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The day is going along as any other uneventful day typically does. Everyone from the probies to the veterans know not to tempt fate by saying it’s “quiet,” but it’s an unspoken agreement that it’s a nice, slower shift. Most of the calls have been medical, so Hen and Chim have been on rotation with a few other paramedics, and the station has only gone out as a whole team once.
It’s the reason that Bobby says it’s okay for John’s new girlfriend to come by. It helps that she told him she’ll bring donuts, and everyone could do with the treat. Ever since the incident with the laced brownies, the station is limited to whatever sweets the 118 themselves bake or buy to bring in, so having some donuts brought by the station is probably going to be the highlight of their day.
Of course, Buck ends up spilling his coffee on himself right before she’s due to arrive, so while the girlfriend is meeting everyone in the loft, he’s off getting a new shirt in the locker room.
He’s gone for all of five minutes, but by the time he’s back, a third of the donuts are gone, and John’s girlfriend is making rounds meeting the team.
He sees the back of her head, first. An alarmingly familiar flow of chestnut brown hair sways side to side and practically bounces as she moves over to greet Chim. When she turns to greet Cap, he catches sight of her shoulder, and the image of his fingers running across smooth skin, pulling on the strap of a bra, flashes in his head.
But that’s not right, Buck thinks. It can’t be her, and she can’t be here. She was—
And that’s when he sees her face.
Time seems to slow as their eyes meet. He watches as the smile slips off of her face, mouth falling flat as her eyes widen, and her step toward the next teammate falters. Her hand extends on default as she faces Eddie, and she barely manages to get a smile back on her face before anyone notices.
John notices, though. Of course, he does. Buck can’t be surprised because this is his girlfriend and he probably knows her facial expressions like the back of his hand. If he’s invited her to his workplace, he probably knows everything about her, everything but the truth. He probably knows the way her body will arch if you run your fingers across a spot on her back because she’s just so ticklish, knows about the way she likes to take control and be on top. He probably knows everything about her. But he probably doesn’t know that she spent six months in jail— as if that was enough.
As her gaze leaves him, John squints at him, mouth curved into the slightest grimace. Buck doesn’t even realize that the man has excused himself from the conversation until he’s making his way toward him and is only a few feet away.
Buck’s heart races painfully in his suddenly too tight chest. He tries to pretend he didn’t see him and turns to go toward the kitchen, away from the area between the table and couches where they all stand chatting, but John calls his name to grab his attention. He keeps his volume low so as not to bring the nosey ears of the station with him, but it’s still loud enough that Buck can’t ignore it. And the last thing he wants is to make a scene of John chasing after him. Buck knows the man as much as casual coworkers do, but they don’t socialize, and John following him away when his girlfriend was right there would surely bring on unwanted station chatter with it.
Across the room, Bobby watches John approach Buck, but he says nothing and chooses to keep a critical eye on them. Beside him, Hen steps up to meet the girlfriend, and Eddie sidesteps to go grab a donut. Aside from Bobby, none of the firefighters see John’s advance on Buck.
“So, do you want to explain what I just witnessed?”
Buck blinks, then tries to school his expression as he smiles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says easily. He tries to turn away again, but John’s hand latches onto his forearm. The grip doesn’t hurt, but it’s enough for him to hold Buck in place.
He gives a small tug, but John doesn’t let go. “C’mon dude, it was noth—”
“That wasn’t nothing,” John whispers harshly. “My girlfriend looked like her life just flashed before her eyes. You better have a good reason for why she looked so terrified to see you.”
Buck swallows the lump in his throat and tries not to think of the irony of that statement. Her being scared of him ? That was far from the issue.
“Buckley,” John growls, so low that only Buck can hear it. He has to shake himself out of the initial fear that runs through him and remind himself that John isn’t a large man. Hell, he’s shorter than Buck by a good couple of inches and not even close to as strong. Buck could easily take him in a physical fight. There’s no reason Buck should be scared.
Except that it’s not John putting him on edge, and the issue here isn’t something that can be solved with fists. Only words and the truth will hold any weight.
Buck isn’t sure how willing he is to share the truth with John, and he’s not sure how well this conversation will go because of that. There is no other explanation but the truth that Buck could think to say.
And the hostile vibes that he is getting from John do not help the situation.
Part of Buck gets it. He really does, because if Buck saw Eddie react to someone like that, he’d be protective, too. But the difference between him and John is that he wouldn’t act on the offense like this, especially not in the workplace. There were too many unknown variables for John, and he is making assumptions— starting with assuming that Buck had even done something wrong.
“John,” Buck says slowly. “Respectfully, back the hell off and let go of me. There’s no need to—”
“What’s going on here?” Eddie’s voice suddenly cuts in from behind John. With the donut in one hand and the other on his hip, his body reads casual, but both men can hear the tension in his tone.
It’s then that John finally lets go of Buck, but not before Bobby sees it. The man is already on his way over, and John looks like a deer in headlights as their captain approaches. John turns to face him, already looking like he’s been thoroughly scolded, and Eddie takes a place at Buck’s side.
“Gordeno,” Bobby calls out, and both Eddie and Buck internally wince because no one ever calls John by his last name. John had been adamant about it in the way that Buck prefers to be called ‘Buck’ as opposed to his actual name.
“Captain—”
“Did I or did I not just see you lay your hand on another firefighter?”
John sputters and quickly shakes his head. “I didn’t hit him or anything,” he quickly defends himself. “I just grabbed his arm to get his attention.”
Bobby folds his arms and raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.
“And then you didn’t let go when I pulled away,” Buck adds, though he keeps his volume low to try and keep this between the four of them. John’s girlfriend is distracted by one of the other women of the station, Charlie, and the other firefighters have yet to catch on to whatever this is.
“My girlfriend looked scared when she saw Buck,” John says to Bobby, ignoring the younger man. Bobby’s other eyebrow goes up in surprise. “I got defensive. I wasn’t trying to hurt him.”
“But you were trying to intimidate him,” Bobby states, “and that’s not okay. We can discuss that later, but right now, you guys can explain to me what the issue is between Buck and Mariette.”
Buck squeezes his eyes shut at hearing the name and latches onto Eddie’s free hand. Eddie spares him a curious glance but stays quiet. Somehow, knowing her first name is worse than not. Before, when he only knew her by her official title, it was different. It was clinical. Buck’s lawyer never used a first name when talking about her, and he’d never cared enough to ask.
Now… Now she’s a person. She’s a person whose life he ruined, though not for no reason.
“Buck,” Bobby says, tilting his head. “Do you know this woman?”
Buck shakes his head no , and John scoffs, throwing his hands up into the air with dramatic exasperation. That grabs the attention of Hen and Chim, but neither come over to see what’s going on.
“Buck,” Bobby tries again. “Please don’t lie. What’s going on?”
Buck casts a glance between Bobby and John, then looks over at Mariette . She doesn’t look any different, but Bobby wouldn’t have ever seen her before. The card he’d handed Buck in the locker room was something he’d picked up from a pile of resources that the department sent out to each station every month.
Buck catches her looking their way a few times. It’s clear that she’s starting to get nervous.
“That’s—” Buck licks his lips and shifts uncomfortably under their attention— under hers from across the room. “Bobby, that’s… that’s my old therapist. That’s Dr. Welles.”
A vacuum couldn’t have sucked the air out of the room faster than Buck’s words had. Bobby’s breathing completely halts, however, Eddie and John have no understanding of what this means.
“Okay,” Bobby says carefully. “What do you need? I’m going to ask her to leave, but do you want to as well?”
Buck sucks in a sharp breath.
It shouldn’t be that easy. It can’t be that easy.
Tears find their way to his eyes and he blinks them away before they can do something silly like actually fall down his face.
Of course, it could be that easy because Bobby knows. He knows what Buck went through and what Buck was like after he came to understand what Dr. Welles had done to him.
Buck seethed just thinking about it— knew that Bobby had been mad that the only charges she faced were that of breaking a code of ethics. Having sex with a patient is against the law, but the accusation of rape had been a tough one to crack because Buck was a “strong” and “capable” man .
His lawyer had even tried for sexual abuse charges, but they didn’t stick. In the eyes of the court, it didn’t matter that Buck had been in a vulnerable emotional state. It didn’t matter that he’d been having intimacy issues and using sex as a coping mechanism— it couldn’t come into account because she hadn’t known. All that mattered was that Buck had willingly engaged in sex with her. She hadn’t coerced him. If anything, her lawyer had argued, she was the one regretful of the entire situation.
His own words had been thrown back at him.
“I’m your therapist.”
“Yeah,” he’d said, “and I feel better.”
She was there to help him through the trauma of the job, but what people failed to see was that she had only given him more.
She’d been fired from her employment through the LAFD, stripped of her license, and sentenced to six months in jail, yet Buck still didn’t feel like that was enough.
He felt used, even more so than anyone else who was with him tended to make him feel— except Eddie. Eddie is the exception.
“Buck?” Eddie asks, giving his hand a small squeeze.
“I- I don’t understand,” John says. “Mariette isn’t a therapist. She’s working on getting her degree in Physical Therapy.”
“Stop talking,” Bobby directs John, then turns back to Buck. “Buck? Are you still with us?”
Buck finds himself nodding, but he’s not sure how true that is.
“I’m going to ask her to leave,” Bobby says. John starts protesting, but Bobby ignores him. “Eddie, stay with Buck over here, okay?”
Bobby doesn't wait for a response before making his way across the room. John follows him stride for stride and remains in the dark. Bobby feels bad for John, but not more than he is worried for Buck. There’ll be a chance to explain once the woman is gone.
“Mariette,” he opens, cutting right into the middle of her small talk with another firefighter.
“Captain,” she greets him, a wavering smile on her face.
“I apologize for the abruptness, but I’m going to have to ask that you please leave the station and not return under any circumstances.”
The smile on the woman’s face falls then. Out of the corner of his eye, Bobby sees Hen’s mouth drop open in shock, and Chimney glances between them and Buck and Eddie over by the kitchen.
“Is— Is this about Buck?”
John visibly startles, realizing that there has to be some truth to what Buck said because she’s admitting to knowing him.
“You don’t get to say his name,” Bobby asserts, and when she glances over his shoulder at Buck, he moves to block her view. “You don’t even get to look at him. You get to leave at my request before I call the police and have you forcibly removed.”
Mariette flushes in embarrassment and pushes her hair behind her ear.
“Captain Nash, I understand what I did was wrong in a professional setting, but I did my time for my actual wrongdoings. The accusations he—”
“I won’t stand here and argue rights and wrongs,” Bobby says as he steps forward and squares his shoulders. “I won’t let you continue to act as if he was in the right mental state to consent. You know what you did, and if you were a man, and he was a woman, you know that it wouldn’t have just been six months. You know what else you would have been charged with.”
Mariette pales and steps back.
John feels his heart fall into his stomach.
“Cap,” the man nearly pleads now. He turns to his girlfriend. “Mari, what the hell is going on?”
“She’s leaving,” Bobby says. “And I can explain the rest to you after, John. I’m truly sorry you’ve been pulled into the middle of this.”
John’s mouth falls open in disbelief at the words he’s hearing. His mind is racing with the pieces he’s putting together in his head. The image that this puzzle is starting to create is becoming something nasty, and John only hopes that he has it wrong.
He looks to his fellow teammates, hoping to find some answers, but they’re all looking at Buck and Eddie. John follows their gazes and sees Buck sat on one of the bar stools, facing them. His face is flat and he looks sickly pale— something he hadn’t noticed before in all of his own upset. Eddie is plastered to his side with one hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder, reassuring and grounding, protecting.
John suddenly feels like an ass, because something clearly happened between Buck and his girlfriend. He’d probably only worsened Buck’s spiral by assuming the man had done something wrong.
“John, honey, please don’t listen to them.”
John’s eyes meet his girlfriend’s and he’s shocked to see how panicked she looks. Part of him wants to step up and shield her from his captain and teammate, but another part registers how hurt Buckley looks compared to Mariette whose eyes are frantic.
“They only have one side of the situation,” she goes on. “A side in which they paint me as some sort of monster—”
“If he only hears your side, then he still only has one side,” Bobby jumps in. “Now, you really need to go or I will call dispatch right now.”
“Johnny, baby,” she calls his attention again, grabbing his arm. “Promise me you won’t listen to them.”
“I- I can’t do that, Mari,” he admits regretfully as he takes a small step back from her. “Something’s not adding up, and I’ve known these guys for years. I’m not about to think they’d all just lie to me for no reason.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Her hand drops from his arm and she turns back to Buck.
“You ruined my life once!” She screams across the loft at the younger man, startling everyone. “You didn’t think that was enough?”
“Okay, that’s it.” Bobby raises his hands and points at his team. “Chim, radio dispatch and have them send a unit—”
“It’s not my fault you didn’t know how to keep it in your pants!” Mariette yells, raising a hand and pointing at Buck.
John’s eyes widen. “Jesus, Mar—”
“You— you took away my job, my career!” She continues to yell at Buck. “You can’t take away the one good thing I’ve found since then, too!”
“Mari,” John pleads, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I think it’s time you leave, okay?”
Mariette freezes and turns to look up at him. “You’re taking his side?”
“I’m not taking anyone’s side! No matter who’s right or wrong, you’ve clearly upset one of my teammates, and my captain has asked you to leave. Han’s over there about to call the police!”
Mariette physically recoils at that and at least has the sense to look sheepish.
“Okay! Okay, I’ll go.” She looks around at everyone watching. She looks to Buck and finds him blocked out of sight by Eddie. The older man has his back turned toward them and Buck is practically curled into his chest, fingers grappling onto the material of Eddie’s shirt.
The sight makes John’s insides twist, and he swears he hears an actual alarm in his head going off telling him that something is terribly terribly wrong .
“Will I see you tonight?” She asks.
“I— Um, yeah. I- I’ll call you, okay?”
When she leans up to kiss him, he pulls her into a hug, and quickly sends her on her way.
By the time she’s exiting the bay doors, Chimney is already radioing dispatch and telling them that there’s no need for them to come anymore. Bobby is back across the loft near Buck, one hand on the kid’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Bobby asks him.
“Yeah,” Buck whispers, pulling away from Eddie. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure you don’t need to go home?” Bobby offers.
“No, no,” Buck insists. “I just— I guess I never thought I’d see her again. But I’m okay. I’m over it.”
“You know how triggers work,” Eddie speaks up from his side. “Just because you’ve worked through that, doesn’t mean you can’t still hurt when something brings it up.”
“No, I know. Poor choice of words. But I’m good to—” Buck cuts himself off as he sees John making his way toward them. His eyes go wide as he stands from his chair.
“Captain, Buck,” he greets them curtly. “Does anyone want to explain to me what the hell that was?”
Buck sucks in a harsh breath as a few of the other firefighters work their way over.
“Buckley,” Charlie calls out. “You good, man?”
Buck nods at the woman then turns to look at Hen and Chim.
“Buck, what’s going on?” Hen asks, coming up on his free side. She wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him into her side. “What was all of that?”
“That’s what I want to know,” John says, voice gruff. “I heard things that don’t add up in my head, and trying to fill in the blanks myself doesn’t paint a pretty picture.”
Buck sighs and runs a hand through his hair.
“She um…”
“You don’t owe them an explanation,” Bobby quickly cuts in.
Buck laughs humorlessly. “John’s going to find out from his girlfriend and everyone else was a witness to everything she yelled. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.”
Bobby nods in understanding.
There’s a tense moment before Buck finally speaks up again.
“Eddie, Charlie, you guys weren’t with us yet, but uh, do the rest of you remember when I lost my first person? The kid who let go of the roller coaster.”
There are a few nods around the group, including Hen and Chim.
“I took the loss pretty hard. I couldn’t comprehend how he could give up like that. It started to affect my work, so Bobby recommended I see one of the department therapists.” Buck takes a shaky breath and brings an arm around Hen, seeking extra support. “The therapist I saw was Dr. Welles.” Buck looks to John then. “Your girlfriend was my therapist.”
John nods slowly, and he can feel the eyes of his teammates on him, but he doesn’t acknowledge them.
“And you guys… you guys had sex?” he asks, struggling to see what the issue is.
Buck rolls his eyes and scoffs. “If that’s what you want to call that then sure, we had sex.” He shakes his head and cracks his knuckles in a nervous twitch.
Eddie suddenly looks emotional and presses his lips to Buck’s forehead in a gentle kiss. Hen squeezes Buck tighter and Chimney curses.
“She said you couldn’t keep it in your pants and that you ruined her life…” John says slowly. “I don’t—? I don’t understand.”
“John,” Bobby starts, “Therapists are prohibited by law from having sex with their patients. She did time over this.”
“Okay,” John nods. “But that doesn’t explain why Buckley’s torn up about it. That kid was a horn dog when he—”
He ignores the wince from Buck as parts of the conversation that Bobby had with his girlfriend start to filter into his head. Words like “consent” and phrases like “if you were a man” come to the front of his mind.
“Unless you’re saying she forced you to have sex?” He asks, the filter from his brain to mouth completely shut off.
“That’s—” Buck shakes his head again. “That’s where it gets complicated in the eyes of the court.”
“Court?” John asks in shock.
“We tried pressing charges, but at the time, I had… I’d consented,” Buck whispers. “She did nothing to physically make me do what I did.”
“Then I don’t understand,” John admits. “And please, I’m not trying to be a dick, I just don’t get it.”
“He wasn’t in the right mindset to be consenting to sex,” Bobby says before Buck has to.
“What’s the right mindset?”
“Not traumatized,” Chimney immediately suggests. “I remember Buck after that call, and he was pretty torn up. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
“Devon,” Buck mutters. “His name was Devon, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw him falling to his death.”
“You remember Buck as a— Jesus, don’t use that word. You remember him that way because that was how he coped with his own personal struggles,” Bobby cuts in again. “It’s not healthy, but it’s what he did. If he had just been having sex to have sex, that’s something else entirely and not any more worthy of being judged, but it wasn’t the case with Buck at that time in his life. Therapists are supposed to help patients break out of unhealthy coping mechanisms, not feed them.
“Buck was trying to figure out how to cope with the losses we experience on the job, and Dr. Welles used Buck’s willingness to have sex for a good time. He was hurting, and she failed him. He was in a vulnerable state where he would have said yes whether he wanted to or not because that was how he used to find comfort. There’s no way he could have possibly consented.”
“… Fuck,” John curses. He steps away from the group, turning his back to them. “That… that makes a whole lot of fucked up sense.”
“John,” Buck starts. “I’m so sorr—”
“Don’t,” John whirls back around. “Don’t apologize for this, Buckley. This isn’t your fault. I- I didn’t know who she was, and I’m sorry I brought her here.”
“Not your fault, either,” Buck says with a shrug. “You didn’t know.”
“What happened then?” Charlie asks from the back of the group. “You said you tried pressing charges.”
“Yeah,” Buck sighs. “Nothing stuck. Too many technicalities surrounding the incident— stuff I’m not really comfortable talking about here.”
“And time?” Hen asks, more to Bobby than Buck. “She said she did her time.”
“Six months for not following the ethics code about sleeping with your patients, which is illegal,” Bobby says. “The court didn’t see it as non-consensual sex, so… she wasn’t charged with anything except that.”
“Damn,” she says. “Buck, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I understand why you didn’t tell anyone, but I hope you know we would have been there for you.”
Buck mutters a small, “Thanks,” and nods. “I know you would’ve. But what happened was something I needed to come to terms with on my own. I uh— Bobby only knew because I told him I’d had sex with her.” His gaze flickers up to meet Bobby’s. “I knew something about the situation hadn’t been one hundred percent okay, but he was the first person who told me that it wasn’t right— that it wasn’t okay.
“It wasn’t easy to think of myself as someone who’d been— who’d been targeted like that. Because even if she wasn’t actively seeking to hurt me, she did take advantage of the situation, and she should have had the presence of mind to know better. It’s her job to know better.
“I know that there are still people who don’t see a situation like that as wrong— even I didn’t at first— but it is. And it’s not about making myself a victim, either. I don’t want to be one. No one ever wants to be one. It felt great at the time, but afterward, I was dealing with this emotional drop as if… as if I hadn’t actually gotten what I went to her for. It was like I left missing more than I’d been at the start. So, when I spoke up, it was more about understanding that what was done to me was wrong and why it was wrong. It just took me a while to get there.”
The firefighters around him nod along in agreement.
“Does Maddie know?” Chimney asks.
Buck shakes his head. “I— The whole thing sucked, you know, but that doesn’t mean I think about it all the time. By the time everything was done with, I was still pining after Abby. She’d only just left and I thought she was coming back, so I was distracted in a good way.”
“So you’re past it?” Charlie asks.
Buck shakes his head again. “I don’t think it works like that. It just… doesn’t hurt the same way it used to. Seeing her didn’t help, but I don’t really feel thrown back to where I was at that time in my life either.”
John blows out a heavy breath and chuckles half-heartedly. “Guess I’m on the market again,” he jokes.
Buck’s face falls. “I’m—”
“Don’t apologize, Buck.” John shakes his head. “I know I’m pretty hard-headed but this got through alright. What she did was wrong. Even if it hadn’t been you, knowing that she took advantage of a situation like that? That’s not someone I want to be with. I’m happy to get her out of my life, okay?”
Someone pats John at the back from behind him, but he keeps his eyes on Buck as the younger man tears up.
“Thanks,” he croaks out.
“And what now?” Eddie asks Buck. “Do you want to take the rest of the day off? No one would judge you, Buck.”
“No,” Buck says adamantly. “I won’t lie and say I’m not affected because I am pretty shaken up. But I’m okay because I’m not alone. I have all of you here with me. Being home alone probably won’t be any good.”
Bobby nods in understanding. “Whatever you need, Buck. You’re never alone whether you’re here or not, not when you’ve got us, okay?”
Buck smiles then. The first genuine smile he’s had since Dr. Welles had shown up.
And for the first time since Buck saw Dr. Welles all that time ago, he doesn’t feel like a victim. He doesn’t feel small and insignificant, he feels seen and heard. He feels unconditionally loved by his friends.
He pulls away from Hen and steps into Bobby’s space, pulling his captain into a hug. Bobby holds him just as tight.
“Thank you,” he whispers into the material of Bobby’s uniform. He says it for today but means it for everything his captain has done for him— from helping him get a lawyer to sticking up for him now when he felt like he couldn’t do it himself. He’d held him together when he didn’t realize he was falling apart.
He’s thankful for the support of his teammates, too, but the words to express how much escape him in the midst of all of his feelings. Buck only hopes that they know he’s grateful.
(They definitely know.)