Express to nowhere

Part 11

Carlos had not expected to get a 9-1-1 text from Mateo thirty minutes before his shift was officially over.

In fact, getting a cryptic text about TK and got some bad news and can you come to the station ASAP had been exceptionally low on the list of ways he expected the rest of this day to go completely off the rails.

Bad news about what?

Carlos' heart had been pounding in his chest ever since he'd gotten the text and his Captain had given him the okay to leave early. He'd changed out of his uniform and into his jeans and a long-sleeved grey Henley in record speed before sprinting out of the precinct and to his Camaro, pushing the limits of legality on his way to the fire house.

Were TK's injuries worse than the ER doctor had thought? Mateo hadn't answered any of Carlos' panicked texts. He'd called, too, and Mateo had made it so much worse by saying that it would be best to talk in person.

Carlos did the talk-in-person discussions as part of his job description. It usually involved notifying next of kin and witnessing the worst moment of someone's life.

Carlos had already experienced the worst moments of his life, several times over, and every single one of them involved TK. The man had been shot, held hostage, and almost dropped to death in an elevator, only to be brutally assaulted on the job literal hours ago. The idea of anything else piling onto that for TK was just... unfathomable.

Carlos had his steering wheel in a white knuckled grip; tense and useless, just like him. Every single time something went wrong, he was always late. There was never anything he could do to save TK from the pain.

He had left TK at the station with his family. He was supposed to be safe.

Carlos threw his car into park and jogged into the station, turning around wildly in place, searching for someone, anyone.

"Carlos."

Carlos whipped around, surprised to see Mateo sitting on the stairs leading up to the loft, flipping his phone around aimlessly in his hands, waiting. Everything about Mateo's body language screamed wrong. His shoulders were slumped forward, his arms rested tensely on his knees, and his brow was pinched in worry. His eyes, when he looked up to connect with Carlos, were lost and sad.

"I'm glad you're here," Mateo said then, before looking back down at the step beneath his feet, "no one knows what to say to him."

"Mateo - what happened?" Carlos approached Mateo slowly, trying not to startle him as he crouched down in front of the man, stretching his left hand out tentatively to rest on Mateo's knee. "What's wrong with TK?"

Mateo's throat clicked as he swallowed, his hands still fidgeting with his phone and his foot tapping on the floor, anxious. Carlos pulled in a deep breath, trying to calm himself, trying to patiently wait for Mateo to explain what was happening. Getting frustrated and spooking Mateo in his desperation to find TK and fix whatever was wrong wasn't going to do anyone any favours.

"We - we were all watching the news," Mateo started, finally looking up at Carlos with his wide brown eyes, "the channel was covering a broadcast from LA. There was a pile up on the bridge there, from the weather. There was - there was this huge explosion."

Carlos stopped breathing.

"It all happened so fast. There was this truck - it got pushed off the edge of the bridge when an oil tanker exploded." Mateo looked away then; his chest heaving once before he looked down and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, looking for all the world like he was hiding from a reality he didn't want to believe in. "Buck - Buck was in that truck. Helping someone out. They both went over."