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There wasn't anything wrong with Catherine. She was smart and beautiful and witty and if this had been a year ago, Eddie likely would have been planning for a second date already. But now, after everything that he'd been through in the last year, everything he'd learned about himself, Eddie knew that this night was going nowhere. What he didn't know was how to let Catherine down without making anyone feel bad. Eddie's dating history was anything but varied. He’d married his high school sweetheart and then gone through a mockery of a relationship for a couple months with someone who was perfect on paper and Eddie wasn't willing to make that mistake again.
Eddie was sure that Catherine was saying something wildly interesting and personal about herself, but he couldn't focus on anything besides the fact that her strawberry blonde hair was braided into two pleats that were slightly off-center. They'd met at a VA event that Frank had encouraged him to go to so that he'd know that there were other people out there going through the same things that he was. Catherine had just as many skeletons in his closet as he did, and they both knew better than to touch them.
He’d thought that maybe it would be easier to go out with someone who knew how it really felt, who had seen the ugliest faces of war just like he had, but both of them seemed to treat their shared experience like an invisible electric fence. The conversation between them had turned awkward and stagnant as they’d tried to scrounge up talking points that didn't touch on either of their sore points, and the excess of caution was stifling.
After he'd accidentally checked his phone twice within five minutes, leading to a raised eyebrow from his date, Eddie had decided to tag his phone under his thigh. Hoping to resist the temptation to look in on Buck and Christopher, Eddie had turned all his attention to Catherine trying to look engaged as they talked about where they had traveled.
Afghanistan was not included on either of their lists.
Eddie told her about El Paso and his childhood in Texas and he had to bite his lip not to veer into a story about Buck meeting his family on their way back from the wildfire they'd fought down south a couple years ago. Catherine listened attentively and asked him questions about his siblings that Eddie was happy to answer. He definitely didn't think about how Buck knew the answers to her questions just as well as Eddie did.
It turned out that Catherine had circled the world a lot more than he did, and too much questioning only got him an, ‘ It's classified ,’ which made Eddie laugh before he realized that she was being serious. She was able to tell him about a stretch of time she'd spent in Hawaii as a consultant to a task force- but even the stories about hell in paradise weren't enough to keep his interest on the lovely lady in front of him.
Eddie felt bad about what he did next, but he didn't regret it. Under the table, he pulled his phone up onto his lap and opened up his texts. He knew Buck would be the first one at the top of his messages, and he wrote in quick shorthand while nodding along with Catherine's description of an intense shootout.
Eddie: date sos, need extraction
There was barely a moment's wait for Buck's quick response, and Eddie darted his eyes to his phone to read the message.
Buck: 10-4, eta 15-20 min
That was longer than Eddie expected, but he could sit with Catherine that much longer knowing that freedom was just around the corner. When Eddie looked back up, he saw Catherine putting her own phone down and there was a mutual awkward chuckle as they put their devices to the side. As smart as Catherine was, Eddie could see the disinterest reflected in her eyes as well. It was only social niceties and an overexcited mutual friend that kept them both in their seats now.
The two were just meandering themselves into another awkward generic topic of conversation when the door to the little restaurant they were in slammed open, jingling the bell on top of it loudly. Both of them turned towards it, bodies strung with tension at the disruptive action, but Eddie's shoulders dropped as he recognized the two people coming in.
The rest of the restaurant however did not relax as the tall man with dirty blonde curls looked desperately around the dining room until his eyes landed on Eddie and his meal partner. There was a loud gasp then, and the child accompanying the man made a similarly shocked noise as the two of them marched their way between tables to where Eddie and Catherine were sitting.
The man pushed aside tables and bumped into elbows on his determined journey. The little boy following behind apologized to everyone in their path until the two of them were standing at their destination. Eddie and Catherine were both gaping staring up at the handsome man and the adorable child but for very different reasons.
“How dare you, Eddie Diaz?” Buck’s voice boomed, stopping all chatter inside the establishment.
“You told me you were going on a boys' night and this is what you're doing? You leave me and Christopher,” the man waved an angry hand toward the direction of the child- Christopher- as he spoke, “alone at home, waiting for you to get back so that you can tuck him in at bedtime, and this is where you're wasting your time?”
The entire restaurant suddenly was very focused on eating their meals, but not one of the patrons was actually consuming anything other than the increasingly delicious gossip coming from that one table in the corner.
“Buck,” Eddie started, choking as the words caught in his throat. His voice sounded strangled but it wasn’t from shock or anger. It was repressed laughter.
“You do not get to say a word to me,” Buck berated loudly and turned to face Catherine.
“I'm sorry, Miss. I'm sure you're a perfectly wonderful person, but you have to know that this man has apparently no loyalty for even his wedding vows and I recommend that you leave him before he strings you along like he did me for the last five years.” Buck barrelled on before anyone could respond, clearly working up to a big finale.
“How could you do this to the father of your child, Eduardo Diaz? I gave you the best years of my life, and for you to turn around and do this to me? It’s unacceptable. I’m taking Chris and I’m going to my sister’s- don't bother calling.” Catherine opened and closed her mouth, shock painted across her features. She looked awfully similar to the fish Buck had pointed out to Eddie at the aquarium they’d visited last week.
"Daddy, do you not love us anymore?" Christopher asked, his little face perfectly innocent, except for that glint of mischief in his eyes, the one Eddie was sure he'd gotten from Buck. The restaurant around them went pin drop silent at Christopher's question, everyone holding their breath to see how Eddie would respond.
"Of course I love you, Christopher!" Eddie scrambled to say, but somehow even that backfired as Christopher solemnly turned to Buck and said,
"Bucky you have to leave now because Daddy doesn't love you anymore and I have to have a new mother. I will miss you so much... Dad."
Chris threw his arms around Buck and they both curled into each other, bodies shaking as they tucked their faces against one another. The onlookers murmured in sympathy, probably for Buck, and Catherine was staring now, horrified.
"Jesus Christ- I can't do this, Eddie. I'm sorry uh, Buck, I didn't know he was married." Catherine quickly picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder as she shuffled past the pitiful pair. "This is Steve and Danny all over again, oh my god," she muttered frustratedly as she walked out of the restaurant without another look back.
Eddie covered his own mouth with a hand, desperately trying to hold back the laughter building up. As the door to the restaurant jingled shut, Buck’s head shot up, and Eddie could see how he’d nearly bitten through his lip keeping his own mirth hushed. The two of them stared at each other for a long minute, Buck’s mask of despair cracking until it got to be too much for them, and Buck and Eddie broke.
Their loud laughter jolted several other patrons, who were all clearly still too invested in the sordid drama that had played out in front of them. Buck fell backward, sitting fully on the ground now, and Christopher giggled wildly from where he was still curled up against Buck’s chest.
“Oh my god- that was- Buck, I can’t even imagine-” Eddie choked out between bouts of laughter. He could barely breathe with the way he was cackling, and Buck didn’t look any better. Eddie pushed up from his seat and held out a hand to Buck, pulling him up, and Christopher came with him like a human chain. They snagged a chair from a nearby empty table, one that had mysteriously opened up just as Buck had started his dramatic tirade.
Buck gestured at a waiter who had frozen in his position earlier, and the kid shook himself before cautiously making his way over to them.
“Can- can I help you?” he asked.
“Hi, so sorry about the noise. I promise he’ll tip well.” Buck stuck his thumb out towards Eddie, who just rolled his eyes as he took a sip of water to try and calm down, “Can we get uhhhh… Chris?”
“Three plates of lasagna please: two extra spicy, one like, baby mild,” Christopher ordered quickly, and their waiter noted it all down and then swooped away, taking Catherine and Eddie’s mostly uneaten plates with him, the smart boy.
Buck raised an eyebrow at Chris, “Baby mild, really?”
“Oh come on Buck, who are you kidding? I grew up on Abuela’s food- I’ve seen you cry when you accidentally eat one of the tamales that aren’t specially made for you.” Christopher smirked, trying to discreetly grab the soda that Eddie had ordered earlier.
Swiping the drink away from Christopher’s reach, Buck turned to look at Eddie, “She makes them especially for me?” There was an awed look on his face; Buck had clearly missed the point of the comment, instead caught up on the gesture.
Eddie smiled as his son and his- well, Buck bantered back and forth. The two of them were so comfortable with each other that it was hard to tell that there was a generation gap between them. It probably helped that Buck was mostly a kid himself, but the easy way he interacted with Christopher left a weird feeling in Eddie’s stomach. There was an ease in their relationship, a trust beyond anything else as Buck made the same decisions and calls for Chris that Eddie would have.
He thought of the way that Buck would look up from helping Christopher with his homework and smile softly as he caught sight of Eddie watching them from the door- well, suddenly he was having a hard time remembering why he’d ever bothered going out with Catherine at all.
When he first met Buck, he had immediately felt a pull, something connecting them growing taut, something Eddie wasn't ready to face - and he had resisted it ever since.
Sitting there, with the two most important people in his life, he realized that the pull was gone, the line had grown slack. He had already been reeled in, caught and trapped so completely, he didn't think he could ever break free.
Good thing he didn’t want to.