Chapter Five.     Sea, Swallow Me

[ Season 1, Episode 4 ]

        Ezra starts to get his color back as the days pass by.  He finds that it's easier to laugh and smile again.  Things start stitching themselves back together as time passes; he fills in those cracks in the foundation with concrete.  Ezra smooths things over with Sal; May is released from the hospital; Athena seems to be making some amends with Michael; Chimney's recovery has taken a turn for the better.  Hen and Buck seem to be in happier moods as the days pass, though Ezra has noticed that Bobby still remains morose.  Something had triggered a shutdown in Bobby; he builds a glass wall around him that none of them can really break through no matter how hard they try.  

Ezra used to think that it must be awfully lonely being Bobby; he never let anybody in close enough to see past his skin and help him patch up the cracked foundations that the man tries so hard to conceal from the rest of them.  It's like a constant state of grieving—grieving what, Ezra still doesn't know.  He recognizes Bobby's behaviors in the ones that he displayed throughout his own period of grief.  And then, Ezra realized that he recognizes a lot of himself in Bobby—the realization had hit him over the head, it had been an epiphany of sorts that he'd had as he stared up at the firehouse ceiling one night.  He understands now that strange familiarity had had been faced with when he had first met Bobby—it's like looking into a mirror.  What is wrong with Bobby, Ezra had come to realize is also what is wrong with him. 

"Really?" Hen demands dryly as Buck reaches into her still-cooking pot of stir fry and drops one of her carrots into his mouth. 

"Gross," Ezra says with a shake of his head.

"If you want some, just ask," Hen tells Buck with that same deadpan expression written across her face.

Buck shakes his head and waves her off, though Ezra notices that his gaze is trained elsewhere, partially distracted by whatever he has set his eyes on.  "I'm good.  I already ate."

"You still owe me 20 bucks, Buck," Hen replies, turning away from the stove to open the fridge.  "Don't think I'm gonna forget."

"For what?"

"For the damn cookie bouquet that I delivered to Chimney," Hen replies.  "The one with the get well card that I personally watched you sign."

"He's doing it again," Buck whispers, nodding in the direction of Bobby who sits away from them in silence with his back turned and his plate of food in front of him.  Ezra doesn't notice anything particularly unusual about this behavior.

Hen furrows her brows as she looks over to Bobby.  "What?  Eating dinner?"

"Staring into that book," Buck answers.  "Come on, you guys must have a line on the gossip around here.  What is it?  Why-why is he so obsessed with it?"

"Mm-mm," Hen shakes her head.  "All I'm gonna tell you about that book is to stay the hell away from it.  Trust me."  Buck barely acknowledges Hen's words of advice as he continues to chew on the carrot, staring at Bobby.  "I made that mistake three months into working here."

"So you're saying, no one here knows what he writes in it," Buck pushes, pushing himself up onto the counter as Hen takes a seat at the table with her back to Buck and Ezra.

"No," Ezra confirms.  "And sometimes, it's best if things like that are kept that way."

"Yeah, well, watch this," Buck replies, pushing himself off of the counter and preparing to approach Bobby.

Hen only lets out a sigh.  "All right, Buck.  When he pops you in that pretty face, just make sure it's on the side that's already got a mark."

Ezra only shakes his head and lets out a sigh as he settles into the chair beside Hen, watching as Buck carries himself over to Bobby.  Everything about him oozes confidence that on most days Ezra admires—he often wonders what it must be like to be able to carry yourself without any doubts.  He'd learned that Buck didn't exactly let anything stop him.  He liked to push things to their limits because he had never really learned not to and he tended to sweep the broken things underneath the rug for somebody else to discover.  Ezra had learned not to push boundaries.  It was something that had been beaten out of him.  He'd shattered too many rulers in his youth by bending them too far and had been cut by the jagged edges enough times to learn his lesson. 

Buck approaches Bobby in the same slow and deliberate way that somebody approaches a wild animal that has not yet been tamed.

"So, Bobby, I gotta ask," Buck starts.  Ezra lets out a sigh and buries his face in his hands, but removes them a few moments later.  Watching Buck is like watching a car crash—he wants to look away, but the morbid curiosity is what keeps his eyes glued to the scene.  "What's the deal with that book?"

Bobby doesn't answer immediately.  Instead, he closes the small book and keeps it tucked safely beneath the palm of his hand as he slides away from the table, not even looking up at Buck.  "It's none of your business."

"I know it's a list of people you saved, all right?" Buck continues, following Bobby through the loft.  Ezra exchanges a silent glance with Hen.  "Right now there are 46 names in it.  But there's space for 148.  Why that number?"

Bobby whirls around.  "You read my book?"

"I mean, I-I peeked at it once or twi—"

Buck doesn't have a chance to finish his sentence before something crosses over Bobby's face—something that Ezra suddenly realizes with a dread that he's stared in the face of before back in the house.  He hadn't known Bobby to be an angry man, but for those few moments, he is.  Bobby lashes out, grabbing Buck roughly by the shoulders and slamming him up against the wall.  Ezra flinches. 

Bobby grits his teeth and brings his face so close to Buck's that their noses are almost touching.  "Don't ever do that again." 

Ezra stiffens as Bobby releases Buck and stalks away.  He isn't the one slammed against the wall, but for a moment, Ezra forgets where he is.  He was stupid to think that he'd ever really escape the house.  Hen puts a hand on his shoulder, snapping him back to reality.  Ezra startles and flinches away from Hen's hand.

The woman stares at him, perplexed.  "Are you okay?"

"I—uh, I gotta go," Ezra says hurriedly, pushing himself away from the table.

Hen stands up as he scurries away, throwing her hands up in confusion.  "It's the middle of the night shift!  Where do you think you're gonna go?!"

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

"Holy shit," Ezra murmurs as they arrive on scene, sand crunching beneath his boots.

"That is...one way of saying it," Buck says from beside him.

Slowly sinking into the waves of the ocean water in front of them is the plane, seemingly split into two halves.  The surface of the water burns with flames of orange as oil spills out of the plane and ignited upon impact.  The scene before Ezra makes his stomach churn and he tries not to think of the people who could be drowning out in the ocean or the bodies that had been accumulated upon impact.  How it must have felt to them as though the sea had swallowed them whole.  Someone had asked asked him back at the academy that when it came to fire, if Ezra would prefer to drown.  His answer was the same every time.  Ezra would face the fire every time.  Ezra learned long ago that water is unrelenting; it was just another hungry mouth that could only eat and eat and eat.

All water eventually makes its way to the sea. 

It will never forget Ezra.

They meet the Coast Guard halfway and help them heave a red safety boat off of the cruiser.

"Captain Nash," Bobby greets.  "Who's got incident command?"

"You do now, Captain," the Coast Guard captain replies.  "It looks like the plane split in two on impact."

"All right," Bobby decides as they run the safety boat down to the water.  "I'm gonna need you to be my point man on the beach.  All right, Hen, I need you to check on the Coast Guard chopper.  And Buck, I need you to check with the dive team, all right?  Ezra, you're with me."

Ezra stiffens at this and hopes that nobody notices.  He hopes that Bobby doesn't notice.  Ezra tries not to show that Buck's confrontation with Bobby rattled him as much as it did.  Ezra had always had this understanding that the people he surrounded himself were safe.  That they would never hurt him—or anyone for that matter.  That Bobby would never hurt him.  And he knows that it wasn't Ezra that he hurt, but if he could do it to Buck, was there really anything stopping him from one day doing the same to Ezra?  Ezra tries to keep to himself throughout the next few shifts.  He doesn't want anybody else to catch on.  He already has Hen hovering over his shoulder, though he does his best to dismiss her concerns because he knows that she's going to keep prying at the barriers that he tries to put up until she can make a leak.  Ezra doesn't want her to know.  He doesn't want anyone to know.

When they reach the water's edge, they pause for a small moment to acknowledge the person who had gone down with their seat and washed up on the shore.  Ezra turns his gaze away before he can let the sight affect him too badly.  They probably died on impact.  He glances over at Buck who seems to be the most affected by the body and offers him a weak smile.

"Keep moving, Buck," Bobby calls.

The boat ride to the crash site is silent. 

Ezra keeps his eyes away from the bodies that float on the surface of the water; lungs filled with saltwater and cuts and bruises already across their faces. 

The flames draw closer.

Ezra tries not to be sick.

"The water's on fire," Buck comments, voice tense.

"That's jet fuel," Bobby replies.

"I count 12 to 15 victims on the wings, at least 30 in the water!" Hen shouts over the hum of the engine and the crashing of the waves.  "How long before that thing sinks?"

"Based on the timing of the swells, I don't think the plane can take more than four of five sets before going down," Bobby replies. 

Hen lets out a yelp of alarm as one of the victims in the water grasps onto the side of the safety boat.  Ezra shifts over and reaches out a hand to pull the man into the boat.  Those who had gathered on top of the plane begin to dive into the water as they approach the severed halves of the plane.  Ezra coughs as they clip off of the boat and step into the plane, waving a hand to clear away the clouds of smoke.  The water in the plane reaches the midpoint of Ezra's shins as they step into the interior of the plane.

"Where the hell are we gonna evacuate all these people to?" Buck inquires.

"We have to get these people out of here and onto the beach," Bobby replies.  "This thing is gonna go down in four minutes."

Ezra pauses to take the pulse of a woman who sits in her seat, head hanging limply and eyes closed.  He already knows the answer before he presses his fingers to the side of her neck, but he can't bring himself not to check.  He looks up to see that Buck is watching him with those wide, sad, blue eyes of his, filled with so much hope.  Ezra only shakes his head silently with a small frown.  Buck deflates and carries on through the plane. 

"Swim to the raft!  Swim to the raft!"

Ezra looks over at Hen to see that she has released the emergency raft from the plane, allowing the refugees to climb atop it and wait for rescue to reach them.  Ezra continues through the plane and tries not to let his eyes linger too long on the passengers of the plane still pinned to their seats whose heads had long since disappeared beneath the surface of the water and their last breaths had already been stolen away from them. 

"I can't get my seat belt off!" A man calls from further down the plane. 

Ezra stumbles toward him to find that his seat belt had remained on during the crash.  The belt had sunk into the man's skin on impact. 

"Bobby!" Ezra shouts.  "Hen!  Over here!"

Instantly, Bobby and Hen swarm the man, assessing the situation. 

"Mommy!" Ezra hears another, smaller voice call from somewhere further into the plane. 

"Cap!" Ezra shouts.  "I'm going back there!"

Bobby glances up at Ezra for a split second before nodding.  "Okay. Buck, go with him."

Ezra is already wading through the steadily rising water—now reaching the tops of his knees—before Bobby can even finish his sentence.  Buck follows after Ezra, water sloshing around them as Ezra's eyes land on the child and his mother trapped in their seats further into the plane.  A few playing cards float on the surface of the water as they draw closer to the boy and his mother.

Something in Ezra's stomach twists when he is properly able to examine the boy.  He's clutching a deck of cards in his hand and shaking his mother with the other and the fear in his voice is so palpable that Ezra can feel it sitting in his chest.  He's just a kid.  He couldn't be much older than the picture of the little boy that is in Ezra's wallet.  He thinks that is what's most sickening about all of this; it feels like a cruel reminder of what he had done, a reminder of the debt that he would never really be able to pay back—a reminder that no matter where he hid, he would never be able to fully escape from his past.  He's just a kid.  He's just a kid, and here Ezra stands, older than he ever would be.  

He feels it all, then: the guilt. 

Ezra wasn't supposed to make it out.

He wasn't supposed to make it this far.

Ezra wasn't supposed to be here.

"Mommy, come on, we have to go!" the boy exclaims, snapping Ezra out of his head.

Ezra's eyes land on the mother, slightly confused.  The mother is awake and aware and there doesn't seem to be anything restricting her movement.  Then, his eyes travel down to the mother's legs, pinned down by the seat in front of her.

"Ma'am, can you move?" Ezra questions.

The woman shakes her head.  "No, my—"

Immediately, Buck begins to tug at the seats that pin the woman down.  The woman lets out loud, pained screams as Buck continues to pull at the seats.

"Buck!" Ezra shouts as Bobby arrives.  "Buck!  Stop!  Her legs are pinned!"

"Please save him," the mother pleads, looking to Ezra and Bobby with wide, pain-filled eyes.

Bobby nods.  "All right, Ezra, take the kid."

Ezra swallows and nods, hesitantly wrapping his arms around the boy to lift him out of the seat, but the boy begins to thrash in his arms and Ezra has no choice but to let go of him.

"No, no!" The boy screams.  "I'm not leaving without you!"

"Okay, baby, listen," the mother says softly, placing her hands on the boy's shoulders.  "Look, look.  The firemen are here, okay?  I need you to get on their boat so they can do their job.  If everyone is worried about you and your pretty face, how are they gonna do what they need to do to save me?"

A lump forms in Ezra's throat as he listen's to the mother give her speech with such unwavering love and fearlessness packed into each word.  Every word just gives another tug at his heartstrings.  Everything she says is so soft and warm and everything that Ezra's own mother said to him he felt like a sharp tooth.  He doesn't remember the last time that she had talked to him that tenderly.  He knows that there was a time because he remembers the times when they were happy, but that is buried beneath everything that came after. 

"Have I ever lied to you?" The mother asks her son quietly.  The boy shakes her head, and a small melancholy smile stretches across the mother's face.  She knows that there's a chance that she won't make it out of the plane—this in itself makes Ezra want to empty the contents of his stomach into the water around him.  "Then you have to believe me.  I will be with you again soon.  Mommy loves you, so much.  Do this for me."

The boy lets out a sob and nods.

"Okay, baby," the mother replies, eyes filled with tears as the boy lunches forward and wraps his arms around her.  She hugs him back and holds him ever so tightly as she closes her eyes.  Ezra can see how hard she's fighting to keep it all together. 

"All right, gotta go," Bobby tells her.  "I'm sorry."

The woman nods as Ezra scoops the boy up into his arms.  He doesn't fight against him this time, only wraps his arms tightly around Ezra as the man carries him away from his mother.  Ezra and Buck murmur assurances to the boy as they make their way to the opening of the plane where the raft awaits them.  Buck helps Ezra to lower the boy into the waiting arms of the victims that fill the boat.

"Here we go," Buck is saying.  "Careful."

A small explosion rattles the plane.  Ezra grabs onto the closest thing to keep his balance which just so happens to be Buck as he, himself, grabs the sides of the plane to steady himself.  Ezra lets go of Buck when the plane steadies itself once more and they wade through the water toward Bobby and the woman once again.  All the while, he can hear the tiny cries of the son for his mother.  Bobby remains with the mother, trying to pry the seats off of the woman as she cries out in pain.  Ezra notices with a lurch in his stomach that the water around her has started to turn red. 

"Buck, Ezra, go check the back of the plane," Bobby instructs, slightly out of breath.  "We're running low on time."

Ezra spots Hen at the back of the plane, pulling at the bathroom door which is blocked by the cart.  He can hear muffled voices and the sound of fists pounding desperately against the doors as he and Buck draw closer.

"Get us out of here!  It's filling with water!"

 "They're trapped in there!" Hen calls to Buck and Ezra. 

"Hurry!  It's filling up fast!" The desperate voice of a woman cries through the door as Hen moves aside so that Buck can reach to the other end of the cart in an attempt to pry it away from where it sits wedged beneath the door handle and the seats that had collapsed around it.  "Please hurry!  I don't want to drown!"

"Buck, that's not going to work!" Ezra shouts.  "We have to figure something else out.  Fast."

Something in Buck slumps, but he knows that Ezra is right.  Hesitantly, he lets go of the cart and just stares at the jammed door for a moment.  Then, he perks up and turns over his shoulder back toward the other end of the plane.  "Wait!  Hold the boat!"  He turns back to Ezra and Hen.  "Tie the rope to the cart.  Give me the other end, c'mon."

"Here," Hen says through heaving breaths as she places her black back on top of the cart, pulling the thick black rope from the depths of it.  "Here, take the bag."  

Buck takes the bag and darts through the aisle of the plane while Hen and Ezra work together to make sure that their end of the rope is tied securely to the cart.  The people trapped inside the bathroom keep shouting and Ezra does his best so shout reassurances over all the chaos around them.  Buck reaches the end of the plane and yells for the Coast Guard to tie his end of the rope to the boat.

"Good to go!" Hen shouts over her shoulder as she ties the knot tight.

"Everyone stay clear!" Buck shouts down the aisle.

Immediately, Ezra dives to the side, landing in the water as the cart is yanked from where it was once wedged against the door and flies through the interior of the plane.  Hen, who had managed to press herself against the wall around the corner in the nick of time pries the bathroom door open to reveal the two young adults who had been trapped inside the bathroom.  The water reaches their chests and doesn't recede.  Hen ushers them out, whispering reassurances to them and telling the young woman to breathe as she fights through each breath. 

"Y'all walk ahead of me," Hen tells them.  "There's a boat up ahead, you're gonna get on the boat."

Buck places a hand on Ezra's shoulder as he passes him, signalling for Ezra to go ahead of him.  Ezra nods in appreciation and follows after Hen toward the opening of the plane.  The young man and woman climb into the boat first and then Hen crosses the gap.  Ezra hesitates at the entrance, gauging the distance between the plane and the side of the boat.  Hen reaches out a hand for Ezra to cling onto and he takes a deep breath, leaping off of the plane and landing in the boat.

Ezra looks back to see that Buck still remains at the opening of the plane.  The gap between the boat and the plane grows wider and wider the longer that Buck lingers, staring out at them as though he can't quiet see them—as if he isn't quite all there anymore. 

"Buck!" Ezra shouts.  "Come on!"

"Let's go, Buck!" Hen shouts.  "Now, now, now!"

"Buck!" Ezra screams. "Let's go! Don't be a hero!"

And then Buck is turning away from them and running back into the plane.

"God damn it," Ezra whispers to himself.

And then before he can really register what he's doing, he's standing back up in the boat and leaping back onto the plane.  He doesn't even think about it—he doesn't think about the water that surrounds him, how it would swallow him whole if he wasn't careful enough—because all he can think about is how he would not let Evan Buckley go down with the plane.  The sea already had enough to eat tonight.  Ezra would be damned if he let Evan Buckley be its last meal of the night.  Even if it meant that Ezra would be claimed by its jaws instead.

Buck deserves to live.

Ezra doesn't.

He should have died a long time ago.

It's as simple as that.  It wasn't even a hard decision.

"Buck!" Ezra exclaims as he scrambles into the plane.

Buck is already waiting for him with a bemused expression on his face.  "Thought you said not to be a hero."

"Yeah, well, I'm trying to save your sorry ass," Ezra huffs.  "Get back on the boat before I drag you with me."

"Yeah, well I'm trying to save Bobby's life," Buck replies with a shrug, holding up the end of the rope.  "I save his life, you save mine, then we both get what we want.  Besides, two hands are always better than one."

"That's not—"

"Whatever, you get my point," Buck replies, rolling his eyes.  "Now are we saving Bobby or not?"

Ezra sighs, but nods in determination all the same.  "All right.  Let's do this."

They fight their way against the current and the water that reaches Ezra's neck.  He feels a strange tightness in his chest as they push their way further into the plane, holding onto each other for stability as the water fights against them.  It's as if the very ocean does not want them in the plane any longer.  They are being claimed by the sea and it's only a matter of time before they all go down with it.  A wave of nausea washes over Ezra and he can feel his heart pounding against his rib cage as if it's fighting to be let out, but he fights through it.  Bobby remains with the woman, grasping her hands in her own and shouting reassurances to her over the crashing of the waves.

"Hey, Bobby!" Buck shouts as they approach him.

Bobby whirls around to face them.  "Buck, Ezra, I told you guys to leave!"

"Yeah, I know!" Buck shouts back. "I'm a terrible listener and a bad influence on Ezra!"

Ezra coughs as the water covers his head for a brief moment before he manages to fight his way back up.  For a brief moment, he thought that he couldn't move.  "We have an idea to help!"

"Here, take this rope!" Buck shouts to Bobby, trying to pass the rope to the man.  "Tie it to the seat!  It works, trust me!"

Bobby reaches out, and just as Buck and Ezra manage to pass the rope from their hands to Bobby's, a strong tide pushes them away.  Ezra fights against the tide, chest heaving and vision blurring, shouting for Bobby and Buck, but it's no use.  The sea is trying to swallow him.  Ezra surrenders to the tide.  The saltwater stings his eyes, and his lungs burn and he thinks about surrendering completely.  Letting the jaws close around him and letting the water claim him like it should have all those years ago, but then something grabs him from around the waist and brings him back up to the surface.

Ezra's head breaks the surface and he splutters as he treads the water, trying to heave breath of air after breath of air back into his lungs.  Buck still has one arm around him, holding onto Ezra as tight as he can while treading the water with the other arm.

"Thought you were the one who was supposed to be saving my sorry ass," Buck teases.

Ezra doesn't answer.  His chest still feels tight.  He can't bring himself to speak. 

"Hey, are you..." Buck starts to ask, face suddenly filling with concern and the arm around Ezra instinctively tightening.  But then their attention is caught by the sight of the plane finally sinking below the waters.  "Bobby!"

"No!" Ezra shouts, beating against the water.  Something inside of him breaks and he thinks about giving up.  He'd failed.  The water hadn't claimed him, so it turned its gaze to Bobby instead.  "No!  Bobby!"

"Bobby!" Buck screams from beside him.  Ezra doesn't fail to notice how even though Buck is trying to fight to swim toward Bobby, he doesn't let go of Ezra. 

"Hey! Dumbasses!" A voice calls from across the water.

Hen has returned with the lifeboat.

"Ez-Ezra first," Buck tells Hen weakly.

Hen reaches out a hand for Ezra to grasp while Buck helps to push him up onto the side of the boat.  As soon as Ezra is safely over the side, both he and Hen turn around and reach out for Buck.  He grasps both of their hands tightly as they work together to pull Buck over the side.  The two of them collapse, falling back against the side of the boat.  The saltwater drips from the ends of Ezra's hair and into his eyes and he's shivering as he wraps his arms around himself.  Buck notices and instinctively scoots closer to Ezra, and Ezra instinctively flinches away from Buck.  He stares at Ezra with some sort of hurt expression behind his eyes as Ezra reminds himself that Buck is someone safe.  Buck doesn't have a reason to hurt him.  Ezra leans into him, searching for a warmth that is not there.

Hen is shouting for foil blankets and Ezra feels somebody wrapping one around his shoulders, but all Ezra can do is stare out into the open sea ahead of them at the spot where Bobby had gone down with the plane.  And then suddenly, a helicopter is hovering above them, and Bobby is rising from the water.  He's tied off with a secure rope, and clinging ever so tightly to his hands is the mother.  Ezra lets out a relieved sigh at the sight as Buck looks over to him, laughing in amazement as Hen turns to them with a wide grin on her face. 

"They made it!" Ezra breathes.  "They made it."

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Ezra sheds his foil blanket and throws Buck's arm from around his shoulders, jumps off of the boat the minute that they hit dry land.  That feeling of sickness hasn't gone away and he wants to put himself as far away from the sea as he can.  He wants to put himself as far away from Buck and Hen as he possibly can because they're both looking at him like he's just another victim on a call and it makes him feel more sick.  Because if they're looking at him like that, then it means that there's something wrong with Ezra.  It means that they know that something is wrong with Ezra.  He's finds a brief respite in the fact that they don't know what is wrong with Ezra until he remembers that Hen and Buck are the kind of people who like to fix things that can be broken and they won't stop poking and prodding at Ezra until they have their diagnosis.  

Buck and Hen stare after him and exchange a glance.

"What's up with him?" Hen asks.

Buck shakes his head.  "I don't know."

"He's been weird ever since you asked Bobby about his book," Hen tells him.

"You think he knows something about it?" Buck asks.  

"No," Hen shakes her head as she watches Ezra's figure grow smaller and smaller as he makes his way along the beach toward the tents.  "I think it's something else."

Buck nods, his gaze also pinned on Ezra's retreating form.  He'd noticed it too.  How it's felt like Ezra has been folding in on himself lately; trying to make himself smaller—like it was some sort of survival instinct.  It makes him sick how much Ezra reminds him of Maddie.  How Ezra had flinched away from his touch at first on the boat.  And, most hauntingly, how Ezra hadn't tried to fight his way back up to the surface when the tide had carried them out into the ocean.  How it almost looked as if he had just...given up.  Like he didn't even want try to fight or to swim or to do anything. 

"Yeah..." Buck trails off for a moment before looking over at Hen with his head slightly tilted.  "You know, um...back when we were both in the plane, we were pushed out by a tide, and uh...he went under for a bit."

"I checked you guys on the way back," Hen reminds Buck.  "He was fine."

"Yeah, I know," Buck nods.  "But...I don't know, it was like...he just.  Gave up."

Hen looks at him in surprise.  "Like...he wanted to kill himself?"

"I don't think it's like that," Buck replies. 

"What do you think it is, then?" Hen asks him.

Buck only shrugs and shakes his head.

He doesn't think that it's that simple.  The answer never really is.  He'd learned that with Maddie—with his sister.  He knew that Doug—her husband—wasn't good to her, and he knows that she knows that, too.  Every time he visited her, there would be fresh bruises on her forearms and this strange sadness behind her eyes—like she was an animal that knows it's trapped in a cage and that it can't do anything to escape—that always gave Buck the feeling that she might crumble at any moment.  Doug hurt her.  He isn't good for her.  And yet when Buck asks her to leave Doug and come with him, she refuses.  

It isn't that simple. 

It never is.