Page 2

The embodiment of fear.

And pain.

Heath understood it.

He felt it.

He moved toward it, fighting against the pain in his back, as though the muscles had been flayed open and bathed in salt water.

He’d moved toward the voice and when he was sure that he couldn’t go another inch, he’d felt the back of his hand brush against something.

Someone.

The starlight, normally a beautiful sight above their heads, didn’t provide enough light to see who he’d found in the water.

“Who...”

Heath had been about to ask the same question. “Buck.”

He’d heard a sigh, a welcome sound. “Chi… Chi… Chicago.”

“How are you hurt?”

Buck used his hands to grasp Chicago by his uniform, finding his shoulders.

“I can help... We can help each other keep our heads above the water.”

He thought he heard a sharp laugh and then a gurgle of water.

With a painful lift, he hefted Chicago higher, trying to get him as far out of the water as he could.

Buck felt a hand touch his. A brush of fingers.

“It’s okay, Buck...” A soft groan reached Buck’s ear over the slosh of water around them.

Against them.

“You can let me go.” Chicago’s voice was thinning.

“Fuck no, man. We’re going to hold on.” Buck half inhaled a mouthful of water and spat it out before he gasped in a breath of air. “We’re going to hold on until they rescue us.”

“B-Buck-”

“Shut up and hold on.” Buck could hear the defeat in Chicago’s voice. He didn’t want to hear it. He was wavering close to the line of losing his own hope.

“Don’t... Don’t let me... drag you down.”

Chicago’s voice was barely a whisper and much of it covered by the water and sounds around them, including the whirl of helicopter blades.

“Do you hear that?” Buck’s arms were shaking, not because of the temperature.

Hawaiian waters were warm, warmer than Buck ever experienced in Wisconsin growing up, but he’d been treading water for a good while.

He was injured.

While he couldn’t see the damage, he could feel it in the salt water, burning like hellfire.

And what he couldn’t feel... scared him.