#userbuckleyhans

He can feel how the whole kitchen stills around him. How Buck is barely breathing.

"I don't-"

"Buck!" It falls from his lips with an unmistakable hurt that has been begging to spill over for weeks.

He finally turns around and faces him.

"Do you remember that call my first year on the job, the woman on the highway overpass?"

Buck looks puzzled for a moment and something finally crosses his face.

"See me, Buck. See me. I been here this whole time. And I thought I had to wait for you. That maybe you would never see me, and I would live my life watching you be happy from the sidelines, holding back because you would build something else. And I was doing it for you, and i thought I could do it for the rest of my life. But then you died, and I have to be selfish. Because I need you to see me see you. Not just for your experiences, not just for your job. I see you for who you are. For every piece of you, even the parts you try to hide. I see them. I know them. And I love them. See me Buck."

He runs a hand down his face, looking at the fridge, seeing if he can make out the chicken scratch notes on the Durand calendar.

"Frank said I should be more honest and not hide my true feelings. So, it hurt, I have tried so many ways to get you to see me quietly, and then you knew her for two hours over coffee and said that she saw you. It hurt. I have been right here," he finally looks up at Buck.

"I never want to hurt you Eddie. I-- I am so sorry." His voice is brittle and sincere.

"I know you didn't. And I know you are."

"'Cause you see me."

When the cough has subsided Buck looks up at Eddie with wide wet blue eyes, he looks five years younger, as he grasps Eddie’s arm,

“I- I still have my leg right?” the tears start to bead the unasked question embedded in it the look in his eye, “I haven’t dared to look. it still feels like it’s there but-“

“Hey, baby, no” Eddie swallows past the mistake, “scarred to hell and back but your leg is right where you saw it last. Okay? Christopher is going to be so excited to draw on your cast, and be your crutch buddy.” he smiles wetly running a hand through Buck’s curls.

“Eddie?”

“Hmm?”

“When can I hold the babies again? I don't want to be away too long.”

“Buck,”

“They'll forget me!”

“They’ll never forget you- okay? You are too important, even if they don’t remember your name, or what you look like- the love you give them? It’s integral, it changes who they grow up to be fundamentally. They can’t forget you.” Buck just stares at him, pleading, as if it’s not just about the babies. It's about him. Which Eddie supposes it is.

“I'll check with Miranda and your doctor and we’ll come up with a plan so all of you can be safe, oaky?”

Buck nods, and winces.

“It hurts.”

“I know. I'll get your nurse to get you some pain relief. and get some sleep okay? I’ll be back when my shift is over.” He runs his hand through Buck’s curls one more time and resists the urge to place a kiss on his forehead.

He leans in the doorway, watching Maddie fret over Buck who rolls his eyes every time she tries to fluff his pillow. and Buck spots him and shoots him a playful “save me” look so he lurches forward and enters the room properly.

He gives Maddie a tight hug and tells her to go get some coffee or even go home for a few minutes. She worries at her lip slightly before turning to Buck for permission. He shoos her off with a smile.

It's quiet for a minute. Eddie taps his foot.

“So, did you mean to call me baby earlier today?” Buck shatters the silence and Eddie nearly falls out of his chair.

“wh-what? I- you remember that?”

“Yeah I do? and I'm asking if you meant it.”

“I just, it just sorta slipped out cause you were so upset. It was a reflex.” Eddie swallows past the omission. It was a reflex because I care about you. because I think I might just be a little bit in love with you.

“Oh. Okay." Eddie thinks he imagines the hurt and disappointment.

Seconds tick by. Buck seems to be studying the cheap bland generic painting that hangs opposite Eddie.

“So, I talked to Miranda,” Buck turns his head towards him, finally, “she said as soon as you are cleared for a wheelchair and of any infection you can come by- as long as your doctor signs off on it.”

Buck smiles, really smiles, for the first time in what feels like days.

“How are they doing? I miss them.”

“There is only so much I can say, but they are all doing really well. Celia went home.”

Buck grins widely.

And Eddie finds that there are tears welling in the corners of his eyes.

Buck grabs his hand and squeezes it tight.

“Hey.”

“You scared me. You’re not allowed to do that again. I can’t- I know it’s not your fault some kid wanted revenge. But you scared me. And I thought I would have to face Christopher again-“

“Hey, hey, hey- I'm right here. I can't make promises. But for right now, I'm not going anywhere.”

Buck is sitting on the couch, like he always is these days. Sometimes Chris will come over either with Eddie or Carla so he’s not alone and isolated in the apartment when he doesn’t have PT. Hearing that it would be a month or two before he could go back to holding babies in his free time had hit him hard. Especially while he was also not working. He barely felt like a person anymore without those things.

And for the first time in the two weeks since he was discharged and settled back at home- he and Eddie's schedules line up so that Eddie isn’t working and he doesn't have PT. Eddie had been telling him that he has an idea that will keep him occupied while he can't come into the hospital like usual. Buck was skeptical but curious.

Eddie walks in, sans Christopher since he has a playdate with Denny and Harry, and sets a Trader Joe’s tote on the couch next to him. Soft skeins of yarn are poking out of the bag along with a few knitting needles.

“How is it that we have slept in the same bed, and yet I am still learning new things about you?” Eddie looks at him, the glasses that Buck had found out about the first late night spent at the Diaz house unexpectedly, resting on his nose. His eyes are calm as he just shrugs lightly and sits cross legged on the couch next to Buck.

Buck no longer has any attention to pay toward the soft sitcom playing on the tv as Eddie picks up what has to be a tiny hat, placing it in his lap and clicking the needles together, he isn’t even really looking, his eyes on the tv, only looking down occasionally while he adjusts the tension of the working yarn.

“You knit!” It's a kind and exciting observation.

“I knit for babies,” Eddie deadpans, letting his hands rest.

“You say that like it makes it less endearing and heartwarming.”

“Yeah, well, it started as a coping mechanism for the PTSD induced insomnia and just spiraled from there. I mostly knit for…” he pauses as a look passes over his face, “for the ones we can’t help.”

Buck grabs Eddie's knee, grounding him back down to the present.

“It helps to know they have something cozy.”

“You really are something Eddie Diaz. I hope you know that, deep down, you are so” he pauses as he gets Eddie to look at him, “You are good.”

Eddie looks at him with shining wide honey whiskey eyes, “no one has ever told me that before? It’s been implied, and Frank has told me so much in the therapy way- But god, hearing it from you? It-” Eddie swallows, “I just, I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“You don’t have to, as long as you believe it. Believe it for me.”

Eddie bites his lips and nods, and it's quiet for a moment.

“So, you teaching me to knit or what?” Buck says brightly to pull it back into their usual rhythm of banter.

Eddie leaves the apartment, leaving a ball of yarn and a set of needles for Buck.

Buck sends him a text the second he’s out of his eyeline.

“Maddie, we wanted to come down and apologize,” her father begins. And it only douses more gasoline.

“For what? For everything? Never loving your children. Leaving me when I needed my parents to save me?” her phone begins to ring, “Not seeing what was in front of your faces. I wanted to die for 30 years, I almost took my own life last year and you never entered my mind as something to come back for.”

Her phone is incessant. She finally picks it up, “Chimney, I am in the middle of something so this-”

“Maddie, it’s Buck,” she hears the fear in his voice. It’s an echo of Bobby’s last year, “it’s bad. You need to get here fast.”

HEr entire body shakes,

“He was struck by lightning while up on the ladder.”

“Oh god, Buck.”

Her parents raise their heads watching their daughter with scrutiny.

“I’ll get there.”

She hangs up with a shaky finger.

“I, I need to go. I don’t know if I can-”

“We’ll drive you,” her father replies softly.

---

“Your son is in that hospital, dying.” Maddie breaks the drive long silence as she opens the car door her mother still stares blankly forward. Her father gulps but says nothing. She gathers Jee in her arms.

“You can leave her with us.” Margaret says.

“No. If this is her last chance to be with her uncle I am not taking that away from her.” She slams the car door.

She holds her daughter tight to her chest as she walks through the doors. Her legs are still a bit shaky and her eyes trying not to cry too preemptively.

She finds Chimney's eyes immediately in the waiting room. They hold the question with baited breath. And she shakes her head. “It's just the two of us.” she says quietly.

She finds home in his arms for a moment.

“What happened?” she begs, “Why was he up there?”

Chimney clears his throat, “he was finishing up the call, and it started raining and before he could get down the lightning struck him,” Chimney swallows and eyes Eddie who’s sitting with his hands twisted in his lap. “He was hanging, and Eddie, Eddie, went up to get him. But he was up there for a few minutes before we got him down. Maddie, he died up there. We got him back, but he was dead. I thought for a second that Ii was going to have to tell you— that I—“

“Can I see him yet?”

“They’re still getting him set up in a room. Should be soon though,"Bobby replies.

She lets Chimney take Jee completely as she makes her way across the waiting room to Eddie. worry etched deep in his eyes.

“Eddie,” she takes his fidgety hand in her shaky one, “thank you.”

He finally looks at her, lip between his teeth.

“I haven't saved him yet.”

“You gave him one hell of a chance.”

“Maddie,” she hears Chimney say with a new sort of worry in his voice. She looks up and sees her parents standing there, faces still blank.

“No. No you do not get to change your mind. You don’t get to come in here because you know you’ll be judged if you don’t and that is the thing you fear the most isn’t it? Why you hid everything from him? Why we moved. So no, you don’t get to come here for yourselves. To feel better about giving up on him three times. Because you don’t get to start caring now. You are thirty years too late. Fuck you and get out.”

They don’t move.

“This. This is what you will be judged for. It's even worse than if you had just driven off back to Pennsylvania when your son died out there. And you are standing in front of the people who saved him. Brought him back to this world, who put their own lives at risk for his. So shame on you for trying now. You don’t get to anymore. Leave.”

They still don’t move, defiant looks on their faces.

And she glances at Bobby whose face is stoic and focused. He moves between them and her standing to his full height. As she crumbles into Chimney's arms again.

“She told you to get out.” His voice is calm and stoic, laced with anger.

Athena comes back from gathering some coffee and snacks and reads the situation carefully and stands next to her husband raising an eyebrow.

“You heard them. Would you like a police escort?”

They quickly turn on their heels not having said a word in their defense or redemption.

The minutes tick by slowly until a nurse comes and tells them he’s ready for visitors and Maddie takes Jee in her arms and makes her way back, Chimney following close behind.

He looks so vulnerable. Small even.

“Buck! Uncle Buck!” Jee gleefully shouts as she sees him in the bed.

“He's sleeping, baby, be gentle.”

“Uncle Buck sleeping?” Jee says gentler this time and nods, “Good night. Sleep tight. Sweet dreams. I love you. See you in the morning sunshine.” she repeats their nightly chorus softly patting her small hand on his big one.

Chimney takes Jee again and Maddie takes her brother's hand on hers, stroking his knuckles.

Eddie's calling Buck. Which isn’t something that was terribly unusual. It’s just that Buck knows that Eddie’s supposed to be in the last few hours of a shift, and Eddie only texts during his break. 

He picks up and there’s a brief second of silence- he’s not entirely sure what to say. 

“Please tell me you saved a cute cat from a tree today or something,” Eddie sounds on the verge of tears. It’s a tone of voice Buck recognizes instantly. The nearly hysterical edge is sharper than an arrow. He’s heard it before from Maddie and even himself. And it makes something ache in his chest, he wants to fix everything that made Eddie feel that way. 

“Eddie-“ 

“Please Buck, I can't talk about it yet.” Buck had never heard Eddie like this before. And it sounded strange coming from him. He was usually just quiet. 

“That's okay. You don’t have to. I- I’m just worried about you. You’re not alone are you?” 

“I am,” he sounds almost scared to admit it.  

“Okay I’m coming over.” 

Buck takes a breath as he finds his keys and slips on his shoes, “So today, Chimney, who is like completely head over heels for Maddie by the way even if he can’t see it, please do tease her about it, tried to make Cap’s famous mac and cheese. We ended up having to order pizza. And we did actually rescue a cat from a tree today, and he was indeed cute. Orange tabby, named Teddy. All that was missing from my day was a dalmatian.” 

Buck hears a watery laugh through the tinny speakers that suddenly dissolves into tears. 

“I hate it when we don’t win.” Eddie sobs, air desperately trying to find its way in. 

“I know. You’re always gonna have me though. To catch you.” Because there were always going to be lost battles. “For as long as I am breathing or as long as you’ll let me, I'll catch you.” It feels heavy and like too much of a promise for a new blossoming friendship. But it was the truth. It felt like something was tying itself around his heart at that moment. 

Buck bites his lip and adjusts his grip on the steering wheel as he turns onto Eddie's street. 

“The doors unlocked.” Eddie says after a moment. 

He finds Eddie slumped against the wall near the bathroom. Still in his scrubs. Knees bent in front of him. 

“I've been doing this for years. They told us in the classes. This isn’t the first time. But,” 

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter. You’re human Eddie. It's okay. Now, let’s get you out of these scrubs you’ve been wearing for what I'm guessing is entirely too long.” Eddie nods as he offers his hands, “okay, up!” 

Eddie takes them and is willingly hauled up to standing. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly and he turns and walks toward what Buck assumes to be his bedroom. 

Buck leans in the doorway as Eddie digs through drawers finding a clean shirt and sweatpants. 

“Do you want me to stay?” he asks gently. Eddie freezes and looks up at him biting his lip. 

“…do you want to?” 

“I was thinking about ordering Thai, Chim and Maddie are doing their “not date” thing tonight so-“ 

“You don’t want to be alone either huh?” Eddie smiles weakly. 

“Guess not. You want some Pad Thai?” 

“Sure” Eddie nods, “that sounds… good.” 

“Good. I’ll just, um, go order in the living room while you-“ 

Eddie nods again and Buck backs away from the door. 

He orders the food pretty quickly and then takes stock of the photos that line the mantle. His eyes lock on one of Eddie and a young boy, they have the same smile spread across their faces, the boy has glasses. Then Buck notices that he’s in almost every photo. And then there’s the one of a young brunette woman, she’s smiling at the beach, the sun making her hair glow just a little. There's a candle underneath the picture and a pair of rings next to it. And Buck can’t breathe. 

“That's Shannon.” Eddie says from behind him. 

Buck jumps as he turns looking wide eyed. 

“Sorry I didn’t mean to-“ 

“Nah, it’s okay,” he replies as Eddie takes a few steps to come up closer to the mantle.

“She is Christopher's mother.” 

Buck's eyes drift to a photo of Shannon and the young boy, “and um Christopher, he’s my son.” Every word is weighted with an unspoken understanding.

“Oh” 

“Does that-“

“Oh, God no! I love kids- he is adorable!” 

“She uh, she died a little less than a year ago. When I said I wasn't ready- it’s because of her. I loved her in all the ways I could but we- she wanted a divorce just before she died. Screwed me up for a while. Then I figured out the whole, um gay thing. And that screwed with me in a whole new way. Honestly still working through all that. But I really like you. And that’s why I'm telling you all this. Cause it’s important and if you can’t deal with all th-“ 

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence Eddie Diaz. I said I'll catch you, and I meant it. Baggage and all. And I'll get ya back one of these days. I have some kinda batshit baggage too.” 

Eddie smiles a little. And Buck feels like he won an award. 

They naturally end up on the couch and Eddie turns on the tv. 

The food is delivered and they eat in silence, a chenille blanket pooled around their waists. 

Eddie twirls his noodles with the chopsticks, “I’ll catch you too you know, anytime you need it.” 

Buck nods, one side of his mouth quirked up.

Yeah, he won the lottery. 

He's standing outside the nursery, mirroring the first time he visited. He's drinking coffee, this time another cup in his hand that he dutifully hands to Eddie before either of them say a word. 

“Thank god for you,” Eddie sighs around the first gulp, and Buck smirks. 

“I know you don’t have long, but I just wanted to swing by. Check in.” After last shift. 

Eddie bites the corner of his bottom lip, “We’re doing okay. I- I’m, I wanted to ask you about something?” 

Buck sips his coffee with an expectant look. 

“So, I totally get it if your schedule is too busy or you just-“ 

“What is it Eddie?” 

“We have this program, where people come in and hold the babies that are either wards of the state or their parents aren’t able to for whatever reason. It helps them. It’s mostly older ladies and people who’ve lost theirs or even almost did. Nicest people I know to be honest. And I guess I was wondering if you wanted to- I just think you would be really good at it.” He takes a sip of coffee turning to the window. 

“Oh. you think I-“ there’s a disbelief in his voice he doesn’t remember conjuring. 

“Yeah I do.” 

“I didn't know it was an option. I- I think I would really like that. I’ve read some stuff about skin to skin contact and stuff and how important that can be for development.” 

“You wouldn't have to- that’s not why I-“ 

“I know,” Buck smiles shyly, “I'll think about it.” 

Later that evening he taps out a text; 

To: eddie 🩺 how do i sign up? is there a link somewhere? 

He immediately receives a text in return