Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“My son. He’s seven,” said Eddie, and showed Buck a picture. 

The kid’s smile was wider than his face, and Eddie’s hand was almost big enough to spread across his entire shoulders. He had a pair of stylish red crutches cupped around his forearms. Eddie’s smile was so much different than any expression the 118 crew had been able to evoke yet. He looked peaceful in the photo. Standing next to his son in the sunlight.

“And, uh, super adorable,” said Buck, because he was, and Eddie clearly knew it from the way his eyes grew softer just from talking about him. He handed Eddie’s phone back and wiped his palm on his thigh. “I, uh. I love kids.”

“I love this one,” Eddie said. His knuckles were tight around his phone as he shoved it back into his pocket.

Buck nodded once, then twice. He turned his face to look out the window of the rig. There was destruction everywhere from the earthquake. Debris covered the sidewalks like sand on a beach. The rig turned with a sharp yank of the wheel. Bobby was as stressed as anyone else, except maybe Eddie.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Buck told Eddie. Eddie made a sound in the back of his throat. He was maybe agreeing with Buck. Buck bit his lip and kept his eyes on a wobbling light pole until it passed out of his sight, and then they were at the hotel, which was hunched over, as if it was tired. As if it needed to put its head in between its knees and take a deep, long breath.

Buck knew the feeling.

***

When Buck first started at the 118, he actually hadn’t expected anything.

He knew that Bobby would disagree. He’d say that Buck was needy, and clingy, and demanded attention beyond a normal workplace. Or, he wouldn’t say it like that exactly—he’d phrase it nicely, because he’s from Minnesota and Midwestern manners were as ingrained as him as his sense of duty.

He’d say, “Buck made sure we all felt at home at the one-eighteen, and he helped us all become family.” He’s said it before—at dinners, at Buck’s shield ceremony. It’s a kind way to put it. Buck also knew how other people would look at him, how they would see him, and they weren’t really wrong to think badly of him. He’s made plenty of mistakes in his life.

But when he started at the 118, he quickly realized how much he wanted it—the job, just at first. The job was enough. He knew he’d liked the Academy, but actually getting out there, actually helping people, seemed to change something in his chest. It rearranged his ribs to fit more comfortably around his heart.

So he’d been quiet, at first. He listened to Bobby, and to Chim and Hen, because they were older than him and seasoned in the field. He rolled up hoses and cleaned axes and spent his shifts as Man Behind doing inventories, wiping down counters, making lists of things he would tell Maddie if he could.

He kept his sex life entirely private. He kept everything private, really. Mostly just—listened, and followed orders. Spoke about the weather and running in the park, if someone asked what his weekend was like. He’d been talkative in the Academy, but out on the job, on the field— all he wanted to do was the dangerous work, the good work, and that want pulsed more brightly for him than anything else, so he quieted down everything else to balance it out.

It was Chim that changed things. Buck had always wondered if he knew that, if he’d ever regretted it. He turned from a robot to a puppy dog. Like, a really horny puppy dog, Chim had told Hen a few weeks after Buck started opening up. There was a note of something in his voice—humor, maybe. Annoyed, probably.

What Chimney had done was this: 

It was the morning before shift, and Buck had arrived a little early. Enough to beat everyone except Bobby, and he was nearly through changing into his uniform when Chimney walked into the locker room. Buck had lowered his head down, biting his lip as he slid the last button through the buttonhole, and Chimney had groaned loudly, dropped his duffel on the floor next to his locker, and said, “Okay, that’s enough. We gotta have a talk, Buckley.”

Buck’s head shot up. When he turned to Chim, he was already sitting on one of the benches, gesturing aggressively for Buck to take the seat next to him. Buck sat down cautiously. “Did I do something?”

“No,” Chim said. “That’s absolutely the problem here.”

Buck scrunched his nose. “Usually it’s the other way around, man.”

Chim gestured aggressively at him. Buck leaned back a bit as he said, “You’re like a pod person! A very helpful pod person, don’t get me wrong, but talking to you is like talking to, like—a sentient tea towel, sometimes.”

Buck blinked. “What, do I talk about doing dishes too much or something?”

“Wh—dishes?!” Chimney’s eyes grew wide with confusion. Well, good. Buck was also very confused.

“What else would a sentient tea towel talk about?” Buck pointed out, and Chimney huffed.

“That is not the point,” said Chimney. “Look, just— talk to me. Tell me about what you like to do, or, like, what your childhood was like. Which Power Ranger was your favorite or whatever. If we’re gonna work together, I’d actually like to know a bit about you, and I know I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

Buck bit his lip. “Again, uh, it’s usually the other way around.”

Chimney looked confused yet again. “What’s the other way around?”

“Just—I talk,” said Buck. “A lot. I’m—I just. I really like this job, is all.”

The tension around Chimney’s mouth softened. He watched Buck for a moment, and then said, “We like talking, here at the one-eighteen. It’s not—seriously, Cap was asking me the other day how to get through to you, and I realized I didn’t know. And I don’t like not knowing. I want to know.”

Buck exhaled and stared at his lap. He tried to twitch his mouth into a smile, but he didn’t quite get there. 

Chimney pushed his knee into Buck’s. “So. Childhood. Go, hit me with the deep Buckley trauma. We gotta bond, man.”

Buck shut his eyes. He turned his chin up to the ceiling. He felt the fluorescent lights try and shine through the skin of his eyelids.

There’s a tightness in Chimney’s voice when he says, “Or, uh, if you don’t really want to talk about that, then—”

“I liked the black Power Ranger,” Buck said. He turned to look at Chimney. The smile came a bit easier to him. “But, uh, I was actually way more interested in football growing up. Never missed a game.”

Chimney tilted his head. “Football?”

“Go Eagles,” Buck confirmed, and Chimney’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Oh—I, uh, I grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Ergo, Eagles.”

“Hershey, huh?” Chimney said, and Buck couldn’t help the way his back tensed. The way his hands wrapped around each other. “I hear the air tastes like sugar over there.”

“That’s a marketing scam,” Buck said, and what he meant was: Please don’t ask anything else about it. Please, please, please. I can’t talk about it.

“I used to be somewhat of a marketer myself,” said Chimney, snapping his fingers. “I came up with this idea years ago—blankets with sleeves, you know? And—”

“You mean a Snuggie?” Buck asked, squinting and tilting his head.

“It was before Snuggies, and no one gave me the funding for it!” Chimney whined. As in, genuinely whined. There was an undeniably plaintive edge to his voice.

“You’re ridiculous,” said Buck, and then had to suppress any sort of reaction. He knew he shouldn’t have said that. He wasn’t stupid.

Even still, Chimney only laughed. “Maybe a little,” he said easily. Like it was easy to say at all. “Hen makes fun of me all the time.”

Buck nodded. He shifted his jaw back and forth.

Chimney nudged Buck’s knee with his leg again. “So what’d you do this weekend? For real this time.”

Buck thought about it. “I, uh. I went to some bars. Did some…”

Even with trailing off, Chimney got the gist. He laughed again, jostled Buck’s shoulder this time.

“Should’ve known,” said Chim. “LAFD, young, tall? You must do well for yourself.”

It was true. If anything, it was the pull of the job in the first place, before Buck realized how much he wanted it. “Something like that,” he said.

Chimney smiled. “Well, don’t hold out on me now, buddy. I wanna hear your best tricks. I have practicing to do.”

Buck scrunched his nose, but—the way Chimney looked at him. 

With interest. Like he had something that Chimney wanted.

Buck pretended to check his watch. “Well, I don’t know how much time we have…”

“Oh my god, we have a twenty-four hour shift, you asshole,” Chimney groaned, and Buck couldn’t help grinning.

This was something he knew. Something he could control. Something that someone else wanted to know more about.

It was one of the few things he could do.

“Okay, fine, fine,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender as Chimney kept watching him, his attention unwavering. “So, uh. Her name was Heidi…”

***

Eddie’s car didn’t start outside the station.

Buck nearly didn’t notice—it’d been one of the longest shifts of his career, and he was still thinking of the terrible man in his bathrobe, begging for help against a cracked window, as if he ever had a chance in hell and Buck had thought he did. He had thought they would honestly be able to save him, and then he plummeted hundreds of feet, his blood a strange fan against his back on the pavement. 

Right as his key is churning in the ignition, that was when he noticed Eddie’s beat-up truck—the way it coughs as Eddie curses behind the wheel. He’d parked closer to the station than Buck had—only a row or two.

Buck backed out of his parking space slowly, then looped around until he was right in front of the hood of the truck. He rolled down his window and nodded at him. “Need a jump?”

Eddie stared at him for a moment, then twisted his mouth into a new shape. “Probably a whole new car, actually.”

“That’s for another day,” Buck decided. “Come on. I have jumper cables in the back, I can help you out.” 

He shut off the Jeep’s ignition and started to open the driver-side door when Eddie shook his head and said, “No, it’s—it’s been doing this, I changed the battery last week, I think I need to just suck it up and take it in someplace. If the light was better I’d take a look right now, but—Chris is waiting on me, I think…” 

Eddie scrubbed a hand through his hair and then sighed. There was still dirt and blood underneath his fingernails from the hotel. He’d been in and out of the showers, practically buzzing with the need to get to his son. 

“I think I’d better just call an Uber,” Eddie said. He nodded to himself. Bathed only in the light of streetlamps, the shadows underneath his eyes were pronounced and deep. He patted the hood of his truck. “I don’t want to keep Chris waiting, and it’s probably not safe to drive this thing right now.”

He looked up at Buck, as if only just now remembering that Buck was in front of him. “Thanks for the offer, anyway.”

Buck just shook his head at him. “Eddie. Don’t be stupid. Get in the car.”

Eddie stared at him. “What?”

Buck leaned over and popped open the passenger door. “Get in. Your Uber has arrived.”

Eddie bit his lip. “You don’t—you don’t even know where I live, or where Chris’s school is. It could be really out of the way.”

“Luckily for you, I don’t actually charge by the mile,” said Buck.

Eddie didn’t move. Buck sighed. “Look, I know we started off on the wrong foot, but I do actually have your back, now. I wasn’t kidding about that. Let me help you out, here. It’s not like I have anywhere to be, and it’s seriously the least I can do.”

Eddie blinked, but thankfully— finally —moved. He grabbed his duffel bag out of the truck and grabbed the door of the Jeep. “The least you can do for what, though? I haven’t—I haven’t helped you out like this, this is—I mean, I really appreciate it, man, but it’s unnecessary.”

Buck shrugged. “I hear I’m about to get introduced to the coolest Diaz,” he said as Eddie buckled himself in. “That seems like it deserves something in exchange. So consider us even.”

Eddie’s quiet for a moment, and Buck glanced over at him, suddenly nervous that he’d said something wrong. Was it strange to praise a kid you’d never met? He just wanted Eddie to not feel like he owed Buck something, because he really didn’t. Eddie just really wanted to get his kid, and Buck just wanted to help out with that.

But when Eddie looked at Buck, he was smiling. Seeming the slightest bit less tired.

“You’re weird, Buckley,” he said, and leaned over to punch in the address of Christopher’s school into the Jeep’s GPS system.

***

When Buck started at the 118, Hen was the only one on A-shift with a kid.

Or at least, she was the only one who was open about it. Johnson was pretty tight-lipped but had mentioned getting back to a family more than once, and the way that Bobby interacted with some of the young kids on a scene—well, it made Buck wonder.

But Hen would talk about Denny all the time.

She’d show pictures of his first day at kindergarten. She’d talk about the way he loved Hen’s wife, how he wanted to be just like his mom and grow up to be a rocket scientist. She’d show them the drawings he made of his family, of spaceships, and she’d Facetime Karen and Denny every night she worked so she wouldn’t miss bedtime with him.

She was a good mother. A really good mother.

And it just—it made Buck think, sometimes, is all. On the nights he was really tired. When they’d come back from a tough scene, Hen called Karen just to hear the voices of her family. It made him think.

Hen noticed it, too.

She approached him after his shift, one day. It was after Chimney had cracked Buck open a little bit—now, he was known for being a party animal. A bit of a dumbass who was reckless on calls, but mostly harmless. Buck didn’t mind people thinking of him that way. It sure beat the other ways people had thought of him back in Hershey.

Buck had just finished changing out of his uniform, and he was checking his texts—Connor had said something about a tailgate for a UCLA game, but Buck didn’t care about college football per se. He mostly wanted to just go home and get some sleep.

They’d lost a little girl today. She was maybe seven or eight. Big blue eyes and curly dark hair. Buck knew he didn’t know the little girl. She was too young, and her parents were right there with her. But.

It made him feel shaky, is all. Losing kids was never easy.

Hen sat down next to Buck on the bench outside the locker room, just as he was shutting his phone off and getting the strength to get up and walk out to the parking lot.

“Hard shift today,” she said carefully, and Buck looked at her sideways, then nodded. 

At the time, he’d found her—intimidating. That impression never really went away (because Hen was intimidating), but it was especially strong during his probationary year.

“I couldn’t help but notice how tense you were,” she said. She was speaking softly. In her paramedic voice. Trying to triage a panicking victim. “With the girl, and—and sometimes I see it, when I talk about Denny, too.”

“Oh,” said Buck. “I don’t—I don’t mean to be.”

She nodded. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I can stop.”

Buck scrunched his nose and turned to look at her more directly. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if you’re not comfortable around kids, or talking about kids, then I can stop bringing Denny up so much,” she said. She was looking at her hands. She didn’t like what she was saying.

“Hen,” Buck said. “I love kids, I really do.”

She looked back up at him and blinked. “Then why…?”

“I’ve got some things going on,” Buck said, and then cringed at himself, because he could have said anything else, seriously Buck? Since when did “some things going on” become a valid excuse for anything? It was basically a blinking neon sign that Buck was lying.

Even though he wasn’t. The things were just—past things. Almost-ten-years-ago things.

Hen, however, just nodded carefully. She was watching him. She gently put her hand on his knee. 

“There’s more than one way to have a kid, Buck,” she said gently. Her voice was clear. She thought she’d figured him out.

Buck rewound the past ten seconds in his head, and couldn’t quite control the way his face flushed. Hen’s grip on his knee tightened just a bit, and then relaxed.

She thought he was infertile. She thought he wanted children and was diagnosed as infertile, and she was trying to comfort him.

Buck cleared his throat. He stood up and looked down at Hen still sitting on the bench.

“Um,” he said, and then said, “Thanks, Hen. I, uh, I appreciate it.”

“Anytime,” she said. “You know we’re all really glad you joined the one-eighteen, right, Buck?”

Buck nodded. He rubbed at the skin of his wrists, and then said, “Um. I didn’t mean to—it’s just. It’s wonderful, how much you love your son. And I’m always happy to hear about it, and I’m sorry if it seemed like it wasn’t.”

She smiled at him. “That means a lot to me, Buck. I’m sorry if it ever brought up bad memories or feelings for you.”

Buck shook his head. “Don’t apologize. It’s really not your fault,” he said, and he meant it. It really wasn’t Hen’s fault at all.

***

Christopher had the same exact smile as Eddie.

Buck hadn’t noticed from the photos earlier, but now, in-person, seeing Eddie beam with his arm wrapped around Christopher—it was undeniable. Same nose, and same smile, and Buck tried to ignore how his heart started stumbling over itself in his chest.

He watched Eddie help Christopher down the last few steps from the school, then pop open one of the Jeep’s rear doors. He gestured for Christopher’s crutches and folded them up easily to fit in the footwell. They were well-practiced at this kind of choreography, it seemed. Christopher was in the Jeep and buckled up behind Buck within a minute of leaving the school.

Eddie hopped into the passenger seat again and then nodded at Buck. “This is my coworker, Buck? The one I was telling you about.”

“You’re the one who insists on going up on the ropes all the time,” Christopher said. His voice was gentle, breathy. He had to really think about each word he said. Buck waited a beat after Christopher finished, just to make sure he didn’t interrupt, and then he said, “Yeah, I guess I am. I can only imagine what your dad says about me.”

He cut a look over at Eddie, who had the audacity to just smile and shrug.

“He says you’re brave but you’re gonna send everyone at the fire station into an early grave,” Christopher said. It came easier to him this time. Probably because he was reciting Eddie’s exact words.

Buck snorted when Eddie just shrugged again, and put his car into drive. He slowly pulled away from the street curb, conscious that he was now carting around a seven-year-old child.

It turned out that Christopher was an inquisitive kid. He peppered Buck with questions as he followed the GPS route to Eddie’s place. Christopher wanted to know Buck’s favorite color (red), his favorite superhero (Captain America), his favorite animal (dog), if he had any siblings (yes, a sister), his favorite food (Bobby’s mushroom risotto, but he told Christopher it was pizza), whether he thought dogs knew they were dogs (maybe…?), and if he’d always wanted to be a firefighter (no, but he couldn’t imagine doing anything else now). 

By the time he pulled up to Eddie’s place—a lovely little ranch house—his throat was dry from talking so much, and he was pretty certain he loved Christopher.

It was the way he asked his questions—the little blue hints of shyness in his voice, the way he laughed through some of his questions, the way he looked at Eddie every so often, as if to check it was okay that he kept going. And Eddie—god, Eddie just smiled the whole way through. Called Christopher mijo every so often and Christopher would beam every single time, hands instinctively stretching out like he wanted to grab Eddie, like he had no doubt that Eddie would hold him if he did.

Eventually, he started to ask about their shift today, and after looking over at Eddie, they started on a PG-version of what happened. Christopher was rapt, gasping at Buck’s story of the elevator almost crashing down on him and Ali (“It wasn’t that close, Buck’s an exaggerator,” Eddie assured Christopher, like a liar). 

But right as Buck was parking in Eddie’s driveway, Christopher gasped. “I forgot to ask you something, Buck!”

Buck tamped down on his laugh. Eddie was less successful, but Christopher didn’t seem to mind it. “Buck’s really tired, mijo , and I know you are, too. So am I, honestly,” said Eddie. “Why don’t we save it for the next time we see Buck, hm?”

Buck tried not to take too much stock in that. But. He did want to see Christopher again, and if Eddie thought he would. 

It was just nice, was all.

Christopher was shaking his head, even as he started to unbuckle his seatbelt. “It’s important, ” he said.

Buck turned around in his seat. Christopher seemed to have trouble making eye contact, but he was gazing off to the side of Buck’s face intently. “What is it, bud?”

“Do you have kids?” Christopher asked, and Buck lost his breath momentarily. 

He blinked, and Christopher was still looking at him. Eddie too, for that matter.

It’s just—no one’s ever asked him that, before. No one ever thought to, and.

It just caught him off guard.

Buck sucked in a deep breath and said, “No, I—I guess I don’t, buddy. Why do you ask?”

Eddie tilted his head at him. Buck couldn’t bring himself to meet Eddie’s eyes.

Christopher, for his part, didn’t seem to notice Buck’s hesitation. “I just thought if you did, then you could come over with your kids and hang out,” he said. “I think Dad’s lonely here, sometimes.”

“Chris,” Eddie said, shaking his head as he finally started climbing out of Buck’s Jeep. To Buck, he said, “Sorry, he’s been trying to set me up with friends all week. The PTA bake sale was kinda awkward. I got a recommendation for a therapist by the end of it.”

“Chris,” Buck said seriously. He extended his hand, pinky forward, and said, “I think your dad’s pretty cool. If you want, I’m happy to hang out with him for you.”

Christopher grinned and looped his pinky around Buck’s. “It’s a plan,” he said.

“Good,” Buck said. Eddie finally made his way to Christopher’s side of the car, shaking his head as he unbuckled Christopher and grabbed his crutches and bag from the seat. 

“Can’t believe that you started conspiring with my son twenty minutes into meeting him,” Eddie said, but he couldn’t hide the smile peeking out at the corners of his mouth. Neither could Buck, for that matter.

“Not my fault you’re so lonely that your son noticed it,” Buck said. Eddie tapped Christopher’s back to have him start heading up the path to their house, and then he turned and gave Buck the finger.

“See you at work in two days,” Buck said, and Eddie sighed and said, “Yeah, see you then. Get home safe, okay? Text me when you’re back at Abby’s place.”

Abby. God, Buck hadn’t thought of her all day. Hadn’t even thought to call her and tell her he was okay, but then again—did it matter? Would she have even known there was any danger at all?

Buck bit down on his cheek and backed carefully out of the driveway. He was across town from her place—and it was her place. All of her things. Buck didn’t have much when he moved in. He’s never carried that much with him. Not since high school.

He sucked in a deep breath. Put on some music. Kept his windows rolled down as he drove. 

He almost forgot the strange attention from Eddie, the tension in his shoulders as Buck had answered Christopher’s question about having children. He almost did forget it, until it came on him suddenly, just as he was parking outside Abby’s apartment building, and then he was bending over at his knees, forehead resting on the steering wheel.

But Maddie was inside. And she was waiting on him. So he stood up and went inside and let her hug him for a long time, and pretended that he didn’t really need it, too.

***

Abby was the only one who almost got the full truth from Buck.

She’d had a magnetism to her—a gentle kindness that drew people to her, that made them feel like they were standing in the sun. It’s what made her such a good dispatcher—she cared. She cared to the very bottom of her soul.

Buck had turned it over in his brain more than once. After their disastrous first date. After the full moon, when she’d curled her fingers in his hair and kissed his birthmark. After he’d looked at her, at her thick-rimmed glasses and the way her hair fell in waves around her face, and he’d thought, oh, I love you.

It was like something opened up inside of him. He really wanted to know her—he wanted her to know him. It was a feeling he wasn’t used to.

It was a few days after their six-month anniversary. It was early morning, when Abby had wrapped herself up in a silk robe and was pouring coffee when Buck stumbled into her kitchen. Her mother was still alive, still fast asleep in her hospital bed in the living room.

“Good morning, ” she said with a smile, and kissed him, and Buck smiled back against her lips. 

“Morning,” he said softly, and sat down at the table as she passed him a coffee mug. 

“So I was thinking,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder, “that I don’t have a shift until tonight.”

“Oh, you were thinking that,” Buck teased, and she reached out to hold his hand. Her hand was warm and soft. He hadn’t held hands with anyone since he was a kid. Maddie always held his hand on grocery store runs, through walks in the park. And now he had Abby.

“ No , I do have a shift tonight. I was thinking that you should stick around until I leave for work,” she said, and pulled his hand to her lips so she could press a quick kiss to his knuckles. Buck tried not to blush, and grabbed his coffee mug with his other hand. He lifted it up and took a quick sip, and then another, until he was sure the blush was less pronounced.

“That… sounds like a great idea,” he said, and she beamed at him.

“Yeah?"

“Yeah,” Buck said. “A home day sounds good to me.” 

The picture was coming together for him—a lazy morning on the couch. Maybe they’d order lunch in, and afterward they could bake with Patricia. He really liked Carla, and she deserved a treat when she came in later for her shift. Abby still had cable, which Buck liked to tease her about from time to time, but it meant that they could maybe find a crappy television movie and put it on, and Buck could wrap his arm around her shoulders and hold her until one of them dozed off, and then they’d wake up to the alarm for Abby’s shift and she’d let him kiss her goodbye.

Abby smiled at him again, softer. With an edge to it. She leaned forward and kissed him again, deeper, with more intention. Buck couldn’t help but respond, and he felt her teeth scrape against the inside of his mouth. A telltale sign that she wanted something more.

And usually, the answer would be yes—always yes—but there was something about it. About the early morning light, and how gentle everything was, and how Abby’s mother was just one room over, sleeping quietly, and how it made Buck feel dangerously like he’d walked into a family, like the family was happy to absorb him into it.

And he’d just—not even with Maddie, because Maddie had so much going on all the time, and she loved him, he knew how much she loved him, but—

He’d just never felt so peaceful.

Before he knew it, he was pulling away carefully, hand balanced on Abby’s waist as he took a deep breath. She let him go, but kept her hand on his chest. He took a deep breath and said, “I want to—I mean, I gotta. I should tell you something.”

“Okay,” Abby said. She took a step back and ran a hand through her hair. She smiled at him. She really was beautiful, Buck thought. “What is it, Buck?”

“I… I mean, I just want to tell you, it’s not—not really relevant, if you want to keep going…” He couldn’t help blushing. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d thought to tell her. It was a beautiful morning. They were going to spend the day together, and she was here, with him, and he didn’t want to ruin it.

But Abby said, “No, Buck, if you want to talk about it, then talk to me. That’s what this is, okay?”

“Yeah,” said Buck. “Yeah, you’re right, I just… it happened years ago, it’s nothing now, and we’re. I mean, there’s no reason to—to bring something up, on a morning like this.”

Abby shook her head. She grabbed his hand and gently guided to the kitchen table. When they sat down, she said quietly, “I love you. If you want to tell me something, then I want to hear it, okay?”

“It’s just—it’s hard. To talk about,” Buck said. He scratched at his chin with the hand that wasn’t holding Abby’s. “I don’t even know why I’m bringing it up now.”

She nodded. Her eyes were like sea glass as she looked at him. Her thumb rubbed over the back of his hand, and she said, “Tell me, honey.”

“Okay,” Buck said. His head dropped down to look at the table—the wood grain, shining gently underneath the white lacquer. He traced the nearly-imperceptible pattern with his eyes as he said, “When I was in high school, my football coach. Well. He was a bit of a creep.”

Her hand tightened around his, and he sighed softly. He couldn’t look at her. He knew what she was thinking, and it was right. “Whatever you’re thinking happened. Um, it did.”

He heard her breath hitch. She was trying to be quiet about it, but he could hear it, and he shut his eyes so he wouldn’t see her tears. She cleared her throat and said, “Can you—um, Buck, I need just a moment, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” he said, and he felt her squeeze his hand three times before she stood up and left the room.

Buck pressed his hand into the bridge of his nose. He was in no danger of crying. He hadn’t ever cried about it. He wasn’t a crier, not for this, but he did feel something white-hot pulsing through him. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to crash his car into a pole. He wanted to walk into a fire without his turnouts and feel the heat sear away his skin, until the marrow of his bones was popping and crackling like gasoline.

He took five long, measured breaths. By the time he was on the fifth, Abby had returned. Her eyes were red-rimmed and watery, and she was holding a tissue box like it could be a grenade. She sat down across from him again and said, “I’m sorry. It just—I didn’t expect that, and. It made me really sad for you, Buck.”

Buck bit down on his lip. She reached out and gently pulled his fingers away from the bruising grip around the bridge of his nose. She wrapped her hand in his again, and Buck said, “What do you mean, you’re sad for me? I’m—it’s fine. I don’t even know why…”

“Buck,” Abby said again, and cupped his cheek. He couldn’t help but lean into it. She seemed so earnest, so gentle in the way the windows let in light, and she said, “Have you ever told anyone this?”

Buck sucked in a deep breath. People—his parents—they must know something. Or maybe not, but—and it never came up, anyway. Why would it? It shouldn’t even be a topic of conversation now.

Abby nodded when Buck didn't say anything. She leaned in and kissed his forehead. She smelled like shea butter lotion and coffee and sugar. “Thank you for telling me now, honey. I’m really proud of you.”

Buck shook his head. He felt like he’d accidentally plunged into the deep end of a pool. He felt like he needed to find his way back up to the surface, but he didn’t know how to do that. “That’s not—it’s not what I…”

He trailed off. Abby already looked devastated enough, especially as she tucked her hair behind her ears and said, “Buck. When we first started talking, you. You mentioned you had some problems with intimacy. That you didn’t trust yourself to meet me in person until you were sure you wouldn’t try and have sex with me.”

“Yeah,” Buck said. He shrugged. “It’s different, Abby. That’s just me loving sex a little too much.”

His fingers trace out circles on the table. Abby caught his other hand. She kept both of his hands safe by covering them with hers. 

“Buck,” she said gently, “I’ve seen and heard a lot of things as a dispatcher, okay?”

Buck sighed. Abby shook her head, as if Buck wasn’t understanding her correctly. She squeezed his hands and said, “Have you ever heard of hypersexuality?”

Buck sucked in a deep breath. He let it out slowly. “That’s not what was happening to me. I had a sex addiction, okay, Abby? I had it, and I didn’t want it affecting you, so I backed off for a little bit. That’s all that happened.”

“Buck,” Abby said, “If it really was an addiction, you wouldn’t have been able to kick it so quickly. You would’ve needed to go to a therapist.”

“I did go to a therapist,” Buck said petulantly, and Abby sighed this time. She looked so sad. She had the same expression on her face that she wore when her mother started getting agitated, started refusing care.

“Buck,” said Abby, “Have you—am I the first person you’ve told about this?”

Buck shrugged. It wasn’t like… he hadn’t really meant for it to be a secret. In a way, there was no way for it to be a secret at the time. But nobody asked Buck, so Buck didn’t really say anything. The coach left around the same time that everything had happened, so he didn’t have to worry about seeing him around. At the end of it, Buck had felt off-kilter. Everything just returned to normal, or some semblance of normal, as if his world hadn’t been rocked. As if everything hadn’t changed forever, as if the earth hadn’t turned to sand underneath him for months on end.

“It didn’t seem to matter after it was over,” Buck said, and Abby shook her head. She stood up from her seat and pulled him up, too. Her arms were tight around his waist, and when she pressed her face into his shoulder, he could feel his shirt turning wet with tears. He sighed, and pressed her close to him, brushing his hand through her hair.

“I’m okay,” he said softly. “I really am. I’m sorry for bringing it up at all.”

She shook her head again. He could feel her lips against his chest as she said, “I don’t know, Buck. I’m worried about you.”

Something lanced through him at that—a double-edged thing, sharp with warmth and a shivering, climbing coldness. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had said that to him. He drew her closer, and wished idly that he could press them together until they couldn’t pull apart. 

“I’m fine,” he said, steadier this time, and she nodded this time. She shifted, looking up at him. She moved back so she could push her hair from her face.

“You can tell me anything,” she promised. “I want to hear it. I’m sorry for getting emotional, I just—I do think that you should maybe talk to someone about this.”

“I just did,” Buck teased, and her mouth twisted, caught between a smile and a frown. There was a flutter of nerves in Buck’s throat. He cleared it and wiped his hands against the waistband of his pajama pants. “But, um. I guess there is something else, too—”

“Abby? Abby, where are you?” a voice called from the living room. Patricia was awake.

Abby bit down hard on her lip. Her hands moved up to hold Buck’s wrists. Her grip was tight, almost bruising, before she sighed and relaxed. She said, “Sorry, I—it’s just my mom—we should talk about this more, but…”

Buck just shook his head. He leaned down and pressed a kiss into her hair. “We don’t have to. It’s okay,” he said.

Abby just fixed him with a flat look. “No, we’re not done here, okay Buck?” she asked, and then left to go watch over her mom. Buck sat back down at the kitchen table, shutting his eyes to wait for her.

Patricia needed breakfast, and her medication, and she needed company, and the entire day went to her in the end. That was okay, though. As Bobby said, Buck was stepping into Abby’s life to be with her. He was trying.

They never had the opportunity to talk about what Buck had told her, though. By the time Abby left for Europe, Buck kind of figured she’d forgotten all about it, and maybe it was just as well, anyway. He never managed to tell her the big thing, in the end. It was better, maybe, that he didn’t have to. That she left of her own accord anyway.

It was all fine, Buck thought. It really was.