Ireland

The Aftermath

Maddie and the 118 were in Chimney's room explaining to him that Gwen was missing, when they heard a knock on the door. Athena peeked her head in.

"Got room for one more?" she asked.

"Did you find her?" Maddie asked.

Athena pushed Gwen into the room in a wheelchair.

"You all can not get rid of me that quick!" Gwen laughed as she entered the room.

"Gwen!" everyone shouted.

Maddie came over to her and hugged her with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry I let him take you"

"Don't be. What matters is all three of us are safe." Gwen replied. Buck came over and was the next to hug her.

"Oh my god, are you okay?"

"Yes, Buck I'm okay. Thank you for finding us." Gwen said hugging him back.

"I'm glad you're ok!" he said hugging her.

Two weeks later Gwen was persistent in getting back to work. She loved all her friends but needed to get back to her life. Buck, Eddie, and Christopher had been especially great in keeping her company on days they weren't on shift. She would watch Chris for Eddie while he worked, even though Eddie called it Chris looking after her. Today she'd be back at dispatch with Maddie and they were both excited. She started getting dressed and was making coffee when there was a knock on her door. She looked out the peephole to see it was Buck and

opened the door.

"Hey, Buck!"

"Hey, Gwen. I just came to see how you were doing before your first day back. How are you feeling?"

"I'm good! Ready to be back to normal."

Buck gave her a questioning look. 

"I am! I promise Buck, and if I'm not one day I will let you know. How are Maddie and Chim?"

"Chim still has three weeks till he can get back to work and Maddie should also be back today."

"That's good." Gwen didn't know what to say. It felt like he wanted to say something else but he didn't, so they stood there in silence.  "Well, I should probably get going so I'm not late for my first day."

"Right, yeah we wouldn't want that. Do you need a ride?"

"I was just gonna walk, but sure I'd like that."

"Off we go then."

The ride to the call center Buck seemed different, awkward almost. He wasn't normally like this so Gwen wondered what happened. When she got there she hopped out and thanked him for the ride, and walked into the building.

She was immediately greeted by Maddie and Josh when she got to her desk and hugged them both, hugging Maddie a little harder.

"It's good to be back! I needed to get out of the house and back to normal."

"I feel you on that." Maddie agreed. "Also with Buck's hovering."

"Speaking of Buck, have you talked to him today?"

"I did. Why?"

"Did he seem different to you at all?"

"Not that I noticed, why?"

"Well he came to my apartment this morning to see how I was about going back to work. I don't know he just seemed awkward I guess and he's usually never like that. Just didn't know if this whole situation made it awkward for him to be around me." Gwen said sadly.

"Listen it definitely isn't what you're thinking ok. Maybe he's just dealing with something"

"Yea maybe."