says Deandra, “you were very, very sick. It made a lot of people who work here really worried about you. And when they get very worried about a kid—especially a really brave, generous kid like you—they call someone like me to come make sure everything is okay at home.”

And, suddenly, Evan understands. Deandra is a social worker. He’s talked to social workers before: they are in the hospital all the time. He talked to one before the bone marrow transplant. Once, a long time ago, one came to his school and asked him about the bruises on his legs and arms. 

Evan relaxes a little, and he tells her what he told the other ones. What his mother told him to say. 

“Everything is fine at home. It’s just a little scary sometimes because Daniel is sick, but I’m okay.”

He waits for the usual follow up questions. What does he like to have for dinner? What time does he go to bed? Does he ever feel scared for any reason besides Daniel?

But Deandra doesn’t ask any of these questions. Instead, she squeezes his hand and says, 

“Honey, I talked to your parents. We talked about how hard things are at home right now, with your brother, and about how worried they were when you got sick too. And we talked about a lot of different options, because right now, the most important thing is making sure that you have everything you need and that you’re being taken care of really, really well. And even though it’s the hardest thing in the world for them, your parents have decided that right now they just don’t have what they need to take care of you that way.”

“So Maddie’s gonna take care of me.”

It’s not a question. He doesn’t even really think about it. There is a dull ache in his stomach at the thought that his parents are going to be spending all of their time looking after Daniel, again, but he’s not really surprised. When his parents aren’t there, Maddie is. He doesn’t even know why they needed a social worker to tell him that. It’s how it always is.

But Deandra shakes her head. She looks even sadder as she says, “Evan, honey, what I’m saying is you’re not gonna go home to your family. We have to make sure you’re taken care of, and to do that, we have to find a new family for you. One that can meet all of your needs and make sure you stay healthy. Do you understand?”

The thumping in his ears transforms into a rushing sound, like water gushing out of a dam. The leaden feeling disappears from his limbs. Suddenly, Evan feels numb. 

“I don’t get to go home?” he says.

Deandra shakes her head. “No, honey,” she says. “I’m so sorry, but you don’t.”

Now Evan starts to cry. He cries so hard that he can barely hear Deandra, begging him to calm down. He doesn’t even notice when the nurses rush in, until there are hands all over his body. A hot-cold sensation in the crook of his arm. Then nothing. 

“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up and try again.”

In the attic bedroom of the Porters’ house, Evan stares at the cell phone in his hand. The phone belongs to Mr. Porter—a beefy, beady-eyed man, who likes to move Evan around like a doll whenever he is in the house, pushing him into his seat at the table, pushing him out of the way in the kitchen, always pushing—and now he is looking at the pixelated numbers on the screen, screwing up his focus, trying to figure out what he did wrong. Evan has never been good with numbers and letters, but he’s sure he got this one right. Maddie made him memorize it so they could talk whenever he wanted when she went away to school. He’s dialed it a hundred times. 

He dials it again. 

“We’re sorry—”

Evan hangs up. He holds the cell phone so tight it might break. He’s already tried the home phone a dozen times, and gotten the same message.

It’s been three weeks.

Five more days in the hospital—five terrifying, aching, feverish days—then here, delivered to the Porters’ doorstep with a trash bag full of his own clothes (Where did they come from? he asked. Did his mom bring them to the hospital? Did Maddie? But Deandra had only said she couldn’t say). The Porters’ house is clean but cramped. Mr. and Mrs. Porter have two foster kids besides Evan, who are younger and have rooms downstairs, and they drive him to his new school, which is smaller than his old one, and they give him three meals a day, and other than that, they barely look at him. The first time Evan asked to use the phone, Mr. Porter said, “Phone privileges need to be earned,” but when Evan asked what he needed to do to earn them, Mr. Porter wouldn’t say. This is the first time he’s had a phone since he got here. He stole it out of Mr. Porter’s desk. 

Evan takes a shaky breath. He doesn’t want to cry. He feels like he’s done nothing but cry for three weeks, and he’s so tired. 

He remembers what happened now, mostly. The bone marrow transplant. It was supposed to be a really simple operation. His parents had talked about it for weeks. They told him he’d done it two times before—once when he was a baby, once when he was five. Both times, he’d saved his brother’s life. Evan didn’t remember those times, but he was excited to help Daniel. Ever since he’d gotten sick again, things had been so bad at home. Everyone was counting on Evan to fix it. 

And it seemed like he had. Deandra had been clear about that, once Evan had stopped crying long enough to ask. And he had asked, about a thousand times. Daniel was doing better. He, unlike Evan, had gotten to go home.

But then Evan had gotten sick. He sort of remembers that too, though it’s all fuzzy. He knows he was at home. He remembers how bad his back hurt. He remembers throwing up. He thinks he was supposed to take a pill, but he couldn’t keep it down. And that’s it.

An infection, Deandra said. Almost never happens, she said. 

But it happened to him.

While he was still in the hospital, Evan had watched his door every day. He was sure Maddie would walk through it sooner or later. Or his mom and dad. Just because he couldn’t live with them anymore didn’t mean they wouldn’t want to see him anymore, did it? And maybe his mom and dad were too scared to come and see him—they always were, when Evan felt sick, in case they spent too much time around him and then got Daniel sick too—but Maddie always came to see him. She sat with him when he had the flu. She made him chicken noodle soup.

But she never came.

And now her phone number is gone too.

“Not forever,” Evan whispers, clutching the phone a little harder. 

It’s what he chants to himself late at night, when the Porters’ attic is dark and the wood all around him is creaking in the wind. It’s not forever. Once he’s better, once his parents see that he’s just as easy to take care of as he was before, they’ll take him back. He’ll get to see Daniel and Maddie again. He’ll take every pill anyone gives him and he won’t get sick again, and everything will go back to normal.

He just has to find a way to tell them that. 

He gets the idea at school a few days later, sitting in class and staring at the faint bruises on his wrist where Mr. Porter grabbed him after he found the stolen cell phone under Evan’s pillow. Evan doesn’t care about the bruises—his mom grabbed him like that a few times when he was being stupid, like the time he was playing soccer in the house and hit Daniel in the face, making his nose bleed—and it’s not like he hasn’t had a lot worse from what his dad always called “horseplay.” In fact, he used to like it, sort of, when he was hurt from playing too rough, because that was when his mom would put band aids on his knees and kiss them, or his dad would take him to the store for a new toy, as long as they weren’t in the hospital with Daniel. It’s not the bruise that’s bothering him—it’s the fact that the phone is gone, locked securely in a drawer in Mr. Porter’s desk. Evan doesn’t know why it’s so disappointing, because he still doesn’t know any of his family’s numbers, except now he won’t be able to call them even if he figures it out. 

The bruise ignites something, though. An idea. There aren’t any payphones at this school like there were at his old one—though that wouldn’t matter anyway, since Evan doesn’t have any money. But there is always a phone in the nurse’s office. Evan was in there often enough at his old school to know that she has to have one, in case one of the kids gets hurt.

So he does what he’s good at: he gets hurt.

“This might need stitches,” the nurse says, carefully laying gauze across the gash in Evan’s knee, earned when he flung himself off the highest part of the playground tower at recess. “I’m gonna have to call your mom and dad.”

“My mom and dad are at work,” says Evan. He knows the school nurse doesn’t know he’s only got foster parents, now that she’s said that. “Can you look up my dad’s phone number, if I tell you where he works? I wanna talk to him.”

He sniffles a little, even though he stopped crying about scraped knees when he was four. The nurse smiles, and goes to get the phonebook. 

A few minutes later, Evan gasps, phone pressed to his ear, when his father’s voice floats across the line.

“This is Professor Buckley.”

It takes all Buck has not to burst into tears. He’s so relieved to hear his dad’s voice. Even though Deandra kept telling him everyone was fine, he keeps having nightmares that she is lying, and that they actually all died, and no one will tell him the truth because he’s a kid.

“Dad!” Evan gasps. “Dad, it’s me. You have to come get me. I don’t like it at the Porters. I miss Maddie and Daniel. Please dad, please, please come get me.”

There is a long silence on the other end of the phone. Then his dad says, in the cold voice he usually only used when Evan did something really bad, “You have the wrong number. Don’t call here again.”

That night at the Porters’, Evan has to force himself to choke down his green bean casserole. Mrs. Porter makes them all eat together. The other foster kids are a pair of six-year old twins, whom Mrs. Porter calls Minnie and Mickey, though Evan’s pretty sure those aren’t their real names. Mrs. Porter dotes on the little kids, making them smiley-faced pancakes in the mornings, reading them bedtime stories every night. She’s polite to Evan, but outside of a good morning here and a do you need anything there, she hardly ever talks to him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here. Surely this can’t be better than being with his real family?

Mr. Porter doesn’t even look at him. He reads the evening newspaper during dinner, then goes right into the living room to watch more news. 

Evan has never felt more miserable in his life. 

That night he lies awake for hours, replaying his dad’s words in his head. Did he have the wrong number? Was that really his dad’s voice on the other end, or was Evan just so eager to hear anyone that he made a mistake? Or what if—?

Groaning, Evan rolls over to bury his face in his pillow. He has only just realized that he didn’t say his name. His dad has always been super strict about phone manners. If you don’t introduce yourself, how will anyone know who they’re talking to? Evan just started blabbing—of course his dad didn’t know who he was. Evan always talks too fast when he’s excited. He bets his dad couldn’t even understand him.

The nurse’s office trick won’t work again. After Evan’s dad hung up on him, she looked up the number in his file, and now she knows that he’s a foster kid. But there is an obvious answer that Evan missed.

He gets out of bed, careful of the creaking floorboards so Mr. Porter won’t bang on the ceiling down below. There is a small desk in the corner of the attic bedroom, where Evan is supposed to sit in the afternoons and do his homework. Evan clicks on the lamp, sits gingerly in the hard chair—his back still hurts a little bit at the collection site—and takes out a piece of paper to write:

Mom Dad Maddie and Daniel. 

I miss you. Do you miss me too? I know you do because we are a family. I’m riting to you because I want to come home and I will tell the sochal worker that too so she knows you can take care of me and it will be ok. Will you please tell her you want me to come home? I am not sick any more.

Love,

Evan

The next morning, he slips into the kitchen early so he can steal stamps from the junk drawer. As he is walking to school later, he slips it into the mailbox.

Now all he has to do is wait. 

But when there is a knock at the Porters’ door a week later, it is not his parents who arrive. It is Deandra, looking a little red-eyed and clutching an envelope. She asks the Porters for privacy. She sits Evan down in their living room, him on the couch, her across from him.

“Evan,” she says, “I know this is really hard. But I need you to understand, you aren’t going back to your parents’ house. They told me you’ve been trying to contact them. They asked me to give you this.”

She hands him the envelope. Evan’s name is written on the front in what he recognizes as his father’s loopy handwriting. His full name, Evan Buckley. Nothing else.

Evan opens the letter with shaking hands.

Dear Evan,

This is a very hard thing for your mother and I to write, but we have to ask you not to try to contact us anymore.

As your social worker explained, what we’ve done is for your own good. We want to make sure you have a good life, and your mother and I became too overwhelmed, between Daniel’s care and yours, to take responsibility for you any longer. While it breaks our hearts that we won’t see you again, we know we are doing the right thing by allowing you to find another family, one that will be able to take care of you and give you the good life you deserve. 

We must also ask you not to try to contact Daniel or Maddie. Daniel is still recovering, and any sort of emotional upset is too much for him to handle right now. Please take care of your brother one last time, and don’t make him more sad than he needs to be. And as you know, Maddie is attempting to complete her nursing degree. She doesn’t need any more distractions than she has already had. 

We feel confident that you will find a lovely place to call home, and that you will be very happy there, wherever that is. We will not be opening any further letters. 

Fondly,

Your Father

When Evan looks up at Deandra, she looks even more like she is about to cry. But Evan isn’t sure he feels anything at all. He feels… empty. Like someone has taken a big spoon and scooped out his insides. 

He doesn’t say anything for such a long time that Deandra ducks her head a little to look at him, like she is too tall for him to see or something.

“Evan?” she says. “Do you understand?”

Evan hands the letter back to her.

“I understand,” he says. 

“Are you… honey, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” says Evan. “Thank you.”

He gets up. He goes upstairs, and curls up under the comforter on his bed. For once, he doesn’t cry. 

Instead, he waits for night to fall. He waits until the noises from downstairs, noises of people talking, eating, moving around, cease. No one comes up to check on him. Deandra must have told them to leave him alone.

When he is sure everyone is asleep, Evan gets up. Most of his clothes are still stuffed in the trash bag. He didn’t want to take them out, preferring to keep them packed for when he would get to go home. He puts on his shoes, and a jacket. He doesn’t take anything else. 

Evan goes downstairs.

Evan runs.

Chapter Text

Los Angeles

2005

Evan knows enough about assholes, at this point, to be able to say it with confidence: Bobby Nash is an asshole. 

It’s been four days now. Four days of this stupid camp, and Evan has done more running than he ever has before in his life. Every time Bobby looks at him, it seems like he’s running more laps around the firehouse. If you can spend fifteen minutes in the bathroom, Buck, you can run fifteen laps. If you can’t remember to check your equipment before you hop on the ropes, Buck, maybe a few laps will help you remember. If you’re going to insist on daydreaming, Buck, you can at least do something productive at the same time. 

Evan hates him. He hates every time he says that stupid nickname, and he hates how he smiles and nods whenever one of the other boys does something right, and he hates how smug he looks every time Evan does another thing wrong. He’s just like every other dumb, judgmental adult Evan has ever met, only this time Bobby isn’t even his foster parent: just some random asshole who’s high on the fact that he gets to boss a bunch of kids around. It’s almost to the point where Evan is tempted to just kick him in the shins and run—not around the stupid goddamn firehouse, this time, but elsewhere. He might not be the best at literal running, but he’s excellent at running away. 

But Evan stops himself every time the thought crosses his mind, his social worker’s words coming back to him: Last chance, Evan. Run away again, and it’s group homes from here on out.

Evan has been in his fair share of group homes at this point, almost as many as he’s been in foster homes. He’ll do almost anything to avoid being in another, especially if he’d be in it permanently. The unwashed smell, the crowded sleeping quarters, the boys who’ll jump on anyone new and wail on him endlessly, just because he’s fresh meat. The fact that there’s only ever enough food to stop him from starving, never enough to make him feel full.

(Not that the Wilsons’ house is much better on that front.)

But at the Wilsons, at least Evan isn’t getting beaten up every day just for existing. A slap here and there when he talks back. Twice, Mr. Wilson has made him sleep in the shed in the yard for getting detention at school, but that’s whatever, too. At this point, Evan’s been in more foster homes than he can count, and while the Wilsons definitely aren’t the best, they’re far from the worst. At least at their house, he has his own room. At least Mrs. Wilson buys him clothes every once in a while. At least he’s the only kid they’re fostering. So what if they don’t give him dinner when he messes up? At least Evan knows what to expect there. 

He messes up a lot. That’s whatever, too. The rules change at every new home, at every new school. Sometimes Evan can’t keep them all straight. He knows it’s his fault. It’s the price he’s been willing to pay. The one that comes with always running.

There used to be a point behind it. That first night, when he’d run away from the Porters’, Evan had a destination in mind, but no real plan. They’d found him at a bus station the next day, shivering and crying, not because he was cold (though he was) but because he’d stood there all night, not knowing what bus would take him to Penn State University, too afraid to ask in case someone realized he wasn’t supposed to be there. The next time he’d been smarter about it. He’d looked the bus schedule up online at school. Only hadn’t made it because he’d forgotten to buy a ticket. 

The third time, he’d brought money. 

He’d made it to campus once. By that time he was on his third foster home—no one wanted to keep a runner for long—but he hadn’t cared very much. He wasn’t planning on staying with any of them long anyway.

Only, Evan hadn’t realized how big college campuses were. He knew Maddie lived in the dorms, but he didn’t know which one. He didn’t even know how to tell the dorms apart from all the other buildings. Everything had looked the same. And before he could figure it out, campus security had grabbed him. He’d tried to tell them Maddie’s name, but they weren’t interested. They only wanted to know where his parents were.

That was as close as he ever got. After that, they sent him to a family out of state.

The next time Evan ran, it wasn’t to get to Maddie. He did it because he knew if he just stayed there, doing nothing, the feeling he often got in his chest—a pressure that built and built and built until it felt like he was going to die—really would kill him. 

So Evan ran. And ran again. And again. He was never running anywhere, and yet somehow he got all the way across the country. He’s been in LA for three months. He landed here because of the Wilsons. Because Mr. Wilson “specializes in kids like him.”

Last chance, Evan.

Evan doesn’t give a shit about the Wilsons. He doesn’t give a shit about LA, which is hot and covered in concrete and flat and boring. But he does give a shit about not getting stuck in another group home. 

He’s almost fourteen now. If he can make it another two years, he can get emancipated. And then he can go wherever he wants. Not home. He’s not a stupid little kid anymore: he knows that if Maddie or Daniel wanted him, they would have found him by now. Maddie is twenty-three and Daniel is almost twenty-one and that means they’re both grownups. He’s accepted that they, like his parents, think they’re better off without him. But he can still get out of the system. He’s good at being on his own. 

What he’s not good at is… well, anything else. 

It’s not like Evan doesn’t try. He tries at school, but it’s hard when he’s changing schools every four months, even harder than it was before, and he was never good at it. He tries to wake up on time, but a lot of times he sleeps through his alarm, and nothing he does seems to make it loud enough or frequent enough to wake him up. He tries to remember all of his chores, but Mr. Wilson won’t let him put the list on the fridge ("The fridge is for food, not frivolity," he says) and if Evan puts it in his pocket or his backpack, he always forgets about it. He tries. But there’s something else he’s accepted about himself: Evan just isn’t very smart.

Which is why he’s here, at this stupid, asshole camp with stupid asshole Bobby Nash. Too many missed alarms. Too many detentions. Mr. Wilson is a cop—Commissioner Wilson, he makes most people call him, only he got tired of Evan stammering every time he tried to say the whole thing—which is why he loves discipline and taking on “troubled” boys like Evan, and it’s why he got Evan into this stupid camp in the first place. Because he knows the fire chief. 

“Do something good with your time,” he told Evan on the first day. “Do something useful, and maybe you’ll learn to be of some use.”

But so far, all Evan’s been is just as forgetful and useless as he is everywhere else. He falls asleep when Bobby’s explaining things. He forgets to double-back his harness when they are learning about how to use the ropes. He misses spots on the fire engine when they’re washing it. 

Run, run, run. 

“Buckley? Buck? Did you catch that?”

Evan looks up. They’re sitting in their chairs in the hangar where they keep the firetruck, getting their instructions for the day. Evan was listening a moment ago, but he got distracted by a bunch of real firefighters in the corner, who are talking about a call they were on last night. A big apartment building that caught on fire, and they got everyone out alive. Despite how much he hates Bobby, and hates trying to remember all the names for different knots, and hates how the other boys laugh at him every time he has to run more laps, real firefighting actually sounds pretty cool. It must be nice to be able to save people—like, really save them. Not just move them around from shitty place to shitty place and tell them it’s for their own good. 

Not that Bobby would know anything about that. From what Evan can tell, all he does all day is find more ways to shove the stick he’s got up his ass even further up it. Evan’s pretty sure he’s never seen the guy smile like, even once. 

Still, Evan blushes when he realizes Bobby is addressing him. Because he did not, in fact, catch that. 

“Um, you said you’re gonna throw me a big parade,” he says. “You finally realized I’m way too cool for this sh—this stuff, sir.”

The other boys laugh a little, which is gratifying. They aren’t friends—Evan is never in one place long enough to have friends—but it’s nice to feel like someone thinks something he does is worth appreciating, even if they’ll go right back to making fun of him in a minute.

He braces himself for more laps. But Bobby presses his lips together and says, “You know what, Buck? If I catch you actually paying attention one of these days, I just might throw a parade.”

The boys laugh louder at that. Evan feels his flush deepen. Bobby must see it, because he raises an eyebrow before resuming his speech. “As I was saying, I spoke to Captain Durgess last night and he’s agreed that since you boys are mostly doing well” —a glance at Evan, who drops his gaze and scowls at his feet— “we’ve decided you deserve a little extra treat at the end of all this. So, on the last day of camp, the boy who’s earned it will get a chance to go on a ride-along in the truck. Real firefighting. Real emergencies. Not that you’ll be going into any burning buildings,” he adds, because a couple of the boys look a bit too excited at the prospect, “but you’ll get to see everything you’re learning here put together. You’ll get to see what it looks like to help real people, and maybe even help a few yourselves. And, if you’re extra good, maybe I’ll even let you work the siren.”

There are some excited murmurs at that. They might be pre-teen and teenage boys, too cool for school and all that, but what kid hasn’t dreamed about working the siren on a firetruck? Only Evan doesn’t join in, still staring at his shoes. He hates the painful longing in his stomach. It’s not just that he knows he’s already messed up too much to have a shot. It’s that he learned a long time ago that wanting anything too badly is dangerous. 

But maybe he didn’t learn well enough. Because when they get to their activity that day—carrying a cloth dummy through an obstacle course, like they are getting a victim out of a not-actually-burning house, in the little tower that is right next to the station—Evan finds himself trying a little harder than usual. He stares so hard at Bobby, while he’s explaining what to do, that he forgets to actually listen, and has to watch the boys who goes ahead of him carefully for clues. Check for breathing, call out, tap their chest, arm over the shoulder… He repeats the steps over and over until it is his turn. 

“Good, Buck,” says Bobby, when Evan shakes the dummy gently, shouting firmly in its face to check for consciousness. “Really good,” he says, when Evan gets the dummy over his shoulder on the first try, and Evan can’t tell if he likes the praise or not. It makes his chest ache a little, like he is going to cry. But it’s not exactly bad.

It doesn’t last long enough for him to find out either way. 

“Check the handle, Buckley, come on!” Bobby shouts, when Evan bursts through his third unchecked door, panting under the dummy, which seems to be getting heavier with every step. “If that room had been on fire, you’d be toast right now!”

Toast, in fact, is the only thing Evan has eaten all day. Normally that’s good enough to get him through to lunch, which is the only good part of the firefighting camp. Bobby usually makes them something Italian, something with loads of meat and pasta, and as much as Evan hates the guy, even he can admit that he’s a good cook. But normally whatever they do before lunch isn’t this physically taxing, and Evan’s stomach is starting to twist itself into hungry knots. The longer he carries the dummy, the harder it is to think.

Lunch isn’t for another hour. 

Still, he steels himself, hoists the dummy a little higher. Tries again.

Three minutes later, Bobby blows his whistle, short and sharp.

“Stop,” he says. “Buck, stop! You just walked onto an unstable floor.”

Evan looks down. There’s a big red X under his feet that he didn’t even see through the sweat in his eyes. He forgot to check.

“Sorry,” he pants. “I’ll try again.”

“No you won’t,” says Bobby. “You’re dead, kid. Drop the dummy.”

“But I can—”

“I said no,” says Bobby. “You think you get second chances in a real fire? You’re done, drop the dummy.”

Another pang in his stomach, almost as treacherous as the first. Disappointment, this time.

Evan looks up and sees the other boys sniggering at him. If he cries, he’s a dead man.

He forces a scowl onto his face. He drops the dummy.

“Fine,” he says. “It’s just a stupid fucking dummy. I hate this game anyway.”

And he kicks the dummy for good measure. 

He’s expecting the whistle—what he isn’t expecting, when he looks up again, is the heat in Bobby’s eyes. Bobby is usually a pretty mild guy, even when he’s doling out punishments, but right now he looks pissed. It makes Evan want to take a step back. That’s the look Mr. Wilson gets in his eyes right before he hits him.

But Bobby doesn’t hit Evan. Just says, in a low, deadly voice, “Saving lives is not a game. Laps. Now.”

Evan forces the scowl back onto his face, tries to pretend his heart isn’t beating so hard his throat hurts. “How many?”

“Until I say you can stop.”

That’s a first—but Bobby’s anger is still hot enough that Evan knows better than to question it. 

He takes off running. And just like Bobby tells him, he doesn’t stop.

Last chance, Evan. 

Bobby knows better than to let it get to him. They’re teenage boys, and their whole thing is trying to push his buttons. His whole thing is supposed to be not letting them. 

For the most part, he’s done a good job. He was nervous when he first started, but like Durgess said, they aren’t bad kids: just restless, full of teenage energy and in need of somewhere to put it. Most of the boys take to the work like… well, like a bunch of boys. They like moving their bodies and solving problems and seeing their hard work actually put to use. Bobby gets it: school was always too obscure for him, too, too hypothetical. It’s gratifying when something you learn has a practical use right away, instead of in some imagined future right down the line. Most of the boys take to it like fish to water.

The exception, of course, is Buck. 

It’s not that Buck is a bad kid. Even in his annoyance, Bobby keeps telling himself that. He’s just a hard kid. He’s easily distracted. He scowls when he’s called out for not paying attention. He fights Bobby on everything, always asking why. Why do I have to do it like that? What does that part mean? Why can’t I do it this way? Some kids are just like that, Bobby knows. But he can’t seem to put it in a box the way he can with the other kids. Because Buck reminds him of Robbie.

Same blonde hair. Same mischievous look. Same obstinate need to know not just how everything works, but why. 

Every time Bobby looks at him, it makes him want to throw up.

He’s being harder on him than he is on the others. He knows he is. But when Buck is running laps, Bobby doesn’t have to look at him. And if he looks at him too much, he knows he’s going to lose it. 

He just has to get through another week and a half without blowing up at the kid. If that means Buck gets a little more exercise than the rest of them, so be it. 

But then Buck drops that dummy. The heavy dummy wrapped in white cloth. Like Marcy was when they pulled her out of the remains of their apartment building. Then he kicks it, and calls it a game.

Bobby tells him to run. What he means is, Get out of my sight, kid, as fast as you possibly can.

It’s a mistake. He knows it in the back of his mind even as he does it. 

He’s just trying to get through another day, to get back to the work he’s here to do: saving lives.

So he doesn’t see it. Just blows his whistle and calls the next kid forward. 

“Do better,” he tells Evan Kevin. 

He knows they think he means Do better than Buck. There’s no way for them to know he is talking about himself.

He should have been talking to himself.

It takes him an hour to notice. They’re done with the course by then, back in the firehouse, sitting down around the table for a meal of spaghetti and meatballs that Bobby made earlier that morning, all of them smelling like teenage-boy sweat but pleased with themselves in that way that people only can be when they’ve done good, physical work. Bobby is glad they’re worn out, only half paying attention as they load up their plates, trying to think of what he can have them do that afternoon—they’re too worn out for what he had planned, which was belay practice—when he glances up at the table and realizes there’s an empty seat. 

“Where’s Buck?” he says. 

The other boys look around at each other, only mildly intrigued, much more interested in their food.

“I don’t think he came inside,” says Leo, one of the few non-Evans. 

“Came inside?” Bobby repeats.

“From before,” says Evan one. Then when Bobby still doesn’t get it, says, “You told him to run.”

Bobby doesn’t even bother to conceal his exasperated sigh. 

“Dammit, Buck,” he says under his breath. Then, to the boys, “No one leave the table until I’m back.”

The rest of the firehouse is on a call. Bobby walks through the empty hangar, desperately wishing he was with them and hoping to God that he finds Buck outside, lounging under a tree or fucking off on his phone or something. He’s only just remembering the note next to Buck’s name in the roster, the one that denoted the reason he was at the camp in the first place. Runner, it said.

He goes outside. Looks around the front of the fire station, the parking lot, the short stretch of grass, the shade under the palm trees. Nothing. 

“Dammit,” Bobby says again. Not panicking yet, but getting closer. What happens if he loses one of these kids? Durgess didn’t say. Probably thinking Bobby wasn’t stupid enough to let that happen. 

“Buck?” he calls. “Buck, get over here!”

He’s not expecting an answer, and he doesn’t get one—not exactly. There is a moment of near-silence, then something joins the ever present hush of distant LA traffic: the discordant sound of labored breaths. 

Bobby turns around. Buck is there, coming around the side of the firehouse. Still running—if you can call it that. 

The kid is so red-faced it’s a miracle he’s conscious. He’s dripping sweat, and limping on every step. Far too late, Bobby realizes he’s still wearing those high-tops of his. Terrible running shoes to begin with, but worse when the sole is peeling away from the uppers, which Buck’s are. He’s wheezing on every breath. 

He spots Bobby right away. Instead of stopping, though, Buck grimaces, hard, and starts running faster. 

“Buck,” Bobby says, incredulous. “What the hell are you doing?”

In reply, Buck gives him the finger as he runs past him. Bobby watches, mouth agape, as he heads for the corner of the firehouse, about to do another lap.

“Buck,” Bobby shouts, “stop!”

Buck stops immediately, like Bobby just stomped on some invisible brake. He doesn’t turn to face him, though. He sways on the spot, then, abruptly, falls to his knees and starts to puke.

“Shit,” Bobby says.

By the time he has jogged the few steps to where Buck collapsed, the kid is already trying to struggle back to his feet, but his legs aren’t cooperating: he keeps falling back to his knees. When Bobby gets close, it isn’t hard to see why: forget that he’s been running in bad shoes on concrete for over an hour in the mid-summer LA heat: the vomit on the ground is also thin, mostly bile and barely any water. 

“Fuck.”

Bobby can’t even be worried about swearing in front of the kid. Dehydration, lack of food, hot weather, and overexertion are a recipe for heat stroke. 

Hello. Chef Nash at your service.

“Buck, stay down.” Buck has just attempted to get up again, but Bobby is there this time, putting his hands on Buck’s shoulders, pressing him back to the ground. His skin is hot and dry. “What the hell, Buck? Why didn’t you stop?”

He can’t help it. Bobby can taste the bitter edge of panic flooding his mouth, rising on a wave of self-disgust. Already, a voice in the back of his mind is screaming that he is about to have another dead kid on his hands. 

But when Bobby kneels in front of him, Buck glares at him. Glassy-eyed, but conscious.

“You didn’t tell me I could.”

Until I tell you to stop. That’s what he’d said to the kid. Bobby could kill himself. He just might—but later, in his own nondescript apartment, with a bottle of scotch. Right now, he has to make sure he hasn’t just killed this kid. 

“We have to get you inside,” he says, and hooks his hands under Buck’s arms. 

Buck makes a noise of protest, but he’s too weak to do anything but struggle limply as Bobby drags him inside the firehouse. The other boys spot them—Bobby vaguely registers the sound of chairs being pushed back from the table, footsteps following him—but he doesn’t break his stride until he’s in the showers, turning on a cold stream of water and dumping Buck underneath it. The kid goes so bonelessly that Bobby thinks he must have passed out, but when Bobby, who is also getting soaked under the icy stream, lifts Buck’s chin, his eyes are still open, still glaring at Bobby even as water drips into them. 

Then he heaves, throws up again.

“Gross!” says a voice from behind them. “Buck just yorked on himself!”

Bobby looks over his shoulder to find the rest of the boys crowded in the entrance to the showers, gawking. 

“We don’t need an audience for this!” Bobby snaps. “Kevin, go get me a bottle of cold water from the fridge. The rest of you, go finish your food and wait at the table until I come get you!”

Bobby uses his most authoritative voice, but isn’t sure he’s able to cover up his panic until the other boys comply immediately. They disappear. Bobby unclips his radio from his belt, still holding Buck up with his other hand. 

“143, this is Bobby Nash at the station, do you copy?”

Durgess crackles through immediately. “Copy, Nash, what’s going on?”

“I need an ETA on the rig, one of our boys has heat stroke. If you’re not back in the next ten I’m going to have to call for a different station.”

“I’m not going to the fucking hospital,” says Buck, but since his voice is barely above a whisper, Bobby ignores him.

“Ten-four, Nash. We’re almost back now, ETA five minutes. Is he stable?”

Bobby presses his fingers to Buck’s neck, then his wrist.

“Thready pulse, I’m guessing he’s badly dehydrated. But conscious.”

“Got it. Tell the kiddo to hold tight.”

The radio cuts out. 

“I don’t wanna go,” says Buck. 

“Well, tough luck,” says Bobby. He runs a hand through his own wet hair, and only then does he realize how badly he is shaking. “Fuck,” he says again. “Fuck, kid. I’m sorry.”

He can’t believe he’s done it again. Coming to LA was supposed to be about fixing his mistakes, and somehow here he is: endangering a life because he got distracted, so caught up in his own pain that he inflicted it on someone else. And even worse, all he can think about in the wake of this is his fucking liquor cabinet. He’s not even sure he’s going to be able to make it to the end of the day. The only image in his mind is that of the flask he keeps hidden in the bottom of the spare boots in his locker. The one he tells himself is only for emergencies. The one he swears he will never touch. 

Bobby squeezes his eyes shut. He feels like he is about to be sick. 

A gentle hand on his wrist startles him. He opens his eyes. 

Buck is looking up at him, frowning. Still looking slightly delirious, but staring straight at Bobby. 

“You said sorry,” he says. Almost… wonderingly. 

Bobby nods. “I am sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have left you out there, Buck. I should have come to check on you. Kid, don’t you ever do something stupid like that just because an adult tells you to, do you hear me? Not even me.”

He doesn’t know why he says it, except maybe as a desperate attempt to assuage his own guilt. He’s not even sure Buck can really hear him: he’s been under the water for five minutes now and not a hint of a shiver. But then again, maybe. Buck continues to stare at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. He stares so long, still holding Bobby’s wrist, that Bobby starts to say something else.

At that moment, though, he hears the ambulance pull into the hangar behind him. A moment later, the paramedics are there, pushing Bobby out of the way.

It is surprisingly difficult to get Buck into the ambulance. Almost as soon as he lets go of Bobby, he is belligerent. He fights the paramedics to the point where they have to threaten to strap him to the gurney. This gets him to calm down, but it’s not an improvement. He is crying by the time they get him loaded up, refusing to look anyone in the face. Bobby knows it is probably the heat stroke—altered mental state being a telltale symptom—but he is surprised by how awful he feels as the paramedics close the door over him. Buck’s snippy comments, his nonstop questions, his restlessness—all of the things that remind Bobby of Robbie, in other words—are absent. Bobby cannot believe how badly he wants them back.

He also knows he’ll probably never see Buck again. What parent would let their kid come back after something like this?

They send the other boys home early. Then Bobby heads into Durgess’s office to face the music.

“Bobby,” says Durgess, when Bobby asks who’s going to take the program over from here. “I don’t know if you know this, but kids get hurt all the time. Hell, my son had heat stroke last year, forgot to drink his Gatorade before football practice, the little dumbass.” He sounds as fond for his son as he is exasperated with Bobby. “You’ll be amazed how quick he bounces back. Besides, I already spoke to the kid’s dad. All he said is he wants some of whatever you’re drinking, if you were able to get the kid to listen well enough to run himself half to death.”

Underneath the rising tide of numbness, a flicker of anger. What kind of parent...?

But the thought is gone before it can fully arrive. 

Bobby says nothing.

Durgess sighs.

“Go home, Nash. Get a good night’s sleep. You’re back at it in the morning.”

Bobby does go home. But whether he gets a good night’s sleep, he isn’t sure. Within half an hour of arriving there, he’s too drunk to remember.

Chapter Text

Los Angeles 
2005

The next day, for the first time since coming to LA, Bobby considers calling in sick to work. He’s used to working while hungover, but this hangover is a different beast. His limbs are so stiff and sore he can barely drag himself out of the bed and into the shower. When he does, he has to sit on the floor while the water washes over him. It only makes things worse: a hazy memory of Buck in the same position, fully clothed, the day before, has him leaning out of the tub to throw up in the toilet.

Not exactly the most dignified way to start the day.

But Bobby knows how it will look if he calls in after the talk he and Durgess had the day before. It is with an enormous effort that he dries himself off, and gets dressed, and forces himself to drink about a gallon of strong black coffee, along with a dose of aspirin that is large enough to be just short of toxic. He washes it down with a little hair of the dog.

It’s only once the beer (chased with a shot of mouthwash—gargled, not swallowed) has kicked in that Bobby feels anything close to ready to face the day. He arrives at the station only a few minutes late, thinking that even if the kids can see how red his eyes are, at least he’s clean, his uniform pressed. 

He walks in to find the boys already in their chairs, being entertained by Mark Llewelyn, who is a probie, barely older than the boys. He’s doing some sort of magic trick to the boys’ grossed-out delight—pulling a coin out of increasingly unlikely orifices.

Bobby scans the boys’ faces, but, as he suspected, Buck is not among them. 

“That’s enough, Llewelyn,” says Bobby.

The boys groan as Llewelyn takes his bow. Llewelyn’s eyes linger on Bobby for a second as he takes his leave, but then he is gone. 

Bobby knows he should say something about what happened yesterday. The boys are eyeing him warily, and no wonder: the last time they saw him, he was shouting at them from under a cold shower. Bobby is meant to be a beacon of stability, of responsibility.

“We’re staying indoors today,” he says. “Knot practice. Grab the ropes and the books and meet me upstairs.”

It’s woefully inadequate. It is the best he has. 

He watches the boys file up the stairs, aching all over. He tells himself it is just the hangover. 

Bobby hovers over the coffee pot at the bottom of the stairs for as long as he can. When he knows he can’t stand there any longer without attracting the attention of the on-duty firefighters, he sighs, scrubs a hand over his aching forehead, and turns to face his fate. 

Only to find, standing in the entrance to the hangar, none other than Evan Buckley.

Buck looks… at least as bad as Bobby feels, if not worse. He’s got new sneakers, at least, but that’s about the best thing anyone could say about him. He looks pale, dark circles under his eyes. Bobby can see red marks in the crook of his arm and dirt stuck to the residue of medical tape where he recently had an IV. 

Despite his appearance, he greets Bobby with a glare that is all acidic defiance. One intended to burn. 

Bobby is more than accustomed to the burn of shame at this point. He doesn’t flinch under it.

He walks over.

“You shouldn’t be here, kid,” he says. “You look dead on your feet.”

Now he flinches. Poor choice of words. 

Buck shrugs a shoulder, jerky, an affect of casualness that is nowhere near convincing.

“Yeah, well. They told me I had to be here, so.” Another jerky shrug. “Whatever. Let’s just—just get it over with. What do you want me to fuck up today?”

He’s testing Bobby with the swearing. Bobby ignores it.

“Your dad’s kind of a hardass, huh?”

Buck looks away sharply. 

“Come with me.”

Bobby turns and takes a few steps. When he realizes Buck isn’t following him, he looks over his shoulder, raises an eyebrow.

Buck follows, dragging his feet, looking both nervous and suspicious. 

Bobby leads him to the bunk room. No one is in there, that early in a shift, but he points the kid to a bed all the same. Robbie always had trouble making decisions when presented with too many, especially when he was tired.

“This is your job for the day. I want you to get some sleep. As much as you can.”

Buck is silent, staring. Bobby sighs. 

“Look,” he says, “my dad was a hardass too. I know how much it… I know it’s hard. I know he’s probably just trying to teach you to be tough, and I’m not saying you won’t need that but…” He pinches the bridge of his nose to try to pinch away the headache that won’t seem to stop building behind his eyes, too tired himself to even attempt to say something more eloquent. “Despite what your dad might say, it’s not actually tough to push through exhaustion. It’s actually pretty stupid. A tired firefighter is a danger to himself and to anyone he’s in charge of helping, so. Here’s your lesson for the day. Sleep. Don’t get up until you’re feeling rested. I’ll come check on you when it’s time for lunch.” 

“You’re serious right now?”

“As a heart attack.”

They stare at each other for a minute. Then Buck says, “Do—do you want to tuck me in or something?”

Bobby… almost laughs. He turns it into a cough at the last minute.

“Not even a little bit, kid. We’re upstairs if you wake up and feel like tying knots.”

He turns abruptly and walks out of the bunk room before Buck can see what Bobby can only call his mortification. A grown man, embarrassed because he found a kid funny. Disappointed in himself, that he can still find anything funny.

Everyone really will be better off when Bobby is dead. Not least of all Bobby. 

Bobby’s hangover ebbs and flows through the rest of the day, but thankfully the rest of the boys don’t seem to notice. They’re happy to be inside for once, so when they’ve tied as many knots as they can reasonably be expected to tie, Bobby flags down Llewelyn and uses his senior status to gently bully the probie into showing them the ins and outs of the rig while he sets about making lunch. Just sandwiches—a diversion from his usual fare, because he doesn’t think he can handle the smell of garlic, or the heat of the stove—but again, the boys don’t seem to mind. While they’re fighting over the chips, Bobby piles sandwiches onto a plate, pulls a couple of electrolyte drinks out of the fridge, and takes them downstairs to Buck. 

Buck is, unsurprisingly, still asleep when Bobby enters the darkened bunk room. He’s either wormed his way out from under the covers or never got underneath in the first place, because he’s sprawled across the bed, arms and legs starfished, breathing with his mouth open. Bobby almost laughs again: he’s only ever seen toddlers sleep like that.

But the comparison fades as soon as he’s closer. Buck’s face is slack in sleep, but he still looks worn down, still has dark circles under his eyes. He’s in need of a haircut. He’s thin, too, but not concerningly so, or at least Bobby doesn’t think. His own kids never made it to this age, but he was a teenager once. He knows they grow faster than they can eat to keep up with, sometimes. It’s nothing to be concerned about. A lot of kids have strict parents. He did, and he’s—

Bobby cuts that line of thought off. Not just because he doesn’t like where it’s going. Because he is absolutely not getting more involved than he has to. Not with anyone. 

This is just… doing his job. He’s supposed to be watching out for the kids. For all of the kids. 

Bobby shakes Buck awake, gently. 

Buck groans and rolls over, obstinate. Still looking very much like a little kid. 

“Kid, it’s me. You need to eat something.”

Buck’s face scrunches, then he opens his eyes, bleary. When he sees Bobby, he frowns. When he sees the food, his expression clears. He sits up, moving stiffly. 

“What did they say at the hospital?” Bobby says, handing Buck one of the electrolyte drinks. 

It’s really none of his business. But now that Buck is sitting up, Bobby can’t understand what he’s doing here. Even if his dad’s a hardass, the hospital would normally keep a case of pediatric heat stroke at least overnight, and he’s not seeing any reason why Buck should be the exception. 

“The same thing they always say.” Buck takes an obedient swig of the drink. “That I’m a very brave little boy.”

Bobby is relieved that the sass is back. But not relieved enough to miss what Buck’s just said. 

“Always?”

Buck narrows his eyes. “On TV,” he says. Then, “What kind of sandwiches are those?”

Bobby proffers the plate. Despite his better instincts, he sits with the kid while he eats. Just to make sure he doesn’t choke, which is definitely a danger with how fast he’s eating. They don’t say anything, though Buck keeps glancing at Bobby between bites, the same nervous, suspicious look he wore as he was walking into the bunk room earlier. 

When he’s done, he starts to get out of bed. Bobby stops him.

“Are you still tired?”

“I can do whatever,” says Buck. 

“Not what I asked. Tell me the truth. Still tired?”

Slowly, Buck nods. 

“Then keep sleeping. Here.” He reaches for the alarm clock on the table near the bed, sets it to go off in two hours. “When that goes off, drink another bottle. If you’re up for it, come upstairs. If not, just go back to bed.”

Buck hesitates, feet hovering halfway off the bed.

“Are you gonna tell my f—my family?”

Bobby thinks he probably should. Even if Buck’s dad is just strict, it might be good for him to hear that his kid can’t just walk off heat stroke from someone who is laterally related to the medical field. But he is, he reminds himself once again, forcefully, not here to get involved.

“No,” he says. “Like I said, this is just another lesson in firefighting.”

Bobby leaves Buck alone. Sure enough, the kid sleeps the rest of the day, though when Bobby goes to wake him for pickup, he sees the empty electrolyte bottles in the trash. 

Bobby watches as the boys get picked up that evening, something he doesn’t normally do. He sees Buck get into a big black SUV, but doesn’t see the driver. Just that it looks expensive. 

“I have a question about Buck,” he says twenty minutes later, standing in Durgess’ office. 

He is, once again, going against his better judgment. But that seems to be the theme of the day. And if he can go home with a little reassurance that the kid is okay, maybe he can wake up tomorrow only mildly hungover, instead of wishing for death. 

“Who?” says Durgess.

“Evan. Evan Buckley.”

Durgess frowns, maybe running through the Evans in his head. Then his expression clears. “Heat stroke kid.”

“Yeah,” says Bobby. Heat stroke kid who was here again less than twenty-four hours later. “What’s his home life like?”

Durgess smiles, sly. Instantly irritating.

“Don’t tell me Bobby ‘Lone Wolf’ Nash is getting attached?”

Bobby has to work to keep his own face neutral.

“He said something about the hospital today. I was just wondering if he has a history of hospitalizations.”

The smile slips off Durgess’s face. Bobby knows why. Firefighters are mandatory reporters.

Durgess digs through his desk for a minute and comes up with a thin binder, labeled “CAMP.” He flips through it for a moment, frowning. But when he finds whatever he’s looking for, his expression clears. 

“Ah,” he says. “I didn’t even realize when I called him—Buckley’s one of Chip’s boys.”

He’s clearly expecting this to mean something to Bobby. Bobby’s answering stare is blank.

“Chip’s the LA County Police Commissioner,” Durgess says. 

No wonder he’s a hardass. Bobby can understand why a lot of firefighters feel loyalty to the cops they work with—they go through hell together—but he can’t understand the blind spot it creates. He knows better than anyone that being a first responder doesn’t automatically make someone immune from being a fuckup. Durgess is looking at Bobby like it’s a given that this Chip guy can’t be an abuser just because he’s a cop.

“And the hospital visits?”

“Nothing in here about excessive or suspicious visits,” he says. “Though that might be because—”

He’s cut off by the alarm.

Technically, Bobby gets off shift as soon as the camp is over, but it’s a five-alarm: Durgess tells him to suit up. And Bobby is so relieved to be doing the work he came here to do that by the time he gets home that evening, sweaty and sooty and able to cross two more numbers off his list, that he doesn’t follow up again.

The day after the one spent sleeping in the bunk room is a Saturday. Evan has never looked forward to weekends like other kids. Weekends for other kids mean friends and trips to the mall and the movies. Weekends for Evan mean long stretches spent alone in his room or, since he started living with the Wilsons, yard work. Summer is even worse: it’s just one, long, lonely weekend. 

But normally, he looks forward to Mondays even less. If it’s during the school year, Monday means getting scolded by teachers for late assignments and yelled at for falling asleep in class—or worse, pranked, if the teacher thinks they’re funny. It means kids whispering about the weird foster kid. And before firefighting camp started, Monday meant… well, firefighting camp. 

This week though, to his great surprise, Evan finds himself looking forward to Monday. 

All things considered, it wasn’t the worst weekend. At dinner on Friday, Evan had casually mentioned that the teacher at camp had wanted to know why he was back so soon after the hospital. Mr. Wilson had scowled at him, though Evan had avoided punishment by quickly clarifying that he hadn’t actually said anything—just been asked. (What really happened was  that the doctors had wanted him to stay overnight, but Mr. Wilson had checked him out early, because he and Mrs. Wilson both had to work in the morning. Not that Evan had any complaints: just being in the hospital made him feel like he was constantly on the edge of throwing up, even if he supposedly needed to be there). And apparently that was enough to put Mr. Wilson off the long list of tasks he’d originally planned for Evan to do in the garden. Instead, Evan was given the relatively-easy task of alphabetizing Mr. Wilson’s collection of books and DVDs in the den. Boring, and Evan probably messed up a few times, but at least the den is air conditioned. 

Still, Evan spends most of the weekend in a state of near-constant anxiety. It takes him until Monday morning, as he is getting ready for camp, to realize what the anxiety is: he is excited. He wants to go back.

As soon as he recognizes the feeling, Evan forces it down. Wanting is dangerous; wanting always, always hurts. If he hadn’t learned that lesson by then, he definitely should have learned it on Thursday, when his stupid desire to impress Bobby landed him in the hospital. 

Besides, Bobby made it pretty clear even when he was letting Evan sleep that he doesn’t actually give a shit about him. He gives a shit about teaching firefighting. That’s it. 

This seems to be confirmed when Buck arrives. Bobby doesn’t even look at him—at least, not more than he looks at any other boy—and Evan spends the first few minutes of camp with his head down again. Only this time it is not out of defiance, but out of embarrassment. 

Maybe he really does never learn. 

They’re testing on knots today. Evan only has time to feel grateful that at least they’ll be inside again before he is filled with dread. He can’t even remember the names of the knots, let alone how to tie them. But he shuffles up the stairs with the rest of them. Maybe, he thinks miserably, Bobby still feels bad enough about Thursday that he won’t make Evan run any laps when he messes it up.

But as the other boys are sitting down, Bobby whistles at Evan.

“Buck,” he says. “You’re with me.”

Punished already? Evan knew Bobby’s kindness from the other day was too good to last. He looks up to see that the funny firefighter, Llewelyn, is running the knot test, and Bobby is walking over to Evan, rope in-hand. Apparently, he’s planning a one-on-one humiliation.

He leads Evan into a corner. Sits him on one of the comfy couches where the firefighters take their breaks. A few of them are up here now, and they give Evan and Bobby some funny looks as they sit down, though none of them say anything.

“Okay,” says Bobby, sitting next to Evan. “Let’s go over this.”

Evan looks up. “You’re not testing me?”

Bobby frowns—not angry, more like he’s confused. 

“Buck, you were unconscious while the other boys were learning this. I’m not going to punish you for being asleep.”

Evan decides not to say that everyone else does.

Bobby clears his throat. “Right. Okay. Basic underhand.”

It’s awkward at first. Evan stumbles over the knots repeatedly, gets the names mixed up. Every time he does, he looks up at Bobby, bracing for punishment. Exasperation. More laps. Every time, Bobby gives him the same inscrutable look—brow furrowed, lips pressed together—then just… tries again. 

Eventually, Bobby seems to realize something. He disappears downstairs, then comes back up with an armful of what appears to be completely random items. A pair of chopsticks. A rescue harness. A short length of pipe.

They’re props. Bobby uses them to not just explain what the knot does, but actually show him. This one’s for connecting your harness to the winch. Another for tying two lengths of wood or rebar together to stabilize a structure. And so on and so on. It’s surprising even to Evan how much faster he learns the knots when he can see how they’re actually put to use. He gets most of them after just the first try. He’s so pleased with himself when he successfully ties his first figure-eight follow through that he forgets to look aloof, and raises his gaze to beam at Bobby—not expecting praise, just… sort of proud of himself.

But Bobby isn’t smiling. He’s still wearing that little frown. Evan’s expression freezes and he looks away, hating how tight his throat suddenly feels. 

“Buck,” Bobby says.

Evan holds his breath. He looks up. Bobby is still frowning, but he doesn’t sound mad when he says, “You know the point of learning anything isn’t to get it right on the first try. It’s to be able to use it when it really matters. That’s especially true for firefighting, but it’s true for everything else, too.”

Evan says, “Okay.”

But really, he’s wondering if Bobby has ever been to a public school before. Or if he remembers yelling at Evan for forgetting to check the floor like… four days ago. 

Bobby waits a second. Like he expects Evan to say something else. When Evan doesn’t, he sighs and says, “You did good, Buck. You passed. Go on and join the other boys.”

The brief thrill of praise is quickly tempered by the idea of rejoining the group. It’s embarrassing—this whole day is embarrassing—but Evan can’t even remember the last time a grown up paid that much attention to just him. Did Maddie and Daniel count as grown ups? They were nineteen and seventeen the last time he saw them, so probably not. 

Maybe never, then. 

Don’t think about it, he tells himself as he rejoins the other boys. Don’t want it. 

But the rest of the week, the weirdest thing happens. 

Whenever they are learning something new, Bobby doesn’t just explain it, he shows it. Whenever someone is struggling with something, Bobby stops, and explains it again. He usually acts like he’s doing this for the whole group, but Evan notices he makes a point of it whenever Evan is the one messing up. Only, it doesn’t feel so much like messing up after a while. Because usually when Bobby explains something twice, he does it a different way. Things start to click. Evan actually starts to do well.

He starts to feel that anxious, excited feeling in the pit of his stomach every night, lying in bed and waiting for morning to come. He’s not messing up as much at home anymore: there is a small part of him that worries Mr. Wilson will notice he’s enjoying the camp too much and take it away if he does, so Evan is more careful than usual with chores, and doesn’t complain that he isn’t allowed to have any snacks between meals, and says please and thank you any time he’s talking to Mr. or Mrs. Wilson. It works: Mr. Wilson comments, loudly and frequently, that the camp seems to be doing Evan some good. He doesn’t slap him that week even once. 

Evan can’t believe how good it feels to actually be good at something. He thinks he finally understands why the smart kids try so hard at school. Is this what it’s always like? Grownups telling you you’re good? That you’re worth something, that you’ll turn out to be someone?

For the first time since he entered the system, Evan starts to think about what will happen to him beyond the age of sixteen.

Maybe he could be a firefighter. 

But, like all good things, the camp eventually comes to an end. 

Their final activity is a real simulation of a fire. Much to everyone’s disappointment, Bobby refuses to light the training building on actual fire, but he does put fog machines in every room to simulate smoke, and warms up the door handles with a blowtorch, and strings red lights along the floor to look like burning embers. The boys are supposed to work together to clear every floor, and then take a dummy down through the “burning” floors and out to safety. 

Evan is the only one, in the end, who does it all without even one mistake. Bobby claps him on the shoulder when he’s done. 

Evan tries hard to hold onto that feeling of pride. But as soon as it arrives, it is being swept away on a wave of dread and regret. He doesn’t know when he’s ever going to have that feeling again. 

“Alright,” says Bobby as they all gather around the table for their final lunch of the camp. Bobby has gone all-out: homemade pizzas, three kinds of pasta, tiramisu for dessert. Evan is trying to eat it all quickly enough that he can try everything and slowly enough to savor it, his last meal before he returns to Mrs. Wilson’s dry brown rice and overcooked chicken forever, so he’s only half paying attention to what Bobby is saying. “You’ve all done a great job. I hope you’ll be able to take what you’ve learned here into your lives outside. Being a firefighter isn’t about wearing the coat or having a badge: it’s about being the sort of person who can help when there’s danger, who can be relied on by the people in his or her life.” Bobby clears his throat. “I believe all of you can do that, and you should all be proud of yourselves. But unfortunately, only one of you gets to join me on the ride-along tomorrow.”

Evan looks up, cheeks full of penne rosa. He’s been so caught up in his disappointment that the camp is ending that he forgot about the ride-along.

A brief flare of hope, quickly stomped out. He might have done well the second week, but that doesn’t change the fact that he spent the first week running so many punishment laps that he puked all over himself. The other boys certainly haven’t forgotten it. They call him Puke behind Bobby’s back.

But Bobby is looking right at him.

“It’s one thing to be good at something from the start,” he says. “It’s another to work hard for something. Firefighting is all about hard work, perseverance, not giving up even in the face of something that seems impossible.” He clears his throat again, looks away for a second, then right back at Buck. “That’s why I’ve decided the honor of the ride-along goes to Evan Buckley. Congratulations, Buck. You get to see what it’s like to be a real firefighter.”

And Buck feels so proud of himself that for once, he doesn’t let himself think about how much the hope hurts.