this thing between us.

He's blunt, perhaps too much so, but he's been on the phone with his parents for longer than he's spent on the phone with his parents maybe ever, and he has this stabbing headache and he still hasn't gotten enough sleep, even though he had the place to himself last night.

Eddie had to pick Buck up from the hospital after he finally got Maddie settled, after she made it clear that dragging her away from Chimney would do more harm than good for both of them. Eddie had to pick Buck up because not only was his car not there, but also by that point his vision was tilting and his level of exhaustion would have made him a drunk driver in all but name.

Buck's insistence on coming back here to where his car is parked and he could pack some of Maddie's things up for her rather than taking the offer of Eddie's couch, however, means that he has to be here. In this place. Blood on the concrete just beyond the door.

"Evan," she says his name in the tone of an admonishment, an old familiar adage on the lips of Margaret Buckley.

"He did. That's what happened. I don't know what you want me to say."

"Don't-- You don't have to be angry," she sounds weepier, now, with a thickness to her voice. "My daughter was almost-- You could be kinder, how you explain it."

"Well, you didn't like when I was being vague," Buck mutters. He's not sure whether they hear him or not, a murmur of their own just barely audible on the other end of the line.

They've always been like that, to a certain extent. The tendency to lean on each other, to rely on each other, even when doing so meant neglecting being there for their children. Buck has never quite been able to wrap his head around it, given the fact that they can be good with kids when they want to be. They're teachers, so it must be something about their kids specifically.

"How did it get this bad?" Margaret pleads. "We knew he wasn't right for her, but to be that violent? To actually hurt her?"

"We couldn't have known," Phillip says, clearly for her benefit, once again, rather than Buck's.

Buck who was the one Maddie came to when she finally got out. Buck who chased her halfway across the state when it all went wrong. Buck who watched Chimney nearly bleed out beneath his hands one minute and held Maddie's own collapsing body in his arms the next.

They couldn't have known? They couldn't have seen it? This is the thing that really breaks him, on the floor of the kitchen so he doesn't have to look at the living room where he found her abandoned phone and wallet, where he realized what had happened, when he recognized that it was coming to pass, the very thing he knew-- the whole damn time-- was the greatest thing to fear.

"You could have," he tells his parents. "You should have. You should have known."

"You blame us?" Margaret, still crying, asks. "We didn't even know she was in California. With you. Our own children, not bothering to keep us in the loop--"

"You took yourself out of the loop!" Buck exclaims, something like bitter laughter coloring his breath. "You cut her off the second she got engaged! I mean, I know-- I-- I know that Doug was a master manipulator. Men like him always are, right? It's the reason I didn't get to talk to my sister for three years. But he didn't even--" another bark of laughter, "have to lift a finger with you two! You took yourselves out of the equation without any interference. He would've killed her. He almost did. She was-- she was bleeding so much--"

"Stop! Stop it," she cries. "Why must you make everything so much-- so much scarier? Why do you have to embellish like that? With the violence of it?"

"Did you think it wasn't violent?" Buck questions in disbelief. "He wouldn't be dead if she hadn't had to protect herself like that. He made it so that only one of them was going to walk away and all that matters is that it was her. How would you prefer I explain that?"

"Oh, oh, I just can't. I can't with you. Not right now. You take bad situations and you make them so big, Evan. You make everything so much bigger than I know how to carry and I just can't-- Phillip will you--"

The fumbling of the receiver, crackling with movement, and their voices are less hushed this time but he can't make out what they're saying all the same. She's walking away, which he should have expected, but his chest clenches with a searing guilt to match that in his head.

They'll never come, now, even if Maddie were to ask. He's ruined it for her, for all of them, because there's no chance that their mother is getting herself together quickly enough to be here and be a support system. That's just not how Margaret Buckley works. She breaks down easily and builds back up with so much effort, so much time.

Give me time, she always begged of him when he got on her nerves and drove her to crawl back into bed in the middle of the day. Give me space, Evan, please.

"I wasn't trying to make it…" he trails off, when he hears Phillip raise the phone to his ear, the noise shifting and changing now that he's no longer on speakerphone. "I just didn't want you guys to find out from-- the news, or something. I thought it would be better coming from me."

Phillip hums out a sound of understanding, or maybe just acknowledgment. The room is spinning again and Buck should go back to sleep. He really shouldn't drive himself to the hospital like he was planning, but maybe Eddie would be willing… if he asked…

"I thought it would be better," he repeats, "coming from me."