Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As the saying goes, when it rains, it fucking pours. Although, usually, in Los Angeles, the forecast is pretty sunny. 

It is during one of the sunniest, hottest, most oppressively sweltering weeks Eddie Diaz has experienced in L.A., that life does its metaphorical torrential downpour thing. How else to explain a life changing run-in, his worst panic attack in years, a breakup, and having the misfortune of being forced to work with Probationary Firefighter Evan Buckley?

But Eddie is getting ahead of himself. 

i.

It actually starts with an impromptu photoshoot.

Most of them are impromptu, to be fair. Eddie had never been in the practice of taking anything but the occasional gym selfie or group photo with friends before he started seeing Alan. 

Alan, a former child actor turned celebrity photographer, likes photos of the more, uh, boudoir variety. He pulls the camera out on Eddie a lot. At first it had been kind of weird, but now - seven months into their relationship - Eddie has grown both accustomed to and fond of the phenomenon. As Alan says, he looks good. He deserves to feel a little sexy, in a private way, just for his boyfriend. 

Today it’s less about that than it is about winning. 

Eddie had mentioned, a few days ago, coming home sweaty and tired after a long shift, about the calendar. 

“You want to win,” Alan had smirked. 

“Well, you are a professional.” Eddie had reasoned. “And it’s for charity.”

So here they are. In the early morning. Instead of a fun pre-work, sunrise activity - like sex or jogging - Eddie has been dragged out of bed, styled, chest rubbed with baby oil, and positioned. He supposes he did ask for this. Eddie is in his uniform pants and suspenders only, leaning a little flirtatiously against the exposed brick wall of Alan’s condo. 

“You should really have an ax,” Alan says as the camera shutters. “Or a saw.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to bring those home,” Eddie replies, shifting his position a little.

“Or maybe, like, a lit match? Just to be a bit provocative.”

“Not the look the calendar is going for,” Eddie laughs. 

“This is why you should quit firefighting and let me take photos of you playing pretend,” Alan teases, snapping another shot. “A much better use of your pretty face.”

Well, given that firefighting is about the only important thing Eddie has done in his entire life, that’s a big no. He wouldn’t give it up for anything. Although, with the frequency that Alan makes jokes like this - about turning Eddie into a stay-at-home muse/model - Eddie is wondering to begin if he actually takes that seriously. 

“Do you think you have enough?” Eddie asks. “There’s gotta be something good.”

“Oh, there’s a lot of good, baby.”

“Alright, then I think I need to actually get something to eat.”

🔹🔹🔹

“So, you’re working a twenty-four, and then what?” Alan asks. “What’s the plan for the weekend?”

Eddie, showered and baby-oil free, picks at a plate with eggs and avocado slices. 

“Uh, I’m not sure,” Eddie mumbles.

His plan had been to come back to Alan’s, like he usually does on Saturdays he has off, but he’s getting a sense that’s not where this is leading. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s inquiring? Like the time Alan had surprised Eddie by whisking him off to a friend’s vacation rental in Tijuana for a four-off.

“My parents are coming to town,” Alan says. 

“Oh?” Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Well, that’s okay. It’d be nice to meet them.”

In all the time they’ve been together, Eddie half-living out of Alan’s place, they’ve somehow not actually been introduced to each other’s parents. On Eddie’s end, that makes a lot of sense. Not only do they live in Texas,  but he tries to see his mom and dad as infrequently as possible; once or twice a year for niceties, or if one of his sisters really needs him to run interference. Alan has met Pepa and Abuela briefly, though. Alan’s parents, on the other hand, live in a big old house in Morro Bay, and are in and out of the city semi-regularly. It just always seems to overlap with Eddie’s work schedule.

Sometimes, when Eddie is feeling particularly insecure, he wonders if it’s because of his age. Twenty-six versus forty-two isn’t the worst Los Angeles age gap out there, but it’s significant. Alan is closer in age to Eddie’s captain than him. But, hey, it works for them. They’re in love. That’s what matters, right? Or, at least that’s what he tells his Abuela when she asks why he can’t find a guy his own age. I don’t want to. Alan and I work. 

“Oh, no need to do that so soon,” Alan waves him off. “Would you mind staying home this weekend? It’s just a lot of people in the condo. You know?”

Eddie pauses chewing, mouth full of egg. He processes, finishing chewing, swallows. Something in his stomach feels tight. 

“Sure thing.”

Some other time, then.

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie, of course, tells the team about this. 

“I just don’t understand,” he asks at the dinner table, over one of Bobby’s casseroles. “Does he think I’d embarrass him or something?”

Hen, Bobby, and Chim all exchange a look. 

“What?” Eddie asks. “What’s that about?”

“Is there any chance that maybe Alan’s just not as committed as you?” Hen asks. 

Eddie frowns. 

No? Right? Definitely not.

“It does seem a little uneven at times,” Bobby agrees. 

“No-no, come on, it’s just this one thing,” Eddie protests. He looks at Chim for help, but his friend just shoves a big bite of casserole in his mouth to avoid speaking up. Thanks a lot.

“If it does, it’s because, you know, he’s at a different place in his career and life, and can do more for me than I can do for him,” Eddie says. “That’s all. If anything, I’m the uneven one.”

Bobby and Hen look at each other again. 

What the fuck?

He’s been at the station since early 2017 - not too, too long after Bobby started as captain. He’s the youngest, by a decent amount. He knows they all look at him like a kid, someone they need to look out for emotionally, even if he’s got their backs as well as anyone else out in the field. But just because he’s the unwitting baby of the 118 does not mean Eddie wants to be babied. If there’s something they’re all thinking, they can just come out and say it.

“Come on,” Eddie groans. 

“If it’s been eight months, and you want to move forward and meet his family, and he doesn’t want the same thing, then maybe you’re just not on the same page,” Hen says. “That’s all, Eddie.”

“Trust me,” Chim speaks up finally, having swallowed his food. “That’s not a fun place to be in a relationship.”

“Alan is not Tatiana,” Eddie protests. Tatiana is an evil witch who strung Chim on for months, made him feel like he had to change his entire personality, an then wouldn’t even show up for him when he was in a fucking coma and needed her most. Alan would never do something like that! 

“Nobody is Tatiana,” Hen grumbles in agreement.

“Alan and I… We work,” Eddie insists. “This is just… Well, I don’t know what it is.”

“Maybe it’s time for a frank discussion, Eddie,” Bobby suggests. “Between you and Alan, about where the relationship is going.”

And the thing is, Eddie trusts them completely. Especially Bobby. So, even if he really hates what they’re saying, a conversation is probably not out of the realm of reasonable solutions to Eddie’s concern. 

Eddie sighs. “Maybe you’re right.”

If there’s anything else to say about it, the alarm interrupts them, and the 118 is off to respond to a heat stroke case at a nearby daycare center. It has been ridiculously hot lately.

ii.

Because Alan does not want Eddie around on his Saturday off, Eddie is kind of listless.

When he moved to Los Angeles in 2016, it had mostly been out of convenience. Twenty-four, lacking a degree or any sort of career prospects, and rather estranged from his El Paso family, there was no one better or more available to help out Abuela when she’d taken a fall and broken her hip. He’d taken care of her, and then after enough time had passed, and her needs weren’t so intensive, he’d joined the fire academy on a whim. He liked L.A,  he felt more at home with Abuela and Pepa, and finding a career that made him feel useful soothed a wound left by a hundred of his parents’ accusations.

However, when Eddie isn’t working, when Alan doesn’t want to see him, when Abuela doesn’t need him, and when the team isn’t doing something extracurricular, this does mean Eddie kind of has… Well, nothing. He’s not much of a hobby guy. He doesn’t really have any friends outside of work and Alan’s circles. The downtime sends him right back to the handful of years he’d spent drifting after flunking out of the engineering degree he’d never wanted to do in the first place. He hates it.

In an attempt to not get antsy with boredom, Eddie convinces Abuela to let him do her grocery shopping. 

“If you get the wrong type of rice, Eddito-”

“I won’t !” He promises, knowing full well he might.

Eddie stretches out his day. He drives to a grocery store - off of Abuela’s approved list of chains - further away than he’d normally go, knowing there’s a food truck in the parking lot that makes insane pulled pork sandwiches. A reward for inevitably dealing with waiting in line behind an extreme couponer or something. 

Since it’s a Saturday, it’s fairly busy. Eddie tries to make himself as small and quick as possible, ducking in and out of aisles. It’s a skill he’d picked out as a kid, and has become distinctly harder the more muscle he puts on due to the job. 

Eddie is in the produce section when it happens, checking the limes. See, if he goes home with less than satisfactory limes, he will hear about it. The same way he will hear about the wrong kind of rice. So choosing the right limes for Abuela is not a task to rush. Eddie is discreetly trying to judge them by smell and weight when he hears a tiny voice of judgment to his right.

“You can’t scratch the fruit.”

Eddie takes his eyes off the limes and turns to see a little boy, probably somewhere between six to eight, squinting at him suspiciously behind a thick-rimmed pair of glasses. The boy is wearing  a bright yellow shirt, and leaning against a pair of forearm crutches. 

Eddie raises an eyebrow. 

“It’s just a little scratch,” Eddie defends. “To make sure they smell right before I buy them.”

“They can smell wrong?” The boy asks, titling his head to the side.

“Yeah, of course they can smell wrong. Any fruit can smell wrong.” Eddie says, like this pasty little child should have the knowledge of one Isabel Diaz drilled into him.

“I don’t know, I don’t sniff limes,” the boy shrugs.

Eddie feels very judged right now.

“Where are your parents?” Eddie asks.

The boy points across the produce section, where a woman in jeans and pink blouse with her back turned to him is assessing the quality of a head of lettuce.

“See?” Eddie exclaims. “Your mom needs to make sure the lettuce is good, too.”

“She’s not smelling it,” the boy replies. 

Eddie sighs, trying not to laugh. “You’re really on my case, small grocery store cop.”

“Grocery store Avenger,” the boy corrects.

Eddie whistles. “My apologies, Captain America.”

“Christopher?” 

Wait…

Eddie knows that voice. 

He turns back in the direction of the boy’s mother, and freezes when he sees her, turned around and approaching them. 

“ Shannon ?” Eddie asks. 

Shannon stops cold. She drops the two heads of iceberg lettuce she’s carrying on the floor.

“E-Eddie?”

“You know my mom?” The boy, Christopher, asks.

Shannon looks between Chris and Eddie, face very tight. 

“Jeez,” Eddie says, chuckling nervously. “Come on, Shannon, it’s not that bad to see me again.”

Gosh, he hasn’t seen her since, what? 2010? Yeah. 2010 was when she left Texas, breaking up with Eddie to move across the country with her mom. He’d been heartbroken at the sudden loss of the person who had been his best friend on top of his girlfriend. They hadn’t done a great job of keeping in touch. 

He looks back at Christopher. Wow, she must have gotten pregnant really soon after that to have a kid his age. Damn. 

Eddie frowns. 

“How old are you?” He asks the kid. 

“Seven,” Christopher answers, eyes narrowed, looking between Eddie and his mother. 

Seven. 

Eddie looks at Shannon again. 

“Eddie, please don’t,” she says quickly. 

Holy fuck. 

Eddie’s heart rate picks up speed. He feels a little overheated. He looks back at Christopher. He tries to search his face for any resemblance. Eddie doesn’t think he sees a lick of himself, really. The boy looks so much like Shannon. But maybe… Maybe he has the same cheekbone set as Eddie’s mother. Oh, fuck. He’s not really considering that this is possible, right? Like there is no way. 

“I didn’t know you were in California,” Shannon says, voice a little raspy.

Eddie’s throat is too tight to properly reply. He opens his mouth, silent and struggling, reaching for something coherent to say. If it wasn’t true, wouldn’t she say something by now to put him out of his misery?

“Please,” Shannon says again. “Not here.”

“Mom?” Christopher asks. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all,” Shannon tells him, forcing a smile. “I see you met my old friend Eddie, from Texas.”

“He was sniffing limes,” Chris reports dutifully.

“To check if they’re good, Chris,” Shannon explains. “Now, come on, we should let Eddie get back to his shopping.”

Is Eddie shopping? He can’t remember. 

Shannon walks over to Eddie and sticks her hand out. 

“Give me your phone,” she says.

His what?

He blinks at her.

“Eddie, your phone. I’ll put my number in it.”

Oh.

Numbly, he reaches into his back pocket, grabs the phone, unlocks it, and hands it to her. 

“I know I owe you an explanation, okay? Please text me.”

“So…” Eddie finally finds his voice. “So I’m…”

“Text me,” she says again, pressing the device back into his hand. 

Then she puts her hand on Christopher’s back and leads him away, leaving Eddie feeling as if a bomb has just gone off inside his brain. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie doesn’t really process anything happening around him.

He finishes shopping. Mechanically checks every item off his list, no longer caring if it’s the exact brand or quality Abuela wanted. 

He drives home. Forgets the pulled pork sandwich. 

Unpacks the groceries

Says a few words to Abuela. Gets chastised about the rice, but not the limes. 

Then he proceeds to shut himself in his room and lose his mind.

Eddie has never experienced anything quite like this. Sure, he’s had moment before - as a kid, when caring for his sisters and getting his homework done was too hard to balance, or the first time he kissed a guy in college and realized it was the only kind of kissing he ever wanted to do - but this is another level of the feeling. Tight chest, shaking hands, sweaty, heart racing, dry through, vision spinning. He collapses onto his bed and trembles. His chest aches. Actually aches. 

He contemplates calling 9-1-1, but determines it’s way too embarrassing. Hi, Dispatch? Yes, I realized I may have unwittingly fathered a child as a teenage boy and now my body is trying to kill me. 

The one easier thing about being gay is the lack of pregnancy scares! What the fuck! 

This can’t be happening.

It’s not real. 

There’s no way Eddie has a seven year-old son he’s never even heard of. He and Shannon parted ways as friends. It was circumstance that pulled them apart. Thank God, or the homosexuality eventually would have made things uncomfortable, he’s sure. So why wouldn’t she have told him?

He would have…

What would he have done?

He’s never wanted kids. Helped raise his sisters already, has never really been interested in more than that. He doesn’t think he’d be any good at it. He’s not… It’s just not who he is. If he ended up like his father, well, that would be a problem. 

So what would he have done?

Eddie has no fucking idea. But he would have liked the choice. 

Freaking out and definitely not about to tell Abuela about the results of a sexual encounter - his only sexual encounter with a woman - at seven-fucking-teen, Eddie does the only thing he thinks is reasonable. He texts Alan. 

4:02

Hey, I know you’re busy but something insane came up and I need you.

Like 9-1-1 full blown personal crisis.

I’m freaking out

Eddie isn’t expecting to hear back immediately, but as time passes, and Alan doesn’t respond, the panic in his chest mounts. 

4:24

Cna you call me?

Can*

4:30

Alan please

At the top of the hour, Eddie tries calling.

It goes straight to voicemail.

He doesn’t text Shannon. 

iii.

He shows up for his next shift of work having not slept, eaten, or really heard from Alan other than a brief message right as he pulled into the station apologizing for being away from his phone. Eddie, too numb to be properly frustrated, says he’ll call him when he gets a chance. Alan gives it a thumbs up but doesn’t say anything else. 

When he walks into the station, a bleary-eyed ghost practically trudging into the changeroom, there’s no hiding it. 

“Eddie?” Hen asks, just finishing buttoning up her uniform polo. “Are you sick?”

Eddie catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the glass walls. 

Okay, yeah. He’s looking pale and exhausted. He looks better than he feels.

“I…” Eddie opens his mouth to brush it off, to say he’s okay. He finds he can’t lie. Not to Hen.

His eyes begin to water. 

Hen strides over to him and pulls him into a hug. Eddie collapses into it a little, feeling like a little kid that finally, finally doesn’t have to be the oldest. 

“What happened?” She asks gently, rubbing his back.

Hen had taken a liking to Eddie right away when he started. On his third or fourth shift she told a story about her wife, Karen, and before long, he’d found a way to quietly mention he’s gay, and almost instantly ended up with a protective older sister he had never really bargained for. Even before he’d become close with Chim - and before Bobby let them become close with any of them - Hen took Eddie under her wings. 

“You’re slightly better than a dalmatian,” she’d winked at him once, early into his probationary year.

Eddie had wanted to talk to Alan about this. He’d wanted to talk to his partner. But Hen is here and warm and kind and always, always cares.

“I think-I think I got someone pregnant,” Eddie stammers.

Hen pulls away from him, but holds onto him by his elbows. She looks at him over her glasses, eyebrows exaggeratedly high. 

“That is not what I expected you to say.”

What had she expected him to say?

Eddie shakes his head. “Um, not… Not recently. I-I ran into my high school girlfriend in the grocery store and…”

Eddie can’t finish the sentence. 

“There’s a kid?” Hen whispers.

Eddie nods. 

“And you think?”

He nods again. “She didn’t deny it. Asked me not to ask in front of him. Told me to text her.”

“Oh, my God,” Hen exhales. “She never told you?”

Eddie shakes his head.

“And you’re sure it’s possible?” Hen asks.

“Pretty sure I know how it works, Hen,” Eddie replies, a bit more churlishly than absolutely necessary.

Hen purses her lips.

“Sorry,” Eddie mumbles.

“We had sex a few times,” Eddie sighs. “Awkward, teenage sex. She said she was on the pill, so…”

“And he couldn’t be anyone else’s?” Hen asks. 

“I mean, I don’t think so? If my math is right?” Eddie thinks back to high school. He and Shannon were practically inseparable, save for the times he was at baseball practice, and she was at swim meets. “Don’t you think she would have said something if he’s not…”

Eddie trails off.

“Not your son?”

He shudders a little.

“Yeah. That.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Hen sighs. “This is heavy.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits. “I… I don’t know what I even want to do.”

“Well, what did she say when you texted her?” Hen asks.

Eddie blinks. “Uh…”

“Eddie, you have to text her.”

Well, that sounds terrifying, actually.

“Do I?”

“If this boy is your son, you are owed an explanation,” Hen tells him. “She’s offering you that. If you don’t take it, you are forfeiting it and any other chances that come along with it.”

Eddie thinks. The Shannon he knew, the Shannon he’d loved - albeit probably not the way she’d loved him - wouldn’t just do this. She’d have told Eddie, right? Christ, then where would they be? He’d have probably had to marry her. The thought makes him vaguely ill; not Shannon as a wife, but Eddie as her husband.

“And,” Hen continues. “You have to know for sure, right? You can’t just wonder.”

“I’m not cut out to be a parent, Hen,” Eddie whispers. “Believe me. I… I know that about myself.”

She grabs his hand and squeezes it. “One step at a time, Eddie. You don’t know that you are.”

She’s right. She’s right. Hearing Shannon out isn’t signing up for the freaking PTA. But he does need to know the truth, or he’ll always assume the worst.

Eddie takes a deep breath.

“Can you help me figure out what to say?”

🔹🔹🔹

10:12

Hi Shannon - it’s Eddie. 

I’m sorry I didn’t text sooner. I needed some time to process.

I would appreciate a chance to talk, if what I think is true is true.

10:17

Hi, Eddie - I’m glad you reached out.

I get off work at four - there’s a coffee place nearby?

10:18

I’m on a 24 hour shift until tomorrow morning.

Could we do tomorrow at 4:30? Send me the location on Google Maps?

24 hr shifts? 

What’s an engineer doing working those hours?

10:19

That… Did not pan out. I’m a firefighter.

10:22

That suits you better.

See you tomorrow, Eddie. 

iv.

Alan meets him for lunch after the end of his shift. 

“You know, I wasn’t really on my phone around my folks,” he explains. “I don’t think it’s really too much for me to expect a day to myself, Eddie.”

“Of course,” Eddie shakes his head. “Sorry, no, you’re right. It was just… Well, something serious came up and I kind of freaked out.”

“You do that,” Alan replies, stabbing his salad with his fork. “Get too in your head.”

Eddie feels a knot of shame and frustration tightening in his stomach. While this is not strictly untrue, it does feel a little dismissive. This is not like the time he freaked out when they were at a bar and he ordered a Belgian Moon and the next thing he knew, his Instagram was flooded with ads for the brand. 

“It’s actually serious this time,” Eddie says quietly.

Alan sighs. “Well, tell me then.”

Having already explained it to Hen, Eddie finds himself giving a calmer recounting of his run-in and subsequent text conversation with Shannon. As the story continues, Alan’s expression grows tighter and tighter, until his cool gray eyes look practically stormy. 

“You’re kidding me, right?” Is the first thing he says when Eddie is done.

“I wish this was just a joke,” Eddie sighs. 

“I hope you’re not really thinking about giving this woman the time of day,” Alan says firmly.

Eddie frowns. “I just said I’m meeting her for coffee later.”

Alan laughs, incredulous. “I know you’re young, sweetie, but you’re not really this naive, are you?”

Eddie blinks. “What?”

“You run into some girl you haven’t seen in over half a decade, and she has a kid, and she’s alone, and oh, perfect, how easy is it to convince some poor, soft-hearted guy she slept with once that it’s his kid.”

Oh, so they’ve moved from real life to Jerry Springer. Got it.

“Alan, that’s crazy ,” Eddie insists. “She’s not just some girl, she was my best friend. And besides, if she wanted that, why wait over seven years?”

“Back child support is a thing, Eddie.”

“Nobody has said anything about money!” Eddie protests. “And it’s not like I’m Mr. Moneybags over here. I work for the city.”

“And think of how much less that paycheck will extend when a chunk of it is going to her every month,” Alan says flatly.

“If he is my son, don’t you think I should have some financial responsibility for him?” Eddie challenges. “Like, ethically? Legally?”

“That’s a huge if,” Alan rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t even consider it without a DNA test.”

Eddie feels entirely overwhelmed. He did not want to go into this coffee meeting completely on the defensive. 

“I just want to hear her out, Alan,” Eddie says. “That’s literally all this is.”

“Okay, and when she tells you he’s yours and asks something of you? What then?”

“I don’t know yet,” Eddie groans. “This is still really sudden.”

Alan purses his lips. 

“Well you’d better figure it out.”

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie arrives before Shannon. Not even long before. Six minutes. But each one of them is especially torturous, given his current state of mind. Inactivity leads to overthinking, as always. 

What if she doesn’t show, and he’s left with this looming question for the rest of his life? What if Alan was right? What if Alan was wrong, but Eddie takes his advice and fucks everything up? What if this is his kid and Eddie has already spent seven years being an absent father, and then spends the rest of the kid’s life being a disappointment? 

When Shannon does arrive, still dressed in scrubs from whatever it is she does for work - presumably something healthcare related - Eddie stands awkwardly from the table in a quiet corner he selected. He’s not sure what to do. If circumstances were different, and there wasn’t this child-sized elephant in the room with them, Eddie would give her a big hug and tell her how happy he is to see her again. He would want to catch her up on his life and ask her everything about hers. But there’s this big, impossible thing now.

“Hey,” she says, as stiffly as he feels.

“Hi,” he replies.

They stand like that for a second, before Shannon clears her throat and takes a seat. Eddie follows suit, feeling like he’s on stage in a play that he was never given a script for.

“Uh, how are you?” Shannon asks.

Been fucking better, hasn’t he?

“I’ll be honest, I really want to catch up with you and I missed you, but I am not going to be able to focus on that until…” He trails off. “You know.”

“Right,” she looks at the table. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

Eddie waits for her to speak again. There’s no point verbalizing the question. It’s as thick as a wall between them.

“You didn’t… You didn’t know?” Shannon asks. 

Eddie’s eyes widen. “What? No! Shannon, I swear I didn’t know. How would I know?”

She exhales heavily.

“Okay. Wow.”

“You-you thought I knew? And, what? Did nothing about it?” Eddie feels a stormcloud of hurt and indignation roil inside of him. “I know I’m not anyone’s first choice to father their child, but I wouldn’t just be some complete deadbeat on purpose.”

Shannon wipes at her eyes. “I didn’t know for sure if you’d maybe gotten wind of it.”

“No,” Eddie shakes his head, insistent. Then, the gravity of what’s not been said weighs on him. “Wait. So… So he is mine?”

“Yes,” Shannon says quietly. “Christopher is your son.”

Eddie takes a deep breath. He’s not surprised. He had figured, based on her reactions and the timing, and the distinct lack of condoms. But… But hearing it. Eddie has a son. Eddie is someone’s father. Eddie is a complete stranger to his son. 

He had never wanted to be like his father, and somehow, not even by his own choice, he’s ended up worse. 

“I-if you don’t believe me-”

“I believe you,” Eddie stops that train of thought before it can finish. “I do believe you. It’s not like you meant to run into me in front of the damn limes.”

Like she’d said in the store, she didn’t even know he was in the state. He hadn’t known she was in the state, either. What are the odds, in a city so large?

She nods. “Thank you.”

“How did this even happen?” Eddie asks. 

Shannon raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure you remember the weekend my mom went to Corpus Christie.”

“Ah, ha. No not that,” Eddie flushes. “I mean, how did we… How did it get to this point?”

“Oh,” she replies. “Yeah, okay. That makes more sense.”

“The weekend your mom went to Corpus Christie,” Eddie thinks back. “That’s like less than a month before you moved.”

Shannon nods. “I had no idea I was pregnant when we left El Paso, Eddie. I swear to you.”

Physiologically, he supposes, that makes sense. 

Shannon’s mother, Janet, raised Shannon alone. Just the two of them. If Eddie remembers correctly, they’re really close. When Janet got a position in Oregon, they’d gone together. Shannon had been planning to take a gap year to save for school anyway - her mom couldn’t help her out the same way Eddie’s parents could help him - and he’d gotten accepted to UT Austin, so it’s not like she was going to stay in El Paso for him. They broke up, neither one wanting to put the other through long distance. 

Really, breaking up had been a blessing for Eddie, in the sense that, if he hadn’t felt the freedom to go out to parties and experiment the moment he got to Austin, he’s sure it would’ve taken him way longer to realize he’s gay. Something he definitely hadn’t considered to be an option beforehand, based on… Well, based on everything about who he was told he had to be, growing up. 

“But then when you did find out?” Eddie asks. “You never called. In fact… In fact, you stopped calling altogether. I know we broke up, but…”

But she was his best friend. And he’d needed her. And clearly she’d needed him. Unless, maybe it’s exactly the opposite. Maybe she knew he wasn’t enough. 

Shannon takes a deep breath. “This is… This is where I know I screwed up, okay? And, I… Well, God, Eddie, I hope you can trust that I… I was just lost, okay?”

Eddie nods, waiting.

“We were hardly in Portland for a month before my mom was diagnosed with late stage breast cancer.”

Eddie’s stomach falls. “Jesus.”

“It was awful, Eddie,” she sighs. “I was so worried about her all the time, but I still had to work. And none of it went to savings, it all just went to keeping us afloat. I didn’t even pay attention to what was happening to my body. I mean, so much of it could just be dismissed as stress. Even though I think I knew , somewhere, I didn’t really let myself accept it until it was kind of embarrassingly obvious. I was completely shut down.”

Eddie’s never been pregnant, but he knows a thing or two about denial.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, uselessly. Because what else is there to say?

“Thanks,” she whispers. 

“I wish… I mean, I would have helped.” Eddie tells her. 

“I know,” she nods. “And I think that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you at first.”

Eddie frowns. That doesn’t make any sense.

“By the time I got my head around it, you’d already moved to Austin.” Shannon explains. “I would look at your Facebook, and I’d see everything you were doing… I couldn’t… I didn’t want to bring you into it. I thought at least one of us could be happy.”

Eddie feels his jaw tighten. He doesn’t know how to process. His choice was taken from him, but at the same time, he thinks he gets where she was coming from. He just doesn’t know how angry to be about it. The anger is there, though.

“So then why would you think I knew?” Eddie asks.

“Because I changed my mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“After Christopher was born,” Shannon says. “When I held him and I realized how much it was possible to love someone, I felt guilty, too. Because you deserved that chance, and he deserved a chance to know you.”

Eddie swallows back a wave of emotion.

“So I tried to contact you,” Shannon continues. “And I couldn’t.”

Couldn’t contact him? Why the hell not?

Eddie thinks, and it only takes a second for the answer to reach him. 

Oh.

Oh no. 

Christmas 2010… And then winter of 2011… That was when everything had happened between Eddie and his parents. Right before he’d flunked out of school. 

“He would have been born, when exactly?” Eddie asks. “February?”

“January 31st,” Shannon says.

”Shit,” Eddie sighs. “Oh, shit.”

“All your social media was gone,” Shannon says, voice shaking a little. “Your cell number had changed. Your email bounced back. I-I didn’t know… I called your parents. They told me not to bother calling back… I hadn’t even told them about the baby. I figured they found out somehow and that-”

“That I shut you out,” Eddie guesses.

She nods, unable to meet him in the eye. 

“Oh, God, Shannon, no. ” Eddie reaches across the table and grabs her hand. “No, I promise. It had nothing to do with you. I never would have… They didn't even tell me you called. I mean, they couldn’t have. It was them I was shutting out.”

She narrows her eyes. “You blocked your parents on everything? You ?” 

Eddie nods. “Yep. I know. Not voted most likely to rebel, but hey.”

“Why?” She asks. “You were all so close.”

“Because I came out as gay to them and they…” Eddie takes a deep breath. “They cut me off financially and said I was ruining my life.”

Shannon’s jaw drops.

Eddie retracts his hand and leans back in his chair. 

“Yeah, uh. Surprise?”

Shannon covers her hand with her mouth.

Shit. 

Did Eddie miscalculate? He supposes she is from Texas, too. 

Then he realizes, she’s fucking laughing.

“Alright,” he scowls. 

“Oh, my God,” she says, looking horrified all of a sudden. “No, no, no. I’m sorry. Eddie, that’s… I mean. It’s great. Good for you. It’s just also kind of like the hilarious cherry on top of my after school special of a story.”

Eddie snorts. 

“Okay, yeah,” he admits. “I can see that.”

“I’m sorry they did that to you,” Shannon says. “But, for the record, that totally sounds like something your mother would do.”

Helena had never liked Shannon. Shannon had definitely felt that. 

“I may have overreacted by making it actually impossible for them to talk to me without going through my Abuela,” Eddie says. “Clearly that did more harm than good, and I’m sorry.”

“If it didn’t affect Chris and I, I would say all the power to you,” she sighs. “But yeah, that kind of sucked.”

“I’m really sorry that it did,” Eddie tells her. 

“I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you in the first place.” Her eyes get a little watery again. 

“Fuck,” Eddie rubs his temples. “This is all so… I mean, Jesus, Shannon… This is such a mess. He must think… He must think that I didn’t want him or something, or that I don’t care…”

She shakes her head. “I never let him think that. He knows he’s wanted.”

Eddie thinks back to the confident, snarky little kid in the grocery store.

“He-he has crutches,” Eddie remembers. “Is he okay?”

Shannon nods. “Cerebral Palsy. He was… It was a difficult birth.”

Eddie nods. He’ll look up more about that, he supposes. He knows the basics, but not much. 

“But he’s healthy,” she says. “And happy. He’s the happiest person I know. I don’t know how he does it.”

Well, that’s good.

“And Janet?” Eddie asks.

Shannon looks down. “She died last year.”

Does that mean Shannon is all alone? Just her and Christopher? Or does she have a partner? Someone in her life to help her out. Eddie really hopes so. Maybe someone has been a father to his kid. Maybe he isn’t lacking just because of Eddie’s absence. Maybe his life is fine without Eddie. 

“I’m really sorry,” Eddie says again.

“Where do you want to go from here, Eddie?” Shannon asks. “I know I don’t really have a right to ask much from you. I don’t need anything. So, I guess… What do you want to do?”

Isn’t that the fucking question of the hour?

“I’ll be honest, Shannon. I have no idea.”

🔹🔹🔹

“I still think you should get the paternity test,” Alan says later that evening. 

They’re curled up on the couch in Alan’s living room, watching whichever installment of Real Housewives aired most recently. It’s not Eddie’s cup of tea - honestly, he’d prefer a baseball game - but he puts up with it. 

“I really don’t think she’s lying, Alan,” Eddie says, not for the first time. “She didn’t ask for anything.”

He and Shannon had left things open. He said he needed time to process, but wanted to keep an open line of communication. She’d been okay with that. She’d understood. He doesn’t get the sense she wants him to fuck off and leave them alone, but she hadn’t been trying to push a relationship onto Eddie and Christopher either. Maybe she’s at peace with whatever comes. 

Eddie still can’t quite get past the question. What does he want?

The thing is, he’s not often been asked that. Not about the big stuff. Most of his life people told him what he should want and what he should do, and he tried so hard to live up to those expectations. Until he realized he couldn’t, and then his own damn family hadn’t wanted him. Now, he finds out this huge thing happened to him without any question of what he would have wanted, and he’s supposed to, what? Just know? He’s never wanted kids. He’s never wanted to be a parent. But it doesn’t really matter, because that ship has sailed. Nearly eight years ago. 

The only thing left to decide, Eddie realizes, is how good of a parent he wants to try to be. The decision wasn’t his before now. But every second since he ran into them in that grocery store, that’s been on Eddie. 

Maybe by not knowing, by not having a clear instinct of answer, he’s already proving he’s not going to be a very good parent at all.

“Just be careful, babe,” Alan sighs. “We have a good life, right? You could spend your next four-off in Napa with yours truly, or taking some kid you don’t know to Chuck-E-Cheese, when we both know that was never in your plan.”

Eddie laughs and kisses him on the cheek. “Don’t worry. No matter what I decide neither of us has to go anywhere near a Chuck-E-Cheese.”

v.

The plan is to monopolize Hen at work again for advice. Maybe even Chim and Bobby, although it seems a little cruel to lament to Bobby that he doesn’t know what to do with the quite the opposite problem as to what had nearly destroyed him. Yeah, maybe just Hen for now. 

When he walks into the station, Bobby and Hen, still in their street clothes, are having a conversation just outside the locker room. 

“Eddie!” Hen calls out to him as he approaches. “Did you submit your fancy professional photos for the sexist calendar yet?”

Chim pops out from behind the engine with a bagel half stuffed in his mouth.

“Don’t remind him!” He hisses at Hen. “I want to win.”

Eddie had completely forgotten about his Hot Days, Smoldering Nights: Men of the LAFD calendar submissions. Obviously, the whole Shannon and Christopher thing had taken up a much larger space in his mind than the potential of becoming Mr. August or Mr. January or whatever. 

“Oh, not yet,” Eddie mumbles. “They’re not, uh, edited.”

“Deadline is in less than a week,” Bobby reminds him.

“I was just saying how we could all forgo participation this year,” Hen narrows her eyes at the three men around her. “You know, choose not to cosign on that idiotic, reductive calendar that insults the dignity of this organization and furthers the myth that all firefighters are male?”

Bobby and Chim give her amused looks. 

Eddie nods. “Hmm. It’s an idea. But I was also told I looked pretty in the pictures?”

Hen rolls her eyes. 

“Hen, come on.” Bobby says. “It’s for charity.”

“I still can’t believe you’re doing it, Bobby,” Hen sighs. 

“Well, why not? They say a man is at his sexiest when he reaches fifty.”

“Is that what they say?” Hen affixes him with a skeptical look. “That’s what they say?”

“I think sorority houses across this great nation are ready for a new Asian sex symbol,” Chim chimes in. “It’s our time.”

“Don’t forget fraternity houses, Chim.” Eddie teases. “The idiotic, reductive calendar has widespread appeal.”

“Is that your angle, Eddie?” Hen asks flatly. “To be a part of some frat boy’s spank bank?”

Bobby frowns. 

“No!” Eddie insists, scowling at her. 

“Okay, that is a beautiful man,” Chim interrupts, gaze snapping to somewhere behind Eddie’s back. 

Hen follows his gaze. 

“Where’s the lie? And I like girls.”

Eddie turns around to look at who they’re talking about. 

In the locker room, pulling a shirt over his head, is a very tall, very broad, stupidly handsome person, dressed in a uniform like he belongs here or something. He’s got bold features and bright, icy eyes, like he should be on the set of some viking show, not here in Eddie’s workplace. Eddie doesn’t know why exactly he feels a surge of annoyance towards the guy, but he’s certain the undeniable attraction is at least thirty percent to blame.

“Who the hell is that?” Eddie asks, sounding rather petulant and unfriendly, even to his own ears. 

“It’s Evan Buckley. New recruit.” Bobby says. ”Graduated top of his class just last week.”

Of course he fucking did. Of course he’s strolling around like a Norse god, and good at stuff.

“Guys over at Station Six were dying to have him, but I convinced him to join us,” Bobby explains.

Bobby had to convince this guy to join one of the best stations in the LAFD? Well. Isn’t he special?

“What do we need him for?” Eddie asks, eliciting a round of laughter from the three of him. Haha, very funny, Eddie is asking reasonable questions.

“He served multiple tours in Afghanistan as an army medic,” Bobby explains. “Guy’s got a Silver Star. It’s not like he’s wet behind the ears.”

They appear roughly the same age; meaning while Eddie was failing out of school, wasting his time before finally winding up here, and unwittingly failing his kid, too, this guy was winning awards of valor. Neat. Feels cool. Might as well transfer Eddie somewhere where he won’t bring down the average relative impressiveness. 

“Cool,” Eddie grumbles. “I’ll be sure to tag him in if something needs shooting at.”

Bobby rolls his eyes. 

“He looks sort of familiar,” Hen says. “I think I’ve seen him before somewhere.”

“Oh yeah,” Chim nods. “Me too.”

“I doubt that,” Bobby says quickly. “Just one of those faces.”

Eddie can’t say he thinks the guy looks familiar, but judging by what looks to be a birthmark above his eye, he’d say the man’s face is actually rather unique. 

“Come on, I’ll introduce you to him.” Bobby says, noticing the near-scowl on Eddie’s face. “He likes to be called Mr. Incredible.”

🔹🔹🔹

Actually, he likes to be called Buck. How quaint. 

And listen, Eddie is aware his internal monologue - and probably the expression on his face - is verging on downright bitchy, but something about the guy just irks him. 

Buck is friendly and kind of quiet. He has a firm handshake a warm smile. There’s nothing specifically Eddie can point to to justify how he’s feeling. 

“Nice to meet you, Eddie,” he says in a way that even feels sincere. 

Yeah, whatever.

They get a call not long after introductions are made, and Bobby makes sure to point out that Eddie and Buck are working together. Which, is that really fair? Should Eddie, the guy with the least experience, be looking out for the probie on his first day? Whatever. He’s not going to complain. 

On the ride to the scene, the team apparently switches to ‘fawn over new guy’ mode, which is a sort of treatment Eddie distinctly does not remember receiving when he started. 

“So, Silver Star, huh?” Chimney asks, like pretty much right away.

Eddie wonders if that’s a question you’re supposed to just ask. Doesn’t that usually mean something bad happened? Eddie probably wouldn’t want to just come out an answer that in the first ten minutes of knowing a person.

“Uh, yep,” Buck nods, not elaborating.

Probably as Eddie suspected, then.

“You save a platoon or something?” Chimney presses anyway.

Buck shakes his head. “Not quite. I-It’s not an interesting story.”

Somehow, Eddie doubts that. 

“Hey, Buck,” Hen says, smirking mischievously. Uh oh. “Have you heard about the hot firefighter calendar?”

Eddie frowns at her. Is that what she thinks he’s mad about? That Buck is hot? Well… Yeah, okay he’s hot. But it’s not like Eddie is suddenly hideous, thank you very much. Eddie doesn’t care at all how handsome he is.

Buck’s eyebrows crease. “No. What’s that?”

“It’s for charity,” Hen grins, like she’s being completely angelic. “Big, burly firefighters submitting their best photos, for the cause .”

“Uh…” Buck frowns. “Not really my thing.”

Well, good. Not that Eddie was worried about it, anyway. His boyfriend is a genuine professional, after all. 

By the time they arrive at the call, it strikes Eddie - and certainly the rest of the team has noticed - that Eddie didn’t say a word the entire drive. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie is a little certain G.I. Fucking Joe is trying to show him up. 

A mechanic - Hector - has fallen onto in a rather unfortunate way onto a tire inflator nozzle, and looks rather horrifying and bloated with air. His skin is rock solid from all the pressure build-up underneath. 

“Eddie, I need you to get a fourteen-gauge angiocath. We need to start decompressing the pleural cavity,” Bobby orders when they have him safely off the nozzle and on the ground for inspection. 

Eddie does as he’s told. 

“Need an assist?” Buck asks. 

Eddie scoffs as he starts working. 

“I got it.”

“I mean…” Buck trails off.

“What?” Eddie snaps.

“I-I’d just go lower,” Buck says.

Eddie frowns. “No. Second intercostal space, midclavicular line.”

Pfft. Amateur. Lotta good those tours of duty did.

Buck gives his head a little shake and looks at Bobby. “In combat, when we treated collapsed lungs, we’d go for the fifth intercostal. Chest wall is thinner, less chance of injuring any vital organs.”

“Do it,” Bobby says. 

Eddie feels a small surge of betrayal. This is the dude’s first fucking day! But of course he’s so much better than Eddie at everything. 

To make matters worse, Buck ends up being right. 

Eddie bets if this guy had a kid, he’d have known about it right away and everything. 

🔹🔹🔹

“So, why are you being an asshole to the new guy?” Hen asks later, trapping Eddie in the back of the ambulance under the guise of asking him to help with inventory. 

God damn it.

Eddie sighs. “Sorry, don’t want to lose my count on these bandages. Thirty-five, thirty-six…”

“Eddie.”

He groans. 

“I’m not being an asshole to him, I just don’t like him.” 

“Okay, why ?” She asks. “That’s not like you.”

Eddie shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s whatever. I… I’ve got a lot on my mind, Hen. He’s not even a concern.”

“Except if we get called to an emergency and need to rely on each other,” Hen reminds him. 

Ugh. Screw her, a little, for being so reasonable.

“So this isn’t really about baby blue eyes, is it?” Hen asks. “It’s about everything else.”

“Can’t it be both?” 

Hen gives him a dubious look for a moment before her expression softens. 

“How did it go with your ex?”

Eddie gives her the rundown on Shannon’s story, the same way he had for Alan. Hen looks sympathetic the entire time, unlike Alan. 

“That’s all really unfortunate timing,” Hen says when he’s done.

“Mhm,” Eddie agrees.

“Except for seeing them again at the grocery store,” she amends. “That was really lucky.”

“Was it?” Eddie sighs. “I don’t know. Now I’ve got all of this to think about, and I have no idea what I want to do.”

“But she didn’t ask you for anything?” Hen clarifies.

Eddie shakes his head. 

“So, tell me, what’s hard about it?” Hen asks.

“What’s not?” He chuckles bitterly. “I never wanted to be a parent, and now I find out I’ve been one all along, and I’ve already screwed it all up? And now, what? I’ve had all my choices taken from me, and I’m supposed to know what choice to make? It’s like I’ve been tagged in with my shoelaces tied together.”

“Then untie them, Eddie,” Hen says firmly. “You have choices now, but you know who still doesn’t? That little boy.”

Eddie looks at her.

“I am sorry this happened this way,” Hen continues. “I am sorry you didn’t get a say or a chance to meet your son until now. But you have met him. You can choose whether or not he gets to have a relationship with his father, whether or not he remembers his father as someone who grabbed the chance to know him, or someone who didn’t even try.”

When he thinks of it that way, she’s completely right. He knows she’s right. But that doesn’t mean he won’t fuck it all up, anyway. 

Eddie takes a deep breath. “He might be better off without me, Hen.”

She grabs his hand and squeezes. 

“I don’t believe that for a second, Eddie.” 

His throat feels very tight. 

“You know me,” she continues. “I don’t believe blood is the most important thing when it comes to family. But I do know, just because other people don’t know how lucky they were to be related to you, doesn’t mean he won’t.”

vi.

“Thank you for meeting me again,” Eddie says to Shannon the following afternoon, in the same coffee shop as the first time.

“Thank you for reaching out again,” Shannon replies. 

He had texted her almost immediately after his talk with Hen, then summarily spent the rest of his shift locked in his own head, trying his hardest to ignore the irritatingly tall presence of his new teammate, all while not alerting Bobby to his bad mood. Really, a very fine line to toe. But, other than Hen, he’s not really able to explain this to anyone, yet. 

“I don’t want you to think that I didn’t know what I wanted right away because of Christopher,” Eddie says. “I… I’m sure he’s an amazing kid.”

Shannon’s face hardens a little, expression protective.

“He is.”

“Right,” Eddie nods, thinking of how funny Christopher had been at the grocery store. “Right, and I think… I think I was just concerned that, you know, I’m less than what he deserves.”

Shannon frowns. 

“What do you mean?”

“You remember what it was like for me,” Eddie says quietly. “Looking after my sisters. Being the man of the house while my dad was away. It suffocated me, Shannon.”

Shannon nods. “They always put a lot of pressure on you.”

“But that’s not his fault,” Eddie says. “And that’s… It’s not the same.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not. We don’t need anything, Eddie. I just want you both to have the chance to know each other, but only if you’re certain you’ll follow through with it.”

Eddie nods. “I want to. I do want to know him. And I’m not… I mean, I’m me, right? But I’m going to do everything I can not to let him down, if you’ll let me. I want to make up for lost time.”

Shannon’s eyes water a little. She laughs, relieved.

“I want that, too.”

When Eddie leaves the coffee shop an hour later, with a plan on how he and Shannon are going to move forward, he feels a strange sense of ease. The prospect of being suddenly thrust into parenthood is terrifying, and he’s not sure he won’t botch it. But Hen was right. This is the right thing to do. And, unexpectedly, Eddie finds himself genuinely excited.

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie is smiling, a little dopily, when he shows up at Alan’s. 

It doesn’t last long.

“Hello, babe,” Alan says, kissing him on the cheek. “How was work?”

“Eh,” Eddie shrugs, remembering God’s most perfect gift to firefighting, Evan Buckley. “Not my best shift. You?”

They move into the kitchen, where Alan grabs two wine glasses from the cupboard. Eddie scours the fridge for a bottle of white. 

“Booked a shoot in Bali next month, so I am one happy man.”

Eddie could salivate at the thought.

“ Dang. ”

“You should come,” Alan wiggles his eyebrows. “Take some vacation days. My treat?”

Now that he’s not a probie, he can technically do that.

“As amazing as that sounds, I actually think I need to be as available as possible for the next little while,” Eddie says as Alan pours two glasses. 

“What do you mean?”

“I spoke with Shannon again after work,” Eddie explains. 

Alan puts down the wine bottle so abruptly it clanks off the granite countertop.

“You did?”

“Uh, yeah,” Eddie frowns at the sharpness of Alan’s response. “I really thought a lot about it, and I want to get to know Christopher. We’re properly introducing me on my next four-off.”

“You just made a decision about it?” Alan asks, jaw tight.

“Uh, yes?”

“So that’s it then?” Alan laughs, incredulous. “It’s like you didn’t even listen to anything I said.”

“Of course I listened ,” Eddie says. “I just didn’t share your concerns about Shannon’s integrity, Alan.”

“You made a decision for us without taking my feelings into consideration at all ,” Alan accuses. “And I think I’ve made it pretty clear how I feel.”

“For us ?” Eddie echoes, astounded. “What are you talking about? He’s my son. I’m not asking you to do anything.”

“But it changes our life! You already don’t want to travel with me!”

Eddie is a little lost for words. Is this really an argument that’s happening right now? Is he really making this about him ? 

“Alan, I have to do right by this kid,” Eddie says firmly. “I want to know him.”

“And you know exactly how I feel about having kids, Eddie.”

“No one is asking you to have a kid!”

“And inevitably I will be forced to deal with this anyway if he becomes a fixture in your life! Soon I’ll be expected to, what? Go to birthday parties? Bake cookies for his class?”

Eddie flinches a little. 

“Alan, this is my actual living, breathing child that I am getting a second chance to know. Can you please just be supportive?”

Alan looks at him for a long moment, hand still gripping the spout of the wine bottle. There’s a grave look in his eyes. LIke he’s already burying them in his head.

“This isn’t what I signed up for when I started dating you,” he says calmly.

Eddie’s heart plummets to his feet. 

“Alan, this… Come on,” he protests. “We love each other. You don’t just give up on someone you love because something changes.”

Alan sighs. “I don’t know if I love you that much, Eddie.”

It feels like a slap.

“Oh,” he says quietly.

“I’m sorry.”

“I should go,” Eddie says quietly, trying hard not to let his face betray the depth of his hurt. 

“Maybe grab your stuff.”

“Right,” Eddie whispers. His hands are shaking. He feels nauseous. He thinks he has about ten seconds before he starts to cry. 

“Goodbye, Eddie,” Alan says as Eddie turns around to go.

Eddie doesn’t say a word in response. 

Chapter Text

i.

“You’re sure he doesn’t know?” Maddie asks as Buck is taking a bite of toast. 

It’s the morning of his second shift with the 118, and he and Maddie are eating a quick breakfast before they each go off to their separate jobs. Maddie’s been working at L.A Metro Dispatch since they moved to Los Angeles a little under a year ago. It’s been a learning curve, these past months, living with his sister again for the first time since he was a kid. But it’s for the best. A fresh start for both of them, where they can look out for each other. 

And Maddie is looking out for him. A little unnecessarily so. A little more than he deserves, even. He doesn’t need her to sound the alarms because of the strangely hostile looks he received throughout his first day from Firefighter Diaz. He shouldn’t have mentioned it.

“Why would he know?” Buck asks, mouth full of peanut butter.

“Because you said he’s the only one who wasn’t kind to you,” Maddie says, hands clutched anxiously around a travel mug of fresh coffee. 

She’s dressed in her maroon call center polo and a black cardigan, despite the ridiculous heat. I run cold, she always tells him. But he thinks, at this point, the long sleeves are still a force of habit. 

“I think he might just be kind of a dick,” Buck says. “Not sure it has anything to do with me.”

As Buck will soon discover, these are famous last words. 

Maddie sighs. “You know I just worry about it getting out and ruining this for you.”

Buck feels a knot of shame in his stomach. “I know. But you don’t have to. I-I really think everything is going to be okay.”

🔸🔸🔸

Buck gets to the station early. 

He figures starting the shift with a workout is good for the brain and the body. For a while, keeping his body strong had been the only thing that had kept his sanity intact. It’s sort of become a dogma. Get himself strong for Maddie, get himself strong to survive, get himself strong to do some good, after everything. It’s what led him to firefighting. Well, that and a stupid amount of rewatches of Backdraft. 

The only other person who’s there when he arrives is Bobby, doing paperwork in his office. Buck likes Bobby. Likes him a lot. He’s one of the first people Buck has met since he came home from overseas that puts him at ease. Maybe the only person, other than Maddie, who he feels he can trust. But they’ve only had a handful of conversations apart from the one where Bobby promised to protect him if he came to the 118, so Buck is still cautious. He doesn’t go upstairs to say good morning; he decides to try and lay low.

He’s hardly made it to the locker room to put his bag away when he hears a hefty sigh coming from the doorway behind him.

Buck turns to see Eddie standing in the doorway, an unimpressed look on his face, like Buck arriving at the job where they both work is somehow unexpected and wildly inconvenient. On top of that, Eddie looks awful. Hair disheveled, eyes dark-rimmed and puffy, like he either had a horrible night or a fantastic one.

“Uh, are you okay?” Buck asks. 

Eddie glares at him. 

“Oh, I’m great .”

If the sarcasm was any more potent, you might actually be able to see it.

Sheesh.

“O-okay,” Buck says cautiously. 

He reaches for his gym bag and doesn’t say another work as Eddie stomps past him and swings his locker door open with bang. 

What the fuck is his problem?

🔸🔸🔸

Their first call they receive is to a movie shoot. 

Buck is, admittedly, a little tickled by the novelty of it. He may have grown up Pennsylvania’s premiere chocolate tourist town, but the silver screen magic part of Los Angeles is still a little fantastical to him. Or at least it is until they arrive at the call. 

There’s a badly injured stuntman, a cameraman with heat stroke, and an actress in absolute hysterics. Everything is so hectic, Buck - who is helping dislodge the stuntman from the set piece he collided with - almost misses it. 

Eddie, a couple dozen yards away, helping the actress calm down from what appears to just be a panic attack, is approached by someone coming out of a hair and makeup trailer.

“Oh my God! Eddie? Sweetie, it’s you !” 

Eddie looks a little flustered, glancing back and forth between the sobbing actress and the makeup artist. He says something Buck doesn’t quite catch. 

“Are you coming to Derek’s party?” He hears the makeup artist ask.

Eddie shakes his head, says something in response. 

Buck feels a weird pit in his stomach as he turns to refocus on what he’s doing. He remembers what Maddie asked earlier this morning. 

Is Eddie, like, in Hollywood circles? Maybe Buck is overdramatizing this. What does he know about anything? Maybe Eddie just happens to have a friend who works on movie sets, and they have a mutual friend, and it’s totally not a big thing.

Or maybe Eddie has connections. Maybe Eddie’s the type of guy to pay attention to the media. Maybe Eddie knows people who know people, and…  And Buck did have that one producer offer to buy the rights to his life story, until he told him to fuck right off, but… God, this is a reach right?

Yes.

It’s a reach.

Buck is being paranoid.

Maddie was wrong.

He definitely doesn’t know anything.

🔸🔸🔸

Back at the station, Eddie is carrying a heap of airlift bags back to the engine - after they’d gone through standard inspection for functionality - at the same time as Buck is walking down the stairs into the engine bay. He reaches the bottom of the stairs just in time to see Eddie, staring off into space, walk into the side of the engine, thwacking his shoulder off the side with an audible thud, and dropping the airlift bags all over the floor. 

“Shit,” Eddie curses, groaning, and touching a hand to his shoulder before bending to collect the spilled equipment.

Buck jogs across the bay to assist him.

“Your arm okay?” Buck asks, bending down to help grab the airlift bags.

“Fine,” Eddie grumbles, scrambling to grab the bags Buck has already picked up.

“I can help,” Buck frowns.

“I don’t need your help,” Eddie snaps, with enough emphasis that Buck is entirely certain it’s personal. Like he has a reason to think poorly of Buck…

Buck straightens up and takes a step back.

“Whatever,” he says, heart rate spiking. His palms feel sweaty. 

Eddie rolls his eyes and returns to his chore.

Buck feels bile rise in his throat.

It’s his second day. How can this be happening already? They moved from small town Pennsylvania, across the continent, to one of the biggest cities in the world to avoid just this. He moved here to disappear. How can he have been found out so quickly?

Buck turns on his heel and strides back to the stairs, taking them two at a time until his legs carry him all the way to Bobby’s office door. It’s been kept half-open. Buck knocks, a little more frantically than is probably necessary. 

“Come on in,” Bobby says, finishing typing something into his computer. 

Buck steps inside and shuts the door behind him. 

Bobby looks at him, sees what must be a pretty freaked out expression on his face, and frowns. 

“Everything okay, Buck?”

“Does Eddie know?” Buck blurts. 

Bobby’s brows crease. “What?”

“Does Eddie know about me?” Buck asks again. “A-about what I did?”

Bobby’s expression in response looks genuinely surprised. 

“I don’t know with certainty, but I don’t think so,” he says. “He’s the last person I’d guess would recognize you.”

Buck swallows. “R-really?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever known him to follow the news,” Bobby says. “Hen and Chim said you looked familiar, but I think I convinced them otherwise. Why? Did Eddie say something to you about it?”

“N-not about it ,” Buck clarifies. “B-but he’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t want to associate with me, and I’ve been nothing but nice to him, so it-it must be that-”

“Buck, no,” Bobby shakes his head.

Buck closes his mouth. 

“Listen, Eddie’s mood lately has everything to do with Eddie and nothing to do with you,” Bobby says. “Last I heard, he had some trouble going on with his partner.”

Well, gee. Wonder fucking why? Who’d want to date someone so fucking cold ?

“You’re sure?” Buck asks.

Bobby nods. “He was having a hard time before you started. He’s a great guy, outside of this.”

Buck exhales, relieved. “Okay.”

“And, Buck, honestly, even if Eddie, or Hen or Chim, do find out, I think you’d be surprised how understanding they can be,” Bobby says. “The 118 operates a bit more like a family than most.”

Buck doesn’t know what to say to that. Just because they’re a family doesn’t mean anyone else wants him in it. Especially if they know the truth about him.

“Hey,” Bobby says, really looking Buck in the eye. “Believe me. What I did was worse, and they have never judged me.”

Buck’s shoulders sag a little. Objectively, he can understand why Bobby would say that. Buck had been surprised when Bobby had just come out and explained his past when trying to recruit Buck to the 118. It was the most strikingly honest anyone had ever been with him, and part of the reason Buck trusts Bobby. He’s just not sure he trusts everyone else. Certainly not Diaz. 

“They’re not going to find out from anyone in the Department,” Bobby assures him. “I promise you that.”

“But you think I should tell them,” Buck guesses.

Bobby shakes his head. “Not today. Someday. I think someday you’ll feel ready.”

Buck sincerely doubts that. 

🔸🔸🔸

Buck tries to take Bobby’s words to heart and not let anything Eddie does get to him. He tries to cut the guy a break, give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it’s just really bad relationship drama. Not sure what that has to do with Buck, but hey. Besides, as long as they can work well together, who gives a shit if Eddie hates him for no reason whatsoever. Buck definitely does not feel like his skin is on fire at the thought of that. And if he did, it’s probably just because Eddie is irritatingly pretty, and not because Buck has failed to get rid of his lifelong need to be liked. 

The military is supposed to toughen you up, but shit, some things just run deep. 

Point is, Buck tries to ignore Eddie’s behavior and just get to know his team. 

This is how, during some downtime, he finds himself sitting down at the kitchen table to play a round of Rummy with Hen, Chimney, and Eddie.

It all starts rather innocently.

He’s walking by the table where the three of them are seated to refill his water bottle when Chimney calls out to him. 

“Hey, Buck - you like cards?” 

Buck stops short. He watches Eddie throw Chimney an unappreciative look. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says, nodding. “Played a lot overseas.”

“Come sit down,” Hen waves him over.

Buck does as he’s told, ending up in a chair directly across from Eddie. He tries hard not to look unhappy about it. He’s not going to feed any of the negative energy back at him.

“Rummy?” Chimney asks.

“Sure,” Buck nods. “Thanks.”

Chimney deals him in. 

“So, Buck ,” Hen says with a warm smile on her face. “You’ve been very quiet.”

Buck raises an eyebrow, not taking his eyes off his hand. “Just getting the lay of the land I guess.”

He plays a set of threes right off the bat.

“Tell us about yourself,” Hen asks. “These shifts can get really long if you’re not comfortable with your teammates.”

Buck thinks he catches her staring at Eddie when she says this, but he might be imagining things. 

“W-well, what do you want to know?” He asks.

Hopefully nothing more to do with his Silver Star, please and thank you.

Chim considers. 

“Favorite movie?” 

“ Backdraft ,” Buck answers.

Eddie’s eyebrows raise a little.

“Oooh, Eddie’s a Kurt Russell fan,” Hen replies.

“That one’s okay,” Eddie mumbles.

“What’s your team?” Chim asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Eagles,” Buck answers. Though it’s been since his ill-fated college days since he followed football.

“I meant baseball, obviously,” Chim shakes his head. 

“Oh…” Buck winces. “Sorry?”

“Star sign?” Hen asks.

“Gemini,” Buck answers. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’re not really basing your opinion of him on that?”

“An earth sign would say that,” Hen mutters.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Eddie replies.

“Well, what about you guys?” Buck asks. 

“ Die Hard. Dodgers. Aquarius.” Chim lists off.

Buck huffs a small breath of laughter. “Noted. No Phillies in this firehouse.”

“And don’t you forget it!” Chim agrees, slapping down a few cards, leaving one left in his hand. 

Hen and Buck each play a hand, and when the game circles back to Eddie, he discards a jack, despite Chim’s set laid out right in front of his eyes. Chim picks it up, plays the card, and goes out, ending the hand. 

“Left it wide open for him,” Buck chuckles, stupidly. Because, really, he should have known better than to say shit to Mr. Grumpy.

Eddie gives him a flat look. “Guess my card playing won’t win me any shiny awards.”

Hen clicks her tongue against the back of her teeth and gives Eddie a stern look.

“Hey, Buck,” Chim says. “Eagles and Phillies, you from Philadelphia?”

Shit.

Shit. 

Why did he say anything?

“No,” Buck shakes his head. “Not far from it though.”

“Oh, mysterious,” Eddie says, an edge in his voice. “What, you run away from an Amish farm before you enlisted?”

God, he’s going to have to say the word Hershey isn’t he? If Hen and Chim already think he looks familiar, and he says Hershey, how long before the headlines come flooding back into their memories?

“Nothing like that,” Buck answers. “Just a small town. Maybe you wouldn’t know it.”

“You’re right. I’m an idiot that doesn’t know any towns outside L.A.” Eddie deadpans. 

Hen sighs. “ Eddie .”

Jesus Christ. 

“What’s your problem, man?” Buck asks. 

Eddie blinks, like the question surprises him. Did he really think he could act like a total dick all the time and Buck would just, what? Roll over like a puppy?

“Okay. You .” Eddie replies, steeling his expression again. “You’re my problem.”

Why, pray fucking tell?

“You’ve just started and you’re acting like you’re better than everyone,” Eddie continues. 

Buck frowns.

Has he done that? He doesn’t think he has. He definitely doesn’t believe he is. Quite the opposite, really.

“You’re brand new on the job, and I don’t know what experience you have from your army days, but you aren’t better than us.”

“Eddie, what past two shifts have you been living?” Chim asks. “I’m not sure they look like real life.”

Okay, thank you, Chimney. 

Buck raises his hands in an imitation of surrender. “L-look, I in no way meant to make you feel like I think I’m better than anyone. I do not. I know you’re going through shit right now, man, and I-I’m wondering if maybe this doesn’t actually have anything to do with me.”

The wide-eyed, furious look Eddie shoots at Hen actually lowers the temperature in the fire station. 

“Oh, I know you’re not looking at me right now,” Hen says. 

Eddie turns back to Buck.

“What shit?”

“Girlfriend trouble or something?” Buck shrugs. 

Eddie makes a small choked sound. “Someone told you I have a girlfriend ?”

“I’m just saying, I hear you’re a good guy,” Buck continues. “A-and I’m sorry you’re going through it, but you don’t need to take it out on me o-or be threatened by me. We’re on the same team.”

“Why would I be threatened by you?” Eddie asks, scoffing.

Uh? Everything he just said?

“Exactly,” Buck plays along. “There’s no need to be. We, uh, we do the same thing. Just, you know, fewer bullets here.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. He pushes away from the table and stands up abruptly.

“Eddie, come on,” Hen says.

Eddie shakes his head and stalks off like a child that was just told he wouldn’t be getting his favorite sugary cereal this trip to the grocery store. 

Hen hurries after him.

“You are behaving like a child,” Buck hears her whisper-shout at him.

“Oh, good! I’ll have something in common then.”

Buck raises an eyebrow. What’s that supposed to mean? Buck has definitely not been acting like a child. 

“Wow,” Chimney says. “He is not usually like that.”

Buck looks around the room and sees Bobby leaning against the doorframe to his office, arms crossed, expression troubled.

Fucking fantastic. 

🔸🔸🔸

When the next call comes, Buck is instructed to ride in the ambulance for a med call. Eddie and Bobby go in the engine. Hen and Chim stay behind. 

Although Buck appreciates the chance to work the ambulance, he’s miffed that it’s only his second shift and he’s already being managed because Eddie Fucking Diaz doesn’t like him. He already had one career ruined for him by three bullet wounds; he doesn’t need another ruined by some fucking brat. 

The call from Dispatch - not Maddie, sadly - warned of a guy who’d accidentally set off a grenade in his own home. Buck has seen a lot of explosives injuries, so when Bobby and Eddie wheel the guy out not looking like he’s partially uncooked hamburger meat, Buck thinks the man must be all sorts of lucky.

Buck? Not so much.

Because Bobby apparently decides this is the moment to force Buck and Eddie to resolve things.

“Eddie, I want you to travel with him to the hospital, keep him stable.”

Eddie’s jaw tightens. 

“Copy that, Cap,” he mutters darkly.

Don’t worry, buddy, Buck feels just as excited about this. 

“Hey,” Bobby says to Eddie sternly. “It’s one team, Eddie. No matter what’s going on in our personal lives.”

Eddie’s cheeks redden a bit. He avoids looking at Bobby and climbs into the ambulance. 

This is going to be wonderful. Just fucking wonderful. 

Things are going well, and Buck is treating the femoral wound on the call victim, Charlie, for the majority of the drive. They’re going well because Eddie is pretty much silent as he assists Buck in doing his job in stabilizing Charlie. It’s almost nice, in a quiet, focused way, if you forget the amount of pain Charlie is in and the elephant of tension in the small, enclosed space. 

But it’s a ten minute drive. That’s far too long to ask Eddie to go without saying something passive aggressive, isn’t it?

“I guess you’ve seen a lot of shrapnel wounds,” Eddie mumbles.

Buck really has no idea why Eddie is so put-off by the fact that he’s been to war. Apart from it reeking of insecurity, Buck wonders if the guy is, like, some sort of sign-waving pacifist? Well, Buck might just have to break it to him that there was zero moral cause for his enlisting. Say whatever you want about the military. He hardly cares. That’s not why he did it. 

“Uh, yeah. I guess.” Buck replies, focusing on Charlie’s morphine drip.

“Well, have you ever seen a guy with a length of rebar stuck through his skull?”

Not rebar. 

“If I say no, i-is that a point for or against me on whatever test you’re giving me right now?” Buck fires back. “Give me a hint at how to pass.”

Eddie scowls at him. 

Charlie lets out a little moan. Buck looks at his leg. The packing is almost soaked through.

“Need to change those dressings,” he grumbles. 

Charlie gives Buck a concerned look. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Buck tells the older man. “We’re almost there.”

“I was just saying ,” Eddie speaks up as he leans forward to grab more bandages. “Afghanistan might be one thing, but Los Angeles is no picnic, either.”

Did Buck say it was? Please, someone roll the fucking tape.

Eddie moves to switch the dressing, and that’s when a sharp glint of color makes Buck’s blood turn to ice. Gold. He shouldn’t be able to see any gold right now. 

Gold means…

“Don’t move,” Buck snaps. 

Eddie freezes, hand suspended above Charlie’s wound. Buck doesn’t even have time to think something snarky about him actually listening.

“I-I thought you said this was a practice round,” Buck says to Charlie.

Eddie’s eyes widen with alarm.

“It is,” Charlie insists. 

“Ah, I don’t like your expression right now, man,” Eddie says, all pissiness gone from his tone, replaced with sincere concern. 

“You see that cap?” Buck points at the wound underneath Eddie’s floating hand. “Practice rounds have blue caps. Gold caps are, uh, well they’re live.”

Eddie’s mouth falls open a little. He looks at Buck.

“Fuck.”

🔸🔸🔸

It’s not really much of a decision for Buck to offer himself up to try and pull the grenade out of Charlie’s leg. He just really doesn’t expect Eddie Diaz to follow him into the blast zone. 

See, it’s really not much of a risk for Buck. And Charlie doesn’t have any choice but to take the risk with the way his femoral artery has been damaged. But Eddie? He’s got to have something, right? Some reason not to shut himself in a vehicle with an unstable explosive. Buck supposes he has Maddie; but it might be easier for her, after everything, not to have to worry about him anymore. Not that he wants to get blown up. Just, the cost-benefit analysis is pretty clear. 

“See you inside,” Buck mutters to Eddie after the bomb squad guys gear them both up. 

Buck really doesn’t want to blow this guy up, despite how annoying he is. 

As Buck walks towards the ambulance, he hears Bobby address Eddie.

“Alright, listen, Eddie. You don’t have to do this.”

Buck thinks offering the out to Eddie but not him might be a miscalculation on Bobby’s part, if he actually wants to get Eddie to change his mind.

“And let Mr. Incredible have all the fun? Come on, Bobby. Nothing like a good team building exercise to help us bond.”

Buck hears Bobby sigh as Eddie trudges behind him.

🔸🔸🔸

Buck is surprised how quickly Eddie’s tone morphs into something gentle when they’re back in the ambulance. 

“How you feeling there, Charlie?” He asks as he and Buck shuffle in. 

 Eddie positions himself near Charlie’s head and upper body, working the IV, while Buck works on Charlie’s leg. The extraction tool is clenched in Buck’s hands, ready to save them all or get them killed. It’s anybody’s guess.

“Like a world-class idiot,” Charlie laments. “My wife, if she was still alive, she’d be here now saying ‘I told you so.’ Well, maybe she’ll be able to tell me in person in about a minute.”

“Well, that conversation’s gonna have to wait,” Buck says firmly. “Nobody’s leaving this life tonight.”

Fake it ‘til you make it, Buckley. 

Working together in a sort of seamless tandem Buck didn’t expect, he and Eddie get Charlie hooked up to another morphine drip and prep his leg for extraction. 

“What branch did you say you were in, Charlie?” Buck asks, curious as to what sort of training led to this kind of mistake. 

“I didn’t,” Charlie replies. “I always wanted to be a Marine. I tried to enlist during ‘Nam, but I was 4F, an enlarged heart. So instead I spent the last forty years teaching seventh grade.”

“Nothing quite as heroic as teaching kids, I think,” Buck opines, smiling softly. “Especially pre-teens.” 

“That’s very kind of you to say that,” Charlie says. 

Buck and Eddie exchange a brief look. Eddie gives him a little nod. It’s time.

“Ready?” Buck asks.

“Yep,” Eddie answers. 

Here goes nothing, then. 

Buck removes the carefully applied dressings from Charlie’s legs. It’s not a pretty picture under there. Even if this grenade doesn’t go off, this is a tricky injury. But Buck can’t worry about that. His one job right now is just to not blow everyone up. 

“He’s losing a lot of blood,” Eddie murmurs, as if reading Buck’s mind. 

Shit.

“P-pressure,” Buck instructs. “Keep pressure on it, but not enough to, you know…”

“Right.” Eddie nods, following instructions. 

With Eddie stemming the bleeding, Buck is able to get a visual on the explosive. 

“Alright, grenade,” Buck exhales, extraction tool hovering a quarter inch away from the live round. 

“I don’t think you need to buy it dinner first,” Eddie says, more nervous than frustrated. “Just pull it out.”

Well, this isn’t a game of Operation. If Buck makes one wrong move…

“I-I’ve gotta…”

Buck inhales, sweat running down his forehead. He clamps the teeth of the extractor around the shell and does his best to hold it straight and steady.

“Be very careful,” he grits. “The sensor measures the distance traveled based on how many rotations the shell made… after the launch… The key is… not to turn the shell while we pull it out.”

“Definitely don’t turn it,” Eddie agrees. “You’ve got this, Buck.”

One small kind phrase, and Buck’s desire not to blow Eddie up increases tenfold. Jesus.

“Just… One sec…”

Buck pulls the shell from Charlie’s leg, heart racing a mile a minute. If he wasn’t holding a live explosive, he might stumble over from the relief. 

“Box,” he tells Eddie. “Please.”

Eddie scrambles to grab the explosives container from the bomb squad, holding it perfectly still as Buck lowers the clamped round gently to the metal floor of the box. Eddie’s eyes stay laser focused on the grenade, jaw tight, until Buck releases the clasp.

Somehow, a second passes, and they’re all still alive. 

Eddie grins, eyes flicking from the box to Buck. Buck tries not to notice his dimples or the sharp points of his canines. He tries not to think anything at all about the quality of Eddie Diaz’s smile, now that it has finally been revealed. 

“Damn,” Eddie says quietly.

Buck smiles back at him.

Yeah. Damn. 

🔸🔸🔸

Buck shoves shaking hands into the pockets of his uniform, coming down brutally from whatever adrenaline had powered him inside the ambulance. He’s standing in the hospital parking lot, still in his bomb squad gear, watching as Charlie is wheeled into the ER. 

There’s a mix of a high and a low swirling in his brain right now. See, the last time it was all up to him, not everyone made it out alive. In fact, the past few years, his track record hasn’t been so great at protecting life in general. Silver Star be damned.

Just as the old guilt is starting to well in his throat, Eddie walks up to him, expression a little sheepish.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Buck replies, inhaling enough to steady himself.

“So, you’re kind of a bad ass,” Eddie says, offering the compliment like it pains him, just a little.

Buck chuckles. “Me? What about you? I’m glad it was you in there with me.”

Eddie smiles very slightly. “Guess we work alright together.”

“I-I guess we do.”

Eddie sighs and rolls his eyes. “You can have my back, I suppose.”

Buck grins. “Or, you know, you could have mine?”

Eddie nods, smile widening. “Deal.”

He reaches a hand out for Buck to shake. A peace offering, Buck realizes. Probably the only sort of apology he’ll get for Eddie’s weird behavior. But, hey. He’ll take it. He just wants things to be good between them. Buck grabs Eddie’s hand and shakes. 

Bobby approaches them, self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“Nice work, fellas. I’m glad you both made it out of there.”

Eddie shrugs. “Buck’s the real deal. We were in good hands.”

Buck wishes that were entirely true. 

ii.

It’s well after midnight by the time Buck gets home from that absolute ride of a shift. He and Eddie were sent home early, despite them both insisting they could keep going. Turns out Bobby is a bit of a hard ass about self-care. With everything Buck has learned about him, he supposes that makes sense. 

Despite knowing she worked a long shift, too, and has to be up early again in the morning for another one, Buck finds Maddie waiting up for him. He’d texted her would be back soon, and she must have decided to take that as a sign not to go to sleep. 

“You know, I can tuck myself in and everything,” Buck says flatly when he throws his keys in a little ceramic holder by the apartment door. 

Maddie, who is sitting at the living room coffee table in her pajamas, mug of herbal tea pressed between her hands, shoots him an unimpressed look. 

“It was on the news, Evan.”

That word - news - chills him. 

“Wh-what was?”

“You blew up an ambulance.”

Buck’s jaw drops a little. “Hey, now! I-I didn’t blow it up . If anything, this is really Charlie’s fault for collecting live grenades.”

Maddie frowns, thrown off her train of thought for a brief moment.

“The point is, you were at a call that made it onto the news, and it’ll probably happen again.” 

Buck sighs. Bobby had taken he and Eddie back to a nearby food truck for much needed protein before the clean up crew came for the exploded ambulance, and with it, he imagines, the news team. 

“They wouldn’t have footage of me, but was my name used?” He asks.

She shakes her head. “Not this time.”

“Good,” he nods.

“It was a close call, though,” Maddie says.

“I get that,” he sighs, sitting on an armchair across from her. “I-I do. But that’s the job, right? We knew it was a possibility. The Department knows. I’m not going to get fired.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Maddie says. “I’m worried about you . The way it impacted you last time…”

“I wasn’t prepared,” Buck argues. 

“How could you have been? I know.”

“What do you want me to do, Maddie?” Buck asks. 

She shrugs, sighing. “I don’t know what to do, but I think you need to get ahead of it. So it’s not such a blindside.”

Buck laughs. “Walk into a new station and say, ‘hey, have I got a story for you?’ I can see the headlines now, Kitchen fire? Killer firefighter might be the one to answer the call. ”

“That’s not funny,” she rolls her eyes. “I obviously don’t mean tell the news, Evan. I mean, maybe start by telling the rest of your team.”

That is the second time in under twenty-four hours he’s gotten this frankly insane suggestion. 

Buck freezes. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” Buck says. “Maddie, they are just starting to like me. Even Eddie. If I tell them now, I’ll lose that all.”

He needs a team. He needs to be part of a team again. He can’t show up to work every day, protected by Bobby not, and have all of them look at him with suspicion in their eyes. He can’t bear that. He won’t.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, and the longer you keep a secret, the more likely it is to make things difficult.” Maddie counters. “Wouldn’t you rather them find out from you? Control the narrative?”

“Have you told your coworkers?” Buck challenges.

“No,” she shakes. “No, Buck, and I obviously won’t without your permission.”

He nods. “Thank you.”

“But maybe I’d like to, someday. You know Josh and I are close.”

Yeah. Yeah, here he is, making her life harder again. Fuck.

“Just think about it,” she says. “Please.”

“Fine,” he lies. “I’ll think about it.”

He goes to bed after that, head reeling. He can’t get away from it. No matter what he does, he can’t get away from it. It’s been three years since his helicopter went down, and he can’t get away from the dread following him like a shadow. It’s been over two years since Buck killed his brother-in-law, and the reality of what he is lurks around every corner, threatening to grab him by the ankles and drag him underwater.

Chapter Text

i.

Eddie’s hands shake as he knocks on the front door of Shannon’s Mar Vista apartment. He’s clutching a kid’s gift bag so tightly it creases a little. He’s about to be formally introduced to Christopher as his father, and not just some guy checking out limes in the produce section. 

It’s been a hell of a few days, waiting to meet him properly. On top of the literal grenade situation and realizing how acutely he made an ass of himself in front of Buck - and everyone else at the station - Eddie has been neck deep in the five fucking stages of breakup grief. He’s not quite sure he’s at acceptance yet. It doesn’t feel real. Other than Shannon, when he was an actual child, Eddie has never had a partner for as long as Alan. Casual boyfriends and quick romantic affairs, sure. But no one he really loved. No one he saw a future with. It seems like one future was thrown at him and another was torn away, and in the middle of all of that, Eddie got bitchy with an apparently pretty nice guy for no good reason. 

All this to say, he’s really hoping for a win today. 

Shannon opens the door a few moments after Eddie knocks. She smiles when she sees him, but her expression is a bit pinched. She’s nervous, too. Excellent. She also worries he might fuck this up.

“Hey, Eddie.”

“Hi, Shannon,” he says. He lifts the gift bag stiffly and drops his voice. “I don’t know what kids like so I just got him Legos, I really hope that’s okay.”

Shannon’s smile warms several degrees. “He will love that. But you really didn’t need to bring a present.”

Oh yes he did. Hi, kid, sorry for missing seven years of your life, here are some popular plastic blocks is basically the least he can do.

“I wanted to,” Eddie says.

“Come on in, Eddie. Chris is in the living room.”

Eddie follows her inside, pausing to take off his shoes. The apartment where they live is tiny but homey, on the first level of a three story building - which he imagines is to Christopher’s benefit - and brightly decorated with photos, mostly of Christopher and Janet, and sporadically included children’s artwork. It looks happy. 

Eddie tries not to look too closely at the smattering of memories of Christopher’s life proudly on display. It feels like sticking his hand in a pot of boiling water. 

In the living room, Christopher is playing whatever the latest Nintendo handheld device is - Eddie has always been a PlayStation guy - with a focused expression on his face. He’s wearing jeans and a Captain America tee shirt. Eddie searches for familiarity in him, some kind of kinship.

“Chris,” Shannon says. “Put the game away. Your… Uh, Eddie’s here.”

Christopher pauses the game, puts the device on the coffee table, and looks up at Eddie with big, inquisitive eyes. Eddie wants to shrink back a little. He knows Shannon already explained to him who Eddie is; she had wanted to have that conversation just the two of them. So Christopher knows. He knows what Eddie is. Eddie just has no clue how he feels about it.

“Hi, Christopher,” Eddie says. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Hi,” Christopher smiles. 

“I’m making coffee, Eddie, do you want any?” Shannon asks. 

“Oh, yes please,” Eddie says. “Just black.”

“Got it,” she smiles, and walks off into the kitchen. Just leaving him with Christopher. Jesus. 

There’s a moment of very awkward silence after Shannon is gone, and neither Eddie nor Christopher seem to know what to say. 

“Uh, I got you something,” Eddie says, rounding the coffee table to hand him the gift bag. 

“Thank you,” Christopher says softly, reaching to peer inside the bag. His expression lights up when he sees the Lego set. “Wow! This is so cool!”

Eddie smiles, relieved.

“Yeah, it’s a fire station, kind of like the one where I work.”

“You’re a firefighter ?” Christopher’s eyes widen. “That’s like a superhero!”

“Oh,” Eddie chuckles. “Well, we’re just people who like to help, is all.”

“Like my mom,” Christopher says. 

“Exactly,” Eddie confirms. He learned over text that Shannon is a phlebotomist. 

“Can you help me build this?” Christopher asks, picking the box up and giving it a little shake.

Eddie can’t help but take this as a win. A little thrum of hope reverberates in his chest. 

“If that’s okay with your mom, I’d really like that,” Eddie says. 

“It’s definitely okay.”

Eddie turns to see Shannon standing behind them with two mugs of coffee in hand. 

Christopher hands the box to Eddie, presumably to crack it open. 

“Alright,” Eddie smiles. “Let’s get started, then.”

🔹🔹🔹

“He loved that,” Shannon says later, as she walks Eddie out. “Thank you.”

Eddie won’t lie and say he’s not exhausted - following Lego instructions while trying to match the energy of a seven year-old is no joke - but he’s also feeling a little giddy. That went well. Like, as well as it really could have gone. Christopher chatted with him happily the entire two hours it took to build the Lego firehouse, and when it was time to go, he’d given Eddie an unexpected but welcome little hug. They hadn’t talked about it - the whole father-son thing - but if Eddie’s mission had been to get to know Christopher a little better, he thinks he succeeded. He knows Christopher’s favorite color is yellow, his favorite subject is science, he would really like a dog and Shannon isn’t budging on the matter, and he’s had three surgeries in his lifetime. The last fact twists at Eddie’s gut a little. In return, Eddie told Christopher he has lived in Texas, California, and Nevada, that he has two younger sisters he loves a lot, and that he also, sadly, does not have a dog. 

“He’s a really great kid,” Eddie says to Shannon. “Seriously.”

He means it. There’s something about Chris. An unshakeable joy, maybe. He kind of sparkles, from the inside out. Eddie has no idea how he had even the smallest hand in creating a person like that, but it turns out that he has. He has, and he wants to see him again. Preferably soon.

“He’s special, right?” Shannon smiles a little lopsidedly. “I mean, I know all parents are supposed to think that, but I think I’m actually right.”

Eddie laughs. “I can tell you’re speaking completely objectively.”

“Exactly,” she smirks. 

“I want to see him again, Shannon,” Eddie says. “I mean, we can do this again, right?”

She nods. “I think that would be really good for him.”

And me, Eddie thinks. After spending more time with Christopher, he has the distinct sense that it will be really good for him, too.

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie sees Christopher three more times in about a week and a half. 

The first two are supervised by Shannon. A trip to the park and breakfast at a diner before one of Eddie’s shifts. But on the last occasion, she hands him a car seat and tells him to go do something fun, just the two of them. 

“You trust me?” He asks her. 

Shannon frowns. “Of course I do.” 

And Eddie isn’t sure what to make of that. He takes Christopher out for ice cream and apologizes to Shannon via text for the inevitable sugar rush that will probably hit sometime on the drive home. 

It’s not until they’re alone together in the little ice cream parlor, Eddie with a mint chip cone, and Chris was a kid’s cup of strawberry, that it gets addressed. 

“So you’re my dad,” Christopher says after a big spoonful of ice cream that leaves a smudge of pink on his nose. 

Eddie pauses with his ice cream cone half an inch away from his mouth. 

Christopher isn’t looking at him. His eyes are laser focused on the table. He’s nervous , Eddie realizes. 

Eddie swallows, feeling a sword swinging above his head. He can’t fuck this up for Christopher. He doesn’t want to say anything wrong. 

“I am,” he confirms. “Do you, uh, do you have any questions about that?”

Christopher twists his mouth to the side a little. His legs are fidgeting under the table. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Eddie says. “You can ask me anything. I won’t be upset.”

Christopher looks up at him. “Anything?”

“Anything,” Eddie promises. 

Chris takes a deep breath. “Mom said you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t,” Eddie says. “I promise.”

“I wish you did,” Christopher says quietly. 

Eddie’s heart sinks. “I wish I did, too.”

Christopher is quiet for a moment. 

“But now I know, right?” Eddie continues. “I know, and I’m not going anywhere. You and I can hang out all the time.”

“Okay,” Christopher says. “That sounds good.”

“Good,” Eddie smiles, trying to ignore the knot growing in his stomach.

“Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah, Chris?”

“Do you think dogs know that they’re dogs?”

ii.

When Buck had joked to Maddie about moving to Los Angeles meaning at least he’d finally experience an earthquake, he hadn’t expected quite this magnitude. After the initial quake, he can tell it’s not normal based on the genuinely rattled look on Hen’s face. She’s lived in the area her whole life. It’s clear she’s never felt anything like it. 

Buck hardly has time to get his sea legs before the alarm is summoning the 118. He tries not to think about how utterly alike this chaos feels to being overseas. 

He’s not the only person who is stressed. In the back of the engine on the way to a high rise call they’ve seen directed to, Eddie looks distressed, typing into his phone with gritted teeth and a creased brow. 

Things have been good between Buck and Eddie since the grenade incident. They’ve developed an easy back and forth the way he has with everyone else, like the whole initial drama never happened. But Buck still isn’t sure if Eddie actually likes him and wants him inquiring about his life. He’s not sure where the line is, or if there’s a line. 

All this to say, he’s cautious when he speaks up.

“Is everything okay?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie frowns without looking up. “There’s no service. Texts won’t even get through.”

Ah, yes. He’d noticed that trying to reach out to Maddie. He has to figure the Dispatch center has earthquake proofing built in, and that she’s safe. Maddie is smart. She’s always known how to survive a crisis. 

“Who’re you trying to get a hold of?” Buck asks.

Eddie freezes. He looks up at Buck and there’s a glint of panic in his eyes. Shoot, Buck shouldn’t have asked. 

“Uh, my ex,” Eddie says stiffly.

Bobby leans around the front seat into the back to look at them, expression flat. 

“So it’s over then?” Bobby asks. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Oh, not Alan,” Eddie says. “Alan is in Bali by now, I’m pretty sure. But yeah, he and I broke up.”

Alan. He. Buck… Feels totally normal about this information. 

“Well, I’ve always thought you could do better,” Bobby says firmly. 

Eddie’s expression shifts incomprehensibly at that. 

Eddie sighs. “This is my high school ex, Shannon, actually. From before I, uh, figured it out.”

“From El Paso?” Bobby asks.

“Yep,” Eddie nods.

See, Buck hadn’t even known the guy was from Texas. 

“I ran into her again recently,” Eddie says. “I can’t get through to see if she and… To see if she’s okay.”

Buck wonders if he’s getting back with his ex. Why else would he be this concerned about a friend he has, presumably, not seen in years?

“Well, where does she work?” Buck asks.

“Phlebotomist,” Eddie answers. “A medical lab in Santa Monica.”

“Is it a newer building?” Buck asks. “They’re usually built to be pretty resilient in quakes, right?”

“I don’t actually know,” Eddie admits. 

“Hey, I’m sure she’s okay,” Buck says. 

Eddie offers a crooked, half-smile.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

🔹🔹🔹

Climbing to the eleventh story of a titled high rise and plummeting out the shattered window to catch a falling woman, only to then have to climb back down said high rise with a man strapped to a backboard, is a bit of a draining day. Pair that with some aftershocks and the adrenaline-fuelled terror of knowing Hen was trapped beneath the fucking building the whole time? Yeah, Eddie is exhausted. 

Exhausted, but Christopher hasn’t left his mind fully once. It’s a strange and somewhat uncomfortable experience. He hasn’t had to think about someone else’s well being in the context of an emergency outside of the job. Even as a kid, helping raise his sisters more than was likely fair, the worst thing he can think of was the time Sophia fell off her bike and sprained her wrist. But Christopher - his son - just experienced the same fucking earthquake he did, the same aftershocks, and he doesn’t even know if he’s safe. 

He feels sick, imagining all the ways a massive quake could have gone wrong for a little kid on crutches. His head is never empty of this new, biting fear. He hates it. He has no idea what to do with it. 

What if he got two fucking weeks with his son? What if that was it? 

That can’t be it.

So when Buck taps him on the shoulder on the way back to the engine after one of the longest days of Eddie’s life, and says, “hey, service is back,” Eddie’s stomach nearly plummets to the pavement.

He scrambles for his phone, pulling it out of his pocket as it starts to buzz with texts finally being delivered. Several of them are from Shannon. Before he can even open them up to read them, to confirm whether or not his newfound worst nightmare has been proven true, an incoming call from her takes over the screen. 

“Shannon,” Eddie answers, a little breathless, answering immediately. He takes a few steps away from the engine. “Is Christopher-”

“ He’s okay .” Shannon cuts him off. Her voice sounds tight.

Eddie’s knees buckle a little from the relief. 

“Thank god,” he exhales. 

“ Eddie, ” she says, sounding like she’s speaking through gritted teeth. “ I’m at the ER. I hurt my leg during the aftershock. ”

“Shit,” Eddie says. “God, are you okay? Do you need me to bring you anything?”

“ I don’t know yet if it’s broken or what ,” she sighs. “ I-I know you’re probably working given everything, but I need you to get Chris. His babysitter’s house took damage, and I-I don’t have anyone else and- ”

“Of course I’ll get him. Where is he?”

Eddie answers before really thinking it through. What the hell is he thinking? What is he going to do with a child in the middle of the night, while Shannon spends what could be a very long time in the ER, given that they’re probably over capacity right now and an injured leg is nowhere near top priority? Where will he even take him? The only person who even knows about Chris is Hen. He hasn’t even told Abuela, his poor unwitting roommate. 

“ School ,” Shannon answers. “ They’re keeping them safe for parents who can’t pick them up due to the earthquake. ”

“Text me the address,” Eddie says. “We’re heading back to the station and then we’re done. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He’s just going to have to figure this out. 

🔸🔸🔸

Buck is beyond ready to go home. It’s late, that was a hell of a shift - emotionally and physically - and now, having heard from Maddie and knowing she’s safe, he’s ready to pass out. His feet ache and his eyes droop as he trudges from the station, across the parking lot, to his Jeep. 

He’s one of the last to leave, having allowed himself the small luxury of an extra-long shower. So, when he gets to the parking lot, the Jeep is one of only two vehicles remaining from the A-Shift. The other being an old silver pickup, with none other than Eddie Diaz in the driver’s seat, trying and failing to start the ignition with an absolutely frantic look on his face. 

Shit.

Well, Buck has jumper cables. 

He adds a brief delay to his window of opportunity to sleep. 

He crosses the lot and taps on the window of Eddie’s truck. Eddie starts, then turns to look at Buck. There are tears in his eyes; Buck can’t tell if they’re from frustration or something more. 

“Need a jump?” Buck asks. 

Eddie cracks open the door, and Buck takes a step back.

“I’m already so late,” he sighs. “But, uh, yeah, thanks. A jump would be fantastic. Fucking old truck.”

“What’re you late for?” Buck asks. 

“Picking up my… Picking someone up.”

“Nearby?” Buck asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie rubs his temples. 

“Well, can we go grab them, come back, and then jump your truck?” Buck asks.

Eddie’s jaw drops a little. It takes him a second to process.

“You-you’d do that?”

Buck shrugs. “It’s no biggie.”

Eddie gives him a look like it very much is. 

“You coming?” Buck asks, motioning with his shoulder towards his Jeep.

Eddie scrambles out of his truck. 

🔸🔸🔸

It takes a few minutes for Buck to realize the address Eddie plugged into his Google Maps is taking them to an elementary school. Eddie has been, for lack of a better word, fidgeting in the passenger seat. Pretty silent. Checking his phone every other second. Interesting.

“H-hey, Eddie, who exactly are we picking up?” Buck asks. Not like he won’t find out soon enough anyway.

Eddie flashes him a nervous look. 

“Uh,” he starts. “My son.”

That comes as a genuine surprise. 

“Whoa, you got a kid?” 

There’s a pause.

“Christopher,” Eddie eventually replies. “He’s seven.”

“I didn’t know you were a father,” Buck says, trying to sound neutral about it. Not, like, I would have never imagined you as a parent when we met because you were kind of acting like a baby, but now I don’t really know what I think. 

“Yeah, neither did I,” Eddie says quietly.

Sorry, what?

“Wait,” Buck frowns. What Eddie says earlier hits him. “The ex you ran into…”

“Yep,” Eddie sighs. 

“So-so you have a seven year-old you’re just getting to know?”

Eddie nods.

“Wow,” Buck exhales.

He can’t even imagine how emotional that must be. 

“She’s not a bad person,” Eddie says quickly. “Shannon.”

“What?” Buck asks.

“If you’re thinking that she’s got ulterior motives or kept shit from me or whatever, don’t. That’s not what happened.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Buck says. 

Eddie doesn’t say anything.

“Honestly, dude, I think it’s just cool you’re making an effort.” Buck says. “You have a pretty good excuse not to, and lots of parents don’t even need that.”

Eddie looks at him, head tilted a little, like he’s trying to infer something about Buck based on that statement.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Uh, thanks.”

Buck nods. “That’s who you were worried about today? Your boy?”

Eddie chuckles a little bitterly. “It hit me out of nowhere and it was like I couldn’t breathe. Which is crazy, because three weeks ago, I didn’t even know he existed.”

Mere weeks. Wow. Right around the time Buck started… 

Oh. 

“That why you, uh, broke up with your partner?” Buck asks. 

Eddie's expression hardens. 

“S-sorry,” Buck stammers. “If that’s too personal  or whatever.”

Eddit waits a second before sighing. “Guess you’re already getting a lot of personal tonight. Yeah, that’s why Alan dumped me. Didn’t want to be with someone with a kid.”

“I’m sorry,” Buck says. “That’s a tough corner to be backed into, but sounds like you made the right choice.”

“Think I probably traded up,” Eddie shrugs, looking at his feet. “Not that it doesn’t hurt, but… I mean, wait until you meet Chris. He’s worth it.”

Something in the scar tissue under Buck’s chest softens right then and there for Eddie Diaz. 

🔹🔹🔹

Buck has hardly put the Jeep in park at the elementary school’s kiss and ride before Eddie is unbuckling and rushing out of the vehicle, up the school steps, and into the front foyer, where a teacher is waiting with Christopher.

“Eddie!” Christopher beams, smiling wide, clearly excited to see him. You’d never know he’d been stuck here all day, waiting, after experiencing a pretty unprecedented earthquake and, presumably, not being able to get in touch with his mother for hours. 

“Hi, buddy,” Eddie exhales, striding over to him. 

Before Eddie has a chance to properly prepare himself, Chris launches his little body forward for a hug. Eddie swoops forward to catch him, awkwardly avoiding squeezing him too tight against his crutches. Eddie’s heart stutters in his chest. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks him. “You’re not hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Chris replies. “I didn’t even trip when the school shook.”

“Oh, good. That’s good. You okay to hang out with me for a bit until the doctor says your mom is all ready to go?” Eddie asks.

Chris nods. “Sure!”

Eddie speaks briefly with the teacher, who asks to see identification before releasing Chris to his care. Makes sense, considering Eddie has never been here before and his kid refers to him by his first name. It takes a minute or so, and then Eddie finds himself carrying a sleepy Christopher back to the Jeep. 

“Christopher, this is Buck,” Eddie says as he places Chris in the backseat and buckles him in. “He’s my friend from work and he’s helping me out tonight after some car trouble.”

“Hi, Buck,” Christopher says easily. Absolutely no shyness in this one, Eddie realizes. Not a trait he inherited from Eddie. 

“Hi, Christopher,” Buck says, smiling. “How’re you doing?”

Buck’s voice takes on a new, lighter quality talking to Chris. Eddie is a little surprised by it. It’s not like a patronizing, baby-talk sort of thing some adults do with little kids. Eddie thinks he just sounds more like himself? Which is a weird thing to think about someone Eddie hardly knows. 

“I’m good,” Christopher says as Eddie climbs into the passenger seat. “Do you and my dad go on dates?”

Eddie coughs. 

Buck’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

Oh, Jesus. 

“Why-why do you ask that, Chris?” Eddie splutters. 

“Because I asked mom if you and her were going to get married and she said no, you only go on dates with guys now.” Chris answers matter-of-factly. 

Christ. 

“Nah, I’m not cool enough for your dad,” Buck winks back at Chris before pulling away from the school. “I’m not even a full firefighter yet. Not like him.”

Christopher laughs. “Are you half a firefighter?”

“Basically,” Buck confirms. 

“That’s weird!” 

God bless Buck for managing to steer the conversation in another direction. 

Twenty minutes later, Eddie is helping Buck hook up jumper cables between their vehicles, while Christopher sleeps soundly in the backseat of the Jeep. Eddie thinks he looks especially adorable, face smushed against his little hand. Is this who he is now? Someone whose heart gets all soft at this kind of thing? 

“Thanks for being so cool about all this,” Eddie says quietly, clipping the cables in place.

“Are you thanking me for being nice to your kid? Because that seems like a low bar.” Buck replies.

“I meant more answering that immediate and intrusive question. I had no idea he’d do that.”

 “Oh, that?” Buck waves it off. “Why would that bother me? He doesn’t know.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie shrugs. “Lots of straight guys get weird when someone thinks they might be dating a man.”

“Do they now?” Buck raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t know.”

Eddie’s mouth goes very dry. 

“Uh…” He struggles. “Oh. Sorry.”

Buck shrugs. “Are we gonna get this truck running or what?”

Eddie nods mutely, unsure of what else he could possibly say. 

🔹🔹🔹

There are two central problems when Eddie pulls into the driveway at home. The first is that Abuela is clearly waiting up for him, nervous as she has the right to be after a natural disaster. And Abuela has no idea Christopher exists. The second is that, despite there being a tiny third bedroom in Abuela’s bungalow, Eddie has no overnight things for Christopher and it’s looking like Shannon will be in the ER for a while longer. 

Christopher is still asleep in the backseat, and when Eddie picks him up, gently, to transport him into the house, he tucks his head into Eddie’s shoulder in a relaxed, trusting way that makes Eddie’s heart feel impossibly large for his chest. Your son, his whole body seems to be yelling at him. This is your son. 

“I’ve got you,” Eddie murmurs as he carries Chris up the front stoop and into the house. 

Awkwardly unlocking the door and shuffling through the front entrance, he barely makes it ten steps before Abuela is upon him. 

“Eddie!” She calls from the kitchen and she walks to him.  A little too loudly, though how could she know? “I told you to call me not just text, these-“

She stops as she rounds the corner from the kitchen to the front hall and sees Christopher bundled in Eddie’s arms. 

Eddie freezes, unsure of what to do. He’d really like to get this poor, exhausted kid to bed. 

“Edmundo, why do you have a child?” She asks firmly. “Did you take someone’s child?”

Hmm. Eddie is a more likely kidnapping suspect than an unwitting parent. Got it. 

“No!” Eddie whisper-shouts. “I did not take him. Abuela, this is Christopher.”

“Christopher who ?” She presses, walking closer to Eddie to get a good look at him. 

Christopher shifts a little in Eddie’s arms, eyes fluttering, roused a little by the sound of his name in repetition. 

“Do you remember Shannon?” Eddie asks, trying to keep his tone calm and soothing so as not to alarm Chris. 

“ Si, I remember your high school girl…” Abuela trails off as the realization hits her. She covers her mouth with her hand. 

“I only recently found out,” Eddie tries to explain quickly. “They live in Mar Vista. Shannon was injured today in the quakes and needed a favor.”

Abuela descends into a torrent of accusatory Spanish in which no one is safe but Christopher. Eddie’s crime is not telling her the second he found out. He’ll have to absolutely clear up some of the judgments she’s making about Shannon. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie replies. “Can I put him in the guest room? He’s had a really long day.”

Abuela nods. “We will discuss this.”

Oh, Eddie had no delusions about avoiding this tonight. 

He carries Christopher to the spare room, struggles to pull down the covers with half a free arm, and lower Christopher into the bed without waking him. It’s a fumbled and failed attempt. Christopher’s eyes blink open as Eddie removes his glasses to place them on the nightstand. 

“Eddie?” He mumbles. “Where am I?”

“My house,” Eddie says. “I’ll be just across the hall all night if you need me, okay? And the bathroom is right beside this room.”

Christopher yawns, eyes closing. 

“‘Kay,” he slurs. 

“Have a good sleep, buddy.”

Christopher doesn’t answer, already drifting back off. Eddie definitely envies children’s sleeping capabilities. It hasn’t been that easy for him in years. 

Eddie stands there for another second, in the dark, a little in disbelief that this is something that’s happening to him, before - unsure of what else there is possibly to do - he pads back out of the room and closes the door as quickly as possible. Then, he realizes, it’s pitch black and Christopher’s in an entirely new place. What if he wakes up confused or scared? And the crutches are still in the truck. 

Shoot. 

Eddie jogs out to the driveway to gather the crutches and stops on his return trip to keep an old nightlight he knows Abuela still keeps in a little storage cupboard from when Eddie, his sisters, and his cousins would have sleepovers here as a kid. He slips back into the guest room quietly, leans the crutches against the foot of the bed frame, and plugs the nightlight in on the wall perpendicular to Christopher’s head. Christopher doesn’t stir through any of it. 

When Eddie is satisfied he won’t be lost or hurt if he wakes up, he exits the room once more and trudges to the kitchen, where Abuela is waiting for him, hands crossed in front of her at the table. 

Yikes. 

Sometimes he forgets she is related to and raised his father, given their largely opposite demeanours. Then she pulls an expression like this and it’s very obvious. 

“I was going to tell you,” Eddie cuts to the chase, sitting across from her. “I had no idea I’d have to bring him home tonight, otherwise I definitely would have sooner.”

“Why didn’t you?” Abuela asks. 

Eddie sighs. If there’s one family member he can talk to about this stuff, it’s her. But it still feels difficult to admit.

“Because I might completely suck at this, Abuela. Shannon might realize I’m not cut out for it, and then… Then, I don’t know. I lose him, I guess.”

Abuela’s expression melts. “ Eddito, that is impossible. There’s no way if you decide to love this little boy, you won’t do a good job. You already took such good care of Sophia and Adriana for so many years.”

“That’s the problem,” Eddie says. “I resented doing that. I love them so much, but I still resent that they got to be kids, and I had to be a bonus parent. I never thought I wanted kids for this exact reason. I don’t want that to poison my relationship with Christopher. ”

Abuela reaches across the table and takes Eddie’s hand in her own.

“Then don’t let it.” She says. “He is not your sisters. You are not a child anymore. You have choices, Edmundo.”

Eddie looks at the wood of the table, throat very tight. Sometimes, he thinks, you can make all the right choices and still not be enough.

Chapter Text

i.

It turns out Shannon has a broken ankle and some bone bruising on her shin. Nothing serious, but uncomfortable and limiting. Eddie realizes, halfway through the conversation about her injuries, that he’s going to have to make himself available to be of help. Not that she’s asking for it. But she did ask for it, the night before, when she was feeling desperate. She shouldn’t have to feel desperate to ask him for favors. In fact, he thinks she probably has a pretty significant backlog of them to cash in. 

He tells her as much. 

“If you need any help, Shannon. I mean, seriously, anything. Please just ask.” 

Her expression is wary but she thanks him. She doesn’t really believe it, he can tell. She’s used to not having help.

Eddie feels a surge of determination to prove her wrong. He wants to prove to Shannon, and probably to himself, that he can do right by her and Chris. Even if he missed his shot to do it when it mattered most. 

On the drive home, he calls Bobby. 

“ Hey, kid, you okay ?” Bobby answers. 

“Uh, yeah. Just something I need to talk to you about if you have time.”

“ Sure, Eddie. What’s going on?”

“Well, it’s personal. But it might impact work. And I want it to be my main priority, going forward, I think, so… So yeah, I should tell you. Hen knows. And Buck, actually.”

“ You’re concerning me here, Eddie. ”

“It’s not bad.” Eddie says quickly. “You know how yesterday I mentioned my high school ex? Shannon?”

“ Yes ,” Bobby answers. “ Who you hadn’t seen in years?”

“Right. Well. As it turns out, I have a son.”

ii.

Bobby’s selected method of response to the news about Christopher is to host a “family dinner” at the fire station. Two hours where they go offline and invite people in for a meal. Bobby tells Eddie to invite Shannon and Christopher or he’ll do it himself. 

“Not only is Christopher lucky enough to have you for a father, but he just gained a whole bonus family here,” he explains. 

So Eddie passes along the invitation and Shannon accepts. Thankfully, it’s not a huge gathering. That might have been a little overwhelming for Eddie, let alone Shannon and Chris. 

Bobby’s new partner, Athena, comes. Eddie has always liked her from when they would work together at scenes, or when Hen brought her by the station, so he was very glad to hear that she and Bobby got together. Bobby needs someone like her. 

Karen shows up with Denny. Chim doesn’t invite anyone. Buck brings a stupefyingly beautiful woman that Eddie is inexplicably annoyed to see, for a second, until she is introduced as his older sister, Maddie. Eddie feels a little silly as he shakes her hand. It’s not like because he and Buck are both various flavors of queer that Eddie should feel any sort of jealousy. For fuck’s sake he’s still getting over Alan. Right?

Anyway. 

Shannon and Chris arrive last, and Eddie’s heart definitely turns to mush, once again, at how warmly Christopher greets him. 

“I’m really glad you made it,” Eddie says to Shannon after Christopher hugs him. “And please don’t answer any embarrassing childhood questions my coworkers ask.”

Shannon laughs. “No promises.”

Eddie takes them up through the service elevator, to where everyone is starting to gather around the table for a meal that, by the smell of it, is proof of Bobby outdoing himself. 

“Everyone, this is Shannon and Christopher,” Eddie announces as they approach the table. “Shannon, Chris, this is, well… Uh, everyone.” 

“Hi, Buck!” Christopher waves in Buck’s direction, beaming. 

Buck gets up, crosses the room, and bends to give Chris a high-five. 

“Hey, Christopher! How’s it going?”

“Good! I’ve never been in a fire station.”

“They’re pretty cool, right?” Buck exclaims. 

“Uh huh.”

Buck straightens up again and reaches his hand out to shake Shannon’s hand. 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Buck.”

Everyone else exchanges warm greetings with Shannon and Chris, not least of all Hen, who introduces herself as “the only reason your dad didn’t trip off a lifeboat on our way to plane crash!” Which, while true, isn’t a story Eddie would love to share with the kid who still thinks he’s cool. 

Hen gives him a quick side-hug as Shannon and Christopher head over to the table to sit down. 

“He’s adorable, Eddie,” she whispers. “He’s got your smile.”

Eddie’s cheeks heat. He hadn’t noticed that. Is it even true? Maybe she’s just being nice. Christopher is objectively adorable, however. 

“He’s pretty cute,” Eddie agrees quietly. 

Hen gives him a light little punch in the arm. “I cannot believe you introduced him to Buckley before me. Absolutely no loyalty.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I’ll plan the earthquake and the dead truck battery better next time.”

“Damn straight,” she mutters, low enough for only him to hear. “I am first in line to meet your next secret love child.”

Eddie scowls at her. 

🔹🔹🔹

“So, Maddie, Buck says you work at Dispatch?” Chim asks halfway through the meal.

Eddie looks at him, amused. Chim has found every possible opportunity to talk to Maddie that has come up. It’s honestly kind of adorable? And it’s nice to see Chim finally showing interest after his disastrous end with Tatiana. 

“I do,” Maddie says. “For about a year now. We’ve probably spoken before.”

“Yeah, I think I recognize your voice,” Chim says, goofy smile on his face.

Wow.

“Maddie actually did a ride along with me five months or so ago,” Athena smiles. “If one Buckley is as tough as the other, the 118 is in good hands.”

Buck grins and looks at his sister. “Not even close, but I try.”

“You’ve been there for a year?” Hen asks Maddie, not failing to notice the way her best friend is going googly eyed for her. “DId you move out from Pennsylvania at the same time as Buck?” 

Maddie’s expression shifts a little uncomfortably. “I did. We did. Fresh start for both of us.”

“So Shannon, tell us about phlebotomy,” Bobby cuts in a little abruptly. “I am a big wuss about getting my blood drawn, I won’t lie.”

Buck shoots him a grateful look.

Huh. 

As Shannon begins to explain what she does to the table, Eddie leans towards Chim, who is seated beside him, and says quietly:

“You keep staring at Buck’s sister.”

Chim, still smiling, mutters back at him through gritted teeth. 

“And you’re always staring at Buck.”

Eddie frowns and shifts away from Chim. 

That’s definitely not true. 

🔹🔹🔹

“They all seem really nice,” Shannon says to Eddie after dinner, when it’s about time for all non-LAFD people to get going. “I’m glad you found a place you belong.”

Eddie smiles softly. “Me too. And, uh, thank you. It means a lot to me that you both came today.”

Shannon looks across the fire station loft, to where Buck is showing Christopher how to use the pinball machine. Christopher laughs and makes a whoop of triumph, and Buck gives him another high-five. 

“It’s nice that you all look out for each other, not just at fires,” she observes.

“Oh, well you’ve got to,” Eddie says. “We’ve got to be able to genuinely trust each other to do our jobs.”

Shannon nods. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

Eddie wonders if what the two of them are trying to do is any different.

iii.

Buck is not exactly pleased with being called to the rescue of a downed news helicopter on his second month on the job. It almost feels like the universe poking him in the soft sides of his stomach. News crew? Helicopter? All Buck needs now is someone with a broken chair leg stuck through his… Okay. Enough. He’s not thinking about that right now. 

Anyway.

Helicopters.

They like to crash around Buck.

But no one knows this particular part of his story at work, not even Bobby, so nobody thinks twice before asking him, the person with the most relevant experience, to weigh in on the rescue. He’s an asset, not a liability. Despite his own uncertainty, it’s probably a good thing. The rest of them don’t know the first thing about choppers.

“Buck,” Bobby asks as Athena and other police officers clear the area of civilians. “After we get the people out, you think you can kill that engine?”

“Y-yeah, I think I can,” Buck answers. “But I’m worried about the dynamic rollover.”

“In layman’s terms?” Eddie asks, shouting over the sound of the whirring chopper blades.

“When we change the weight ratio by pulling people out, it could tip over, rotors could snap off. Bad news.” Buck explains. 

He would really love to not see the result of a snapped, propelled rotor hitting someone he cares about. 

Of course, it all goes okay. Even if he can smell blood that isn’t there and feel an arid desert humidity index that is not reflective of reality, Bobby and Eddie manage to safely remove the pretty, redheaded traffic reporter from the backseat of the helicopter, before Buck carefully climbs into the copilot seat and kills the engine. 

This time, he pulls everyone out alive. 

And when the reporter - Taylor Kelly, Channel 8, Eddie tells him later - thanks the team for saving her, Buck hides in the engine. He doesn’t want her to see his face. 

🔸🔸🔸

It’s at the beginning of Buck’s next shift that he becomes absolutely certain the universe is fucking with him. 

Buck is spraying the battalion truck down with a hose, minding his own damn business, when Taylor Kelly and a fucking cameraman come waltzing into the station, filming them. 

“We need to capture it all. Real life in a fire house,” the reporter is saying as she strides across the engine bay, heels clicking. “Please, God, tell me there’s a Dalmatian around here somewhere.”

She turns and makes direct fucking eye contact with Buck. Buck stiffens, clenching the hose so tightly the water flow is briefly interrupted. Her bright eyes, a shade not unlike his own, scan Buck’s face, narrowing as they land right above his eyebrow.

Shit. 

Shit. 

She recognizes him.

Damn birthmark. He never had a problem with it until it was plastered all over the local news.

“Excuse me!” Bobby calls, approaching Taylor with a pinched look of concern on his face. Buck doesn’t miss the way Bobby notices her noticing him. 

Buck stands, completely frozen other than the effort to turn the hose off, watching the interaction. 

“Captain Nash, I’m Taylor Kelly.”

She spins on her heel to shake his hand. 

“We met the other day when-”

“I know who you are, Ms. Kelly,” Bobby replies curtly. His handshake is stiff, devoid of the usual warmth Buck sees in Bobby.  “I just don’t understand what you’re doing here. Please don’t film in here.” 

“Uh, why not?” Taylor asks.

“Because it’s-it’s rude.” Bobby raises a hand to shield his face from the camera. 

“ Oh, they didn’t call you yet,” Taylor says. 

Bobby frowns at her. “Who?”

As if on cue, Bobby receives a call on the line in his office, and has to step away. Buck feels a layer of protection disappear with him.

As Bobby walks away, Buck turns away from Taylor, refocusing his efforts on washing the truck. Taylor looks back in his direction and walks over. 

“Where do I know you from?” She asks as he sprays the same spot on the hood of the truck for the tenth consecutive second, brain absolutely misfiring.

“Helicopter the other day, I’d guess,” Buck says, head downturned, refusing to look at her. 

“No,” she says. “It’s not that.”

“Everything okay here?” 

Buck turns to see Eddie, in his gym clothes, walking up to them, hands on his hips, concerned expression on his face. His eyes have that shifty expression a dog gets when you step too close to its bone. Not gonna snarl, but thinking about it. 

Taylor raises her hands in mock surrender. “Down boy. I was just wondering where I’ve seen your coworker before.”

Buck watches, with near abject horror, as a glimmer of suspicion passes over Eddie’s face. 

“He’s just got one of those faces,” Eddie shrugs. 

Taylor opens her mouth to say something else but is cut off by Bobby leaning over the mezzanine and shouting down for Buck to come see him in his office. Likely about exactly this. Buck has never been so relieved to be metaphorically called to the principal’s office. 

🔸🔸🔸

“My hands are tied,” Bobby explains, scowling. “The chief wants the publicity.”

“B-but he knows about my past,” Buck protests. He’d been upfront when applying. The people who need to know know. 

“I know,” Bobby replies, voice a bit more terse than Buck might have expected. “And he reminded me that you requested no special treatment. I’m sorry, Buck.”

Panic twists in Buck’s stomach like a heap of writhing worms. 

“Sh-she recognizes me,” Buck stammers. “Soon enough, she’ll know from where.”

Bobby sighs. He looks tired. There must be something going on with him other than this. This wouldn’t have pre-emptively caused what looks like a sleepless night under his eyes. 

“I’m going to give you the option of behind man-behind for the calls she follows us on,” Bobby says gently. “The team might ask questions, but at least this way, she won’t get to. I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

Man-behind? He won’t… He won’t really get to work, as long as she’s here. He’ll be fucking useless. Buck kind of wants to scream. But Bobby’s right. This is the best thing he can do to protect himself. 

“Well,” Buck offers a begrudging smile. “At least all the chores will get done.”

🔹🔹🔹

Something is going on. 

Eddie doesn’t know what, but something.

Buck is man-behind for every single call.. He doesn’t question it, doesn’t even wait for Bobby to decide. He just knows he’s not coming. And when they’re at the station, any time Taylor Kelly and her film crew are around, Buck goes rigid and Bobby suddenly needs help with paperwork in his office. It’s painfully obvious to Eddie, and probably everyone else, that Bobby is trying to keep Buck off camera. What Eddie doesn’t understand is why. 

At first, he dismisses it as nerves. If you’re not used to being photographed or filmed, it’s a kind of disorienting, invasive experience. Eddie remembers the first time he was photographed on a date with Alan, by some bored paparazzo who had nothing better to do than spy on a former celebrity who hadn’t acted since he was twenty-one. A ‘where are they now?’ type schtick. Eddie had felt violated. Maybe that’s how Buck is feeling now, with Channel 8 invading the station?

He asks Buck as much, in the slower hours of the night on the first shift, when Taylor and her crew have gone home for the night. He and Buck are the last to retire to the bunk rooms, and Eddie stops him before he turns in for the night. Or, whatever of the night they get before a call wakes them.

“It’s normal to be camera-shy, you know,” Eddie says, trying to sound sympathetic. “Especially when you’re not from around here.”

Buck turns and looks at him for a long moment before responding. Eddie can’t tell if his tight expression is caused by annoyance or discomfort or what.

“Yeah,” is all he finally says. “Thanks.”

“Unless there’s something else going on?” Eddie asks. 

Buck’s jaw tightens. 

“I’m not judging,” Eddie adds quickly. “Just, you know, it’d be good to have you back on calls, is all.”

Buck offers him a half-hearted, appreciative smile, and opens his mouth slightly, like he’s about to say something. For a second, Eddie thinks the guy might actually open up. Eddie knows he’s pretty private, so it seems like almost a moment. But then he closes his mouth again and exhales heavily through his nose. 

“Nothing else is going on,” Buck says. “Just hate being on camera.”

“Well,” Eddie shrugs. “This is L.A. Shit happens.”

“You’re right,” Buck says, voice rasping. “I’ll get used to it, I guess.”

But Buck doesn’t go on any calls the rest of the shift. 

iv.

“Is he always so prickly?” Taylor asks Eddie next shift, while he’s minding his own business, drinking a post-call coffee and eyeing up the treats table, freshly stocked with baked goods from grateful rescue-ees of the past few shifts. 

Eddie gives Taylor a flat look. Does she really think he’s going to bad mouth his captain in front of her? Or gossip about him at all? They are not friends. He has just barely been tolerating her presence, as per instructions from his superiors. 

They’ve just gotten back from a call where a bodybuilder, who admitted to using steroids, found himself locked in pose, and in incredible pain. Taylor had crossed a line, trying to film him in a vulnerable spot, and Bobby had told her as much. 

“Bobby is a fantastic captain and a good man,” Eddie replies through gritted teeth. “If you think he’s prickly, maybe ask yourself why.”

Taylor raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t talking about him, actually.”

Taylor looks over the edge of the mezzanine. Eddie follows her gaze to the engine bay below, where Buck is doing inventory of the engine for what feels like the dozenth time this week. 

“He just doesn’t like the cameras,” Eddie shrugs. 

“I don’t think he likes me,” Taylor says, tiny smirk forming on her lips. 

“Because you’re so likable,” Eddie deadpans. 

“Maybe it’s the reporter he’s got an issue with, not the cameras,” Taylor shrugs. “Have you thought about that?”

“I personally find it quite easy to have a problem with both,” Eddie smiles. 

“Have you ever Googled him?” Taylor asks. 

“Buck?” Eddie frowns. “Why the hell would I Google my coworkers?”

“Evan Buckley.” Taylor full-names him. “And, I don’t know. Maybe you should before you get all defensive.”

Mr. Silver Star down there? Yeah. Okay. What’s Eddie gonna find? A commendation? Or, more likely, an article about some really sad story he survived. Yeah, pass. Eddie doesn’t need to go rifling through this guy’s trauma. Eddie thinks of the guy who offered him a helping hand after a grueling shift, for no other reason than that he could. 

“We trust each other around here,” Eddie rejects the idea. “And I trust Buck.”

🔸🔸🔸

Because Taylor Kelly insists on staying behind to interview Bobby while the team is sent to a simple med call. Fucking hurrah - he’s allowed to do his job! That, plus the delicious homemade brownies that he were sent to the station that practically melted in his mouth, and Buck is having a not so terrible few hours of this shift. 

In fact, he’d say he’s starting to feel pretty good. 

He’s got this weird, smiley feeling as he climbs into the engine. Like, forget about Taylor fucking Kelly. Buck is a firefighter. That’s fucking sick. He’s a firefighter on his way to fight a… Well, okay.  A puncture wound of some sort, according to Dispatch. But still! Fucking bad ass. 

He sits beside Eddie in the engine. Eddie has this weird sparkly thing going on with his eyes. Like light refracting off honey. It’s stupid pretty. Buck almost says as much, then remembers that’s kind of an insane thing to do. 

Nope. Not pretty. Nothing is pretty. Everything is pretty. Actually, shit. Yeah. The windows are really pretty? It’s such a nice day. So sunny and… Wavy? A weird observation, considering he can’t see the ocean from the freeway.

Eddie rubs at his eyes a few minutes into their drive. They’re still sparkly. Pretty, pretty, sparkly. 

Buck blinks. Oh! His eyes feel funny too! He pokes at one, then flinches when it hurts. What the fuck? 

“ What are you doing, man?” Chim asks. 

“My eyes feel funny,” Buck mumbles. “Like, kinda too much?”

“Do you have allergies?” Eddie asks. “I’m wondering if I have allergies right now.”

Buck gasps. “Maybe! Maybe we’re having allergies! But the index wasn’t elevated this morning. You think it’s a new kind?”

“New kind of what?” Eddie narrows his sparkling eyes. They’re seriously fizzy. There’s like a fizzing sound.

“Of pollen!”

Duh. Obviously.

“A new kind of pollen?” Chimney asks, like Buck is the dumbest person he’s ever met. So fair. Buck is dumb, sometimes. Sometimes he enlists in wars to prove a point. Sometimes he moves to cities with insane reporters in a stupid attempt to disappear.

Eddie laughs. “Yeah, I think I see the pollen, Buck.”

“I can hear it!” Buck announces. 

“What’s wrong with you guys?” Chim asks.

Eddie laughs, and his laugh sounds like a pretty, relaxed strum of a guitar.

“I don’t know, man. I kind of feel like I did that one weekend in Las Vegas when Marcus and I did shrooms and… And this is not a work appropriate story, but my mouth just keeps moving.”

“Who the fuck is Marcus?” Buck scowls.

He hates Marcus. 

“Eddie, are you saying you feel high?” Chim asks.

“Marcus is my buddy from when I worked at a casino,” Eddie explains. “Sometimes we had sex.”

Buck hates Marcus so much.

“Eddie, I’m serious,” Chim says. “Are you guys high?”

“No, no, no,” Eddie smiles goofily. “I only feel high. I didn’t do any drugs this time, crazy. I’m a professional.”

“Hey, Buck,” Chimney says calmly. “Can I took a look at your pupils?”

“Is it because they’re fizzing?” Buck asks.

“Sure, bud.” Chim answers. “Can I look?”

Buck lurches forward in his seat towards Chim. 

After a moment of inspection, Chim sighs. “Fuck.”

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie’s not quite sure how, but he ends up in the back of a police cruiser, being escorted back to the station, zip tied, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Buck. Eddie has been this high before. Hell, he’s been way more high than this. This isn’t anywhere near a bad trip. In these kinds of situations, Eddie knows it’s best to kind of ride the wave, and keep reminding himself, any time things get too strange, that he’s just high. Somehow - he doesn’t know what the fuck happened - he is just high. 

Buck does not seem to approve of this method of dealing with unintentional psychedelic consumption. 

Fortunately for Eddie, he doesn’t have to absorb much of Buck’s panic, because his own listening skills and attention are fading in and out of existence, like someone is toying with an internal dial. 

“...wh-what if I just tell her everything because I-I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut…”

Eddie is thinking about the way the clouds outside the police car window seem to be pulsing in the sky. 

“...ruin my life, ruin Maddie’s life, a-and it won’t be great f-for Bobby, either.”

“That’s right,” Eddie agrees vaguely. “Bobby hates drugs. He does that thing.”

“AA?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“E-Eddie, he won’t… That’s not it.”

The window pane in front of Eddie’s eyes seems to take on a shimmery quality like gasoline in a puddle of water. He wants to reach out and touch it, but his hands are zip tied. 

“Do you ever think about how beautiful glass is, Buck?” Eddie asks.

Buck lets out an exaggerated huff. 

Buck sounds like he’s having a bad trip. Sucker. 

Eddie turns to look at him and… Oh. Oh, he looks so sad. Big puppy dog eyes, blue like nothing else. His lips are very pink. Eddie thinks they must taste the way a popsicle tastes. 

“Good thing Taylor Kelly isn’t here for this,” Eddie observes. “How would I explain that to Shannon?”

“Taylor Kelly is going to ruin my life,” Buck bemoans. 

“Because you’re afraid of cameras?” Eddie asks.

“No,” Buck shakes his head. “Because she’s going to tell everyone what I did. That’s what reporters do.”

“Buck, I don’t think we did drugs on purpose.” Eddie tries to assure him. “And I don’t think it would make a good news story.”

Buck promptly starts to cry.

Sheesh. 

“Hey,” Eddie leans forward to get the attention of the officer driving them back to the fire house. “Hey, I think my friend needs, like, a burrito or something. To sober him up? He’s really tripping.”

🔸🔸🔸

As Buck comes down from a high unlike anything he’s had since he was, like, eighteen, it’s made clear to him that it’s not his life that Taylor Kelly might be ruining today. 

It’s Bobby’s. 

But if Taylor was willing to film a vulnerable, intoxicated man climb to the roof of the building while loudly grieving for his dead child, then what would she have done to Buck? 

v.

They’re all relieved when the Channel 8 new feature on the 118 is more or less a puff piece. No mention of Bobby’s incident or the LSD brownies at all. In fact, it paints them in such a good - almost cheesy - light, that Eddie wonders if he got Taylor Kelly wrong. In fact, in hindsight, he was kind of an asshole to her. 

Eddie, despite himself, decides he’d better apologize for his altogether hostile attitude towards Taylor. He thinks, in part, his disdain for her might have had more to do with the way her presence affected Buck than anything she actually did. Other than maybe pester Buck and suggest Googling him.

After work on the shift that the story comes out, Eddie drives down to the Channel 8 station headquarters to apologize and thank her for protecting Bobby. 

When Eddie climbs out of his truck, Taylor is just about to get into the dark blue news van. 

“Hey!” He calls out to her. “Taylor!”

Taylor turns to look at him, glossy curtain of red hair swinging over her shoulder. 

“Firefighter Diaz,” she says, offering him an amused smile. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Uh, just Eddie is fine.” Eddie replies. “I wanted to thank you for what you did for Bobby. Not using any of that stuff he said.”

Taylor furrows her eyebrows. “Oh, that wasn’t my call. I wanted to use all of it. I got overruled.”

Eddie feels the stinging slap feeling of having been very wrong, along with a fair dose of confusion. 

“You were gonna use it?”

“Hell yeah,” Taylor says nonchalantly, like it means nothing at all to her. “I mean the only reason we didn’t is because apparently your lawyers are scarier than ours. But I’m not too concerned. I got a better story out of it.”

Eddie frowns. She can’t be talking about the fluff piece, can she? Objectively, as feel-good as it might have been, it’s not exactly hard hitting journalism. 

“What story?” Eddie demands. 

“Did you end up Googling your Ken doll of a colleague?” Taylor asks. 

“I told you, no ,” Eddie groans. “I’m not gonna do that, that’s-”

“So, you don’t want to know that your coworker was charged with manslaughter?” 

Eddie feels his entire stomach lurch with this accusation. 

Manslaughter? Manslaughter! Kind, easygoing Buck who is sweet to Christopher and was awarded a Silver fucking Star for his heroics? No way did that guy get charged with manslaughter? 

Eddie reels, brain spinning. 

Buck was just accepted into the LAFD. His sister mentioned moving to Los Angeles for a fresh start. Obviously, if this happened, Buck was found innocent. He wouldn’t be allowed in this job if he had a felony under his belt. 

“I know what I need to know,” Eddie says after a moment. But clearly he’s waited too long to speak. She knows he didn’t know. 

“Oh, is that so?” Taylor asks. “Because I think everyone else deserves to know what kind of person might be coming into their homes if they call 9-1-1.” 

Eddie takes a gamble. 

He pretends he has any fucking idea what he’s talking about. 

“Buck is innocent,” he states firmly. “Nothing else is anyone’s business, least of all yours.” 

Taylor shoots him a skeptical look. 

“Unfortunately, that’s now how the truth works,” she says. 

Holy fuck. Buck’s high ramblings were right.  She’s going to ruin his life. 

“What will it take to get you to not run this story?” Eddie asks, feeling a sudden wave of desperation. 

Taylor scoffs. “Nothing. This story will make my career. I’ll never have to do traffic again.”

Eddie’s chest feels like someone has dropped an anvil on it.

“Who will even care about this? It’s old news,” he reasons.

“And I know just how to spin it,” Taylor rebuts. “Citizens of Los Angeles, how can you trust the first responders you let into your homes, seeing you at your most vulnerable? They could be killers.”

“He’s not a killer!” Eddie protests.

But he really doesn’t know. 

“You’re going to ruin his career!” Eddie snaps. “His life!”

“Well one of us deserves success, and I’ve never had a mugshot taken,” Taylor retorts, voice full of ice. 

Eddie thinks. He has to stop. He might not know Buck well, but he knows enough to know this cannot happen. 

“What if I gave you something better?”

🔹🔹🔹

The first thing Eddie does when he gets back into the truck is open his phone’s browser and Google Evan Buckley. 

He clicks on an article from a small Pennsylvania paper, The Sun. 

Decorated Hershey veteran acquitted for voluntary manslaughter charges

By Jordan Wade Fergus, staff writer

November 28th, 2016

A jury on Wednesday acquitted Hershey native Evan Buckley for charges of voluntary manslaughter after the 2015 death of Buckley’s brother-in-law, Dr. Douglas Kendall. Buckley was arrested after admitting to pushing Kendall, which resulted in the cardiac surgeon being impaled on a splintered chair leg. 

Buckley's case rested on claims of defense of Buckley’s older sister, who was apparently the victim of severe domestic assault. The former army medic claimed he walked into the scene of a violent dispute, intervened, and used reasonable force to pull Dr. Kendall off his sister. 

The verdict acquitting Buckley was returned in the Harrisburg downtown court. His trial began in early October.

The key witness in Buckley’s trial was his sister, who testified on his behalf, and was able to provide evidence to the abuse she faced at the hands of the deceased. 

In a statement, Buckley’s defense attorney, Trent Wentworth, said Buckley’s team was pleased with the verdict. 

“This is truly an example of justice persevering. Mr. Buckley is a man who is fiercely protective of his sister, and whose track record of serving his country shows the extent of his commitment to protecting people in need. Defense of the defenseless should never be a crime.”

Buckley previously served two tours of duty as a Staff Sergeant in Afghanistan, and was even the recipient of a Silver Star after rescuing his team when their helicopter was shot down by enemy combatants. 

Eddie stops reading.

Holy fuck.

🔸🔸🔸

Buck is surprised when Eddie calls him and asks if he can come over. 

“ It’s urgent ,” is all he says. 

Buck texts him his address, and waits, confused, for Eddie to arrive. He and Eddie have been getting a lot closer over the past few weeks, but they’ve never hung out outside of work - unless you count the night of the earthquake, which he doesn’t - and he certainly has no inclination as to why Eddie would want to come over to the tiny apartment he and Maddie shares. But he’s not going to refuse the guy. He wants them to be friends. Really, he does.

When Eddie knocks on the door fifteen minutes later, Buck is nervous. He doesn’t know what to expect. And, to be honest, the past few years have ruined Buck’s comfort with the unexpected when it comes to his personal life. 

“Uh, hey,” Buck says, answering the door. “What’s up, Eddie?”

Eddie looks around Buck, into the apartment.

“Maddie home?” He asks.

Buck frowns. “N-no? She’s at work. You’re here for Maddie ?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Can I come in?”

Buck moves back, allowing Eddie into the apartment. 

“Eddie, is everything okay?”

“Yes?” Eddie answers, shutting the door behind him. “I mean, I think so. I don’t know. This is uncomfortable, honestly.”

“You’re kind of worrying me,” Buck says. 

Eddie takes a deep breath. 

“Taylor Kelly knows about you.”

Buck feels his heart hit the floor.

Not because of the news about Taylor. Buck had suspected as much. But… But because Eddie knows?

“Wh-what?”

“She wanted to use it for a story,” Eddie explains. “I think I got her to drop it, at least for now. But you should know that she knows. I don’t exactly trust her.”

Buck’s heart is pounding in his chest. His throat is tightening. 

“I did what I could but I don’t know what will happen,” Eddie continues. 

“Y-you know?” Buck practically gasps. “You know what-”

“What happened to you and Maddie? Yeah.”

What I did , Buck had been going to say, But sure.

“I Googled it after she told me,” Eddie confesses. “I’m sorry. I… It feels like a violation. But I had to know what she was talking about.”

Buck takes a clumsy step back, away from Eddie. He looks at the floor. His head is spinning. 

Everything is ruined. Everything is ruined. Everything is ruined. Buck is ruined. He might as well tattoo killer on his forehead, the way he’s going to be a pariah at work for the rest of his fucking career. 

“Buck?” Eddie asks. 

“I’m sorry ,” Buck chokes, refusing to meet Eddie’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Eddie.”

“You’re… What?”

“I-I didn’t know how to tell anyone… I wanted you all to give me a chance. I’m sorry. Y-you let me be around your kid and you didn’t have all the information, and you must think I-I’m some sort of predator, but I swear, Eddie, I-”

“Jesus Christ, Buck, do you think I’m mad at you ?” Eddie cuts him off. 

Buck cautions a glance at Eddie. His eyes are big and pained. He looks concerned. Sad, maybe? But not mad.

“I… I don’t know.”

Eddie gives him a pitiful look. Buck wants to shrink back from it.

“I’m not ,” he clarifies. “I’m mad at Taylor and I’m scared for you. I don’t want her to destroy your life. I came over here to warn you and to tell you I did the best I could to stop it, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”

Buck’s shoulders sag. “S-stop it?”

Eddie nods. “I gave her a better story.”

“A better story?” 

Buck is beginning to feel like a particularly dumb parrot.

“I dated Alan Prescott for months,” Eddie says. “Former child star. Big name in celebrity photography now. Lots of connections. Let’s just say, he knows - and told me - which A-list celebs like to bring underage girls into parties, shove drugs down their throats, and, you know... Taylor agrees that it was a more pressing story than you two year-old acquittal. Agreed to keep our names quiet. I just don’t know if we can trust her, really.”

Buck’s jaw hangs slack.

“You… You did that for me?”

Eddie gives him a strange little look. 

“Of course,” he says. “We said we’d have each others’ backs, right?”

Buck swallows. He’s not exactly sure what he’s feeling. Awe? Shock? Gratitude? 

“Eddie…”

“And-and I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say I let you near my kid. Like if I’d known I wouldn’t have? Buck, what I read… Shit. I have sisters, too, okay? You were protecting someone you love. I… I mean, you don’t owe me an explanation, but I-I think I get it.”

The most unexpected thing happens to Buck in that moment.. He loses all sense of self control. Unlike him, really, after all this time. He lets the reckless, emotional voice he’s long since buried see daylight for just a second. He steps forward and pulls Eddie into a hug, tight and probably a little suffocating. It takes a second of surprise before Eddie returns it. 

“Thank you,” Buck rasps. “Thank you, Eddie.”

“You can trust me,” Eddie says quietly.

And Buck finds that he does. 

Chapter Text

i.

The trouble all starts for Eddie after Halloween. 

Halloween itself is great. The 118 A Shift is off, so when Shannon asks if Eddie can take Christopher trick-or-treating to avoid the extra stress on her ankle, he is beyond excited to be available. If you had asked Eddie last year if he’d be this happy to be invited to hang out with a seven year-old on one of the year’s biggest party nights, he would have laughed hysterically. Time is funny. Now, Eddie thinks, he has absolutely zero desire to be doing anything else. 

Eddie manages to throw together a somewhat last minute costume and arrives at Shannon’s not long after dinner.

Shannon laughs when she opens the door. 

“ What are you wearing?”

Eddie’s jaw drops. “Shannon! I know I made you watch Escape From New York !”

“I definitely paid attention to every movie you ever put on,” Shannon nods exaggeratedly. “You know you didn’t have to wear a costume, right? The child is the one required to dress up, in this case.”

“Oh,” Eddie looks down at himself and then lifts the Snake Plissken eyepatch over his eye so it’s resting on his forehead. “Well, I like Halloween.”

“Chris is gonna love it, anyway. You look like a G.I Joe.”

Christopher is dressed up like Wolverine, and Eddie tells him he looks super cool, when in reality, he is so adorable, Eddie’s heart feels all gooey. 

Before they head out, Shannon snaps at photo of them in the doorway, flexing both real and imaginary muscles, with Christopher’s fake claws raised in the air. Eddie realizes, a few minutes later, goofy as it may be, that this is the first photo he has with his son. He asks Shannon to send it to him. 

Trick-or-treating is fun. 

Eddie thinks the last time he went he was about fifteen. Not for himself, of course, by that age, but for his sisters. After that, the girls went with their friends. He thinks Adriana, also seven at the time, dressed up as Snow White that year, a costume that had been passed down from Sophia.

Anyway, point is, it’s been over a decade since Eddie has taken part in family friendly Halloween festivities. He thinks they might kind of suck with any old kid - the way it had sucked when his sisters had bickered about which street had better candy - but with Christopher, it’s a blast. Chris is so happy and polite at every house, and then also manages to randomly spew the most hilarious whispered observations about people’s costumes. 

“That Ninja Turtle looks more like a ninja frog.”

Or.

“Another Elsa? I’m shocked.”

And.

“Is wearing a Spider-Man mask over pajamas really a costume?”

Chris is kind of brutal. Eddie loves it.

One fat pillowcase full of candy later, and Eddie drops Christopher back off with Shannon feeling sort of buzzed. 

“Thank you for taking me, Eddie,” Christopher hugs him tightly before he leaves, one Wolverine claw poking awkwardly into Eddie’s back.

“Thank you for going with me, Chris,” Eddie replies. “I had a lot of fun.”

“You’re pretty fun, too,” Chris agrees, then yawns. It’s barely past seven in the evening. 

Christopher goes to the kitchen to dump out and sort his candy, and Eddie and Shannon linger back in the front hall.

“Thank you for doing that,” Shannon says. “It sounds like he had a blast.”

“We both did,” Eddie admits, fiddling with a little wrapped chocolate bar in his hands that Christopher had been gracious enough to donate. “Uh, hey, I was hoping to introduce him to my aunt? Pepa. She lives here in L.A. We have dinner pretty often. Maybe I could bring him?”

Pepa doesn’t know yet. Abuela has been very good about keeping the news of Christopher to himself. But they have family dinner coming up, and he doesn’t want to lie to Pepa again. She’ll keep it from his parents if he asks. They’ve always been good about taking his side, or at the very least, respecting it. 

Shannon looks a little hesitant for a second, then takes a deep breath. “Uh, sure. Yes. That would be fine. Just text me the details?”

“Thank you,” Eddie smiles. “Will do.”

“But, Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not ready for him to meet your parents,” she says, a bit sheepishly.

Eddie chuckles. “Don’t worry, neither am I.”

🔸🔸🔸

“Oh, I was not aware I invited Snake Plissken over tonight,” Buck says when he lets Eddie into his apartment just before eight on Halloween evening. 

“ Thank you for knowing who I am,” Eddie says, removing his eye patch. “I guess I don’t actually need to wear this anymore.”

Buck’s gut instinct is to tell him, no, every part of the costume can and should stay, but he bites his tongue. 

“Did you drive in it?” Buck asks.

“Uh, guess I did,” Eddie admits.

Buck laughs. “Truly committed. How was trick-or-treating?”

Eddie gets a mushy kind of smile on his face as he kicks off his shoes. “It was perfect, man. That kid is a riot.”

Buck grins. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Eddie follows him into the apartment as Buck heads to the kitchen to grab them beers. 

This has been happening lately. The hanging out thing. Ever since Eddie showed up and told him about Taylor, about what he’d done to protect him, Buck has found himself spending an absurd amount of his free time with the guy. Mostly, Eddie comes here for beers and to watch a game or a movie or something, but Buck even went over to Eddie’s one evening. Met his grandmother and everything. Was practically force fed tamales, not that he would have ever declined. They’ve fallen into this strange new routine of seeing each other all the time, whenever Eddie isn’t with Christopher, and Buck doesn’t quite know what to make of it. 

It’s been forever since he had a friend. Anyone left over when he was charged quickly disappeared. It’s pretty much been him and Maddie for three years. Being able to trust Bobby has been great, but there’s still a captain and subordinate dynamic there. Trusting Eddie… That’s been some sort of strange, unexpected gift. And Buck finds himself slipping into some softhearted, old version of himself. He feels like Eddie’s eager, loyal hunting dog, waiting at all times to be brought out of the kennel and taken into a blind. When they’re not hanging out or at work, Buck wishes they were. And that kind of comfort around another person feels a little unsafe. 

It always hurts more when they’re eventually gone. 

“Look,” Eddie says, showing Buck a photo of him and Christopher - or the tiniest Wolverine ever, actually - posing for the camera, wide, sincere smiles on their faces. They don’t look too alike, generally, but Buck thinks there’s such a sweet resemblance in their joy. 

“You guys look awesome,” Buck tells him. 

Eddie’s cheeks dimple with the display of pure, uncomplicated happiness. Buck thinks he looks like sunlight. He remembers Eddie being more akin to a stormcloud when they first met, two months ago. He thinks, whatever has led to this change - presumably Christopher - has been good for him. 

“I’m bringing him to family dinner later this week. Gonna introduce him to my aunt,” Eddie explains. 

“I’m really happy for you, Eddie,” Buck says, passing him a chilled bottle of beer.

Eddie puts his phone away and takes the beer. As if suddenly snapping out of a stupor, he looks around the apartment.

“Maddie home?” He asks.

Buck exhales heavily. “She’s on a date that she refuses to call a date. Horror movie marathon.”

“Oh?” Eddie asks. “With who?”

“With Chimney.”

ii.

The funny thing about November 1st is that Eddie wakes up really happy. 

He had a great night. Trick-or-treating with Chris. Beers and a basketball game with Buck. This time last year he would’ve woke up after Halloween with a pounding hangover. 

He feels a sense of rightness where he’s currently at. Great job, great friends - great new friend - and this incredible kid he never saw coming. Is he frustrated he missed so much time? Yes. Constantly. But, he feels like he’s on the right track to make something really good out of an otherwise sad situation. He feels, for the first time, like he’s got entirely solid direction. 

And then he checks his phone to find what is, without an exaggeration, probably five million notifications, including several missed calls from his sisters and parents. 

His first thought is that someone must have died. 

Then he sees the Facebook notification.

Shannon Dempsey tagged you in a post. 

Oh.

Oh shit. 

Shannon and Eddie reconnected on Facebook pretty soon after he properly met Christopher. And, over the years, Eddie has slowly added various family members back onto his social media as well, after completely deleting everything in his freshman year of college. That has included, over time, his parents. In an effort to make familial peace, even when his relationship with them is rocky at best. He almost never posts to it, is the compromise. Anything about his life typically goes on Instagram, if anywhere. 

Except today. 

Today where, included in a photo dump of Christopher’s various Halloween activities, Shannon has posted and tagged Eddie in the photo of him and Chris in their costumes. And, judging on the stream of messages awaiting him, his family has absolutely seen it. 

Christopher had a fantastic Halloween as Wolverine! The caption reads. Thank you Eddie Diaz for taking him out <3 

Oh dear. 

Oh boy, oh boy. 

The first thing Eddie does is leave a heart react on the post and leave a friendly little comment about having had a great time. Because, here’s the thing - Shannon has no idea that she has opened a can of worms. He hasn’t told her that Abuela is the only family member that knows. Hell, he just said he was going to introduce Chris to Pepa. They haven’t talked about his parents or sisters, the former of which are obviously a sore subject. And, quite honestly, if this wasn’t about to be a huge drama for him, he’d be kind of thrilled? Like, look, proof in digital permanence that he is doing a not altogether terrible job of being someone’s father. Shannon didn’t do anything wrong here. 

The second thing Eddie does is call Sophia. 

At twenty-two, with pretty significant middle-child energy, if Eddie is being honest, Soph is kind of the person to go to for family intermediary services. He and Adriana are more alike, and that might be exactly why Sophia is the better choice of a first phone call.

“ Eddie, do you mean to tell me you have a child?” Is how she answers the phone. 

“I didn't say anything,” Eddie replies. 

“ Eddie. ” 

Eddie groans. “Okay, I’m not denying it, but I’m also a little baffled that you see your gay brother with a child and just assume he’s mine. Like, really, this is the least likely scenario. It just so happens to be true.”

“ Holy shit,” Sophia exhales. “ Wow. Eddie. Oh, my God.”

“I know,” Eddie tells her. “It’s a complicated situation and I missed a lot of his life, but listen, Soph, he’s this fantastic kid, and I really think I’m fall-”

“ So Mom and Dad were right,” she cuts him off. 

Eddie freezes. “Sorry, what?”

“ Eddie, the reason… Oh, God. Oh, shit. You have to believe I didn’t know anything until I saw the post this morning and-and they called me because you weren’t answering…”

Eddie is beginning to feel vaguely nauseated. 

“Soph, what are you talking about?” He demands. 

“ Eddie, when I talked to Mom, she said they’d heard Shannon had a baby not long after he was born. ” 

Eddie’s good feeling shatters into a million pieces. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie doesn’t like calling his parents if he can help it.

Today he really can’t help it.

“What did Sophia mean when she said you knew about Shannon?” Eddie demands the moment they answer the call. He’s pacing back and forth in his room, body heated with anger. 

“ Well, good morning to you, too, Eddie. I see we’re skirting around the fact that you’ve announced to the world you have a child via Facebook.” His mother replies. 

“I didn’t post that and I didn’t know it was being posted,” Eddie grumbles. “Seems like there’s a lot I haven’t known these past seven years, huh?”

“ We’re hardly to blame for that, Eddie. ”

“Sophia says you knew !” Eddie bursts.

“ We didn’t know for sure, ” Helena explains. “ She called us out of the blue one day asking for you and about a week or so later I mentioned it at a school function to Mrs. Tremblay - you know, who used to be friends with Janet - and she said she’d heard Shannon had a baby. ”

Eddie’s stomach twists with the betrayal of it all. He doubles over, leaning against his dresser for support. 

“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?” He practically growls into his phone. 

“ Eddie, you weren’t speaking to us! This is hardly all our fault.”

Okay, sure, Eddie had chosen the nuclear option, deleting everything and getting new numbers. But it wasn’t like the no-contact was a one-way decision. There had been an ultimatum delivered and responded to; fall back in line, or lose everything. Eddie chose the latter. He had no way of knowing it would lose him his son. 

“You knew I was still in contact with Abuela. You-you could have told her, she would have passed it along!” Eddie protests. 

“ To tell you, what, exactly? There is a baby out there that has a small chance of being yours? First you’re telling us you’re gay, then we were supposed to think you got Shannon pregnant? We assumed whoever was the actual father bailed on her, and you were the most likely next suspect to ask for child support. Why else wait so long? ”

“He is mine!” Eddie shouts. “That is my son, Mom! And I lost seven years with him! I could have been something more than the guy he calls by his first name and hangs out with on occasion!”

“ Oh, come on, Eddie. Like you were in any place to be anyone’s father. I still don’t think you have any concept of what goes into being a parent.”

Eddie flinches. She’s probably right. She’s definitely right. But it still fucking stings.

“That should have been my choice to make! I never had a fucking choice!” 

“ Stop cursing, Edmundo. I won’t be spoken to like this, I’m serious. ”

“I could have been his dad,” Eddie says again, quieter. He hears the pathetic, mournful edge in his voice, like a whimpering puppy.

“ And I didn’t want to let some girl drag my son down, ” Helena replies, voice acidic. 

Eddie hangs up without another word. 

🔸🔸🔸

Eddie calls in sick for their shift November 1st. 

Buck tries not to worry too much about it, but he does find it a little strange. He saw Eddie just last night. He hadn’t seemed sick. And they certainly didn’t drink enough for Eddie to be hungover, considering he drove home, not even buzzed. 

Buck sends him a text to check in, but doesn’t hear back. 

He tries not to worry about it. 

iii.

Dinner with Pepa is on Sunday, November 4th, on the first evening of Eddie’s four off. Of course, she has already found out about Christopher, and not exactly in the way Eddie had hoped. His poor Tia was dragged into the family drama before she’d gotten any sort of explanation, which he has since given her, by way of a teary talk over coffee with her and Abuela the same afternoon as all the fallout. 

“Everyone has made mistakes here, Eddito,” Pepa had reasoned. “What’s important now is that we don’t waste any more time in welcoming Christopher into our family.”

Eddie doesn’t really want to hear tempered, loving advice this week, though. He feels rage building under his skin. And maybe it’s just because he’s feeling particularly self-pitying at the moment, but he’s not sure his mistakes are anywhere near as severe as his parents’. Maybe he doesn’t fucking want to put this behind him. Maybe he wants to be mad about it. 

He’s just bringing groceries in for Abuela around noon, several hours before he’s set to pick up Christopher from Shannon’s, when his phone starts vibrating in his back pocket. He rests a bag of assorted produce on the counter and reaches around to grab it and check the Caller ID. His parents have tried calling him several times, and he’s ignored every attempt. They’re fucked if they think he has any desire to speak with them any time soon. 

Fortunately for Eddie, the incoming call is from someone not on his shit list.

Shannon.

Eddie answers right away. He has to unhinged his clenched jaw to speak, and finds it a little sore. 

“Hey, Shannon.” 

“ Hey, Eddie. ” There’s a strange hesitant quality to her tone. Like she doesn’t want to be making this call.

“Everything okay?” He asks. 

“ Honestly, I hate to do this to you, but I just don’t think Christopher can come to dinner tonight. ”

Eddie freezes. He feels his heart drop through his stomach. 

“Wait, what?”

“ I’m sorry. I’ve just got a stomach thing, and I don’t want to pass it to your family.”

Oh.

Oh, that sucks. 

“Well, hey, Shannon, if you’re sick, I mean maybe it’s better that he comes? So you’re not having to take care of him while you’re-”

“ No, really. That’s okay. I’d hate it if he got sick at your place, or your grandmother got sick.”

“Well, I want to help out, I can cancel dinner, if-”

“ Eddie, stop! Just stop. ”

Eddie pauses, mouth ajar. 

“ I’m just not ready, okay? ”

“What?” Eddie asks. “What aren’t you ready for?”

“ I’m not ready for him to be going to Diaz family dinners and meeting extended family. Okay? It’s a sore spot for me and I’m just not.”

Eddie’s throat closes as if he’s experiencing some sort of allergic reaction. It’s like she’s pushed him into traffic. 

“Shannon, he-he’s not. It’s just my Abuela and my Tia.” Eddie argues. “The people who supported me, when no one else did.”

“ I know. I get that. And I’m sorry. Really. I just… I can’t yet. Not after everything.” 

“Shannon,” Eddie says, feeling somewhat helpless and desperate. “Come on. It’s… I’m really trying to make up for lost time with him.”

“ Well, it’s been two months ,” she replies, voice tight. “ There’s no need to rush. ”

No need to rush? Is she fucking kidding him? He would have to fucking sprint to close any of the distance he is lacking. Of course Eddie needs to do as much as he possibly can. 

“So, that’s it then?” Eddie demands, as that already-present anger under his skin starts to seep through his orifices. 

“ Yes? ” Shannon scoffs. “ I mean, we can revisit it in the future, but right now I’m not comfortable.”

“You’re just making a decision for me,” Eddie accuses.

Part of him knows it’s not really her he wants to be fighting with. Part of him is just itching for a fight. 

“ Uh, no. I’m making a decision for the child I raised.”

“It’s not like I had a say in that either!” Eddie snaps. “You have all the power here, Shannon. I get that I’m supposed to follow your lead, but I’m sick and tired of everyone making choices for me.”

There’s a long pause. 

“ What are you saying, Eddie?”

“What do you mean what am I saying?” Eddie demands, exasperated. 

“ I don’t like being threatened.”

“I’m not threatening you, are you kidding?” 

“ I have to go ,” Shannon says, voice glacial in temperature. 

“Shannon, wait-”

“ I think Chris and I need a little space if you can’t respect my boundaries.”

No. 

No, no, no. 

“Shannon, please-”

The call disconnects. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie leaves dinner early. Takes a page from Shannon’s book and makes up a fib about not feeling well. 

Then he goes out. 

It’s a coping mechanism he hasn’t really fallen back on since things got more serious with Alan, but one that definitely concerned Bobby when Eddie started at the 118. He’d show up for the occasional shift early into his probationary period with tired eyes, a light hangover, and one time even with a fair amount of glitter in his hair. That night really had been wild.  Bobby had thought Eddie might have a drinking problem. He doesn’t. He can take it or leave it when it comes to any sort of substance you might find in these places. The problem he had was being sucked into spaces that were so outrageously loud and busy, night after night, that he never had to hear his own thoughts. It’s why he’d run from Austin to Las Vegas, where nothing ever seemed to sleep or quiet down. It’s why he was okay coming to Los Angeles to take care of Abuela. He’s not great at being alone with himself.

It had taken some stern talking to from Bobby and getting his act together to realize that had to change, and that he couldn’t keep showing up to the firehouse like he was stumbling home from the bar. He met Alan. He changed. He found out about Christopher. He changed even more. 

Clearly not enough.

Eddie winds up at the same club where he met Alan in the first place. It’s a good spot. Always a fun time. Safe. Cheap drinks, good music. The perfect place to dampen the volume of his thoughts.  

Eddie doesn’t want to untangle the knotted ropes of his anger. 

He doesn’t want to think about he fucked up everything with Shannon.

He doesn’t want to think about how he might not get to see Christopher again. 

He doesn’t want to think.

The music is loud, bass reverberating through his bone marrow. The multicolored strobe lights are just overstimulating enough that he can’t see anything else when he closes his eyes.The first shot of tequila hits him in the exact warm, soft way he’d hoped it would. The second leaves him delightfully boneless. 

He’s outside his body. 

He’s outside his mind. 

He’s dancing with a stranger. Someone’s hands are on his ass. 

He doesn’t love that, but whatever. He doesn’t really exist right now. 

“Eddie?”

The sound of his name being called is hardly a whisper above the thunderous roar of the music and dozens of other voices, but Eddie hears it nonetheless. He chooses to ignore it, to focus on the drone of the music and the way his head is spinning instead. 

“Eddie!” 

Nope.

Not home right now.

“EDDIE!”

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and Eddie is spun around, out of the arms of the guy he’s dancing with, to see Alan looking at him with a bewildered expression. 

“Hey!” The guy who had been dancing with Eddie protests. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Alan snaps at the stranger. 

The guy scoffs and saunters off into the sea of people on the dance floor.

“What the hell do you want?” Eddie demands. 

“What are you doing here?’ Alan shouts over the music. 

“What does it look like?”

“I didn’t expect to ever see you here again,” Alan explains. “Isn’t it a little late on a school night?”

“Well, shit happens!” Eddie retorts, edge in his voice becoming increasingly sharp. 

Alan raises an eyebrow for a moment, before his expression softens. 

“I’m glad you’re here, Eddie. I’ve missed you.”

That’s fucking rich. 

“Yeah, well, whose fault is that,” Eddie bites back. 

That had been another fucking decision made for him. 

“You’re right,” Alan says. 

Eddie blinks, a little taken aback by the admission. 

“Do you want to dance?” Alan asks. 

Oh.

“Yeah. I do.”

🔹🔹🔹

They’re dancing.

They’re drinking more.

And then they’re kissing. 

And then Eddie is able to pretend things aren’t all that different from even six months ago, and that he still doesn’t know what he has already lost. 

They’re kissing.

And then they’re making their way out back, to the same dark, quiet alleyway they found themselves the night they met. The music from inside is a dull, background thudding. 

“You’re so gorgeous,” Alan is saying, just like he said then. When all Eddie had to do was be pretty to look at and a good firefighter. He’d liked it for a long time. Hardly having to be anything. He’d liked the pressure being so far removed he could only feel the ghost of it on his shoulders.He had been terrified to matter. 

So he hadn’t. 

And now Alan is kissing his jaw and unbuckling his belt, and Eddie can disappear into it again. Meaninglessness. He can go back to being a kept thing. Pretty. Easy. Compliant. 

There’s a hand down the front of his pants and Eddie feels like he’s teetering on a line. He never had a choice. He never had the right information. He does now. 

“Stop,” Eddie gasps, twisting his body to get away from Alan. “Please stop.”

Alan immediately retreats, lifting his hands and taking a step back.

“What the fuck, Eddie?”

“I don’t want to do this,” Eddie pants. 

Alan looks down at the erection Eddie is sporting. 

“Uh huh,” he raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Eddie clarifies. “Not again.”

“What are you talking about?” Alan demands.

“You were a bad partner.” Eddie accuses. “I think you’re probably not a very good person. I… I don’t want this.” 

“I was a bad person for not wanting to play stepdad to a kid you don’t even know?” Alan scoffs. 

Eddie thinks of the things he told Taylor. He thinks of a hundred off handed remarks and little stories he heard over their time together. He thinks of the way tried to keep him in a box, like a collector’s edition doll. 

Eddie shakes his head. “I think we… I think I want to be better than someone like you.”

“Oh, fuck you, Eddie,’ Alan laughs. “You have no idea what you want.”

That’s not true. 

He wants to be Christopher’s father. 

He doesn’t want to be this person anymore. 

He isn’t this person anymore. 

Eddie clenches his jaw and zips up his dark jeans.

“You’re pathetic,” Alan gets in one more jab before turning and briskly storming away. 

He might be right about that.  

Forgetting to even buckle his belt, Eddie turns and presses his forehead against the cementwall of the club exterior. He lets out a singular frustrated cry. 

🔸🔸🔸

“I don’t think I understand,” Buck says. 

“It’s really simple,” Chim says, unloading a bag of takeaway boxes onto the counter of Buck and Maddie’s kitchen. “Your sister never knows what she wants.”

“So we get everything,” Maddie finishes for him, shrugging. “Buff-Fridays.”

“It’s Sunday night,” Buck points out. He could also point that it is far past regular dinner hour, but Maddie has only recently gotten off work, and it is kind of sweet - and perhaps insane - that Chim waited to eat with her. 

“Well, I had to work even later on Friday,” Maddie frowns. “The first time it was a Friday, anyway.”

“Wow, you already are that couple,” Buck says, peeking inside one of the boxes at what smells like delicious pork wontons. 

He’s teasing them, but really, Buck is thrilled to see his sister happy and excited about something new. If anyone deserves it, it’s her. Plus, Chimney seems like a great guy. Buck may have asked Eddie some leading questions to make sure. But from working together, he seems compassionate, funny, and gentle. Better yet, he seems downright goofy for Maddie.

Chim blushes bright red. “Uh, we haven’t-”

“We’re not exactly-”

“It’s more like-”

Buck smirks at their mutual stammering. He raises his hands. “Sorry, sorry. Don’t define the relationship just for my benefit.”

Maddie opens her mouth to sass him back, but is cut off by Buck’s phone buzzing loudly on the counter. Eddie’s name flashes across the screen.

“One sec,” Buck mumbles, reaching for his phone.

Maddie and Chim exchange a look. 

“Hey, Eddie,” Buck answers. 

He’s thrown off by what sounds like loud, thumping club music crackling through his phone speakers. Where the fuck is Eddie? 

“ Buck ,” Eddie answers. His voice is shaky and strained. “ Are-are you busy right now?”

“No,” Buck replies. It’s a lie, but somehow Buck doubts Maddie and Chimney would mind it being just them. “What’s up?”

“ I, uh, I did something stupid. And I can’t call Bobby. I shouldn’t call Hen because it’s reality TV night for her and Karen, but… I can’t…”

“Where are you?”

“ A club in West Hollywood. ”

“Okay, Eddie. Text me the name, alright? I’m coming to get you.”

There’s a long pause as Eddie processes. Buck uses it to grab his jacket and keys. 

“ Are you sure? ”

“Yes. Location, man. Come on.”

“ Okay, I’m sending it. Thank you. ”

Buck checks the live location Eddie just sent him. 

“Twenty minutes,” Buck says. “See you then.”

“ Thank you ,” Eddie mumbles again. 

They end the call and Buck heads towards the door without another word. 

“Hey, Buck!” Maddie calls after him.

Buck stops and turns to look at her.

“Don’t define the relationship just for our benefit,” she smirks.

Chim laughs brightly.

“Cute,” Buck deadpans before continuing on his way. 

🔸🔸🔸

Exactly twenty-three minutes later, Buck is pulling the Jeep up to a curb in front of a nightclub in WeHo, where Eddie is pacing and biting his bottom lip. 

Buck is a little stunned to see him like this, if he’s being honest. Hair ruffled, jeans tight, tank top, uh… fitting. He looks… Well, okay. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s clearly been crying and drunk, Buck would have a lot to say and/or think about the way he looks. Instead, he just rolls down his window and calls out to him.

Eddie practically scrambles to get into the Jeep, like every second he remains standing in the cool, autumn breeze in front of this pulsing club is physically hurting him. 

“Hey,” Buck says as Eddie slams the door shut. “What’s going on?”

“Please drive,” Eddie mumbles sheepishly.

Buck waits until it's safe to pull away from the curb, then does so without stopping to ask where they’re going. He assumes Eddie’s house, but he’s also not so sure.

“I’m so sorry,” Eddie groans, dropping his head in his hands. “Jesus, Buck. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Buck says firmly. “A-are you okay?”

Eddie sighs, breath quivering a little. “I fucked up.”

“What did you do?” Buck asks gently. 

“I got some really bad news this week,” Eddie explains. “That… Well, basically, that my parents knew about Christopher, decided he probably wasn’t mine, and never told me.”

Buck hisses a sharp inhale of breath through his teeth. “ Shit. ”

So,  this sounds like the beginning of a significant venting session. Instinctively, Buck starts driving towards the freeway, headed towards a quiet stretch of park space where they can talk without Buck having to focus on traffic. 

“Thought Shannon would ruin my life and that I wouldn’t be a good father anyway. Which is especially ironic, considering how much I had to raise my little sisters.”

“I’m sorry, Eddie,” Buck whispers. 

Buck thinks that’s kind of unforgivable, but doesn’t say so. With all he’s done, who is he to say what should or should not be forgiven?

“And then… And then I kind of lost it on Shannon. I mean, she said I couldn’t see Chris, and I just… I just snapped.”

“What?” Buck demands. “You can’t see Christopher anymore?”

“No, no. I mean, maybe now. Because I freaked out. But… I mean, Shannon just… She canceled our dinner plans because she didn’t want him to meet my aunt yet.”

Buck frowns. “Uh, okay. I-I mean, that’s disappointing.”

“I yelled at her,” Eddie admits, voice quiet. “I… I really screwed up, Buck. I haven’t even been in his life two months and I already lost him.”

“Hey, whoa. You didn’t lose him. You made a mistake.”

“She said… I mean, I think it’s clear she doesn’t want to see me right now. Or, you know, to let me see Chris - my son. He’s my son, Buck. My child. And… And I didn’t know … And I spent so much time being useless .”

“Useless?” Buck asks.

“I’m not like you,” Eddie inhales. “I haven’t done anything good or noble with my life really, until I joined the LAFD. I dropped out of college. Moved to Las Vegas. Worked in casinos. Partied. Just tried to disappear, you know? And I guess I did. Because my life happened and I wasn’t there.”

Buck sighs. “Eddie, come on. You think that’s not exactly what I did? I was running away when I enlisted. It wasn’t noble at all. I did it to piss my parents off.”

Eddie blinks, eyes wet, and looks at Buck directly for the first time since getting in the Jeep.

“Really?”

“Yep. I was a stupid daredevil kid always getting hurt. One day it stopped getting me the kind of attention I wanted, so I did something I knew would give my mother an aneurysm. Jokes on me, though, because she was right. I did get shot.”

He’s never actually said that to anyone before. He’s always pretended he had a better reason. Benefits. Education. Whatever. Even to Maddie, he always lied. 

“Oh,” Eddie says. “Uh, sorry.”

“Yeah. So, hey, I get it. Being a dumb kid running away. I just ran somewhere with better propaganda.” Buck explains, bitterly. “You weren’t useless, Eddie. I’m sure you’d have done differently if you knew.”

“I would have,” Eddie whispers.

Buck arrives at the park, empty at this time of night, and turns off the Jeep. He turns to Eddie.

“So, what are you going to do?” He asks. 

“What can I do?” Eddie sighs. “I don’t have any sort of rights. I don’t even know if I’m on his birth certificate or anything. She can do what she wants.”

Buck frowns. “I-I think she wants you to know him, Eddie. She came to dinner at the fire station. She asked you to take him trick-or-treating.”

“Before I fucked up,” Eddie counters. 

“S-so you only get one chance?” Buck asks. “And, then, what? You give up?”

Eddie looks at him sideways. 

“I’m not… No,” Eddie frowns. “I’m not giving up.”

“Good,” Buck nods. “Because I know you love that kid.”

“I do,” Eddie says quietly. “I didn’t know I could, so quickly. But I do.”

“Then do what you have to do to make things better with her.” Buck shrugs. 

Eddie is quiet for nearly a minute before he speaks again.

“What if he’s better off without me? What if my parents are right?”

“He’s not. They’re not.” Buck answers easily.

“You seem pretty sure,” Eddie sighs. 

“I am,” Buck says. “I know we haven’t, uh, known each other very long. But I just know, okay? I’m sure.”

Despite the late night pick up from a club, stinking of liquor and swear, Buck has the sneaking suspicion that anyone who knows Eddie Diaz is better off for it.

iv.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Eddie says when he sees Shannon, two days later. 

She has graciously - truly, more than he deserves - agreed to meet him at the same cafe near her work where they originally met. Eddie was genuinely shocked when she replied to his text. 

“I’m sorry,” he stammers again. “I overreacted, and I was mad about everything, about this whole situation, and it’s not your fault. Shannon, God. I know it’s not your fault, and that I… I have no right to criticize what you’re doing. I just feel like everything is out of my control, and I’m… I’m sorry .”

Shannon takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” she says calmly. “Thank you for apologizing.”

Eddie nods. “I’m not… Well, I don’t want to be that person, Shannon.”

Shannon looks at the wrought iron patio table and sighs. 

“To be fair,” she says. “I think I overreacted, too. Not to your bullshit, because that was out of bounds.”

Fair.

“But to the idea of Chris being a part of your family.” She clarifies. “I think that scares me more than is probably reasonable.”

Eddie nods. “Okay. Okay, I get that. The history there sucks. And if you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”

“But he probably is,” Shannon admits. “He was disappointed that I canceled. Said he wanted to meet his aunt. I kind of felt like a jerk.”

Oh. 

Christopher… 

Oh. 

Somehow, Eddie had thought it had only really mattered to him. 

“What can we do to make sure we’re on the same page?” Eddie asks. “All I want to do is make up for lost time, you know? But I don’t want you to feel like I’m pushing.”

Shannon nods. “It was just him and I for so long, you know? And my mom, when she was sick.”

“Right,” Eddie says quietly. 

“I’m not used to relying on anyone. I’m certainly not used to trusting anyone.”

Well, that makes sense. Eddie wouldn’t either, in her position, he thinks. Trust would be incredibly hard to win, if he was her. 

“What can I do?” He asks. “What can I do to prove to you that I’m serious about this?”

“I know you’re serious,” she assures him. “I know that. It’s just… It’s hard for me, you know? I think, well I think you and I will both probably make mistakes.”

Eddie nods. “Guaranteed I will.” 

“I’m trying to put Christopher before my own anxiety, okay?” She says. “And maybe… I know it sucks, but maybe you can just be patient with me.” 

Eddie nods. “You deserve a lot more than just my patience, Shannon. And-and I want you to know, you don’t ever have to worry about any sort of, uh, legal fight. I realize that’s what it sounded like, on the phone. But Jesus, I wouldn’t do that, okay?”

She exhales. “Okay. Thank you.”

“But, uh, we can move forward?” 

Shannon nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we can.”

Eddie smiles. “Thank you.”

She offers him a sheepish grin. “I’m sure if we were seven years into this together, we’d have our shit together by now. It’s an adjustment period, right?”

That sounds about right. 

“Definitely.” Eddie agrees. “And I’m just grateful for the chance, you know?”

She nods. 

“I’m grateful he’s going to have you, too, Eddie.” 

Chapter Text

i.

The end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 are marked by babysteps in what seems like three main areas, to Buck. 

Maddie and Chimney officially become a couple, after weeks of quiet non-date dates; a huge step for Maddie, actually, all things considered. When Chim went to the effort of making Christmas beautiful for her, Maddie was sunk. Buck hopes she finally gets exactly the kind of partner she deserves. 

Buck and Eddie become even closer. Casual hangouts turn into routine, and before long, there’s hardly a week they don’t spend at least one evening together, and his grandmother has insisted Buck call her Abuela, too. Buck has the sneaking suspicion he has a best friend, and it kind of terrifies him. 

Because Buck is spending so much time with Eddie, he also is privy to the fact that Eddie is slowly becoming more and more entwined in Christopher’s life. Eddie spent Christmas with them, and Eddie sees him as much as he can. Buck thinks he must call the kid at least once a day. Things with Shannon haven’t seemed to hit another snag since November. 

Somehow, the latter two areas seem to end with Buck getting to see Christopher on occasion. The overlap happens sparsely, at first, then more and more often. 

At first, Buck is surprised. Surprised, and honestly, on edge. He had figured, once Eddie knew the truth about him, that he’d probably keep those two parts of his life separate. His friend, the killer, and his son, the innocent child. If Shannon found out, would it hurt Eddie’s efforts to get more time with Chris?

“Are you sure you want me around him?” Buck even came out and asked, the second time he popped over one evening to find Christopher wasn’t leaving for another hour. 

“Why the hell wouldn’t I?” Eddie had replied. “You and the rest of the team are my family as much as anyone.”

“Yeah, b-but, Eddie, my past-”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Eddie had cut him off promptly. 

And that was that. 

In hindsight, Buck is very glad. If Eddie hadn’t been so unbelievably understanding, so full of grace in the way he sees Buck, Buck would have missed what might be the most miraculous of Sundays in early March with Eddie and Chris at the Los Angeles Zoo.

🔹🔹🔹

Christopher turned eight a little over a month ago. 

He had a small party with some school friends, cake, and presents. Eddie had taken him out for breakfast to a pancake place. It hadn’t felt like enough. So Eddie, in what he realizes is a desperate and guilty plan that he only dares tell Buck about, has decided to give Christopher eight birthday-worthy outings before his next birthday. So far, they’ve done the science center and the aquarium, and even though Eddie’s wallet is slightly hurting, every second has been worth it. 

Today, they’re at the zoo. 

Eddie invited Buck to come along, because he knows Buck likes to watch nature documentaries in his spare time and gets a big, gooey-eyed look about several different species of mammals, from lemurs to elephants. So it only seemed right. Plus, over the past few months, Buck has become important to him. Christopher is important to him. Eddie wants them both around. 

A little bit after lunch, the three of them are hanging out around the sloth exhibit, which is actually as fun as watching paint dry, considering the sloth is static somewhere, out of sight. They’re more or less just waiting, looking at leaves. Eddie would move on, but Christopher is insistent that they see a sloth. 

“They’re so cute!” Christopher reasons. “ Please, Eddie. Can we wait a little longer?”

Hard to argue with that, when Eddie is looking at the cutest tiny person in all of existence.

So they wait for the damn sloth. Eddie genuinely cannot imagine a less interesting animal.

Christopher is leaning against the railing of the enclosure while Buck and Eddie hang back a bit, chatting, and trying to ignore the fact that they may be stuck here for seventy-five years, waiting inspiration to strike earth’s slowest fucking creature to move its ass. 

“Did you know,” Buck says quietly. “Sloths the size of, like, elephants existed eight thousand years ago?”

Eddie frowns at him. “Ginormous sloths?”

“Yeah,” Buck confirms.

“You’re full of it.”

“Am not!” Buck protests. 

“That doesn’t even make any sense. How would they hang from trees?” 

“I-I don’t know that they did?” 

“Well, what else does a sloth do, Buck?”

“I don’t know! Walked around South America and looked cool as hell?”

Eddie opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by the sound of Christopher gasping. 

“DAD!” He shouts. “DAD! The sloth came out!”

Eddie freezes. 

Dad. 

Dad? 

Did Christopher just call him Dad ?

Eddie looks at Buck, whose wide-eyed, giddy expression confirms that he hasn’t been imagining things. 

“Did he?” Eddie whispers.

Buck nods. “Go see the sloth, Dad .”

Right, right. 

Eddie rushes forward, putting a hand on Christopher’s back and crouching beside him.

“Where is it?” He asks, voice shaky.

Christopher points up in the canopy, where, indeed, a noodly-armed fuzzy creature the color of dead grass is meandering, quite slowly, upside down along a branch. Eddie’s not sure if cute is the right word, so much as funny-looking, despite what Christopher and Buck both seem to think. 

“He’s adorable ,” Christopher proclaims emphatically, leaning back against Eddie in a light, snuggly sort of way that makes Eddie’s heart melt. 

“Yeah,’ Eddie says, not looking at the sloth at all. “He really, really is.”

🔸🔸🔸

“He called me Dad,” Eddie says after they drop Christopher off at his mom’s.

Buck volunteered to play driver today, picking them both up and dropping them both off. Eddie recently confided that he hates city driving, has never really been a fan of driving since an incident involving his dad’s prized pickup, his mother’s water breaking, and crashing into a garage when he was just eight. So Buck offers to drive when he can. He’s never minded it - it keeps his mind a bit more still - and it means they get extra time to talk, compared to if they just met wherever they’re going. 

Today, for example, Buck is pretty glad he gets to be here to talk to Eddie about this.  

“He did say that,” Buck nods, trying not to grin like a sap. “More than once.”

He had, in fact, said it two more times since that first moment by the sloth exhibit. Once in the gift shop, where Eddie bought him a sloth plushie. Thank you, Dad! And once again as they pulled into the parking spot near Shannon’s. Bye, Dad! Bye, Buck! It seems to Buck like Chris had blurted it out the first time in a moment of excitement, didn’t get a bad reaction, and just rolled with it from there. Whatever his reasoning, he has obviously caused a fundamental glitch in Eddie’s brain. 

“He just said it,” Eddie continues.

“Are you okay with that?” Buck asks.

“So, so okay with it,” Eddie nods. “Just not sure where it came from.”

Buck frowns. “E-Eddie, you’ve been doing so much with him lately. That’s where it came from.”

Eddie smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

“Take the win,” Buck advises. “You’re doing a good job.”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I guess since everything with my parents, I’ve just been waiting to find out that everything is irreparably broken.”

“Hmm,” Buck considers. “I mean, that makes a lot of sense. You lost time that you won’t get back.”

Eddie nods, looking at the footwell of the Jeep.

“Yep.”

“But, hey, there’s more time ahead than behind, right?” Buck says. “Everyone is alive and healthy.”

That isn’t always the case.

“You’re right,” Eddie says. “I’ve got pretty much a whole lifetime left with a kid who just called me Dad.”

“Exactly,” Buck smiles. “A-and, for what it’s worth, I think you’ve been making the most of it.”

“Thanks,” Eddie smiles. “I guess he thinks so, too, right?”

“Sure seems like it.” Buck agrees. “You’re almost as cool as a two-toed sloth.”

Eddie laughs. “Truly something to aspire to, huh?”

“Oh yeah. Can’t beat an animal that only pees once a week.”

“How do you know this shit, Buck?”

“I don’t know,” Buck shrugs. “Stuff enters my brain and gets stuck there.”

After Buck drops Eddie off, he makes his way back home feeling pretty good. Life has been gentle lately. Gentle and warm. It’s enough to make him forget who he is. 

When he steps into the apartment, it’s immediately clear something is wrong. Maddie’s “angry cleaning” playlist - not what she calls it, but what he has uncharitably labeled it - is blasting at volumes the neighbors may complain about. Buck can hear clanging and upheaval in the kitchen. 

He walks towards the source of the calamity, only to find Maddie unloading the dishwasher, stormy look on her face. The floors and countertops are sparkling. Ah yes. She is towards the end of a good old rage clean. 

Buck hits the pause button on the Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen table. 

Maddie whirls on him. “Evan, what the hell?”

Shit. She’s even got a mascara smudge under her eyes. 

“As much as I love being greeted by Alanis Morrissette, I don’t want a noise complaint,” Buck says. “What happened?”

Maddie takes a deep, long-suffering inhale. “Nothing. Chimney and I just had a disagreement.”

Buck feels a chill down his spine. 

“What did he do? Maddie, I swear-”

“Nothing,” she cuts him off. “He didn’t do anything.”

Buck’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t reply. 

“I mean it.” She insists. “It all just a discussion. Which he didn’t like, and he ended up going home sooner than we’d planned on, and I’m just frustrated, okay?”

“Okay,” Buck relaxes a little. “Uh, wh-what was it about?”

Another deep breath. 

“Nothing, Evan. Please don’t worry about it.”

Uh? Yeah, no. That’s not an option. 

“I’m definitely gonna worry about it, Maddie.”

“And I’m asking you not to,” she repeats. 

“Maddie-”

“I’m not talking about it!” She snaps. 

And that’s that, then. 

“Fine, then,” Buck grumbles, stomping off to his bedroom.

His jaw is tense the rest of the night, wondering if he might have been incredibly wrong about Chimney. 

ii.

Eddie floats into the station next shift, still riding the absolute high of his time with Chris and Buck at the zoo. Christopher called him Dad. It was the last thing he thought of before he fell asleep. It was the first thing he thought of when he woke up this morning. Christopher called him Dad. 

“Good morning!” He practically sings as he strides into the station. 

He has arrived third. Buck and Chim are in the locker room, but there’s no sign of Hen. The moment Eddie steps into the glass-walled room, his good mood is immediately dampened. There’s something frigid in the air. 

Eddie stops short mid-step, pausing to look at his two friends. 

Chim is lacing up his boots, back turned to Buck, chewing his gum loudly. Buck is shoving his bag in his locker, making quite the cacophony, scowling. 

Fuck. 

“What’s going on?” Eddie asks. 

“Absolutely nothing,” Chimney answers quickly.

Buck closes the locker door a little forcefully. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, like a liar. 

Eddie tilts his head to the side. “Really?”

“Really, Eddie,” Chim replies, tone terse. 

Alrighty then.

Fucking buzz kills. 

But Buck had been in a good mood yesterday, hadn’t he? When he dropped Eddie off, he’d seemed pretty happy. So what the fuck happened?

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie doesn’t find out anytime soon. 

The station is otherwise occupied by a class full of schoolchildren - including Athena’s son, Harry - visiting for a field trip. Which, as it turns out, is kind of Bobby’s jam. He probably would make a great teacher in another life. Buck and Eddie stand in front of the class with him, in full turnouts, like man-sized action figures, ready to demonstrate whatever Bobby has in mind. Buck seems a bit lighter around the kids, kind and warm as ever, but Eddie can still see the underlying tension beneath his facade. 

Eddie doesn’t find out after the kids leave, either. 

A massive service outage at the L.A. Metro Dispatch means the 118 is put in Tactical Emergency Mode; meaning they don’t get to wait at the station between calls, they get to drive around the city, looking for emergencies that might not have been properly reported due to the 9-1-1 being down. 

“Hey, Cap, you ever seen a breakdown like this before?” Eddie asks as they’re driving around a suburban neighborhood. Mostly, he’s just talking to get rid of the awkward silence still roaring between Chim and Buck.

“Once in Saint Paul,” Bobby answers. “Blizzard took out the power grid around the call center and backup generator.”

“I’ve been through, like, three of these,” Hen says. She’s been looking between Chim and Buck, too, and Eddie can tell she’s feeling the frost as well. “I’m surprised they don’t happen more often, the way the city funds us.”

Chim makes a small grunting sound of agreement. Wow. Feeling chatty today.

“Department’s held together by chewing gum and spit,” Hen continues.

“Ah, I don’t know,” Buck says quietly. “I like these old trucks.”

“Uh huh,” Eddie shoots him a funny look for the strange sentimentality. “I like ‘em when they run.”

And run the engine does, today. Nonstop, that is. It’s the kind of shift that feels like two or three packed into one. And at no point during it do Buck and Chim exchange anything more than the necessary words it takes to do their jobs. 

🔹🔹🔹

The call with the mother who dies for several minutes after a complicated birth in the lobby of her apartment building leaves Eddie a little rattled. 

As the least qualified medic, Eddie is left holding the tiny, perfect baby as Hen, Chim, and Buck work to save his unresponsive mother. He feels panicked the whole time, and it’s not from the usual adrenaline and urgency of a rescue. It’s genuine fear.

What if she dies? What if this mother dies before she has any chance of really being the little boy’s mom? What if it’s just over for her and this kid grows up without one of his parents?

What happens then?

He passes the baby off to his father and tries to keep himself from shaking. 

He’s seen parents die on calls. He’s seen kids die on calls. He’s seen people snatched away from their loved ones swiftly and brutally. That’s the job. That’s life. Eddie knows that. 

Why is it fucking with him so profoundly today?

Even after they get the mother back by laying the baby on her chest, and comfort Hen, who is in shambles, Eddie feels entirely off-kilter. 

His brain bounces back and forth from the image of the temporarily lifeless woman, the newborn baby, and Christopher, grinning at the zoo, calling him Dad. 

🔸🔸🔸

Of all people, it’s Shannon that lets the 118 know about the residential explosions in Doheny Park. They’re sitting in the engine, crossing Robertson for what feels like the three hundred and twentieth time, when Eddie’s phone rings. 

“Hey, Shannon,” Eddie answers quickly. “Everything okay?”

“ ...watching the news… ” Buck can hear her voice, muffled, through his phone. “ ...on fire, but there’s… firefighters anywhere!”

“Wait, what?” Eddie asks.

Shannon repeats herself, and Buck hears the name Doheny, but not much else. 

Eddie looks alarmed. 

“Hey, Cap!” He calls. “Doheny Park is going up in flames! Shannon’s watching it on the news but LAFD isn’t there. We’re close, right?”

“Close enough,” Bobby confirms. “Let’s do it.”

It’s a good thing Shannon was watching the news. 

It’s a cute little cul de sac, the type Buck might have dreamed of ending up on with someone, once upon a time. Except, in his dreams, gas mains weren’t exploding and houses weren’t on fire. The sedan crashed into a fire hydrant was also never a feature. 

Word from Dispatch says they’re going to be on their own for fifteen minutes or so, which is a problem with so many emergencies all happening at once. Thankfully, Buck isn’t the one having to choose who to save first. Not today. 

The moment they get out of the engine, a father is running up to them, begging them to save his son, who is trapped on the second story of one of the burning buildings. Eddie spots the kid in the window, and Bobby instructs Buck to use the ladder engine to reach him. The house is far too volatile to go inside otherwise.

“Hydrant’s gone,” Eddie informs cap. “Only water we’ve got is in the truck, it’s not even enough to put out one house!”

“Okay,” Bobby nods gravely. “Keep trying Dispatch. The gas company needs to shut down Doheny Park. I want a two-mile radius around Lambourne Place.”

As he gets ready, Buck spots Chim on his phone, making a call to only god knows who. Really? Is this the time for personal calls? Buck shoots him an unimpressed look. Chim doesn’t seem to pick up on it. 

“Tommy,” he hears Chim say before he makes his way up the ladder. “You still with the 217?”

As Buck ascends the rising engine ladder, the child trapped in the house screams for help through a broken window. His face is covered in soot and he’s coughing badly enough for Buck to worry about significant smoke inhalation. He’s running out of time. 

The ladder is fully extended, and Buck is reaching out his arms for the child, when the metal beneath his feet gives a concerning groan. Before he even has a chance to think too hard about it, there’s a snapping sound, and Buck is dropped like a ragdoll from the air. 

He hears Bobby shouting for him as he manages to grab one of the metal rungs, leaving him dangling uselessly well over the ground. 

Buck dangles for a second. Eddie looks at him, anxiety in his expression. Then he looks back at the house, up at the window where the boy is once again trapped and alone. Buck sees a look in Eddie’s eyes that he hasn’t quite seen before, but is a millisecond late to interpret it. By the time he lets himself drop to the ground, where Bobby is waiting to ensure he’s not hurt, Eddie has taken off. 

“E-Eddie!” Buck calls after him, ignoring the ache in the leg where he was once shot, complaining of his several foot drop. “Eddie!”

But he’s not listening. Eddie climbs the drain pipe of the house like a cat scurrying up a tree. 

“Eddie, what are you doing?”

The building isn’t going to survive this fire based on their inability to extinguish it in any meaningful amount of time, and the gas isn’t off yet. Eddie’s going to get himself killed. 

He manages to climbs all the way to the roof of the house and pull himself up onto the shingled slope. Which, you know, could collapse at any moment. 

Bobby, watching Eddie with what must be an identical expression of concern to Buck, sighs heavily. 

“Just like the damn plane,” he grumbles.

Buck has no idea what that means.

🔹🔹🔹

By the time Eddie hunkers down the now unconscious little boy in the tub, shielding him with his body, while LAFD air support dumps what feels like the entirety of Echo Lake on his back, he realizes what he’s done. He’s almost gotten himself killed. 

There hadn’t been much of a choice in the moment, had there? It’s a little boy, not much older than Christopher, who needed drastic intervention or he wasn’t going to survive. Eddie hadn’t been thinking of his own mortality. He’d been thinking about the kid. But he could have died. They both could have died. 

And then…

Jesus. 

He’s trying to keep it together as he carries the child out of the house to safety. He’s trying not to show how close of a call it was to the terrified father and sister waiting for him. 

“What’s up with the Spider-Man routine?” Buck asks him, and Eddie hardly has the presence of mind to process what he’s saying. He can vaguely feel Bobby lay a hand on his shoulder.

Eddie looks at him, eyes wide, face tight with panic, revealing in an instant how close he is to falling apart. 

“Eddie?” Bobby asks.

“W-whoa, hey, you okay?” Buck frowns, expression full of concern.

Eddie shakes his head, jaw locked. 

“O-okay,” Buck replies. “Okay, what’s wrong?” 

Eddie takes a big shuddering breath, trying to reach for words, but coming up short.

“You hurt?” Bobby asks, looking him over. 

Eddie shakes his head again. 

“Okay, take a breather,” Bobby says. “We’ll be here for a while for clean up.”

Eddie nods.

“Buck, stay with him. Keep your eyes on him.”

“Got it, Cap,” Buck says. 

Bobby gives Eddie’s shoulder a small, reassuring pat, and walks off to check on the child, who is under Hen and Chim’s care. 

“Eddie, what’s going on?” Buck asks.

“I could have died,” Eddie mumbles.

“Uh, yeah. No shit. You kind of went rogue.”

“I’ve never… I mean, I know what we do, right? But it’s never…”

“What?” Buck scrunches his eyebrows. 

“It didn’t seem like it mattered so much,” Eddie admits. 

Buck blinks, expression stilling. 

“I never worried about it,” Eddie shrugs. “I mean, there was one close call when a plane went down off the coast… But… Buck, I never thought about what it meant.”

Buck’s eyes scan the ground for a moment before finding Eddie’s again. He looks troubled, but Eddie’s mind is too scattered to think much of it.

“Wh-what does it mean?” Buck asks quietly.

“I… I can’t do that to Christopher,” Eddie says, processing this thought at the same time as speaking it. “I can’t traumatize him like that.”

Buck takes a moment to think before replying. 

“It’s not just you that you have to think about anymore,” Buck agrees. 

Eddie nods. “Exactly. Yeah. I… I don’t know what to do with that, I guess. Because… Because I had to save that kid, too.”

“That’s the job,” Buck rasps.

“Sorry,” Eddie takes a deep breath. “I don’t know why that hit me so hard.”

Buck sighs. “Believe me, man. Chris isn’t the only person it would fuck up if you died. So careful with the badass hero stuff, okay?”

Eddie tries to imagine what it would be like for him if anyone else on the 118 dies and gives an involuntary shudder.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

Buck offers him a subdued smile. “You okay?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Good,” Buck claps him on the back.

“Uh, hey, what happened with you and Chim, though?” Eddie asks. 

Buck’s eyes darken. He looks around them, presumably checking to see if he can speak freely without being overheard.

“He and Maddie had some kind of argument,” Buck whispers. “I came home from the zoo and she was really upset, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”

“Oh,” Eddie frowns. 

If Buck doesn’t know why they argued, why is he mad at Chim? Is it impossible to think Maddie could have been an equal or responsible party in the upset? But then he remembers what he knows about Buck, what he read in that article about Buck, and thinks how an unexplained argument and an upset sister might look to him.

“So your mind jumped to the worst case scenario,” Eddie says gently.

Buck exhales heavily.

“Pretty much.”

“I don’t think he’d ever do anything like that, okay?” Eddie says. “He’s… He’s the opposite kind of person to that, Buck.”

“Th-then why won’t she tell me what’s going on?” Buck asks.

“I don’t know,” Eddie shrugs. “Maybe it’s private? Embarrassing?”

Buck goes a bit pink. “Oh.”

“I don’t think you have a reason not to trust either of them.” Eddie adds. “Based on what you’re telling me.”

Buck sighs. “Logically, I know you’re probably right.”

“Maybe trust me and Maddie about Chim, okay?” Eddie suggests.

Buck gives him a funny look at this, thinking for a second before he responds.

“Okay,” he finally nods, voice tight. “I can do that.”

🔸🔸🔸

It’s sometime near midnight when Buck hears it. 

They get home late, and the LAFD sends Marty, a mechanic, to take a look at the broken ladder truck. By the time everyone is getting ready for a much deserved rest - with Bobby promising to take them offline for two hours minimum - Buck is dead tired. He knows he’s been standoffish and rude to Chimney today, and in keeping with the decision to trust not only Maddie, but Eddie, too, figures he should apologize. 

He leaves the bathrooms after brushing his teeth, headed to the living area, where he knows Hen and Chim are hanging out on the couch, firehouse loft otherwise empty. He stops short in the hallway, just out of sight, when he hears their conversation. 

“-haven’t spoken to her since,” Chim is saying. 

“You think she’s hiding something?” Hen asks. 

“Yeah, I mean, I know she is.” Chim replies.

Buck’s chest storms with rage.

“She fully won’t tell me so much about her life, Hen. She flat out refuses to answer questions.” Chim continues. “I know she’s a widow. I know she had to leave Pennsylvania pretty quickly. I know losing her husband was hard on her. But I don’t know any other details.”

“Hmm,” Hen processes. “I mean, maybe it was traumatic and she doesn’t want to rehash it?”

“And then, the other day when we got into it, I made a comment about wondering if Buck was as cagey as her about the past, and she bit my head off. Like, if I ask him anything about it, it’s over for us.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

Buck is the problem.

Buck is the thing that’s going to ruin the first good thing Maddie’s had in her life since  

“Wow,” Hen exhales. 

“And now he’s obviously pissed, too,” Chim sighs. 

“He’s trying to protect his sister,” Hen reasons. “I guess I can understand that, from an only child-type imaginary perspective.”

No.

Maddie is trying to protect him. 

Shit. 

“I really like her, Hen,” Chim says. “I mean, I think I could love her. Really.”

“That’s big, Chim.”

“But I can’t have a relationship with someone who’s only existed for a year and a half.” Chim sighs. “Or with someone who doesn’t trust me.”

And this was why Maddie didn’t tell Buck, he realizes. Because she wants to tell Chim. She does trust him. But Buck has made his preferences clear. 

Fuck.

He’s going to ruin Maddie’s life again. 

iii.

In the end, it’s an easier decision than he ever thought it would be. 

If it was just him, if he had come to this city alone, he would probably never say a thing. He didn’t choose to tell Eddie and Bobby. He wouldn’t have. They found out. But Maddie is here with him and she deserves a future, and if his secret needs to come out for that to happen, then who the hell is he to be the gatekeeper to her happiness?

Buck killed for Maddie, once. 

He can be brave for her, now. 

He finds them a little bit before their shift ends, drinking coffee around the breakfast table. Hen and Chim. Eddie is in the kitchen, rinsing his mug. Bobby is elsewhere, doing paperwork probably.

“Can I talk to you, Chim?” Buck asks, approaching them.

Hen and Eddie freeze, curiosity clearly piqued. 

Chim takes a deep breath. 

“Uh, sure. Let’s go to the roof or something?” Chim suggests.

“A-actually,” Buck says. “Hen should probably hear this. It’s, uh, well… Eddie and Bobby already know, but the two of you should, too.”

Eddie drops his coffee cup loudly in the sink. 

“Buck, you don’t have to,” he says.

“I-I do, though,” Buck replies. 

He can’t back out now.

“Okay,” Hen says. “What’s up, Buck?”

“I heard you guys talking last night,” Buck says, taking a seat across from them. 

Chim pales a little. “I, uh… I didn’t mean for you to.”

“I know,” Buck assures him. “But you got something wrong.”

Chim raises an eyebrow. 

“I’m not protecting Maddie,” Buck sighs. “She’s protecting me.”

Chim’s face stills as he processes.

“What do you mean by that, Buck?” Hen asks.

Eddie crosses the kitchen and sits perpendicular to Buck, looking at him with big, concerned eyes. 

“When I got back from Afghanistan,” Buck starts, voice raspy. “I, uh, I was badly injured. Shot. Needed a lot of physical therapy. So, uh, I had to go back to my hometown. Hershey. Where Maddie was living with her husband, Doug. I hadn’t seen much of them in half a decade, you know? I-I… Well, I didn’t know as much about their marriage as I should have, if I’d been around.”

Chim’s expression tightens.

“A-and, it’s not my story to tell. Not all of it.” Buck reasons. “B-but, the important thing for you to know, i-is that one night, I’d had an argument with our parents, I went over to their house to get out, and… And what I found… I mean, I-I thought he was going to kill her.”

Eddie exhales heavily.

Chim’s lip twitches. 

Hen frowns, like it pains her to hear.

“I got him off her,” Buck says. “But there was a chair he’d broken over… Anyway. He fell and… The angle was wrong, I guess, and I-I was getting my strength back, and…”

“It’s okay,” Eddie whispers. “They get the picture.”

Buck nods. 

“He died,” Chim says.

“I killed him,” Buck replies. 

“To save Maddie,” Hen adds.

“Yeah,” Buck nods. “To save Maddie.”

“What…” Chim starts, but trails off, overwhelmed. “I mean… What happened ?”

“It’s a long story.” Buck admits.

Hen reaches across the table and squeezes his hand.

“I’m listening, if you want to tell it.”

Chapter Text

i.

“You’re sure about this?” Shannon asks one afternoon in the middle of April, standing on the front porch of Eddie’s place. Well. Abuela’s place. Eddie’s legal residence. 

Christopher has already taken his bag inside, and is chatting with Abuela in the kitchen.

“A little too late to change my mind,” Eddie says. “But, don’t worry, Shan. We’re going to have a good time.”

“I know,” she exhales. “I know and I trust you and I am very thankful.”

Two weeks ago, Eddie had stayed at Shannon’s for a glass of wine and a chat after dropping Chris off from one of their visits. What has resulted was more or less a venting session from Shannon - who apparently cannot handle her liquor - about life and work and finances, and how the former is always impacting the latter. When she told him about an extra certification course in San Diego that would make her eligible for a decent pay bump, but that she couldn’t go to because it was three nights away from Chris, Eddie had jumped at the opportunity to make himself available. Plus, it lined up perfectly with a four-off. 

“Go get certified or whatever,” Eddie tells her, raising a hand to his heart. “I promise to feed him something other than sugar while you’re gone.” 

She smiles. “Well, it’s your funeral if you don’t.”

“Chris,” Eddie calls back into the house. “Come say goodbye to your mom!”

Shannon takes a deep breath.

“We’ve got this,” Eddie reassures her again.

“I know you do.”

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie would be lying if he said the extended visit with Chris goes as smoothly as he had imagined. 

The first night is pretty good, more like a fun sleepover than anything else. Abuela dotes on Chris. Eddie lets him play video games maybe a bit later than he should. Everyone is having a good time. A lot of popcorn is consumed. 

Unfortunately, this has its consequences the second day. Chris is a bit cranky, and doesn’t want to listen to basic instructions like time to get dressed or leave for school, and Eddie realizes he has in fact already fucked up when Chris comes home from school still grumpy and tired. This whole time he’s had the luxury of being a buddy for Chris, a father for a few hours at the zoo or the movies or going out for ice cream. He hasn’t ever just parented. He’s seen Christopher as a sunshiney, easygoing kid, and for the most part, he is, but he’s still a kid.

And if Eddie learned anything from endless mornings helping get his sisters ready for school, scrubbing juice from the living room carpet, and burning food on the stovetop, it’s that as much as you might love a kid, they’re a-fucking- lot. 

So, he thinks as he reads Christopher a book before bedtime on the second night, maybe Eddie has been approaching this all wrong. 

Then again, it’s not like he’s the sole decision maker in how he gets brought into his son’s life. Shannon has been in charge of that initiative, at the end of the day. But has it been this for her? Eddie getting to go out and have fun with him, time after time, and then her getting to do all the hard work with an exhausted little kid after? Still the person fiscally responsible for everything. It hardly seems fair to her. 

But then, as they’re both sprawled out on the bed in Abuela’s guest room, night light still plugged in from the first time he stayed, halfway through some book about a shy dinosaur, and Christopher cuddles his little body into Eddie’s side and yawns, Eddie realizes what he misses, too, being just the ‘fun dad.’ Eddie allows himself the small indulgence of something he doesn’t quite have yet; he tucks an arm around Christopher and pushes his curls off his forehead. Christopher’s eyes flutter closed, body relaxing against Eddie’s. Eddie closes the book and rests it on the nightstand, then with his newly freed hand, reaches to remove Christopher’s glasses.

“‘Night, Dad,” Chris slurs sleepily. 

Eddie feels so inexplicably like some missing piece of him has been recovered that he takes a terrifying risk.

“Goodnight, Chris,” he whispers. “I love you.”

Christopher replies without missing a beat, voice sleepy but clear. 

“Love you too.”

ii.

It’s not that the bank vault call itself is hard for Buck. 

Well, okay. It’s not easy. It’s tense, and they don’t know exactly what they’re dealing with regarding the potential nerve agent, and they can’t get into the vault, and Hen is trapped, and… Yeah, it fucking sucks. 

Not that Buck is nearly as freaked out as Eddie and Chim. Working side by side with Eddie. Buck worries the guy might drive the fire engine into the wall of the bank if that’s what it takes to get his friend out. Well, not just his friend. Buck’s friend, too. Especially since she and Chim heard the truth of him, and didn’t flinch. 

After telling her about Doug and the trial and having to leave Pennsylvania, Hen had given his hand a warm squeeze and told him she was sorry he’d been through all of that, but it absolutely wasn’t getting him out of dish duty any time soon. The unexpected laughter that had drawn out of Buck had been a delight and a comfort. Bobby was right. Maddie was right. Neither Hen or Chim had a word of judgment against him, at least to his face. Chim had talked to Maddie that day, and they’re back on track. 

So, basically, the point is, Buck really doesn’t want to lose anyone from another team more generally. But in particular, the thought of Hen dying of some horrible nerve agent, alone in a vault where they can’t reach her? That’s especially sickening. And when they finally get to her, and Hen survives, his relief is near overwhelming.

He knows, all too well, sometimes you can’t save everyone. 

🔸🔸🔸

It’s not the bank vault call itself, but what happens afterwards, that’s hard for Buck. Maybe he’s playing it down, just a little. Maybe it’s a little more than hard. 

“So that might be the weirdest day I’ve had since joining the LAFD,” Eddie observes as they return to the station, sans Hen, who has been taken to the hospital. “And we have a a few.”

“Seriously,” Buck agrees, feeling tired. “It was like a bank robbery with no robbers.”

As if the mention of a crime leaving his lips summons them, it it at that exact moment, standing with Eddie, Chim, and Bobby, that what feels like an armada of police cruisers, lights and sirens flashing, pull up in front of the station. 

Buck’s blood freezes in his veins. 

They work with the police day in and day out, but there’s something about seeing the bright lights and hearing the pitchy wail of the sirens right out front of the place that is beginning to feel like home…

Evan, oh my god. 

He hears it again.

He’s always hearing it. Just not usually when he’s at work.

Oh my god, he’s dead.

Buck swallows.

“ Step away from the vehicle, ” a suited detective says through a megaphone speaker, climbing out of his discreetly labeled car.

No sudden movements, son. Just walk away from the body and from your sister, nice and slow. 

I didn’t- I didn’t mean…

Evan, stop talking. 

“Can I help you, Detective?” Bobby asks as they all comply, stepping forward, away from the fire engine.

Buck has gone rigid. Eddie watches him with big, worried eyes. 

“You and your people just stay where we can see you, Captain?”

Sir, I’m going to need you to put your hands behind your back. 

The detective, followed by several officers, flood the station, all keenly focused on the ladder truck. Buck’s breathing becomes labored. The officers, in nitrile gloves, open up one of the storage compartments at the bottom of the engine. They grab several gear bags, throw them on the ground, and begin unzipping.

“Excuse me,” Bobby demands, hands on his hips. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

Buck looks at him, wide-eyed, and shakes his head. 

Evan, just do what they say, okay? It’s going to be okay. 

Bobby should just be quiet. Bobby should just shut up. Don’t make demands. 

“Buck…” Eddie whispers, laying a hand on Buck’s forearm. 

Buck flinches.

Eddie pulls away. 

One of the officers lifts up a gear bag, flips it upside down, and shakes. From inside it, dozens of tightly wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills come spilling out onto the concrete station floor. 

Buck’s vision blurs. He feels clammy.

The detective looks at Bobby. 

“Maybe you can tell me.” 

🔹🔹🔹

“I have no idea how that money got into the engine and neither does anyone on my team,” Bobby says, with admirable calm confidence. 

And, as far as Eddie is concerned, it’s true. He has no fucking clue what’s going on, but one thing is for sure; he isn’t involved, and he knows Bobby, Chim, and Buck wouldn’t be, either. They’ve been set up. That’s the only explanation. Only, who the hell would do that? And is Eddie the only person seeing how freaked out Buck is right now?

“We’re going to need you all to come down for questioning,” the detective tells them. “And this firehouse is officially a crime scene.”

“Of course,” Bobby nods. “We’ll cooperate. I need to take the station offline so we don’t get any calls.”

“Officer Frye will accompany you,” the detective nods at one of his more junior colleagues. 

As Bobby and Officer Frye walk off towards the stairs, Eddie hears the choking, rising sound of Buck’s panicked breathing. Chim and Eddie look at Buck, then at each other, then back at Buck. Chim must be connecting the dots in his mind. 

“Hey, Buck, man,” Chim says, stepping closer, but not so close as to crowd him. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Buck makes eye contact with Chim, but there’s a frazzled, distant look on his face - pupils the size of pin pricks - that has Eddie thinking he’s not exactly present. 

“Look at me,” Chim says, modeling steady breathing for Buck. “You didn’t do anything wrong. None of us did. So it’s going to be okay.”

Eddie wonders if he heard that last time, though. If he can even believe it.

“Hey,” an officer calls out, approaching them. “You shouldn’t be talking to each other.”

Eddie steps forward, putting his body in the space between the officer and Chim and Buck.

“Hey, come on, man,” Eddie says. “He’s having a panic attack. Have a little decency.”

“I don’t really care,” the officer says. “This is an active investigation, and you three can’t be conspiring.”

“We’re not conspiring!” Eddie scoffs. “We’re helping our friend!”

The officer gives Eddie an unimpressed look, eyes flicking down to his name tag. “That could be the same thing, Firefighter Diaz.”

“Eddie,” Bobby calls down from the top of the mezzanine, obviously having noticed the scene below. “Stop.”

Eddie roils with frustration.

“But, Buck-”

“You’re not helping him or you right now,” Bobby warns. 

The detective walks up the ruckus, annoyed expression on his face. 

“Someone will supervise three of you changing from your uniforms, which you will hand over for evidence,” he says. “Then we’ll all go down to the station to chat. Sound good?”

No, it doesn’t fucking sound good.

Eddie turns to look at Buck.

“ Please ,” Buck whispers at him, eyes begging him not to make this any harder than it needs to be.

Eddie exhales. 

“Sounds peachy,” he grumbles. 

iii.

It’s after midnight by the time they actually talk to Buck. But he’s not surprised by the wait. They did this last time, too. Make you spin. Delay things. Keep you desperate. He knows, he knows, he knows. 

It’s just a trick, he reminds himself on loop. You didn’t even do anything this time and you know that. 

But maybe he’s destined to wind up in jail, no matter what he has or hasn’t done. 

The detectives who eventually question him are called Wash and Mercer. Their last names, anyway. 

“Three hundred thousand dollars hidden on the 118 ladder truck,” Mercer, a woman with coppery hair and an airy voice, begins the interrogation. 

“Any idea how it got there?” Wash, the older detective who’d been at the station, adds.

“No,” Buck answers. “I’d like a lawyer.”

“You’re not under arrest, Mr. Buckley,” Mercer reminds him. “We’re just asking questions.”

“You’re familiar with the process, aren’t you?” Wash goads him. 

“I’d still like a lawyer,” Buck replies. 

“Funny,” Wash says. “We thought you’d be up to your ears in legal debt, all things considered.”

“But that’s something three hundred thousand dollars can fix, right?” Mercer asks. 

Fuck them. Buck didn’t do this. 

“Lawyer,” Buck repeats. 

They don’t manage to ask him many questions. They promise they will be talking to him when he gets that lawyer. For the first time since basic training beat the rebellion right out of his spirit, Buck is aware that’s being intentionally petulant. But he’s also looking out for himself, isn’t he? He’s doing what he has to do.

Eddie goes in after Buck, and they aren’t allowed to say a word to each other. Buck, exhausted from the persistence of his panic, falls asleep in a plastic police station chair, waiting for him. 

🔹🔹🔹

“Why would I possibly want to rob a bank?” Eddie groans as Mercer and Wash ask him the same questions he’s certain they’ve asked Bobby, Chim, and Buck. “I don’t even pay rent. I’ve got stable income, good benefits. Life is good.”

“Hmm,” Mercer looks at Wash. “Life is good. That’s interesting.”

“Very interesting,” Wash agrees. 

“What about that is interesting?” Eddie asks, exasperated. 

As as a first responder, he tries not to have an us against them mentality about cops, but jesus sometimes they make it fucking impossible.

“Well, we looked into you, Eddie,” Wash explains. 

“Is that so?” Eddie raises an eyebrow.

“You recently reconnected with your estranged son, right?” Wash continues. “Christopher?”

Eddie tenses. 

“What does this have to do with my son?” He demands. “And we didn’t reconnect. I wasn’t some dead beat. I had no idea he existed.”

“Well, kids are expensive, aren’t they?” Mercer asks, smirking like Eddie has bit at the exact bait they’ve laid for him. 

“I guess so,” Eddie shrugs. “But they’re worth it, right?”

“So, maybe money isn’t as free-flowing as you’re telling us,” Mercer presses. “What, with back child support and whatnot. Your son has cerebral palsy, right? That can come with additional expenses.”

“His mother hasn’t asked for anything,” Eddie insists. 

This is feeling invasive and horrible, like a bug pinned beneath a magnifying glass. He realized it’s only a small fraction of what Buck must have gone through after his brother-in-law died. 

“She hasn’t?” Wash asks skeptically. 

“No!” Eddie exclaims. “You can ask her.” 

Although maybe don’t, actually, because he doesn’t love the idea of Shannon thinking he’s caught up in grand larceny or whatever felony this technically is. Not great on a parenting resume. 

“Oh, we intend to,” Mercer nods. “Shannon Dempsey, right?”

“That’s right,” Eddie answers, teeth gritted. 

“See, we actually looked into her already,” Mercer says. “Had an officer track her down, make sure she’s around in case we want to ask those questions. You know where we found her?”

“Picking Chris up from school? Working?” Eddie guesses, exhausted. 

“Leaving a lawyer’s office.”

Eddie’s expression drops. The heat of his frustration has been doused in ice water. There’s no hiding how good they’ve gotten him with this piece of information. He doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t have anything to say. 

Wash smiles.

Eddie might not have a clue what’s going on, but in the detectives’ eyes, he’s got a motive.

Shit. 

🔸🔸🔸

Chim rouses Buck not long, apparently, after Eddie’s questioning has finished. 

“Maddie’s here,” Chim says to him, voice as calm as possible.

“Wh-where?” Buck asks, tired and desperate to see her.

“They’re questioning her,” Chim explains.

“What do you mean they’re questioning her? She wasn’t there! Is this about me?”

“Buck, she took the call.”

Eddie is standing in the station, looking vaguely green. 

“This looks really bad for all of us, doesn’t it,” Buck whispers, as quietly as possible. 

“Yeah,” Eddie rasps. “It does.”

iv.

Not long after Buck started at the fire academy, there was this news story circulating that you had to be living under a rock to avoid. Even Buck, who routinely avoided the twenty-four hour news cycle, all things considered, ended up reading all about it. 

A bunch of people living in Hawaii received the following ominous message:

BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

And for forty minutes, until it was revealed to be a mistake, they all really thought they were going to die. 

That’s kind of what the few days following the vault call are like for Buck. 

Once Buck is represented by legal counsel - someone Athena trusts who won’t entirely break the bank - he is questioned and says everything he knows to be true that his lawyer, Terrence, says is okay to answer. There is some speculation about a firefighter matching Buck’s description and the armored truck driver whose partner died at the call. Buck allegedly told him to get out of the vehicle so he could go in and steal the money, but Buck didn’t do that and was in fact doing something else while this was apparently being done. He’s confused. He’s scared. And he’s somehow certain that these accusations will sink him. 

It would have been better to go to jail for killing Doug, he thinks after a confusing round of questioning. At least he actually did that, unintentionally and justified or not. That happened. Buck definitely didn’t rob the bank! He would remember something like that. 

But, the nuclear threat passes like an incorrect weather forecast, and Buck and the rest of the 118, plus Maddie and Michael Grant, are cleared. Turns out it was one of their own. Just not them. Marty, an LAFD mechanic who’d recently repaired the very ladder truck Buck had fallen from during that fire in Doheny Park. 

The threat is gone. 

But the terror in Buck’s stomach and brain persists. It still keeps him awake at night and steals the breath from his lungs when it pops up into his brain while he’s showering or doing the dishes. 

“Do you think you should talk to someone, Evan?” Maddie asks one morning, when she can see the dark rims of sleeplessness painting the skin below his eyes. 

“Talk to someone?” He echoes. “Haven’t we been talking about it?”

“I mean, maybe professionally,” Maddie says gently. “Like I had to after Doug died.”

Buck swallows. “I’ll be fine, Maddie. I-I’m just still a little shaken up, is all.”

He doesn’t want to talk. Especially not to a stranger. 

🔹🔹🔹

So Shannon is seeing a lawyer. 

They’d talked about not doing that, but apparently that isn’t her plan. If the detectives can be trusted. Which, honestly, is iffy. 

Eddie spends a lot of time thinking about it between the resolution of the bank robbery nonsense and the 118’s next shift. Between the canceled shift while they were under investigation and a four off, that’s a lot of time to stew. Time that Eddie doesn’t exactly know how to spend, because Buck has been hardly responsive to texts, and Eddie isn’t sure how to approach Shannon. He wants to see his son, but is he allowed to do that right now? Is he going to be served at a moment’s notice?

At first Eddie is angry. The torrent of ‘ why would she’ and ‘ how could she’ thoughts eat into his brain matter like termites. 

Then he’s scared. The months’ old panic of losing Chris, of not having any agency, reappearing in full force. 

Then, after a few days of going back and forth on it, Eddie settles into a sort of resignation.

If Shannon needs or wants child support, let her ask for it. He won’t argue. It’s the least he can fucking do. It’s his responsibility, really. If Shannon needs or wants a more formalized visitation schedule, maybe that will work in his favor, too. Maybe all it would do, in the end, is protect Christopher - ensuring he gets the resources and time he needs from both parents. What Eddie is really upset about, more than any actual legal proceedings, is the lack of communication. 

But that’s a tale as old as time here, isn’t it? No one tells him shit. He can hold that grudge against his own parents if he wants to, but holding it against Shannon is only going to get him hurt, and potentially hurt Chris, too. 

So Eddie lets it go. When he asks Shannon for time with Chris, and she readily agrees without saying a word about anything, he doesn’t bring it up. Doesn’t even hint that he knows. He picks up his kid, has a good afternoon, and tries not to think too hard about what may or may not be coming. 

v.

Bobby is suspended.

He tells them as much on the morning of their first shift back, putting Chim in charge immediately as interim captain. 

It’s a shock that rattles the entire team. Nobody saw it coming, Buck included. The bank vault investigation revealed more of Bobby’s past in Minnesota than the LAFD knew. Buck had been worried about his own shit coming to light, but he hadn’t hid it from the brass when he signed up. Bobby had. Not that, in Buck’s opinion, he should have been forced to say anything about his personal life.

And it’s not fair. None of it’s fair. Because Bobby is the last person on earth who deserves his past wielded against him. Because Buck can only imagine that he must be scared and frustrated and uncertain. But Buck doesn’t know how to help him right now, how to offer him any support, other than by reiterating that he, along with the rest of the team, are on his side. Buck doesn’t know how to help him, because Buck is always running, terrified, from his past, too.

🔹🔹🔹

On their shift on May 4th, right around lunchtime, Shannon drops by the station with Christopher. 

“This is a nice surprise,” Eddie says by way of greeting, hurrying down the station stairs to see them. 

“I hope it’s okay,” Shannon says nervously. “We were driving by on our way to a new hydrotherapy appointment, and Chris just had to stop in.”

“Of course it’s okay,” Eddie grins. “It’s great.”

Christopher rushes to hug Eddie the moment he’s close. 

“Hey, kiddo,” Eddie grins, hugging him enough to lift him off the ground, feeling like he’s won the lottery for every second of it.

“I’m glad you didn’t have a fire to be at,” Christopher says sagely.

Eddie laughs. “I’m glad, too.”

“Is Buck here?” Christopher asks as Eddie sets him down. 

“‘Course he is,” Eddie smiles. He looks back up towards the mezzanine and calls out for his friend. “HEY, BUCK!”

“I hope you know he talks about Buck all the time ,” Shannon chuckles. “If I hadn’t met the guy, I’d think he was a superhero.”

Eddie’s cheeks feel warm. 

Buck walks into view from above, expression confused until he looks down and sees Christopher. Then, his expression breaks into a sunny grin. Eddie feels an unexpected surge of relief at that smile, like the clouds clearing after a rainstorm. It’s been stormy around here since the bank robbery, and Interim Captain Han has not been lightening the mood. 

“Chris! I didn’t know you were coming to work at the 118!” Buck calls down.

“No!” Chris giggles. “I’m visiting!”

Buck slides down the fire pole - specifically to impress Chris, Eddie knows - and makes his way over to them to give Christopher a high five. 

Eddie turns back to Shannon. She’s smiling so brightly at them. Such an unadulterated, happy expression. Like it really brings her joy, too, just to see Christopher loved the way he is. And Eddie feels a momentary wash of confusion. She’s looking at Eddie like she trusts him. So why doesn’t she at least talk to him? 

“Everything good with you, Shannon?” Eddie asks carefully, not trying to betray his line of thought.

Shannon nods, some strange well of emotion hidden in her eyes. 

“Yeah, everything is great.”

Eddie looks at Chris, who is chatting happily with Buck, then back at Shannon. 

“We can’t stay long,” she continues. “I just… Well, he wanted to see you and I couldn’t say no.”

“I really appreciate it,” Eddie says quietly. “You have no idea.”

She tilts her head to the side a little, hair toppling over one shoulder.

“I think maybe I do,” she says softly. 

Eddie inhales sharply.

Despite everything, despite threat of a lawyer and the still fractured communication between them, Eddie feels a strong, unshakeable love for her. He steps forward and pulls her in for a quick hug. 

“Oh,” Shannon makes a quick, surprised noise, before returning his embrace. 

She and Christopher are gone two minutes later, but Eddie’s grateful, light mood lasts the rest of the day. 

vi.

It’s Monday, May 6th. 

It’s hot. The sun is oppressively sweltering and it’s not even quite noon. 

Eddie is looking forward to picking Chris up from school tomorrow on his day off and taking him out for ice cream. It’s been a few days since he and Shannon came to the station, and there’s still been no word on that lawyer. Maybe it was something entirely unrelated. 

Eddie is starting to feel like he can relax. 

It’s been a pretty low-key start to the shift. Only one call, to an office building, where a woman tripped on the stairs and likely fractured her ankle. It was just a med call, and Eddie hardly did a thing, as Buck and Hen took care of it. 

So when the alarm goes off again, right in the earliest parts of the lunch hour, Eddie feels pretty much ‘business as usual’ about it.

“Where we headed?” He asks Chim, hopping into the back of the engine.

Chim looks back at him and frowns, like the answer isn’t good.

“A sedan drove into a crowd of pedestrians on Rose Avenue.”

Chapter Text

i.

Chim sends Buck and Eddie to check on the driver. 

Eddie had to get used to it, at first, when he started at the LAFD. Who gets their attention, who gets prioritized, who deserves help. He’d very nearly gotten into an argument with Athena Grant over it early into his probationary year, in a call about a preemie baby flushed down a toilet. Eddie had struggled with the concept of the mother deserving as much care as the baby. But they don’t get to choose who to help, they aren’t gods, and this woman who drove into a crowd of people while texting needs their aid, now. 

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” Buck asks, taking point on checking over the driver. 

She’s young. Twenties. What a stupid, stupid thing to do. 

“I, um... I tried to stop, but I didn't see any of them.” The woman stammers. “Are they okay?”

 “We're taking care of the pedestrians,” Eddie assures her calmly. “Right now, we’re going to focus on you, make sure you're okay.” 

“Um, m-my neck hurts.” She tells them. “Oh, God.”

“Good to know,” Buck says, grabbing a c-collar from his med bag. “We're gonna put this on you as a precaution until the doctors at the hospital can check you out. Sound good?”

“Uh, okay,” she says, allowing herself to be treated. “Th-There was a lady. Is-is she all right?”

Eddie takes a step back out of the car to look across the street at the crosswalk, where Hen and Chim are treating… 

Huh.

A woman in a bright yellow top and jeans, splayed badly across the asphalt. 

She looks like…

And this isn’t from where…

“Eddie?” Buck asks from inside the car. “What’s going on?”

Eddie abandons his duties and starts walking across the street. 

“Eddie?” Buck calls again. “Eddie, h-hey, wait!”

Eddie doesn’t wait. He crosses the distance between himself and Shannon with such single-minded determination that he nearly slams into Chim. 

“Eddie, let me handle this,” Chim instructs, restraining hand placed on Eddie’s sternum.

He looks past Chim, past Hen’s devastated expression boring into him, just to confirm that this is really what he thinks. Just to confirm he’s in a nightmare, and not just a close call.

He is.

It’s Shannon.

In a collar, broken, and blinking numbly at the sky. 

“How bad is it?” Eddie asks Chim. 

“It’s bad,” Chim answers. 

“Spinal injury?” 

“Maybe worse.”

No.

No, no.

No. 

This can’t be happening.

This really can’t be happening. 

Eddie pushes past Chim and drops to his knees beside Shannon. She’s pale and hazy. She doesn’t look like she’s in pain. That’s a surefire sign it’s bad. 

“Shannon,” Eddie announces himself as he crouches over her, voice thick with emotion. “Shannon…”

“Hey.” Her eyelashes flutter open, trying to focus on his face. “Are you here?”

“I’m here,” he promises. “I-I’m here with you.”

“Oh, God,” she mutters, breathing labored. “This is so embarrassing.”

Hen looks up at Chim. “Vitals trending downward.”

After that, everything happens in a rush. A rush he’s usually a part of, moving quickly, usefully. Now he just watches, spinning, as Chim, Hen, and the others get Shannon on a backboard, and transport her to the ambulance. 

“Can I ride with her?” Eddie asks desperately. 

Chim gives him a sharp, quick nod. Eddie moves towards the ambulance. 

“She's decompensating!” Hen calls. “We got to intubate her!”

Chim looks at Eddie, face tight with anxiety.

“Eddie… Eddie, you know she’s not…”

Tears spill over from Eddie’s eyes. He nods. 

“If she has anything left to tell you about your son…” Chim continues. 

Eddie nods again. 

“Hen, wait!” Chim calls. “Do not intubate!”

“ Cap ,” Hen replies.

“I know!” He cuts her off. “He knows.”

Chim turns back to Eddie.

“Get in there and say what you need to say.”

The sounds of her monitor beeping and the sirens starting accompany Eddie as he takes Shannon’s hand, sitting beside her. His heart is pounding. His legs are shaking. Shannon is dying right in front of him. 

“I don't feel anything.” Shannon says to him. “That can't be good, right?”

Her words are followed by a horrendous gasping sound, and Eddie knows she doesn’t have much time left. 

“Shannon,” his voice shakes as he addresses her. “I… I’m so… I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what to do. No one’s ever really died on him before. His grandfather, when he was four. Tio Paco, way before he moved to Los Angeles. He’s never been this close to death and it not be just his job. 

He squeezes her hand tighter, even though he knows she can’t feel it. 

“Christopher,” Shannon says weakly. “Chris needs…”

She gasps again, thought cut off half-formed. 

“What?” Eddie begs. “What does Chris need?”

Her mouth struggles to form words. “P-please…”

“Shannon, what does Chris need?”

But he never finds out, because mere seconds later, the monitor flatlines. 

🔸🔸🔸

It’s a while before Buck sees Eddie again, and when he does, he thinks his friend looks like a ghost. He’s pale and shaky and there’s a dissociated, distant look in his eyes. 

Buck has been sitting with Hen and Chim in the hospital waiting room. There’s no news to wait for. They all know how this went. Shannon died in the ambulance. They’re really just waiting for Eddie. Waiting to be, Buck is sure, of little consolation, but unconditional support. 

When Eddie makes his way through the glass trauma center doors, into the waiting room, he’s clutching a bag of Shannon’s personal items. He looks smaller than Buck has ever seen him. Hen goes to him first, wrapping her arms around him and speaking softly. Buck stands, rigid, unsure of how to help. He knows this pain. It’s familiar to him. Only, there was never a child involved. So he can’t imagine all the extra worry and grief that must be hitting Eddie like a flood. 

Chim, too, hangs back. He looks vaguely sick. 

A moment later, Bobby is arriving. Chim must have texted him. He strides over to Eddie, who moves seamlessly from Hen’s embrace to his. Buck watches as Eddie slumps a little into Bobby, like a little kid, running scared to a parent. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” Bobby says. 

“I… I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Eddie cries. 

“What do you mean?” Hen asks gently.

“Sh-Shannon’s gone, and-and I’m going to lose Chris… And-”

“Hey, no,” Bobby pulls away from Eddie, holding him out by the shoulders. “You’re not going to lose Christopher.”

“I… We didn’t have a custody agreement, we didn’t have anything written in stone, and…”

Eddie is trembling now. 

“He’s going to lose everyone he knows,” he chokes out.

“Are you on his birth certificate?” Hen asks. 

“I don’t know,” Eddie shakes his head. 

“Does he have any other family that might want to come get him right now?” Hen asks.

“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “No… He… I’m all… I’m it.”

“Eddie,” Bobby says firmly. “You need to go pick him up from school and tell him what has happened.”

“Oh, god,” Eddie covers his mouth with his hand, like he might vomit. 

“I can drive you,” Buck offers quickly. 

Eddie nods.

“You’re going to go get him, and you have Shannon’s keys right now, so you’re going to find out what’s on his birth certificate, and you’re going to get in contact with a lawyer,” Bobby continues calmly. “If you have to get a paternity test, that’s what you’ll do. He’s your son. No one is going to take him from you.”

🔸🔸🔸

Buck watches as it all happens. He can’t really do much more than drive and watch. 

He pulls the Jeep up to the curb of the school kiss-and-ride, just like he did on the night of the earthquake. Everything feels so impossibly different now. 

“Do you want me to come in with you?” Buck asks gently.

Eddie shakes his head.

“I should do this alone.”

So Buck puts the vehicle in park and waits. 

Eddie gets out of the Jeep passenger side and trudges towards the school entrance with his hands in his uniform pockets, shoulders slumped. He is a crumbling stone statue. It is only when he disappears into the building that Buck allows himself to exhale. 

A few minutes later, Eddie and Christopher emerge from the building. Eddie is clutching Christopher’s backpack a little too tightly, expression tense and spacy all at the same time. Christopher’s expression is wary; he knows something has happened but clearly not what. They walk a few faces, and then Christopher stops, saying something to Eddie and refusing to move another step.

Eddie says something back and points at the Jeep, but Christopher just shakes his head. His face goes a bit red. 

Buck watches as Eddie heaves out a sigh, then crouches down next to Christopher, placing a gentle, protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. 

Buck watches as Christopher’s cheeks grow redder and redder, as he starts to shake his head more and more, and he descends into tears. 

Buck watches as Eddie wraps his arms around Chris, pulls his little body tight against his chest, and holds him as he is wracked with sobs. 

And Buck feels the lump in his own throat, the tears in his own eyes, and, for a third time in his life, a sense of things being so broken, they seem unfixable. 

ii.

For days, Eddie is numb.

He doesn’t sleep. He barely eats. He feels like he’s existing with his head trapped in a fishtank. 

Christopher is shell-shocked and withdrawn. He’s angry with Eddie one moment, and incredibly clingy the next. He’s terrified and heartbroken and has no idea what his future looks like. Eddie can relate. 

They stay at Shannon’s apartment, and Eddie sleeps - when he can - on the couch. He can’t bring himself to take Christopher away from the familiar place, even if he knows, eventually, they’ll have to go back to his place. For now, though, if Christopher needs to hide and cry and scream, he can do it in the bedroom he knows. He can do it in a space that reminds him of his mother, so not another thing is ripped away. Eddie can deal with the couch. 

He doesn’t have to worry about cooking. Bobby drops off enough frozen, home cooked meals to feed an army. He doesn’t have to worry about grocery shopping. Buck gets a list of what Christopher likes and gets it done without Eddie having to ask. No one bats an eye at him taking leave from work to adjust to circumstances. 

Overnight, it seems, Eddie has gone from a guy who saw his kid once or twice a week, for fun times, and the occasional sleepover, to someone shut away full time with him in a strange mausoleum of grief. He has no idea how to be the father his son needs right now. 

The only good thing, he discovers more quickly than he expected, is that he does get to be that father, whether or not he’s prepared for it. 

No one will be coming to take Christopher from Eddie. 

Shannon made sure of it. 

Not only is Eddie clearly stated on Christopher’s birth certificate, but her will - updated only weeks ago - makes it very clear. Eddie feels a gnawing guilt for letting the detectives get to him, for doubting her, for not being able to save her, for surviving when she is dead. 

Eddie, numb and too tired to sleep, lies awake on a stiff-cushioned couch night after night, wondering if every day for the rest of Christopher’s life, if he’ll think it would have been better if it was Eddie who died, too. 

iii.

The funeral goes by in a blur. 

Eddie’s only job is to support Chris, but everyone from the 118, as well as Abuela and Pepa, are there to support him. Hen stands at his side, squeezing his arm. 

It’s so strange.

Shannon was just coming back into his life after years of distance. Nearly a decade. He is completely different, in so many ways, from the teenage boy who thought he loved her. And yet he feels her loss so profoundly it lives in his bones. Not just for Christopher, but for her. She was bright and strong and good. She was better than she had to be, despite everything. The world isn’t right without her. 

After the service, while Eddie is bending down to check on Chris, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, he hears a familiar voice behind him. 

“Eddie?”

His blood chills. 

Eddie straightens up and turns around and sees, to his horror, his parents, dressed in respectful black, standing in front of him. Shit. How had he not noticed them earlier? How are they even here? Pepa or Abuela, to be sure. 

His mother is looking at Christopher, eyes wide and watery. His father is looking at him. 

“What are you doing here?” Eddie demands. 

This is so fucking inappropriate. This is the exact wrong place to corner him. And in front of Christopher?

Christopher.

God.

He pulls Chris tight against him, like he can protect him from their particular brand of damage. 

“We’re here for you, of course,” Ramon says. 

“Dad, who are they?” Christopher whispers. 

At the use of Dad , Helena makes a small, choked sound. 

“We’re your grandparents, sweetie,” she says, smiling down at Christopher. 

There is such a sincere warmth in her voice it makes Eddie want to scream. Who is she to have any sort of grandparental affection towards his son, when she is part of the reason they were kept separate for so many years? How dare she? 

“Oh,” Christopher murmurs. He tucks his head behind Eddie’s arm, shy. It’s not like Christopher to be shy, but then again, he’s in the middle of one of the worst days of his life. 

“We wanted to come see how you are and meet Christopher,” Ramon explains. 

“And you thought today was the best choice?” Eddie asks. 

“Edmundo, please. We’re trying to make things right.” Helena says. 

Eddie scoffs. But he can’t have this fight in front of Christopher, especially not today. 

He looks around the grassy cemetery to where the members of the 118 are standing, huddled together, watching Edddie with concern in their eyes. 

“Buck!” Eddie calls out. “Can you come here?”

Like a dog responding to a whistle, Buck jogs over. 

“What can I do?” He asks.

“Chris,” Eddie says. “Can you go with Buck for a little bit? He’ll get you a drink of water and a snack?”

Christopher nods.

Buck reaches out to take Christopher’s hand.

“Come on, bud.” 

Christopher goes to him easily, seemingly happy to avoid the interaction with complete strangers. Eddie waits until they’re out of earshot before readdressing his parents.

“How dare you do this today?” He demands. 

“Eddie, we are trying to help.” Helena insists. 

“How could you possibly help right now?” He asks. “Because what that little boy does not need right now is any more confusion.”

“We’re not trying to confuse anyone,” Ramon says. 

“We’re just concerned you’re in over your head,” Helena adds. 

Eddie feels hot with shame and indignation. 

“I am doing the best that I can,” he defends. 

“How are you supposed to give that child everything he needs?” Helena asks. “You work twenty-four hour shifts. You live in your Abuela’s house. Until two years ago, Eddie, you were barely an adult, let alone a father. You need our help right now.”

Eddie shakes his head. The things they’re saying… They’re not incorrect. But they feel wrong. 

“And that’s why we think you and Christopher should come back to El Paso,” Ramon says. “We can help you support him.”

“Absolutely not,” Eddie snaps. 

“Christopher needs consistency,” Ramon continues. “Your lifestyle isn’t suited to that.”

His lifestyle? 

“You don’t know Christopher!” Eddie bursts. “You hardly know me! And, consistency? You think the best thing for him is to up and leave everything else he knows? How do you think that’s good for him?”

“Eddie, he barely knows you! You haven’t been around most of his life,” Ramon says. “He already has been taken away from everything he knows.”

“And whose fault is that?” Eddie demands, glaring at them. “Because none of this was my choice.”

“Edmundo,” Helena sighs. “If we had known the full truth of it-”

Eddie cuts her off by laughing bitterly. 

“So, you regret it now that there’s a grandchild involved to absolve your guilt with. Well, I’m sorry. You cannot do anything to make up for the time I lost.”

“We are trying to help you help Christopher,” Helena insists.

“Well, we don’t want your help.” 

He leaves them standing there, in front of Shannon’s fresh grave, without a care for the scene he has made. 

🔸🔸🔸

“Here you go,” Buck says, handing Christopher a freshly cracked bottle of water and granola bar that were stored in the backseat of Eddie’s truck. 

“Thanks,” Christopher murmurs before taking a big sip.

“You too hot or anything?” Buck asks, feeling the sheen of the sun off his forehead, and looking at Christopher’s little black suit.

Christopher nods. 

“Okay, why don’t we take that jacket off,” Buck suggests. 

Christopher nods again, and Buck helps him hold the drink and snack and balance his crutches while he shrugs out of the jacket so he’s down to the white button down underneath. Buck takes the jacket and folds it neatly over his arm.

“Better?” Buck asks.

Another nod. 

Christopher resumes eating his granola bar. 

Buck isn’t quite sure what else to say. He looks across the cemetery and sees Eddie arguing with two people who are presumably his parents. Buck knows all about parents who can’t quite help but make an already difficult time harder. 

“Buck?” 

His attention snaps back to Chris.

“Yeah, bud?”

“Do you know other people who died?” 

Buck’s stomach twists. 

“Yeah,” Buck admits. “I do. A lot of my friends from the army.”

He’s definitely not going to mention Doug. 

“Do you miss them?” Christopher asks.

It’s not something he talks about. Not really ever. But it feels safe to tell Chris. 

Buck nods. “One of them, yeah.”

“Does it make you sad?”

Buck nods again. “Sometimes.”

More than Buck would like to admit. 

Christopher takes another sip of water. He doesn’t ask anymore questions. 

iv.

Eddie breaks down the day they move Christopher in. 

It’s hot, and the city is in absolute upheaval with the prevalence of package bombs being left on doorsteps. There’s a tension thick enough to cut, and it’s not just coming from Eddie and Christopher’s grief. Though, that doesn’t help.

It happens in the afternoon, when Eddie, Buck, Bobby, and Chim are moving the last of Christopher’s furniture into the guest bedroom. Not a guest bedroom anymore, anyway. The walls are a boring eggshell color, and maybe someday Eddie can take Chris to Home Depot and let him choose a new shade, but for now they’re operating under a bit of a time crunch. Shannon’s landlord wants the place empty by the end of the month. 

Christopher is at Hen’s house for at least another hour or so, where she and Karen are doting on him and introducing him to Denny while the guys move him in. 

Buck and Eddie are carrying the mattress into the room to put atop the bed frame Bobby and Chim have recently assembled. They could’ve kept the bed Abuela already had in there, but Eddie wanted Christopher to have his bed. It’s sweaty and hot and Eddie is exhausted. He still hasn’t been sleeping well, and the knowledge that his parents are in town, somewhere, lurking like vultures, has him unsettled. 

So when Eddie takes a step back, moving the mattress, misjudging how much space he has, and knocks the corner into a shelf, sending a box toppling to the floor, resulting in a loud crack , he’s just about had it. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Eddie groans.

“Hey, whoa, it’s okay,” Chim says, rushing to pick up the box. 

Buck lowers his end of the mattress to the ground and Eddie lets his fall with a thud. Chim rifles through the box to identify the source of the breakage. He winces nervously as he pulls a shattered photo frame from the collection of assorted decor.

Eddie steps towards Chim and takes the frame from his hands. Underneath the cracked glass is a photo of Shannon and Chris - Chris must be only three or four - at a beach. Eddie doesn’t know if it’s Oregon or California. 

“Oh, my god,” Eddie exhales shakily. 

“It’s okay, Eddie,” Chim says. “We can replace the frame.”

And Eddie knows that that is true, and it’s not ruined, and that it can be repaired, but he… He just… He starts to cry. 

Buck’s hand is on his shoulder in a second, steadying him. 

“This is all so fucked up,” Eddie sobs.

Bobby, who had been in the kitchen grabbing a glass of water, walks back into the bedroom. His expression falls when he sees Eddie. 

“I can’t be her, I can’t be what he needs, I…” Eddie chokes on a sob. “I’m not enough for him.”

Bobby takes him by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Eddie.”

Eddie manages to look his captain in the eyes. 

“You’re right,” Bobby says gently. “You’re not Shannon. You can’t replace her. Christopher doesn’t need you to try and replace her. He needs you to love him, and I know you do. So it’s going to be okay. It’s always going to hurt, but it’s going to be okay.”

It takes Eddie a while to calm down after that, a while to regulate. Breathing doesn’t come as easily as it usually does. But he finds that when Bobby tells him he can do it, he believes him.

Buck stays late into the evening helping Eddie get everything set up.

Chim drives to a nearby store and swings back with a new picture frame. 

v.

Eddie takes another week off work because Christopher isn’t ready to go back to school. Bobby tells him not to worry. They’ll figure it out. 

Abuela has been fantastic. Doting and loving and motherly in a way Christopher craves. Things aren’t good. They aren’t ideal. They aren’t close to happy. But they’re not as bad as they could be, all things considered. 

One evening - Eddie couldn’t even confidently identify the date, as they all seem to blend together - he’s laying on Christopher’s bed, Christopher’s little body tucked into him, as he reads a bedtime story. He’s been trying really hard to keep him on a familiar routine; not to let the void of their bereavement completely derail them. 

“‘ Wow, ’ said Hailey ,” Eddie reads from a Robert Munsch story. One they’ve read before, and that honestly freaks Eddie out a little, but that Chris loves. “‘ Can you put me in the book? ’ ‘ Are you absolutely sure you want to be the kid in this- ”

“Dad?” Christopher interrupts, shifting to look up at him.

“Yeah, Chris?”

“You don’t do the voices the way Mom did.”

It’s all Eddie can do not to crumple. He tries to remember what Bobby said. 

“Well,” he says gently. “My voice is different than Mom’s. How could I do it better?”

“You have to sound sillier,” Christopher instructs. 

“Oh sillier ,” Eddie smiles. “I can do that.”

Christopher nods, then snuggles back into him. 

Eddie starts again, mindful of how silly he is supposed to sound. 

“‘ Are you absolutely sure you want to be the kid in this book?’ Said the writer. ‘YES!’ Said Hailey-”

“Dad?” Christopher interrupts again. 

“Yeah, bud?”

“Are you absolutely sure you want to take care of me?”

Eddie goes rigid. 

“What? Christopher, why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know,” Christopher’s voice is tragically small. “Maybe… Maybe you only are because you have to now.”

“Oh, Chris,” Eddie exhales. 

He puts down the book and twists to wrap his son in a hug.

“That’s not true,” he promises. “I love you. You’re my kid. I know we haven’t known each other very long, and I know that what happened to your mom was never supposed to happen, but I am so, so grateful it didn’t mean losing you, too. I’m never gonna leave you, okay? I promise.”

Even as he says it, he knows it’s not exactly the kind of promise he can control. Otherwise, Shannon would have never died. But he says it nevertheless. 

“I love you, too,” Christopher whispers. 

Eddie kisses the top of his head. 

“You are so wanted, Christopher. I promise.”

“Okay,” Christopher’s voice is shaky. 

Eddie continues to squeeze him for half a minute.

“Can you keep reading?” Christopher asks.

Eddie releases the pressure. 

“Right. Sorry.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath. 

“ ‘YES!’ Said Hailey. ‘WONDERFUL!’ Said the writer…”

Chapter Text

i.

The guy that replaces Eddie during his leave of absence - Sherman, his name is - has a lot more paramedic experience under his belt than Buck. So Buck doesn’t work the ambulance, like he had been on and off since Chim was assigned to interim captain. He’s back in the fire engine. No biggie. Although, it’s lonelier without the team he’s gotten to know over the past near year. 

It’s the first evening in days where the mid-spring heat has broken. Buck even chose to dress in an LAFD issue sweater for their call; a small car accident that turned out to be less serious than the 9-1-1 caller had worried. They don’t even have a patient in the back of the ambulance when they leave, headed straight back for the station. It’s one of those calls you leave feeling good about, because someone could have been hurt, but they weren’t. 

Buck is relaxed in his seat, looking out into the evening - lit up with L.A. traffic - with his headset on, when a voice comes crackling through the radio. 

“118, 118 - this is Dispatch. We’ve got Bobby Nash on the line. He says it’s important.”

Buck frowns, leaning forward in his seat. Why would Bobby be calling Dispatch to reach one of them? He has their cell numbers. 

Chim’s voice follows up within seconds. 

“ Dispatch, please repeat .”

Buck focuses on the headset speaker, eager to know the answer. 

The only sound he ends up hearing is deafening. 

🔸🔸🔸

There is a wash of disorientation and blackness that Buck has experienced before. He experienced it when he was shot out of the sky. There’s no point trying to keep yourself alert and aware when the world is fire and chaos and cruel, endless motion. And it always ends the same way. With pain.

This time, the pain is worse than it’s ever been. This time, he thinks he might be the person who needs saving, rather than the only one left intact enough to do the rescue. 

Vision dark, unable to move his body, Buck tries to take inventory of himself once the motion stops.  He’s laying with his face on the concrete. His ears are ringing, and all sound is muffled. The skin on his face is stinging, and he has the sensation of glass and dirt pressing into tiny cuts. He thinks blood is running into his left eyeball. His jaw and shoulders ache. His hips are twisted and strained to the point of his comfort. His ribs hurt, and breathing through lungs full of smoke and gasoline is a chore. 

But then there’s his left leg. 

It’s in complete, blinding agony and Buck can’t move it at all. He can’t quite turn to get a clear view of it, but the crushing pain, paired with his proximity to what appears to be a ladder truck flipped on its side and Buck understands. 

This is much worse than a bullet wound. 

This could end his career.

This could kill him. 

Buck tries not to panic. It’s a little challenging when he’s stuck under a several tonne vehicle, probably risking limb loss at an increasing rate with every second that passes. 

Though his eyesight is still compromised, he tries to scan the smoky, dark intersection for signs of the rest of the team. He sees a few other firefighters who’ve been ejected from the engine, laying - less injured than him - on the pavement. He searches for the ambulance, hoping it wasn’t taken out too, but his eyes catch, instead, a dark, shadowy figure approaching. He doesn’t think it’s Hen or Chim. 

As the figure gets closer, Buck realizes it’s a man, a little bit younger than him, who Buck has never seen before. And he’s got what looks like a bomb strapped to his chest.

What the fuck is going on here?

“You’re new,” the man says. 

His tone is so neutral, so observant; like Buck is an animal in a trap, but not the animal the guy was expecting. He is resigned to the chaos and the bloodshed. Which can only really mean one thing.

Buck is screwed. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie watches it all unfold over the news, not long after putting Christopher to bed.

Buck, crushed and held hostage by a bomber with a dead man’s trigger. A police barricade being set up. Someone who appears to be Chim, stepping out and trying to negotiate with the bomber for Buck’s life, all to no avail. 

There are desperate, grueling minutes that pass, where Eddie is staring at the distinct possibility that he will watch Buck, and perhaps Chim, be blown up on live television. Eddie tries to call Hen, but she doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even know if she’s okay. He doesn’t know if she’s injured or dead or… Or what. 

Eventually, what seems like a miracle happens. Bobby. Bobby is the miracle. Wrestling the trigger away from the bomber and saving the day. Saving Buck. Or halfway saving Buck, because the truck is still crushing him. 

It’s been a long ass time since Eddie Diaz went to church, since he thought about God seriously, since he prayed. 

But watching the 118 - without him - try to lift the ladder truck off Buck? Try to free him from a potentially fatal injury? It makes Eddie pray again. 

Please, God. Help him.

Please, God. Let him be okay.

Please, God. Let him live.

Please, God. Let him keep his leg.

Please, God. Don’t take him from me.

I can’t lose anyone else right now. 

I can’t lose him.

I can’t lose Buck. 

The force of this thought hits Eddie like a meteorite crashing to earth. Yes, it’s true, the thought of another loss right now, so soon after Shannon, is paralyzing. But more than that… The thought of losing Buck… It’s… It feels like swallowing acid. 

He has come to need him. 

He has come to care deeply about him.

He has come to look forward to seeing him all the time, and expecting his presence in his and Christopher’s lives.

Please, God. I need him. I want him around forever. I can’t lose Buck. 

ii.

It’s well after midnight before Eddie, having rushed to the hospital, and the rest of the team get an update. 

They’re all sitting around the hospital room, shitty coffees in hand, Chim’s arm tight around Maddie’s shoulder, fending off the worst kinds of prediction. Lost leg. He’ll never walk again. He bled out. He’s gone. Hen, in particular, tries to keep everyone positive. But hours upon hours of waiting while Buck is in surgery do damage to morale. Maddie never seems to run out of tears. 

But Buck pulls through. 

His surgery went well. No complications. He’ll be fine. The surgeons mention a grueling recovery, but Eddie can’t focus past the part where he’s okay. 

Buck is going to survive.

Nothing else matters right now. 

🔸🔸🔸

When Buck wakes up, he feels like he weighs a thousand pounds. Like he is not only cemented to the hospital bed, but made of cement. He is desperately thirsty. 

It takes his brain a minute to catch up to his body. He opens his eyes to abrasive, fluorescent overhead lights pounding down on him, and can’t place exactly what has happened to him. He’s still under the foggy grip of anesthesia. 

He’s felt like this before. Waking up in a fucking medical tent in Afghanistan, hastily sewn back together before he could be flown to a proper military hopsital in Germany. The pain was worse then, but the confusion is thicker now. 

“Buck? You’re awake.”

Eddie’s voice.

Buck’s eyes flicker to the side, where Eddie is standing from a stiff hospital chair. 

“E-Eddie?” Buck mumbles. His voice sounds like shit, and he probably looks even worse. “You’re here.”

“Of course I came,” Eddie says. “Of course.”

Came. 

Because Eddie wasn’t working when it happened. Right. Buck remembers now. The explosion. The heat. The certainty he was going to die, before Bobby saved him. But then…

Fuck.

Buck looks down at his legs. 

The right one is bare and naked, resting above the covers. The left… Well, the left is propped up, sealed in the biggest, fattest cast Buck has ever seen. 

“Oh,” Buck exhales. ‘Right.”

“Buck, it’s okay,” Eddie tells him, extending an arm to put a hand on Buck’s shoulder. “You’re alive. You survived.”

Buck swallows, throat sore.

He’s always surviving. 

“Did you speak to the doctor?” Buck asks. “Did he say anything about how the surgery went?”

“Just that you made it through,” Eddie says gently. “You’ve got uh… You’ve got a titanium rod and some cobalt-chromed screws.”

Buck nods. He’d taken bone damage in this same leg when he’d been shot. Not quite this bad. Nothing that had required this level of intervention. He broke his arm as a kid. Needed months of physio. There’s just always something more to get through. Always another hill to drag himself up, while gravity tugs down. 

“You’re gonna walk again,” Eddie continues, as if he thinks the troubled expression on Buck’s face stems from a lack of clarity, and not the exact opposite.

Buck nods. “Yeah. Yeah doctor mentioned he thought that before I went under. Uh, did he say anything about work?”

“Not yet,” Eddie mumbles.

They don’t know yet. 

Right. 

The hill is so, so steep. 

iii.

Maddie is with Buck like a barnacle over the next few days while he’s kept in the hospital. She records all the instructions from the doctors and books follow up appointments and is generally a wonderful combination of former-nurse, perpetual big sister, constant angel. If Buck was in a position to feel gratitude, he knows he would be feeling it for her.

He has a lot to be grateful for. Logically. He knows that. But he just sort of feels hollow. 

He just sort of feels like…

Of course.

Of course this happened to him. 

Why wouldn’t it?

Finally at a good place in his life, about to get his shield… Of course this happened. 

Buck is pretty sure that there’s some sort of universal law out there that he’s not actually allowed to get better. He’s not actually allowed to recover or be happy. Maybe he simply doesn’t deserve it. 

And, look. It’s not like Buck expects life to be easy. It isn’t, not for anyone. 

Only, at some point, he’d like to know what it feels like to breathe with his head above water. 

“You’re going to get through this, and you’re going to be okay,” Maddie tells him, over and over. 

“I know,” he mumbles. 

He knows.

He’ll survive.

He always survives. 

For better or worse.

iv.

Bobby is back at the helm by the time Eddie returns to work on May 25th. Eddie’s going to be honest, it’s good to be back. Not because he hasn’t been very grateful for the time off he got to be with Chris - it was necessary and he’s privileged to have been able to take it. But, if he’s honest, he needs his routine back. Between Shannon dying, Chris moving in, and Buck getting hurt, Eddie feels like he’s constantly trying to walk on one of those magic carpet water floats. He needs solid ground.

Christopher is getting by as well as could be expected. Hen helped Eddie find a child therapist for him, and those appointments have just started up. Luckily, they’re covered by Eddie’s benefits, as are a lot of Christopher’s health-related needs. What isn’t covered? Childcare. And Eddie doesn’t exactly know what to do about that, right now. Chris is out of school for the summer, and most daycares have waiting lists or can’t accommodate his needs, and applications for day camps were apparently due ages ago. Shannon had him signed up for some, but her shift work was a lot more reasonable than his. Basically, it’s a mess. 

For now, Abuela and Pepa are rotating watching Christopher, but Eddie knows that’s not sustainable long term. His grandmother is aging, and it was Eddie’s intention when he moved here to care for her, not have her care for a child. He has to figure this out. 

On one of his days off, when Eddie is feeling particularly sluggish after jumping back into shift work, Christopher asks about Buck over a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches. 

“Is he still really hurt?” 

This isn’t unusual. Ever since he learned Buck was injured and in the hospital, Christopher has been asking after him a lot. Each time with real worry in his voice, like he’s expecting to get bad news in return. Eddie can’t blame him for that worry, or for projecting it onto someone who it’s not really about. 

“Yeah, bud. It’s going to take him a long time to get better. But he’s home from the hospital now.”

Buck has been home for a couple of days. Eddie hasn’t had a chance to do much other than text checking in, given his return to work. He gets mostly thumbs up emojis in response; fair, considering how much pain medication he must be on.

Christopher takes a bite and thinks as he chews. 

“Can I go see him?” He asks after swallowing. 

Eddie’s first instinct is no. No, they shouldn’t bug Buck. No, Chris shouldn’t see him when he’s drugged up and probably miserable. No, Eddie is exhausted and doesn’t super want to leave the house if he doesn’t have to. 

Except…

Except, maybe Buck could use the company. Eddie doesn’t know unless he asks. Except, maybe seeing him will reassure Chris he’s not going anywhere, even if he’s hurt. And maybe Eddie misses him, too. 

Not maybe. He just does. 

“Let me see how he’s feeling,” Eddie relents. “He might be too tired today.”

Chris nods. “Okay.”

Eddie takes out his phone and shoots Buck a text. 

Hey. You up for some company?

🔸🔸🔸

Buck probably should have said no to Eddie and Christopher coming for a visit. He’s really in no condition for company. 

For one thing, he’s hardly gotten out of bed since he’s been home. Everything is just so much effort, and between the pain meds and the pain and the resounding feeling of nihilism, Buck just doesn’t have the energy. He has crutches and enough strength to move himself around the apartment, but he just finds he kind of wants to slip away into a sleepy haze in which he hardly exists. He knows he’s worrying Maddie. Especially when she has to leave him to go to work. 

He shouldn’t invite anyone, let alone little Christopher, into this misery. Certainly, Christopher has had enough sadness of his own to be exposed to Buck’s. So saying yes is a selfishness. A selfishness, because he misses Eddie. A selfishness, because he doesn’t want to say no.

So he says yes.

And then he must deal with the consequences. 

Maddie isn’t home, so he can’t take the necessary steps to shower. A frustration, really, that he will be dealing with for some time. Nevertheless, he’s rank and sweaty from the stasis of days in bed. He hobbles into the bathroom and cleans what he can of his body with a washcloth, swallowing down a yelp of pain each time he situates his leg wrong, the weight of his cast burdening his hip. By the end, his hair is still greasy and disheveled, but he doesn’t smell quite so stale. 

Buck dresses in baggy gym shorts he can fit over his cast and an Eagles tee shirt. He looks a little slovenly, but it’s genuinely the best he can do alone. By the time Eddie and Chris knock on the door, he has managed to make his way into the living room, resting on the couch with his leg propped up on the coffee table.

“Come in!” He calls, because he’s absolutely not getting up again for at least half an hour. 

The door creaks open, and Buck cranes his body to see Eddie and Chris shuffle inside. Eddie’s eyes land on Buck with some big, sad expression and Buck wants to shrink from it. He knew this was a mistake. The misery is going to expand like a balloon until it bursts and then-

“Hi, Buck!” Christopher calls out, tone full of a type of cheer Buck hasn’t heard from him since before his mother died. He has a big smile on his face.

“Oh, h-hi, Chris,” Buck stammers, surprised. “How are you, bud?”

“Good,” Christopher says, making his way across the apartment to Buck with a small backpack on his shoulders. “I brought markers. To sign your cast with!”

Buck feels himself smiling a little, despite everything. 

“Chris, what did I say about that?” Eddie asks in a tone that is so very dad that you’d think the guy has been doing it for years.

Christopher sighs. “May I please sign your cast, Buck? If you want me to?”

Buck chuckles softly. “Of course you can. Thanks for thinking of it. All this white plaster is starting to look pretty boring.”

Eddie smiles warmly, and Christopher beams as bright as the sun.

“We could make it more colorful!” Christopher suggests. 

Well, what’s the harm in looking like an elementary school art classroom for the next several weeks? Maybe it’s the pain pills, but he cannot bring himself to care about the appearance. It’s worth seeing Christopher happy, when the last time Buck saw him he was absolutely shattered. 

“Let’s do it,” Buck agrees. 

Eddie helps get Christopher set up with a hard plastic pencil case full of markers, sitting cross legged on the rug so he’s eye-level with Buck’s cast. Christopher’s face twists with the focus of a neurosurgeon as he uncaps his markers and gets to work.

“You got coffee?” Eddie asks. “I’m a little wiped today, I’ll admit.”

“Yeah, second shelf to the right of the fridge,” Buck explains. “Sorry, I’m not a great host.”

“Are you really apologizing for having been crushed by a fire engine?” Eddie frowns.

“I guess I am,” Buck admits, rubbing his eyes. “You know what, I’ll take a coffee, too, if you don’t mind.”

“You got it,” Eddie replies, then disappears into Buck and Maddie’s kitchen.

Buck looks down at his cast. Christopher is writing his name in big, clumsy bubble letters; outlined in black, then colored in with rotating blue and red. 

“Wow, kiddo, that looks great,” Buck tells him. 

“Thanks,” Chris says lightly. Then, he takes a deep breath. “I’m really glad you didn’t die when the truck fell on you.”

Buck is so surprised he almost flinches. He swallows, taking a moment to figure out how the hell to reply to that. 

“Uh, thanks, Chris,” he eventually says. He opens his mouth to say he’s glad, too, but the truth is that he hasn’t felt glad about that, yet. He hasn’t felt fully the other way, either. Maybe just… Apathetic? 

“Dad would have been really, really sad and I would have been really, really sad, too,” Chris continues, eyes still focused on his coloring.

“Well, that’s really nice of you to say,” Buck mumbles, voice tight, because he doesn’t know how else to respond. 

It hadn’t occurred to Buck that Christopher would even be thinking this way. Although, maybe that just goes to show how little he knows about kids. Christopher’s mother just died, of course he’s sensitive to the idea of people dying right now. Buck just didn’t know how much Chris cares about him . 

Buck takes a deep breath. 

“What else are you going to draw, bud?” He asks.

“I’m thinking a firefighter on a surfboard,” Chris decides sagely.

“Oh, that’s pretty sick,” Buck agrees.

By the time Eddie makes it back into the living room with two steaming mugs of coffee, Buck feels a tiny bit lighter. 

🔹🔹🔹

When Maddie walks into the apartment after her shift, it’s slightly awkward timing for Eddie. 

Eddie’s not sure if Buck told Maddie that he and Christopher are over, for one thing. For another, the moment she steps through the door also happens to be the exact one that Eddie is lying on the floor, under Buck’s leg, signing the bottom of the cast in big letters beside a goofy smiley face while Buck laughs musically. In Eddie’s defense, Christopher told him he should sign it, but not ‘get in the way,’ so Eddie really was left with very few options. 

“Oh,” Maddie says, closing the door behind her. Her expression is wide-eyed, a little intense. Eddie doesn’t know her well enough to read it. “Hi, guys.”

“Hi, Maddie!” Chris chirps happily. 

Eddie dots the i in his name and then slides out from underneath the cast to sit up.

“Hi, Maddie.” He says, a little awkwardly, like he’s been caught doing something embarrassing, rather than just goofy. 

“How was work?” Buck asks her, unphased by the absurdity of her timing.

“Good,” Maddie nods quickly. “Nothing too horrific came through my line, anyway.”

“Always a good day, when that happens,” Buck replies. 

“Yeah,” Maddie replies. “Hey, Eddie, are you guys staying for dinner? I was thinking of ordering Greek.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to impose,” Eddie says, even though Christopher shoots him big, hopeful eyes. 

“You’re not an imposition, man,” Buck frowns. “You’re doing me a favor, keeping me from being bored out of my skull.”

Maddie’s expression tightens a little. 

“Please, Eddie. We’d love to have you both,” she says. 

“I’m not done coloring,” Christopher tacks on. 

“Okay,” Eddie smiles gratefully. “Then we’d love to.”

Maddie heads to her room to change out of her work clothes, and Buck helps Christopher find a cartoon he wants to watch on the television. It’s something on Netflix that Eddie has seen a handful of times now, but listens - impressed - as Chris manages to explain the entire lore, while still working on his drawings. Buck listens dutifully, commenting where appropriate. Eddie relaxes into the couch beside Buck and watches the whole situation with a strange, carbonated sensation rising in his chest. 

He’s very glad he said yes to Christopher at lunch.

Eventually, they order the food, and by the time it’s delivered, Chris has given up coloring in favor of focusing on explaining his show to Buck with the enthusiastic energy of a megachurch pastor. Maddie elects to set up the food at the living room coffee table to make it easier for Buck, and asks for Eddie’s help grabbing plates and utensils. Eddie happily obliges, following her into the kitchen. 

“Do you have any plastic cups?” Eddie asks her. “Chris can use a lighter glass one, but he can be a little clumsy, and I’d hate for-”

“Eddie,” Maddie cuts him off, expression serious. 

Eddie shuts his mouth, caught off-guard. This looks like more than a cursory discussion about drinkware. 

“I just…” Maddie starts, then trails off. She sighs. “I just wanted to say thank you for coming over today.”

“Oh,” Eddie blinks. “Well, Chris asked to see him, and of course, I wanted to, too.”

Maddie nods. “You know, I don’t think he’s smiled once since it happened. Not one time. He wouldn’t even get out of bed. And now I come home to you and Chris here, and he’s laughing .”

Eddie swallows heavily. He didn’t know it was that bad. He didn’t think it was good, but he hadn’t imagined Buck quite so depressed. Maybe that was stupid of him. He’d just been so focused on the silver lining of Buck not dying. 

“Having you in his life is really good for him, Eddie,” Maddie says gently. 

Eddie takes a deep breath. “Uh, thanks. It works both ways, you know.”

“I know,” she replies. “Just… Just be careful with his heart.”

This throws Eddie for a loop.

“Uh, what?” He asks. “We aren’t… We’re friends, Maddie.”

Maddie shrugs. “Even so. My little brother is the most loyal, loving person you will ever meet. But he’s been through a lot, Eddie. More than you know. So, please, be gentle with him.”

Eddie feels like he can hardly breathe. He feels like something has shifted without his permission, and he doesn’t know if it’s good or bad. He feels a little scared.  

Instead of arguing the definition of his connection to her brother, Eddie holds Maddie’s rather intense eye contact and nods. 

“I will be,” he promises. 

He doesn’t even really know what he means by it. 

Chapter Text

i.

It doesn’t happen on purpose or with any sort of strategic intention. Eddie certainly never asks. It just kind of ends up working out. 

Not long after Buck gets his cast off, there’s a day where neither Isabel nor Pepa can watch Christopher. He has a physio appointment across town, and neither of them can make it work with their schedules. Eddie is texting Buck about it just to vent when Buck realizes, hell, all he has to do these days is go to his own physio appointments, do his exercises, and try not to sleep away each day of this wretched, purposeless purgatory. So he volunteers.  

At first, Eddie resists the idea on the basis that Buck is still pretty early into his recovery. You don’t need to be babysitting on top of getting better, had been the reasoning. Which, fine. Buck resents the insinuation that simply existing right now is some kind of full time job. He literally just tortures his leg all day when he’s not moping. It’s not exactly a public service. 

After an hour or so, Eddie comes back and asks if the offer still stands. He doesn’t have any other options. So Buck watches Christopher one day while Eddie is at work; he takes him to physio, and makes him dinner, and stays with him until Isabel is home to put him to bed. And Buck has a great time with it, honestly. It distracts him from his own shit, and, as always, Christopher is a sincere delight. Nothing like Maddie’s horror stories from babysitting when she was a teenager. 

So Buck offers to do it again. 

“Seriously,” he tells Eddie. “I had a good time, I have medic training, and I’m free. Take me up on it.”

Which is pretty much how he ends up watching Christopher whenever Eddie is at work for the remainder of the summer. 

🔹🔹🔹

The summer is brutally hard, and would be harder, if not for Buck. 

Eddie has a hell of time adjusting to full-time single parenthood. He can’t really cook. He’s never had to keep track of anyone’s schedule but his own. Budgeting is harder than it’s ever been, and kids are so expensive. 

And listen, Eddie will never, ever, be grateful for the fucking bomb in that fire engine.  Watching that on television was a nightmare. However, Buck being laid up is really working out for Eddie. Not just because he’s an available babysitter, either, but because he’s actually kind of fantastic at it. So fantastic at it, in fact, that Eddie suspects it’s actually one of the best things for Chris right now. 

Christopher is in good spirits and optimistic by nature, but losing Shannon has been hard on him. Of course any kid is going to struggle with losing their mother, but for Christopher, the pain is compounded by the fact that for most of his life, all he had was Shannon and Janet. And now they’re both gone. He didn’t just lose his mother; he lost his whole life. So while Eddie can’t discount that he’s trying, that he’s learning how to be a good parent, that he’s got Chris in therapy, that he’s doing the most he can, it’s hard not to feel like he’s not enough. 

So, one sunny hot Tuesday in July, when Eddie shows up at Buck’s to pick up Christopher, only to find the two of them camped out in front of the aparment’s AC unit, each with a popsicle in hand - Buck’s red, Christopher’s bright pink - listening to pop music, playing Connect 4, he is reminded of just how much they need Buck, too. They don’t hear Eddie walk in through the apartment’s unlocked door - Buck has told him not to bother knocking while Maddie isn’t home - so their conversation continues where it was, as if he’s just a fly on the wall.

“You’re really good at games,” Chris is saying. “And you don’t always let me win. Tia Pepa always lets me win everything, it’s boring. My mom never did that.”

“Hmm,” Buck says, dropping a token in a slot. “Maddie never let me win all the time when I was little, either. Said it would make me better at the games we played and a better sport.”

“Did it work?” Chris asks.

Buck smirks. “Well, I always win at Scrabble, but I always lose at poker.”

“My mom loved Scrabble !” Chris announces. “I don’t know how to play.”

“I can teach you. I think there’s a kid-friendly version I can buy.”

“Yes, please!”

Eddie doesn’t know why this makes him want to cry. Just that it does. Just that it seems big and important in a way Eddie doesn’t have words for.

“Hey, guys,” Eddie says, voice tight, finally interrupting the moment.

They both whip their heads around to look at him. Both their faces light up in such similar smiles, just at the sight of him. Eddie feels faint.

He hasn’t done anything about what Maddie said to him that night in this very living room, when he signed Buck’s cast. He hasn’t done anything about it, but shit, has he ever thought about it. He never thought of himself as someone searching for a family unit, but the idea of it toying in his mind? It’s too good of a fantasy to linger on. It’s the kind that could consume him, if he let it. 

“Dad!”

Chris quickly scrambles to stand up and Eddie crosses the room, bending to help him. He lifts Chris up and pulls him into a tight hug.

“Hey, bud,” he says into his hair, planting a kiss on the top of his head. 

Buck shifts to stand, wincing as he manages bending his outstretched left leg. 

“Were you good for Buck today?” Eddie asks his son.

“Yes!” Chris promises.

“We won’t tell him about the banks we robbed,” Buck teases, standing a bit funny, favoring his good leg.

“No! We didn’t!” Chris peels with laughter. 

“Thanks, as usual, Buck,” Eddie says. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

To that, Buck just shrugs. 

“Really,” he says, “you’re doing me a favor. I’d be going crazy all day in here without my best pal to hang out with.”

It’s said with levity, but Eddie can’t help but wonder how much truth there is behind his words.

ii.

Buck works his ass off. 

Whenever he’s not directly caring for Christopher - or, you know, asleep - he’s working on his leg. He has a singular focus in mind, and it’s getting back to work. He understands that being injured in the line of duty isn’t a mark against him. It’s not impacting his income - yet - or his reputation. In fact, as far as the latter is concerned, it’s probably doing the opposite. People can only continue to comment on his bravery. 

Buck is aware he doesn’t need to get back to work for work. 

Buck needs to get back to work for Buck. For the person he can be when he’s doing good, when he’s moving forward, when he’s not a burden. Spending time with Christopher helps. But it doesn’t take away from the silent nothingness of the rest of the time. It doesn’t remove the concern from Maddie’s eyes. 

He’s already fucked up so much for Maddie, really. His whole life he’s been causing her grief, even if she is far too kind to ever say so. And right now, while she’s finally moving on and forward with someone who treats her right, the last thing she needs is more worry. The last thing she needs is to be caring for Buck, again, the way she'd had to during his trial.

Buck needs to get back to work for Maddie, too.

So he works his ass off, no matter how much it hurts. 

iii.

“Babydoll factory, new record!” The academy instructor announces. “Most guys take the stairs. Welcome back, Buckley.”

Buck pants and brings his sore, exerted body back to his feet as the members of the 118 who came to cheer him on clap and whoop. 

It’s Friday, September 13th.

The whole process worked out quite well, actually. Buck’s physiotherapist and doctor both cleared him to recertify less than two weeks after Chris returned to school. The timing is encouraging, and Buck is relieved beyond measure to get the good news. To pass the test. To be capable. He’s so happy, in fact, that he can hardly feel the cramp in his leg.

🔹🔹🔹

Despite still being a probie, and having not been with them in months, Buck still belongs at the 118. So they throw him a party at Bobby and Athena’s to celebrate recertifying and his imminent return. 

For a while, it’s a really nice night. Buck is genuinely surprised and delighted. He and Eddie remain tight in each other’s orbit, like twin moons. Christopher gives him a homemade card and tells him he’ll miss him, to which Buck reassures him they are still going to see a lot of each other. The promise leaves Eddie feeling warm. 

Everything is going great until Buck almost dies again. 

Eddie is chatting with Karen when it happens. In his peripheral vision, he can see Buck talking to Bobby, hand pressed to his sternum. He laughs at something Bobby says, and then that laugh turns into a sputtering cough. He coughs so hard he doubles over. 

Eddie freezes. Karen turns her attention to Buck, too. 

Buck coughs into his hand, stumbles back a few paces, and brings his hand away from his mouth. His hand, and his lips, are dripping with blood. 

A few moments later, he collapses. 

The backyard party descends into what Eddie can only describe as organized chaos. Chim and Hen dive right into paramedic mode. Maddie ls crying, hovering around them. Bobby is on the phone with 9-1-1. 

“He’s got a pulse, but breathing is labored,” Hen says as Eddie buzzes like a gnat around them from a safe distance, not wanting to be in the way but desperate to know what is happening. His heart is jackhammering in his chest; slew of anxious catastrophic thoughts playing on loop in his head. 

How did this happen? Buck recertified today. He was fine just a minute ago!

“Ambulance is two minutes out,” Bobby announces. 

“Is he dead?” 

Eddie whips around to see Chris, shaking a little, leaning heavily into his crutches, tears streaming down his face. 

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

“No-no. No. Chris, he’s not dead.” Eddie says, kneeling in front on his son, trying to block his view. He reaches out to steady Chris’ tiny body. 

“Then what’s wrong with him?” Chris demands. 

“We don’t know yet,” Eddie says. “But more paramedics are coming to help.”

“Is he going to die?” Christ asks, voice shuddering from the force of his tears.

Eddie doesn’t know the honest answer to that question. He has more training as a first responder than as a father, and on the job, you don’t make promises you can’t keep. But parenting clearly operates on a different ethical code, because the moment of hesitation where Eddie doesn’t reply is enough to send Christopher into hysterics. 

“No, no, no,” he sobs.

“Chris, it’s okay,” Eddie tries, pulling him into a hug. “He’s going to be okay.”

“No one else can die,” Chris gasps into Eddie’s shoulder. He’s practically convulsing. “No one else can die!”

Maddie looks at them, covering her hand with her mouth, holding back a clearly disturbed reaction. 

Eddie has to carry Christopher out of the yard, up through the house, and back to the truck. He watches the ambulance take Buck away from the backseat window, where he sits, holding an inconsolable Christopher tight to his chest.

🔸🔸🔸

“Most people who suffer a pulmonary embolism don’t do it surrounded by trained medical professionals.” The doctor tells them when Buck wakes up in the hospital. “Saved your life.”

He says it as though Buck is supposed to feel an abundance of gratitude, rather than frustration.

“So what caused the blood clot?” Maddie asks. 

“Clots, plural,” the doctor corrects.  

Buck feels a rising sense of dread. And not, for whatever reason, at the thought of his own mortality. He’s rather used to that awareness.

“There’s the one that hit his lungs,” the doctor continues. “And then there’s two more in his leg. As to the cause? It’s unclear.”

Two more blood clots. Two more problems. No explanation. So… Does that mean no quick solution, either?

“Yeah, but he just got a clean bill of health last week,” Chimney protests. “This came out of nowhere.”

“Did it?” The doctor asks. “No pain or tenderness in the leg? Skin discoloration? Swelling?”

Maddie gives him a stern look. 

Shit.

“I thought I just pulled a muscle or something,” Buck shrugs. “I’ve been working it pretty hard, training for my LAFD recertification test.”

Maddie looks furious. 

She doesn’t understand. How could she? She’s not the burden. 

“Well, it’s not surprising,” the doctor says. “Training hard can lead to dehydration, which can increase the risk of clots.”

Buck takes a deep, steadying breath.

“When can I get out of here?” He asks, tone very flat.

Maddie shakes her head, exasperated. 

“We’ll move you to a room, keep you on the anticoagulants,” the doctor explains. “Tomorrow, we’ll run some more tests. And then… We’ll see.”

Which almost certainly means he’s not making his next shift. His first shift. All that work, all that pain, and for what?

“When did your leg start bothering you?” Maddie asks a few minutes later, when the doctor and Chimney have both left the room. 

He shrugs again, like this is all unimportant, rather than potentially life changing.

“It always hurts ,” he explains. “It got a bit worse a few days ago, and I just chalked it up to the extra training.”

Maddie scoffs, tightens her jaw, looks away from him - like she can’t even bear to meet his gaze. 

“Maddie, I-I was not ignoring this, okay? I-I didn’t know what it was.” Buck tries. “Figured there would be permanent pain from the injury, right? How could I know it was this?”

“Yeah, well you need to be more careful. Because if this had happened when you were alone, you could have died.”

Buck’s stomach twists.

“Yeah. I know.”

Maddie sighs. “I know you keep surviving everything, and you have been for a while, but I still worry, Evan.”

Yeah.

He knows. 

“I don’t want you to,” he mutters.

“Then please take this seriously and tell me - the former nurse - if there’s something going on.”

“Okay.” Buck replies. 

He feels stuck under the weight of his entire life. 

iv.

‘“Oh, hey, uh, do I need the hospital to sign some kind of form, or anything, you know, for the Department? My clearance?” Buck tries when Bobby comes to visit him the next morning. 

“Um… But you’re not - you’re not cleared, yet, Buck. Not yet.”

Yeah, Buck kind of worried this might happen.

“I passed my physical and my recertification test,” Buck reminds him calmly.

“It’s the blood thinners,” Bobby explains. “There are liability issues, and since we don’t know what’s causing the clots yet, I - and the Department - don’t feel comfortable with you returning to active duty quite yet.”

Buck inhales sharply. He looks at the shiny hospital flooring. 

“If we were out on a call, and something happened to you-”

“I get it,” Buck cuts him off. 

He knows what it looks like when a member of your team bleeds out while you’re working. It’s not something he’ll ever forget.

“You were injured in the line of duty, and no one is forgetting that.” Bobby says. “Chief Alonzo thinks that in a few weeks, if you’re doing okay on the meds, he can clear you for light duty.”

“For light duty?”

“Mhm.”

“Uh, you mean… like a desk job?”

“Now, listen, Buck, I know this must feel like blow after blow.”

Buck chuckles wryly. “You’re not kidding.”

“But no one is giving up on you coming back, okay? Least of all me.”

Buck nods. “Yeah, uh… Thanks, Bobby. I’ll, uh… I’ll adjust. I’llm get over it.”

Bobby’s brows furrow.

“And, listen, Buck, if you need someone to talk to in the meantime-”

“I’m fine,” Buck insists. “I’ll be fine.”

v.

Eddie brings Chris to see Buck as soon as physically possible.        

It’s been a strange few days since Buck’s party and pulmonary embolism. Eddie has gotten Chris into an emergency therapy session with his specialist, Dr. Lim. He’s been as gentle with his son as possible. Christopher seems to be bouncing back, but he’s badly shaken. Of course he is. His mother died suddenly and horribly, and then a few months later, he had to watch the person who spent the summer caring for him fifty percent of the time nearly die, too. 

Eddie also feels shaken.

So he brings Chris to Buck after school on the Tuesday following the party. As expected - and as Eddie warned Buck - Chris is a little extra clingy. 

“I thought you were dead,” he scolds Buck when Buck greets him with a big hug.

“I know, Chris, I’m really sorry,” Buck tells him. “I hate that I scared you.”

“ Not your fault,” Eddie reminds them both. “It was just a really crappy side effect.”

Buck flashes Eddie a quick, guilty look that Eddie doesn’t fully understand. Then, he turns his attention back to Chris.

“Hey, do you want to hear the good news?” Buck asks Chris.

Chris nods.

“Well, since I have to take some more time off work, it looks like I’ll be around to hang out with you more,” Buck says. 

“Really?” Chris asks.

“Yeah,” Buck tells him. “It’s going to be a while before I can be a proper firefighter again.”

He’s trying to sound brave and unconcerned - to mask his hurt in the offer of more childcare - but Eddie can tell this news has devastated him. He tries to catch Buck’s eye, but Buck won’t look at anything but Chris. Maybe spending time with Chris is the only thing he can find to be happy about, right now. Eddie can understand that. 

“Can we play more Scrabble? ” Chris asks, voice small.

“All the Scrabble you want, kid,” Buck replies. 

vi.

Taking Buck at this word, that he wants to continue watching Chris while Eddie works, he drops him off on a Saturday morning before the start of his shift. 

“Oh we’re going to have fun today, aren’t we, Chris?” Buck smiles as Eddie leaves him with his backpack and other things. 

Eddie notices that the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s looking a bit scruffy and hollowed out, if Eddie is being honest.  

“Yes!” Chris exclaims. “Can we play MarioKart? ”

“You bet,” Buck agrees.

“Or you could go outside,” Eddie looks sternly at them both, hands on his hips. Who is he becoming? Wow. He focuses his attention on Buck specifically. “You know? Take a walk around the block? Get some fresh air?”

Buck looks amused. “Maddie suggested the same thing.”

“Smart woman,” Eddie nods.

“Alright,” Buck chuckles. “What do you think is the outdoor equivalent to MarioKart? ”

Chris narrows his eyes in consideration. 

“Bumper cars!” He decides. 

“ Bumper cars ?” Eddie echoes. “Really?”

“The boy has spoken, Eddie.” Buck shrugs. “He wants bumper cars.”

“Yes!” Christopher whoops excitedly. 

And, you know what? Fine. If it makes them both happy, with everything lately, who is Eddie to suggest anything else? 

“Where are you going to find bumper cars?” Eddie asks.

“Disneyland,” Chris suggests.

“Nice try,” Eddie laughs. He’s not even sure if there are bumper cars at Disneyland. 

“Darn,” Chris says.

“Well, bud, Disney isn’t in the cards,” Buck confirms.  “But I’m pretty sure Santa Monica Pier has what we need.” 

Chapter Text

i.

Christopher is delighted by the entire bumper car experience. He laughs and grins like a menace, slamming into as many of the other tiny vehicles as possible. Quite a competitive streak in that one, despite the angel face. 

For his own part,  Buck finds himself unexpectedly nervous with every jolt. As if the slam of the bumper car will knock his remaining clots loose and kill him on the spot. That would really do a number on Chris, and the last thing Buck wants is for Chris to have another scare. 

They try an assortment of rides. The ferris wheel. The spinning sharks. Christopher wants to try the rollercoaster, insisting he’s brave enough - which Buck doesn’t doubt for a second - but unfortunately Buck is deemed too tall to ride. Not something he can say he’s encountered before. So they move onto a stall selling cotton candy.

Buck tries to ignore the hot roil of jealousy and resentment he feels when a fire engine from the 136 arrives at the park on a med call. It seems like a cruel little reminder from the universe. He’s still a long ways away from doing the work he loves.  

After Christopher wins a large stuffed bear playing a water gun game, they walk to the edge of the pier and find a bench to rest at. Buck snaps a quick picture of Christopher grinning out at the sea, one hand on the guard rail, the other clutching the cartoonishly large bear head, and sends it to Eddie as an update. Then he sits on the bench beside Chris, holding the boy’s shirt so he can lean out and enjoy the sea breeze, or whatever it is he’s doing. 

“Almost as good a day as DIsneyland?” Buck asks him.

“Yep!” Chris confirms. “Is the cotton candy at Disney as good?”

Probably better.

“Definitely not.”

“I like this park,” Chris decides. 

“Yeah, me too,” Buck says. “Thanks for being good company, bud.”

“You’re welcome!”

Buck chuckles. Thank god for this kid, he thinks, not for the first time since his injury. 

“I’m glad you didn’t have to go back to work just yet,” Christopher says, turning to look back at Buck. “This is more fun than work.”

Buck feels a pang of remorse. He’d kill to be at work. But what a terrible way to feel, when he gets to be here with Chris? Eddie would probably love a fun day off at the pier. And then, well, Shannon will never get a day with her son again… Buck feels guilty for not being able to stamp down his own desperation to get back to it. 

“You’re right, Chris,” Buck says quietly. “No way you’re dad is having as much fun as us today.”

“Uh huh,” Chris nods, then looks back out at the Pacific. 

A few moments pass before Chris speaks again.

“Buck?”

“Mhm?”

“Where did all the water go?”

Buck has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. He twists his torso to look behind Christopher’s head, out at the ocean. Or… Not the ocean. The water has receded for what looks like maybe half a mile, leaving exposed ocean floor, more than from the pull of any low tide. 

It’s not supposed to do that. Unless something anomalous is pulling the water back…

Buck stands up to get a better view and check his theory. He tightens his grip on Christopher’s shirt. Other pier visitors are starting to crowd the rails, commenting on the exact same thing Buck is now fearing. 

It transforms from a fear to a near apocalyptic reality in a heartbeat. In the distance, not nearly far enough to leave Buck feeling good about his chances, he sees it. A wave, beginning to swell. Confirming Buck’s disbelieving eyes, an alarm starts sounding from the pier’s overhead speakers.

“We have to go,” Buck tells Chris. 

Because even if this is hopeless, even if this inevitable, Buck is sure as hell not going to lay down and let anything hurt Christopher. Even if he might not have the same resolve for himself. 

Buck grabs Chris and tosses him over his shoulder like he’s one of the dolls from his recertification test. If there’s any heft to him, Buck doesn’t feel it. He leaves everything else. Nothing matters but Chris.

Buck runs. 

He runs as Christopher begs to know what’s happening.

He runs past other people who are struggling to keep up a good pace. 

He runs on his sore leg, without a single thought about cramping and blood clots. 

He runs with single-minded focus. Keep Christopher alive. 

Unfortunately, the way they’re positioned, Chris looking over Buck’s shoulder, he sees when the wave hits. Buck only hears it. The deafening crash. The screams of people who can’t get away. They’re enough to let Buck know how close death is from claiming them. 

He can’t outrun this. He needs a new strategy, and fast. 

He spots a large wooden game booth. A scrap of shelter; like a bug under a leaf in a thunderstorm. It’s all he can manage to do to get them behind it before they are hit. 

🔸🔸🔸

If Buck had ever wanted to know what it must be like to be a sock in the spin cycle, this is the perfect way to find out. He’s completely out of control of his own body, tossed around and around under the force of the wave. His mouth and nose are filled with frigid salt water. His eyes sting, and even if he could see through them, his head is being rattled around so much his vision goes black. 

The only time he’s ever experienced anything quite this disorienting - because certainly this is longer and worse than initial ejection of the ladder truck bombing - was when he was shot out of the sky. And because of that, despite being cold and wet and drowning, Buck keeps waiting for the heat and the sand. 

When the tumbling stops, it takes a while for his brain to catch up with his body. He’s dizzy and lightheaded. He’s confused. He still can’t see or hear clearly. He has no idea how long it’s been since he’s breathed. He desperately wants to stop trying to get ahold of himself, and just let sleep wash over him. 

But Buck can’t quit. He can’t give up.

Christopher needs him. 

Once upon a time, Buck was stuck fighting his bleeding, battered body’s growing inertia, while someone else needed his help. He’d gotten four people out of a helicopter, and he nearly killed himself to reach the fifth. He had needed Buck. And Buck had failed him.

He’s not going to do it again. He’s not going to fail Christopher. 

🔹🔹🔹

They’re putting out a fire at a food truck, confused about the build up of run off water on the pavement, when Eddie gets the emergency text alert. 

1:23

SMS TSUNAMI WARNING

WARNING - Earthquake/Tsunami Alert

Event type: SEAQUAKE Magnitude 7.5 

Location: Santa Monica, Los Angeles County

He actually drops his phone. It bounces off the wet pavement, fortunate to be in a chunky case. 

“Eddie?” Hen asks, looking at him. “What’s wrong?”

Eddie can’t even look at her. He can’t even move. There is ice in his veins and cement in his airways. He might not move from this spot ever again.

“Eddie?” Hen repeats, bending to grab Eddie’s phone for him. 

“Tsunami,” Chim says, looking at his own phone. “A tsunami hit Santa Monica.”

So he read that right, then. So it’s true.

They…

No.

“Eddie?” Hen asks for a third time.

He looks at her and crumples. 

“Buck took Chris to the pier today.”

🔸🔸🔸

“CHRISTOPHER!” Buck screams through salt water and chaos. ‘CHRISTOPHER!”

It feels a lot like laying in the sand, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his thigh, dragging himself towards a wrecked chopper, screaming for John. When he knew it was seemingly hopeless; that his chances of surviving were as abysmal as the chances of John not already being dead. But he hadn’t quit then and he won’t quit now. 

It’s not in his nature to give up on others, despite the way he might have thrown in the towel for himself. 

“CHRISTOPHER!”

Mills had screamed for him to stop. To take shelter. He wouldn’t want you to die for his corpse, Buckley! He’d never understood how she could be so flippant with that word. Because even if John had been dead in that moment, he wasn’t just a corpse. He was John, with dark curls and bright green eyes and a laugh that sounded like music. He would never just be a corpse. 

“CHRISTOPHER!”

His voice is blown and aching as he screams, hanging onto a cord of string lights that was once high above his head. A chilling testament to the water levels. He has to dodge an assortment of debris that comes hurtling towards him in the current of misplaced seawater. 

“BUCK!”  

Christopher’s voice cuts through the waterlogged apocalypse-scape, and Buck knows immeasurable relief. He’s not only alive, but well enough to scream. That’s better than it could be. 

“BUCK!” 

Buck kicks, treads, tries to get a better vantage point. Christopher is a few hundred feet down current, clinging for dear life to a lamppost. He is alive and breathing and not bleeding so profusely that Buck has to worry about his imminent and unsolvable death. In fact, he looks uninjured altogether. Just terrified. 

With John, it had been the opposite. With John… By the time Buck had dragged his broken, bleeding body back into the chopper, John had known he was about to die. He didn’t look so afraid. He was past that. Buck, on the other hand, had been so terrified he was trembling. 

“CHRIS! CHRIS, JUST-JUST STAY DOWN THERE! DON’T MOVE!”

He hopes Christopher can hear him as he lets go of his safety line of string lights. The current yanks him forward, and he swims with it, avoiding an ever-growing influx of debris as he finds the quickest path to Christopher. Buck is a strong swimmer, always has been, but  the current is too strong for Buck to steer himself, cross it, and reach Chris’ location without being swept far past him. He knows before he’s even close that he doesn’t have enough control. All he can hope to do is take advantage of the split second they are in the same proximity. 

“Grab my hand!” Buck shouts as he’s about to pass him. “Christopher, reach out!” 

Chris stretches out his thin arm, but the distance is insurmountable. 

“Grab my hand!” Buck begs.

It’s no use.

He is torn past Christopher. 

“NO CHRIS! CHRIS!”

Buck struggles furiously against the current. Chris is still reaching for him, but it’s no longer a good use of his energy, and it looks like his arm might slip. If he loses grip of the lamppost and gets sucked under, he might be gone. 

That’s simply not an option. 

“Chris, stay over there!” 

“I can’t hold on!” Christopher wails. 

“Just hold on, Christopher!” Buck pleads. But it’s very clear they’re running out of time. 

Thankfully, Buck loses momentum before he is dragged too far away. The current sends Buck careening into the remains of one of the wrecked, wooden game booths. Buck is able to pull himself onto it, buying them some time. He’s on the verge of formulating a rescue plan when Chris’ grip on the post finally breaks and his tiny body is dragged under the rushing water. 

Terror clutches Buck with a vice grip. He jumps back into the water, safety and ability to swim up current be damned. He wouldn’t want you to die for his corpse, Buckley! He doesn’t give a shit and he needs the pitched echo of her voice to leave his head. 

Under the water, eyes stinging from the salt, Buck makes out a blur of a yellow shirt rushing in his direction. He grabs him, wraps his arms around him, and pushes up to the surface. When they’re above water and breathing, Buck cradles Christopher’s head in his hands, pulls him tight to his chest. 

“Got you,” he pants into Christopher’s wet curls. “I got you.”

Christopher sobs onto the top of Buck’s head.

“I got you. I got you.”

When he reached John in the desert, it had been too late to stop the bleeding. When he got to Maddie, on the night that changed everything, he had been too late to end things differently. But he’s going to save Christopher. He’s not going to fail anyone else he loves. 

🔹🔹🔹

Bobby nearly sends Eddie home, but the level of disaster they’re facing means he can’t justify the loss of a firefighter. Even if Eddie is a panicking wreck. 

“Look at me,” Bobby had demanded, hands on Eddie’s shoulders, as Eddie tried to tear the fabric of reality itself apart so he wouldn’t have to accept the most likely outcome as truth. “They are not dead until proven otherwise. They are alive and we are going to find them.”

And maybe because Bobby is the only person in his world who knows the agony Eddie is trying not to experience, Eddie has to believe him. 

🔸🔸🔸

Of all things, Buck manages to pull them on top of the fire engine from Station 136. No sign of any of the other firefighters. Buck hopes they’re alive, but right now, he has to focus on Christopher. He has no phone, nothing with which he can call for help. They are deserted here, and Buck keeping them alive is the only chance Christopher has. 

He holds Chris tight to him, cradling him like he’s his own. He whispers affirmations and assurances in his ear. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to see your dad real soon.

He’s said stuff like this before. 

We’re going to get you out of here, J. We’re going to get you home. 

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. 

“You good, Chris?” He asks after a few minutes of them just sitting there, exhausted and panting.

“Yup,” Chris says. “Mom always made me take swimming lessons at the YMCA.”

“You did a great job swimming, kid.” Buck tells him. “You were so brave.”

Buck knows the next logical thing to do is get up, make sure Chris is sitting somewhere safe, and look around for an exit plan. A path to safety. He should formulate some kind of strategy. But he can’t bring himself to let go of Chris. Not yet. Not until his adrenaline settles and his brain slows to a tolerable rate of spiraling.

So he’s not going to move right now.  Rescue teams will come soon anyway, right? This isn’t like Afghanistan. 

“I guess we’re gonna have to hang out here a little longer,” Buck rasps.

“We have a firetruck.” Christopher says contentedly, like they couldn’t possibly be in danger in the proximity of a fire engine. Buck knows otherwise. 

“Yeah, we do.” 

In the distance, Buck thinks he hears a woman  scream. His body jerks a little, drawn by the compulsion to help wherever help is needed. To do the most good. To be a hero. He tempers himself. 

Right now, in this moment, in this cataclysmic blip in time, he only has one job. Keep Christopher safe. 

Because it’s not going to happen again. Last time, he helped everyone. He had devised a strategy, planned out his actions. He has figured out who made the most logical sense to get out first, who was a quick rescue, who could shoot and cover his back while he did more complicated saves. 

In the end, he’d had to go back for John last. Logically, that had been the answer. Emotionally, it had felt like treason.

And then John bled out while Buck held him. 

So a woman screams. She’s in danger. She might be dying even.

“Can we help her?” Chris asks. 

“No, bud,” Buck says. 

“Why not?”

“Because you, Christopher, are one of the most important people in the whole world to me, and if I focus on helping other people, you could get hurt.” Buck explains.

And if you get hurt, I simply won’t survive it, he doesn’t say. 

🔹🔹🔹

They’re given use of a rescue watercraft and sent in the direction of Santa Monica Pier, using the roadways as if they were a system of canals. News of an LAFD firefighter, even one on medical leave, in trouble does grants them urgency. Somehow, the department focuses on this more than the child he has with him. Eddie’s child. 

They pass countless bodies as they motor towards Pacific Park. Floating, tagged or untagged, left to be dealt with after survivors can be rescued. 

Eddie keeps his last vision of Chris and Buck this morning in his brain; Christopher’s yellow shirt, Buck in a pastel, off-red button up. Every time he sees either primary color floating in the ruins, his whole nervous system responds like someone has pressed him over hot coals. 

It’s never them, but his panic doesn’t know that. 

  🔸🔸🔸

Eventually, ignoring pleas for help becomes a little too impossible, when they appear closer and closer to the engine. 

“Help them, Buck, please!” Christopher even begs. “You’re a firefighter.”

So he does. He helps some of them. Only the ones he can help without leaving Christopher’s direct proximity. That’s his rule. That’s his hard line. 

He uses the hose from the top of the engine as a line. He reaches down over the top of the engine and catches people as the water drags them by. He takes in mouthful after mouthful of saltwater for his efforts, until his stomach is sick, his throat is desperate, and his lips are cracking. 

A few hours into their predicament, and Buck knows his body is struggling - and not just from the salt and its accompanying dehydration. His bad leg is killing him, and the good one isn’t happy either. His skin is burning, this morning’s sunscreen long since past its period of efficacy. Christopher is also looking pretty red. 

If Buck is suffering, Christopher must be feeling pretty miserable, too. 

When the flow of people who need what small rescue he’s willing to offer stops, Buck pulls the hose line out of the water and ties it tight around Christopher’s waist.

“What are you doing?” Christopher asks.

“Keeping you safe,” Buck explains. 

“I am safe,” Christopher says, grimacing at how tight Buck pulls the knot around his hip bone. “You saved me.”

Buck stares at him for a moment, expression blank, before snapping back to reality. He smiles and ruffles Christopher’s damp hair.

“Well, I’m keeping you safer , then.”

🔹🔹🔹

They get held up saving people, because of course they do. As frantic and desperate as Eddie is to find his son and his best friend, they simply cannot ignore others in need. And there are so many others in need. 

Each person they save isn’t Christopher.

Each person they save isn’t Buck. 

And quietly, secretly, Eddie resents them. He will resent every single person they help before they help his people; not because it’s right or fair but because his heart is shattering and everyone is stepping on the broken glass. 

They are wasting Christopher and Buck’s time. 

And then the water starts moving again, and Eddie thinks his broken glass has been ground down to dust. 

“What’s happening?” He demands. 

“The wave is receding,” Hen explains. 

“Receding?” 

“The water is going back out to sea.” She clarifies.

All Eddie can think about is who it might take with it. 

  🔸🔸🔸

The increasing rush of water, flooding in the opposite direction as before, throws Buck for a loop. On any other day, hydrated and not in a constant state of fear, he might have predicted this natural outcome A wave version of the truism, what goes up. 

The force of the water’s recession shakes Engine 136. The people he managed to pull onto the truck are tripping. One hits her elbow hard off the metal siding of the truck roof. One falls into the water. 

It happens like this. 

Buck lunges to catch the man who fell into the water, one arm still holding onto the line attached to Christopher, but just barely misses. He doesn’t have any time to think things through. 

He lets go of the hose and leans over the side of the engine reaching for the screaming, pleading man. 

The man grabs onto Buck by the forearms.

As Buck tries to pull him up, the engine gives another shuddering jolt, rocking it to the side. 

Buck’s efforts to lift the man in the water are flipped on their head, as he finds himself being dragged overboard. 

“Stop! Wait!” Buck says to the panicking man who is going to be the death of both of them. But the man’s grip tightens. 

He is so focused on keeping himself on the engine and not being pulled into the water - he is being held onto with such a furious vice grip - that he does not have time to react when another jerk of the engine elicits a shriek from Christopher, who tumbles over the side, into the heavy current of seawater. 

“CHRISTOPHER!” Buck screams. 

The fight is knocked out of him and he is pulled into the water himself, struggling under the surface to disentangle himself from the other man. 

It takes him a moment to wrestle himself free, and when he does, he can’t worry about what happens. He can’t think about it. He can’t feel guilty. There is only Christopher. Buck swims frantically amidst the chaos, grabbing the hoseline, which has been pulled taut by the distance the water has carried Christopher. 

As he’s reaching, a piece of debris - something hard and cracked, like plastic siding - slams into him. Buck shouts from a stab of pain to his abdomen, but doesn’t let go. He pulls himself up the line, back to the engine, and positions himself so he is wedged in the open window of the driver’s side, where he won’t be swept away by the current. 

“HOLD ON, CHRIS!” He screams, but he can’t even see if he’s above water. 

Arms burning, Buck reels Christopher in, dragging his weight against the current. As soon as he’s able, he reaches forward and takes his soaked, trembling body into his arms. His glasses have fallen off and are nowhere to be seen.

“You’re okay,” Buck says to him, over and over. “You’re okay. I got you. I got you. You’re okay.”

He manages to pull them both back up onto the engine, with the help of a few of the people he saved before who managed not to fall off. He sets Christopher down and check him over for wounds. He’s growing increasingly lightheaded and his hands are shaking, but at least Christopher seems physically unharmed. Just sunburnt, waterlogged, and terrified. 

“Buck?” Chris whispers.

“Yeah, bud? You okay?” He rasps, finding his tongue is feeling suddenly heavy in his mouth. 

“You’re bleeding.”

Buck looks down at himself. His white tee shirt is torn at his midriff, and there’s a long, bloody gash he hasn’t felt until exactly this moment. Probably from whatever hit him in the water. The blood is really flowing, running down into the waistband of his pants, down his leg. 

“Oh,” Buck touches the wound gingerly. “S’the blood thinners.”

“Buck, are you going to be okay?” Chris asks, bottom lip trembling.

“Yeah,” Buck waves it off. 

He slumps down on his ass beside Christopher, and loops the arm of his non-bloody side around Christopher’s shoulders. He’s terrified to let go of him, now. He uses his other free arm to press down on the wound.

“Gotta… Keep… Uh… Pressure…”

“Buck? Buck?”

“S’okay. Just… Just gonna… Close my…”

“BUCK!”

🔹🔹🔹

The sun is setting, and they only find Engine 136 because a group of people are stranded on top of it, and shout for help when the watercraft gets close enough. 

Eddie is ready to secretly loathe all of them too, to scream at the fucking sky not to send him another cluster of tsunami victims that doesn’t include the people he’s searching for. He’s down to the last fucking dregs of his hope. If they don’t find his son, Eddie might as well just let himself fall off the edge of this fucking inflatable boat and get swept away along with him. He’s only known about Christopher for a year, only known his fierce love for a year, but he’s fairly certain if he loses it his heart will simply cease to beat. He won’t have the resilience to continue.

Then, as they’ve almost reached the drowned engine, he hears it.

“PLEASE! PLEASE, YOU HAVE TO HELP HIM! YOU HAVE TO HELP HIM!”

And he’d know that voice anywhere. He’s been trying to hear it all day.

Eddie straightens up.

“CHRISTOPHER?”

Bobby looks at Eddie, a galaxy of relief in his eyes. 

There’s a pause before the response. Eddie scans the dark, shadowy group of figures on the back of the engine and sees a little boy. If he was standing, he’d fall to his knees. 

“DAD?”

“CHRISTOPHER!”

“DADDY, HELP! YOU HAVE TO HELP!”

The moment the watercraft is close enough, Eddie throws himself onto the back of the engine. He ignores anyone else and flies to his son. 

“Christopher!” He cries, pulling his tiny, drenched body to his chest.

Christopher sobs, heaping, shaking cries as Eddie squeezes him.

“I found you,” Eddie cries right back. “I found you. Oh god, I found you.”

He feels something sharp poking his stomach between them, and when he pulls away, he sees the nozzle end of a firehose, tied in a loop around Christopher’s waist. It hits him all at once, who must have done this, who else Eddie was looking for. 

“Buck,” Eddie exhales. 

“He got hurt saving me,” Christopher blubbers. “I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, no,” Eddie cups his cheek. “It’s not your fault, sweetie. Nothing is your fault. Where is he?”

Christopher points behind Eddie. 

Eddie turns, and sees a one of the victims - a woman, maybe in her mid thirties - huddled over a body, hands pressing down as if to staunch blood flow. 

“We tried to make a bandage from our clothes but it bled through,” she says to Eddie. 

Eddie takes a step closer, hand still holding Christopher, so his headlamp illuminates Buck’s limp, unconscious body. His torso is covered in blood.

Eddie looks back at Bobby, who’s still climbing off the boat. 

“CAP!”

🔸🔸🔸

Buck is laying in the sand on Virginia Beach.

The sun is warm, the breeze is soft, and John’s laughter is like music.

They’re on a brief leave, home for two weeks. Well, John is home for two weeks, and he brought Buck with him. Buck’s not sure what home there is for him in Hershey. 

They have to be careful. They have to be quiet. John isn’t out to his family. His father is a pastor. His mother teaches Sunday school. It’s fine. It’s not like they’re used to being out loud about anything. It’s not like they are anything, officially. They’re just them, and right now, Buck is okay with that being something he whispers instead of shouts. 

“You think we’d be sick of sand by now,” John says, scooping a fistful of the grainy white stuff and watching it sift through the cracks between his fingers. 

“Different sand,” Buck shrugs. “Ocean view is much better here.”

Buck never visited the coast, growing up. A shame, considering they weren’t too far from it. So this bright and endless blue has him entirely enchanted, whenever he has a chance to visit. 

“That’s for sure,” John laughs. “Should we swim?” 

He reaches across the space between them and strokes his thumb over the thin skin on Buck’s wrist. 

Buck grins. “Definitely.” 

“Okay,” John sits up. Buck watches the way the family crest tattoo on his bicep contorts with his motions. “Well, come on, we don’t want to waste any time before-”

John cuts off mid sentences and winces.

Buck sits up and shifts closer to him. “What’s wrong, J?”

John touches his stomach, hissing in pain. When he brings his hand away, it’s covered in blood. 

“John!” Buck exclaims. 

“Shit,” John hisses. He turns his head to face Buck better. There’s blood spilling from the corners of his mouth. “Not again.” 

🔸🔸🔸

Buck lurches awake, gasping at a sudden thrum of pain in his side. 

“Hey, hey. Whoa. You’re okay.”

Bobby’s voice. 

Above him, Buck sees the night sky and the faint glow of headlamps. They’re moving, fast. Bumping over uneven water. 

“Where’s John?” Buck slurs, voice barely functional. “John…”

Bobby, leaning over him, frowns. “Buck, who’s John? You’re on a rescue craft with us. There was a tsunami. Do you remember?”

Buck coughs, throat dry and sore. His eyes flicker around. 

Across the boat, closer to the motor, he sees Eddie, holding Christopher on his lap. His lips are pressed to Christopher’s forehead, arms engulfing him over top of a heating blanket.

Oh.

Christopher.

Right.

Right, Christopher is safe.

Christopher is safe.

Buck didn’t fail. 

“Oh,” Buck exhales. He closes his eyes again. “‘Kay.”

“Buck, who’s John?” Bobby asks again.

But Buck is already falling back into the ether.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Chapter Text

i.

Eddie visits Buck in the hospital as soon as he’s able to. He has to stay for a few days due to the combined damage of his wounds, the sun exposure, and dehydration from all the salt water. He’s in rough shape, but likely to make a quick recovery, is what Maddie texted him. 

He took all that - the sea, the sun, the blood - and he still managed to keep Christopher safe. Chris is sunburnt and shaken. There’s some bruising on him, especially where the hose was tied around him. But Buck kept him safe. 

Eddie has no idea how to express his gratitude. 

So he sits in a stiff hospital chair at Buck’s beside, holding his hand while the other man sleeps, and tries not to toss everything that did happen or might have happened like a washing machine with an endless spin cycle. 

He’s already been given the full story from Chris. He already knows everything Buck did. The only thing he’s not clear on is whoever the John person was he woke up asking for. Christopher says he didn’t think any of the people Buck rescued were named John, but he couldn’t be certain. 

The point is, Eddie doesn’t have any questions. Not really. He knows all he needs to know. Buck held Eddie’s whole fucking world together when the full force of the Pacific Ocean tried to tear it apart. If Eddie hadn’t felt a devotion to him before this, it’s overwhelming now. It’s total and gripping. 

Maybe twenty minutes or so after Eddie arrives, Buck wakes up. His eyes flutter open and flicker right to where Eddie hadn’t realized he was stroking his thumb over Buck’s soft inner wrist in small circular motions. 

“Hey,” Eddie says weakly, heart feeling too big for his chest. 

Buck grimaces a little. His face is red and scraped, bottom lip cracked. He must be experiencing a lot of discomfort. But he squeezes Eddie’s hand back the moment he has the awareness. 

“How’s Chris?” Buck asks, voice hoarse. 

“Alive, thanks to you,” Eddie says. 

Buck’s lip twitches up in a half smile. “Don’t forget to give him credit. Your kid is tough as hell.”

Eddie smiles, but his eyes are stinging. “I don’t know how to thank you for what you did.”

“You don’t have to,” Buck shakes his head. “You know I love that kid. I’d do anything for him.” 

And Eddie does. Eddie does know that. He knows it and he feels that love so clearly. Eddie and Christopher may have been thrown into this strange new world together, safety line severed when they lost Shannon, but Buck has always been right there at their side. He has shown them a steadfast sort of love from the very beginning, before Eddie had done anything to earn it, and now…

Well, now Eddie is a little worried he’s fallen in love with Buck, somewhere amidst all the craziness and heartache. 

What horrible timing. 

ii.

By early October, considering the injury to his stomach, and the persistent concern of the blood thinners, Buck is working a desk job. There had been a fire marshal position available, but it was pretty mobile, and the pain in Buck’s abdomen, where muscle was injured, is still considerable. So Buck does the most boring thing imaginable, and takes a nine-to-five answering public calls and responding to emails at LAFD headquarters. 

It’s usually painfully dull. One day he does get a torrent of angry complaints about a fire drill in a big downtown office building, which led to a domino-style trip and fall situation down several flights of stairs. That at least is somewhat entertaining. 

“A lawyer called me, you know!” One woman tells him. “He says I could sue!”

Buck has no idea what to tell her, apart from rehearsing the email memo script he’d been sent. 

“Ma’am, as I have said before, the Los Angeles Fire Department will be in contact with the property management company that owns that building to ensure it meets proper building codes for public safety. Beyond that, I certainly hope you are recovering from your fall and wish you well.”

A lawsuit against the city sounds kind of ludicrous. He wonders how that would turn out. 

🔹🔹🔹

Things are going well for Eddie, considering he almost lost his whole world in one quick, horrible sweep. Considering he thinks about that fact all the time. 

He’s not the only one, either, apparently. The 118 gets a temporary transfer from Station 136 - the firehouse whose team was scattered by the tsunami, and whose engine had been conveniently located to save Buck and Christopher’s lives. Her name is Lena Bosko, and not only did she quite nearly die that day, stuck on a ferris wheel at Pacific Park, but her whole team had, too. Her captain had been pinned and had to have a frankly insane field amputation performed by Athena. Lena had been a breath away from losing a lot of the people she cares for, just like Eddie. 

They hit it off right away. They have a similar working style, and Lena is partial to a sharp banter that reminds Eddie of his sisters. When Lena mentions an ex-girlfriend and they stumble upon a mutual fondness for MMA, the friendship is cemented. Lena invites Eddie to go out to a bar on their next night off to watch a fight. Abuela is cool to watch Chris for a few hours, and Eddie is eager to go. It turns out, it’s kind of great to make a friend who doesn’t know Buck. 

“I’m confused,” Lena says over a pint of beer before the fight is about to start. “Why is it a problem that you’re into Buck, a man you know is also some flavor of queer and also chooses to spend all his free time with you?”

Eddie blushes and takes another heavy gulp of his drink. “Well, it's complicated, isn’t it?”

“Complicated?” Lena asks. “Complicated was when Nalin, my longterm girlfriend, moved back to Thailand with her family and we stupidly tried long distance for five months.”

Eddie winces. “Okay, yeah that sounds horrible. Sorry.”

Lena shrugs. “Point is, your guy is here and available.”

“Is he?” Eddie asks. “And am I? We’re both kind of going through it, lately. With Chris coming into my life, and Shannon dying, and his repeated string of life threatening injuries…”

Lena nods. “Crazy year.”

Eddie nods. “Exactly. We haven’t actually existed much around each other in normal circumstances, and my life isn’t even quite normal to me yet, so how do I know, you know?”

“Hmm, I do believe that’s what dating someone is for,” Lena says. “Getting to know.”

Eddie frowns. “I don’t know if I like that you’re more reasonable than me.”

Lena smirks and takes another sip of beer.

“Doesn’t take much, Diaz.”

iii.

Eddie, of course, does nothing with Lena’s advice. Whenever he talks to Buck, the guy seems down about his job and about the prospect of being there for an indefinite amount of time. That and he’s having a procedure to remove the pins in his leg soon, so the timing is really less than ideal. Definitely nothing to do with Eddie’s gut wrenching anxiety at the thought of losing whatever strange, new place Buck has carved out in his life.

Then, a few days after Eddie and Lena went out to watch the fight, Christopher’s nightmares start. 

Eddie, stupidly, doesn’t see it coming. Call it lack of experience with kids and surviving a natural disaster, but he kind of thought if Chris was going to have crippling night terrors, it would have started immediately. Not weeks later. But what does he know? He’s not a psychologist. 

But he does bring Christopher to one, after three nights in a row of Christopher waking up in the middle of the night, sweaty and screaming his throat raw about someone drowning. No one has been sleeping, Eddie is exhausted at work, it’s taking a toll on Abuela, and that’s all before even delving into how much it’s hurting Chris. They need help. Eddie feels completely out of his depth. 

The child psychologist Hen recommends, Dr. Lin, has Christopher drawing pictures of how he’s feeling with those chunky, twelve-pack Crayola markers on white printer paper. Eddie watches from a mirrored window as Christopher draws the same tsunami-wrecked tableau of Pacific Park, over and over, and always with a woman drowning in the middle of the page, a shaky HELP speech bubble emerging from her mouth. 

Dr. Lin says Christopher is still processing his trauma, still working through it all in his own time, his own eight year-old language. 

“I know it’s hard. You love your son. You wanna fix this. But it’ll take some time.”

“He won’t really talk to me about it,” Eddie explains. “Whatever he’s dreaming about.”

“Maybe he’s trying to communicate in other ways,” Dr. Lin suggests, handing Eddie a file folder full of the drawings Christopher had made during their session. 

“I don’t know why he’s focused on a drowning woman,” Eddie says. “My friend he was with, the one who got hurt and almost died in front of him, is a man.”

“Yes, he does seem fixated on her.” Dr. Lin says. “Perhaps your friend could give some insight into what’s going on?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll ask him.”

Dr. Lin nods. “And no matter what, be patient with Christopher. He’ll tell us when he’s ready. In fact, if the opportunity’s right, he might tell you first.”

“Is there anything I can do until then?” Eddie asks, feeling altogether useless. 

“Just keep loving him.”

🔸🔸🔸

When Eddie asks Buck to help with Christopher’s nightmares, he drives over as soon as he can without a second thought. 

Buck gets it. He’s been dreaming a lot about the tsunami, too. Sometimes the real way it happened, and sometimes with the added stress of trying to keep Christopher safe, while searching for a rotating lineup of either John or Eddie. He can never find them before he wakes up. Anyway, if Christopher is having dreams, Buck understands.

What he’s not expecting, what he hasn’t mentally prepared himself for, is Eddie handing him a stack of drawings that Christopher made during a therapy session, like Buck might be his own personal Rosetta Stone. 

“They all have the same woman in them,” Eddie says. “Drowning.”

Buck flips through the stack of warped paper. In every one, there is a stick woman in an orange triangle dress, with squiggly lines of brown hair. 

“Huh,” Buck says, looking at her nearly identical, repeated iterations. 

“He won’t really explain, or maybe he can’t explain, who she is,” Eddie says. “Not to me, not to Dr. Lin. So, I was wondering if maybe you knew who she was and why Christopher keeps having nightmares of her.”

Buck looks at his friend. Eddie looks exhausted. He has overgrown stubble and dark bags under his eyes. He looks like a slight breeze might bring him to tears. This has really been tearing him apart. Of course it would be. Not for the first time, Buck wishes and wishes and wishes he had never taken Chris to the damn pier. They could have gone anywhere else that day. 

Buck sighs. “I’m not sure, Eddie.”

“I know that day was terrible and you probably don’t want to remember.” Eddie says, looking at Buck with big, desperate eyes. “I just… I don’t know what else to do, Buck. My son is suffering and I don’t know what to do.”

“Hey,” Buck puts the drawings down on Eddie’s coffee table and grabs Eddie’s arm with his newly freed hand. “We’ll figure it out, okay? I’ll try to remember.”

“Thank you, Buck.”

Buck moves to sit on Eddie’s couch and thinks. The official death count of the Santa Monica tsunami was well over a thousand people. The fact that Buck and Chris weren’t among them is still something that manages to baffle him. But a lot of people died. They saw a fair amount of it. When the wave hit and…

“Oh,” Buck says. “Oh, shit. I think I know.”

Eddie sits beside him. 

“What? What is it?”

Buck swallows heavily. “Eddie, I-I’m sorry…”

“Just tell me,” Eddie begs. 

Buck takes a deep breath. 

“When I got him onto the fire engine,” Buck says. “I was terrified to let go of him.”

Eddie nods. “I can see why. I think I’d have been the same.”

Buck takes another shaky breath. “There was a woman calling for help, and he wanted me to save her, but… She was so far away, Eddie. I-I couldn’t leave him, I-I didn’t want to make that choice, but-”

Eddie places a hand on Buck’s shoulder.

“You kept my son safe,” Eddie says. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“He-he must know people died because I didn’t help them,” Buck says. 

“Will you help me talk to him? We can explain it.” Eddie says. “I know you did then, too. He explained how well you protected him. But I think talking to you might help.”

The idea is nerve wracking. Can he defend the choices he made out of the moment? To Eddie, sure. Eddie wasn’t there. All Eddie can imagine is his kid in trouble. Christopher might have a bit more of an accurate perspective, and Buck might find it to be somewhat condemning. But, of course, he’s never going to say no to trying to help Chris.

“Sure,” Buck nods. “Yeah, let’s talk to him.”

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie knocks on Christopher’s door, cracking it open a bit to see Christopher playing with Lego on the floor. Buck hovers a few steps behind Eddie, and Eddie can practically feel his nervous energy vibrating through the house.

“Hey, kiddo. Can Buck and I come chat with you?” Eddie asks.

Christopher connects two final blocks together before turning to look at Eddie. 

“Okay, Dad.”

Eddie walks in and helps Chris to his feet. He sits with Chris on the side of his bed as Buck takes his desk chair.

“Hi, Buck,” Chris smiles, a bit more subdued than usual, given his depleted physical and emotional energy lately.

“Hi, Chris.” Buck says. “Your dad says you’ve been having some trouble sleeping?”

Christopher’s cheeks pink a little, and Eddie loops a comforting arm around him. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Buck says, noticing his hesitance. “You know, I-I’ve been having kind of regular nightmares, too.”

Eddie didn’t know that, actually. He looks at Buck cautiously, examining him for signs of the same exhaustion that he has been experiencing with Chris. Maybe Buck is just a lot better at hiding it.

“You are?” Chris asks shyly.

“Mhm,” Buck nods. “So I get what you’re going through.”

“I wish I wasn’t scared,” Chris whispers.

“Me too, bud,” Buck replies. “But it’s really normal to have nightmares when something scary happens. And it gets better eventually. It stops happening every night.”

Eddie thinks this must be about his chopper going down in Afghanistan. He can only imagine what kind of nightmares that would leave a person with. 

“It does?” Chris asks.

Buck nods. “It takes time, but it does. I promise.”

Christopher sighs. “I really want it to.”

Eddie squeezes his son and kisses his forehead. “And we’re here for you no matter how long that takes, Chris. You don’t have to be scared alone.”

“And hey, you know, since I was there,” Buck says. “Maybe you and I can talk about one of the things from your dreams? Is that okay?”

Chris shrugs, uncertain.

“We don’t have to, Chris,” Eddie assures him/ He doesn’t want Chris to feel cornered. “I just thought talking to Buck might help the nightmares get a little bit less scary. Sometimes talking about things makes them less scary.”

“Okay,” Chris concedes. 

Buck leans forward in the chair a little bit, folding his hands on his lap and ringing his fingers nervously. Eddie knows this is hard for him, that this isn’t easy to relive. Well, actually, he guesses he doesn’t really know, but he can imagine. The closest thing he can compare it to is the day Shannon died. And the idea of talking about that and any sort of detail makes his throat painfully tight.

“Chris, I guess the thing I wanted to talk to you about,” Buck says. “Is the woman that you keep dreaming about. I’m a little worried that one of the decisions I made, not to save the woman who was really far away from us, maybe upset you a lot, and that’s why you’re having these dreams.”

Christopher’s shoulders sag a little under Eddie’s protective arm.

“And, buddy,” Buck continues. “I want you to know that, if that’s the case, then I’m really, really sorry. I tried my best to keep you safe, but it was a difficult situation, and I’m sorry if anything I did caused you extra pain or fear. That’s the last thing I would ever want for you.”

“No,” Christopher says in a tiny voice.

“No?”  Eddie echoes.

“No, that’s not the woman in my dreams.” Christopher clarifies.

“O-okay,” Buck says. “Then, who is it?”

Christopher hides his face in Eddie’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to say,” Christopher whines.  “It’s embarrassing.”

Eddie runs a soothing hand through his son’s hair. 

“No way, Chris.” he says. “No, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. I promise.”

Christopher swallows heavily.

“In my nightmares… It’s Mom.”

Eddie’s heart sinks. Why didn’t he think of that? He reflects back on the drawings and the way the woman’s hair had been drawn. Of course it’s Shannon.  Two horrifically traumatic things have happened to Christopher in the span of six fucking months. Of course he’s conflating them when he’s dreaming. It doesn’t have to be logical or respecting chronology when it’s a nightmare.

“Oh, Chris, I should’ve guessed that.” Eddie laments.  “I’m so sorry. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Of course you’re thinking about your mom.”

“She wasn’t even there,” Chris mumbles. 

“Well, hey, that doesn’t matter.” Buck says. “People who weren’t there are in my nightmares sometimes, too.”

“Really?” Chris asks. 

“Totally,” Buck nods. “It’s your brain working through a bunch of different feelings all at once.”

“Who did you dream about, Buck?” Christopher asks.

Eddie watches as Buck’s entire face tightens  like a rope that’s been pulled until it has no more slack. Obviously this is something but doesn’t want to talk about. Obviously this is something that causes Buck a hell of a lot of pain. He doesn’t really know the sides of Buck that the other man doesn’t put on display. Only a glimpse here or there. This feels like standing on the precipice of a new layer of Evan Buckley. 

But Eddie doesn’t want to force the issue.

“Hey, Chris, if it’s private, it’s okay if Buck doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“No,” Buck shakes his head, dismissing the concern. “No, that’s okay. Chris shared. I can share too.”

Eddie closes his mouth and waits. He’s not sure what he’s about to learn about Buck, truth be told.

Buck looks directly at Chris. 

“Remember, you asked me at your mom‘s funeral if there was anybody I still missed who I lost when I was in the military?”

Eddie frowns. He doesn’t remember this conversation. Why doesn’t he remember this conversation?

But Christopher seems to. He nods. “You said you missed your friend.”

This is definitely the first Eddie is hearing about this.

“I do,” Buck says.  “And sometimes I dream that you and I are looking for him in the tsunami and we can’t find him.”

“That’s really sad,” Christopher pouts.

“Yeah, it makes me feel sad.” Buck agrees.

“What was his name?” Christopher asks.

“His name was John.” Buck answers, voice whisper-soft.

John. Wasn’t that the name that Buck was calling out on the boat, asking Bobby where he’d gone? The name they hadn’t had an explanation for. Buck had been dreaming of him, then, too. As he bled out. 

Eddie can’t think about this too much right now, beside Chris. He can’t… And he doesn’t think Buck wants to talk more about it in the way you have to censor for a child.

“The point is, Christopher,” Eddie steers the conversation in a new direction.  “You can talk to Buck or I when you’re having nightmares or when you’re scared, because we understand more than you think we might, and we’re here for you.”

“That’s absolutely right, buddy,” Buck says.

Christopher separates himself from Eddie and takes a few steps across the room to give Buck a hug. Eddie feels himself breathing a bit easier. 

🔹🔹🔹

Later, when Eddie is walking Buck out, he does something he probably should not do. He asks a question he probably should not ask, because the thing is, it's none of his business. He can rationalize it by saying that Buck is his friend. Buck knows a lot about his life and they’re close; so of course he has the right to ask some questions and if Buck doesn’t want to answer them, then maybe he won’t. 

But that’s not really why he asks, now is it?

“Uh, hey,” Eddie stops Buck before he walks out the door. “About your friend John…”

Buck’s face tightens again. “Yeah, uh, what about him?

“Is that all he was?” Eddie asks. “Or, you know, was he more…”

Buck winces a little. 

“I don’t mean to pry,” Eddie says quickly. “It’s just that you were calling for him on the boat and he’s in your dreams so I guess I just wondered who he was to you?”

Buck sighs.  “The truth is, I never really got a chance to find out what we were. But we were something and I did love him very much.”

Eddie feels weighed down by a grief that doesn’t belong to him.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” he says.

“It was a long time ago,” Buck mumbles.

Except, it wasn’t really. And Eddie knows that even if it had been somehow, that wouldn’t change a thing. Pain like that doesn’t come with an expiration date. 

Eddie doesn’t really know how to respond. 

“Thank you for being willing to talk to Chris about it. I know that can’t have been easy.”

“Come on, you know I’d do anything for him.” Buck says, one foot through the open doorway. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Buck leaves, and it’s pretty obvious that Eddie can’t just ask the guy out on a fucking date.

iv.

About a week after his conversation with Christopher and Eddie, Buck comes home from one of his shifts already feeling kind of sluggish. It’s not like anything specifically happened; just another long, boring day doing meaningless work, talking to people who have no appreciation for the Los Angeles Fire Department. Who does, until they need them, he supposes. The point is, Buck increasingly hates his job and he’s not loving his life lately and he’s feeling kind of crap about it when he comes home to an uncomfortable conversation with his sister.

To preface, it’s not Maddie‘s fault it’s uncomfortable. Maddie isn’t doing anything wrong, other than living her life and moving forward and learning to be happy again in a way that Buck is still trying to figure out. Maybe he’s just not cut out for it. Anyway it’s not her fault. This was eventually bound to happen.

“Howie asked me to move in with him.” Maddie announces after sitting Buck down with a cup of coffee and a pastry he likes from a nearby bakery. 

Of course, this is a wonderful thing for Maddie, as much as it’s a complicated thing for Buck. He won’t be able to afford this place on one salary.  The idea of being alone and having to move somewhere smaller or get a roommate that he doesn’t know is all a little daunting at first glance. But he’s happy for his sister, and this is how life works, so he tries not to show it.

“Hey, that’s great news.” He tells her. “Are you going to do it?”

“Well, that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” she says. “I’m not going to do anything without making sure that it’s okay with you. I mean, of course, I’d wait till after your procedure and after your recovery and I wouldn’t just leave you on your own without a solution in place. We’d figure something out.”

“But you want to move in with him,” Buck smiles.

“Yes,” she admits. “But only if you’re okay with it. If not, it can wait until you’re in a better place.”

Buck’s not sure where that place is or if he could even find it on a map. So…

“Maddie, it’s your life. You have to do what you want to do and if you wanna move in with him, I think that’s great.” 

“Yeah, but you know that’s not what we do. We don’t leave each other hanging, we look out for one another.”

Maddie has been looking out for Buck her whole life, pretty much. if that hadn't been cemented by birth order, what happened with Doug certainly made sure she’d be perpetually worried about him.  She feels like she owes him or has some responsibility over him, but the truth is that she should be looking out for herself first. She has a beautiful life in front of her with a man who will actually treat her the way she deserves. All she needs to grab onto it, is to let go of any residual guilt over Buck. 

“Don’t worry about me Maddie. I’ll be okay. I’ll figure it out.”

It doesn’t matter if he believes it, as long as she does. 

🔸🔸🔸

Abuela sits Eddie down after dinner on one of his days off to break the news. 

“It’s time for me to move back to Texas,” Abuela says. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and delayed the decision because of Christopher coming into our lives. But Los Angeles is too busy for me, and I am getting too old to be this far from home.”

Eddie feels like the ground is crumbling away beneath his feet. “What are you talking about, Abuela? This is home!”

“I moved here to help Josefina after your Tio Paco died.” Abuela says. “It was never supposed to be forever. But we’ll visit, si, Eddie? I will still be in your lives.”

Eddie could puke. “I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Abuela says, patting the back of Eddie’s hand. “I know you only came here to help me, but you have a life here now.”

“I do.” Eddie nods. “And… No part of me wants to be back in Texas, either way.”

“I thought so,” Abuela nods. “Which is why I would like to discuss selling you the house.”

Oh, wow.

Wow.

“Uh, can I afford that?” Eddie asks, genuinely unsure.

“Well, that’s what we have to discuss,” Abuela says. “I don’t need to make money, I just need to be able to support myself, moving back to El Paso. But this is Christopher’s home now, and he should stay here.”

“Abuela, thank you, ” Eddie exhales. 

She nods and squeezes his hand. “We’ll talk to an advisor. Your Tia’s next door neighbor is quite good. See what we can afford to do?”

v.

Very little. It turns out Eddie can afford to do very little.

He’s approved for the mortgage at the amount Abuela needs, but it’s going to change his budget considerably. He’ll have to cut back on a lot, and Christopher’s therapies and other expenses don’t come cheap. Raising a child on a single income, being a home and car owner, and living in a fairly nice neighborhood is kind of impossible, turns out? 

He’s thinking he will probably have to turn Abuela down, and find some sort of rental - uprooting Christopher yet again - until Chim, of all people, provides him with what is a potentially certifiably insane solution. Insane, not because of the logistics, but because of Eddie’s big, dumb feelings. 

“Maddie is moving in!” Chimney announces during their next shift. 

“Congratulations, Chim,” Bobby says. “I’m happy for you.”

Everyone spends the next few minutes extending well-wishes and teasing him about how lucky he is to have found someone to deal with his old movie marathons and excessive stash of gum. Then, something occurs to Eddie.

“Wait, what about Buck?” He asks. 

“Uh, no, I did not ask Buck to move in with me.” Chim jokes. “Love the guy, but it’s a single bedroom apartment, and it might get a bit too cozy for my liking.”

Hen laughs. “Poor Maddie having to babysit you both.”

“No,” Eddie clarifies. “I mean, what’s he gonna do?”

“He’s looking for a cheaper place,” Chim says. “Or a roommate. Either way.”

Eddie has a thought. 

Lena looks at him suspiciously. She obviously knows his thoughts as quickly as he knows them, and he kind of resents that superpower. 

It’s an insane thought. 

She seems to know it’s an insane thought. 

But if Eddie wasn’t in love with Buck - or you know, no one but he and Lena knew about it, and he wasn’t going to do anything about it anyway - then… Then it would be a sensible, economical thought. 

Yeah. Yeah, Eddie is going to go with that. 

🔸🔸🔸

Buck is not expecting the loud, urgent knock later that evening, as he’s getting ready for bed. Maddie is spending the night with Chim, so it’s just him. He’s spent the last several hours feeling like he’s in the vacuum of space, sifting through apartment listings in utter silence, forgetting to feel human things like hunger or thirst. He’s sent a few inquiries, but nothing elicits any excitement in him. It’s all just a chore. 

Anyway, pajamas on, teeth brushed, Buck looks through the peephole on his front door to see Eddie, still dressed in his work uniform, standing in the hallway. 

What the hell?

Buck opens the door. 

“One,” he says by way of greeting. “You could text. Two, why are you still in your uniform? Everything okay?”

“Move in with me,” Eddie says, pushing past Buck to walk into the apartment.

Buck coughs. “Sorry, what?”

“Chim told us about Maddie,” Eddie says, turning to face him. 

“Oh, right. Yeah, Eddie, I-”

“So move in with me,” Eddie says. “I thought about it all shift and I can’t get it off my mind. It’s the perfect solution.”

“Me moving in with you, your kid, and your grandmother is the perfect solution?” Buck asks. “Listen, i-it’s super sweet you want to help me out, but I won’t put you out like that.”

“Abuela is moving back to Texas.” Eddie says. “She wants to sell me the house, but it’s looking a little tight for my monthly budget.”

“Wait…” Buck trails off. “Wait, are you serious?”

For the first time in days, he feels something other than numb. Something warm. 

“You living with us and helping with the house expenses would be way more affordable for both of us.” Eddie says. “Plus, it’s a nice house. Good parking. Your roommates would be alright…”

“Eddie, that’s… A really great offer. I don’t know what to say.” Buck exhales. 

“Say you will,” Eddie asks. “It’d be helping me out too, man. I don’t want to have to move Chris again.”

“You’re sure?” Buck asks. “You’d want someone formerly on trial for manslaughter living with you and your son?”

Eddie frowns. “Yeah, that’s not even on the list of ways I think about you.”

Strangely, Buck finds himself wondering how exactly Eddie does think about him. An impulse which is perhaps a good reason to say no, but… But there are so many reasons to say yes. Not least of all, Eddie and Chris are the people who make him feel happiest nowadays. 

“Okay,” Buck smiles. “Okay, I’ll move in with you.”

Eddie’s smile is kind of breathtaking.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Chapter Text

i.

And just like that, Buck finds that things miraculously start to get better. Like the universe made a sudden decision to turn the dial down on the fog in his brain, and offer some much needed relief. 

He has the operation to have the pins removed from his leg. Within a few weeks of recovery and physical therapy, he’s given the all clear to stop blood thinners and return to active duty. He’s back at the 118 by January. By this rate, he’ll have put in enough time to get his full shield by March. 

January also happens to be the month Isabel moves back to Texas, and that Buck, therefore, moves in with Eddie and Christopher. They go out of their way to make Buck feel at home. Eddie even - despite Buck’s insistence it’s unnecessary - gives him the master bedroom, so he has his own private ensuite bathroom. Really, it has the potential to be a very awkward transition, but it just never is. It feels natural from day one, like Buck is exactly where he belongs. He feels at ease. 

He’s got his job back, he’s living somewhere that makes him happy, his sister is happy… Everything is looking up. 

He tries to ignore the voice in his head that wonders for how long this window of reprieve will last.

ii.

Not too long after Buck moves in, Eddie finds himself attending his first parent-teacher conference since becoming Christopher’s sole parent. Buck stays home with Chris while Eddie takes what feels like a strangely big step, considering how many other huge steps he had to take with far less warning. He’s pretty nervous about the whole thing. 

Shannon had worked to get Christopher into a fairly good charter school, and they’ve been supportive during this difficult transition. Honestly, Eddie is really relieved there haven’t been more issues there. Nevertheless, actually going in person, alone, and being judged by Christopher’s teachers one by one is super daunting. He can’t help but notice all the parents that have arrived in couples - or met each other there for a temporary truce for their kids’ sake - and feel somewhat inadequate. He bets Shannon was way better at this. 

It goes well, despite his nerves. Eddie drifts from classroom to classroom, hearing largely that Christopher is a good student, with a positive attitude and lots of friends, who only sometimes makes inappropriate jokes about tsunamis. 

“He’s been doing really well in my class,” Christopher’s English teacher - Mrs. Lewis - tells Eddie, towards the end of the evening. “His verbal skills have definitely improved. He’s still a little shy about reading out loud, but he definitely understands the material. I can tell he was read to from a young age.”

Eddie swallows. “That was his mom.”

Mrs. Lewis blushes a little, embarrassed. “Right. Of course. Sorry. But, Christopher does say you’ve been keeping it up.”

Eddie smiles nervously. “I try.”

“Likewise, Christopher is one of our most popular students,” Mrs. Lewis says, making this about the third time Eddie has heard this tonight. “He loves making the other kids laugh.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” Eddie asks. “Like, a socially healthy thing, rather than a depressed comedian-type thing?”

Mrs. Lewis chuckles. “It’s a good thing, Mr. Diaz. He’s a very sweet and kind boy. You’re doing a great job.”

Eddie nearly cries. 

He had no idea how much he needed to hear that. The people in his life have been pretty reassuring that Eddie isn’t a total fuck up, but it does help to hear it from a professional stranger who spends lots of time with Chris but has no stake in Eddie’s feelings. 

Eddie thinks about it as he drives home from the school, a soft smile etched onto his cheeks. He thinks about it as he walks through the front door of his house, only to find Chris and Buck in the living room, laughing as Buck loses badly at Streetfighter. He thinks about it as he sits down beside his son and pulls him in to kiss the top of his head. 

When Eddie had first found out about Chris, he was terrified he wasn’t cut out to be a father. That he was destined to do a bad job. And, of course, he never expected or wanted for things to turn out the way they did with Shannon. He never expected life to look the way it does right now. 

But maybe, after all that worry, he’s not doing such a terrible job?

iii.

Eddie’s good feeling is soured within days. 

Logically, if he thinks it through, he knows it’s not his fault. Not the incident, not the fallout - none of it, really. And yet, he really can’t stop feeling guilty. 

It starts with a call from the school, saying Chris has been injured during recess. Eddie’s response is not exactly proportionate. 

He finds Christopher with Mrs. Lewis in the school front office, holding an ice pack over his wrist. There’s an angry bruise forming across the side of his jaw. It looks like someone decked him. ‘

“What happened?” Eddie demands, brain spinning.

“Daddy,” Christopher whimpers, reaching out to him. 

Eddie crouches in front of Christopher’s chair to examine. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie exhales, looking at the bruise on his son’s face. 

“I am so sorry, Mr. Diaz,” Mrs. Lewis says. “A bunch of boys were daring each other to climb the yard fence at recess, and Christopher fell-”

“You let him climb a fence?” Eddie gapes at her. 

She flushes. “Um, well, we didn’t know that they were-”

“You didn’t know? He could have broken his neck!”

It somehow escapes his notice, in that moment, that his kid was being a little punk and trying to climb over school property. All Eddie can think about is the danger. 

“I know, and I feel terrible.” Mrs. Lewis insists. “None of the other boys meant for Christopher to get hurt, they-”

“Didn’t they?” Eddie snaps at her. “Let’s dare the kid with CP to climb the fence? That’s bullying. I hope they’ve been punished.”

“Dad,” Christopher complains. “They didn’t mean to.”

“I promise that’s not what happened,” Mrs. Lewis says. “These are Christopher’s friends. Everyone who tried climbing the fence was reprimanded.”

Including Christopher, then. 

“I’m taking my son home,” Eddie says flatly. 

“School isn’t over,” Chris points out. 

“Oh, today it is,” Eddie replies, side-eying Mrs. Lewis.

And that is that. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie considers taking Christopher to the hospital, but the school nurse insists he’s fine. He’ll have Buck look him over when he’s home, get a medic’s eyes on him. 

“Are you mad at me?” Chris asks in a very small voice from the backseat of the truck, once they pull away from the school parking lot.

“No,” Eddie says, unable to fully erase the panicked edge from his voice. “Of course I’m not mad at you.”

“But you’re mad,” Chris says. 

“Yeah, I’m mad that this happened to you,” Eddie explains.

Christopher waits a moment before replying. 

“It was my choice,” he says. “I wanted to do it. So you are mad at me.”

Eddie takes a deep breath. He really isn’t sure how to handle this, but he knows he isn’t mad at Chris. 

“Christopher, I’m not mad. But I am curious why you would make that choice.”

“My friends were doing it,” Chris says.

“Okay,” Eddie replies awkwardly. “Okay, well, you know you’re not supposed to do that, right? That it was against the rules?”

“I know,” Chris admits, sounding a little miserable. 

“The rules are there to make sure you don’t get hurt,” Eddie reminds him. “Kind of like how it's a rule that I have to wear safety equipment at work.”

“It’s not the same,” Christopher sighs. 

“Why not?”

“Because I’m the only one who got hurt,” Christopher huffs. “I’m the only one who couldn’t do it.”

Eddie’s stomach drops. He realizes, despite being in Christopher’s life for over a year now, they have never had a conversation about this. And he has no idea what is the right thing to say. 

🔹🔹🔹

Buck is unloading the dishwasher in a frankly criminal tank top when Eddie and Chris get home. Eddie has to actively remind himself that now is not a great time to stare at Buck’s arms. In fact, that time is probably never, considering their roommate and coworker status. He can reflect on them later, by himself. 

Buck looks over Christopher’s wounds and comes to the same conclusion as Eddie; they’re superficial. In fact, it seems the biggest injury is to Christopher’s ego, which breaks Eddie’s heart. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he tells Buck, tone hushed, half an hour later, after Chris is set up in front of the television with a bowl of ice cream. Probably not the best parenting strategy, but Eddie needs time to think. 

“What is there to do?” Buck replies, watching Eddie pace around the kitchen. “He took a risk, he fell, he hurt himself. He’ll learn. I fell all the time at his age.”

“Yeah, but he knows he fell because his body works differently than all his friends’,” Eddie shakes his head. “He knows he’s not the same as them in a significant way, and I don’t have any idea how to talk to him about that.”

Buck deflates a little. “Right.”

“I don’t know how Shannon handled these conversations,” Eddie sighs. “I don’t know what she would do.”

Admittedly, Eddie might not have thought about disability beyond Christopher’s physical needs when he stepped into his son’s life. Certainly, it hadn’t factored into his decision to want to know him, to want to take care of him after Shannon died. He doesn’t have anyone else to compare him to, this is his kid and his kid is perfect. But today feels like sort of a gut punch that there are emotional needs that come along with this, too, that Eddie hasn’t been thinking very hard on; Eddie’s reaction to today will probably have an impact on how Chris perceives himself and his identity, and that’s sort of terrifying. Eddie doesn’t want to fail him here. 

Buck frowns. “I think you have to figure out what feels right to you and Chris, and not what Shannon would have done. What do you want him to take away from this experience?”

That’s a good question. And one that Eddie finds he can answer rather easily.

“I want him to believe he can do anything,” Eddie says. “I don’t want him to avoid trying things he wants to try, but I also don’t want him to feel humiliated or less than.”

And Eddie doesn’t know how to help him achieve that balance, because he has been privileged enough to never have to think about it. He can’t even say he’s had a major, temporarily debilitating injury, like Buck. 

“I think that’s a pretty good goal,” Buck says. 

“I feel like a fool.” Eddie admits. “I should have thought about this way sooner.”

“You’ve had a lot to think about,” Buck objects. “And going forward, you will, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve just got to figure out how to do this without totally screwing up his self-esteem,” Eddie says. “He’s got limitations, from climbing fences, to a lot of other things.”

“Hmm,” Buck thinks. “Well, hey, here’s an idea. Have you ever heard of Jim Abbott?”

“Baseball player?” Eddie asks, surprised by the direction of the conversation. 

“Mhm,” Buck confirms. “Pitched a no-hitter in the ‘90s, which in itself is pretty crazy, but it’s even crazier if you know that Jim Abbott was only born with one hand.”

“How do you know this?” Eddie asks. 

“I read his book when I was in the hospital.” Buck says. 

“Okay,” Eddie bites. “How’d he do it?”

“He practiced switching his glove to his throwing hand relentlessly, so that he could field after he pitched.”

“I like the positivity, I’m just not sure it’s exactly the same situation.” Eddie tells him. “I mean, no amount of practice will make Chris be able to climb fences the way other boys his age do.”

“Well, does he have to climb a fence and be a troublemaker like me at his age?” Buck smirks. “Or does he just have to believe he is still capable and can do fun, exciting things?”

Eddie likes Buck’s perspective. He just has to figure out a way that he can implement it for Christopher. 

iv.

Buck has found himself in a strange parallel universe where he suddenly has what appears to be a family that extends beyond the boundaries of his sister; one that is factored into his daily routine and decision-making. Now that he lives at Eddie’s, he is carpooling every shift, and sharing almost every meal, and accounting for the time it takes Christopher to get ready in the morning into his plans. Normally, a guy who hasn’t even hit thirty yet might be a little annoyed by all the playing house without having at least had some sex to accomplish it, but not Buck. He’s still riding the high of not being lonely, and not being lonely with people he genuinely loves. 

Which is what he reminds himself when Christopher suddenly refuses to go to school the morning after his fall, threatening to make him and Eddie pretty late for work. 

The army made Buck kind of… Well, serious, about time and punctuality. And it’s something he and Eddie have both had to adjust to with Chris. Kids don’t experience time quite the same way, or give a crap about it. Usually you can give yourself enough time to accommodate it. 

But today Christopher won’t budge. 

“I don’t feel well. I’m not going to school.”

He sits on the end of his bed, fully dressed, arms crossed, red cheeks accentuating the bruise on his jaw. 

“Chris, come on, bud,” Eddie tries, crouching in front of his bed while Buck waits in the hallway, holding Christopher’s backpack and texting Bobby about the delay. “I know you’re embarrassed about what happened, but-”

“I’m sick,” Christopher clearly lies. 

“What are your symptoms?” Eddie asks. 

“Um…”

Eddie sighs. “Chris, you have to go to school.”

“I can’t!”

Another long sigh. 

“Okay, one second,” Eddie says to Chris. “We are not done discussing this.”

Eddie stands and walks out of the bedroom, jaw clenched. 

“Go ahead without me,” he says to Buck. “I think he and I need to talk.”

Buck nods. “Want me to text Liliana?” 

Eddie’s cousin, Pepa’s daughter, recently moved back to Los Angeles after finishing her degree, and has been watching Chris a lot since Buck returned to active duty. She writes for a lifestyle publication and is somewhat of an influencer, which means she has really flexible hours. She’s kind of a godsend. 

“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “We aren’t there yet.”

“Okay,” Buck nods. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you later,” Eddie says back.

“Bye, Chris!” Buck calls, eliciting only a small grumble in response. 

Buck hands Eddie Christopher’s backpack and heads towards the front door. His heart hurts for the both of them, really. He hates seeing Christopher unhappy. He’d probably sell a kidney to make him smile, if that’s what it took. And, Eddie… Yeah. He’d do damn well anything for Eddie. And while he’s not Christopher’s father, while it’s Eddie’s job to resolve this, maybe there’s something Buck can do. 

Plus, Christopher’s ninth birthday is coming up. His first one without his mom. Really, it wouldn’t hurt for Buck to find a way to make that extra special for everyone. 

The gears in Buck’s brain turn at rapid speed as he drives to work. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie sits on the bed beside Christopher after Buck leaves. He places the backpack on the floor between his feet. 

“Okay, bud,” Eddie says. “What’s going on?”

“I feel dumb,” Chris mumbles.

“Because you fell?” Eddie asks. “People fall all the time. Nobody thinks you’re dumb.”

Christopher shakes his head. “Mom always said I can do anything. I believed her. But she lied.”

Shit. 

Eddie exhales heavily. “Christopher, I don’t know exactly what your mom’s perspective on everything was. I wish I’d had a chance to ask her. But I don’t think she was meaning to lie to you.”

“I just wanna be like everyone else,” Christopher says, and Eddie’s heart twists in his chest. 

“I know. But you're not.” Eddie says. 

“Because I have CP.” Chris replies. 

“No. Because…” Eddie thinks of Buck’s baseball analogy. “Nobody can do everything. And yes, there are things in life that you're not gonna be able to do. And there's other stuff that you are gonna be able to do, but it's gonna be a lot harder than it is for the other kids because you have CP.”

“I won’t do it again,” Chris grumbles.

“You’re not going to climb a fence again because it’s against the rules and because anyone could get hurt,” Eddie says. “But, I want you to know it’s okay to try things and fail. And to decide what’s worth it if you want to keep trying.”

“Why would I try things if I can’t do them and I look dumb?” Chris asks.

And that’s a question lots of people have in life, disability or not. Eddie knows he can answer that. He thinks about his own numerous failures over the course of his life. He thinks of one, in particular, that might've cost him his job if he hadn't dug deep for some resilience. He can still hear the trill of amusement park music, the swell of the crowd gathered around the stalled roller coaster. 

“Because sometimes, failing at stuff is just part of learning,” Eddie says. “You know, a few months into being a firefighter, I had a bad call. I thought it was all my fault, and afterwards, I was a little scared of doing rescues of people at a big height.”

“Really?” Chris asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Eddie nods. “I totally refused to try one call, when a window washer fell way up high in a big office building.”

“What happened?” Chris asks.

“Well someone else saved him,” Eddie says. “But Bobby had to sit me down and talk to me about it. And I had to get over my fear of failing, and try again next time, because that’s my job.”

“And now you’re not scared?” Chris surmises.

“Now I’m not scared,” Eddie says. “But I’m still careful. I don't want you to ever stop trying new things, but I do want you to be careful. And maybe we try new things together, okay?”

“Okay, Dad,” Chris nods.

Eddie cups his head in his hand, pulls it towards him, and kisses the top of his head. 

“And, for the record, I don’t want you to be like everyone else,” Eddie says. “Because I think who you are is amazing, and I love you more than anything in this world.”

“I love you too, Dad,” Chris says, leaning into him.

“Now, do you think we can go to school?” Eddie tries. 

“I guess so.”

v.

Buck is excited, on the night before Christopher’s birthday, to surprise him with the plan he’s come up with. Eddie is in on it, of course. He had to run it by him first. But Christopher has no idea. Buck’s really hoping he’ll love it. 

The three of them pull up in the Jeep at the facility, which looks like a regular gym or fitness center from the outside. 

“Where are we?” Christopher asks. 

“Well, bud,” Buck says. “I did some research and found something I think might be really fun for the three of us to do.”

“What is it?” Christopher presses. 

“Well,” Eddie twists around to look at Chris in the back seat. “Remember when I told you that if you wanted to try something new, we should try it together? 

“Yeah,” Chris says. 

“Let’s try rock climbing,” Eddie tells him. 

Christopher’s cheeks redden a touch. “I-I can’t rock climb.”

“Actually, that’s what makes this place cool, Chris,” Buck interjects. “It has specialized equipment and instructors, so that anyone who wants to try, can.”

Christopher thinks on this for a moment.

“And I won’t fall?”

“You’ll be wearing a safety harness,” Eddie explains. “Just like Buck and I do at work.”

Chris smiles. “Then I want to try.”

Buck grins. “Alright. Let’s go.”

🔸🔸🔸

It goes over great.

Christopher has a fantastic time, and makes it to the top of the beginner wall. He’s proud of himself, and that’s the best part. Buck feels his cheeks hurt from smiling, by the time they leave. On the drive back, Christopher chatters the whole time about wanting to do it again.

Back at the house, after Christopher has gone to bed, and Buck has showered the smell of chalk and sweat off of him, he wanders into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, only to find Eddie already there. He’s standing on the tiled floor in bare feet, wearing sleep shorts and a tee shirt, and Buck has to studiously avoid looking too closely at him. 

The thing is, Eddie is so beautiful. Always has been, of course, but living with him has only given him more time and exposure to notice it. To think about it. To remind himself they have a good thing going here, the three of them, and the thought of rocking the boat is terrifying. He’ll settle for happily occupying whatever space Eddie allows. 

“Hey,” Buck says, crossing the kitchen and reaching for a glass in the cupboard. 

“Hi,” Eddie exhales, watching him. “Thank you for today.”

Buck smiles, turning to fill up his glass in the kitchen sink.

“My pleasure, Eddie. I had a great time.” Buck says. “I loved watching him feel courageous and successful. That was awesome.”

“It really was,” Eddie smiles fondly. 

“Thanks for letting me be a part of it,” Buck says, voice getting a bit quieter.

“A part of it?” Eddie frowns a little. “Buck… From the beginning, you… Well, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Buck shakes his head. “You’re an amazing dad. Eddie. You’d be just fine.”

“Well,” Eddie amends, tone a little breathless. “Maybe it’s more accurate to say, I don’t really want to.”

Buck feels like someone is pumping him full of helium and he might just float away. He swallows, focuses on breathing steadily.

“Good thing I’m happy where I am, then,” he replies finally, voice hardly above a whisper. 

Eddie’s eyes practically twinkle. 

“Good thing.”

Buck knows if he doesn’t turn around and leave this kitchen right now, he may just do something he cannot take back. And if there’s a first move to be made here, now or ever, Buck swears to himself he won’t be the one to make it. He will not step without absolute certainty. 

So he turns to leave. 

“Have a good sleep, Eddie.”

“You, too, Buck.”

vi.

They’re doing radio checks in the station, a few days after Christopher’s ninth birthday, when Hen calls him out on it. Notably, Eddie is watching Buck, and is being a bit more obvious about it than he might usually be, when she approaches him. 

“You two have the most out of order little love affair I’ve ever seen,” Hen whispers, standing next to Eddie as he leans over the mezzanine. 

“Shh,” Eddie scolds her, even though no one is around to hear. “There is no love affair, Hen.”

“You live with him, he practically co-parents your kid, you both make cartoon heart eyes at each other all the time. Sure thing, Eddie.”

She sounds like Lena. 

“That’s all it is right now,” Eddie explains. “Cartoon heart eyes.”

“He feels the same way about you that you do about him,” Hen sighs. “Why make it so complicated?”

In truth, Eddie knows Buck likes him. He knows the attraction is mutual. He just… He isn’t sure it’s right of him to act on that. 

“I do think he’s, uh, into me,” Eddie admits. “But, he lost someone he loved, Hen. I don’t… Well, I don’t know the full story and I don’t know… I just don’t know, Hen. I don’t want to ruin the family we do have.”

“You might ruin it by not saying anything, Eddie,” Hen advises. “Don’t waste something good out of fear.”

Her words might be wise or insane; Eddie doesn’t get a chance to think about it. Before he can, the bell goes off, and they’re being called to a property on the outskirts of the city, where a little boy has gone missing. 

Chapter Text

i.

The missing boy, Hayden, is stuck in a well. It’s pure luck Eddie notices the place he fell, pure luck that Hayden even managed to fall the way he did, to be honest. Even luckier that he hasn’t died yet. The 118 camerascope finds him forty feet underground, constricted, cold, and running out of time. 

Not many people are as slim as a five year-old child, so it’s evident right away that this rescue will have to be unconventional. Unconventional and fast, if they want to beat the ever-increasing risk of hypothermia. They can’t go straight down, so they have to try another way; drilling down through the dirt to feeder pipes connected to a reservoir half a mile away from the well. One wrong move, and the whole pipe system could collapse, right on top of Hayden and whoever they send after him. 

Eddie hasn’t been a father for very long. Well, okay, he hasn’t known he’s been a father for very long. But already, having only been around for two of Chris’ birthdays, Eddie knows the bone-deep panic Hayden’s parents are experiencing. He knows the terror, the desperation, the helplessness. He remembers it, in those hours searching for Christopher, feeling more and more like he was going to find a body not a boy with each passing minute. 

So despite the danger, despite the lightning cracking across the horizon and the  heavy rainfall in the forecast, Eddie volunteers to do the rescue. 

“I’m the one that was talking to him on the radio,” Eddie explains, when Buck looks at him with big, nervous eyes. “He knows my voice. Makes sense it’s me.”

Bobby doesn’t seem opposed to the idea at all. Eddie knows he trusts him with a big job. He knows Eddie will treat it with the caution and the gravity it deserves. 

“Suit me up. I’m going down.”

He tries not to look too closely at the greenish tint of Buck’s paling face. 

Eddie thinks of the danger ahead of him, and of words Buck once said about someone who hadn’t made it out of danger. 

The truth is, I never really got a chance to find out what we were. But we were something and I did love him very much.

But this isn’t warfare. And that won’t be Eddie. 

“I’ll be fine,” he says to Buck as he dressed in the red search and rescue gear.

“I know,” Buck whispers, helping fasten his harness. 

“I promise,” Eddie assures him.

Stupid, really. They’re always trained not to make promises to family members on rescues. 

🔸🔸🔸

This is a part of the job and Eddie is great at his job. So Buck tries to turn himself off. He tries not to think too hard. 

“You have thirty minutes to dig yourself across, not one minute more,” he hears Bobby tell Eddie. “After thirty minutes, you’re gonna feel two strong tugs on your line, then we’re pulling you out.”

Buck can hold it together for thirty minutes. The finite time of the rescue helps; if they’re within that thirty minute window, he doesn’t need to be scared. 

Bobby puts Buck on the winch. His hands, his actions, lower Eddie down into the earth, starting the clock in his mind. Thirty minutes. Eddie can do this. 

🔹🔹🔹

Eddie ignores the risk to his life by operating in single-minded rescue mode. He digs as quickly as he can through pliant earth. He has no trouble locating the piping and sawing an entrance, just big enough to squeeze his upper body through. Hayden isn’t hard to find from there. 

“Hayden!” Eddie exclaims as the little boy’s hair is illuminated by his headlamp. 

Hayden looks up at Eddie. His eyes are wide with terror. His skin is sheet white from the cold, covered in patchy smears of mud.