Eddie is alone again. They'd rolled Buck through doors plastered with medical personnel only signs, and Eddie had tried to follow. Was ready to argue his EMT certification with anyone who dared drag him away.
But it was the nurse Eddie had woken up to, the woman with the kind smile and kinder eyes, that caught him by the uninjured elbow and gently led him towards the waiting room chairs. She fetched him a plastic cup of stale water and pressed it into his hand before sitting down beside him.
"You don't have to wait with me," he rasps, glaring at the doors Buck had disappeared through.
"We look after our own around here," she murmurs back. And Eddie knows there's nothing of New Mexico in him, but when he meets those kind eyes of hers, he sees recognition reflected back. "I'm sorry about the sheriff and the meatheads from the diner." Her sigh is world-weary like she's carrying the weight of your kind around her neck too. "This isn't the friendliest of places. That's probably why we're out in the middle of nowhere."
Eddie huffs half a laugh.
"You ever think about moving somewhere friendlier?"
"Sure, but then who would be here to welcome the outsiders?"
The smile they share makes Eddie feel like a traitor. It comforts him more than the shock blanket they'd tried to drape around his shoulders in the ambulance, but it's not his smile to share in, is it? It's not his smile to take comfort in, and yet...
An hour and seventeen minutes into surgery, Eddie's phone starts to buzz. The nurse, whose name he should probably get sometime soon, takes the plastic cup from him, so he can pull his phone from his pocket, wincing at the spear of pain through his shoulder. It's Chimney's name across the screen, and Eddie takes a deep breath. He hits answer.
"Hey," he croaks, then clears his throat. "No news yet."
"Yeah, I figured." Chimney takes a moment to chew on something, and it's not his usual chunk of gum. "I was actually calling about you, Prince Charming."
"Me?" Eddie recoils like he's finally got the punch he was bracing for in the diner. "I'm fine."
"Your car flipped and you escaped the hospital less than twelve hours later to run through the desert."
"Buck was missing."
"I know," Chimney almost snaps, but it's an edge too gentle to be the kind of cutting Eddie is hankering for. "I'm not reprimanding you, Eddie. I'm not calling as Captain Han. I'm calling as... Friend Chimney."
"Well, pal, you don't have to worry about me. I'll probably be in the bed beside Buck's until we're cleared to travel." Needs to be. Needs to wake up and look to his left and see Buck real and alive and breathing. "Although, you're going to be two men down for the foreseeable future."
"No, not Captain Han, remember?" he trills. "Friend Chimney, and as your friend Chimney, I'm uniquely qualified to understand the situation you're in right now."
"You are?" Eddie quirks an eyebrow. Immediately regrets it as it tugs the ache at the back of his head into a full headache pulsing in his temples.
"I know what it's like to have no idea where your Buckley is," he says softly. "Or if they're even breathing. That hurts worse than an abdomen full of stab wounds or a chest full of broken ribs."
Eddie feels like Chimney has just reached into his body and snapped his few intact ribs to make a complete set. He struggles to breathe around whatever has lodged itself between the fractures in his ribcage.
In a single twenty-four hours, four people have made the same assumption about him and Buck. Half of those weren't the kindest of assumptions. They were easy to ignore. The hostility of a small town suddenly stretching their borders to fit outsiders. Even the nurse's assumption was easy to write off. She doesn't know them.
But Chimney does.
"My point is," Chimney continues like he can't hear Eddie wheezing down the line. "If you need to talk, I'm here."
If Chimney is making these assumptions, if Eddie isn't just princess but Buck's nickname keeper, if Eddie isn't just an outsider but Buck's Chimney, that's going to be a lot harder to hide from.
"Thanks," he chokes out. "I'll keep that in mind."
But no. No. Chimney isn't saying that they're... He just knows what it's like to care for a Buckley. And Maddie and Chimney were best friends once, weren't they?
(Is that the point?)
"I'm really glad you got another tomorrow, Eddie. Don't waste it."
Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone, so if you love her, tell her.
So maybe that is what Chimney meant.
"Chim—"
His nurse taps him on the arm, and Eddie looks up from the dust on his boots as a doctor emerges from the double doors opposite them. Eddie pushes himself up from his chair with a groan and waddles, for lack of a better word, over to the surgeon.
"Is he okay?" he asks, and maybe he's not helping his whole Buck is a friend case, but he doesn't give a shit. Los Nietos can think whatever they want of he and Buck just so long as they keep him alive.
"Mr Buckley is doing very well."
The relief almost takes him out at the knees. The nurse rushes over to keep him upright. Eddie puts Chim on speaker.
"We patched all the internal damage form the crash," the doctor continues. "He's in recovery now. We've given him some strong painkillers, so it might take him a little longer to wake up, but you're welcome to go and sit with him."
"Thank you, that's..." Eddie's eyes flutter shut. "Thank you."
"I'll tell Maddie," Chimney says, and Eddie startles slightly. "Go keep him company, Diaz."
The call disconnects.
Eddie follows his feet to Buck.
