(A 911 Buddie Fic) You Were Made From Scars

Chapter 9

When Buck finally managed to leave the bathroom, there was no sign of Eddie inside the bar. The worried looks on Chimney's and Hen's faces told Buck all he needed to know, and he made his way toward them, grabbing his jacket and uttering a brief 'I should go' before heading off out into the night. He wasn't even sure where he was going, but somehow managed to find himself sitting on a park bench, staring at the phone in his hands.

Eddie's name and number lit up the screen, ready to be dialled. He would be lying if he said it was the first time he had sat staring at it since Maddie had given him the phone, but at least now he knew why. That didn't mean he understood everything though. It didn't mean he understood why no one had told him, why everyone had all but lied to him.

"There you are..." came a voice from just up ahead, and he looked up to see Maddie.

Honestly, he wasn't even all that surprised to see her. Given the way he had left the bar, it was only a matter of time before Chimney contacted her, because apparently, they were dating. A fact they had decided to tell him, whilst conveniently forgetting to inform him of his own dating life.

"How did you find me?" he questioned, and her gaze flickered to his phone. He breathed out and sat back on the bench a little. "Right, locator app. I forgot about that. Because apparently everyone thinks I'm going to disappear again."

She took a seat next to him on the bench. "Everyone's just worried about you. I'm worried about you."

"Yeah, everyone's just so damn worried that they decided to keep my own life hidden from me." He hung his head, feeling the weight crushing down on his shoulders. "It's like everyone else is in on some big joke that I don't know about, and no one will tell me because no one trusts me."

"It's not about trust," Maddie answered, her words careful but gentle.

"Eddie, and me..." Buck started, looking to Maddie and searching her eyes, but her lack of reaction was answer enough. "No one had the right to keep that from me."

"We didn't want to overwhelm you. We were told to ease you back into it-"

But he interrupted, pushing up from the bench to stalk forward slightly, keeping his back to Maddie. "Yeah, so everyone keeps saying. For my own protection because they don't want to damage poor little broken Buck anymore than he already is."

There was a breath of silence before he heard Maddie get up and come to stand behind him, and when she spoke, her voice was less collected, emotion colouring her words. "We had a terrible childhood. Mom and Dad spent most of it ignoring us, because they were too busy grieving for our dead brother – who you didn't even know about until recently. A brother you had been born to save, but he died anyway."

He swallowed hard, turning his head slightly to listen as she spoke.

"And I promised you, we pinky-promised, that I would always have your back. But I left anyway. I left you with them, and I wish I could say that was the only time but it wasn't. I was scared and I was hurting, but you always had my back. Even when Doug... even when he tried to kill me, you were there, right when I needed you."

"Why are you telling me this?" He turned fully to look at her now, watching her carefully.

"Because I'm done keeping secrets. Because keeping Daniel from you was agony. Because I saw what it did to you when you found out, and I don't want to keep anything or anyone from you anymore." She slipped her hands into his, her eyes pleading. "Eddie was a wreck after we lost you, but he never once stopped loving you."

"Except that's not me anymore," Buck answered, feeling the lump in his throat hardening. "I'm not the Buck he loves. I'm just some imposter."

A shadow of what once was.