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Chimney
Chimney stared out the door of the apparatus bay where Buck had just exited, and Hen had quickly followed him. What the fuck? Buck was in the Navy? Had been all this time? He was working on his Master's degree?
What.
The.
Fuck.
Granted, Chimney knew that Buck wasn’t stupid. The fire academy was called an academy for a reason, after all, and Buck always had a knack for thinking outside the box for strange and unusual rescues. That was all like street smarts though and intuition. Ideas that were so dumb they were smart. They weren’t high level mathematics and multiple degrees in higher education!
Granted once again. Buck loved to read, and he especially loved to read nonfiction. If he was talking he was spouting weird facts and if he was silent he was reading or listening to a podcast or documentary, but a love for facts did not a genius make.
Chimney probably knew more than the average person what it took to get a pilot's license, let alone become a fighter pilot. Between his friendship with Tommy and helping the guy recertify so that he could transfer to Harbor, and his friendship with Karen and Hen and hearing about all the theoretical-ness that goes into making and operating planes, he knew there was a lot of advanced mathematics that the pilots had to do.
Buck didn’t seem like a guy who could do such advanced calculations on the spot, but then again, neither did Tommy.
What the actual FUCK?
Okay list of things Chimney has learned about Buck today:
1.) Buck is in the Navy.
2.) Buck flies planes for the Navy.
3.) Buck is working on his Master’s Degree.
4.) Buck is book smart as well as street smart.
5.) Buck is gone and does not know when he will be back.
Hen came back in at a more sedate pace than she exited. Her eyes are red and wet like…
5.) Buck is gone and does not know if he will be back.
Shit.
5.) Buck is gone, and he may not come back.
Fuck!
The lawsuit stuff was hard enough on Maddie and now…
Shit.
Maddie.
Does she know? She has to know. Right? Subconsciously, he takes out his phone.
Buck is gone.
He doesn’t expect an answer right away. She had a night shift, so she might be out getting brunch with Josh or taking a nap or talking to Buck...
Wait. No.
Buck is gone.
Does Maddie know her brother is gone? Did he break such awful news over text? God, he was such a shitty boyfriend. And friend.
No, Buck said he said all his goodbyes yesterday, so he’s not a shitty boyfriend. Just a shitty friend. Okay well, that made him feel marginally better.
I know.
Hen
Hen did not know how long she had been sitting on the couch processing everything that had happened on her last shift until she heard Karen come in.
“Hey baby, Denny is at the museum lock-in with his science club buddies. Did you have anything planned for dinner?” When she didn’t get an answer from her wife she poked her head into the living room. “Baby?”
“Buck is gone,” Hen said, finally looking up.
“I know,” Karen said, sitting down next to her wife and taking her hand, “He came by yesterday to say goodbye and drop off his wine collection in memory of wine night.”
“It’s just, I’ve known him for three years and I didn’t know he was in the Navy, or that he had any higher education, or… This is the same guy who once went into vivid description of some of his hook-ups and I knew almost nothing of his life before the 118 until Maddie showed up. And now he’s gone, and he may not be back. I may never get to know the real Buck. Is Buck even the real Buck?”
Karen had gotten up during Hen’s spiel and had returned with two glasses of some of the wine Buck had left with her.
“Oh Baby, you do know Buck,” Karen held her hand up before Hen could interrupt her, “Sure you may not know much about his early childhood or his early adulthood, but you do know Buck.”
“Do I though?”
“Let me ask you this, when Buck came by to say goodbye, what was your first thought?”
“I noticed he had his stupid, frat boy smile on. You know the one that’s all cocky and used to make Chim so mad because of how often Buck would get hit on at calls when he flashed his pearly whites. And even though he tried to keep things light-hearted, I could tell this was a serious issue; he admitted as much when I followed him out to the parking lot and needled him a bit.”
“See you know him,” Karen said. Hen huffed into her wine glass. “You may not know much about his past, but you know enough to see beyond his mask and fake confidence, which I think is a far more intimate way of knowing someone.”
“I guess,” Hen pouted.
“Besides,” Karen added, nudging her wife, “I knew about Buck being a naval aviator and his Engineering degree and his work on his Masters in Fire Science, so between the two of us we know the whole Evan Buckley!”
“What do you mean you knew? And you didn’t tell me?”
“Baby, you’ve seen me pull out my white board during wine nights. The real question is, how did you not know?”
Bobby
Bobby had spent the day in a daze. Ever since, Buck had come by and said the lawsuit was over, and he was leaving. He finished out his shift mechanically doing paperwork. His routine of after-shift nap, meal prep, picking up the kids, finishing dinner, clean-up was done robotically and if he was able to fish himself out of his spiraling thoughts, he probably would have spent the day in church.
When their mostly silent dinner was finished, the kids went to their rooms to work on their homework, and Bobby and Athena cleaned up the rest of dinner. Though Bobby was quick to take on most of the cleaning duties after the table had been cleared, leaving Athena to sit at the kitchen bar with a glass of wine and her phone as she studied him.
“Alright Bobby, what’s eating you?” Athena asked, putting her phone down on the counter after sending out a quick text.
“Buck is gone.”
“Mhm, he came by yesterday to say goodbye. He’ll be down on base by now.”
“Athena, he almost died three times in the last year, and now he’s going back to the Navy. Who knows what will happen to him? I- I tried so hard to keep him safe and in doing so ruined my relationship with him, and now he’s gone. If I had just let him come back when he said he was ready, at least then I could keep an eye on him and know when he needs help. Now we might not know until it’s too late, and I never got to tell him how proud of him that I am. That he is such a good and kind-hearted man. I'll never get to tell him that I love him.”
Bobby sniffed and looked up. Athena was typing something out on her phone before she put it back down on the counter. That was strange. They usually tried to stay off their phones when spending time together. It must be something very important.
“Our boy is a survivor. If this year has shown us anything, it's that Buck is a resilient and steadfast man. We just have to trust that he will come home.”
She might have gone on to say more, but May walked by with her nose in her phone.
“May baby, don't you have an essay you should be working on?” Athena asked with an arched brow.
“I cranked it out last night. Given all the crazy that is happening, I figured it would be best to give Buck a few extra days to proofread it, and if he doesn't get it done by the original day we had as our deadline, I'll have Kenzie proofread it in class.”
“All right baby.”
“Buck is proofreading your essay?”
“Uh yeah,” May said, looking at Bobby like he had grown two heads, “Buck always proofreads my essays.”
She then left as quickly as she had come, as if she hadn't completely shattered the spiraling thoughts that Bobby had been unable to pull himself from all day.
Eddie
Eddie sat in the school pick-up line waiting for Chris to get out of school. If things were normal, if the past few months hadn’t been like he was in his own personal tsunami getting tossed this way and that way and hit over the head with another life-changing event, then Buck would be here. He would be here in the driver's seat tapping his figures on the wheel or the consul while telling Eddie about the new museum exhibit that they should go to, or a bunch of random facts from his and Chris’s latest research project.
But that was then.
It hadn’t been like that for a long time.
And Buck was gone.
(Like Shannon)
So who knows if it would ever be like that again.
Eddie wanted to punch something. (He spent the last couple of hours of his shift at the punching bag. It wasn't enough.)
His thoughts were interrupted by the flood of children exiting the building. He got out of the truck and greeted Chris with a hug. He got his kid strapped into the car and then made his way out of the packed school parking lot onto the packed LA streets.
“What do you want for dinner tonight? We have some of Abuela’s enchiladas that we can heat up or there is a frozen lasagna that I can throw in the oven if you'd rather.” He looked in the rearview mirror to see Chris staring sullenly out the window.
“I don’t care.”
“You sure? We can do something else if you’d rather.”
“Can I call Bucky?”
Damn it Buckley.
“Buck is gone Chris he left earlier today.”
“I know. He told me yesterday. I want to make sure he made it safely and tell him all about my day.
His knuckles started to turn white from how hard he was gripping the steering wheel. “You know he may not pick up.”
“I know, but he said he would call me back if he can’t answer and if I call him as soon as we get home, and he doesn’t pick up then that means there’s more time for him to call me back before bedtime.”
“Well, I can’t fault that logic.” Dios. Maybe he could get Pepa to watch Chris overnight; he really needed to hit something.
“Daddy?”
“Yes Mijo?’
“I know right now Buck is leaving like you left, but is he going to leave like Mommy did too?”
Fucking damnit. He couldn't go to a fight tonight. Not if Chris was talking about Shannon, because that would just be nightmare fuel for both of them. Guess he would just do push-ups in the living room until his arms felt like jelly or Chris woke up screaming.
“What did Buck say?”
“He pinky promised that he would always do his best to come back to me.”
“Well you know Buck, he never breaks a pinky promise.”
It still didn’t change the fact that Buck left. That he was gone. But maybe… maybe he would come home.