Reading Time: 127 Minutes
Title: Ripples
Author: DarkJediQueen
Fandom: 9-1-1
Genre: Drama, Established Relationship, First Time, Het, Slash
Relationship(s): Ali Martin/Evan Buckley, Evan Buckley/Tommy Kinard
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: *No Mandatory Warnings Apply, Explicit Sex, Infidelity
Author Note:
Beta: V.Mures & Starkindler
Alpha: V.Mures & Starkindler
Word Count: 90,377
Summary: Evan Buckley’s life changed, for good and for bad when Ali sticks by him after the ladder truck bombing.
Artist: didbuckygetaplum
Act One-The Rise
Prologue
Buck woke up slowly, and it took him a few seconds to remember why he was on his back. Then his pain started to creep in. He looked to the side where Ali should be, but she wasn’t there. Buck frowned, and he looked at the time. Then he looked over at the cot that was on the side of the room, where it was out of the way. She was there on that bed, asleep and looking like she wasn’t sleeping well at all. Buck felt bad for her. There was so much that he wasn’t sure about, but this was something that he knew. He knew that he was falling hard and fast, even though they hadn’t been together long. It had only been a day since the first time that Buck woke up, and she had been there.
He remembered the conversation he had woken up to at one point, where he hadn’t been sure what he was hearing, but it was Ali making plans to stay here for the next three weeks, and then after that doing little traveling while she was helping him. Buck hadn’t had anyone ever rearrange their life for him like that. He had done it with Abby, but she wasn’t in a place where she could do the same thing. Buck had no idea how to do any of this, but he was pretty sure that he was going to end up with a relationship that would last the ages with Ali.
Buck pressed the button because they had taken out his catheter, and he was supposed to be getting up to use the bathroom. He knew that in the morning, Ali could start to work with him on that, but tonight he had to call the nurse.
He was sweating and in pain by the time he was laid back in the bed; his leg wasn’t attached back to the device that kept it up because they wanted to see how he did with it. Ali was waiting to swoop in and help take care of him once the nurses were done with what they were doing for him. He wanted to press the button for more pain medication because it was needed, but he didn’t want to pass out again until he had gotten to talk to Ali a bit.
“You can go home to sleep and come back in the morning.”
“It’s too late for that, given LA’s traffic, even at this time of day. So hush.”
“You are too good to me.”
“You deserve someone who will take care of you.” Ali brushed the hair back from Buck’s forehead, where the sweat was plastering to his skin. Buck closed his eyes, and he thought about having her in bed with him, but that was going to have to come later.
“I know that I deserve it, but we are…”
“We are together, and that means that I’m going to take care of you. It scared the shit out of me when I saw the news. I recognized Captain Nash, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I was just watching it, and one of my co-workers at the business dinner realized that I wasn’t paying attention to anything close to what I should be, and then she looked. She figured it out, and I wasn’t sure what to do. So I just stared. Thankfully, I had Ubered to the dinner, so I didn’t need to worry about a vehicle, and I’ll go and get your Jeep from the station when we get a time to get you out of here. I’ll put the seat up all the way so you can get into the back and then settle there while I get you home. I’ve already started to work on getting us a new place.”
“A new place?” Buck asked. They had just moved into the new place. Breaking the lease would be horrible.
“The agent we used is a friend. She said that the place has hardship out clauses, and since we really haven’t gotten into the place too much, she thinks that they would allow us into a different unit and have it be on a single floor. There are places that are just a little bigger, and I can make sure to cover what you aren’t paying in the rent and stuff. I know that things are going to be up in the air with money. You aren’t going to get your bonuses and things like that, but I hope that you can still afford things.”
“Yeah, I have a lot of money saved up. I didn’t spend a lot of it over the years and made a lot of money because I hate being bored. Are you sure?”
Ali just looked at him, and she shook her head before she reached over and hit the button to get Buck more pain meds. Buck opened his mouth to protest, but he was feeling the pain so much. He felt like he needed to tell her that he was fine, but it didn’t come out. “You don’t have to be strong with me, Buck. You don’t have to be the person holding it together. You can allow me to see the parts of you that are scared. I’ll protect it and your heart as well.”
Buck watched her face as he started to pass out from the pain medications that were coursing through him right now. He hoped that he remembered this part of things when he woke up again. He wanted to keep on talking about it. There were going to be a lot of things they needed to talk about, but he really wanted to tell her that he would protect her heart as well.
Ali’s face was the last thing he remembered as he passed out again from the drugs.
—
Buck hated the crutches, and it was just the first day on them. He hadn’t ever really had to use them before. There was a time he sprained an ankle when he had been playing football in high school, but it hadn’t needed more than leaving the clinic where he had gotten looked at because the coach had dropped him off there, and his parents had called and then taken care of things over the phone, including the payment.
Now Buck wanted to toss them out the window and hope that he never had to use them again, but he was going to be using them for months, probably. He knew that things were going to be hard to get back to work, but the doctors didn’t think there was a reason why he couldn’t go back to work after the surgery had been over and the scans done on his leg just before he left.
“You okay?” Ali asked.
Buck looked at her, and he smiled even though he didn’t feel like it. The tour of the new place was going well. The management firm was more than willing to help them swap the lease to a new unit, given that they had a unit that was open that had been open for a while. It was a two-bedroom, which hadn’t been anything close to what Buck had wanted, so they hadn’t been shown it. It wasn’t even that much more than the loft because the loft was all the rage right now in the city, so it was going for more per square foot even though it was smaller.
“I’m good. Just getting used to the crutches. I’m fine. Never really used them before. I think that this place is going to be good for us. The two bedrooms are nice in case I have nights where I don’t think that I can sleep in the same bed as you.”
“I was thinking the same thing, and then when you are better, we can set up stuff in there to make sure that you can work on getting your body back into shape without using your leg because you are not going to do anything that will hurt you,” Ali said.
Buck had already been told that Ali was going to follow the guidelines of the doctor when it came to him and what he was doing. Which should feel like a threat, but it just felt like care. Buck wasn’t sure what to do with someone who wanted to take care of him. He hadn’t had it before, and it was a change. He only needed to ask her for something if he was in pain, and she would do it. The loft really sucked. She had brought him home, and it had been the very thing that he hated so much. He was stuck on the couch, which was fine for the moment as he needed to sleep a certain way and the couch worked for that, but he hated being in the living room all day long. He felt like he was going to go insane.
“The bigger balcony area will also make it easier to do things out there. You can have a grill and a whole setup. The grill needs to be new and kept in good condition, just like the last one. The furniture, though, is whatever you want it to be.”
“Yeah, the lax HOA is something that is a big deal for me,” Ali said.
This apartment had doors and walls, which Buck hadn’t been sure he would like, but the bedrooms, being the only real walls, were nice. The living room, kitchen, and dining room were all a big open space, which was the one thing that Buck had really wanted. There had been no reason even to start anything as far as buying for the loft yet, even though he had been home for a few days; they had to get the viewings started up, and the station was already going to help him get things moved around. He had moved all of the few things he had into the loft himself. The deliveries of the furniture had been something that Ali had started up. Buck hadn’t cared about it, to be honest, and let her pick what she wanted, but now that he had nothing but time, the extra things for the new place were going to be something that he wanted to have a say in. He was going to be stuck staring at everything for the next few months; he needed to have a place that really spoke about him. He still had no idea what he wanted, but he would figure that out by looking at this. This was going to be his first place that was just his, well, Ali’s too, but she had been giving him what he wanted when it came to certain things, and he was going to make sure that he had the things he wanted out of everything. Of course, she was going to live here as well, so that meant that she needed to have her own say in things.
“Buck?” Ali asked.
Buck looked around the place again before he headed for the balcony. He stepped outside, and he smelled the city, happy to have something, and he thought about the plants he could stick out there to make this a sanctuary for him. Plants were something he never cared about before. He wanted them, but he was never in a place long enough to have them, and in the room he shared, there had been no reason to have any plants. It wasn’t like they were going to be well cared for or anything if something happened to them. Hell, he figured that things were going to be destroyed because they rarely ever cared about anything that wasn’t theirs. The idea was kind of nice.
“What about pets?”
“This area allows cats and dogs, and if it’s in an aquarium or a cage, there is no reason to worry about anything, so pretty much anything. The floor you were on doesn’t allow dogs, and a few other floors are the same because of various things, like the stairs into and out of the loft area. Since this is a single floor, more pets are allowed.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you thinking of a pet?” Ali asked.
“I don’t know—something to keep me company here at home. I always wanted plants and pets. I never really had either before. I was thinking of making the balcony area a jungle, to be honest, except for right around where I put the grill, because I do want one of those. I miss grilling out.”
Ali smiled at him, and she walked over to him, careful of his crutches, before she leaned in for a kiss. “So this is ours?”
Buck nodded. He looked around again and got the biggest smile on his face. “Yeah, this place is ours.”
“Great, I’ll get the paperwork going. Things will move easily because it’s just a swapping of the lease. It’s happened before, usually for another reason, like a couple getting pregnant.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that one because I’m on one of those that stops me from even getting my period. I’ll not get pregnant unless I want to.”
Buck laughed. They still used condoms because Ali hated the mess that someone coming inside of her made, and Buck was okay with that. He had never had sex without a condom because before Abby, there had been no one he had been with long enough to have the whole conversation about birth control and being clean beyond if oral was on the table. With Abby, Buck had always used protection because Abby wasn’t on birth control of any kind, and she hadn’t gone through menopause, so there was every chance that getting pregnant was a thing on the table.
“Well, I’ll get in contact with you guys as soon as the swap of things can take place and get the keys to you.”
Ali wrapped her arms around Buck’s middle, and he held onto her as well, he could with his crutches under his arms and all of his weight on a single leg.
This was horrible, the reason for the move, but maybe they could make their lives work and have a kid down the road. There was nothing that Buck wanted more than to have a family that was all his. Maddie was going to be so happy for him.
—
Maddie looked around the new place, and she made a face. Everything had been moved from the old place to the new, and people even stayed to help set it up since Buck wasn’t able to do a lot of it, and Ali was good, but she was a single person, and there was stuff she had bought that was much bigger than she could move on her own.
“What’s with that face?”
“This is a lot different from the loft.”
“Yeah, well, the loft is kind of hard for me to be in and make use of it. The bed would have had to have been moved down the main floor, and then there would be a space I wouldn’t be able to use for probably months.”
“Are you sure you like this place?” Maddie asked.
“Yeah, I have already been talking to Ali about making the balcony a jungle oasis for me for the months to come, when I can’t do a lot while my leg is healing up. I have made my choices on a few plants already, and there is a nursery that does landscaping and potting up of things. I wanna make this place where I can be happy while I recover. We are splitting all the bills down the middle. We made a joint account that we can transfer all things into. I take care of the lease while Ali has the rest of the bills in her name, but they all come out of the joint account. We’ve got a contract and all kinds of legal things to make sure that neither of us gets fucked if this ends between us, but I can make the payment on this place easy once I get back to work.”
“Chim’s worried about you,” Maddie said.
“Why?”
“He said that Ali’s going to leave you when you need her most.”
“That’s just his trauma talking. Don’t worry. I am not going to say that Ali loves me, but I will say that I’m pretty happy with things so far. She faced the fear of me being hurt on the job and figured out that she wants me enough for it. I can’t question her thoughts because that would make it seem like I’m questioning her, and I refuse to do that.”
Maddie looked at him like she was seeing him for the first time. “You really did grow up, didn’t you?”
“I did. You weren’t here for it, so it’s hard for you to see it. This also helped a little because I didn’t think I was invincible, but I realized that I hadn’t thought about what I needed in my life to make sure that if I am hurt on the job, I’m good. Ali and I are already talking about a house later, if we stay together and get married. We are talking about kids as well. She never thought that she wanted them, but recently, she has been thinking about how much she does want them. So, I have been thinking about it as well. I love kids, and I always have, but after our childhood, I was never really sure if I wanted kids of my own, and I think I do.”
“I missed a lot, and I’m sorry for just stepping in and thinking you are the same as you were when you left Hershey. If you were, you never would have lived this long.”
“No, a serial killer would have gotten me, or someone who just wanted to kill someone. I don’t need you making decisions for me, Maddie. I don’t need you second-guessing me. In private, we can talk about things, but in front of my team, it just makes it look like I need you to manage me.”
Maddie nodded her head. She looked to the side. “Chim’s really upset that Ali had stayed with you so far. I guess that Tatiana and what happened there really messed him up more than I thought, which Doug has me messed up, so I can’t say shit about it. I need to move with caution in this.”
Buck opened his arms, and Maddie slipped over to him and hugged him tightly. “I did miss you a lot when you didn’t answer me, when you didn’t respond to my postcards like you had been. I know that you needed to do what you needed to do to keep yourself safe, Maddie. I know that, but it still hurts me. I want to move past it, but I think that we need to talk about things a little more than we have been.”
“Agreed. I support us talking about anything and everything that you need to talk about.” Maddie let go of him, and Buck settled on his legs again.
Buck moved to the balcony, and he opened it to allow Maddie to step out there. He went out as well and left the door open. “This is much bigger than the other place, and I can’t wait to make it a place I want to spend time. Can you see me setting up a table with chairs for an intimate dinner, not just with Ali, but with you as well, something that speaks of love. The grill over there.” Buck went on talking about what he wanted to do with the place and the plants he had already ordered. It was the kind of thing that made him really happy to do what he was doing. He could spend his time while he was recovering, setting this place up the way he wanted, getting help from Bobby, Chim, and Eddie to move the bigger things while he and Hen directed them on what needed to be done. Hen helped when the guys needed more than what they could do, or just showed them the real way to do it, and showed them off.
“I think that you are going to love it here. I think that you and Ali are making a home, and it might be a little faster than you should. You seem to be open to talking about all things with her.”
“Yeah, the bombing showed me that there is no reason to put things off. I don’t want to have to think about what that could mean in the end. If I don’t show her that I want to be with her. Abby left me because of herself. There was nothing that I could have done that would have changed that. She was going to leave me, and she was always going to do it as she did. She needed to find herself out there. She taught me what love is, though. She might not have loved me, but I saw how she was with her mother. How she talked about her boyfriend before me, and how much she missed him.”
“You never said what happened to him?”
“She made it seem like he left her, but that was just before she took her mother in, but it didn’t seem to be about her mother. She said that he didn’t have permission to break up with her. So I am not sure what happened there. She didn’t like to talk about him in depth, but she did one night when she was drunk after her mother died. How everyone left her. Tommy left her, her mother left her, and even though it wasn’t her mother’s choice.”
Maddie walked over to him, and she laid a hand on his back and rubbed. Buck had missed that. Her comfort when he was upset. He wished that she had been around when he was with Abby to see why it had made him so mad at her, even though he never showed it when she made those comments about Abby fucking around.
“I’m sorry about how I was when I got here. I let my thoughts about you and your girlfriend when you were a teenager color how I thought you were with her. I’m sorry.”
Buck smiled, and he nodded. There was only a single piece of furniture out there so far. Ali had to go into the office in the city to deal with her job, and cycle to do things from here instead of being on the road, as she had made sure that Buck had a place to settle so that he could enjoy the outside sun if he wanted to. The wooden lounger had a pad on it as well as a pillow where he could prop his leg up. It was the kind of thing that made him want to be with her even more. Ali had a hard exterior, but she was so sweet when one got through it. It was the kind of thing that Buck was glad he got to see. He was hopeful that they would be good when things were all said and done. He could easily see himself marrying her and having children. A house with a fence and a dog.
“Are you still thinking of getting a pet?” Maddie asked.
“Yeah. I am. I am not sure if I want a dog or not. With Ali around, she could walk him when I’m at the point where I can’t walk him or her, I guess. The idea of a cat that can sleep on me is nice though, which the dog can do as well if we got a small enough breed. This floor has the option for all pets, unlike some of the other floors.”
“That’s weird.”
“It’s liability and the stairs; if the animal slips between the steps and falls, there can be lawsuits, frivolous though they may seem.”
“I can see that. It seems that the world has gotten so crazy. Which is probably why all of the lofts are single bedrooms. Stopping parents from staying there with their kids. I never thought of it like that.”
Buck headed for the chair, and he sat down on it and got his leg up on the cushion, happy when his leg stopped screaming at him. He settled in and made sure there was room for Maddie to sit down with him as well. She settled in beside his knees, careful not to bump him.
“Ali’s staying here for a while, right?”
“Yeah, for the first part where I’m not going to be able to do what I want. Like, just walking around with you had robbed me of any energy. So, I’m going to rest here for a while.”
“What are you going to eat?”
“Ali left me some food to reheat, and if I don’t feel like that stuff, I can order in something.”
“Can we have lunch together?” Maddie asked.
“Oh, sure. There are a lot of good places around here. I am not going to want to go and eat there at the moment, but we can figure out something that will deliver, or you can walk and get it. A lot of the places are walkable without the food getting too cold or too warm. There is this place that does great salads, freshly chopped everything, and you can customize so much. Dressings made in-house.”
“Oh, that sounds good. I used to prepare salads to take to work a lot. I could get back into that, couldn’t I? Making things that made me happy.”
“Yeah. There are so many recipes for dressings out there as well. So that would make it a lot of fun to figure out what you want.” Buck pulled out his phone and pulled up the site where he had found a lot of dressing recipes that he wanted to try out. He had his phone over. Maddie looked at it before she looked at him.
Buck didn’t know what Maddie was figuring out about things, but he hoped that whatever it was, she was figuring out how to be happy with Buck growing up and being his own person.
“You are going to go back to being a firefighter, aren’t you?”
“If my leg heals so that I can, yes. In about two weeks, they will know if I need more surgeries or not. The rod and screws will be sticking in for a while, and then I have to figure out what I can and can’t do as far as getting into shape for what is coming.”
Maddie inhaled and exhaled, and it seemed like a lot of stress came out of her. “I was hoping that you would say you were not going back, but I know that you love the job. I don’t want to be in the way of you doing what you love because you have never stood in my way. I have to accept that I cannot protect you anymore.”
“I’ll come to you if I need your kind of protection, but mostly, I want a sister, not a pseudo mother.” Buck knew that it was going to be hard to let go of it. He still looked at Maddie more like a parent than a sister, and he needed to work on it himself. There was so much in their lives that just kind of sucked. They needed to figure out what they wanted from each other for this. There was going to be time to figure it out, though, with Buck off for a while. He wasn’t going to say no to her coming over as much as she wanted as long as it wasn’t every day.
The world was changed with the explosion that rocked his world, but Buck was looking forward to what was to come. There were going to be some fun things in his future with Ali at his side.
Chapter One
“Chief Alonzo thinks that in a few weeks, if you’re doing okay on the meds, he can clear you for light duty,” Bobby said.
Buck looked at him, and he tried to make the words seem like something that was good.
“I’m sorry, Captain Nash, can you repeat that?” Ali asked as she finally stepped up to them instead of walking behind them as she had been while on her phone, texting about work. “Isn’t light duty a lot of desk work?”
“Yes, it is.”
Ali nodded her head and narrowed her eyes at Bobby. Buck looked at him as well.
“I belong out in the field with all of you. I belong out there helping people and not stuck doing all of the paperwork for the station, and the things that I can do while sitting down and doing nothing. I belong out there, Bobby.”
“I know this is hard, Buck, but you worked too much.”
“They don’t know the cause of the clots yet. I’ve had no issues with them. They have scanned me and checked for that from the start because it was a big issue, especially when I was still in the cast. There were no clots even two weeks ago when I was cleared to do the full push to requalify. I’ve been doing everything that the doctors have told me to. Ali has made sure of it. I worked for five months to get back to this. You would not take light duty either.”
“Buck,” Bobby said.
Buck felt like his world was crumbling. He wanted to lash out at Bobby because he was in pain. His job was being taken from him.
“No, don’t.”
“Captain Nash, I think it’s time that you left before words are said that cannot be taken back. Buck, why don’t you go back to your room? I’ll have the doctor come in and talk to you about this.”
Buck just stared at Bobby. He wanted to tell him that he quit, but he allowed Ali to direct him back to the room. He would fight this. He wasn’t sure how to do that, but he would. The union was an option, but he wasn’t sure exactly how to go about that. He had no idea what the fuck even to start when it came to this. He was going to do it, though. Ali would help him, he bet.
He was only on the bed a few minutes before the doctor came in and looked at him with a question in his eyes.
“The LAFD is benching me because they are worried about me being on blood thinners.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Doctor Alvez said as he pulled up Buck’s chart on the tablet in his hand. He sat down in the chair across from Buck, found whatever he was looking for, and flipped the tablet around to show Buck. “This is the protocol that we have been given for what firefighters do when they are on blood thinners. You have trained paramedics around you all the time. I’m going to push through the tests to figure out what is going on because there should be no reason why you are clotting now that you are at the end of what is going on. It makes me think it’s hardware, and you just finally hit the threshold for the hardware, and your body is fighting it or something. There are cases of it, but I would say that your level of health and your activity while you were getting ready to go back to work stopped them from forming in a slow way before this. I would say that resting more now, because you are pushing, is what caused this. I know that desk duty is not going to be good for you. You need to be more active than that. They will kill you with that more than if you get a cut in the field.”
“Thanks, doc,” Buck said. He moved to lean back into the bedding and looked up at the ceiling.
“I’m gonna call someone that I know to come and talk to you as well. He’s someone I know because our wives are friends. He works for the LAFD union as well as being an active firefighter. I’ll make sure that he comes and talks to you before you do something stupid.”
“Thanks.” Buck waited for the doctor to leave before he rolled over, and he looked at the wall. He wanted Ali in here with him. She had been his rock over the last five months, and she had stopped him from telling Bobby just now that he was waiting. Which would have been stupid as fucking hell. He knew that he had always acted rashly like that. He was better at it on the job but not so much in his personal life.
The door opened, and he rolled over to look at her, and he smiled as Ali smiled at him.
“The doctor told me to tell you that his friend will be here in a little while. He said that he wants to keep you overnight so that more tests can be run if they need to be on your leg to get the LAFD a reason for your clots. Your sister wants to come and see you.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. I don’t mind it.”
“Good. Are you hungry? You never got to eat.”
“Yeah, I am, but the stuff on option down in the cafeteria just doesn’t sound good.”
“That’s fine. I’ll head and get you something elsewhere. How does that sound?”
“I’d honestly kill for a salad right now. Something with crunch to it and a little bit of sweetness.”
“I think there is one place that has that salad you really like close to here. I’ll get that and something for your sister as well, and maybe even a snack for you for later. I hope to be back before the union guy gets here, but if I miss him, record what he says.”
Buck nodded. He felt better with Ali supporting him. He hoped that Maddie did as well. He knew that things were not his fault. He had done everything the doctor said when he was training to qualify; he had worked with a physical therapist all the time. He had weekly sessions with them, and he worked on what they told him to do between the visits. The slight pain he had wasn’t something that he had been worried about because it was in the same areas where he was injured; his body was going to be sore there until it was used to what he was doing again. He didn’t think that he could have done anything different.
He slowly stood up again and could drape his legs over the bed and do some of the things the nurses had shown him to work his legs to keep them active and make sure that no more clots formed while the blood thinners were starting to work on him. Of course, there was every single chance that he could still get them, but he was going to do what he could to stop it. At least the things that were sane when it came to that.
A nurse came into the room while he was doing the exercise. “Hey, Marley.”
“Buck, how is that feeling?”
“Good. I don’t have that slight ache that I had.”
“We finally got a hold of the guy who is doing your PT, and he said that you had none of the signs of a clot, and he was looking when he did his last assessment with you.”
“I know.”
“I know that you know that, but I wanted to make sure that you knew what was going on when it came to that. So, we will be working with you on a few new exercises and things to do when you are just sitting around, just to help the blood thinners do their job. I’ll go over those in the morning, and if you are right as rain, the doctor’s going to let you go. Ali said she was going to get you something to eat, and your sister was coming to visit. The doctor said another firefighter is coming by to talk to you about something else, so for now, he’s having the visitor restrictions on this ward lifted. I’m glad that you are getting a little more help with things on this. How are you really doing?”
“I’m pissed off that they are holding me back. If Ali hadn’t been here, I would have quit, and that would have been rash, so I’m glad that she was here. Are things really that good with my leg?”
“Yes, you are fit and healthy, so it makes it easier. You can do everything right, and if something is wrong inside of them, there is no way to stop it. You were doing everything right. You were not pushing your body; you weren’t doing anything wrong. I wish that I could say that you could have stopped, but I am not sure how because everyone was watching for the clots.”
Buck nodded. He was just happy to hear that from a nurse again. The doctor had said it, the ER nurse and doctor had said it, and he just wanted to know that he had done everything right. There was no reason to worry, but the way Bobby talked before everything made it seem like he had been the cause of this.
Marley did a check of his leg before she headed out again and told him that she would send back whoever got there first.
Buck was reading on his phone about a diet to help with his clots, but also wouldn’t impact his blood thinners in a way that would make him bleed out. He would go over it all with his doctor and the nurses before he checked out, but he hoped that there was more he could do. The door opened, and Buck looked up, the man standing there a little intimidating. Big like Buck, built to push his body to the limit of what it was supposed to do to get people out of fires. He was still in his LAFD uniform.
“You didn’t come from a shift, did you?”
“Sort of. It was me covering for a particular shift for someone to allow them a few hours off to make sure that he was there for his family when he needed to be. Since I’m coming here as part of the union, I figured that I should look the part. There is very little that Alvez told me because of HIPAA, so please tell me all of it.” The guy came in and sat down in the chair, crossing his legs and looking like he was the picture of calm.
Buck could tell that he was vibrating under the surface, though.
“Name?”
“Alvez told you nothing, did he? Sal Deluca, of the 122. I usually handle things for my station, but I checked when I was finishing out my shift, your station only has someone on C-shift who deals with union matters, and he’s just as shit as he used to be when it came to doing his job. So, you get me for this. Now, tell me everything that you have.”
Buck looked at the door to see that Sal had shut it. He jumped into the tale. Ali came back with food, and she offered a drink to Sal when she saw him sitting in the chair. There was only a pause so that Buck could get his food set up the way he wanted it to be before he started to talk again between bites.
“So, light duty is not recommended by the doctor, and does Alonzo know this?”
“I honestly don’t know what is being said to him, because it all went through Bobby.”
“I see.” Sal looked at the notepad he had been making notes on as Buck had talked. “Well, there are two things here. I’m going to talk to someone else at the union about this. There is also the thing that I was at the 118 for a long time and left when Nash took over. He had to stake his claim, and I was a fucking idiot. I pushed him too far because I thought I deserved the position; I didn’t, and I know that, but Nash gave me a good landing at the 122. So, this could be seen as a relationship, but I’ll be your friend during this and find someone at the union to help you through this. If it’s just Alonzo, then we can work on that with me being your agent through the union, but with Nash in the mix, and if it’s him in any way, shape, or form, then well, I’ll step back and be your rock in this.”
“Okay, I get that. I heard about you, never knew the name, but Hen talked about you sometimes. Said that you and another guy sometimes still went out and got drinks with Chim.”
“Yeah, we do. It’s been about six months, but we usually have about six months between drinks. I think I’m gonna see about getting together with them and see what they think of all of this. See what they think without having to worry about Nash hearing it. Tommy will help me with it, that’s the other guy.”
Buck nodded. He wanted to hope that Hen and Chim would be on his side, but they were very strong with Bobby. Buck thought that he was strong with Bobby as well.
“Look, kid, I have to make sure that you understand that even if you are allowed back, this union isn’t going to stop at that. They will dig into everything that they find while looking at your stuff. So, if you start this, you are not in control anymore.”
“I understand.” Buck really did. He dug into his salad again, and he took a big bite as the door opened up, and Maddie was standing there. She smiled at him and looked like she was on the verge of tears again. He didn’t want her to cry, but Buck knew that there were a few things that would stop her once she got started.
“Who is this?” Maddie asked.
“Just someone who wanted to check on the firefighter who was trapped under the ladder truck five months ago. Have a good evening, Buck,” Sal said before he slipped out the door.
“A fan?” Maddie asked.
“Nah, just another guy who was here for another reason and wanted to make sure that I had the support that I needed. That’s all,” Buck said. He didn’t want to tell Maddie about the union stuff yet. That could come later. He wanted to know what the plan was before he said anything.
Maddie and Chim were doing well, figuring out their life and how to get past what Doug had done. Buck really hoped that they could make it. Maddie deserved to be happy, and so far, Chim was making her happy. That was all that Buck wanted for him. He smiled at Maddie, and she smiled back.
“So, what’s the diagnosis?”
“Right now, they think that it’s something to do with the hardware in my leg. The doctor is getting my other scans from the last while because I’ve been scanned a lot to make sure that the clots formed as fast as they think they did. I know that I’ve been doing only what the doctor and physical therapist told me, so I know that I’m good at that. I didn’t push myself past what they wanted.”
“You picked a faster route to get back, though,” Maddie said.
“I did, but it was more than possible given my fitness before and the life I had. My body was fit as hell before I was injured, and I kept up parts of the training afterward, using my upper body and keeping that part going, with needing to use the wheelchair after the last surgery that I had and the crutches. I was perfectly fit for what I did, Maddie. They do not think at all that my clots were formed by something that I did.”
Maddie looked a little skeptical. Ali sat down beside her with the second chair, which was a folding one that hung on the wall.
“His physical therapist didn’t think that the pain he was having was anything close to clots. The doctor has already been in contact. This whole thing is just…something that happened.”
“What are they going to do if it’s the hardware?”
“I’ll stay on blood thinners, and I’ll go back to work as soon as I can.”
“And that’s safe?”
“I’m with paramedics. I’ve only cut myself once on the job, which needed stitches. I’ve gotten hurt worse working on my Jeep, and that could happen when I’m home alone. I’m being given a kit to help me at home if I’m hurt, because we all know that we can plan for everything, but an accident is going to hurt me even if I try not to get into an accident.”
Maddie snorted, and Ali rolled her eyes at him. Buck felt like maybe Maddie finally got it. There was nothing that could stop him from dying from bleeding out, and the only thing they could do was make sure that people were ready to care for him if he was hurt.
“Okay, I’ll help you go over everything that they give you and see if I like the items that they use, and we can pick up more after you get out of here. Which will be tomorrow, right?”
“Yes. Hen and Karen dropped off the Jeep earlier and then went home,” Ali said.
“They did?”
“Yeah, they stopped in for a moment, but needed to get back to Denny and the sitter. We were happy to have the Jeep there instead of having to load him into an Uber. So, we are pretty much set for getting out of here without having to get help. I’m going to make sure the place is set up for him and get some of the sharper things put up, like the one table. I can get those corners for it that they get for kids because you bump into that thing all the time when you’re on your phone.”
Buck laughed because he sure did. He had never bled from it, but with his bloodthinner, he could easily bump enough to cause a massive bruise, and that would be at least a little bit better than bleeding massively.
“Okay, it’s time for him to go to sleep, and we are going to make sure that he’s fine. Everyone needs to leave,” Marley said as she came into the room.
Ali laughed, and Maddie made a face.
“You will like it better if you are asleep in your own bed. There is no chance that he’s going to throw another clot because there are none left in his body that would be big enough to cause issues, so please, let’s just go home and sleep in good beds.”
Ali kissed Buck’s lips, and she pressed her cheek to Buck’s and held it there. Buck reached down and hugged her tightly. He knew that it was another scare for her. After the bombing, Buck had hoped maybe he would not have to deal with anything life or death for a while. There was shit going on, and he knew that Ali was going to do what he needed to do, but he hoped that there would never be a point where he was too much for her. There were a lot of times when he was afraid that he was going to lose her because of his job, but he knew that his job was who he was, and he needed to make sure that he was settled into a life where, even if he loved someone, he wasn’t going to give it up.
After a few minutes, Maddie had said her goodbyes, and then Buck was alone in his room. He found his phone and settled down because it was going to take him a while to get to the point where he wanted to sleep. There was a message on his phone with a number, and it was just a few words.
Unknown: Rest before the battle.
Buck just stared at it, and then he realized it was Sal. Buck put the number under Sal’s name, and then he closed that app and opened up his Kindle app. He hoped he remembered where he was on reading close enough because it had been a few days since he had synced the book he was reading on his Kindle at home.
He found where he left off and let himself fall asleep as he read.
—
Buck settled into the chair with the files that had been printed off for him, as well as the stern words from four different doctors that the ER doctor had compiled and then Doctor Alvez had gotten him a few other things to prove to the union that he was safe to work because anything that would make him bleed out before he could get help would probably kill anyone on the job. There was no more risk having him in the field than having anyone else. There was no reason to bench him.
For a few seconds again, Buck felt like he was betraying the LAFD with this. He knew that he was ready to get back into it. He had dealt with therapy, something that Ali had pushed him into, first to deal with the nightmares from the bombing and then the worries about not getting back to work. There had been help in getting over the fear of therapy and a therapist who was going to sleep with him again. That had been handled and run up the chain on his new therapist’s side because she has been pissed off about it. Doctor Adele Copeland was very much in love with her partner and not interested in sex with them, much less anyone else.
“Buck, this is Aria. She’s going to help you because of what we have found over the last three days and the files that were submitted to the LAFD to make the decision to keep you out of the job.”
“You can get those?”
“Oh, yeah, we can,” Aria said. She looked at Buck before looking at Sal. “What do you have there, Buck?”
“Um, files from the doctor about how stupid it would be to give me a light-duty job that would keep me behind a desk.”
“Great. That’s great. I will need access to all of it.”
“These are copies for you,” Buck said. He leaned forward and laid the files on the desk, and then he leaned back to breathe.
“Okay, tell me how things went from the start of the bombing to now, broad strokes, and I’ll make notes, and then I’ll ask you things if I feel like I need to. Are you happy with Sal being here for this part?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I don’t mind at all. He’s my rock in this so far. I need someone on my side who is not my girlfriend or sister, to be honest.”
“That’s always a good thing. I’m shocked that it’s not someone at the station with you.”
“I’ve not told them anything yet. I don’t want to have to force them to make a choice right now because two of them have been there longer than I, and they still kind of see me as the reckless probie who nearly got fired because I was an idiot when I was still a probie.”
“Yeah, the file on that was a little low since the firing was never official because the paperwork wasn’t filled out. But the mark is on your file, but you have nothing but glowing remarks after it, so you course-corrected. It’s not unheard of, and it’s honestly kind of normal. Too many join this for the glory, and they get ahead of themselves and think that they are untouchable.”
“Yeah, the first death kind of really pushed it home how much I was really not grasping what I did. I know that I took it seriously, I learned everything I could, but I looked at it through the eyes of someone who was stupid. I learned that looking down at the guy who refused to take my hand and let me save him because he was afraid of seeing the videos being posted of him afterward.”
“Oh, you are that firefighter,” Alia said.
Buck looked away from her and caught Sal out of the corner of his eye, and he could see that Sal knew who he was as well from that. There was so much that Buck regretted about all of that, but he understood people better for it, not including the aftermath of it with Wells.
“So, tell me everything from what you remember from the night forward.”
Buck did. He told her about everything, from just before the whole thing, through the bombing, and then what happened after he woke up, how Bobby was there to help him when Ali had to go back to work and do some things that she couldn’t get off for. The way that Bobby seemed to hold himself back from Buck a little had only really been noticeable to Buck over the last few days since waking up after the embolism. He told her about the utter betrayal that he felt about Bobby not fighting for him with the brass to get him back on the team, that he wasn’t the young asshole he had been when he first started, and that he would never want to be a liability to the team. He would never want his health to compromise them.
“And that’s the cusp of it, isn’t it? You feel like you can do the job, and you are being held by rules that break down to ‘rules for thee and not for me,’ isn’t it?” Aria asked when Buck was done.
“Yeah, I hadn’t thought of it like that until Ali said it. Not using those words.”
“Well, we have a few snags in everything because you are very much right that you are being kept from the job that you can do, but after a little bit of slightly underhanded talking, we have figured out what is going on.”
“Fucking Catholic guilt,” Sal said.
“Catholic guilt?” Buck wasn’t sure that he understood. “Sorry, I’m Episcopalian, well, I’m just a little bit of a lapsed Episcopalian because I don’t do anything with religion at all. Bobby and Eddie are Catholic, and I know that Eddie’s not practicing at all, but Bobby is.”
“And that’s the issue. It’s not the LAFD that is keeping you back, but the report that was filed by Captain Nash states that he feels that you are not ready based on the fact that your clots were caused by you pushing yourself too fast to get back.” Aria looked at Sal and nodded her head.
“Look, kid,” Sal said.
Buck turned to him, shifting in his seat a little bit so that he didn’t have to strain his neck.
“I’ve asked a few guys from your shift that I’m still friends with who are not Hen and Chim. They said that Bobby feels like it’s his fault.”
“He didn’t send the bomber after me.”
“No, and by that kind of logic, it’s my fault more than his.”
Buck reared back.
“I’m the one who saved the kid from the fire, going against Nash’s orders. I take no blame because I had no idea he was going to turn into what he was. That’s the crux of what we do, isn’t it? We don’t see who we save, we just save people who need it, and their crimes, past or future, don’t matter.”
“I don’t blame you, just like I don’t blame Bobby, and I didn’t even before I went to therapy.”
“You were in therapy? You didn’t mention that, Buck,” Aria said. She looked at the notes she had been taking.
“Yeah, I’m in therapy. I…had a bad interaction with the first therapist I ever went to. I had to unpack from that, as well as my parents being the people they were, and disdaining people who needed help from psychologists and psychiatrists equally. I am not sure what ever happened that caused that with them. They are teachers. I hope that they never talked about things like that with their students. My sister and I are both fu-messed up in many ways from it. She’s older than me.”
“Okay, so that’s good. You can have your therapist testify in the proceeding that we will be doing with the LAFD over this. Anyway, back to what Sal was saying before he got himself off track.”
“Nash feels his guilt over it, and one of the guys at the station thinks that he’s projecting a lot on you over it and thinking that you are going to become him and his issues by pushing yourself and being in pain. At least that’s what they are saying, but in the end, it’s Nash who is keeping you back for reasons that we can prove are wrong. If you were after money, you could make seven figures from this easily.”
“You think I could get a million?”
“Multiple,” Aria said.
“But I just want to go back to work. I don’t want money.”
“That’s good because the union’s not going to give you much beyond back pay for the time you are off during this, from the day that you should have worked and forward. There will maybe be a little more in the costs of things, but it’s not going to be like a court like that.”
“I don’t care about that. My girlfriend and I are doing okay with money. She’s in a business that gets a good bit of money. So we are solvent so I’m not like in dire risk of losing my place. I would like the money back for the days that I would have worked.”
This was real. Buck was going to go through everything that happened with people.
“So, I have pulled the records of the people who came back since Nash started, and how quickly it was, and what they didn’t have to do. So we will be working through those right now, some of them will be Sal telling me about them, and I’ll get more information from others as well because there is a large gap between you two working there.”
“Tommy Kinard has already said that he would help with anything that was needed. I was telling him about a firefighter being kept from working for no good reason. He knows nothing about the person it is, and he likes Nash, but not that much. Not enough to lie for him.”
Buck had no idea what was going to come of this, but he hoped that he would get his place back at the 118, but as Ali had told him two days ago, he might have to go to another station. He still didn’t know what he felt about that, but he had worked with many of them on scene, and things were not going to be the worst if he had to. Maybe it would be good to get some time under his belt at other stations during this as well.
“You ready to start this?” Aria asked.
“Yes,” Buck said. He never felt more sure of anything since the moment he realized that he was supposed to be a firefighter.
Chapter Two
Buck picked up the little fishing rod, and he made sure that the jingle of the bell was heard. He was heard with the sound of his cat running toward him. He laughed as he waited for Bella to make it around the corner, and then she lost traction on the hardwood floor and slid to the side and crashed into the wall. Then she attacked the feather on the end of the stretchy cord attached to the stick. The bell jingled, and it was nice to see her. She was settling in pretty well despite the horrible start that she had in life. She was getting bigger, but due to malnutrition, she might not get to the size that she should be for her breed, or at least breeds, since they didn’t think that she was fully a Savannah kitten. The DNA was still being processed.
“Hey, pretty girl,” Buck said. He was happy to have her in his life. Ali had been excited to have her as well, which was good because it was going to be nice to have someone around, with Ali going back to working out of town more often. Buck was glad that Ali was getting back into the life that she wanted. Buck would never want her to feel like he didn’t support her at all in what she wanted out of her life.
The jingle of the bell was nice, and Buck wanted to keep it going for a while, get Bella’s energy out, and then she would want to cuddle with him on the couch. There was a device he could use on his leg to make sure that he didn’t have to worry about clots until the blood thinners really started to work. He was afraid of throwing another one. He really hoped that it was going to go well for him.
The union moved at its own pace, but there was every single chance that someone was going to hear what Buck was doing, even if things were kept silent. There was too much gossip in the LAFD, and the union was no different. Buck knew when Bella was playing, and it wasn’t just her not attacking a lot, but the aggression in the attacking that she was doing, like she was going to rip the feathers apart. He pulled the toy up, and he put it into the box that had the rest of her toys. Bella climbed into Buck’s lap and then pawed at his chest. He stood up; the light ache in the muscle in his leg was there, but not what it had been when he woke up that morning. His leg was healing from the damage done to it by the clots, and the rest of his body as well. He was going to have some work to do to make sure that he didn’t mess up his healing form. He didn’t want to make anyone have to deal with helping him if he hurt himself. He had already gone over with his various doctors what he was going to need to do to make sure that he was healing as well as he could.
“You are a lot of fun,” Buck said. He headed for the couch, and he was nearly down when the knock came at the door. He frowned, and he looked down at Bella. “Who do we think that is?”
Buck checked the peephole, and he frowned when he didn’t see anyone there. He set Bella down, and she took off when the banging on the door started again. He was about to jerk the door open when the yelling started.
“Open the damn door, Buckley.”
Buck reared back at the sound of Chim’s voice. He nearly didn’t open the door, but he did, if only to not have his neighbors hear whatever was going on that made Chimney as pissed as he was. Buck opened the door, and Hen, Chim, and Eddie were standing there. Hen and Chim looked pissed off, while Eddie looked a little lost as he stared at Chim.
“Don’t make my neighbors call the cops, they will. You will not scream at me in my own apartment.”
“I am not agreeing to that,” Chim said.
“Then you aren’t coming in.”
Chim crossed his arms, and he stared at Buck before looking at Hen. Eddie was standing behind them, still looking like he might want to be anywhere but where he was. Eddie had been coming over a little bit more lately, and Buck was glad of it. The whole bombing thing had made things weird between them. Chris hadn’t taken it well at all, and once Buck was a little more mobile, he had seen Chris a few times when Ali was there and could help them. Shannon dying and then Buck being blown up had been something that had freaked Chris out a good bit, so there had been a few calls when Buck hadn’t been up for a visit where Chris just rambled at him, and Buck rambled back.
“You are going to let us in,” Hen said.
“No, I don’t think that I am. I have no idea why the hell Chim is so pissed off, and I don’t feel like being disrespected in my own home. Ali’s not here right now, so I feel a little ganged up on.”
“I’m not here to gang up on you,” Eddie said. He at least looked Buck in the eye then. “I’m here to make sure that they don’t gang up on you.”
Buck nodded and waved for him to come inside. Eddie pushed past Hen, and he slipped in the space that Buck made before he made himself bigger again to stop them. He knew that he could keep Chim out of the apartment, and Hen would never try to bypass him like that. It was mainly just the worry about Chim rather than Hen. Chim could be mean when he was pissed off. He remembered the crash that had happened because Chim had driven too fast because he was pissed off.
“You went to the union?” Hen asked.
“Yes, I did because it’s what I was supposed to do when I’m being kept for the job.”
“You are a risk.”
“There are seventeen other firefighters on blood thinners right now on the job across the LAFD. There is a firefighter working search and rescue who has been on them for a year. You cannot tell me that blood thinners are the only reason that Bobby is keeping me back from the job that I qualify for. And given that from a doctor’s angle, I’m cleared, I’m not getting paid for these days being off. I have no paid time off left either, because that was used. I talked with the doctor, I talked with everyone, and they all agree that I’m ready to go back.”
“You aren’t if Bobby says you aren’t, you should trust what he says.”
“And if he had kept you back from starting again after the rebar, you would have taken it? Weren’t you also on blood thinners for that whole thing?”
Chim flinched, and Buck knew that he had hit a nerve there.
“Chim is not going to yell, and if he does yell, I’ll get him out of here on my own,” Hen said.
Buck nodded, and he stepped back to allow them in. Buck looked at where Eddie had taken up post at the island in the kitchen area, a beer out for Buck and one out for him that he was taking a sip of when Buck looked at him. Eddie shrugged. Buck shook his head, but he waved for them to go into the kitchen area.
“Where is Ali?” Eddie asked.
“At work.”
“And Bella?”
“She’s…”
“Who is Bella? Are you cheating on Ali?” Hen asked.
“No, I am not cheating on Ali, and if I were, Eddie would never know about it unless he caught me.”
Just then, Bella came into the kitchen, stretched herself up Buck’s leg, and waited for Buck to pick her up because that was what she wanted. “This is Bella. She’s a rescue. We are not sure what she was thrown out for, but she’s a sweetheart, and she needs fun things a lot. I figure that people wanted something that was a little more chill. Ali and I found her when we were on a date. She was underfed, and she looked like she had been on the streets for days. We took her to the vet and fostered her for two weeks before they said that no one had come in anywhere in LA looking for her, based on the shelters and other vets. So we were allowed to consider her ours, and we have her chipped now. I’m working on getting some things set up for the days that I’m at work so that she has enrichment. There is a lot I can do to the walls if I promise that I’ll put them back if we ever leave here. I’m thinking this is still pretty open, some stuff along the walls that she can run around, and laser pointers that will get her moving around. I’ve got time because this thing with the union is going to take a while.”
“You really just out there pushing to get your job back when your captain says you aren’t ready?”
“You know that every single one of you has had an injury that you should have been out longer for? Either physical or mental.” Buck looked at Eddie, who nodded and looked away.
Eddie had been around Buck and had taken a call about the whole thing, and he had been pretty pissed off because of his military mindset. That you follow orders and don’t rock the boat, but Ali and Buck set him right on that. Eddie wasn’t happy that Buck was doing it, but he agreed that if he were being kept from his job, he would do what he needed to get back as well.
“At least I’m not in court suing him. They think that I could have ended up with millions if I did.”
“Bobby could have his job in jeopardy,” Chim said as he sat down, sounding like he was barely keeping his voice down at a normal level.
Buck leveled a look at him as he sat down as well with Bella in his arms. She was kind of perfect for him. She loved cuddles, and she was good at it when he was worked up. “Why is his job more important than mine? I’ve been training with my doctor, who has been seeing me about the clots, about how to take care of an injury if I get one, but as he said, there are only a few things that would truly put me in danger in this job when it comes to my blood not clotting because of the blood thinners. It would put me in danger if I weren’t on them as well. I went over my file with the union and even took it to Doctor Alvez to show him the injuries that I have taken on the job since I started. The leg is the worst, of course, then we got files on others, and I wrote down the general nature of the injuries, not who they happened to. We’ve only had seven people in the past five years at the 118 who have needed stitches after a save, and one of them was because a jackass at a bar knocked him over, and he clipped the side of a table, and it ripped the skin on his forehead.”
“I remember that one. Yeah, that one bled a lot, but it was manageable, and given where it was, it would have been easy for us to get to him and stop the blood flow,” Hen said.
“Hen,” Chim said.
“No, we have been told to keep out of this by Bobby, and I have to think that he knows in the end that he’s doing this for reasons that aren’t going to fly. We can support both of them through this without taking sides.” Hen sounded like she was thinking a lot about it.
“That’s where I’m at after listening to Ali and Buck talking about it. I’m just glad that Ali is here to help keep Buck on an even keel. It would be horrible if he were on his own because I know that we would have all just jumped to cover the cap.” Eddie at least had his back.
“We are supposed to support our captain,” Chim said.
“You never supported Gerrard like this, and when he did something wrong, you tried your hardest to correct it,” Hen said.
Chim didn’t seem to be coming down on the side of Buck in this, and that was fine. Buck didn’t need them telling him that he was doing it for the right reasons. He just wanted to have something that was his, and he wanted to be back at work.
“I’ve already talked to the union about the outcome of this, and it’s that there is a chance that I’ll not be allowed back at the 118, and I’m…after a lot of talking to my therapist and Ali, I think I’m okay with that.”
“You have a therapist?” Hen asked. She reached out to let Bella sniff her, and Bella sniffed but didn’t growl at her, but she didn’t lean in for a pet either, so Hen pulled her hand back. “I’m shocked, given what happened last time.”
“What happened last time?” Eddie asked.
“He slept with her,” Chim said.
“She abused her position over me, and I was too messed up over the death of someone I could have saved if he had just taken my hand, and didn’t realize that she crossed a line. I don’t feel that upset about it, but then I noticed that I wasn’t seeking that kind of help when I did need it, so Ali helped me find someone whom I could trust not to sleep with me. That before one has been reported to the correct people for the indiscretion she did.”
“You didn’t say no.”
“No, and I should have, but I wasn’t thinking straight, and it’s not allowed for a reason, even if it was our first meeting. She made friends with me on Facebook before and still kept the meeting.”
Hen hissed a little at that, and when Buck looked at her, she was very uncomfortable.
“Yeah, I’m not exactly the picture of good mental health, but I’m trying to think how I would never go to another doctor of that kind if I had sex with one of the ones who worked with me after I was shot out of the sky and discharged from the Army. Things didn’t go well for me during that, but in the end, I was never receptive to it all.”
Buck turned to look at Eddie, and Eddie was looking everywhere but at him. This whole thing was getting off track. He would deal with the Eddie of it all later. “Look, I’m clear on the body and the mind front. I’ve even gone to someone else that the union wanted me to go to. Just to make sure that I’m passing the field readiness after the bombing.”
“Yeah, Bobby said that they might make us all go because no matter what, that attack happened to all of us, and we probably should have all had some type of meeting to clear it to make sure that we were good in the end. Because even the ones of us who weren’t actually blown up were still there and saw you being pinned under there with a teenager standing over you with a bomb strapped to his chest,” Hen said.
“No one else talked to anyone?”
“I think some of the guys who were in the ladder truck with you did, but I think that’s it.”
Buck felt a little sick about that because he had assumed that Bobby would have made everyone go with how much he talked Buck into doing it, but it was more proof that Bobby pushed it for him, but no one else. That night affected them all.
“We all have a lot to think about now,” Hen said.
Chim made a noise, but he didn’t seem like he was on Buck’s side at all. Buck wasn’t sure what it was that made Chim dislike him more than just about everyone at the station. He knew that he had been annoying, but he had grown out of it. And there were other fully-fledged firefighters on the shift who were more annoying than Buck was. Hell, Eddie had never gotten any of the treatment that Buck got. He wasn’t sure if it was because of Eddie being military beforehand or the fact that he seemed like he was older than he was because of it. Buck was still shocked that Eddie was just a little bit younger than him.
The door opened, and Ali stepped inside. She stopped when she realized that Buck wasn’t alone. She looked at all of them with a glare. “You aren’t ambushing him, are you?”
“We started out that way, but I’ve at least come around to the side that there is more going on than I know, so I need to keep my nose out of it and support both Bobby and what he is going through and Buck for what he is going through,” Hen said.
“Well, I’m kicking two of you out.”
“Just two?” Chim asked.
“Well, yeah. Eddie’s around enough that I’m not kicking him out unless Buck wants him gone.”
Eddie grinned at that, but Buck couldn’t place the look on Eddie’s face. There was something there, but Buck wasn’t sure what it was. Bella slipped from Buck’s arms, and she took off to greet Ali. Jumping up onto the stand to allow Ali to pet her without having to set down the food bags in her hands.
“Look at you, pretty girl. Are you getting all kinds of attention from them?”
“Nah, she’s been antisocial.”
“Even from Eddie?” Ali asked.
Buck laughed.
“She has not been loving up on me like normal. I think that she knew this was an ambush and wanted to give Buck her love,” Eddie said.
“You said you hadn’t been over much,” Hen said.
“I said that I hadn’t been over as much as I would like. Chris would move in here with Bella if he could. He’s been talking them into bringing her over with them, but Buck hasn’t found a good carrier that he likes for transporting her around that much, so until then, Chris has to come over here to see her.”
“Let’s go,” Chim said. He stood up and headed for the door without saying anything else.
“I’ll handle that,” Hen said.
Buck nodded; he didn’t go in for a hug when Hen stepped toward him, so she backed off again and then headed for the door with a slight frown on her face.
“What did you get?” Eddie asked.
“Well, I got enough for Buck and me to have lunch tomorrow, but I can sacrifice my leftovers for you to eat dinner, and I’ll just get something from the office. There are groups that order every single day, so I won’t have any issues getting something with someone.”
Buck got up and started to get the plates down.
He might be losing friends over this, but losing friends was something he was used to. No one had ever stuck with him long term. He would fight to keep them, but if they didn’t want him, he wasn’t going to force himself on them. That wasn’t how Maddie had raised him.
“Do you think that’s going to cause issues between Maddie and Chim?” Ali asked as she laid the bags down and started to dig out the food. They figured out what Buck was going to eat the next day and what they were going to eat that night, and then started to divide it up.
“I hope not, but in the end, that’s between them. I can’t force myself to accept being kept off my job just to make sure that my sister’s relationship works.”
“True. That’s a good way of looking at it,” Eddie said. He picked up a fork as he gave Ali a look that Buck couldn’t see. He didn’t know what the look was for, but it was probably something to do with wrangling him, so Buck just didn’t care.
“Doctor Copeland has helped me with it. I know that things will change because I’m pushing back against this. There is nothing from my side that says that I should not be working, which means it’s a constructive firing, which might not be the reason that Bobby’s doing it, but he’s doing something.”
“You still think it’s guilt?”
Buck shrugged. It’s what Sal thought it was, but Buck wasn’t sure. He knew that Bobby felt things and they were closer than anyone else, and Bobby was in the station, but he didn’t think that Bobby would do that. He hoped he wouldn’t. He had no idea because he wasn’t supposed to contact him. While the rest of the station was in limbo for the moment, there had been nothing that said he wasn’t allowed to talk to them, but he was forbidden from talking to Bobby at the moment. That was okay because Buck wasn’t sure what he would do with that if he figured out that Bobby was the reason he was kept back.
“How long do they think this is going to take?” Eddie asked.
“They still have no idea. Right now, the wheels of justice move slowly, but Sal thinks it’ll take off quickly once enough evidence is gathered.”
“That’s going to be rough as hell,” Eddie said.
“It is sad it’s going to suck, but I just have to deal. If I have to move stations, I will. I’ve already had a few captains reach out who want me.”
Eddie looked like he wanted to say something, but he shook his head. Buck didn’t want to push him to talk if he wasn’t ready. They had talked through a lot of things over since Eddie had overheard him and Ali talking about Buck going to the union. Things were going to change from the union stepping in, and Buck knew that, but if Bobby wanted to keep him from the job, he had to have better reasons than the shit he had going on at the moment.
Ali took a seat across from Eddie, and they started to dig into the food, with Bella playing with toys on the floor. It felt like there was something wrong in the room, but Buck figured it was probably just the fact that Hen and Chim had been there and Chim’s attitude over everything. Even the friendships were bound to change, and Buck had to accept that.
—
“How are you feeling?” Maddie asked as she put a box of pasta into the cart.
“Pretty good. I asked you out to shop with me because I wanted to ask how you and Chim are doing.”
“He’s angry, and I understand his anger, but he’s taking it out on the wrong person. He’s taking it out on you when I know that they had their depositions and nothing was going on Bobby’s side of things.”
“He told you about it?”
“Yeah, he told me a lot about it, and I’m not sure what he thinks is going to happen. Hopefully, they will just send Bobby to some kind of captain class about keeping personal feelings out of things.” Maddie had opinions when it came to what Bobby was doing, and she didn’t keep them to herself, which was fine because she never made Buck feel like she hated Bobby, just that she was disappointed in him.
Buck was disappointed in him as well. He wasn’t sure that the father/son thing they had going on was going to survive this because Buck was never going to let Bobby dictate his life like that. He didn’t need someone telling him what he wasn’t going to do with his life, outside of maybe Ali, if Buck took an injury that was going to make it harder for him to be a firefighter.
“Eddie’s been over a lot,” Maddie said.
Buck knew that she was deferring, so he would let her for the moment. Then he would press her. They talked about Eddie coming over, sometimes with Chris and sometimes without him, when some of his cousins wanted a play night, or Chris was at a friend’s house that was close to Eddie’s. Getting back to a routine was best for Chris, and he was slowly letting things go and not clinging to Eddie as much as he used to, which was good.
“He has. I think that Chris going back to a normal life and going over to a friend’s is messing with him a little more than he thought it would. Shannon’s death wrecked them both.”
“I’m glad that Ali and Eddie get along.”
“Yeah, they are becoming friends on their own, which is good because I want Ali to feel a part of the family, or whatever family this ends up looking like when it’s all said and done.”
Maddie nodded her head, and she grabbed a couple of jars of sauce before Buck took one from her and put it back, and grabbed another brand. Maddie glared at him.
“I know there is a slight price difference, but the flavor of this one is closer to that pasta dish that the lady down the street made for us all the time.”
“Oh, really?” Maddie looked excited, and she grabbed two more jars.
They finished off the shopping, and then Buck helped to load up his Jeep, and they headed back to the apartment. Buck was going to make food, and he would pester Maddie to talk.
“Are you sure you are okay?” Buck asked when they finally got the last of the bags into the apartment.
“I am not doing okay, but I didn’t want to talk about it in public. Chim’s so angry about this. I know that he would never hurt me as Doug did, but the anger inside of him is not something that I want to be around. I mean, I was angry at you at first for wanting to go back to the job, but I listened, and I agreed that I was pushing things on you that I had no right to push on you. I just wanted to keep you safe, but I can’t keep you safe like I used to be able to. I’m angry at him for wanting you to just allow Bobby to screw over your career by keeping you back when there is no reason. There is no reason for him to keep you back like this.”
“There isn’t, but Chim and Bobby had been through a lot, and there is a lot of damage in Chim from Chim’s first captain at the 118, and then there were years of rotating captains in and out, where they had to pretty much fend for themselves. Bobby’s the first captain to really get invested in Chim as a person, so Chim’s trying to protect him.”
“You talk to Doctor Copeland about that?”
“Yeah, I told her about the way that 118 was before. Hen told me a lot about it one day when we were waiting for the engine to be fixed after an issue. Paramedics rolled, and the ladder truck did, but that was only for certain things, so we were very bored that day. There was a lot of talking about the station before she even joined. She told me about a few guys that used to work there and how much they tried their hardest to fix themselves and then fix the station when the racism, homophobia, and sexism smacked them in the face.” Buck remembered the talk about people, but Hen hadn’t given names because she didn’t want people to be judged based on their past and who they were now. “There were a lot of people who reported things when it came to Hen who never reported anything before, not just because Hen was a woman, but because they were tired of that shit. The social side of things in the LAFD changed, and that meant the people had to change as well. Most of them did, but a few had to follow the captain out the door. And since the guy was white, he wasn’t fired, just moved to a place where he couldn’t affect those he didn’t like.”
“Ugh, I’m glad you didn’t work there then. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if you had come across firefighting before you were in Peru, and if you would have gotten here quicker now. I think that you arrived at the time you were supposed to arrive.”
Buck knew that Maddie was right about that. He often wondered the same thing.
“You don’t need to break things off with Chim because of me,” Buck said.
“No, I know that. I know that. I just don’t know if I want to be with someone who is like this. I’m glad I saw this now and not before. I was really invested and willing to make allowances because it’s not how he was most of the time. I did that too often with Doug in the beginning, the small red flags when we were dating, and then I just pushed things out of the way when it came to anything else because I didn’t want to have to leave him and the work that I put into making our relationship last. I want to be happy, Buck. I want to have a life that I can be proud of after Doug.”
“Then look for that.”
Maddie nodded, and she inhaled before exhaling. “How are things with you and Ali now that she’s back to leaving town for up to two weeks at a time?”
“Good. I have Bella, and hopefully soon I’ll have a job to focus on.”
“The stuff on the walls looks good, far enough up that you won’t hit them, but not enough that Bella will hurt herself if she falls. The netting is fun as well.”
“Yeah, the netting is for the areas that are too high up for her, but she loves being up there. So, I made sure that she’ll be safe. I looked at a lot of things online, and there is a guy that I met through the job who does woodworking for a side business. I had him make the stuff, and we made sure that it’s big enough for Bella when she gets to her full size, given the breed standard. She is full Savannah, well as full as a Savannah can get, the breed of cat she had for her parent, that’s not the Serval, is a Norwegian Forest Cat, so there could be a lot of fun in her genes. We just have to keep an eye on it, but I went for the size that she will probably be based on her feet. There is going to be some interesting genetics with her, but she’s mostly Serval. Which is just fine on the looks.”
Maddie looked at him, and Buck smiled back at her, hoping that she knew that, despite the work part of things, he was settled in his personal life. He didn’t want to worry her. He was happy with Ali and the life they had. They had settled into something that was comforting over the last few weeks as they got ready for her to leave for a long time. She had been doing short trips more than anything else over the last while.
“I’m glad you are happy,” Maddie said.
“Me too. It’s been long, and it’s been hard, but in the end, I’m glad that it was hard to work for because I won’t take advantage of it.”
Chapter Three
The meeting was not going to go well, Buck knew that. He also knew that things were going to be interesting for the next while as his life settled out. The union had come to its conclusion, and the decision had been made, and now Buck was just going to be the one to deal with what was going on. Bobby was going to be there, along with anyone from the 118 who wanted to be. Ali had asked him if she wanted him, but he had told her that he didn’t need her. She had looked relieved, and she had told him that she would make sure that he had something of a party waiting for him, even if it was just the two of them.
Buck was kind of interested in that because they hadn’t had very intimate dates in a while, because when she was in town, she was busy with him and them doing what they loved to do. Going home and having a party with her was a good thing. He couldn’t wait to get home. He shifted his leg and hoped that he really didn’t start to get hard here.
The door opened up, and Buck started to stand, but the man who came in waved him to stay seated. Sal and then Aria came in next. Buck released as they sat on either side of him before Bobby came into the room with Hen and Chim with him. No, Eddie, which wasn’t a shock as Eddie had been spending a lot of time with Chris lately.
“Sorry for the delay on all of this,” the man said. He held out his hand. “Chief Alonzo.”
“Chief,” Buck said, and he held out his hand. “It’s not every day that the city is wracked with a tsunami as we had there. There was a lot of loss of life in it, and I fully understood that even the union was turning to focusing on helping the city.”
“Yes, and you were helping as well, as much as you could, which is a good thing. I wish we had a hundred more like you in times like that. You offered yourself up for a search and rescue team without fail every single time that you were able to. That went a long way.”
“What?” Bobby asked. He looked at the chief. “Chief, that wasn’t good. He shouldn’t be in the field.”
“Bobby, you are a good captain, but I think in this case that the union is right that you are not able to keep your feelings out of this. This man worked a twelve-hour day and had no issues. He did the same shit other firefighters did without having to worry about his leg. He was a shining star, and I’m glad that he volunteered his time just like any other firefighter who wasn’t on duty. We had a lot of them working on things that they could do with their limitations. He made sure that Aria told him that he could volunteer with no issue because the union wasn’t going to make him stay out of this, just like any other disaster, but it allowed me to have a word about what he could and couldn’t do. He didn’t do anything that needed his legs and only his legs, but he worked. So Bobby, why were you telling everyone that he wasn’t ready to come back?”
Bobby looked at Buck for a few seconds before he looked at the chief. “Sir, I think that he pushed himself to get back to work too fast and was the cause of the embolism and the clots. He is setting himself up to hurt his body worse. I wanted him to take time to heal up the rest of the way. He was pushing himself too much.”
“Based on what?”
“The reports that I was given by the ER nurse, who was on his case when I asked about it as one of his emergency medical contacts.”
“I think that you heard something that was said before anything was given. The cause was determined to be his screws in his legs. Which is rare, but it can sometimes happen. No matter what, he would have gotten them, even if he had taken the slowest road possible to get back to his job. Why do you think that he was going to hurt himself with this?”
“I see myself in him, and I pushed things and made things worse.”
“Will you take him back?” the chief asked.
Bobby looked at Hen, who shrugged, and then at Chim, who shook his head. “No, sir. I cannot trust him.”
Buck felt his heart break because he loved Bobby like a father, and even with this, he had thought that Bobby was just throwing his guilt around and making it all about that, and it probably was, but now Bobby didn’t want him.
“Okay then. I’ll get his transfer orders into the system and see who snaps him up.”
“That would be me, sir,” Sal said.
Bobby looked at Sal with a look of anger on his face. Hen and Chim looked a little shocked.
“Why?” Buck asked.
“Because you don’t waste talent like yours. We work the same shift, so you can come with me after we get out of here, and I’ll introduce you to everyone, and then you can report for duty on the next shift that we work. I’ll have someone get your gear from the 118 as well as all of your items, and if anything is missing, you can let me know, and I’ll make sure that a report is filed on that.”
Buck had a feeling that there were going to be issues now. He didn’t know what to do, but he felt like his world was shifting. He had thought that maybe this whole thing would show Bobby how crazy he was being about it all. Buck wanted to get back to the 118, and he was going to be part of the family again. It was going to be all right. Still, he wasn’t losing his job and might not have gotten back to his family.
“You are dismissed, Captain Nash, and the rest of your team.”
Bobby tried to meet Buck’s eyes, but Buck looked everywhere but at him, which was good because Buck might actually start to cry. He kept looking at the spot on the wall away from him and then inhaled and exhaled before relaxing, and then the door was shut.
“You okay, kid?” Sal asked.
“No, but I will be. I promise.”
“I know you will be, but that’s a body blow; you can take a few to get yourself together.”
Buck nodded because Sal was right that he was allowed to mourn the team that he wasn’t going to get to work with anymore. He would have to figure out what he wanted and how he wanted to have it now. He would have to figure out if he wanted that kind of team dynamic.
“Is there somewhere I can go for a few minutes to be alone that is not a bathroom?” Buck asked.
Aria told him how to get to where he needed to go. He slipped to the bathroom to splash water on his face and blow his nose because, despite not crying, he was snotty. He looked at himself in the mirror. He anticipated the 118 wouldn’t want him back, but he was glad to have the LAFD still and to have his reputation intact. He hoped that this didn’t hit him hard, but with someone like Sal Deluca behind him, he figured that it was going to be seen as something he needed to do. He pulled out his phone as he headed for the room where he could go alone; it looked like the kind of room where people were told their family member was dead, but Buck didn’t care. He settled into the chair to text Ali.
She texted back right away.
Ali: I’m sorry you aren’t on the 118 anymore. I’m glad you are still a firefighter. I know how much that means to you. So, get home as soon as you can. I’ll be more than ready for you.
Buck smiled at the phone, and then a picture came through. There was a set of lingerie on the bed, and it was all lacy and beautiful, and he couldn’t wait to see Ali in it. They had started to go without condoms because they were solid, and Ali was on birth control, and she was a stickler for it. She had alarms, and even if it were just a few moments, she would stop what she was doing and take it right on time. She preferred the pills over the ones that were inserts and the like, just because of an issue that she had when she tried one of the rings at some point. Buck didn’t care how she took care of it. She also tracked herself and made sure that she stayed on track with everything. There was a very small chance of pregnancy, and Buck didn’t mind if they ended up that way, but he would rather it be on purpose.
The idea of going home to her and fucking her made Buck want to get this all over with as soon as possible. Sex had been so fucking good lately. She had been into him more and more. She had wanted him all the time when she got home or right before she left. He had no idea what had gotten into her over the last month and a half, but he was into it.
Sal was waiting down the hall with his phone out, texting someone when Buck left his little room.
“They said that we could leave when you were ready. That someone will make sure that the paperwork is at the 122 for the full transfer and all of that when our next shift happens.”
“Good. I kind of want to get home and just take this all in.”
“I’m sorry that the best outcome didn’t happen, but this was always going to end with you at the LAFD still. There was no medical reason to keep you back. After you left, Alaonzo said that he was glad you didn’t go the route of suing the LAFD and Bobby because while it was a little crass, it was very much something that you could have done.”
“It was an option in the union route that failed because I know how much of a group it is, and if someone here hated me….” Buck let that go.
“The union isn’t perfect, but it is what we have to help make sure that the firefighters don’t have to deal with that shit. So, I got a ride with a teammate so that we can ride back to the station together, and then you can leave me there. They had a doctor appointment near here and stopped to snag me. They are out for another week after a nasty concussion. They can drive now, but they have another issue that they are dealing with that will need some time to get things fixed.”
“I’m kind of replacing them?”
“Yeah, we will keep the float we had been using for them because there is another who is leaving in a week, more than enough time to get you worked into things and see who you work well with. We don’t mind moving things around as needed to fit new people.”
Buck wasn’t sure that he needed to have all of this, but he hoped that things were going to be good. At least a few things were going on that would hopefully mean that he could settle into them pretty easily. He wasn’t going to be the only outsider there, and he hoped it meant that they didn’t resent him.
—
The 122 was in a building that was even worse than the 118 for being set up for being a firefighter. He had no idea who designed the stations and why the city bought weird places that were not anywhere near good for what they were supposed to be, but this one had two loft areas and one of them was up on what would be the third floor, and a pole that went all the way down. It was closed off, at least, because that was ridiculous. The kitchen was on the ground floor, and he could see the area where the bunkrooms were because of the sign on the door that told them to shut off their phones before going in there.
“Were the people who designed this and the 118 high?”
“The city chose to renovate a lot of older buildings rather than build new ones. So, we have no idea what these people were thinking. I thought the glass room of the 118 was bad, but this whole thing is worse. So the highest loft area is where people go for quiet time, reading, playing on their phone, and watching things on their phone. The main TV is on the second floor, and it’s pretty much at a set volume with captions on. Sports are not to go above a certain threshold, and you always put the volume back down when you turn it up before turning it off. The rules are posted right beside the TV, so that’s not an issue.”
“Video games?”
“There is a system up there, well, three systems up there, but don’t worry, we have a lot of people who will play anything and make bets on it.”
Buck laughed.
The equipment looked a little better than the 118’s, a different set of things that were tailored to the people there over the people at the 118. Which was fine, Buck could make anything work. He watched the people moving around who hadn’t noticed them yet. Then it was like they all felt them looking at them, and three of them turned around.
Then the rest of the ones that Buck could see turned around to look at them as well. There were a few seconds of nothing, and then all of them cheered.
“We won!” one of the guys said.
Buck felt like he might want to take cover behind Sal because they all started toward them, and someone even came out of the back of the place. Buck recognized heras the captain, Ellie May was her name, according to Sal, and Buck remembered her from a few calls they had worked together, but Buck couldn’t tell any of the other faces.
Ellie was the first to make it to him, as the rest of the shift knew she wanted it. Buck knew that she had agreed to having him come here, but he hadn’t thought that it meant that she really wanted him.
“Evan Buckley, welcome to the 122. Sal’s happy as hell to have you here.”
Buck nodded. He wanted to go where people wanted him, and Sal had promised that they wanted him, despite what he had done.
“I’m glad to be here, Ma’am,” Buck said.
“None of that shit. It’s Ellie, or Cap. I know a little more than most do because Sal’s kept me in the loop, but things are going to be better for you here. I keep my people grounded when they do stupid shit, and even if I think they are making mistakes, I let them make those mistakes as long as it doesn’t jeopardize their life or others. I’ve seen your jacket, as well as the last medical determination that was in your file, and I’ll be happy to have you here for your next shift. As much as I want to say that these guys are not my monkeys, they are. They are also my circus. Next year, I’m going to be leaving here and leaving this station in the hands of Sal. So he and I share captain duties.”
“She gives me the shit she doesn’t want to deal with,” Sal grumbled.
Ellie smiled. “I do that. My husband will be stationed for teaching in San Diego, so I’ll be following him there, and I have already got a station picked out that I’ll be going to when they lose their captain to retirement two months after I transfer in. So, don’t get too attached to me.”
“Yes, Cap.” Buck knew that it was going to take a while. He knew that cap was a normal nickname for a captain, but he wasn’t sure how it was going to be for the next while with these new stations.
Sal went through the group and gave him the names of people, and they slipped away after their names were called. Buck knew that it was going to take a few shifts to get all of the names connected to faces in his head.
“These are the three main ones that you need to know. Derek England is going to be your partner for now. Unless you don’t click, then one of these two here will become your next partner based on how you all get along. Still, you are the fourth that we have for heavy rescue, and the like, so you’ll work with all of them. The other two are the Wonder Twins; they are not related, but the one on the left is Abigail Wamer, and the one on the right is Ariel Wamer.”
“Not related?”
“Nope, just happened to both have the last name; their families are from different coasts. They traced their family back to origin, and they have no common ancestor, but they work well together, and so we just have some fun with it.”
Buck shook all three hands, and he smiled when the ladies squeezed his hand hard. He was looking forward to working with them. The 118 had been a sausage fest, but then Bobby was still dealing with the after effects of Gerrard and the captains who didn’t care to push to get more women in there after Gerrard left.
“I’m sending the twins to get the stuff from the 118 with Derek to supervise,” Sal said.
“Oh, really?” Derek asked. He waggled his eyebrows. “I can be the muscle. I’m kind of sad you aren’t going.”
“I don’t feel that’s the good kind of antagonism needed. I mean, I already stole him from them.”
“Is it stealing if they didn’t want me?”
Sal clasped him on the back and then pulled him along to show him the rest of the station. The kitchen was great, and Buck was looking forward to cooking there. It looked like it was made to serve the whole station, and the seating was a random arrangement of smaller tables, one bigger table, and a whole wall of bar seating.
Buck thought that maybe he could make a home here as well. He just hoped that it worked out.
—
Buck shut the door behind him, locking it and even throwing the deadbolt. Only Maddie has the key to the place, and she was saying we called or texted and waited to be told to come over. The key was for emergencies or when she was helping Buck when he was stuck, to let herself in when Buck was not having a good movement day.
Eddie asked for a key, but Ali hadn’t been sure about it yet. So Buck was waiting on that one. Eddie understood. If this were just Buck’s place, Eddie would have a key. Buck hadn’t gotten around to giving anyone else on the team a key, not even Bobby, because things had been so hectic. The keys were made but were waiting for them; now they were just there.
“Ali?” Buck called out.
“In the bedroom.”
Bella came running toward him and skidded to a stop to get some love from him. Buck picked her up and let her nuzzle his face. She could tell that he was off kilter and he needed a pick-me-up, but Buck would get the rest of the love later. He set her down on the one ledge she loved to sit on to get love and then headed for the bedroom.
Ali was sitting on the bed in nothing but the lingerie, her legs spread and her arms braced behind to show off her body. She looked like she was wet already, like she had been thinking of him for a while and got wet. Maybe even got herself off thinking of him coming home and fucking her.
“Look at you,” Buck said. He shut the door and stripped his shirt off. He worked the button on his pants open as he got his shoes and socks off. He slept with socks on, but he didn’t fuck with them on.
“Been thinking of you since you said you were on your way home from the station. I can’t wait.”
Buck laughed. He hoped that she didn’t mind if he wasn’t all that talkative. He got on his knees between her legs and kissed her stomach before making it up to her tit. He cupped one of them and found the nipple with his thumb, licking over the other. The bra was soft on his tongue, and he knew that it was going to give her a bit of roughness that she liked. Buck was getting used to being rougher with her because it was what she liked. She moaned as he rubbed harder on her nipple with his thumb.
They were still learning about each other and what they liked. Buck really loved it when she sat on him and rode him. He loved watching her tits bounce. She loved the way it made her feel powerful. Neither of them liked being degraded. It was a balancing act that Buck was loving learning. Ali had never really had a serious boyfriend before, so she was learning what being cared for by someone who wanted to care for her felt like. He wanted to have it, and he wanted to keep it just like it was.
Buck grabbed her ass, and he used it to haul her up the bed and drop her. She grasped, and there was a moan as he got between her legs and rubbed his cock on her clothed pussy. She arched up into him, and he carefully started to peel the underwear down her legs. She looked super wet with how soaked her pussy was and the way that her underwear was soaked as well. He couldn’t wait to get inside for her. He loved feeling her when she was wet like this, and the one time that he had fucked her right after he had come inside of her, getting hard as quickly as he could. Sloppy seconds had been something that he really loved.
“Condom?” Buck asked.
“No, no condom,” Ali said. She locked her eyes with his. “I’m so fucking wet. I wanna feel you inside of me.”
Buck nodded, and he gripped her legs to spread them the way that he wanted and shifted up to where his cock was just lying on her mound. He was hard and leaking already. If he didn’t want to be buried inside of her right now, he would make her get him wet with her mouth, suck him, and get him to where he was going to be able to slide inside of her no matter what.
“Don’t even need any lube, look at you. You look like you’ve been thinking of me for a while and just getting off to the thought.”
Ali nodded. She arced up, and her hands went behind her back, and then there was the popping free of her tits from her bra. There were a few seconds where Buck was a little pouty that he didn’t get to do that, but then she was down again, and the bra was off; she was just as naked as he was. She looked like she loved him, looking at her, so he did that, which was when he pulled his hips back just a little, and then his cock slipped down, and the way he had her legs and her hips arched meant that the head felt to rest right on her lips without a single need from him. He pushed inside of her gently, keeping his eyes locked on her.
Buck didn’t close his eyes even though she felt so wet. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought he already fucked her. She felt just like that time that he had fucked her twice in a short time, after the first time of leaving his release inside of her, her hips tipped up to where it wasn’t escaping. She had been nowhere near a point where she could get pregnant, but not on her period, so Buck had been allowed to have a lot of fun. He wanted to get her worked up like this again to make sure this wasn’t a fluke of some kind. He had loved having her a second time after she was all loose from him fucking her, and the way that she felt like a perfect little hole for him to fuck. It had been a part of him that he hadn’t known existed before.
“You feel so good. So wet and open for me. I think you got yourself off a few times thinking of me. Just lie here in bed and slip your hand down to play with your clit?” Buck asked.
Ali grabbed his head and pulled him down to kiss him, stopping him from talking, but Buck didn’t mind. He fucked her hard and fast, rutting into her as hard as he could. She wrapped her legs around him and held on as he fucked her. She felt like she was already so close, and he wondered if he could get her to come twice before he came. He felt like he was nowhere near close enough to coming. He braced a hand on the headboard, and he shifted his knees to get himself a little bit more leverage before he really let loose on her.
Buck broke the kiss because he needed to breathe a little easier, and then he dipped his head down to leave a small mark on her neck. He knew where to leave it so that she could cover it up with ease. They had done it before, and he loved wearing his mark like that. He moved down to get a nipple in his mouth.
Ali begged and pleaded for him to get her off even more. She screamed when she came, and her hands scratched down his back before she kind of slumped down into the bed, holding onto him tightly but making sure that she was still rocking into him as she just lay there, limp from orgasm. She was even wetter now, and Buck loved it. He wanted to keep her like this and get her off again before he came.
Buck slowed his thrusts and made them more gentle as she came down from orgasm, and he used his cock and his mouth to get her worked up again to where he could really go to town. When she was moaning in a long stream as he fucked her, he pushed up to where he could look down at her. She looked sated and so worked up at the same time. These were the times that he loved the most. She was his, and she was his. This was the moment when he felt most connected to her. She stared at him, but her mouth moved.
“What?” Buck asked.
“I love you,” Ali said.
Buck nearly came at that. They hadn’t really said those words yet, but Buck knew he felt them, but he hadn’t said them because he was scared to. He stared at her, and then he dropped down, hiking her hips up with his one hand while he planted the other on the bed to keep his gaze locked with hers. She pulled him into a kiss again, and then she brushed her nose across his.
“I mean it, Evan Buckley,” Ali said.
“I love you too, Ali Martin.” Buck kissed her, and they stayed like that with him rocking inside of her and her hips rolling to meet each thrust.
Ali came first, and it pulled Buck over his orgasm, staying inside of her to fill her up with him, even if it was going to do nothing. She loved having him inside of her for as long as possible after an orgasm. It had been part of the reason they got tested and started to go without a condom because there was a greater chance of a breakage when they did that. So it was safer to get tested to be sure.
Buck moved them, rolling to get her on top of him, his cock still lodged inside of her, and she lay on top of him, just staying like that as his cock softened while inside of her. Buck ran his hands up and down her back. Ali was breathing hard like she had run a marathon, and Buck knew she had gotten worked up a lot and was coming down. He smiled and kissed the top of her head before she relaxed into the bed again. He wasn’t sure that during sex was the best time to get the words out of his mouth about loving her, but at least they were honest; they might have been brought on by the act they were doing, but Buck felt them.
“I do love you,” Buck said.
“I know you do. I do love you, too,” Ali said. She turned her head and kissed his chest before looking at him. She pushed herself up, scooting back just a little to keep his cock inside of her. “You are going to be a firefighter again, I mean, active. You’ve always been a firefighter, and I know it’s the thing you wanted, and I’m so fucking happy for you.”
“Because of you. You made me think and pushed me to do what I was doing. You supported me. I’ve never had someone support me like that in my life, not really. Abby did some, but never to this extent.”
Ali grinned at him, and she rocked back just a little like she was trying to get him to get hard again. “Got another in you?” Ali reached up and tweaked one of her own nipples. “Especially if I put on a show for you?”
Buck swallowed, and he thought about it. He got his knees and legs up to where she could rest on them or use his knees as a hold while she fucked herself on his cock. “I think I do. Make me hard, though. Put on that show.”
Ali’s grin turned downright filthy. “You love fucking me with the feel of yourself inside of me already, the way that it makes me just a little slippery, the way that my hole is all loose. The way that you know that you did that to me.”
Buck felt his cock start to get interested, his body flooding with arousal. It was great. He wanted it, and he wanted it so fucking bad. He put his hands behind his head, though,t because it seemed that Ali wanted to put on a show, and he was going to let her do what she wanted and then wait for her to tell him what to do.
Life couldn’t get any better than it was.
Chapter Four
Buck lifted a beer, and he took a sip as he looked around his place. He had a few people from work over who wanted to meet Ali and get to know them a little bit outside of work. He had invited Eddie as well, and despite all of the people in the place, which wasn’t that many really, they were talking to each other more than anyone else. Buck was glad that their friendship hadn’t suffered for what Buck had done.
Eddie was still around as much as he used to be, which was good. Buck was glad to keep that friendship. The friendship with Hen was strained, and she was supporting Bobby in keeping Buck out of work. There was no reason to push what Buck wanted on her, which was to keep up the friendship. Maddie and Chim were having a hard time of it, and Buck felt guilty for that, but Maddie told him over and over that it wasn’t his fault at all. If Chim couldn’t keep his relationship with Maddie different from the relationship that he had with Buck, then that was on him.
Buck just wanted Maddie to be happy, and Chim had been making her happy. The soft jingle from the bedroom had Buck laughing. Bella had headed in there as soon as the first person arrived and hadn’t wanted to come out yet, she probably wasn’t going to.
“So,” Abigail said as she came over to him and sat down beside him, a cocktail in her hand. It was a weird little dinner party where Buck cooked and served the food, but everyone else brought the drinks.
There had been a good bit of cocktail stuff there, and Buck’s alcohol had never been much, but everyone said that he could keep what they bought. It was probably only going to be drunk by them when they were over.
“So, what?” Buck asked.
“Did you hear about the weird call that B-shift had?”
“No, what?”
“I only heard Cap talking about it when I was leaving. I guess that there were some random calls about a really weird Halloween thing that someone did to their car. You were the one who put dummies and skeletons in the front seat, or that one guy who had a realistic one in his back seat that was bloody and shit?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard some of the things that people do at Halloween. What did this person do?”
“Well, there was a car that hit a parked car. No one knew what to make of it, and it was called in, but no one really rushed to help like they normally did. When the team got there, the guy through the windshield wasn’t fake. He was barely alive, but the driver was dead. The thing is that once the LAPD got wind, they could trace it for like a day. People were reporting it, and there was one who said they saw the guy move, but then no one could get a plate, and they didn’t pay close attention to the make of the car, and by the time that the LAPD got there, there was no car in the area. The driver was dead, but the injury was enough that they thought that the driver couldn’t see the person in the windshield beside them.”
“Damn, I’m going to have to look that up. It’s insane what the brain can do when it comes to injuries and shit.” Buck took a sip of his beer.
“You don’t like the stronger stuff?” Ariel asked as she sat down on his other side on the couch.
“No, I do. I just haven’t really drank a lot for a while, and I didn’t want to start on cocktails that would make it harder for me to enjoy tonight. I’m going to make one for dinner and drink it then.”
“Oh, that’s good. We thought maybe we overstepped with the liquor.”
“Nah, I have some, just don’t really drink too much, so I go through a bottle at a time, but if I have you guys over more, then I can see what you brought is being put to good use. I might have to make a cabinet that houses it and the other stuff, then a small section in the fridge for the things that need to be kept there. I’ll make this a fully grown-up place soon, don’t worry.”
Abigail laughed, and she pointed over at Eddie. “Is he single?”
“Yes and no.”
Ariel arched an eyebrow at him. “Explain that.”
“Don’t make this a thing. He recently lost his wife, and he and his son are still dealing with it. It’s hard for him because they had been estranged and were getting back to being something when she was killed in an accident. We were the ones called there without knowing it was her.”
“Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry that happened, and yeah, we’ll back off from him then. Derek’s having fun talking to him, though, so at least he doesn’t feel left out.”
“Oh, they bonded over being in the Army, which is good because Derek doesn’t have many people in his life who were in the Army. He did his years and then got out because he pretty much became enamored with it. He had planned on making it what he wanted to do for his life, but then it was too much. He didn’t want to ever fire a gun again, so he joined the LAFD as soon as he was able to after an injury healed up,” Ariel said.
“Will he mind you telling me?”
“He tells anyone who asks. Don’t worry. He keeps things secret that he doesn’t want anyone to know.
A knock at the door sounded, and Buck looked at the time. It was when Sal said he was going to get there, after helping get the kids to sleep. Buck had been happy to keep dinner later so that Sal could have time with his kids before they went to bed. He got up to answer the door, pulled it open, and was shocked to see that Sal wasn’t alone, but he didn’t have Gina with him.
“Evan Buckley, this is Tommy Kinard. He was moping around his house after his last date went to shit, so I told him that I was going to take him out for a drink.”
“You lied to me,” Tommy said.
“The more the merrier,” Buck said. He waved for them to come into the apartment.
“Thanks,” Sal said. He stepped inside and went right for where the bottles were. “I’ll make you a drink so you can get shift-faced. Buck, introduce him around. He knows everyone from my station, but no one else.”
“There are just two people, so that won’t take long.”
“Kinard!” Derek yelled from across the room and raised his glass to wave at Tommy.
“You can hide in the bathroom if you want,” Buck said.
“No, I can’t. Sal will take it off its hinges, and then there will be no privacy for anyone when they have to pee out what they are drinking.”
Buck walked toward where Derek was still talking with Ali and Eddie. Buck was glad that they were sticking together, even if it meant they didn’t talk to many people there.
Derek got up and hugged Tommy before heading over to get more drinks.
“Who is this?” Ali asked.
“Tommy Kinard…are you on a different shift than us?” Buck asked.
“No, same shift, different house. I’m out of the 217, or Harbor.”
“You fly?” Buck asked.
“I do.”
“That’s awesome. This is Eddie Diaz, he’s out of the 118, my former station. And this is my girlfriend, Ali Martin.”
“Pleasure to meet you. Sal didn’t say you were from the 118. When did you start?” Tommy asked.
“Late in 2017,” Buck said. He didn’t want to really talk about it.
“Oh, was Reynolds still there?”
“Yes,” Buck said.
“Then you replaced me. Reynolds was the one who replaced Sal, and then he left not long after the next probie got there.”
“You were there with Sal? Wait, he said something about his friend being there after he was there. That’s you?” Buck kind of remembered Sal saying his name now.
“Yeah, we forged a bond that even going to different houses wasn’t going to break.”
“That’s like Eddie and me. Nothing can break us.”
Eddie coughed a little bit, and he covered it by holding up his bottle of beer. Eddie was more than welcome to get drunk because Chris was staying over with Pepa and Abuela. Eddie wasn’t sure if he wanted to drink that much.
“We are almost out of beer,” Ariel said as she came over.
“I’ll go and get it, Eddie, you want to come with me and pick it out since I don’t drink it?” Ali looked like she needed a few moments.
“Sure.”
Buck knew that most of them had drunk just enough that there was going to be no driving for them, but Ali had a headache most of the day and had been taking pills for it. Buck had offered to cancel the event, but she said she was going to be fine and just wasn’t going to get a drink and take meds instead.
“Card?” Ali asked.
Tommy reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. “Since I crashed this party because Sal made me. I can contribute since I see that people brought alcohol, and I wasn’t given a chance.”
“You don’t have to,” Buck said.
“Nah, I don’t mind. Pick me up something crafty and fun. I like trying all kinds of craft beers.”
“Sure thing. I know one that I think you might like, if you haven’t. The shop’s a little hike, but we will be back before the meal is served,” Eddie said.
Ali kissed Buck’s cheek as she passed by him. Buck waved at the couch when they had left. Tommy sat down, and then Abigail was there sitting beside him. She threw her legs over his lap and rested back on the couch. Buck sat down behind her to finish out the seating on the couch. It seemed that Tommy was well known by everyone at Sal’s station.
“So, how good is it to have your girlfriend and best friend get along like that? My last boyfriend hated my best friend, though I guess that part of that was that he just didn’t get the bond that firefighters have, and he thought that Ariel and I were fucking just because I’m bi. We didn’t last long, but still. It’s weird.”
“My last boyfriend before the one who just dumped me hated that I had friends at the station, and he was afraid that I was looking at them when we were naked.” Tommy seemed to hesitate a little, but Buck wasn’t going to call out what he just said. Tommy seemed to be open about it, and there was no need to call attention to it.
“It’s good,” Buck said. “Ali was there for me after my injury, and Eddie was as well. They bonded over helping to take care of me.”
“Injury?” Tommy asked.
Abigail leaned in and stretched. “Remember the guy under the ladder truck?”
“The bombing? Yeah, I…oh. That was 118, wasn’t it? Damn. Howie said that it was their newest firefighter, not the probie. I didn’t connect that. Damn. That sucks. I’m glad you are alive and back to full health. That’s why you’re not at the 118?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Buck said.
Tommy nodded, and he started to tell Abigail something. Buck stayed, and he talked with them because everyone else was paired off talking.
Sal came over with cocktails in his hands. He sat down in the chair beside the couch after handing Tommy his drink. “So, what is for dinner?” Sal asked.
“I have broccoli salad, a potato casserole, then I have steaks that I have on the grill outside and chicken in the oven. So you can have one or the other, or both. They have different marinades, and dessert is a surprise.”
“Nothing green?” Sal asked with a grin. Buck just shot him a look.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about the Brussel sprouts and the asparagus in the oven with the chicken. They are all on the same baking sheets, so the marinade from the chicken and everything is going to go on them. I love making veggies like that. If I weren’t making the potato casserole, the potatoes would have been soaking up too.”
Sal pouted at that. He had gotten Buck’s leftovers once when Abigail had brought in Buck something for lunch she had been raving about, and so Buck had handed over his food to the first person to come up looking to make something for lunch. Sal had asked for the recipe and had been blown away at how simple it had been.
Buck settled in as people talked about food because he was soaking up having his friend around, or at least the making of friends when it came to Tommy. There was something about him. He seemed to be happy in the world, just listening to them talking, just like Buck was.
The timer went off, and Buck got up to head to the kitchen to work on the last phase of the food. He didn’t realize that Tommy had come in with him until he turned around to see him off to the side.
“You seemed so lost in thought, I didn’t want to mess you up since you have a knife in your hands. Need help?”
“There is a salad in the fridge, it’s made to be a small thing to eat before the meal. I plated it up beforehand, but there is more in there; the plates are in the cabinet just here.” Buck used his elbow to point. “You can make up a plate for yourself.”
“Are you sure it’s okay that I came?”
“Yes. It’s fine. I always make way too much. You will see the dessert in there behind the salad bowl, so keep it quiet, or I will boot you.”
Tommy laughed as he headed for the cabinet to get down a plate. Buck opened the drawer that had the silverware inside. The dining room table wasn’t big enough for those here, but they had bought a folding table that looked like it was going to work for them. It was covered with a tablecloth and looked just as good as the other table, and the legs were very sturdy.
Buck worked on the last turning of the casserole in the oven, making sure there was enough liquid and that the potatoes were cooking just fine. The stirring of it was weird, but Buck was following the recipe. The stuff at the edges was stuck and kind of burning, but that was fine. He turned to look at Tommy to see him pulling out a second plate, taking the tomatoes off it, and then putting more of the sliced cucumbers on it. He just stared, and Tommy looked up like he could feel Buck’s eyes on him.
“Sal loves tomatoes, but he doesn’t like the little ones like this, and I do. So I’m taking his and giving him a couple extra cucumbers from the main bowl. I hope that’s fine.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember him giving those off to Derek once when we got in food. I didn’t remember that.”
“It’s fine. He would just have dropped them on my plate and then stolen part of my stuff, so this is really about making sure that I get the salad I want out of it.”
Buck nodded. He also knew that Tommy was probably not going to say that he was the one who did it, which would give Buck the points with Sal. “You can leave out the salads, and if you want to help, you can get out the rest of them. There are place cards on the table, and there is an empty spot that we just need to grab another chair for, which you can drag Sal or someone else into helping with. Have them decide where they wanna sit and set the placecards down, then they can have a salad.”
Tommy nodded and headed for the living room area after he got all of the salads out of the fridge. The place was small enough that Tommy could have yelled, but Buck was glad that he didn’t. Everyone came in quickly and started to move the placecards around, leaving a place at the head of the table for Buck. Eddie and Ali’s cards were moved around a few times and then settled on either side of Buck. Sal took the place at the end of the table but left Tommy directly across from Buck, if the salad plate was anything to go by. Buck grabbed the dressing bottles and the one little bottle that he had made special for Abigail with a few of the issues that she had with dressings. He had figured out how to make this just how he hoped she would like it. Looking for a copycat recipe for a dressing of a place that didn’t make it anymore was a little hard to do, but he had been able to do so. He set it down in front of her, and she looked at the bottle, then at Buck, then down at the bottle again.
Abigail screamed, and she jumped up from her seat and ran around the table before launching herself at him. Buck caught her barely, and he hugged her tightly. She waited for Buck to start to let go of her before she turned to look at Ariel. “He’s mine tomorrow. Sorry, Derek.”
Derek laughed, and he lifted his bottle of beer and took a sip of it before speaking. “You can have him tomorrow. I’m getting bored with him.”
Buck placed a hand on his heart, and he looked like he was hurt, which just made everyone laugh. Buck settled down in his seat, and he frowned and checked the time. Ali and Eddie should have been back by now, before now, at that, even in LA traffic. He patted his pockets for his phone when the door opened. Eddie looked flushed, and Ali looked a little upset. Buck stood up, but Ali marched over to sit down.
Ali kissed Buck’s cheek. “Sorry. We got caught behind an accident and trapped because by the time that we realized that it wasn’t a red light that was causing the backup, we were in a place where we couldn’t just turn around to go elsewhere. The cops arrived and got it all cleared and able to get traffic going again, and then put a road block sign to stop people from coming around.”
“Beer,” Eddie said as he set a bottle down in front of Tommy and then took the rest to the kitchen and put them in the fridge on the shelf where the rest of the beer was. Then he came back over and sat down in his chair across from Ali and at Buck’s side, with Ariel on his other side. “We are doing courses?”
“Not really, I just thought that this was a good start, and then we can have these plates cleared, and by then the rest of it will be done. That will be done with people in line going around the island to get it. I’m not dipping up all of your food. There is more salad if someone wants more, but I’ll get it.”
“Ah, the secretive dessert,” Derek said with a grin.
Buck glared at him. “You peeked.”
“Maybe.”
“That was an option?” Sal asked.
“I guess it was,” Buck said.
The conversation flowed around, and Buck realized only when people were finishing up their food that Eddie was quieter than he had been before. Buck tried to get him into the flow of the conversation, but there was nothing there. Eddie had times when he was so sick that Buck just left him as he was. Buck was looking at who was still eating the salad when he felt a foot touch his. He thought for a few seconds it was Ali, but then he realized it was Eddie. He tapped Eddie’s foot back, and it disappeared. Buck knew that the table was a little cramped, but he didn’t need Eddie playing footsie with him.
The rest of the meal was pretty good, and people were more than willing to go up and get seconds of parts that they wanted. There was more than enough, and Buck was going to take whatever was left to work the next day for people to eat. He was glad that he had paid for the double oven to be put in there. The other oven had been taken out, and it had been pretty old, so Buck didn’t need to replace the other oven; the management company would. It was noted in the lease. The hole where it was had been temporarily turned into extra space, and they used it for things that didn’t need to have a door over them and didn’t mind being exposed to light. The stove had already been apart from the oven, and a convection stove at that, which Buck was in love with, and the oven made for the perfect place to settle things that they weren’t using at the moment, since the top didn’t really get that hot. The oven was well-made, and Buck hoped that it would last him a long time.
“How are you feeling?” Derek asked when he came over to where Buck was dipping up a little bit extra of the casserole.
“What about?” Buck asked because he didn’t want to have to be an idiot and talk about the wrong thing.
“The rest of your old team and their dropping of you as they did. I mean, I get why Eddie came with you in it all, and I think that Sal is trying to figure out how to poach him to make you happy.”
“Nah, he just heard how well we worked together and wants to get that for this station.”
“Hmm, it could be that. I know that Ariel is thinking of taking the paramedic stuff so that when she’s pregnant, she can still work that job and not have to worry too much about the physical aspects and being put on light duty too soon. So, I guess that we would need someone else in there, and Eddie can do the paramedic stuff, right?”
“Yeah, he’s been working on things to be able to do it in the field when needed as much as he can, but things are tight with his son and everything. I’m shocked they are bending over backwards to allow it to be honest. Not that I don’t feel like Eddie deserves it.”
“Eh, they want that Army knowledge. I heard him talking to Tommy briefly about it. They had different experiences in the Army, but they still felt like they got more than they gave, which is rare.”
“Listening in on them, are you?”
“Eh, the conversation that Sal was having with Ariel wasn’t anything close to what I wanted to listen to, so I listened around for other things.”
“The party is going well, right?”
“Yes, it’s going good. Don’t worry about it. I think that it’ll go well more than just tonight as well, a few others from the station, and you’ll have friends who are good for you and not connected to the station.”
“How are they not connected to the station?” Buck asked.
“We can push things apart. Fight about a call and then go out for drinks and shed the work stuff. There is no reason to act like big assholes on things like that, to be honest. There is no reason for a lot of shit that seems to have gone on there. I think it might have been the place you needed to be at first, but you outgrew what they allowed you to do. I’ve seen you do things and then look like you were afraid you were going to get yelled at for doing what you needed to do.”
“Yeah, I realized during the whole thing with the union that I wasn’t allowed to grow up.” Buck started just to eat the casserole where he was, staring at the table.
Eddie was finally settling in and talking to someone who wasn’t him or Ali. It was going to be interesting to see how Eddie did with the larger team if he came with him to something.
“So, what sports do you like?”
“Ugh, not football. I like playing it, but I can’t watch it. I like watching basketball but hate playing it. I can watch soccer and hockey, but the rest of them, I just pass on them.”
“Interesting. I’m going to have to dig into that more. We do a few pickup sports with people from other stations, and a few other stations, people we see a lot on calls. Basketball is nowhere near the rotation, but the rest of them are there. If you wanna learn how to play them, you are more than welcome. We get Sal out there sometimes, and Tommy even.”
“Eddie has a pickup basketball game, but he tries to drag me to it, but I turn him down every single time. I’m good at it, but I just don’t like it.”
“You are a weird one, Buckley. I like it.” Derek wrapped his arm around Buck and pulled him back to the table, where most everyone was done eating and was just enjoying talking.
The dinner had gone well, and Buck looked forward to showing off the meringue pie that he made with the meringue shaped a little like a fire with little graham cracker buildings all through it. He was proud of it and couldn’t wait to show it off.
He would have to do this more because it was going to be a lot of fun and something he had never once thought about doing with the 118. After all, he could just see how they would all react. Bella would get used to the people over and either venture out or stay in the bedroom.
Life was getting better, slowly, but it was getting there.
—
Buck looked at his phone at the message from Ali. She was supposed to have flown out that morning for something, but she had ended up going to the doctor instead, and Buck had tried to take the morning off to take her because she looked like shit, but she had pushed him off and said that she wanted to go alone, which Buck respected. She knew that he would be there for her, and that was all that mattered.
Ali: We need to talk when you get home from work. I’ll be leaving for the work trip this afternoon, though.
Buck wasn’t sure what was going on, but she wasn’t sick enough to have to stay out of work, which was good. Buck had heard her throwing up yesterday morning, and then there was the whole thing where she was dizzy a lot. She had only thrown up that morning, and so he had assumed she caught a stomach bug. He had made sure that he didn’t touch their food, offering to step back just to be safe from breathing on the food. Derek had even gotten his food for him so that he wasn’t near any of it. He still felt good. Better than good.
Buck: Are you okay?
Ali: I stopped and got the medications that the doctor said I need. I’m not in poor health, and it’ll be just a few things to change in my diet, and I’ll be fine. Don’t worry, but this needs a larger conversation that is needed when you are not at work. Which is why I texted you this morning after you said you were offline until the shift change.
Buck knew that Ali didn’t like to tell him things that could upset him when he was working. When she had gotten hurt at work while out of town, falling down the stairs and spraining her arm, she hadn’t told him until he was home and settled in for their morning call. He reported that because there were too many guys who got stuff and were expected just to work afterward, or being told when on a call had been the worst of it. Ali respected his job, which was good. Buck tried to respect her as much as he could, which he thought he did pretty well.
“You okay?” Abigail asked as she sat down.
“Yeah, Ali’s been having a few small things going on, and it seems that the doctor figured out what was wrong with her, and there is medication and changes. She’s staying in town to talk to me, and then it seems like she’s leaving after that. So whatever is wrong with her is manageable. I’m glad.”
“You don’t think cancer, right?”
“No, it’s nothing that extreme. She’s been having issues with some foods lately, and I was thinking of a slowly developed allergy.”
“I understand that one. I have stuff that used to make me sick that doesn’t, and new things that do. My body hates me a lot of times. Hey, so speaking of my body. You sent me that recipe and I looked at it and went…nope. Not even. So how about I pay for the stuff for it, and you can make it?”
“Yeah, I can do that. It was a little tricky, but I can easily make you a bottle every month if you want.”
“Good. Good. So, there is a tournament going on upstairs on Mario Kart, let’s go have some fun.”
Buck looked at his phone and thought about how it was going to be hard to focus on anything else, and at least with the game, he would get sucked in. They had all done what was needed for the handoff, and they were still there because none of them wanted to go to sleep only to wake up in two hours to go home. They had been out most of the night, which was why they were offline, but if the city went to hell, like the whole earthquake, they could be there to help do what they could.
The trip home was fraught with many emotions. Buck wanted to make sure that Ali had the support that she needed to get better, to handle whatever this change was. Buck would do whatever she needed to because she had done the same with him when it had been he who needed the help. He loved her, and he would do anything for her.
When Buck let himself in, he found that the lights were out, the sun was shining and coming in through the curtains, so Buck didn’t need to worry about tripping on anything. The large windows allowed for a lot of natural light.
Ali was sitting at the island, a few papers in front of her. There was even a picture of some kind. It wasn’t that big, so Buck figured that it was something from a scan. He laid his bag down and kicked off his shoes. The thump of those shoes on the floor was what had Ali looking at him.
“Hey,” Buck said.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ali said.
“We can do it together. I’ll support whatever you need. Whatever you want.”
Ali scooted the picture over.
Buck headed over for her, and he stopped when he realized that he knew that type of picture. It was an ultrasound of a belly. He almost said that she had to be joking, but there was a small mass on there, baby-shaped. He sat down on the stool beside her.
“The size and the whole thing put it back to that day that you were approved to go back to work. That you were happy about going to see the 122, and your thoughts that you were going to fit in there. We fucked a lot that day, and I took my pills. I hadn’t been on antibiotics, wasn’t a moment late. It’s just…really shitty thing it seems to be fucking all day without a condom when there was some kind of issue with the birth control I was on. I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you want to keep it?” Buck asked.
“I do, but I’m afraid that we aren’t there. I mean, it’s not even been a year, Buck.”
“But we love each other, and that’s all that matters. We can do this. Unless you don’t want a kid with me.”
“I never thought that I wanted kids at all, to be honest. that I would maybe get married one day, and we could figure that out, but when I looked at that image on the ultrasound machine, that was all I could think about. About how much I wanted this. How much I want this baby.”
“Then that’s what we are going to do. This place is good for a baby, and we can figure out what we want after the lease is up. It’s going to be a while before we get a second because I’m not doing a toddler and a newborn at the same time.”
“I want to get married after the baby is born. I don’t care about the whole wedlock thing, but I want to be pretty, and I want to feel good about my body. I want a wedding that is exactly what I want, and that is going to take time.”
“So you want to get married too?”
“I do. I want to get it all with you. I want to be happy and in love. Married with a baby. We can have them carried down the aisle and be the flower girl or the ring bearer. I’m sure that we can find a kid who will do the other.”
Buck stared at Ali, and he thought about what he wanted, about how he wanted to have it all and be happy and in love. He never thought that he would have it after Abby left.
“I’m in this forever,” Buck said.
Chapter Five
Buck looked at the time, and then he looked around the room. The bed was off to the side, and they weren’t sure what to do with it. It had been good when Buck had been injured. Ali slept there in the nights when every movement in the bed had Buck’s leg throbbing with pain. Then they had set up working out stuff in there to help Buck get ready to head back to work. The workout stuff could be settled into the living room because it was stuff that Buck could move around to use with ease. It wasn’t anything near what was at the station, which was close enough to him now that he could easily just head there and get rid of all of it. He wasn’t making that choice right now because with the changes coming, he might want something at the house to help him.
They were having a baby.
Buck loved the idea of having a kid. He had been excited, more excited than Ali when she told him. They assumed that the birth control failed for a reason that was unknown. The doctor had gotten the lot number and everything from Ali to make sure that it was reported in case it was something to do with that lot and everything. There was a chance that something happened with the batch when it was made, but it was unknown when that could be figured out, because not everyone just used birth control not to have kids.
Now there was no reason to worry about anything because it wasn’t like Ali could get more pregnant from being fucked raw again. Still, Ali was taking the changes in stride. Buck was ready, working out that he was going to take the longest paternity leave that he could when the baby was born. Ali was going to take what was needed for her body before she went back to work. She loved their kid already, but Buck knew that she was not going to be the mother who hovered. She would love the kid and would do anything for the kid, but right now, she was freaked out at the changes that were going to be happening to her body.
Every single day, Buck told her that she could make the choice to abort, and he would be fine. They were nowhere near the limit yet. So far, Ali wasn’t regretting everything. Buck worried that the day would come when she did, and it was going to be a point where the resentment would fester because she couldn’t abort legally anymore. Or after the kid was born. Buck was already working a little on what might happen if she didn’t want anything to do with the baby.
The bedroom was as empty as they were going to get it with the adult-sized stuff off to the side, and the rest of the room was blank. Buck was going to be working on painting it. He had already gotten approval to do a different color, something softer that would be more baby-like than the shade of white that was on the wall. He had sticker decorations that could be put on the wall as well to make it more kid-like, but not have too much to have to paint over when the time came for them to move out of there.
Buck headed over to the dresser, and he opened the drawer. They had already talked about getting married, but Buck hadn’t proposed or anything like it yet. He had a plan, and he was going to wait a little bit longer, but until then, he had hidden the ring in the dresser in the baby’s room because Ali wasn’t going to be getting in there for anything. She didn’t need to. Buck was the one nesting more than her.
The ring of his phone had Buck looking at who it was. It was Eddie.
“Hey, Eds, what’s up?” Buck asked after answering.
“I was coming over to hang out. Chris is out playing with other kids on the street and is going to have dinner there. So I wanted out of the house. You are painting today, right? I can help with that or keep Bella happy.”
“Um, sure. That sounds great. Yeah, I have the stuff moved around for right now. The bed is a little too big to put in the middle and be able to work around it, so I figured that I was going to get the rest of the room except for that wall, and then move things around to where that stuff’s near a wall that is done, and then I could get that wall all in one go. Bella is shut up in the main bedroom. She’s not that happy but I set up a window thing for her so she can stare outside.”
“Sounds good. Yeah, I remember getting that bed in there. I’m not taking it apart and putting it back together again. It sucked the first time.”
Buck snorted because it had. It had taken Eddie, Hen, and Chim to get that thing together because the instructions on it sucked and it didn’t like to stay together. Buck helped by reading the directions, and while that part had gone well, the instructions just sucked. It had help, and he had moved around to show the diagrams as needed to whoever was doing what part.
“What are you eating for lunch?”
“I’ve got stuff here for a salad. There is enough for you, and I made some chicken and grilled some corn for dinner last night that will go good with it. I got the corn off the cob last night before putting it into the fridge.”
“Oh, that one salad you brought that one time into work?”
“Yeah, something like it. I don’t have all the stuff for it. If you wanna grab some green onions and that dressing you like, it’ll make it go even better.”
“Sure, and I’ll pick up more of my beer as well, as there wasn’t much of it left the other night.”
“Sounds good. I have all of the tools needed, and I was going to work on getting them out of what was needed and then work on washing the walls. You can come in and help with the rest of it once that is done.”
“See you soon.” Eddie hung up instead of saying goodbye, and Buck rolled his eyes.
There was a clingingness to Eddie, and Buck wasn’t sure it was all to do with the fact that Buck was thriving at the 122 under everyone there. His new captain and her replacement, Sal, was going well. Buck didn’t hang out with Sal much outside of work that much, but he did with the rest of his team. They weren’t as close as Buck had gotten with Chim, Hen, Eddie, and Bobby, but they were good enough that Buck would call them if he needed something.
Buck worked on the drop cloth that he was using to make sure that no paint got on the floors, then he got the tools all ready, then he got the paint cans out of the living room. Then came washing the walls and letting them air dry enough so that the primer could go on with ease. The paint was a little older in the room, the only room that hadn’t been painted after the last tenant left. They had used the room for storage and hadn’t done anything to the walls, which worked out well except for the age of the paint on the walls.
Eddie let himself in with the new key that Ali had talked Buck into giving him again because Eddie was his friend, and when the baby came around, it was going to be easier for Eddie to let himself in than to have to get up or have Eddie knock and wake up the baby.
Buck smiled at Eddie when he peeked into the room. He had a bag of stuff, and it looked like more than just what Buck asked him to get and the beer. There were chips and a few other things, which were fine because Eddie liked to snack when he was working; it was like his stomach liked staying with a little food inside for it when he was doing work.
“I’ll put the cold stuff up, then join you. I still have that one outfit here, right?”
“Yes, I have your moving clothes,” Buck said. They had gotten shoved into Buck’s dresser and left there and forgotten about. Buck found them on occasion when he was putting up clothes but never got them out to give back to Eddie.
“Good. I’ll paint in these clothes, and if I need to change, I’ll change into those to go home.” Eddie popped his head out of the door, and then he headed deeper into the apartment.
Ali was out of town right now and had to make sure this was done so that the smell would be gone before she got back. He got the safest paint, but he didn’t trust that shit. There was no reason to risk it when he could do it before she got back.
The light purple was going to be so pretty on the walls. It was a light purple, but a darker shade of it, so that it was going to be easy to match with so much stuff. Buck was already working on the registry for when it was more known that they were pregnant. Eddie knew, and a couple of Ali’s friends knew as well. Ali had told her boss, and they were working with HR to make sure that when it came time for her to not fly anymore, she could still do the job she needed to do. Timing-wise, it sucked, but Ali’s company was more than willing to work with her. They were very much in the whole family business. People who were working for their family stayed longer because they put down roots, so taking care of them was something that they did, which was good. Her instance was also really good for pregnancies. So they didn’t need to worry about that. Once the baby was born, Buck was going to take the claim as the primary insurance, and then when they got married, Buck’s was going to be the main, with the secondary being Ali’s, just to make sure that they were covered to hell and back, given their budding family.
“This room is bigger than I thought it was,” Eddie said as he came into the room with two beers. He had one for Buck, then he looked around for a place to set it. “Where?”
“Over there on the dresser. Far enough away that we aren’t going to drink any paint and close enough to grab when we want.”
“Good. Good. So, what color did you decide on? I didn’t see much difference in the video call that you did with me and Chris that one time.”
“None of them. Ali decided she wanted purple, so purple is what we are going to do.” Buck picked up the sample that they had gotten and used it to test it on the lighting in the room and everything. Then he waved at the wall that he had cleaned before testing samples. There was a large swath of the exact color on the wall.
“Oh, that’s pretty. That’s going to be good for a boy or a girl. Good choice.”
“Thanks. She decided that green wasn’t the color she wanted, and she didn’t want yellow at all, so we went with purple. The color of royalty.”
Eddie laughed, and he slapped Buck’s back before heading over to set his beer down, and then he crouched to check the cans of paint. “Well, we have a fun day ahead of us.”
“Thanks for coming over to help. I would have done it alone.”
“Yeah, but why do it alone?” Eddie asked.
Buck couldn’t agree more.
—
Pulling at his shirt collar, Buck waited for the full hand-off to happen, and then he just hung around to make sure that he caught Ellie and Sal. He was going right after the shift to meet Ali to see about the sex of the baby. He was excited to know if he had a daughter or a son coming. He was going to be happy no matter what, but he wanted to start to get things for the baby to make sure that they knew they were loved.
Buck knew that his childhood was going to rear its ugly head at him when it came to making sure that his kid was good. He just wanted to be a good parent. He was going to love them, and they were never going to question if he loved them, unlike his own childhood. He was already working in therapy to make sure that he wasn’t going to fuck up his kid with too much love. Doctor Copeland had already figured out someone else for Buck to go to if he felt he needed someone who was more geared toward parents instead of the fucked up childhoods that people had.
“You look like you are going to quit,” Sal said as he approached behind Buck without making a noise.
“No, nothing like that. I just…I need to inform Ellie about something, and if it was going to be tough to do it to both of you when things were calm, which never happened, so now I hope you both have time for me.”
“Go ahead and wait in the office. Once we are done shit-talking the horrible way that this station was handed over to us from C-shift to B-shift, we will head in there. Go pace there and not where people are going to think that something horrible is going to happen.” Sal shoved Buck toward the office area of the station. There were three offices back there, one that was for the captain’s use, one that was used for when people needed a quiet space to work on shit when horrible stuff happened, and a third was used for storage. There had been an idea that each captain would have their own office, but that had been dropped because no one liked it. Too many issues when something was needed from another shift’s reports, and the like. There were locked drawers that only each captain could get into, and the like, but the computer and everything else were shared.
Buck did as Sal ordered him to do; he paced, but he did it in the little hallway, not inside the office, where he felt like he was going to knock shit off if he did. He was more worried about Sal telling him that he was insane for wanting to do this, to get married to her and everything, but Buck loved Ali. They were a good team. She had already been through the worst with him, and they had come out stronger on the other side. So, Buck had felt like it was going to be just fine. They were going to make it through. There was more than enough shit that could still come, but the baby was the least of it.
“Buckley,” Ellie said as she came into view as Buck turned.
Buck stopped in his tracks, and he looked at her, smiling.
“Well, at least that smile makes me think that this is nothing too horrible. Sal’s getting us all to something to drink and, then we will settle in, sit your ass down, and bounce your leg instead of pacing.”
Buck did as he was told. He settled into the chair, and he wasn’t sure what to do next. He figured that things were going to be stressful until he got the words out.
Sal came in a few minutes later, with tea for Buck and coffee for the other two. Buck sniffed the tea and found it was the blend that he had tried once at Sal’s place when he had gone there for lunch so that Gina and the kids could meet him. Sal liked to make sure that his family knew how he worked it to make sure that if shit went down, they knew who to go to. Sal was overprepared in some ways, but he had seen a lot of shit in his time in the LAFD and before that.
“So, what’s got your panties in a twist?” Sal asked.
“My girlfriend is pregnant. We are going today to figure out the sex. For now, we are not getting married. Ali wants to be a vision in her dress. So we are going to wait until a little while after the baby is born to get married, the baby will be going on my insurance as soon as they are born, and then Ali will join me on mine when we get married, using her insurance as secondary because there is a good tier on hers that allows for that.”
“You have a lot of this planned out already,” Ellie said.
“I’m good at making lists, Cap.”
Ellie snorted as Sal broke out into laughter.
“Thank you for telling us,” Ellie said when she was done laughing. She sat up a little bit, and then she looked at him. “And you are good with this?”
“Excuse me?”
“You aren’t having any doubts about being a father?”
“No, none at all. I mean, beyond the normal ones, when you have a shitty childhood, and you are hoping that you never put your own child through anything like that. I’m still seeing Doctor Copeland, we’ve discussed a few times about a therapist in her practice that would be good if I need someone who is more geared to a parent raising a child after an abusive home growing up.”
“And your home was abusive?” Ellie asked.
“Not in a way that would have been classified as that back then, and is only recently being seen that way. It was emotional, and it was neglect. They only paid attention to me when I was hurt, and I realized that at a young age and reacted that way. I learned how to manage that after I got out of there, but I am honestly not sure that they ever wanted me. My sister is close to a decade older than I am.”
“Ah, so you were an oops baby that was not gotten rid of, probably because of societal pressure. Or means.”
“Means wasn’t an issue, to be honest. They could have, but I always assumed they didn’t because word would have gotten around. HIPAA wasn’t really something to fear back then, and Hershey is small enough.”
“Hershey is considered small?” Sal asked.
“Under 15,000 even now, to be honest, and closer to 10,000 when I was growing up, so yeah. Small enough that one nurse saying that my mother got pills to abort or something like it would have caused issues.”
“I guess that I never realized that it was that small, and yeah, I could see that being an issue. Okay. Well, let us know when you are making appointments, and we can make sure that we have coverage.”
“Nah, Ali is making sure that all of them are on my days off, but I might not be taking too many extra days. We’ve worked on getting our finances more merged, and while our savings accounts are all still separate, our joint account will be getting a lot of work over the next few weeks as we prepare for the baby.”
“We have a tradition of a small shower here. One big gift that you give us a few options, and it’s early before the big shower. You and Ali would be here with the rest of our families, not an all-women shower like it is normal, but changing in this day and age.”
“You guys don’t have to do that,” Buck said. He didn’t need anything from them. Yeah, the ones he was close to, but not the rest of them.
“It’s a tradition that was set up before I became captain,” Ellie said.
Buck was shocked by that.
“There was a guy here who didn’t have a lot of family, and his only friends were the ones he worked with, and it kind of started with him about twenty years ago,” Ellie said.
“That’s interesting. I will do it if it’s that kind of tradition, but I don’t need one big thing.”
“Let us do it. You pick what the options are, and we will get what you want, unless we think you are being stupid,” Sal said.
“Okay. I’ll talk to Ali about it, and we will figure out a day after a shift, that’s what I assume it will be, right?”
“Yeah, and whatever shift is working after us will get cake and the like, food if we do that, and they will usually chip in for some kind of cash gift from all of the shift to not look like assholes. It’s usually not much at all, but it’s the thought that matters, right?” Ellie asked.
Buck nodded. He hadn’t thought about them wanting to do anything like that for him. He hadn’t known anyone at the 118 who had gotten pregnant or whose wife had gotten pregnant in the time he had been there. He had no idea what Bobby and they did for them, if they did anything.
“I’ll see what days have the most of us on it and go from there,” Sal said.
Buck wasn’t sure what was going to come of this, but he was looking forward to seeing what the party was like for the station.
There was so much that was changing, and Buck missed the people who had been in his life before, but he wasn’t sure what the future held for him. He was going to make sure that he was happy.
—
The apartment was empty beyond Bella, just Buck, because Ali was out with a friend. Ali had offered to let him come, but Buck had been so busy with so many things that he just wanted a nice evening at home; that didn’t mean that Ali had to stay home. She had already cut off alcohol and was happy to make sure that she was doing what she could to take care of the life growing inside of her.
Buck stepped out onto the balcony, and he looked at where he wanted to sit and decided on the chair where he could lie down. He did and looked up at the sky. There were not many stars that were visible in the night sky, which was something that he missed from his days wandering around the country and down to Peru. He had gotten to see a lot of night skies that had so many stars in them. He was going to have to take his kid out to see the stars, a stretch of land with no other lights that could block what nature had to offer when it came to the view from above.
The sounds of the city made Buck happy. He was content just to settle there. The sounds of life as it moved on. He pulled out his phone when it went off, and he was shocked to see that it was Bobby. Bobby had texted him.
Buck wasn’t sure he wanted to read it, but he rolled to his side to settle, and he opened it up.
Bobby: I’m sorry.
Bobby was still typing something else because Buck could see the dots as they pulsed to tell him that Bobby was typing. He would wait for it.
Bobby: Athena has made me talk things out with someone, not a therapist but someone else I trust, and I realize that I thought you were on a path to go back to work too soon and be in pain, turning to pills and then alcohol. Which is not fair because you have never once taken more pills than you need, which I know means nothing really. I talked with Maddie and Chim. Chim was not happy about how I was acting when it came to you. I’m not sure that Chim will ever tell you that he’s sorry. I’m not sure that he will ever be sorry for how he acted.
Buck stared at the words on the screen. He knew that Maddie had been talking to Bobby about things. He told her that she could tell him anything. She was still on the outskirts of that because of Chim, but she was thinking of ending that because Chim was acting like Buck still working was the worst thing in the world. It wasn’t because it was what Buck needed to do.
His phone sounded again, and Buck unlocked it and looked at what Bobby sent.
Bobby: I’m sorry for how I acted and how I didn’t talk to you. I’m sorry for getting you benched the way that I did. It wasn’t right of me at all. It’s been pressed upon me that benching you like that wasn’t going to work out well because of what being on light duty, a desk duty, would do when it came to the clots.
Buck knew that Bobby was typing more, but maybe this was better said over the phone. He wasn’t ready for in-person yet because he was still too hurt by what Bobby did. If it hadn’t been for Ali, Buck wasn’t sure what would have come of all of it. Buck popped out of his texts, and he brought up his phone app. He hit the button to call Bobby because he was still in his phone as one of his emergency contacts, because no matter what, Bobby would come running for him.
“Buck,” Bobby said in place of a normal greeting.
“Bobby. I thought maybe a call would be better, but I doubted you would call me.”
“No, I thought that text was better. You could deal with my messages at your own pace. Where are you?”
“At home. Ali’s out with a friend tonight. She’s…she’s pregnant, Bobby. We were careful, but they think it was a birth control failure, and we didn’t always use condoms because she’s so crazy about taking her pill right on time and eating nothing that would interfere with it. The doctors took note of what lot number she was on when she got pregnant. So, that is where we are. She wants to get married afterward. I’ve found a ring, and I’m going to propose soon.”
“A baby.”
“We aren’t sure yet of the sex, but we will find out soon. The baby is being contrary, which Ali blames on me. They were turned so that we couldn’t see the first time that we tried to see, but we will be trying again in a few days.”
Bobby laughed, and there was a touch of sadness to it, and something about him being about to cry.
“I miss you,” Buck said.
“I miss you too. I miss you so much. I’m so sorry. I know I’ve said that I…did everything wrong and it cost me you in the worst way. Ellie keeps me up to date with what you are doing and how you are doing. She said that you were getting along with other firefighters there. Eddie’s doing okay with the guy we have floating in until I can get a new probie from the academy. I have my eye on someone from there. He would be a good partner for Eddie. Eddie refuses to talk about you at work.”
“I’ve asked him not to unless someone asks how I am. I’m not angry anymore, I’m hurt. I just…I lost everyone over not wanting to be stopped from my job. A job I’m damned good at, and have never worked hurt before. I take the time to get well, and then I come back. Even when I got that cut that one time that needed stitches, I did everything. I’m pissed that you thought so little of me. Or I was, now I’m just hurt.” Buck rolled to his back again, and he looked up into the sky.
“You are going to be a father, so you will feel some sympathy for what I went through, but I did handle it wrong. I’ll work on that for the rest of my life because I do want you in my life, Buck. I don’t like that you are at another station, but I think that maybe it’s for the best. I want to see about meeting up and us doing something soon. If you want.”
“I want,” Buck said. He closed his eyes, and he thought about the things he had been denying himself for a while—a grandfather for his kid who wasn’t his father. Because Philip Buckley sucked as a father, there was no way that he was letting them get their hands on his kid ever. Ali agreed.
Laid up, Buck had spent a long time talking to her about his childhood, how he was never enough. How no one ever picked him. How the 118 and then here were the ones to pick him and stay. Only the 118 hadn’t hadn’t, had they? Just Eddie. Maybe things could be fixed with Bobby, and maybe they couldn’t, but he would have to find out.
“Nothing at my place or your place. Public where we can talk about things, really talk about things. I’ve spent my whole life trying to make myself into someone who is good enough to have people stay. Ali stayed, and Eddie stayed. They chose me because of me, at the core of who I am. You will have to learn to accept me for who I am.”
“I can do that. We can start over with more intention. I don’t want to lose you in my life.”
“I love you,” Buck said.
Bobby started to cry, and Buck wished that he could give him a hug. There was a sound of something and then new breathing.
“Buck, Bobby’s going to call you tomorrow. I know that whatever you said, you didn’t mean to hurt him, but I think that it broke the last bit of him that was holding back,” Athena said.
“Okay, I’m good all day tomorrow. I’m on the same shift as I was at the 118.”
“Have a good night,” Athena said, and then the phone went dead.
Buck looked at the phone and then up at the stars again. He thought about how maybe, just maybe, his life was finally, truly looking up. How might he be able to actually be happy and have people around him who wanted to be around him? Who loved him for who he was, and it all started with Ali sticking by him and not letting him go when she got scared when he got hurt.
There was going to be a family around Buck and Ali when they had their kid, a big family that would make it good. Make life worth living.
Buck was looking forward to it.
