Reading Time: 108 Minutes

Title: Little Wonders
Author: EAlexBeau
Fandom: 9-1-1
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Kid!fic, Pre-Relationship, Romance
Relationship(s): Pre-Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon Violence, Child Endangerment, PPD, Discussion- Suicide, Discussion- Racism, Discussion- Domestic Violence, Internalized Homophobia, Character Bashing
Author Note: This has been a labor of love and my first foray into writing in roughly a decade. I’d like to thank MykkiTno for helping me narrow down all my wild plot bunnies into something I could work with.
Character cameos from Code Black and SWAT. This was written before Season/Series 7 of 9-1-1.
Beta: Tiny Reader, Irrelevant86
Alpha: Tiny Reader, MykkiTno
Word Count: 74294
Summary: Evan Buckley’s calling is firefighting, but his dream is to be a dad. He’s tried to do things the expected way, first finding a partner, then building a family. But Covid lockdown has given him plenty of time to think, and he’s decided he doesn’t need a partner. He’s ready to start his family now.
Artist: DrakeScrawls

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Chapter Seventeen

Rolling under the fire truck and crawling to Eddie was a blur to Buck. What he remembers most of pulling Eddie out the other side and lifting the older man up was his scream of pain. Buck vaguely remembers Eddie asking if he was hurt in the truck on the way to the hospital. But it’s not until they reach the hospital and the doctors rush the love of his life away from him that Buck starts to come back to himself.

“You okay, Buckley?” Mehta asks him before following after Eddie.

“… no,” Buck whispers. He doesn’t know if he will ever be okay again if Eddie dies. He’ll keep going for their children, but he’ll never love again. In that moment, not knowing what will happen to his best friend, his partner, his other half, Buck has a horrid understanding of what Bobby was feeling back when he used to keep his little book with him.

Buck used the spare clothes on the One-Thirty-Three’s truck to change out of his blood soaked shirt and one of the nurses helped him gently wash all of the blood off his face, but none of it helped.

Buck was on edge and jumpy as he waited with everyone else at the hospital. It was only after a nurse let them know that the team of surgeons who were operating on Eddie had started and it would be a while before they had an update that Buck knew he couldn’t stay there any longer. The doctor’s could talk to Bobby instead of him. Buck’s place right now wasn’t with Eddie. It was with Chris.

Outside of the hospital he ran into Taylor. They’d spent some time together since she called him to help when a hospital she was reporting from needed to distribute their Covid vaccine before it went bad. Taylor was an easy friend to have right now and Buck needed all of those he could get.

“Is that blood?” Taylor gasped when she saw the pants he hadn’t been able to change out of.

“Oh, it’s, um, it’s not mine, it’s Eddie’s,” Buck quickly corrected her. He had to get to Christopher. He had to get to his son.

“Eddie’s the one who got shot?” Taylor gently asked him.

“He was standing right in front of me,” Buck explained. “And then, um… um… I need to talk to Christopher.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, her voice just as gentle as it had been since the conversation started.

“I-I don’t have my car. I need to call a ride,” Buck rambled.

“Why don’t I drive you,” Taylor offered. “We can stop by your pla-”

“Uh, no. No, I-I got…” Buck interrupted her to decline.

“You can’t go see his son looking like this,” she reminded him of the blood all over his clothes. “You can’t see your son looking like this. Are you sure you’re okay?” Taylor asked as she grasped his wildly shaking hands.

Buck just shook his head as Taylor led him to her car. They didn’t even make it across the hospital courtyard that housed the lane ambulances used before one was screeching to a halt in front of them. The paramedics were moving like madmen, screaming that the patient had been shot. When they pulled the patient out, it was another firefighter.

“What the hell is going on?” Buck muttered before folding into Taylor’s tiny car.

Once Buck was home, he hopped in the shower to make sure all of the blood was off of him and packed a bag to spend the night on the Diaz couch.

The drive there was mostly a blur, and Buck was incredibly grateful to find that Carla and Chris were the only ones there. Buck didn’t want to be the one to tell Ana about Eddie, but after he told Carla what happened, she told him that she would handle telling Ana. Hen was telling the other Diazes, all Buck had to do was tell the hardest person of all. The little boy who was just waiting for his dad to come home that night.

Buck found Christopher in his room, playing video games on his Switch.

“Hey, Buck,” Chris said when he saw the man, barely taking his attention off his game.

“Hey.”

“Where’s Dad?” Chris asked when Buck kneeled in front of him with a serious face. Eddie never failed to check in on Chris as soon as he got home. It was always the first thing he did, before even taking off his shoes.

”Um, he… he’s, uh, he’s-he’s not coming home tonight, Chris,” Buck stuttered.

“Why not?” Chris pouted, although he was getting to the age where he would deny that he was pouting.

“Well, um… well, he-he got hurt at work today.”

“In a fire?” Chris asked. The smallest percentage of their calls, but always the ones people thought were the most dangerous.

“Um… uh… no. No, not-not in a fire,” Buck denied, moving to sit next to Chris instead of crouch in front of him. “Uh, the truth is, someone… hurt your dad.”

“On purpose?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“A bad guy?”

“Mm-hm,” Buck sniffled. This was so much harder than he was expecting it to be. “Uh, y…yeah. Yeah, yeah, a b… a-a bad guy.”

“Is he gonna be okay?” Chris questioned. And if that wasn’t the elephant in the room. Because Buck didn’t know. He didn’t have a firm answer for Chris.

“You know, your dad is, uh… he’s tough as nails. He’s a fighter, right?” Buck reminded Chris, trying to hold back his tears., wiping away the ones that escaped. “So, uh, so he’s-he’s with the doctors now.”

“Like the ones that fixed you?” Chris checked, referring to his leg. It made sense that Chris would think of that. It was the only other instance when someone the little boy loved had been seriously hurt. That time Buck had been hurt on purpose too, in a way.

“Uh-huh,” Buck confirmed. “Yeah, like-like the ones who fixed me.”

“Then he’s gonna be okay, right?”

Buck’s phone alerted him to a text before he could answer the boy he loved like his own.

Bobby

Out of surgery. Doctors say it went well.

“Uh… Yeah, I think so, buddy. I think so,” Buck managed to say before the dam holding back his tears all day finally burst. And once the sobs started, they didn’t stop.

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Chris comforted Buck. He just nodded and pulled his son into his arms.

Buck spent the nights that followed on the Diaz family couch, but he still had a job to do. So the next morning, Carla came over to stay with Chris, whispering that Ana had taken some time off work so that she could sit with Eddie, and Buck went to his shift.

Just because someone was targeting the LAFD, didn’t mean that the people didn’t still need their help. It didn’t mean that the people of Los Angeles didn’t deserve their help. So, they strapped on bullet-proof vests and went on their calls like always, almost always accompanied by the police.

The worst part was Chris asking him every morning if that was the day that he could finally talk to his dad and Buck had to tell him no. Maybe it was Chris’ constant questions about Eddie. Maybe it was his talk with Carla that morning about how much of the situation Chris actually understood. Maybe it was that Buck was the one standing in front of Eddie when he was shot. Maybe it was the stress of all of that and everything else happening in his life, Maddie ghosting him, the extended Diazes and Ana plotting to take his baby, but Buck didn’t think twice before going up that crane.

What it came down to was that someone desperately needed help, and they didn’t have time to wait for cover. This was something that Buck could control. This was someone that Buck could help. Buck would take to his grave that he was certain the glint he saw on his climb was the sniper watching him and that he simply chose not to take the shot for some reason.

The risk and the lecture was worth it when he watched them load the victim, Cliff, into the ambulance and assured his coworkers that not only would he live, but would probably also keep his arm.

What was not worth it was when he stopped by his house to have dinner with Taylor and she lectured him. And then kissed him.

“Taylor,” he started as he gently pushed her away, “I think that you’re a lovely woman. I have genuinely enjoyed spending time with you since we reconnected. But I’ve realized something in the last few months. I’m gay, so a relationship between us is never gonna happen.”

“I should go,” was all Taylor said before walking out his door. Buck didn’t have very long to think about that though because seconds after Taylor walked out his front door, Ana was calling him with the best news ever.

“Ana,” he greeted before cutting right to the chase. “Is everything okay?”

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie greeted him as Buck raced into the hospital room. Buck barely took the time to soak in that Eddie was not only alive but awake before he was arranging a quick call with Christopher so father and son could see each other and know that they were both okay.

“Appreciate you staying with him,” Eddie weakly thanked Buck after he hung up the phone, passing it back to the younger man.

“Carla offered to bring him to her house,” Buck admitted, unsure if Eddie would have preferred that, “but, uh, I figured this was overwhelming enough without having to sleep in a strange bed.”

“He doing okay?” Eddie checked.

“Better than me,” Buck chuckled. “Uh… I kind of lost it when I told him you got shot. I-I’m sorry. I should’ve held it together,” Buck apologized.

“You were there for him when I couldn’t be,” Eddie comforted Buck. “That’s what matters.”

“Still. I think it might have been better for him if I was the one who got shot,” Buck disagreed. Eddie simply looked at him.

Buck left not long after that. Eddie was obviously exhausted and Buck was making it a point to be there for Christopher at bedtime every night since Eddie had gone into the hospital.

Buck had to work late for his next shift. He spent the morning at home to attend a Diaz family meeting to come up with a plan for how to support Eddie when he was released.

“Eddito and Christopher are just going to need so much more help than we can give them,” Pepa admitted when discussion of whether or not someone should stay with the Diaz boys or they should stay with someone else came up. “Not only physically either.”

“I’m due in a month,” Adriana chimed in where she was participating over Zoom. “It’s a miracle the stress hasn’t already sent me into labor, but now my doctor wants me on bedrest until my due date. And since I’m staying with Abuela…” she trailed off.

“Pepa is helping you both and spending most of her time there,” Buck finished. “I can help, but I’ve still got some things I need to do to get ready for Baby Guava.”

“We’ve been talking about this since Eddito was admitted to the hospital,” Abuela told Buck, reaching over the table to grasp his hands in her much smaller, frailer ones. “You need to get as much rest as you can before your little one comes. You can’t do that on my nieto’s couch. But you are also the best one to care for the boys. You know them and their routines so well. And they are comfortable with you. We think that Christopher and Eddie should stay with you.”

Buck took a minute to think. Christopher’s room had been as equal a priority as the nursery for Baby Guava and it had all of the basics. But the adult guest room, the one Buck had been thinking of as Eddie’s room was empty though.

“Chris’s room at my house is ready, but my guest room is empty right now. I don’t mind sharing a bed with Eddie again, but I don’t know how comfortable he would be with that.”

“I will have my sons help you move Eddie’s furniture into the room, temporarily,” Pepa told him.

Between the Diaz women, Carla, and himself, they had a solid plan to get Eddie and Chris moved into Buck’s house before the older man was discharged. They even had the start of a welcome home party planned by the time Buck had to go into work.

Buck really had to remember that when things seemed the most settled was when they typically went to shit. They had all been told that the sniper was caught and the sense of relief at finally being able to do their jobs like normal had been palpable. But someone somewhere jumped the gun and now Buck was opening the roof access into an active warehouse fire while Athena put on turnouts.

“I’m going with you,” Buck told the woman he viewed as a mother while she finished putting on her gloves.

“No, Buck,” she rejected him. “I can’t protect you in there. He’s trying to kill firefighters.”

“Yeah, and you’re dressed as one,” Buck pointed out.

Athena simply ignored him.

“All right, I’m going in,” she told them once she was fully dressed. “Now tell me what to do.”

If this was how his parent figures always felt when he did something stupid and vaguely reckless, then Buck understood all of the lectures. In fact he was building one of his own for the couple in his head.

Buck’s big speech vanished once he saw Athena helping Bobby out of the building.

“Mama! Pops!” Buck called as soon as he saw them. He didn’t hesitate before he was on Bobby’s other side, helping Athena hold him up.

Buck told Eddie all of this when he went to pick him up from the hospital two days later.

“Ok, uh, nurse is getting your meds and discharge papers ready,” Buck told him after he checked in to see if they were ready yet. “Then we can get out of here.”

“Great,” Eddie said a little distantly. “Hey, since we got a minute…” Eddie beckoned the blonde over.

“Uh, is everything all right?” Buck worried.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just, uh, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” Eddie reassured him as Buck sat next to him on the hospital bed.

“Okay.”

“So, you might have noticed I almost died. Again,” Eddie deadpanned. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot of close calls. This one wasn’t even my closest.”

“Yeah,” Buck acknowledged. “Eddie…”

“Just let me finish,” Eddie interrupted him. “After the last time, when that well collapsed on top of me…”

“Which you survived,” Buck gently reminded his best friend, making the brunette chuckle softly.

“After that… it got me thinking,” Eddie revealed. “You know, what would happen to Christopher if I hadn’t?”

“I had the same thought about Baby Guava when those windows fell on me,” Buck admitted.

“So I went to my attorney and changed my will,” Eddie continued like Buck hadn’t spoken. “So, someday, if, I, uh… didn’t make it… Christopher would be taken care of. By you.”

“What?” Buck gasped.

“It’s in my will, if I die, you become Christopher’s legal guardian.”

“Uh… I mean, I know we keep talking about how I’m basically Christopher’s other dad and how you’re, probably, gonna be the same for Baby Guava, but don’t-don’t you need my consent?”

“My attorney said you could refuse,” Eddie agreed.

“You know I wouldn’t,” Buck tried to assure the other man.

“Nah, I know you wouldn’t,” Eddie laughed.

Still, Buck couldn’t let it go. “I mean, he-he has grandparents, other family.”

Eddie simply chuckled again. “Yeah. After Shannon left, they all tried to guilt me into giving Christopher to them. Just like they keep trying to find ways to take Baby Guava from you before they’re even born. But it’s not what I wanted then, it’s not what I want now.”

“If it came to that, w-wouldn’t they fight for him?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admitted. “Maybe. Probably. But no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you. That is what I want for him.”

“Well, you said you did this last year. Why are you just telling me now?” Buck questioned.

“Because, Evan, you came in here the other day and you said you thought it would have been better if it had been you who was shot,” Eddie reminded them of the conversation they’d had when Eddie woke up. “You act like you’re expendable. But you’re wrong.”

“You know, I will always be there for Christopher, whether you’re there or not,” Buck promised. “And I was going to wait to have this conversation with you until you were a little more recovered, but I want to make you Baby Guava’s guardian too.”

“You have my back and I have yours,” Eddie swore. “No matter what happens, I will love your child like my own son or daughter and I will always be there for them.”

“Maybe we should just adopt each other’s kids, make sure the hellbeasts we both call parents don’t have a leg to stand on,” Buck joked.

“You talk to your lawyer, I’ll talk to mine?” Eddie offered, taking him seriously. Which, yeah, now that Buck thought about it, he was serious about the idea.

“Deal. Now, you and Chris are all moved into my place, I see the nurse coming this way with your discharge papers, what do you say we get out of here?”

“God, please,” Eddie all but begged.

Eddie had passed out as soon as he was in the Jeep and slept the whole way home, which hadn’t surprised Buck. What had surprised Buck was that the little ‘Welcome Home’ party they had planned for Eddie had changed behind his back.

“Welcome home and congrats on the new baby!” everyone called as soon as they walked in the room.

Buck and Eddie were soon swept up in hugs and forced onto the couch as with plates of food.

“Sorry for the kiss,” Taylor softly apologized as she took a seat on the arm of the couch next to him. “Won’t happen again. But I gotta know, if you’re gay, who were you thinking of when you slept with me?” she teased. And it was only because Buck knew she was genuinely teasing him and didn’t have a problem with it that he didn’t hesitate to answer.

“Ewan McGregor. Something about that accent,” Buck shrugged.

“You’re gay?!” Eddie hissed when they were relatively alone again.

Buck tensed a little before confirming it with a single nod.

“Guess I really don’t have to worry about you falling into bed with Taylor again,” Eddie joked. “I got your back, no matter who you’re attracted to.”

“And I got yours,” Buck chuckled wetly.

From there they were barely left alone as the party quickly moved to the gift stage. One look with Athena and Pepa confirmed they had everything in hand so that Eddie could get the rest he needed, but everyone could still celebrate. For the most part, Buck received little gifts from everyone, tiny things he had forgotten or something personalized to make it just a little different from anything else he’d already bought. Lots of little baby clothes. But his favorite gift was from Bobby and Athena.

“You want to adopt me?” The blond whispered as he stared down at the adult adoption forms and assorted paperwork in his hands.

“You are our son. And Baby Guava is our grandbaby,” Athena sassed him, not that he would ever call it sass to her face. “We want to make it official. Make sure that no one can ever try to deny our relationship based on some piece of paper saying it’s not valid.”

“I say go for it!” Adriana called from the corner where she was working through a pan’s worth of guava cheesecake bars that Bobby had made for the party.

“Does this mean I can keep calling you Mama and Pops?” Buck asked quietly.

“Only when we’re not all on a call,” Bobby told him, “we’ll all be expected to be professional then.”

“Then yes. Yes. I would love for you to adopt me!” Buck excitedly agreed, getting up to hug the people who would soon officially be his parents.

“Do they have parties for when grown ups are adopted?” Chris chirped as he joined the hug. “Because I think Pop Pop and Mémé need one for Papa.” Everyone laughed, even as they agreed with Chris that they certainly needed a party once the adoption was finalized.

Chapter Eighteen

Buck sighed as he helped Chris put all of the clothes that Baby Guava had been given at the impromptu baby shower into the closet or the dresser. Eddie and Ana had been fighting on and off for two weeks now. Ever since Eddie had gotten home from the hospital really.

“Papa, how come Dad and Ms. Ana keep fighting?” Christopher asked as he handed Buck more hangars with tiny shirts and sweaters on them. “I thought that Dad was supposed to be resting, but fighting doesn’t seem much like rest.”

“I don’t really know why your dad and Ms. Ana are fighting,” Buck admitted to the preteen. “Your dad’s relationship with Ms. Ana is his business. If he wants to talk about it with us, then he will. Until then, we need to respect his privacy.”

“I just want Dad to relax like the doctor said so he gets better,” Chris groaned as the voices from outside the nursery raised higher.

“Superman, how about you double check that the changing table is set up and everything is unpacked. Baby Guava’s due date is in two weeks which means that technically they can come any day now,” Buck told Chris. “I’m going to go remind your dad about what the doctor said about resting.”

“Ok, Papa,” Chris said as he walked over to the changing table and started pulling off the different packs of diapers and wipes and creams that had accumulated over the months.

After making sure that Christopher was sufficiently distracted with his task, Buck left the nursery to find Eddie and Ana. It wasn’t hard to follow the fighting to the kitchen. Buck wasn’t sure what exactly prompted the fight, but he wondered if it had anything to do with why Eddie’s meds were spread all over the counter and a new pill organizer was sitting next to them.

“I honestly don’t know what part of my recovery you think is about you, Ana!” Eddie shouted.

“I just want to help you! You got shot, Eddie! You got shot and then you were in a coma for days. Do you know how terrifying it was, wondering if you would ever wake up? Wondering what would happen to Christopher if you didn’t?” Ana pleaded.

“I’m sorry that you got scared, but while getting shot isn’t a normal risk in my job, there is always a risk of getting injured. That is part of being with a first responder. But none of that gives you the right to put your wants before my needs,” Eddie told her. “Being injured like this is hard for me, and I need to lean on people I trust, that I know can handle it. Buck and I have been through major injuries before. We know how to help each other. As for what would happen to Chris if I couldn’t take care of him, that is honestly not your job to worry about. I already asked you to step back from trying to parent him and let me and Buck focus on that. ”

“You can trust me, though!” Ana insisted. “If I need to be prepared for injuries in the future then I want to learn how to help you now! And I need to be prepared to care for Christopher too!”

“But you’re not listening to me! We aren’t there yet Ana! I don’t trust you like that yet!” Eddie shouted.

“Ok, I think that’s enough,” Buck interrupted. “Ana, I think it would be best if you went home for today. Both of you need to cool off and fighting like this is not conducive to the rest part of Eddie’s recovery.”

“Buck, please mind your own business,” Ana politely stated. “This is between me and Eddie.”

“Your… discussion might be between you two, but Chris is concerned about the fighting and this is my house, so I’m asking you to leave it for today,” Buck calmly explained.

“Shit,” Eddie said. “I was hoping he would be too distracted to notice.”

“We were putting clothes away, Eddie. It’s not like Christopher was wearing headphones while playing video games,” Buck groaned. “I told him to organize the changing table and make sure that was ready.”

“I’m gonna check on him and apologize,” Eddie muttered before slinking from the kitchen and leaving Buck and Ana alone.

“Buck, I understand that you care about Eddie and Christopher, but I need you to take a few steps back from my family,” Ana told him once they were alone.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Buck told her. “This is not your family. Just because you are dating Eddie doesn’t make you family. This is my family. I have been there for Eddie and Chris for years. I put in the work to build the relationship I have with the Diazes.”

“Buck, I need you to understand that I want to build a relationship too, but I can’t do that if you’re in my place,” Ana whined.

“The way you said that sounds an awful lot like you wanted to say that I’m in your way, Ana,” Buck told her. “And I’m not. You can build a relationship with Eddie and Chris, but you need to accept that I’m not going anywhere. Part of joining this family means accepting that I’m a member of this family too.

“Now, I’ve asked you once to leave my home. Please go. Eddie will call you or send you a text when he’s feeling up to having you over,” Buck told her.

“I need to make dinner for my boys, so I’m not going anywhere,” Ana argued.

“I already thawed a tray of baked seafood mac and cheese from Bobby for dinner,” Buck explained. “Please leave, Ms. Flores. I’m not going to ask again.”

“I’m not leaving without my key,” Ana huffed with a little stomp of her foot. She was reminding Buck of a toddler, and he laughed on the inside that this was good practice for the Terrible Two Tantrums that he had been warned about by the Wilsons and Grant-Nashes.

“What are you talking about? What key?” Buck asked.

“Before Edmundo met that poor boy, Charlie, we were talking about me getting a key to his house. Since he’s living here now, I’ll need a key for here too,” Ana explained like she was talking to one of her more difficult students.

”Absolutely not,” a new voice cut in. “Just because Eddie and you talked about you getting a key to Eddie’s home before he was shot does not mean that you get a key to my son’s home just because Eddie is here.”

“Mama, is everything okay?” Buck asked the sergeant.

“Christopher used your phone to send me a text, said you asked someone to leave and they didn’t. I wasn’t far so I figured I would drop by,” Athena told her eldest son.

“We’re just fine, Officer,” Ana said.

“It’s Sergeant,” Athena deadpanned in the voice she used for the idiotic suspects. “And I was speaking with the homeowner, not you.”

“I’ve asked Ms. Flores to leave several times now. Eddie and her were arguing earlier about her involvement in his recovery and it was disturbing Chris. I asked her to leave so everyone could cool down. But Ms. Flores is refusing to leave without a key to my home,” Buck explained to his mother as if she was any other cop.

“Did you at any point tell Ms. Flores that you would provide her with a key?” Athena asked.

“No. And I am deeply uncomfortable giving this woman the ability to just walk into my home whenever she would like.”

“My family is staying here, I need to have a key so I can be there for them,” Ana argued.

“Eddie doesn’t have any legal right to my home,” Buck explained. “I make decisions about who is welcome in my home and who I give a key to access my home with. Now, I want you to leave for today. The only reason you aren’t banned from my home is because Eddie wants to spend time with you.”

“Well, Ms. Flores, the homeowner has now asked you to leave multiple times. You can either leave on your own, or I can arrest you for trespassing,” Athena laid out to the younger woman.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to take care of my boys,” Ana huffed as she snatched her purse from the breakfast table.

“You have the right to drive over here, but unless Eddie tells me that he explicitly invited you over, I’m not letting you in,” Buck calmly explained as he followed Ana’s stomping and Athena’s calm stride out of his kitchen to the front door.

“We’ll see how long Edmundo stays here if you won’t let his girlfriend see him,” Ana hissed before ripping the front door open and stomping to her car.

Buck leaned his head against the front door after closing and locking it behind Ana and Athena.

When Pepa and Abuela had approached Buck about Eddie staying with him while the older man recovered, Buck had expected Ana to be around. Buck had even expected that the young woman would want to help. Buck hadn’t expected that Ana would try to take over assisting Eddie and trying to run Buck’s home and family.

“I’m sorry about her,” Eddie apologized from the hallway.

“If you want to date a younger, Latina version of your mother, that’s up to you. But I’m getting dangerously close to banning her from my house for the rest of your recovery,” Buck growled as he turned from the door.

“It’s your home,” Eddie sighed as he ran a hand down his face. “If you aren’t comfortable with her here, I understand.”

“Do you understand? Because, Eddie, if you understand why I don’t want her here, then why are you dating her?! Ever since we blew up an ambulance together, we’ve been on the same wavelength. We’ve agreed about so many things and had the same opinions about people, but I’m lost here!” Buck told his best friend.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked Buck. “Talk to me, Buck. I feel like we’re reading from completely different books when normally we’re on the same page.”

“It’s exactly that,” Buck exclaimed with a snap of his fingers. “But I honestly don’t know how to talk about this with you without fighting. And we promised each other that we wouldn’t fight around Christopher.”

“But we need to talk,” Eddie groaned. He ran his hand through his hair before fidgeting with his sling and finally planting his hand on his hip. “You already thawed Bobby’s mac and cheese for us. Does it have to be cooked tonight?”

“I pulled it out this morning and there’s nothing raw in it, so I can make it tomorrow,” Buck thought out loud.

“Adriana has been asking me if Chris can spend the night at Pepa’s with her so she can have some Tia and Christopher time. How about I call her to see if she can take him tonight and we can order takeout and finally have that talk,” Eddie offered.

“If not, Hen and Karen and Bobby and Athena have all offered to take Chris for a night so we can have a break,” Buck told Eddie. “A-shift is off for another day so I can check if one of them can take Chris for tonight and tomorrow.”

“Chris is fussing with the bookshelf in the nursery. I’ll call Tia Pepa and Adriana if you two can pack his bag?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Buck said as he walked off to grab Christopher.

A couple of hours later saw Christopher safely transported to spend the night with his aunts and Buck was laying out a selection of food from his and Eddie’s favorite Indian takeout place. Curries and naan were dished out with chicken tikka masala and samosas in between them to share.

“I don’t even know how we got here,” Eddie admitted as he dragged some naan through his curry.

“I do,” Buck said as he snatched a samosa. “You decided while Ms. Flores was still Chris’ teacher that her views about limiting Chris weren’t compatible with how you wanted to raise him. Then we see your parents in person and a few weeks later you ran into this woman again during a cursed shift. Suddenly you decided that either she had made some drastic changes or her beliefs didn’t matter anymore.”

“Bobby told me that it was ok to move on from Shannon and I shouldn’t miss possibilities that were right in front of me when we talked about Ana,” Eddie said.

“What did you know about this woman at that point? That she was a teacher and then a vice-principal? That she worked with special needs students and somehow was completely ableist in her views of what Christopher should be doing and believing himself capable of? How is any of that attractive to you?”

“Everyone wants me to move on from Shannon, and Ana and I come from similar backgrounds. My parents already love her, my mother is so happy that I finally have some support with Christopher,” Eddie argued.

“I didn’t tell you that you needed to move on from Shannon. And it honestly makes me question our entire history with you telling me that Ana Flores is supporting you with Chris like I’ve done nothing,” Buck whispered, wiping away the tears building in his eyes.

“That’s not what I meant, Buck,” Eddie backtracked.

“I just don’t get it, Eddie,” Buck groaned. “When you moved out of the loft after lockdown we talked about what my role is in Christopher’s life. We acknowledged that I’ve been co-parenting Chris for years and that it was an arrangement we were both comfortable with continuing. We talked about you stepping into a similar role with Baby Guava, even though Baby Guava hadn’t even been conceived yet. Then you start dating this woman and you start backtracking on that, canceling on me when you promised me that you would help, just not talking to me about any of this,” the blonde huffed before spooning some masala on his naan.

“When we were in Texas you went to the bathroom before we left my parents place. My mom cornered me to suggest that with the pandemic, Chris would be better off in Texas with my parents,” Eddie admitted. “My mom is very set on the idea that children should be raised by women and that I really can’t handle Chris.”

“So you decided to pick a woman just like your mother in order to get her off your back?” Buck incredulously asked. “How does that make any sense? You just traded in one version of your mother for a younger version that isn’t actually related to you!”

“Ana is not just like my mother,” Eddie argued, dipping a samosa in curry.

“Eddie, you started dating Ana because you wanted your mom to stop trying to make you give her Christopher. What did your girlfriend turn around and do when it came out that Adriana was my surrogate? She kindly offered to your mother that the two of you would adopt my baby so that it would still be in the family and your mother could enjoy being a grandparent instead of starting over with an infant,” Buck huffed as he used a spoon to push his curry around.

“I didn’t know she was going to do that,” Eddie reminded Buck.

“But it’s the same thing that your mother has tried to do with Chris,” Buck argued. “I love you and Chris, I want you two to be a part of mine and Baby Guava’s family, but we need to have some ground rules about Ana.”

“What do you mean, Buck?” Eddie asked as scraped the last of the masala onto his plate.

“I’m not going to tell you to break up with Ana. Your romantic relationships are your business. But she does not get to have uncontrolled access to my home. She doesn’t get a key, she doesn’t get to come over whenever she wants. If I tell her to leave, then she needs to leave. And she absolutely doesn’t get to parent Baby Guava,” Buck laid out as he pushed his plate away to focus entirely on Eddie.

“Why would Ana getting a key to your house even be in question?” Eddie asked as he pushed his own empty plate out of the way.

“Ms. Flores seems to think that because you and her were talking about you having a key to your house before you got shot, that she should get one for my house because you and Chris are staying here,” Buck explained. “If any of that upsets you, then you need to find somewhere else to stay and tell Christopher himself that I won’t be part of your lives anymore.”

“Woah, how did we get from you not wanting Ana to have a key to your house to me and Chris not being a part of your life anymore?” Eddie questioned.

“Because, Eddie. I’m not going to be led on by you about my role in Christopher’s life anymore. Especially after Ms. Flores told me today that she thinks I’m taking her place in your and Christopher’s life,” Buck huffed. “I can’t put Baby Guava through that. We agreed to co-parenting each other’s children and all that entails so that if something happened, our kids would at least have one person that they could trust to care for them. I have no problem sharing parenting duties with your partner when it comes to Chris, but Ms. Flores seems to have a problem sharing those duties with me.”

“How do I fix this between us?” Eddie begged.

“For one, I need to be included in any and all parenting decisions when it comes to Chris. You mentioned that you want us to be a united front for Christopher when it comes to things like chores and punishments, but we need to actually talk about those things. Because raising Christopher and Baby Guava two separate ways just isn’t realistic,” Buck flatly told his best friend.

“What else?” Eddie desperately asked.

“I need you to actually stand up for your beliefs. You’re so wrapped up in pleasing your parents and Ms. Flores that you’re just giving in, Eddie,” Buck cried. “You want to prove to everyone that you can make a relationship work and you act like the only way to do that is if you give Ms. Flores whatever she wants. But that’s not how it works. You’re miserable, Eddie. You’re miserable and if she can’t see that, then how is she worth it?”

“Chris likes her though,” Eddie weakly argued. “How can I make him lose one more person?”

“Eddie, you need to actually talk to Chris and find out what he wants,” Buck said. “Start being his dad again, and not Ms. Flores’ puppet.”

Chapter Nineteen

ONE MONTH LATER

“Papa, when’s Baby Guava going to come?” Christopher asked as he helped Buck load the dishwasher after the two of them had lunch. Eddie was at a physical therapy appointment with Ana. Buck wasn’t happy that the two of them were still dating, but Ana had taken a couple of steps back after Eddie had talked with her, so Buck was tolerating her presence for now.

“You’re Tia Adriana has an appointment with her doctor in a couple of hours. If the doctor thinks your little sibling isn’t going to want to come out on their own, then she’ll admit Tia Adriana to the hospital and give her medicine to start labor,” Buck explained to his son.

“How come the doctor won’t let the baby decide to come on its own?”

“Well, there are a couple of reasons to induce labor, which is when doctors give a pregnant person medication to make them go into labor,” Buck explained as he put a detergent tab in the dishwasher and closed the door. “After forty-two weeks, the baby can stop getting as much oxygen as they need through the placenta and umbilical cord, which is what connects the baby and the person carrying the baby. The baby also is still growing, and if we wait for the baby to come on its own, then the baby might get too big to come on its own.”

“What happens if the baby is too big to come on its own?” Chris asked, moving to sit at the table. Buck got them each a glass of juice and joined him.

“If your little brother or sister is too big, which right now the doctor thinks the baby is going to be on the smaller side, then the doctor will do something called a cesarean section, or a c-section and take the baby out surgically,” Buck told him.

“Is there something Tia Adriana can do to induce labor?” Chris asked, tripping over the new terms.

“There are a couple of ways that she can induce labor, old wives tales, or stories that are passed down from pregnant person to pregnant person. Your Tia can eat spicy foods or pineapples, she can exercise or take some warm baths,” Buck answered.

“Did Tia Adriana try any of that?”

“She’s trying it right now. Your Tia went for a walk to grab some extra spicy Mexican food and a pineapple smoothie,” Buck chuckled.

“Do you think it will work?” Chris questioned as he brought his cup to his mouth.

“I guess we’ll just have to see,” Buck laughed before being interrupted by his phone ringing. “Speak of the devil, hey Adriana, how’s it going?” Buck asked as he answered the phone.

“My water broke,” Adriana gasped.

“Where are you?!” Buck yelped as he jumped up from the table.

“In an ambulance on the way to Angels Memorial, but we’re stuck in traffic,” Adriana ground out.

“I have Chris. I’ll call Tia Pepa on my way to the hospital!” Buck told her as he ran to grab his wallet from his room. “Chris, buddy, I need you to grab your switch and some books buddy,” Buck called out before making assurances to his friend. “We’ll be there soon Adriana.”

“Just call my Tia and get here as soon as you can!” Adriana barked before hanging up the phone.

“Is everything ok, Papa?” Chris asked as he went to grab his bag from his room and put his things in it.

“Your Tia is in labor,” Buck told the boy as he followed him to make sure he had everything. “She called an ambulance to bring her to the hospital so we’re going to meet her there.”

“Let’s go, Papa! We have to be there when the baby is born!” Chris said as he handed Buck the bag and slipped his crutches on.

“Go get in the car, buddy,” Buck told Chris as he ran around the house to make sure everything was locked up, grabbing his keys and the pre-packed baby bag from next to the front door, locking up behind him.

Buck threw the two bags into the back footwell by Christopher and made sure his son was secure before he jumped in the driver’s seat and started the car.

“Hildy, call Tia Pepa!” Buck commanded his phone.

“Calling Tia Pepa,” the AI replied.

“Hola, Evanito, cómo estás?” The older woman asked when she answered the phone.

“Adriana went into labor on her walk,” Buck answered as he backed out of the driveway. “Eddie is still at PT, so I have Chris and we’re on our way to the hospital!”

“Which hospital, I’ll meet you there,” Pepa told him. Buck could hear her bustling around on the phone and figured she was grabbing Adriana’s bag and anything else she would need to go to the hospital.

“The paramedics are taking her to Angels Memorial,” Buck told Pepa, checking on Chris in the back seat, an empty infant car seat installed next to him.

“I will meet you there,” Pepa reiterated. “You just focus on getting there with my grand-nephew!” She ordered before hanging up the call.

“You should call Daddy too, Papa,” Chris told him. “So he doesn’t wonder where we are and he can meet Baby Guava too.”

“Good idea, Superman,” Buck praised. “Hildy, call Eddie!”

“Calling Eddie heart emoji sparkles emoji.”

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie greeted. “Everything ok?”

“Adriana went into labor while she was out on a walk,” Buck told Eddie, flipping on his turn signal to take a right. “Chris and I are heading to Angels Memorial to meet her.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Eddie told Buck. “Did you call Tia Pepa?”

“I did and she’s on her way,” Buck reassured his partner.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can then,” Eddie told Buck before hanging up.

Buck gave all of his focus on driving himself and Chris to the hospital as quickly and safely as possible.

Angels Memorial wasn’t a hospital that the One-Eighteen frequented when transporting patients and it wasn’t the hospital that Adriana was registered at, but it’s history as the birthplace of trauma treatment in the ER had made it one of the subjects of his research binges. Plus, as a first responder it was always smart to know where all of the ERs in town were.

Luckily, there was a visitors parking area right outside the ER. Buck pulled into one of the handicapped parking spaces, made sure his parking placard was hanging from the rear view mirror, and grabbed masks for him and Christopher before hopping out of the car. “Ok, Buddy, time to go find Tia Adriana,” Buck told the boy, helping him down from the car and handing him a mask and his backpack before making sure he had his crutches. Once he was sure that Christopher was set, Buck grabbed the baby bag and prodded the boy in the direction of the ER entrance.

“Hi, I’m looking for a patient in labor who was brought in by ambulance,” Buck told the woman working at the admissions desk.

“Patient name?” The woman asked as she started typing at her computer.

“Adriana Diaz,” Buck told her. “I’m Evan Buckley, this is her nephew Christopher Diaz.”

“Miss Diaz is still in the ER. She’s just too far along to be moved to Labor and Delivery” the admin said. “It’s only family back there right now.”

“See, she’s having my baby, so I would really like to be there,” Buck said.

“Let me call her doctor and make sure that’s ok,” the woman said. A few minutes later, both Buck and Chris were wearing visitor stickers and following a nurse who introduced herself as Nurse Risa Park back into the ER.

“Would you like me to watch your nephew?” Nurse Park asked. “I think childbirth might be a little too serious for him.”

“Buck’s not my uncle, he’s my Papa,” Chris told the nurse. “He and my Dad already told me how babies are born.”

“My son is a very inquisitive and mature child,” Buck apologized. “But I think she’s right about you not being right there, Superman. Your Tia is in a lot of pain and this is probably really scary for her, so I think it’s best if you wait at the nurses desk with Nurse Risa.”

“Ok, Papa,” Chris huffed.

By this point they had made it to the back of the ER and it wasn’t hard for Buck to figure out which bay Adriana was in based on the yelling.

“Your son will be just fine, right here,” Nurse Park assured Buck.

“Be good for Nurse Risa,” Buck reminded Chris before he dashed behind the curtain blocking Adriana from view.

“Finally!” the young woman huffed. “What took you so long?!”

“I had to call your Tia and your brother. Then the admin woman up front didn’t want to let me back,” Buck explained.

“Ok, Mama, you gotta push,” the doctor sitting at the foot of the bed said. “You are so close!”

“Stop calling me that!” Adriana growled as she bared down. “I am never doing this again.”

“Come on, Adriana, you’ve got this,” Buck said. “You’re a Diaz woman, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a stronger woman outside my own mother.”

“Athena Grant-Nash is terrifying,” Adriana agreed with a gasp. “I want to be just like her when I grow up.”

“I believe in you,” Buck praised.

“You’re so close Mama!” The doctor interrupted. “The head is almost out!”

“I said, stop calling me Mama!” Adriana shouted. “Buck, skin.”

“Shit, yeah,” Buck gasped as he let go of Adriana’s hand to unbutton his shirt.

When they had developed a birth plan with Adriana’s doctor, it had included Buck and Tia Pepa being there to hold Adriana’s hands. As soon as the baby was born, the doctor was going to hold them up so that Adriana could see and then Buck was going to cut the cord and then be handed the baby to immediately begin skin to skin contact before being escorted to a private room so that Adriana could have her space. This wasn’t what they had planned, but it was nice that Adriana was trying to give him what they had discussed.

“Ok, Adriana, this is it, give me one more big push and your baby’s head will be out,” the doctor said.

“I can’t do this,” Adriana cried as she grasped Buck’s hand again.

“You’ve got this, Adriana,” Buck praised her as he pushed her sweaty hair away from her face. “You’ve been doing it. Just keep going, it will all be over soon.”

“ARRRGGHHH!” Adriana growled as she bore down with all her might.

“There we go, Mama!” The doctor cheered. “Just breathe for now, let your body do the work for you.”

Adriana just panted, gripping Buck’s hand and putting all of her focus on him. Buck had the biggest smile she had ever seen on his face, his eyes were sparkling and it had nothing to do with the tears that Adriana could see building.

“Ok, Mama, deep breath and then big push to get those shoulders out. You’re gonna feel me helping the baby turn, but that’s normal, everything is fine,” the doctor who still hadn’t introduced themselves said.

“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” Adriana shouted as she pushed one more time.

Sooner than Buck imagined, the best sound he had ever heard was ringing through the ER.

“Congrats, Mama and Daddy, and it’s a little girl,” the doctor announced over the baby’s cries.

“A girl,” Buck breathed in awe of the tiny person screaming in the doctor’s hands.

“Give her to Buck,” Adriana told the doctor when he tried to place the baby on her chest. The doctor still kept trying to hand Adriana the baby, ignoring her face turned from the baby and how her hands were pushing the doctor away. Buck finally had enough of the young man ignoring Adriana’s wishes and swooped in to grab his daughter.

“I’ll take her,” Buck said as he gently grabbed his daughter and brought her to his chest so she rested right over his heart. “Hi, Baby Girl,” Buck whispered, “I’m your Papa. I’m so excited to finally meet you. You were being as stubborn as your Daddy and taking your sweet time.”

“Why don’t you let me hold her so you can cut the cord,” a nurse offered.

“Ok,” Buck agreed, handing the baby over and taking the shears that were offered to him. Another nurse clamped the cord and showed Buck where to cut. As soon as Buck had cut the cord, Buck handed the shears back to the nurse and took his daughter back. The same nurse who had handed him the shears gave Buck a towel that he used to wipe his daughter off before wrapping a blanket around her.

“Buck, Adriana?” Pepa called from the other side of the curtain.

“In here, Tia,” Adriana weakly called.

The curtain whipped back and there was Tia Pepa, in all her glory. “Oh, sobrina!” The woman cooed when she saw her niece.

“Tia, I had a baby,” Adriana cried as she held her arms out for a hug from her aunt.

“I see that,” Pepa cooed as she hugged the younger woman. “You did a wonderful thing, mija. It’s all going to be okay,” Pepa reassured Adriana as she brushed her hand through Adriana’s hair. “Congratulations, Buck. Do you have a name?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to say it yet. I want to tell Eddie and Chris first,” Buck told her, his focus almost completely on his daughter.

“It’s going to be a little while before they have a space for Mama and Baby on the maternity ward,” the doctor who had delivered the baby said after he wrapped up helping Adriana deliver the afterbirth. “I think it might be best for Mama to start bonding with Baby now.”

“GET OUT!” Adriana shouted. “I WANT YOU OUT!” She repeated, throwing the pillow from behind her at the doctor.

“Ok, Dr. Peters, how about you go check in with Dr. Rorish or Dr. Savetti and see where they want you. Nurse Paul and I can handle the patients,” an older Hispanic man said as he came in and gently nudged the doctor out of the area. Then he turned around to face the small family. “Hi, I’m Nurse Jesse Sallander. I’m the head nurse for this ER, everyone calls me Mama. You can call me that or Nurse Jesse. What’s going on?”

“I’m Evan Buckley, and this is Adriana Diaz and Pepa Diaz-Nuñez. Adriana was upset by the doctor calling her Mama and trying to make her hold the baby and bond with her,” Buck explained to Nurse Jesse. “Adriana is my surrogate. She was supposed to give birth at a different hospital, but Little Miss here had different plans.”

“Okay, then how about we leave the lovely Miss Adriana here with her Tia and you and Little Miss come with me,” Nurse Jesse suggested. “We can find you a quiet, private place to bond until there’s space for you upstairs on the maternity ward. And I’ll find a doctor to take a quick peek at your little one.”

“That sounds like a lovely plan,” Pepa said as she helped Adriana sit back. “Buck, I saw Christopher at the nurses station when I came back. I’m sure that he would like to meet his new little sister.”

“Christopher is your son?” Nurse Jesse asked as he waited for Buck to pick up his bag and sling it over his shoulder, the baby still tucked safe to his chest.

“My best friend’s son, but yeah. We co-parent and I’m in the process of adopting Chris,” Buck explained.

“Is that the baby?!” The young boy squealed when they came into view.

“Yeah, Superman. This is your new little sister,” Buck said as he kneeled down next to Christopher to show him the sniffling baby. “Nurse Jesse here is going to show us a place where we can spend time with her until the baby doctors upstairs can check on her,” Buck explained.

“Ok, let’s go!” Chris cheered as Nurse Risa helped him put his bag on and grab his crutches.

Before they reached wherever Nurse Jesse was leading them, Eddie came barreling around the corner sans sling and Ana.

“I’m here!” He called as soon as he saw his family. “I’m here!”

“So’s my little sister!” Christopher giggled as his father skidded to a stop in front of them.

“Little sister?” Eddie gasped as he caught sight of the baby in Buck’s arms. “It’s a girl?”

“We are officially Girl Dads!” Buck exclaimed as he moved the blanket a bit so Eddie could see the baby’s face.

“How about we get you guys in your own room,” Nurse Jesse told them before leading them to a private examination room. “You guys shouldn’t be bothered here. Except by the doctor I’m going to send in to check over Little Miss here very soon.”

“Thank you, Nurse Jesse,” Buck said as he bounced his daughter as she started fussing.

“I’ll make sure the doctor brings a bottle with them,” Nurse Jesse promised before closing the door.

“Is Adriana ok?” Eddie asked Buck once they were all alone.

“She’s ok. Tia Pepa is with her now,” Buck assured Eddie. He saw the room had a counter and decided it would be a good idea to finish wiping the baby down and put a diaper on her.

“Hey, Eds, can you grab the wipes and diaper? And one of the swaddling blankets from the go bag?” Buck asked his partner.

“Sure,” Eddie said, ruffling through the bag for the items that Buck asked for before following the younger man over to the counter. Eddie grabbed the blanket that Buck previously had wrapped around the newborn and laid it on the counter before Buck laid the baby down. She was wide awake and blinking her big, pale blue eyes at them.

“She’s so beautiful, Buck,” Eddie breathed.

“What’s her name?” Christopher asked from Buck’s other side.

“Her name is Cora. Cora Brigid Buckley,” Buck said, lovingly running a gentle finger down Cora’s nose.

“Welcome to our family, Cora Brigid,” Eddie said.

“Happy birthday, my little miracle.” Buck whispered to the little girl. “June third, that’s officially your birthday.”

Chapter Twenty

It was taking all of Buck’s willpower not to turn around and look back at his tiny baby daughter in the backseat. He’d never driven so slowly and safely before in his life as when he pulled out of the parking lot for Angels Memorial with Cora in the back for the first time ever.

“Your daddy and your big brother are so excited for you to get home, Princess,” Buck said aloud when they stopped at a red light. He knew she couldn’t really understand him, but she could still hear him and he wanted her to know he was there. It helped that she knew his voice as well as she knew Adriana’s. It had been Adriana’s idea for him to record himself reading or talking to the baby when she was still living in Texas.

Before he knew it the light was green and Buck needed to focus on the road again. The best way to take care of Cora was to not focus on her and it was such a hard thing for Buck to accept. Luckily they weren’t far from home, so he was pulling into his driveway behind Eddie’s truck before he knew it.

Buck grit his teeth when he saw Ana’s car parked in front of his home. He thought he’d made himself clear to Eddie that he didn’t want her coming over today, but it seems at least one of them, if not both of them, had ignored his wishes.

Or maybe not when a cop car pulled up to block the driveway. Buck was quick to check on Cora in her car seat, fast asleep, before he climbed out of his Jeep. The officer who stepped out of the patrol SUV was about his height and build with darker hair than his own. He looked familiar to Buck, but he wasn’t sure from where.

“Can I help you, officer?” Buck asked, standing next to the back driver’s side door.

“I’m Sergeant Donovan Rocker, with the LAPD. We received a call about a trespasser on the property,” the man said. “Can I get your name, Sir.”

“Firefighter Evan Buckley. I’m the homeowner. I can make a guess over the complainant and who the trespasser is,” Buck admitted as he ran a hand down his face to cover up a frustrated sigh.

“Oh?” Sergeant Rocker asked as he pulled out a little notebook and pen like Buck had seen his mother use on calls.

“My best friend Eddie Diaz was the first firefighter who was shot by the sniper a little over a month ago. When he left the hospital he and his young son, Christopher, moved in with me so I could help with his recovery. His girlfriend, Ana Flores, wasn’t a fan of that. She wants to help him, he doesn’t want that. Her and I don’t get along either. I think Ana has a bad effect on Eddie and she kindly offered to adopt my baby, which only pissed me off.”

“Can you tell me why your friend might call in a trespassing call on his girlfriend? He called the non-emergency number, and he did say he didn’t think she was a physical danger to anyone at this point,” the officer explained.

“About a month ago, Ana and Eddie were fighting. Chris could hear them so I broke it up and sent Eddie to check on Chris. Ana and I got into it when I asked her to leave. It got worse when she tried to demand a key to my home because she and Eddie were discussing her having one to his before he was shot. I asked her several times to leave and my mother, Sergeant Athena Grant, showed up and made her leave. I ended up telling Eddie that she was no longer allowed in my home unless Eddie told me that he invited her,” Buck explained, getting nervous when he saw Cora starting to wake up out of the corner of his eye.

“I know Sergeant Grant. She’s a good cop, terrifies me and I usually work S.W.A.T.” Rocker chuckled.

“What are you doing responding to a trespassing call as a patrol officer?” Buck asked as he opened the door to try and calm Cora down.

“Patrol Day. Once a month all S.W.A.T. officers take a patrol shift. And today?”

“My daughter was born two days ago, it’s her first day home from the hospital. I told Eddie that under no circumstances would I let Ana in my house today. Said if he wanted to see her he needed to go somewhere else,” Buck told Sergeant Rocker. “But I’ve co-parented his son for years and we were planning to keep doing that with my daughter. He was just as excited about her coming home as I am and said he had zero plans to see Ana at all today.”

“But it looks like she came over anyway,” Rocker finished. “I’m going to escort Ms. Flores to her car. Please stay here with your daughter. Would you like to file a report about today?”

“Yes. And I’m going to look into adding a stronger security system,” Buck muttered.

“Just don’t forget to put up warnings about any cameras you put up on the property. And piece of advice, everyone forgets cameras in the common areas,” Sergeant Rocker advised as he tucked his notebook away and walked up to the front door.

Buck reached into Cora’s car seat and unbuckled her, pulling her out and tucking her into his chest as she started to whine. It wasn’t time for a bottle, and she felt dry, so he figured she just wanted a cuddle. He left the car door open for a little ventilation, which gave him the ability to perfectly hear as Ana opened up the front door to his home.

It wasn’t long before Ana was shouting at Sergeant Rocker, but when he threatened to arrest her, she was quick to actually leave the house. Ana gave Buck a glare as she stalked past him, but he didn’t care.

Buck and Sergeant Rocker waited until her car pulled off the street before going inside. Buck wasn’t shocked to see Eddie dropped down into the couch, but he was a little shocked by the tears and the defeated look in Eddie’s eyes.

“I broke up with her,” was the first thing that Eddie said after Buck closed the door. One look at his partner had Buck forcing the man to hold their daughter before he took a seat next to Eddie.

“Sir, I’m Sergeant Donovan Rocker of the LAPD. Can you tell me what happened today?” Rocker asked as he took a seat on an armchair near the other two men, pulling out his notebook again.

“I was doing some chores, making sure that the house was nice for Cora to come home to. I was in the kitchen, prepping some bottles when Ana just walked in. I had the door locked and we don’t have a spare key so I have no idea how she got into the house,” Eddie sniffled.

“We can come back to that later,” Rocker assured the men. “What happened after she came in?”

“I asked her what she was doing here and reminded her that Buck didn’t want her in his home today and that I was backing him on that. She said that she wanted to be here to welcome our daughter home. I told Ana to leave and when she didn’t we started arguing about her role in Cora’s life. She said that since Buck and I are discussing me adopting Cora like Buck is adopting Chris, that made Cora hers too. She has this belief that just because she’s dating me, that gives her this parental power over my kids. I told her we were over at that point and she tried to say that I couldn’t break up with her. I told her to leave a couple more times and she refused so I locked myself and Christopher in my room and called the non-emergency number for the police.”

“Is your son still here?”

“He’s still in my room, watching cartoons on his tablet,” Eddie said. “I don’t know how much he heard, but he knows that I broke up with Ana and that I called the police on her.”

“Ok, so I know that you want to make a formal report, Mr. Buckley, but it sounds like she actually broke into your home, so would you like to press charges for that?” Sergeant Rocker asked.

“Yes, I would. And if you have any recommendations for the security system, please let me know,” Buck said as Cora started to whimper and he realized it was probably time for another bottle. “Excuse me, I’m going to make her a bottle.”

From the kitchen, Buck could hear Sergeant Rocker and Eddie talking lowly in the living room as he grabbed one of the bottles Eddie had managed to prep from the fridge so that he could pop it in the bottle warmer that they placed on the counter.

Sergeant rocker stood up when you came in. “Well, I have enough to open up a file. I know you two have already had a long day, and it’s your first day home with the new baby and I remember that from bringing my own babies home. If you two want to stop by HQ tomorrow, we can take your statements and assign a detective to the case.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. We really appreciate your time today,” Buck graciously told him after he handed Eddie the bottle.

“Anything for fellow first responders. And like I said, your mother terrifies me,” Sergeant Rocker chuckled as Buck escorted him outside. “Congrats on the new baby, try not to focus on Ms. Flores and enjoy this time.”

“We will,” Buck agreed. When he shut the door he decided to lock it and the deadbolt. He didn’t think Ana would come back, but better safe than sorry.

“I’m so sorry, Buck,” Eddie tearfully choked out. “I swear I told her not to come. And I tried to make her leave.”

“Eds, it’s ok. This wasn’t your fault. This is all on Ana Flores.”

“I should have never dated her. I just wanted to make everyone happy. I wanted them to be proud of me,” Eddie sobbed as he tucked Cora even closer to him. She was completely unbothered by her father’s tears, industriously sucking down on her bottle.

“Eddie, you are my best friend. I love you just for who you are. But you need to talk to someone,” Buck insisted. “I know you love your parents, that you want to make them proud. But I have seen time and time again that they just end up hurting you. I really hope that they change, but that change will not be genuine if it’s because you change and start doing what they want.”

“I know they love me, I just wish they would support me. I wish that they would see me.”

Buck was quick to switch out Cora for a pillow that Eddie almost instantly buried his face into to muffle the sobs.

“Eddie, I know you don’t like therapy, but I really think that you need it. You were so desperate to prove to your parents that you know what’s best for Christopher that you started doing what they wanted despite literally fleeing your home in order to do what you thought was best.”

“I’ll think about it. I didn’t think it helped much when I saw Frank after the fight club,” Eddie admitted, wiping the tears from his face.

“You also were kinda there against your will,” Buck reminded the older man. “You need to want the help, Eddie. If you don’t want it, then it won’t work.”

Buck managed to convince Eddie to come take a nap with him in his room. Once Eddie had stripped off his shirt, Buck got Cora down to her diaper and laid her on Eddie’s chest.

“Here, bond with our daughter while I go check on our son,” Buck suggested before turning right around and going to find Christopher. The pre-teen was exactly where Eddie said he would be, on the man’s bed, watching cartoons on his iPad.

“Hey, Superman, you doing ok?” Buck asked, sitting down next to the boy.

“Ok. Dad and I were making sure the house was nice for Cora to come home and Ana showed up,” Chris explained. “Dad dumped her because she ignored when he told her not to come over. Then she wouldn’t leave and Dad called the police.”

Buck just sighed at his eldest’s explanation of the day’s events. “I know, buddy. I pulled up at the same time as the officer. He’s gonna start a report and I’m gonna talk to my lawyer about how to keep Ana away from us.”

“Ok. Is Cora home now?” Chris asked. Buck watched the boy turn off his iPad and put it on Eddie’s bedside table.

“She’s in my room with your dad. We’re gonna take a nap together. You wanna join us?”

“Yeah, a nap sounds like a good idea.”

When the two blonds got to Buck’s room, they found Eddie and Cora already asleep. Seeing the love of his life, the other father of his children with the newborn made his heart stutter and his stomach fill with butterflies. Buck had no idea if he and Eddie would ever have a chance as a couple, but for now, getting to go on this parenting journey together was more than enough.

Buck carefully helped Chris up onto the bed, watching the boy wiggle over to lay in the middle of the bed, next to his dad. Buck was quick to take a picture of his family before moving Cora to her bassinet and joining them for a nap.

It was only a couple of hours later that Cora was waking them all up. One look at Buck’s phone told him that it was probably time for another bottle. His own stomach started grumbling so Buck decided to figure out what to make for dinner while her bottle was heating up.

“I’ll check her diaper if you start her bottle,” Eddie grunted, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Sounds like a deal to me. Did you guys want anything specific for dinner?” Buck asked. He stood up and stretched, Eddie mimicking him on the other side of the bed. Buck laughed as his partner started scratching at his chest before looking down like he was confused about what he saw.

“What happened to my shirt?” Eddie questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“You took it off so you could do some skin to skin with Cora,” Buck reminded him. A quick look and Buck saw the shirt in question thrown over the dresser. “Here,” Buck said, throwing the shirt at him. “Now answer the question. What are we doing for dinner?”

“Abuela and Tia Pepa dropped off a bunch of food before they went to pick up Adriana. I know they dropped off tamales and enchiladas, not sure what else. And your dad and mom said they would bring us some more food tomorrow,” Eddie informed the younger man. The Latino stared down at Cora, laying in her bassinet and fussing more and more the longer she was left with. “Hey, princesa, it’s ok, Daddy’s here, you’re ok,” Eddie crooned as he picked her up. “Let’s go get you a new diaper while Papa makes your bottle, sound good?”

Buck watched the two leave the room before turning to Chris. “Do you wanna go help your dad with your sister, or do you want to come help me with dinner?” Buck laid out to the boy. One of his biggest fears was that Christopher would fear he was being replaced. He hoped that making time for Chris one-on-one and giving his son chances to be involved in Cora’s care would prevent that.

“I’ll help you. Dad can deal with the dirty diaper by himself,” Christopher sassed. “And I vote for Abuela’s tamales tonight. It’s Cora’s first night home and that deserves Abuela’s tamales.”

“You’re right, kiddo,” Buck agreed. The two of them chatted all the way to the kitchen, Chris telling Buck about his great-grandmother and great-aunt’s earlier that day. “Can you turn the bottle warmer on for me, Superman?”

“I got it, Papa.”

“So, did you two make a decision on dinner?” Eddie questioned when he joined them in the kitchen, Cora cradled in his arms.

“Abuela’s tamales!” Chris cheered.

“Excellent!”

Once Cora’s bottle was ready, Buck handed it over to Eddie and popped the tray of tamales in the oven to warm up. The three of them spent the time until dinner was ready talking about their plans for the next few days. Bobby and Athena were going to pick Abuela up for a visit the next day, then Hen and Karen were going to come the day after. Pepa was going to be spending time with Adriana and helping the young woman with her recovery, so they didn’t have any plans for Pepa to visit.

About halfway through dinner, Cora being passed back and forth between Eddie and Buck as they talked and ate, Eddie finally asked the question that Buck had been waiting for.

“Where did you get Cora’s name from?” Eddie asked, handing Cora over to Buck so he could take another bite. “I looked the name up. It just means daughter and that seems kinda unoriginal for you.”

Buck hesitated to tell Eddie the truth about Cora’s name. Of the many things they had clearly laid out when it came to making their parenting plan, Cora’s name had not been one of the topics they talked about. It went unsaid that Buck had full control over her name, but the younger man couldn’t deny that Eddie heavily influenced his choices.

“When we were talking about how hard it was to be away from Chris during the lockdown, you called him your heart. You said there was nothing harder than being separated from your heart and that only being able to see him through a screen reminded you of when you were deployed,” Buck recounted. “When I started thinking about Cora’s name, I thought of that. I didn’t choose Cora because it means daughter. I chose it because it’s short for Corazón.”

“Heart. You named your daughter after the Spanish word for heart,” Eddie whispered.

“I’ve loved Chris like my own since the tsunami, but when I made the conscious choice to officially become a parent, I started to get what you meant about that. And everything I’ve learned about parenting, I’ve learned from you and with you, and I wanted to honor that.”

“I think it’s awesome that you kinda named Cora after me and Dad,” Chris chimed in. “What about her middle name, Brigid?”

“Buckley is an Irish name, and so is Brigid. She’s a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, a group of Irish gods and goddesses. She was the goddess of wisdom, just like how Athena is the goddess of wisdom for the Greek gods.”

“So, she’s named after me and Dad and Mémé Thena?” Chris asked.

“Yep! Think Athena will be ok with that?”

“I think she’s going to gloat endlessly!” Eddie chuckled.

The rest of the night was spent laughing and marveling over the newest member of their family. And when they all went their separate ways to their own beds, Buck changed Cora into a clean diaper and a onesie, tucked her into her sleep sack, and laid her in her bassinet. Looking down at his precious miracle, his little girl, Buck thought of a song from a movie he’d watched with Chris the week before.

Buck stared at his daughter’s curly, dirty blonde hair, with her little milk spots. He memorized the way her nose wrinkled when she scrunched it up and grunted before settling back down. The lyrics just came back to him and he sang them to her under his breath.

Let it go

Let it roll right off your shoulder

Don’t you know?

The hardest part is over

Let it in

Let your clarity define you

In the end

We will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made

In these small hours

These little wonders

These twists and turns of fate

Time falls away

But these small hours

These small hours

Still remain

Maddie avoiding him, Ana trying to destroy his family, Eddie’s obvious PTSD, all of it fell away.

All that mattered, all that Buck would remember of the day he brought his daughter home would be dinner and this moment right now.

Chapter Twenty-One

SEPTEMBER 2021

Buck was more than a little nervous as he double checked that his bag was fully packed for work. It was his first day back on A-shift full time instead of the part time hours he had been working for the previous month.

It hadn’t been an easy decision for Buck to make, returning to work before his twelve weeks of leave were up. Especially when he realized that having an excuse to get out of the house a couple times a week was a relief.

Buck researched everything he could about how much leave time he would be able to wrangle himself when he first made the decision to have a baby. Every second he could spend caring for and bonding with his newborn would be precious.

Then his best friend had to go and get shot less than a month before his daughter was born.

Buck sometimes wondered if his precious Cora had sensed that he needed to focus on Eddie and that was why she stubbornly waited until almost two weeks after Adriana’s due date to come. Either way, helping Eddie through his recovery while single-handedly caring for his tiny newborn was not in the plan. At least he’d had Carla and Winnie to help lighten his load now.

Thankfully Buck wasn’t returning to shift alone.

It was also Eddie’s first day back on full active duty after recovering from his wounds. Eddie might have been back sooner, but he’d been stubborn about making an appointment with Frank to get the psych clearance he needed after being shot by a sniper while technically on duty. Buck wasn’t sure what exactly made Eddie finally make the appointment in question, he was just glad to have his partner back.

“Buck, switch with me,” Eddie begged as he walked through Buck’s bedroom door with a crying Cora cradled in his arms. “You take Cora and I’ll finish packing your bag,” the man bargained as he gently forced Buck’s daughter into his arms. “Cora doesn’t like me this morning.”

“She’s probably just sensing how freaked out we all are about us both being back on shift full time,” Buck offered as he adjusted Cora to rest higher up on his chest so she could tuck her little face into his neck. “Doesn’t hurt that Chris is back in school in person next week either.”

“I’m not nervous about returning to work. I’m thrilled to be back on duty,” Eddie argued as he gave Buck’s work bag a last once over and then zipped it closed. “And Chris is over the moon to be back in school with his friends. If Chris is happy, then I’m happy.”

“Fine, you aren’t nervous about going back to work full time. But I’m nervous about being back at work full time and away from Cora and Chris. And I’m terrified about Chris being back in a classroom,” Buck admitted to Eddie as he followed the older man out of the bedroom and into the living room. Buck ran his hand over Christopher’s hair while he watched TV, causing the boy to protest. “You good there, Superman?” Buck asked the boy.

“Yeah,” Chris said. “I’m watching American Dragon on Disney Plus. Is Cora ok? She’s crying a lot this morning.”

“Good cartoon choice, kid. And your sister is fine,” Buck reassured him as he ran his hand down Cora’s back. The three month old had gradually calmed down the longer she was in her Papa’s hold. Now Cora was only producing the little sniffles she made when she was tired. “Cora just feels how nervous and excited we all are about going back to work and school. Only, she doesn’t know why we feel that way and it makes her nervous. Just like when Cora is hungry or needs her diaper changed, crying is the only way for her to let us know what she needs.”

Chris slowly turned around so he was kneeling on the couch and facing Buck. “What did she need this morning? She already had her bottle.”

“Cora needed what we all need when we’re scared or upset, she needed a cuddle,” Buck told his son as he laid his daughter in her bassinet in the living room. The action was just in time for a knock to sound from the front door before whoever was on the other side opened it.

Buck wasn’t surprised that their guest just let themselves in. Afterall, Buck had made sure Carla had a copy of his key even before Christopher and Eddie had semi-permanently moved in with him half way through Eddie’s recovery. Officially combining the two households had been practical after Eddie’s landlord announced that he was selling the house and the new owners were planning to raise the rent ridiculously high.

“Good morning, Buckley-Diaz family!” The angel in human form greeted them as she placed her purse on the side table. “How is everyone doing this fine Monday morning?”

“Good morning Miss Carla,” Buck returned the greeting. “Some of us are doing a bit better than others,” he told her as he gave a quick nod to Eddie as the other man came back into the living room with his own bag packed to drop it on top of Buck’s. Eddie definitely knew Buck was talking about him though, based on how Eddie discretely flipped Buck off. “And yourself?”

“Good. Excited to go to the park with these two and Winnie today,” Carla enthused as she walked over to the couch to give Chris a hug before peeking in on Cora in her bassinet. “Have they had breakfast yet?”

“Cora is due for another bottle in about forty-five minutes. Chris hasn’t had anything yet,” Eddie told the woman as he sat next to his son to put on his shoes. “He insisted on waiting for you and Winnie.”

“Well Carla and I are kinda great, so I can see why,” Winnie said as she let herself in without any forewarning. Minnie trailed behind her girlfriend with an amused smile.

“We do make an excellent team,” Carla agreed as she gave the much younger woman a fist bump. No one had really expected that the two ladies would end up working as close together as they did, but the fact that Carla and Winnie genuinely seemed to like each other had definitely smoothed the way. They each were technically only responsible for their respective charge, but in practice they shared the load as their hours overlapped. It would be a little different after Chris returned to school, when their hours would only overlap in the afternoons that both Buck and Eddie were on shift.

“I just so happen to have everything I need to make breakfast pizzas,” Winnie told Chris as she held up the reusable shopping bag she was carrying. “So how about you give your Dad and Papa a hug goodbye and go wash your hands so you can help me put ‘em together.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Chris whisper shouted. Chris had never spent any significant amount of time around a baby before Cora was born, so learning how to manage his volume levels had been an adjustment. Chris had a tendency to raise his voice when he was excited at home. He kept to normal levels when he was at school or in public like he was taught, but home rules had always been much more relaxed on that front. In the end, Chris kept himself from getting too loud while Cora was resting by instead dropping his voice to a whisper.

“Bye Papa, bye Dad,” Chris told them as he gave both men a tight hug. “Have a good day at work. Be safe.”

“We’ve got each other’s backs,” Buck assured the boy, giving him a tight return hug.

“Papa, you’re squishing me,” Christopher laughed. Buck joined him in his laughter as he let the boy go.

“We love you, mijo,” Eddie told Chris, giving Chris his own hug. “Be good for Carla and Winnie. Help them with your sister if they ask for it.”

“I’m always good and I always help,” the ten-year-old sassed.

“Watch the sass, little man,” Buck laughed, ruffling Christopher’s hair again.

“Ok, boys, we gotta get on the road,” Minnie told them. “Give Cora a kiss and get your butts in the car. Your kids will still be here tomorrow.”

“Bye bye, princess,” Buck told his precious baby girl, gently picking her up from her bassinet so she wouldn’t wake up. Buck held Cora close and placed a soft kiss on the top of her wild, curly, light brown hair. It had grown thicker and darker over the last three months and Buck would need to get Cora bigger headbands soon to keep it out of her face. “I love you more than words could ever say.” Eddie joined him next to the bassinet and held his hands out, so Buck passed her over to his partner.

“Adiós, mija,” Eddie whispered before placing his own kiss on Cora’s head. “Te amo mi corazón más pequeña.”

“Get going guys,” Winnie told them gently as she took Cora from Eddie and laid her back in her bassinet. “Carla and I have the kids. It’s better for you two and them to just get going and not draw it out.”

“I know you’re right, but that doesn’t make it any easier,” Buck grumbled as he handed Eddie his bag and hefted his own over his shoulder.

Buck and Eddie gave everyone one last goodbye and then walked out the door to get in Eddie’s truck, Minnie at their backs.

It had been an easy decision to have Minnie come over to the house with Winnie and the three firefighters carpool to work from there. Eddie had taken Christopher’s booster seat and harness out of the truck the night before so that Minnie wouldn’t be stuck in the backseat between the two car seats. Carla had a seat for Chris in her car, but just in case Eddie left the seat in the garage for Winnie to use if she needed to transport Chris before the two men got home the next day.

The three chatted and laughed on their way to the station. The bond that they all shared made the time fly.

After the shooting, Eddie and Buck worked hard to rebuild their relationship and Buck’s trust in Eddie.

Living together and co-parenting their kids had in some ways made the process smoother, but it also made it harder for them to walk away and get space when they needed it. It was especially hard to get space from each other when Eddie was still in the sling and still restricted from driving.

In stepped the power team of lesbians. Winnie and Karen would both step in to take over caring for Christopher and Cora while Minnie and Hen would take turns taking one or both of the boys out to do something. Slowly, Eddie and Minnie started to build a friendship of their own outside of Minnie’s friendship with Buck.

When they arrived at the station, Hen was the first one to greet them. In true Hen fashion, there was a banner hanging from the loft railing and balloons tied to the stairs. Buck was sure that when they went upstairs to the kitchen that there would also be a cake waiting for them.

“Welcome back, boys!” Hen cheered as she quickly swooped in to give them both a tight hug, first Eddie, then Buck.

“I’ve been back for like a month!” Buck laughed as he wrapped his arms around Hen in a tight bear hug.

“You were only on A-shift twice a week at most!” Hen argued. “It doesn’t count! But now you’re both back full time which means you’re officially back!”

“Hey, no arguments from me. I get cake with my breakfast,” Eddie laughed.

Hen eventually let the two men go to the locker room so that they could change for shift. The one time Buck had put his uniform on before shift after Cora’s birth, he’d regretted it when she ended up vomiting all over him.

Coming back to the station after a leave of any sort had always been a little bit like coming home for Buck. As he walked up the stairs to the loft, that feeling came over him again, but not as strongly as it had in the past. This building was still his home, these people were still his family. But with Eddie’s revelation about Buck being in his will as Christopher’s guardian and Cora’s birth soon after, Buck realized that he finally had a family of his own and home outside of the station.

“I’m so glad to see you two back on shift together,” Athena said as she continued the parade of hugs for the two men. “This place hasn’t seemed the same without you.”

“Thanks, Mama,” Buck said as he buried his face in her neck during his hug.

Everyone laughed and welcomed the men back while Bobby cooked breakfast. Various members of their shift gave them quick hugs and pats on the shoulder. Bobby was the last to welcome them back, turning the rest of the cooking over to Hen and Minnie and then came over to see the boys.

The only one who hadn’t welcomed them back was Chimney. Buck could see the man lurking on the edges of the kitchen area. Buck wasn’t surprised that Chimney was keeping his distance. The one and only time that Buck had talked to Maddie after everyone found out that he was going to have a baby was a couple of days after Cora was born.

His sister had called him to ask why he was texting her about bringing home a baby. Buck had argued back that as far as he knew, Maddie had known for months that she was going to become an aunt. That Chimney had zero shame in admitting that he hadn’t hesitated to ignore Buck’s request to let him tell Maddie.

Eventually the two figured out that Chimney had not told Maddie about her little brother expecting a baby. Instead her lover had told her vaguely in a text that Buck had done something ridiculous and twisted Maddie’s response of being too busy at that moment to hear about Buck as Maddie being disappointed in Buck and unwilling to contact him or be contacted by him.

Listening to his sister cry over the phone was one of the hardest things Buck had ever had to do. Maddie had been incredibly upset that Buck had just believed that she would ever want to cut off contact with him. It had taken everything in Buck to choke down the words that he wanted to say.

Specifically that Maddie had done exactly that once before when she was married to Doug.

Instead, he reminded her that she hadn’t reached out to him over the previous two months either. All Buck was doing was respecting what he thought were her boundaries, relayed to him and enforced by Chimney.

They’d fought for awhile before Buck had sighed and told Maddie that if she couldn’t trust her partner not to lie to her (and others) then that was something she needed to handle with Chimney.

Buck and Maddie had finally ended their call by promising that they would both try to do better.

Buck had kept up his end and tried calling his sister and setting up a time for Maddie to come over to his home and meet Cora, with or without Jee-Yun. When Maddie turned him down with the excuse that she didn’t want to bother Eddie and Chris while Eddie was recovering (Buck’s decision to move them in to help Eddie had gone over like a lead balloon) Buck instead offered to meet up for coffee in a park, get the girls and themselves some fresh air. Maddie had claimed she was too tired.

Finally Buck had suggested to Maddie that since he was on paternity leave and had all the time in the world, Maddie could simply let Buck know when would be a good time for her and Jee and he would come over with Cora.

Maddie couldn’t even turn that offer down because Chimney had taken the phone away from Maddie and harshly told Buck that Maddie had enough on her plate caring for their daughter, so Buck needed to stop bothering her and trying to get Maddie to take care of his ‘mistake’ before hanging up.

When Buck tried to call back when he knew Chimney would be on shift he found his number blocked.

Now, seeing his almost-brother-in-law glaring in Buck’s direction he felt suddenly nauseous. Buck had seen this pattern in his sister before.

The calling off or declining meetings and isolating herself from her family.

It sounded an awful lot like what Buck had seen of Maddie and Doug’s marriage before he had left home. Buck knew that Chimney had anger problems, but the older man had never been physically violent with any of his partners before. And from what Buck had overheard during a conversation Hen and Chimney had in the ambulance on his first part-time shift back, Maddie wasn’t totally isolating herself. She was still talking to her friends from dispatch and she and Chimney tried to have dinner with the Lee’s every other week. It was only him and those Buck was close to that Maddie was avoiding.

Buck voiced his concerns to Eddie one late night when Chris was at a sleepover with Denny and the two men were being kept up by a cranky Cora. Eddie had not brushed off his worries, instead relaying to Buck that he understood why Buck was worried. Eddie had also said something that made them both stop and see the situation with new eyes.

Eddie had only ever seen how Chimney was with his partners when he was dating Maddie, but Buck had seen how Chimney treated the women before her.

Maybe Chimney had never physically abused his past partners, but he had certainly mentally and emotionally abused them when he lied, manipulated, and gaslit women into dating or sleeping with him. Just because those women hadn’t known what Chimney was doing, didn’t mean it wasn’t still abuse.

Buck and Eddie still hadn’t figured out how to handle working with Chimney when they were so worried about Maddie.

Something was happening in the Buckley-Han home, what little progress Chimney had made with his stress responses after finally moving out of Buck’s old loft had gone out the window at warp speed.

For now the only thing they could do was wait and watch. Chimney seemed to at least be talking to Hen about what was going on, they could only hope that Hen was also telling her wife about whatever Chimney was confiding in her. Karen Wilson was the only person who could get Hen to stop enabling Chimney’s bad choices or actions.

For now, all Buck could do was put aside his worry for Maddie and his longing to be home with his kids. His focus needed to be on his job, a job he was finally returning to with the person he trusted at his back more than anyone else.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Standing in the hospital ER and helping to manually vent intubated patients due to a power outage should be just another day at work.

But Eddie had apparently been brought to the hospital for a suspected heart attack and Buck hadn’t known.

Oh, and the power wasn’t out for any of the normal reasons that LA’s power went out for on the regular.

No.

Some assholes had taken over the city’s electrical grid and multiple other parts of the city infrastructure and were holding it all hostage until the city of Los Angeles paid them. His first week back on full duty was certainly interesting so far.

Then the hospital shook as an almighty crash sounded from somewhere outside the building.

“That came from the roof,” Hen announced.

Everyone ran outside and looked up toward the roof. Only to see a medivac chopper barely clinging to the roof.

“The generators will have to wait,” Bobby quipped.

The team was quick to run up to the part of the roof that housed the helicopter landing pad. Everyone there had been on the job for years and were incredibly used to picking up the most relevant details they needed to complete a rescue.

“Window washing cables!” Eddie called out over the still spinning rotors. “This thing’s holding on by a thread, Cap!”

“One-Eighteen, I want ropes, webbing, and the heavy winch on the rooftop, double-time!” Bobby ordered.

“We’re not waiting for any of that, right?” Buck checked with his father. It was all well and good to know what tools were needed to do a job, but when you were on a time crunch like they currently were they couldn’t wait for those tools to be available.

“No!” Bobby confirmed. “First thing we do is get those rotors turned off! Hen, Buck, you check that cabin and see what we got. Eddie, you’re with me,” Bobby assigned everyone their tasks and sent them all in motion, Eddie not hesitating to climb into the precariously balanced helicopter. Hen wasn’t far behind him.

“Kid! Can you hear me?!” Hen tried to rouse the young paramedic. He was a baby, barely looked old enough to have a job.

“Can’t move,” the kid managed to tell her.

“Chim, this is Hen,” the woman called into her radio, trying to reach her partner inside. “I need you to bring me a backboard and C-collar from inside!”

“Copy that,” the other paramedic acknowledged.

“Hang in there, kid, we’re gonna put this fire out and then get you out, okay?” she worked to reassure her patient and keep him as calm as possible.

Eddie barely got the helicopter turned off before they realized the effect that would have.

“It’s slipping!” Buck called as he tried to stabilize it, Bobby coming up to help him try and hold it. They weren’t as successful as they hoped and it fell farther off the roof. All of the movement shook the door on the other side open and Eddie almost fell through it.

“Help me!” the young paramedic begged.

“We’re okay! We’re okay!” Hen gasped, moving past the shock at the near fall. “We’re okay. You’re okay. Wh-What’s your name?” she asked, trying to distract the kid.

“Manny,” he told her.

“Manny? How long you been a paramedic?”

“Been at it almost a month now.”

Yeah, Buck thought as he listened to their conversation, that tracks.

“Oh, wow,” Hen vocalized. “You’re lucky, Manny! It was a while before I got to see any real action,” she joked.

“This ain’t quite the action I was hoping for,” Manny joked back.

“You’re gonna be okay, kid,” Hen reiterated.

“Buck, let’s get the pilot out of here!” Bobby ordered. Eddie used his position in the chopper to help leverage the unconscious pilot out and into Buck and Bobby’s grasp.

“Backboard!” Chimney called as soon as he was on the roof. “Hen, what do we got?”

“Spinal,” she informed her partner of her triage results. “I’m guessing cervical. We need to flip him on this backboard.”

“That’s a two-person job,” the senior paramedic reminded her.

“I’m available!” Eddie jumped in. “Trick is, how do we do that here?”

“The backboard’s long enough to cover this opening,” Hen realized.

“You’re gonna flip me over the window?” Manny gasped.

“I know. It’s not optimal,” Hen acknowledged.

“No, very not optimal!”

“Listen, it’ll work,” Chimney agreed with his partner’s plan. “Strap him in. We’ll figure out a way to pull him out.”

“All right, flip him on three,” Eddie started their usual count to make sure they were all in sync. “One, two, three!” Manny grunted as Eddie and Hen carefully moved him onto the bright orange backboard.

“How you doing, Manny?” Hen checked in with him once they were done.

“Breathing’s good,” he self diagnosed. “Pulse feels right.”

“Okay.”

“I can move my fingers. Not my toes.”

“That’s good, Manny,” Hen praised him. “You’re making our job very easy. Thanks for that. Good job.”

“Eddie!” Bobby called as he and Buck lowered a hose into the helicopter. “Secure this to the board!” the captain instructed.

“All set, Cap!” Eddie called when they were done.

“Okay, we’re all set! Go!” Bobby commanded and the three men on the roof worked to pull the backboard and the patient up.

“Wait!” Manny desperately called. “The heart! This is a transplant flight!”

“I got it!” Eddie called when he saw the cooler. Hen was closer than he was, so he got her attention. “Hen!”

She still wasn’t close enough to reach it in the trashed cabin.

“You worry about that later!” Bobby ordered. “Let’s get him out!”

“Go, Hen, come on!” Eddie encouraged.

“Get him up over that ledge! Easy! Easy!” Bobby led them through pulling him up. As soon as the patient was on the roof the helicopter slipped again.

“Feels like it’s about to go, Hen!” Eddie observed. “Come on!”

“Go! Go! Go! Go!” Bobby chanted as Hen and Eddie climbed out of the cabin and then onto the roof with their team’s help.

As soon as they were on solid ground, Hen was working with Chimney to treat Manny and get him ready for transport into the hospital proper. In the commotion, they missed Bobby getting ready to climb down to get the heart. Except for Buck who was right by his father’s side.

“The winch is here, Cap,” Buck informed him when he saw the man tying the house they’d previously used around his waist.

“No time for that,” Bobby disagreed.

“Ok, if I did this, you would be yelling at me!” Buck pointed out as nurses and doctors from the hospital took over Manny’s care and the rest of their team joined them.

“This is one of those, do as I say, not as I do moments, kid,” Bobby told his son.

“Are we sure you two don’t share DNA?” Eddie tried to lighten the mood, lowering his captain down.

There was only so long cables that the helicopter was originally caught in could hold and they gave easy the second Bobby cheered that he had the heart.

“DAD!” Buck screamed as the broken cable whipped past and the helicopter finished falling.

Buck looked over the ledge to see his father just hanging there, hand clasped tight around the container with the heart, the helicopter exploding mere stories below him. They were all quick to pull the man up as a nurse rushed in for the heart.

“That was amazing,” the doctor who had recognised Eddie earlier praised them. “Any chance you can do a transplant in the dark?” she half joked, making everyone laugh.

“We’ll get the generators running,” Eddie promised.

“And I bet by the time we do, the city will have the power back on,” Buck tried to reassure her that the problem was temporary.

He regretted his words when four days later he was still on shift and missing his kids. The other shifts had all been called in and everyone was rotating sleeping in the bunks or catching a quick nap on one of the cots set up in the bay.

Buck was finding ways to distract himself from his longing to be home with his family by finding things to do around the station.

Once it became clear that Buck was one of the few people with the emergency recall protocols memorized, the three shift captains had all been more than happy to put him to work.

The department knew that firefighter’s who were distracted, worrying about their families, were dangerous and of no use, so the station had been issued a set number of personal device chargers. The chargers themselves were expensive and charging them with the generator was expensive in its own way.

Keeping track of the chargers, and any damage to them, was imperative. Buck had been given the job and the B-shift probie Ravi to help him. He was only surprised that it had taken his sister’s boyfriend this long to find him.

“After a requisition for has been submitted, you will be issued a personal charging device,” Buck recited from the script he had developed for himself. “Once it is dead, you return it to the probie charging pool, and it will be recharged for you.”

“You can just say Ravi,” the Probie stated. “Ravi will charge it for you.”

Buck held up a finger to stop Ravi so he could finish telling Chimney the protocol. “One charge per twenty-four hours is the limit. Do not attempt to bribe me or you will be docked two charges.”

“Give me a charger or Uncle Buck will never see his niece again,” Chimney threatened him. His tone suggested it was a joke, but considering Buck had only ever seen his niece in person once, he knew it wasn’t a joke.

“No,” Buck denied him. He was done taking his pseudo brother-in-law’s shit. “You think you’re the only one who needs a charger? That you’re the only one who needs to check on your family back home? At least Maddie and Jee are together. My kids are with a nanny, because both of their dads are affected by the recall.”

“Give. Me. A. Charger,” Chimney demanded.

“Fill. Out. The. Form,” Buck snapped back.

“DAD! PAPA!” Buck heard Christopher call out.

“Ravi, don’t give him a charger without a form, or I’m making you responsible if it’s damaged or lost,” Buck ordered as he trotted off to his family.

“Hey, Papa!” Chris greeted as Buck swooped in to pick him up. Soon, his son wouldn’t let him do this.

“Oh, looks like the new chief is here! How are you?” Buck greeted back. He clutched his son tight to his chest before putting him down to take Cora’s car seat from Winnie. “And there’s my precious girl!” he cooed to the wide awake infant.

“Oh, Ravi, this is, uh, our son Christopher and our daughter Cora. Christopher, this is Ravi Panikkar,” Eddie introduced when he realized the probie had followed Buck to escape Chimney who was furiously filling out a requisition form.

“You’re a firefighter?” Chris asked the young man.

“I’m what they call a probationary firefighter,” Ravi informed the child.

“Did you do something wrong?” Chris curiously inquired. It was rare the pre-teen got in the type of trouble that led to him being grounded, but the last time Buck had joked that he was on probation when it was over, then explained to Chris what the word probation meant.

“Constantly,” Buck told his son, giving Ravi a look. He had the makings of a good firefighter, but his lack of confidence and second guessing himself was turning out to be his enemy.

Chris and Winnie laughed.

“Hi, I’m Winnie. I’m this sweet girl’s nanny and Minnie’s girlfriend,” Winnie introduced herself.

“Thank you for bringing the kids here, Winnie,” Buck said. “I’m just gonna check with Bobby that it’s still ok for me to head out for an hour.”

“We’re on recall, Buck,” Chimney reminded him, shoving the form into the blond’s chest before shaking a charger. Buck grabbed his wrist to check the number on the charger and then finished filling in his part of the form.

“Cora has an appointment with her pediatrician to make sure the heat isn’t negatively affecting her,” Buck informed Chimney, shifting his grip on the carrier to bring Cora closer to him. “Since I’m her only legal parent, Bobby agreed to let me take an hour so that I could take her.”

“Your nanny can do that. You are needed here, to do your job,” Chimney tried to order him.

“There’s my grandkids!” Bobby cheered as he trotted down the stairs. “Buck, you’re good to go. Try to be back in an hour.”

“You got it, Cap,” Buck agreed.

“Winnie, if you and Chris wanna head upstairs and grab some food, I think I saw Minnie up there,” Bobby offered. “Chimney, with me. Now.”

The lack of anything to do kept most people at home, leaving only if it was an absolute necessity meant that the roads were clear and Buck was back at the station within his allotted hour. Just in time to get called out to handle one of the many, many animals that had managed to escape the LA Zoo. At least Cora’s pediatrician gave her a clean bill of health and said that she was handling the heat wave phenomenally well.

“He takes the kids there all the time,” Eddie told everyone as Buck listed off some of the most dangerous predators that the zoo housed. “Got the place memorized.”

“A chimpanzee!” Buck kept going, ignoring his best friend’s interruption. “A chimp will literally rip your face off without even thinking twice about it!”

“Just smile, Buck,” Hen deadpanned.

Sooner than Buck would like they were weaving through abandoned cars, with nothing but irons to defend themselves, watching giraffes walk in front of them. When they got to the shopping center the call had originated from, an elephant knocked over a stall behind them.

“I really thought this year was gonna be different,” Buck complained.

They quickly found one victim with a compound fracture and some type of irritant in his eyes.

“Sir, what did this to you?” Hen inquired as she and Chimney treated him and prepped him to move.

“I-I-I don’t know,” the victim stuttered. “It, it screeched and spit some kind of poison at me. I can’t see anything. I-I tried to run, and I, I fell. Did-did you find Ivan?”

“No, who’s Ivan?” Eddie asked as he tried to keep an eye on all the animals.

“My boss. I think he’s still trapped in the store,” the victim answered. “With that thing!”

Bobby quickly doled out assignments from there. “Okay, Eddie, you assist Chim. Hen, you’re with me.”

“Wait, you’re going in there?” Buck wasn’t entirely sure he heard his father right.

“We are,” Bobby confirmed. “You’re on animal control.”

Which is how Buck found himself trying to keep animals away from Chimney and Eddie without actually hurting them. At least he had the knowledge that Bobby and Hen had ended up running from an alpaca of all things.

When they were back at the station and had as much privacy as they were gonna get, Buck brought up the panic attacks. Which ended up being the next day, day five of the blackout.

“Hey, are you sleeping or just pretending?” Buck asked as he caught Eddie laying on one of the cots in his uniform pants and a tank top.

“I was actually trying to sleep, until you interrupted,” Eddie complained.

“I’m exhausted,” Buck complained right back. “Uh h-how are you feeling?” he checked in.

“Hot. I’m sweating out of places I didn’t know I could.”

“Not like a cold sweat thought, right?” Buck checked. “A-any chest pains?”

“You don’t give up, do you?” Eddie moaned. “I’m fine, Buck.”

“People who are fine don’t go and see cardiologists. You need to tell me if something is wrong. We have children together, ok. A-and part of co-parenting is that you tell your co-parent when something is wrong.”

“All right.” Eddie finally gave in, sitting up on the cot. “It was a panic attack. Not a heart attack. Panic.”

“Since when do you panic?” Buck wondered aloud. Buck was no stranger to panic and Eddie knew that, so he had to wonder why, exactly, Eddie would keep this from him.

“That’s what I said! I don’t panic,” Eddie emphasized. “Except I did.”

“Ok, well, what triggered it?” Buck asked, drawing on his own experiences and his therapy. “I mean, you did just get shot and almost killed by a sniper. I guess that could be considered anxiety-inducing,” Buck reminded himself. “But you told me that Frank said you had no lasting issues with that.”

“That wasn’t it, okay?” Eddie denied. “I-I saw Ana when I was at the grocery store the other day. And she acted like the break-up was just temporary or that we were going to go back to a ready-made family. And I don’t want that. The family we have now, we worked hard for it.”

“Ok. But, she’s been out of our lives for months now,” Buck reminded him. “And like you said, you don’t have a ready-made family. You have one that we both fought like hell for.”

“I don’t know man,” Eddie sighed.

“Look, you have time because I don’t think we’re going home anytime soon, but will you please consider going back to therapy?” Buck suggested before walking away.

Before they could discuss Eddie going to therapy anymore, the station received word that not only had Jeffery Hudson escaped from custody in the chaos of the city being held hostage, but he’d managed to abduct Harry. Buck considered himself non-violent by nature. Even watching pay-per-view fights with Eddie made him uncomfortable. But never had Buck wanted to murder anyone as much as he did the man who had once brutally attacked his mother and now kidnapped his little brother.

By the time it was all over and Harry was back safe in his parents’ arms, Buck longed to hold Christopher and Cora just as close. And Harry’s safe return seemed to herald a return to normalcy as the power returned and everyone was one step closer to returning home. A-shift even more-so since they would be the first released home on account of being on shift when everything first started. Buck was counting down the minutes.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I’m gonna take Chris to Abuela’s to check on her and Pepa,” Eddie told Buck once they got home and relieved Winnie. “I know Winnie took the kids to see them and they stopped by, but …”

“But you still wanna check on them yourself,” Buck stated, rolling up his sleeves so he could do the handful of dishes that were in the sink from breakfast.

“Are you gonna be ok with pequeña corazón?” Eddie questioned as he dropped their work bags in the laundry room.

“We’ll be fine,” Buck assured his partner. “We are just going to work on some chores, we’ll be totally fine.”

“God, what a crazy first week back!” Eddie chuckled, Buck joining in with his own hearty laugh. They only stopped when Buck’s phone started ringing.

“It’s an unknown number,” Buck murmured. He hadn’t talked to his sister in months.

“Answer it. I’ll check on the kids,” Eddie ordered.

Buck took a deep breath and answered the call. “Hi, this is Evan Buckley, how can I help you?”

“Hey, Buck.”

“Maddie! Is everything ok? I haven’t heard from you in months.”

“I’m sorry, Buck. I didn’t mean to cut you off. Just, being a new mom hasn’t been as easy or as hap- smooth as I thought it would be when I found out I was pregnant.” Maddie’s voice sounded staticky over the phone.

“I know what you mean. It’s been insane, being Cora’s dad. When I decided to have a baby via surrogate I didn’t think that Eddie would start dating a crazy lady or get shot. I didn’t think that my first week back at work would be a blackout resulting in a five-day shift and that I would only see my baby once during all of that,” Buck told his sister.

“I’ve just been so tired,” Maddie whimpered. “I know-I know I promised you that I wouldn’t leave again, but I need to go. I took Jee-Yun to the doctor during the blackout. She’s fine but she’s not safe with me. I just-I need to go. I promise I’ll be back, but I just, I need to go until I think she’ll be safe with me again.”

“Maddie, taking Jee to the doctor during the blackout wasn’t a bad move. I took Cora to the doctor,” Buck tried to comfort his sister.

“You took Cora to the doctor? Why? Is she ok?” Maddie rambled.

“Cora is fine,” the blond assured his older sister. “Her pediatrician canceled and postponed his regular appointments for anything other than mandatory vaccines so he could do quick checks on how his patients were handling the heatwave. I trust Winnie to take care of Cora when Eddie and I are at work or can’t be there, but she is still my baby and I am still a new dad.”

“Who’s Winnie?” Maddie sniffled.

“My nanny. I work with her girlfriend, Min Liu. Minnie and Winnie,” Buck explained after realizing Chimney probably wasn’t telling Maddie anything. After all, he pretended like he spilled the beans about Buck becoming a dad to her when really, Chimney just decided to actually keep a secret for once in his life.

“And she took Cora to the doctor while you worked during the blackout?”

“No. Winnie brought Cora to the station and Bobby let me take an hour to bring Cora to her pediatrician. Since he couldn’t let Eddie go at the same time, he was there through FaceTime,” Buck explained. “She’s fine, but the whole time I was terrified that being in the middle of a heatwave was hurting her.”

“But she’s ok?” Maddie checked.

“Cora’s thriving. She’s just fine,” Buck promised. “So I get the fear you’re feeling right now, Maddie. And I want to beg you to stay, to let me help you. I want to beg you to bring Jee-Yun over so that you can meet Cora and our daughters can meet. So that they can start the epic cousin relationship I’ve been picturing them having since Adriana told me she was pregnant and I realized our kids would be born only a few months apart.”

“But you won’t do any of that?” Maddie whimpered.

“No, I won’t. Because you’re my sister and I know you and I love you. I know that running, putting space between you and whatever is hurting you or scaring you is how you get perspective. So all I’m going to do is make you promise me.”

“Promise what?”

“That you’ll get help and you’ll come back. Because Cora has been waiting to meet her Auntie Maddie for months,” Buck enthused, catching Eddie and Cora out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ll be back, I promise. I need you to make me a promise too.”

“Whatever you need, Maddie. Always.”

“Please don’t tell Chimney that I called you. I left Jee at the station with Ravi. There’s a tablet, with a video for him that explains everything. I just need Chimney to take care of Jee and focus on her. It’ll only hurt Chimney that I called you and left a video for him,” Maddie explained.

“I promise, Maddie,” Buck earnestly agreed to what Maddie asked.

“I have to go, Buck. I’ll be back, I promise. And I know you need to focus on Cora, but if you could just check in on Jee and Chimney, I would appreciate it.”

“I promise, Maddie. I love you and I just want you to get better. We’ll be here when you’re ready to come home.”

Sooner than Buck was ready for it, Buck and Maddie said their goodbyes and Buck had to hang up his phone.

“Is everything ok with Maddie?” Eddie asked as he passed Cora over to Buck. The blonde immediately brought his daughter up so that he could breathe in her scent, ignoring the way the infant slapped her hands against his face.

“She’s leaving. Maddie took Jee-Yun to see a doctor. And Jee is fine, but Maddie doesn’t think Jee is safe with her. So she’s leaving,” Buck managed to get out through his tears.

“I know you’ve been worried about her,” Eddie acknowledged.

“I think she has postpartum depression. I did a bunch of research when Adriana was pregnant because it’s one of the biggest risks for surrogates and people who give their babies up for adoption. I wanted to be prepared if that happened so I could support her however she needed.”

“And now you think that Maddie has PPD?” Eddie asked, handing Buck a bottle he had prepared while the younger man was on the phone.

“I mean, maybe. It’s hard to say because of the way she’s been avoiding me. And I can’t tell if Chimney was helping to isolate her or if it was his idea. If you asked me six months ago if I thought Chimney could keep a secret of this magnitude I would’ve said no. But then he only told people he didn’t know and who didn’t know me about the Daniel thing. And he never told Maddie about Cora even though he heavily implied that he had when everyone found out that I was expecting her.”

Eddie sighed, watching Buck juggle Cora until she stopped wiggling and focused on her bottle.

“I agree, something’s wrong with Maddie, something’s been wrong for a while. And even if Chimney only helped her isolate herself instead of orchestrating it all on his own, that is bad enough,” Eddie summed up. “I guess the question is, how do you want to play this. Do you want to try to find her?”

“Chimney is her partner, if she’s bad enough that she’s a danger to herself, then he’ll know and take it to the right authorities. Maddie is a runner. She needs space to get clarity and take care of herself. And the last time she ran from a lover across the country, he stalked her and tried to kill her,” Buck reminded Eddie. He checked Cora’s bottle and adjusted it so she didn’t just suck in air. “The absolute last thing that Maddie needs right now is to relive that in any capacity. I know that Sue made her get therapy after the incident with the call victim, but Maddie is like you, she didn’t want the help then.”

“You’re not wrong, but that means it’s out of our hands now,” Eddie reminded Buck.

“I know. I hate it.”

EIGHT DAYS LATER

“I know, princesa,” Buck soothed Cora. “I know, you’re tired. Just give Papa a second, little one,” he begged as he grabbed the wrap that May had gifted him at his and Eddie’s makeshift baby shower/homecoming. In the end, Buck had to put Cora in her crib while he hurried to securely wrap the mint length of soft cloth around himself and tie it off. He’d gotten plenty of practice at it over the last few months, but usually Eddie was there to help him.

“Your daddy is right, little one, you are high maintenance,” Buck chastised as he picked the almost four-month-old up.

He bounced Cora for a minute before tucking her into the baby wrap. A couple of adjustments later saw the infant tightly tucked against Buck’s chest, Cora’s ear over his heart. Just like Buck expected, Cora’s pitiful little cries quieted into sniffles as she drifted off to sleep.

“I’m thinking it’s a day for slow music, what do you think, Cora?” Buck asked as he grabbed his phone and portable speaker. “Hmm, let’s see. How about John Mayer, Colbie Caillat, and Jason Mraz? You’re right. It sounds like the perfect music for chore day,” Buck said. Soon enough, John Mayer’s Daughters was playing through the speakers and Buck was folding laundry.

“Fathers be good to your daughters. Daughters will love like you do,” Buck sang along as he folded Cora’s tiny onesies and dresses. “Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers. So mothers be good to your daughters too.”

A harsh knock at the front door interrupted Buck. Eddie was supposed to be bringing food with him when he got back from helping his Abuela with a few repairs, but that shouldn’t be for hours. And even then, Eddie always called Buck before he left Abuela’s so Buck would know where the older man was.

“Chimney?” Buck questioned when he saw his sister’s partner at his front door.

“Maddie took Jee-Yun to the emergency room,” the older man explained as he barged past Buck into the blonde’s home.

“Uh, o-okay,” Buck stuttered. When Maddie had said that she had taken his niece to see a doctor, Buck had assumed she meant the infant’s regular pediatrician, just like Buck had taken an hour to take Cora to see her pediatrician.

“It was during the blackout. There was some kind of accident,” Chimney ranted as he paced around Buck’s living room. “Maddie was bathing her and the baby slipped under the water. That’s what she meant when she said Jee-Yun wasn’t safe with her.”

Buck had to admit that his sister’s call was making more and more sense. What still didn’t make sense was how an accident that Buck had experienced himself when Cora was only two months old had kicked his sister’s fight, flight, or freeze response into high gear.

“But Jee-Yun is fine,” Buck observed.

At least Buck hoped she was fine. Maddie had said that the doctor assured her that the baby was ok, but Buck had barely seen his niece since she was born and didn’t know what would be out of character for her.

“Yes,” Chimney insisted, “exactly, she’s fine. But Maddie is out there somewhere, beating herself up because she lost grip of a slippery child. She needs to know that this wasn’t her fault.”

“And she’ll figure that out if you give her time,” Buck reminded Chimney. Cora started to stir and whimper against Buck’s chest, so he gently patted her back as he rocked in place.

“Time? She needs me. I’m going after her!” Chimney firmly told Buck. The older man’s clear disregard for his sister’s wishes mixed with his erratic behavior was starting to really make Buck nervous.

“Well, sh-she said sh-she didn’t want you to do that, right?” Buck confirmed.

More and more Buck was getting a clearer view of his older sister’s mental health and he really wasn’t liking the picture that was being painted for him. And the fact that Chimney, who had also been directly affected by Doug stalking Maddie across the country wanted to turn around and do the same thing scared the hell out of him.

“Buck, you’re not listening! She exiled herself because she thinks she’s a danger to the baby. I can’t leave her alone like that, believing that, thinking the worst of herself!” Chimney erratically insisted. Buck bit back the urge to bark that the kind of thinking Chimney was talking about didn’t pop up out of nowhere. If Maddie left because she believed herself to be a danger to her daughter, then she had been thinking that long before the blackout. And Chimney had absolutely no problem leaving Maddie alone for five days straight with no power. “She needs to know!”

“Know what? That you love her? That you support her? Chim, she knows. What she needs is specialized help and time, and she will come home,” Buck insisted.

Outside of Doug kidnapping Maddie, Chimney had never seen Buck’s sister pushed to her breaking point. Had never seen Maddie show over and over again that when faced with fight, flight, or freeze Maddie almost always chose flight. She would flee the situation and regroup before being able to face it head on.

“Why weren’t you surprised?” Chimney suddenly asked. “When I told you that Jee-Yun almost drowned, you didn’t even blink. It wasn’t until I said that I was going after Maddie… Did you know?!”

“Ch-Chim, Chimney…” Buck stuttered in the face of the man’s anger.

“She told you? Is that it? She called you and you already knew about this because she told you? Where is she, Buck?!” Chimney yelled.

“I- I… I don’t know,” Buck admitted. “She wouldn’t tell me. We talked about how we both took the kids to see the doctor, but I assumed that Maddie took Jee for the same reason I took Cora, to make sure she was ok with the heatwave.”

“Eight… days. You have waited eight days while you have seen the hell I’ve been going through, and you didn’t tell me?!”

“She-she said she was fine, you know? She-she just needed to figure some stuff out. And she-she was more worried about you. She-she asked me to check in on you and Jee-Yun and make sure that you’re okay,” Buck insisted as Cora’s whimpers turned to full on cries when faced with Chimney’s fury fueled shouting and Buck’s nervous heartbeat.

The fist came out of nowhere. One second Chimney was taking big heaving breaths, the next, his clenched hand was making contact with Buck’s face and Buck was stumbling toward the ground in shock. Cora was screaming and Buck had no idea how to calm her down.

“I am not okay,” Buck heard Chimney say before his front door opened and slammed shut.

“Hildy, call Eddie,” Buck gasped as he straightened up and stumbled to the couch to collapse against the laundry.

“Calling Eddie heart emoji sparkles emoji,” the AI robotically stated.

“Hey, Buck. Is everything ok?” Eddie asked with a laugh. “Don’t tell me you need help folding baby clothes.”

“Eddie, I need you to take me and Cora to the hospital,” Buck gasped out, his daughter’s cries growing louder.

“Buck, what happened?!” Eddie questioned. “Is that Cora crying? Why is she crying like that?! I’m on my way home!”

“Chimney came by. He got a letter from the insurance company that Maddie took Jee-Yun to the ER and it was paid for.”

“We knew that Maddie took Jee to the doctors though. The ER is new information, but maybe her pediatrician wasn’t doing what Dr. Fields was doing with the emergency checkups during the blackout,” Eddie guessed as he got into his truck. His voice changed a bit as he transferred the call to the truck’s Bluetooth system.

“Maddie didn’t take Jee to the doctor because of the heatwave. I guess she was giving Jee a bath and she slipped under the water for a second. But I guess that my response to Chimney telling me about Jee’s accident wasn’t shocked enough or something. He figured out I knew that Maddie was leaving,” Buck explained as he tried to rub Cora’s back and soothe her.

“Buck, what did Chimney do?” Eddie questioned as he drove home.

“Cora was fighting naptime so I put her in her wrap. She got upset by the yelling. I was trying to calm her down but she just kept crying. Then Chimney punched me in the face. It came out of nowhere, Eddie. I don’t know what happened,” Buck cried, setting Cora off again.

“Buck, I’ll be home in just a minute to take you two to the hospital, but we need to call the cops when we get there,” Eddie gently told his partner.

“Chimney’s just scared for Maddie,” Buck deflected. “And I didn’t tell him that she called me before she left.”

“Because Maddie made you promise not to. What would telling Chimney that Maddie called you have accomplished Buck? It’s not like she told you anything that you could use to find her,” Eddie reminded the younger man. “And if you were the only one that Chimney hurt, I would respect your choice not to go to the police even if I didn’t agree with it. But you were holding Cora. What if you had fallen? Chimney didn’t just endanger you, he endangered our daughter.”

“You’re right. I- maybe I would have forgiven him, trusted him again in time if it was just me. But he put Cora in danger and for that I can never forgive him. I will never trust him again,” Buck admitted through the tears.

Chapter Twenty-Four

He knew poking at his bruise would only hurt him, but no one ever claimed Buck had good self control. The ER had ruled out a concussion and broken bones for him. Cora had been diagnosed as shaken and receiving a shock, but physically unharmed.

“Stop poking,” Eddie chastised as he finished buttoning up his uniform shirt.

“I can’t help it,” Buck mumbled. “I still can’t believe that Chimney would behave like this. But then I touch the bruise and it all just comes racing back to be.”

“Are you ready to go talk to Bobby?” Eddie checked once they were both dressed and ready to start their shift. Buck took a long, deep breath in and exhaled it through his nose. If this were a cartoon, Buck was almost sure that there would be smoke coming out of his nostrils.

“Let’s get this over with,” he firmly stated before shutting the door to their shared locker.

Buck was completely unsurprised that when he and Eddie reached the loft they found Hen and Bobby huddled over the kitchen island and talking to each other quietly about Chimney. He was torn about talking to Bobby in private as firefighter and captain first or talking to both of them together as Buck’s friend and adopted father. Hen made the decision for him.

“Buck, you done Bucked up this time,” she teased when he got closer. Hen trying to tease him, to make any of this his fault crossed a line that Buck didn’t know was there. He knew that he would never be able to work with Chimney again, but he would never be able to work with Hen again either. No matter what happens with the warrant out for Chimney’s arrest, Hen would always be on her best friend and partner’s side.

“Captain Nash, I need to inform you that I’m going to be on restricted duty for the next couple of weeks. The ER doc said my face isn’t broken and I don’t have a concussion, but another hit to the head would change that,” Buck informed his father.

“What happened, Buck?” Bobby gasped. Maybe the doctor’s were wrong about the concussion, because either Buck lost time or Bobby essentially teleported in front of him to tilt his head.

“I got punched by Howard Han,” Buck grumbled.

“You shouldn’t have kept the fact that Maddie called from him,” Hen defended her friend. Buck decided to simply ignore her.

“The morning that Maddie left, she called me,” Buck admitted. “We talked about the girls both seeing a doctor during the blackout. I mentioned that Cora saw her pediatrician to make sure she wasn’t getting sick from the heat wave, but Maddie didn’t tell me why Jee saw the doctor, so I assumed that Jee-Yun went to the doctor for the same reason that Cora did.”

“Turns out that Maddie was giving Jee a bath to cool her down and fell asleep for a second. Apparently, the medication she was taking for her PPD made her sleepy,” Hen interrupted him to tell Bobby her take as gleaned from the tales of Howard Han. “Maddie took Jee to the ER and she was totally fine. But it made her think she’s a danger to Jee which is why she ran.”

“Maddie was taking medication for diagnosed PPD?” Eddie questioned. “Because Buck and I haven’t heard anything about Maddie having PPD.”

“She’s embarrassed, Eddie. She didn’t want anyone to know and Chimney was trying to help her and respect her wishes!” Hen defended Chimney.

“But he told you,” Buck whispered. He continued to talk before Hen had a chance to do more than open her mouth. “I haven’t seen my sister since Jee-Yun was born. Maddie has never met her niece, because in respecting my sister’s wish that no one know about her PPD, Chimney isolated her worse than even Doug did.”

“That is too far!” Hen barked. “I remind you that Doug tried to kill Chimney, yet you dare to compare the two of them?!”

“Why not?! They both isolated my sister from her support system, insisting that they were the only person she needed. Doug stalked Maddie across the country after she left him and made it clear she wanted no contact, and now Chimney is doing the same thing with my infant niece in the backseat!” Buck lowly growled.

“Maddie is sick, Buck! You don’t know how bad it’s been,” Hen tried to berate Buck. “She’s not in her right mind! She can’t be left alone! And now, Chimney has lost more than a week because you kept Maddie calling you from him!”

“Oh, so Chimney can keep Maddie having PPD to himself because she asked, but I can’t keep the fact that she called me secret for the same reason?!” Buck’s laughter had a dark tone as he barked the question to her.

“It was none of your business! But now, Maddie is alone and in danger and you might have made it worse!”

“No, Chimney leaving my sister all on her own for five days with an infant suffering from PPD put Maddie in more danger! Chimney leaving her alone with a major trigger and on medication that apparently made her even more tired than the depression did put Maddie in more danger!” Buck corrected Hen.

“You should have just told him where Maddie was going,” Hen plainly stated, crossing her arms and closing herself off.

“I don’t know where she is! What I know is that my sister told me she needed time and space from everyone here and that she would get help,” Buck explained. When Hen tried to defend Chimney’s need to chase after Maddie for his sister’s sake again, Buck simply threw up a hand and said, “stop.”

“Hen, did Chimney tell you that he hit Buck?” Eddie interjected.

“He said that Buck tried to stop him from searching for Maddie and he just reacted,” Hen reluctantly told Eddie. “Chimney is Maddie’s partner, he knows her better than anyone.”

“Chimney has never seen Maddie scared and desperate,” Buck reminded everyone. “I have. Multiple times. When Maddie gets like this, she runs. It’s the only way for Maddie to get any kind of perspective and clarity.”

“Captain Nash, you should know that there is currently a warrant out for Howard Han’s arrest,” Eddie informed Bobby.

“An arrest warrant?! For a single punch?!” Hen snapped.

“Yes, because after Ana Flores broke into my home I installed cameras on the property and in the common areas of my house. I put up signs and everything,” Buck told her, looking her straight in the eye. “I turned the footage of the punch over to the police. Because I might have been able to move past Chimney punching me in a moment of extreme emotional distress. But I was holding Cora.”

“You were what?!” Bobby gasped, speaking up for the first time since Buck said Chimney punched him.

“Cora was cranky so I was holding her in her wrap. Cora was tucked against my chest when Chimney punched me. And the fact that I don’t have any broken bones or a concussion is a miracle considering he nearly knocked me off my feet.”

“Chimney would never put a child in danger,” Hen denied Buck’s claims.

“But he did. And it’s on camera.” Eddie tried to let her down gently, but it didn’t seem to help her.

“Is Cora ok?” Bobby questioned.

“Cora is fine, physically,” Buck reassured his father, who had left behind his captain persona for the one of concerned Pop Pop. “She was just extremely shaken and extra clingy this morning.”

“Chimney wouldn’t do this,” Hen kept trying to deny.

“Hen, Chimney punched me while I was holding my baby. And if it was just me, I could move past it, maybe even forgive him, even if I never forgot. But Howard Han put my daughter in danger. And up until the drive into work today, I was willing to push off Chimney’s behavior as just a bad reaction to stress,” Buck revealed to everyone. Eddie and him had driven in together and Buck had given him no clue as to his thought process on that drive. “We’ve seen him fall back on extreme anger when faced with high emotional stress. But I realized this morning, that people probably said the same thing about Doug the first time he hit Maddie. He didn’t mean it, he was just stressed.

“Hen, I know Chimney is your best friend and you love him, and want to support him. But I cannot, in good conscience, let this go. Maddie has already been through one abusive relationship, and I will be damned if I don’t do my best to try to keep her from falling into another one. A police investigation and court decision will give Maddie an unbiased opinion about all of this.”

“If Chimney is arrested then he’ll be fired,” Hen bluntly told everyone. “Even if the charges are dropped, Professional Standards warned Chimney after his car accident that if he violated the behavior standards one more time that he would be fired.”

“I’m not dropping the charges. At this point, it’s in the DA’s and CPS’ hands,” Buck informed Hen.

“CPS?!” Hen gasped. “What, Chimney tells you he thinks you would be a bad dad and you try to steal his daughter?”

“Howard Han endangered a child only a few months younger than his own daughter!” Eddie defended Buck. “Absolutely CPS is getting involved! Chimney doesn’t have his daughter’s best interests at heart right now either! He hasn’t since she was born, considering in my time here we have responded to two calls of mother’s suffering from PPD killing their children when they were left alone with them! Chimney was on both those calls, and he left his defenseless infant alone with Maddie for months when he was on shift. Now, he’s got Jee-Yun trapped in a car seat for who knows how long on some wild goose chase!”

“Chimney had been a paramedic for almost twenty years and he’s a good father! He’d never hurt Jee by keeping her in a car seat for too long!” Hen denied.

“Henrietta, stop and use the brain I know you have!” Athena ordered from the stairs.

“Athena! You can’t honestly think that Chimney deserves to be arrested!” Hen argued with one of her oldest friends.

“I’ve seen the video, Hen,” the officer informed the paramedic. “Buck did absolutely nothing to provoke Howard Han. Instead, just like with his car accident, Han made a conscious decision to give into his impulses and put others in danger. Last time no one other than himself was seriously injured by Han’s reckless driving, but this time hurting someone was the goal.”

“Look, if you think that this is like that time with the rebar then you know that it’s not really his fault.”

“How was the rebar not Chimney’s fault?” Buck scoffed. “He made the choice to lie to Tatiana for their entire relationship about pretty much everything but his name. Then when she turned down his proposal and we all pointed out that his lies played a part in that, he stormed out of here and decided to weave in and out of traffic on the freeway at eighty miles an hour!”

“Chimney was stressed then and he’s just stressed now,” Hen kept defending her first friend in the fire department. “He needs help and our support. Not to be arrested and potentially lose his daughter!”

“And maybe this is how he gets help,” Bobby tried to gently suggest.

“Cora was crying. When Chimney punched me, Cora was strapped to my chest and crying. It would’ve been impossible for Chimney not to notice her and he still punched me hard enough to nearly send me to the floor,” Buck recounted. “Chimney is facing charges for the punch, child endangerment charges for Cora, and potential charges for leaving Jee in a situation that he knew might not be safe for her.”

“Best case scenario is that Han avoids jail time by accepting a plea deal,” Athena told everyone, pulling on all of her knowledge about the justice system. “Under the circumstances, the deal would probably include some form of restitution or a fine, community service, and most certainly therapy and anger management courses.”

“He’s our friend!” Hen protested. “He’s your friend, Athena, and you’re calling him Han?”

“Howard Han stopped being my friend when he punched my son and put my grandbaby in danger,” Athena deadpanned.

“Did you come here for something specific, Athena?” Bobby asked his wife.

“I just came to check in on Buck and give him an update. I spoke with Romero and so far no news on Han,” Athena told her son. “They’re working under the assumption that he has left the state so they’re expanding the BOLO and notifying nearby states to be on the lookout for him.”

“Thank you, Mama. I just- I need some space,” Buck gasped. The content of their conversation was suddenly hitting him and he was starting to panic.

Luckily, his best friend had his back and Eddie quickly led him up to the roof, catching Minnie’s eyes as she walked into the loft and gesturing for her to follow them.

Just like always, Minnie and Winnie had arrived at the Buckley-Diaz home together. Cora’s clinginess had drawn everyone’s attention because the behavior was completely unlike her. Buck and Eddie had no choice but to tell the couple (and Carla who had shown up to bring Christopher to school) what had happened the day before.

“What do you need?” Eddie asked his partner once they were settled on the roof.

“I can’t work here anymore,” Buck tearfully admitted. “I’m never going to trust Chimney or Hen again. That’s untenable when our lives depend on complete trust in each other when we’re in the field.”

“I know SAR has been trying to get you two for awhile,” Minnie admitted from her perch by the edge of the roof.

“They’ve been courting us as a rescue pair,” Eddie confirmed. “Would you like to move to SAR, Buck? Or would you like to see if we could find another station willing to take us together?”

“You’d go with me?” Buck tearfully questioned, pure disbelief and wonder written all over his face.

“My first week on the job we pulled a grenade out of a man’s leg and promised to have each other’s backs. I know I didn’t live up to that very much before the shooting, but I’m here now,” Eddie swore. “I have your back and where you go, I go.”

“Eddie,” Buck whimpered.

“I’m just gonna go grab some food and let you two have your little moment,” Minnie announced before rushing off the roof. They barely acknowledged her, too busy looking each other in the eye and having a whole conversation with just that one look.

“I love you, Buck,” Eddie professed before going on to list all of the things he loved about Buck. “I love how you sing to our daughter every night. I love how you’ve never looked at Chris like he was less because of his disability. I love how you opened up your heart for my son and claimed him as your own. I love how you just want to learn all the things and your little rants when you just have to share what you’ve learned. I love that when I was dating Ana and trying so hard to please my parents that you called me out on how my behavior was hurting you and Chris. I love how your hair curls when it’s soaked with sweat after a hard call and you always pout when you realize it’s escaped the gel. I love your muscles and how much strength you have in them. I love the scars on your leg because they remind me of everything you’ve survived. I just love you, Buck. I’m in love with you.”

Buck sobbed at the utter conviction in Eddie’s voice. It was everything he’ve ever wanted to hear from his best friend, but he didn’t know how to accept it.

“I think I’ve been in love with you since Christmas, right before Covid,” Buck confessed. “It took me so long to accept that I’m gay and that the reason your behavior when you were dating Ana hurt the way it did was because I’m in love with you. I love you so much, Eddie. Your dedication to your family. The way you believed in me and my ability to be a parent. The way you just jumped into raising Cora with me. The way you handed me your heart when you told me how much you trust me with Chris. I’m so in love with you too, Eddie.

“But I don’t know if I can be in a relationship with you. I’m not blind, Eddie. I know something’s wrong. I know you’re hurting and there are times when you’re somewhere else. And if we start dating, I just know I’m going to want to take that burden on my shoulders all by myself. Or you’ll use our relationship as an excuse to ignore the problem until something happens and you finally break down. And I think that would break me. That it would break us.”

“What can I do to prove to you that I’m ready for a relationship?” Eddie pleaded. “That I’m in this for all the right reasons.”

“Therapy. We’ve talked about it so many times over the last few months, but now I need you to do it Eddie,” Buck all but begged. “Go to one on one therapy, join a support group. See Frank or find a therapist who specializes in PTSD from the military and see them. Just do something!”

“I will, Evan. I promise you that I will get help. That I won’t let all of this build up anymore,” Eddie promised.

“Then do it. Prove that you want to get better not just for me, not just for our kids, but for you too. Because I love you, Eddie, and you deserve to be happy, but getting there is up to you.”

“I want to be happy, Buck. And I want to be happy with you for the rest of our hopefully very long lives.”

“I want that too. I love you more than I can even explain, Edmundo Gustav Diaz.”

“I love you more than there are stars in the sky, Christopher Evan Buckley.”

Epilogue

“Ok, my little guava! Are you ready to paint Auntie May a pretty picture to take with her to school?” Buck asked as he placed the near naked toddler on an old sheet with her ‘canvas’ and some finger paints. “Remember, paint stays in this spot.”

“‘Tay, Papa,” Cora agreed before diving into her paints. Buck smiled at his daughter’s enthusiasm before snapping a photo and sending it to Maddie and Eddie. His lover sent back a simple heart emoji, but Maddie sent back a photo of her and Jee decked out in play jewelry and feather boas. Apparently they were having a tea party.

A short text exchange with his sister later and Buck had set up a playdate for the girls the next day. It was while he was making lunch for him and Cora that his mind wandered and he let himself think of the last year. The previous September Buck would have never thought his daughter and niece would get to play together, but now the sight of it always warmed his heart. Even as it made him think of how close they had all come to the toddlers never meeting.

Howard Han’s arrest hadn’t come as a surprise. Nor had CPS’ decision to temporarily remove Jee-Yun from her father’s custody after she had returned to LA with diaper sores, mild dehydration, and a deep fear of her car seat. What surprised everyone but Hen, Karen, and Chimney himself had been CPS’ decision not to place Jee with Buck.

Normally it would be preferred for a biological relative to take temporary custody, but that hadn’t happened this time.

Instead, Chimney had provided a copy of the video that Maddie had left for her boyfriend where she explicitly left custody of her daughter to Chimney. From there, CPS had decided to follow Chimney’s living will over Maddie’s and officially placed Jee with Hen and Karen as their foster child. It was supposed to be just until Chimney completed the therapy and anger management courses that the court required as part of his plea deal.

On top of that, CPS was requiring Chimney to complete several parenting courses. The social worker assigned to represent Jee-Yun’s best interests had been less than pleased at Chimney constantly leaving the baby alone with a woman suffering from PPD for days at a time and then packing her into a car seat for hours upon hours.

What CPS hadn’t accounted for was Hen’s loyalty and love for her best friend.

Chimney had complained to her that it was unfair that he was only allowed to see his own daughter in a supervised visitation center until he made progress in all of his classes and therapy. In contrast, CPS had decided that while the Wilson’s would have custody, Buck would have unlimited and unsupervised visitation with his niece. Hen had been on Chimney’s side and disagreed with the decision.

Despite having been through the fostering process a handful of times since Nia had returned to her birth mother, she seemed to forget that there was always a reason for CPS’ policies and decisions. Not only had Hen followed Chimney’s wishes and denied Buck all contact with Jee-Yun, Hen had also let Chimney see his daughter unsupervised behind Karen and CPS’ backs.

It had all come out when Eddie’s new friend from his veteran support group had mentioned that he used to work at the One-Eighteen.

Tommy Kinard revealing that he was still in contact with both Hen and Chimney had eventually led to the older man revealing that Chimney often took Jee with him to their biweekly basketball game.

The revelation that Chimney was not only seeing Jee outside of a visitation center but taking her on ‘trips’ with him had started a chain reaction that nearly cost Hen and Karen their foster license and their marriage.

It had only gotten worse when Missing Persons and CPS had finally located Maddie at a treatment center in Boston. Her fury over Buck being kept from her daughter when he had been the victim had apparently shaken the officer from Boston PD to the core. Multiple phone calls and an investigation later had Jee-Yun being placed with Buck until Maddie completed her inpatient treatment.

His phone ringing pulled Buck out of his memory spiral before he could become upset. He peaked at Cora to make sure she was still okay before washing his hands. Buck was barely able to answer the call before it went to voicemail.

“Evan Buckley speaking.”

“Hey, Buck. It’s Connor Jacobs.”

“Connor?! Damn, I haven’t heard from you since I moved out. Seems like another lifetime, honestly,” Buck chuckled.

“I know what you mean,” Connor agreed. “I’ve seen you on the news, so I know you’re still in LA. So am I, and my wife and I were wondering if you want to join us for lunch soon.”

“You got married, dude?!” Buck cheered. “That’s-” a high pitched squeal interrupted Buck and drew his attention to Cora. Buck had no clue why he was surprised to see his sixteen-month-old trying to paint their dog.

“Shit, man, I gotta go. My toddler is trying to paint our dog pink!” Buck huffed before unceremoniously hanging up the phone. Buck turned off the oven and pulled the casserole out with just enough time to scoop Cora up before her paint covered hands made contact with Zuko’s fur. “Come on, you little troublemaker. Your art for Auntie May is going to dry nice, but you in have earned yourself a bath.”

“No bath! No bath! No bath!” Cora chanted as Buck carted her into the kids/guest bathroom. Buck had been shocked when his little baby, who had been such a water baby as a newborn, suddenly hated bath time once she learned to walk.

“Yes, bath,” Buck disagreed as closed the door to trap her with him while he got the water and bubbles ready. “We gotta get all that paint off of you.”

“No bath! Play Zuzu!” Cora pouted as her father stripped her out of her diaper.

“Zuko will still be there after your bath,” Buck reminded her as he put her in the water and handed her one of her bath toys.

Buck was working the half-dry paint from Cora’s curls when he heard the front door open. He heard footsteps and figured that Eddie was back from his support group.

“Buck? What’s with the paint set-up and the casserole on the stove?” Eddie called out just loud enough for Buck to hear him through the door.

“Cora needed a bath and I didn’t want lunch to burn!” Buck called back. More footsteps and then Eddie was opening the bathroom door and leaning against its frame.

“Let me guess, Cora tried to paint Zuko again?” Eddie chuckled as he watched his boyfriend gently fight with their daughter to get her clean.

“Yep. And that dog is so chill that he would’ve let her and then I would need to give him a bath too.”

“Most chill pit bull I’ve ever seen,” Eddie agreed. “He looks all tough with his burn scar but he’s a giant teddy bear.”

“Dada! No bath!” Cora cried when she realized her other dad was there.

“Sorry, corazónita,” Eddie apologized. “But you definitely need a bath.” Cora gave as close to a glare as she could and slammed her little hands into the water, soaking Buck. Eddie laughed uproariously at the look on his partner’s face. “Why don’t you go change and finish lunch, cariño. I’ll finish Miss Trouble’s bath,” Eddie offered.

“Thank you,” Buck groaned as he held the soaked shirt away from his chest. “You sure you want to do this with me again?”

“Buck, I swear to you, I’m going to love having another baby with you,” Eddie promised as he grabbed the younger man’s hand and made him look Eddie in the eye. “Who knows, maybe this one will turn out more like me!”

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