Chapter Text
It becomes a routine. Every day he's not on shift, Tommy in in the hospital with Evan.
He’s there when they step Evan down out of the ICU and start talking about discharge plans. He's there when they start lining up appointments for therapy (of all kinds) and follow ups to make sure his clot issue doesn’t come back.
He offers to take Evan to appointments on days when A-shift is on and Maddie is working.
***
When Evan is discharged from the hospital, Tommy will be the one to drive him home. Home being Eddie's house for the moment, because Evan is still living in the loft, and he can't exactly navigate it easily with one full leg in a cast. Eddie will even offer to let him stay in Chris' room, although he will bring in a new adjustable bed for the duration.
Eddie will be on shift that day, but it'll be fine because Evan has keys and Tommy knows his way around well enough to get him settled.
Helping manipulate Evan's body into the bed and get him comfortable will be the most they've touched in months.
***
"You can go, Tommy," Evan says when his physical therapist comes in. "You don't have to be here for this."
Tommy's had enough injuries of his own over the years to know that this is the truly painful part. They have to keep his muscles moving in some fashion so that he doesn't lose anything. And they're still not fully sure how much he will recover yet.
"What if I want to be?" Tommy asks.
Evan looks away, and Tommy grabs his hand. Holds it in both of his. Not tight, like he's afraid Evan will run away, but careful, like they're delicate, worthy of affection. Like Evan is.
It's only been a week since he woke up, since Tommy admitted, out lout, to the worst mistake he's ever made in his life.
But they haven't talked about it since.
***
It will take three months before Evan is even allowed to put weight on his leg, and when Chris comes home eight weeks in, Evan will move to Tommy's house.
They'll take the adjustable bed with him, but when Tommy is not on shift, Evan will sleep in Tommy's bed. He'll use a mountain of pillows to prop his leg up in the appropriate position, but he will sleep so much better with Tommy in the bed with him.
They both will.
***
It grates on Evan to be in the wheelchair, even when he's still at the hospital. He'd use crutches but each time he tries he ends up wincing in pain because of the broken ribs.
"Evan, you need to heal," Tommy says. He's sitting in a plastic chair again, but this time they're in the hospital cafeteria.
Evan had taken approximately two steps with the crutches before his face went pale and he broke out in sweat and Tommy had gently eased him down into the wheelchair to go the rest of the way.
"I want to get back in," Evan complained. "This is useless. I'm useless."
From talking to both Maddie and Eddie, Buck hasn't voiced any of these complaints to them, just showed what they call determination and Tommy calls faking it.
He gets to see the frustration, the pain, the depression that starts to set in when the doctors first talk about it taking at least six months for a normal person to heal, but probably up to a full year for firefighting duties.
If he can get back to firefighting shape.
Evan breaks down at that, and Tommy holds him close, lets him cry out the tears he won't show to anyone else.
***
The LAFD will offer him a position as a fire marshall again, when he's ready for light duty.
He's been good for a few months, but has hit a plateau with his therapy and getting function and stamina in his leg back. Some days will be totally fine, and he'll be able to go out and do a lot of walking and even a light hike with Tommy or Eddie, but most of the time those nice days will be followed by a few more of aches and swearing and needing help getting out of bed.
Tommy will keep himself on C-shift during this time so that he can be around when Eddie or Hen or Bobby can't be.
Sometimes Evan will get angry on the bad days and he'll shout at Tommy when he tries to bring him ice or heat or food. Sometimes Tommy will shout back, slam the door, go for a run at a weird hour because the house feels suffocating.
It's during one of these fights that Tommy will come home to find Evan gone, his jeep gone, and the keys that have been hung up by the door since his discharge are gone, too.
Tommy will grab his own and jump in the truck and head to where he knows Evan must be: his loft.
***
The first imaging they do after his leg surgery shows two things:
It's healing well, at this point there's no need for a second surgery; and
There's no sign of any clots.
They'd put him on blood thinners immediately after Maddie had given the doctors his history, and they seem to be working.
It's good news.
Evan holds out until Maddie has to go pick up Jee from daycare before he loses it. Big wracking sobs of relief, and when he finally looks up again he's smiling. There's joy in his eyes that Tommy hasn't seen since their six month anniversary, right before everything went wrong.
His ribs are still too broken for Tommy to be able to give him the hug he wants to, and he's not sure yet it'll be welcome, but he scoots closer in his stupid plastic chair and squeezes Evan's hand.
***
"This doesn't feel like home anymore," Evan will say when Tommy finds him. He'll be sitting on his recliner, blanket up to his chin. Leg elevated and supported because no matter how frustrated and tired he is, he does actually take good care of his body.
The place will look bare again to Tommy's eyes, too. No photos on the fridge, no seasonal decorations on the table.
It will look like the loft he visited the first time he kissed Evan.
"Do you want it to be?" Tommy asks.
It will be the wrong thing to say because Evan tears up again, and from the expression on his face, Tommy will know that he's afraid to give the answer to that question.
***
Evan's doctors start talking about discharging him around one month after he wakes up. Evan has plenty of help, plenty of people to get him set up outside the hospital, but in the end he asks for Eddie and Tommy to be there.
Except that Eddie has to go in because Denny has an emergency and Hen has to go take care of him.
So that just leaves Tommy.
***
Packing up Evan's loft will take more time than they plan, and in the end it'll be a rush of throwing things in boxes without proper labels. It will drive Evan crazy when he starts unpacking because as nice as it was of all their friends to come over and help, none of them listened to him when he tried to keep them on task and organized.
It won't help that he'll be grinning from ear to ear, clinging to Tommy's hand and generally being happier than he's felt in months.
It will make the clipboard less intimidating.
"Final walkthrough tomorrow," Evan will say as they tie off one last garbage bag, mostly containing the leftovers of everyone's dinner.
Tommy will wrap his arms around Evan's waist and rest his chin on Evan's shoulder. Evan's body will be warm and whole against him. Something that he was afraid he'd never get again just a few short months ago.
"There's a lot of good memories here," Tommy will say.
Evan will lean back against him even more. "Not all of them were good."
Tommy will twine their fingers together and kiss Evan's cheek, his birthmark, and finally his lips.
"How about we make one last good one, then?"
Evan will turn in his arms, lean against the kitchen island, and pull Tommy in.
He'll smirk, and bring his hand up to rest on Tommy's shoulder.
"You have my attention."