Chapter Text
July 3rd
“And you’re sure Buck is going to come by this afternoon right?” Bobby asked Eddie for what had to be the tenth time this morning. It was only ten in the morning, their shift only starting two hours earlier, and already Eddie was growing tired of it. All Eddie wanted to do today was spend time with his husband and mate. With their work schedules and today being a Saturday, they hadn’t spent a decent amount of time together outside of work since Wednesday. If Bobby’s idea to hold Buck a baby shower at the Firehouse while he was on shift, he wasn’t going to stop him.
“Yes, Maddie said she would bring him at two,” Eddie answered Bobby’s question.
“Okay,” Bobby nodded at the answer, his face deadly serious as he ran upstairs to do… something in preparation for that afternoon.
Ever since the idea to host Buck’s baby shower came into Bobby’s mind a week ago, it was all he had been thinking about in his free time. At least, that was what Athena was telling Eddie.
Eddie hadn’t been exactly sure what she had meant by that until he had come in this morning. Two boxes of decorations sat on the dining table in the loft, five tupperware containers containing homemade cookies and other pastries, and a pot of Bobby’s famous chili Buck had been craving for the last two weeks.
When Bobby had called Eddie the weekend before to tell him of his plans, Eddie had a lot of questions run through his head. Questions he hadn’t even debated before. And Bobby’s idea of a baby shower seemed to answer all of them.
Eddie wasn’t sure who exactly was supposed to plan a baby shower, and with everything that had been going on in the last couple months, he hadn’t given it thought that he should plan one for his mate. So when Bobby asked if it would be alright to plan and proceed with one, it had felt as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. A weight Eddie didn’t even know he had been bearing.
Although, Eddie was surprised at the speed in which Bobby had planned, put together, and seemed to be carrying out this event. Hadn’t the man only gotten this idea less than a week ago? Eddie knew Buck was getting close to his due date, but it wasn’t like he would be giving birth tomorrow.
They still had about two months left.
Six hours later, Maddie pulled her car into the parking lot with Buck in her passenger seat. The two come walking slowly into the building. With Buck now at the start of his eighth month of pregnancy, his stomach had certainly… gained size considerably, now actually starting to limit the daily tasks he could accomplish.
“Why did we have to come here today?” Buck asked his sister. Today was Saturday, now that he was working the new position, this was a day off for him, even if Eddie was still working.
“Eddie asked me to bring you by,” Maddie said simply.
“He couldn’t ask me to come himself?” Buck asked.
Maddie only smiled at him and continued to motion him along. “Come on,” she said once they were through the bay doors, “Don’t you want to see your husband?”
“Of course I do,” Buck said.
“Buck?” the two Buckleys heard a voice call down from the loft area. They looked up and saw Eddie and Bobby leaning over the railing.
“Eddie!” Buck called back up, his face turning into a giant smile.
“Come on,” Maddie said as she put her hands on his shoulders and led him to the stairs on the side. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“You still haven’t told me why we’re here,” Buck said as he slowly walked up the stairs to the kitchen and common area.
The answer to that question became obvious as Buck crested the top of the stairs to everyone’s shouts of “SURPRISE!”
Buck blinked, a mix of awe and shock as he took everything in. On the kitchen counter was a large spread of food, which wasn’t that out of the ordinary seeing as how it was the middle of the day and the team might have had a call during lunch, but it was a lot more food than normal. There was also a spread of deserts, and Buck knew Bobby only made that many deserts on special occasions.
And besides the food there was a large amount of -were those presents?- wrapped and sitting on one of the tables. Along with a bunch of random assortment of baby-shaped decorations everywhere.
“What’s all this?” Buck asked the crowd of people. A lot more people were here than normal on a shift what with Karen and Denny, Athena, Jee in Chimney’s lap, and of course Christopher. Speaking of which, how did Chris get here?
“Bobby planned a baby shower for you,” Eddie explained.
“You did… all of this Bobby?” Buck asked. He was surprised by everything, all of the food and presents, spread out along the tables.
“Well,” Bobby shrugged his shoulders and waved his arm at the group of people standing in the kitchen. “They helped.”
July 11th
It was a Thursday night, Eddie was working a shift at the Firehouse, Buck was at home with Christopher, and the two were trying to figure out what to eat for dinner.
“How do burgers sound?” Buck asked the teen.
Chris made a face before shaking his head. “I had that for lunch.”
“Okay so not burgers,” Buck hummed as he looked through the kitchen cabinets. They didn’t have much, regrettably. A box of pasta, a couple cereal boxes, a bag of potato chips, a half loaf of bread, a random assortment of spices. This past weekend they had missed doing their regular grocery shopping trip. Both Buck and Eddie had figured it could wait a couple days before going to the store, only to have it further pushed off due to the chaos that was their lives right now.
And now he and Chris were paying the price. A half full pantry and a half full fridge.
Technically they had enough to last the next couple days to the weekend. If it wasn't for the fact that everything they had was only random ingredients that didn’t make up a meal.
“Do you want to go get take-out?” Buck asked.
Chris’s face lit up. “Can we go to Mickey’s?” he asked, referring to the pizza and wing place down the street.
“Sure,” Buck said, pizza sounded fine to him.
Fifteen minutes later, Buck pulled into the parking lot and the two got out of the Jeep. Buck slowly followed after Christopher as the young teen hurried ahead of him. “Come one, Buck!” he yelled as he held the door open and waited for him to follow after him.
After they placed their orders at the service counter, the two made their way to one of the empty tables along the right wall of the restaurant. Half way there Buck felt a strong kick to his side and let out a grunt. That was a strong one, he thought. Eddie will probably be happy to know this kid will probably have inherited his martial arts skills.
Then he felt another, stronger jolt to his side.
Oh! That was… That was more than a kick.
He felt another jolt of … something… hit his side. That was definitely more than a kick, and upon feeling a third Buck grabbed a nearby chair and moved to sit down.
“Buck?” Chris asked, noticing something was wrong. “Are you alright?”
Buck didn’t know the answer to that question. But as he tried to comfortable in the hard plastic chair of the restaurant, trying to rearrange the pressure of whatever caused the weird feeling, whatever expression Buck had on his face must have not been as reassuring as he thought it was, if the increasingly scrunched up eyebrows on Christopher’s face was anything to go by.
“Buck?” Chris repeated his name. “Should I call Dad or something?”
Buck didn’t necessarily want to call Eddie when he was on shift, but with another jolt of pain going through his abdominal area, it was probably the right call. “Yeah,” Buck nodded. “Call him.”
The thing about calling Eddie about a medical emergency while he was on shift was that Bobby was bound to overhear it if Eddie was in the same room at that moment, which being the middle of dinner, everyone was in the same room.
“Did they have to bring the ambulance and use the sirens?” Buck asked as they pulled into the parking lot a mere six minutes after Chris dialed Eddie’s number.
“At least they didn’t bring the firetruck?” Chris asked at the same time that Eddie ran into the restaurant with Buck’s name on his lips.
Early labor, the doctor said. Buck had gone into labor a full ten weeks early. Thankfully, they were able to get him to the hospital fast enough for the doctor’s to be able to stop it, so he could carry the baby further to term, although he had been told that-
“Bed rest,” Buck said, looking down at the doctor’s note they had been given. “I have to be on bed rest for how long?”
“Six weeks,” Eddie said, rubbing Buck’s shoulders. “Six weeks of pure relaxation at home in bed.”
“When have you known me to relax by spending all day in bed?” Buck asked. “Without you getting … playful,” he added.
“At least you’re still allowed to walk to the bathroom?” Eddie offered. “And the couch in the living room?”
July 22nd
Chris let out a triumphant laugh as he beat Buck for the fifth race in a row on the new racing game Buck had bought last week. “Can we go again?” Chris asked. “This time we should do Rainbow Road though.”
“That one?” Buck asked, groaning out loud. “You already beat me on that one,” Buck said. Chris had beaten him big time, lapping him almost twice.
“But that’s my favorite track,” Chris said, turning his pleading eyes to Buck.
“Fine, one more time,” Buck said. “Then we’re picking a new game.”
“Okay, okay,” Chris said between a bout of laughter.
As Chris was setting up the next race, Buck glanced at the clock on the bottom of the television. 12:47 A full three hours had gone by since Chris had come over to play video games with him. Well, Buck thought to himself, maybe it was good that he was at this stage of pregnancy during the hot LA summer. If it was during the school year, Buck would be all alone right not, probably losing his mind.
Sigh. Just how much longer was Buck going to be on bedrest?
“Are you okay, Buck?” Chris asked, hearing Buck sigh despondently.
“Yeah, kid. I’ll be fine so long as you don’t leave me.”
August 6th
“You mean you still haven’t decided on a name?” Chris asked.
“... no?” Buck answered as he swallowed the bite of the sandwich he had currently lodged in the back of his throat.
“But… aren’t you supposed to give birth in less than a month?” Chris asked, turning his head, questioning.
Buck took another bite of his sandwich as he thought over what to say next. “Well… maybe?... What? Do you have any suggestions for names?”
Chris paused, not having given thought to that question before. “What name would I choose?” He repeated the question.
“Yeah,” Buck repeated. “What name would you choose?”
“Let me think on it.”
Three hours later, Christopher slipped a piece of paper onto Buck’s lap. Buck picked it up and looked at it. On it was written a list of eight names. Three girl names and five boys.
“Since neither of you will tell anyone the baby’s gender yet, I gave you options for either,” Christopher said.
“Oh, okay,” Buck said and gave the list a closer look. The names weren’t… terrible. Some were actually pretty good, he thought to himself.
“What do you think?” Chris asked expectantly.
Buck nodded. “I’ll have to talk to your dad, but some of these are pretty good.”
Later that night, after Eddier had gotten home, they’d eaten dinner and Chris went to bed, Buck showed Eddie the list of names Chris made.
“What’s this?” Eddie asked.
“They’re names Chris made for the baby,” Buck explained. “He pointed it out earlier that we only have a month before I give birth, and while we’ve done a lot of prep so far, we haven’t really talked about names.”
“So you asked Chris?” Eddie asked.
“Well, more like he offered,” Buck clarified. “But look at them again, they aren’t all that bad.”
“Really?” Eddie said as he looked at the list and back at Buck. “I don’t think he was serious when he suggested some of these. I mean, I’m not all that into videogames, but isn’t Eevee a pokemon?”
“Oh no,” Buck shook his head. “You weren’t there to see his face, he was plenty serious. And anyway, you’ll be surprised by how popular Eevee is as a name these days. I looked up name statistics after Chris gave me the list and-”
“Okay, Buck,” Eddie gently cut him off before Buck could get carried away. “Lets look at the pther names, we’re not even having a girl.”
August 14th
Buck had finally been taken off bedrest that morning, the doctor deciding that their pup was far enough along now and decided the first thing he wanted to do was visit his mate, who was currently on duty.
“We can’t wait until he’s off tomorrow?” Maddie asked as she pulled her car into the parking lot of the 118.
“You heard the doctor,” Buck said. “There’s no more reason I have to stay home. I’ve been there for over a month. And besides, everyone here is a medical professional.”
Well, Maddie thought, at least Buck had a point there.
As soon as he was out of the car, Buck rushed into the firehouse as fast as he could, which admittedly, wasn’t as fast as he would normally. But hey, he was eight months pregnant and had just gotten off of a month of bed rest less than two hours ago, so he figured he had a good excuse. But thinking about that now, maybe he should go a little slower.
“Buck slow down a bit,” Maddie called after him.
“Buck?” Bobby popped his head out of a doorway as the two walked inside. “What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like Bobby?” Buck asked a large grin on his face. “The doctor said I didn’t have to be on bedrest anymore, so I decided to come here.”
“Well, that’s great to hear,” Bobby said. When he saw Buck’s head turning left and right, he added. “Eddie’s on ambulance with Hen today, he’s doing inventory right now.” And Buck made an immediate direction there.
“Eddie, guess what?” Buck asked as he looked into the back door of the ambulance.
“Buck, what are you doing here?” Eddie said as he looked over.
“That the same thing Bobby asked,” Buck said. “The doctor took me off of bedrest, so I convinced Maddie to take us here.”
“Really?” Eddie asked, coming out of the ambulance to grace his mate with a hug. “That’s great.”
Right as their hug ended, the bell rang out, signaling a call for their ambulance. “Ah man,” Eddie sighed. “Hopefully this doesn’t take too long.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll still be here,” Buck said, pushing Eddie’s shoulder to move him to the cab as Hen ran by to the other side.
“Is that Buck?” he heard Hen ask as she closed the door.
It was only five minutes after the ambulance was called out on a call (taking Eddie along with it) that Buck felt something.
That was… fuck.
Buck called out to Maddie and Bobby, grabbing their attention. One thing quickly led to another, and he found himself sitting on a couch up in the loft, Maddie sitting in front of him on the coffee table.
Oh, at some point his pants were taken off as well. But that means-
“Maddie?” Buck asked. Her face looked worried but still calm. And that’s when a strong pressure went through his lower body.
Oh, that hurt.
“Is this what I think it is?” Buck asked when it ended.
“Yeah, I think it is,” Bobby said, standing right behind Maddie.
“But it looks like we still have time,” Maddie added. “Once Eddie and Hen get back, we can take you to the hospital.”
“When are they getting back?” Buck asked, looking at Bobby.
Bobby reached to the radio on his shoulder to ask Hen and Eddie. As he was doing so, another wave of pressure, that Buck was now recognizing as a ccontraction, ran painfully through him.
“Okay, Buck,” Maddie said. “Change of plans, that was much sooner than I expected. I don’t think we have enough time to wait for them to get back.”
“What do you mean we don’t have enough time?!” Buck asked. He only just now went into labor, he only felt the first contraction five minutes ago, surely they have enough time to wait to go to the hospital?
Maddie looked at him with sympathy. “It looks like your pup is really impatient.”
“We can at least wait for Eddie to get back, right?” Buck asked, his voice desperate. Right after he said that another, much longer, contraction shook through his body. Buck looked into Maddie’s eyes, pleading. “Where’s Eddie Maddie?”
Maddie looked up to meet eyes with Bobby, who took a small step back to talk to Eddie over the radio. He came back a couple of seconds later and knelt next to Buck. “They’re just now dropping their patient off at the hospital,” Bobby explained. “It will be at least another fifteen minutes before they’re back.”
“Fif- I can’t do this without him, Maddie,” Buck said.
The thing was, Evan had been planning this day. He’d been planning this since the day he learned he was pregnant. The plan started with him going to labor in the morning, on a day Eddie wasn’t on shift. They would then head to the hospital with plenty of time to get settled into a room in the birthing center before he had to do the actual giving birth part. The giving birth part would go rather quickly, with no complications, and they would have a perfectly healthy pup by the end of the afternoon, or the end of the evening if their pup wanted to take his time coming out.
This though?
None of this was in Buck’s plans. Absolutely none of it.
He should have just listened to Maddie and gone home after the doctor’s appointment.
What if this was all happening because he decided to exert himself by coming here?
What if something happened to the pup because he’s stuck here and couldn’t make it to the hospital?
Sure, he joked with Maddie as they were walking in here saying that everyone here had medical training, but still.
“Okay Buck,” Maddie said. “It looks like your baby is about to come out any minute now.”
“But Eddie,” Buck said again, right as another large contraction shook through his body.
Chimney then ran over with a bowl of water and an armful of towels. “Hey, I got what you asked for,” he said.
“We… we can’t do this here,” Buck said. “Can’t you call another ambulance, we can meet Eddie at the hospital.”
Bobby took the opportunity to sit right next to Buck’s side and grabbed his hand. “You don’t have enough time for that, Buck,” Maddie said.
It happened right as the ambulance was pulling into the station. The birth, that was.
“Hey, Eddie! Get up here now!” Chimney called down to him from the railing.
Eddie ran up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. “How is he?” he asked as he caught sight of Buck on the couch, Maddie placing a squirming newborn on his chest.
“You’re late,” Buck said as Eddie ran up to him, taking over the seat Bobby was just siting in.
Eddie looked over Buck’s shoulder, down at the infant who was just settling into Buck’s chest as he slowly blinked two bright blue eyes up at Eddie. “Look at him Eddie,” Buck said, enthralled. “He’s perfect.”
“Yeah,” Eddie nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly.
“So,” Maddie said as she dropped her phone after taking some pictures of the three of them. “What’s his name?”
“Logan,” Buck answered. “His name is Logan.”
“Logan Micheal Buckley-Diaz,” Eddie said.