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When Eddie first learns that he’s going to be a father, he slides down the wall with the phone still in his hand and stares shell-shocked into the distance, surrounded by other young men during basic training.
(First, he proposes to Shannon. He doesn’t start panicking until they’ve hung up the phone.)
“Fuck,” he whispers to himself.
One of the guys in his platoon — Garcia, maybe too kind of their line of work, handsome with skin darker than Eddie’s but less Spanish in his vocabulary — crouches down beside him. He eases the phone from Eddie’s hand, ignoring the complaints of the men around them and the creaking of the cheap plastic cord as he does so.
Garcia — his big hands grab Eddie’s shoulders, shake him a little to get his attention. “You okay, Diaz?”
“I’m gonna be a dad,” Eddie says in a daze. “And a husband,” he tacks on.
“Fuck,” Garcia agrees.
One of the other guys — Washington, el presidente, all-American type, only a bit older than Eddie with a wife and two kids to feed — shoulders other grunts out of the way to get to the phone, only to stop when he sees them huddled on the floor. “Um,” he frowns, “is everything okay?”
“Diaz just got some news, is all.”
“I’m gonna be a dad,” Eddie repeats.
“Oh. Congratulations.” Washington gets his hands under Eddie’s armpit and helps Garcia get him off the floor. “Kids are a blessing. Trust me, I’ve got two of them.”
“I wasn’t expecting to have any,” Eddie admits.
Eddie is just twenty years old, a baby himself, when Christopher is born — though he feels much older and much younger at the same time. He’s just shy of his twenty-first birthday, flown home from Afghanistan with blood under his fingernails.
Babies having babies, Abuela had said when they told her.
There are complications. Shannon is wheeled away to another room, more doctors and nurses are called in; Eddie jogs to keep up and clings to his wife’s sweaty hand like a lifeline. When Shannon pushes one last time and his son finally fills the room with his crying, when the nurses help him cut the umbilical cord and place is son in his arms for the first time, he finds tears springing to his eyes.
“He’s perfect,” he tells Shannon, laying their son down on her heaving chest.
Eddie knows his son through a screen.
He sees first steps, first words, first everything through recorded videos, sent to him through emails. He listens to his son babble from his wife’s lap on a grainy video call with bad connection. He tries to push all his love, the love he’s bursting with, through the short, shitty calls.
He hates himself for being an absent father.
It’s the only kind of father he has experience with.
When Eddie comes home from Afghanistan the first time, it’s to a plethora of doctor’s appointments, specialists, and testing for his three-year-old, all culminating in a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. All this leads to is more testing, more specialists, more doctor’s appointments. Christopher needs therapies, needs accommodations, needs more than Eddie and Shannon know how to give.
Bills are piling up. There’s daycare. There’s cars and food and their stupid fucking mortgage.
He’s hardly twenty-three years old. He can barely walk down the street without jumping at shadows. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Despite all of this, despite everything, Christopher is a spot of joy for him. Christopher, who just wants to look at Eddie all the time, who reaches for him and babbles at him. Eddie doesn’t need to do more for Christopher, most of the time, other than being in the room with him.
And Christopher — he’s so unlike Eddie that it makes him want to weep with joy.
Maybe part of it is nature, maybe part of it is nurture. Christopher makes eye contact like it doesn’t bother him at all, even if it’s not particularly strong at his age. Christopher reaches out for touch, for affection, like it’s not a chore or a pain or something to be ashamed of. Christopher asks for help, asks for what he needs, asks to be picked up and put down, asks for exactly what he wants with no fear that it’ll be withheld from him.
Christopher dances with Shannon in the kitchen, as much as he’s able. He reaches for Eddie to hold him and only cries out of surprise sometimes, like Eddie is something distant and out of reach that suddenly crawled through a TV screen and made itself real. He drags his favorite books over and plops himself into whoever has an available lap and available hands, insisting that he be read to, that he be payed attention to.
Eddie is so afraid that he’s going to ruin him.
He tries his best not to ruin him.
Bills are piling up. Eddie has a high school diploma, a can-do attitude, and very few transferable skills. He’s too jumpy to leave the house half the time. Shannon has a year of college under her belt and three full years with no schooling or job history. Not a lot of jobs want them. His parents are helpful in their own way, in the way that they’re helpful because they’re insisting that Eddie and Shannon are doing everything wrong and they could do it better.
Things are falling apart.
Christopher cries — sobs, wails — when Eddie and Shannon fight, when their voices start to raise and Shannon starts to slam dishes into the sink and Eddie starts pulling on his hair. “No, no, no,” he weeps, “no, Mommy, no fighting. No, Daddy, no fighting.”
Eddie is so afraid that he’s going to ruin him.
He reenlists.
(Not even a full calendar year later, he’s home with an honorable discharge.)
(Not even a full calendar year later, he’s a single father with nothing going for him except his wonderful, smiley kid that everyone is certain he’ll ruin eventually.)
Eddie is a single father, alone in El Paso with a four-year-old, by twenty-four.
He hates that he has no idea what he’s doing. He hates that Christopher is still adjusting to the novelty of Daddy being home, that he acts like every day Eddie is with him his a surprise to celebrate. He hates that he hates it. He hates that he’s angry at Shannon for leaving him. He hates to be so ungrateful for the three and a half years she was with Christopher alone.
He hates that he’s working three jobs. He hates that his parents always have something snide to say when they watch Christopher for the day or when they drive him to daycare. He hates that he has no fucking friends or support system outside of his parents and his sisters, because all his army buddies are dead or traumatized and all his high school friends are graduating fucking college, just starting their adult lives and have zero interest in spending time with the pitiful, struggling single dad who brings his disabled four-year-old along.
He hates that he feels like he has no future where he isn’t alone and struggling — and forcing his son to be alone and struggle with him.
(His parents certainly see that as the only possible future for him.)
No matter how resentful he is, no matter how angry he is at himself, Christopher is his one joy in life. He loves this kid so much. My kid, he thinks, is the only good thing I’ve ever done.
“Daddy?” Christopher asks one day, sitting in the basket of the cart in the middle of the grocery store. He’s crunching on a container of banana chips that Eddie fully intends to pay for at checkout. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Eddie laughs, putting the gallon of milk in the cart. “I’m already grown up, mijo,” he says, even if he doesn’t feel like it.
“Did you always wanna be in the army?”
He leans his elbows on the handle of the cart, takes the banana chip the Christopher offers him and chews on both it and his son’s question. “No, no, I didn’t always want to be in the army. When I was little like you, I wanted to be a firefighter. And then a doctor. And then a major league baseball star.” He mimes swinging a bat and knocking one out of the park just to hear Christopher laugh.
“Are you gonna do that?”
“Probably not.”
“Why not?”
He starts pushing the cart down the aisle. “Well — I’m not as good at baseball as I thought I was and you have to be really good to go to the major leagues. As for being a doctor. . .do you know what college is?” He waits for Christopher to nod and say big school. “Big school, yeah. Being a doctor takes a lot of college and college takes a lot of money. More money than we have.”
“Does that make you sad?”
“No,” he says, even if it’s a little bit of a lie, “because the best job I have is being your dad. And I get to do that every day.”
Christopher brightens, sunshine and sweetness. “What about a firefighter? Is that lots of money, too? Do you hafta go to college? Do you gotta be good at sports?
“No, not really.” He pauses, taking a can of coffee off the shelf and putting it in the cart. “There are some tests that you have to pay for, but they’re not as much money as college. And you have to train for a while, but not as long as college. You don’t have to be good at sports, but you do have to be strong and physically fit.”
“Then why don’t you be a firefighter, Daddy?”
Eddie blinks. He turns and stares into the face of his smiley kid, big eyes looking up at him through his little toddler glasses. He thinks about it for a long minute, right between the white bread and organic peanut butter he can’t afford. Eddie’s been running off his high school diploma, his work ethic, and the respect his father’s name and his own Silver Star afford him. He’s been applying for jobs with no transferable skills — but his time in the service, his history as a combat medic, those would come in handy for a firefighter.
His kid, so much smarter than him.
“You know what, mijo? I think that’s a great idea.”
“I miss you all the time,” Christopher says and Eddie makes the decision right there and then that his parents are wrong, that he can do this without ruining his son — if only they don’t stay here in El Paso, repeating the same patterns.
The 118 know about Christopher more in the abstract than anything, when he brings him to the station with no other choice. Bobby and the crew know he has a kid, of course. He’s mentioned getting home to tuck his son in, talked local schools with Hen, signed all the forms in Bobby’s office. Buck has even met Christopher, after the earthquake, and gotten to be friendly with him, during the long car ride home.
Entering the station with him after picking him up from the hospital has nerves wiggling around like worms in Eddie’s stomach. He knows his coworkers are good people, but sometimes strangers — even well-meaning strangers — can have reactions to Chris that upset him, upset them both. He doesn’t want to see pity in their eyes — not for Chris and not for himself. Not for the disabled kid or the almost-teen dad.
Christopher, of course, is completed unconcerned.
He’s excited to meet Daddy’s friends. He’d lunged out of Eddie’s arms in the hospital waiting room with a big smile, reaching to hug his new friend Buck hello. He’s babbling happily between them, holding their hands to stay steady, looking around in awe at the firetruck and the ambulance.
Buck, sweet and boyish Buck, crouches down beside him, pointing out the differences between the ladder truck and the engine, explains how one works as a tool box and one carries their hoses and the water, answers all of Christopher’s question.
Or, well, almost all of them.
“And what about the ambulance, Buck?”
His kid, so curious.
“Oh, I don’t know a lot about the ambulance,” Buck admits. “I’m not a medic like your dad. If you want to know about the ambulance, you’ll have to ask Hen and Chimney.” He stands, offers Christopher his hand again with a grin. “You want to meet them?”
“Yes, please!”
His kid, so polite.
They get to the stairs leading up to the loft, where he can hear Chim and Hen gossiping and fooling around. Christopher pauses, sizes up the winding staircase, and looks up at Eddie. “Can you carry me up, Daddy?”
“Of course, mijo.”
Hen and Chim stop joking around when they spot them at the top of the stairs. Eddie wonders what they’re seeing. The twenty-eight-year-old with the seven-year-old on his hip. The crutches that Buck carried up the stairs for him, the ones he’s helping Chris slip into. He searches their faces for pity, for shock, for disappointment or disapproval.
“Hi!” Christopher cheers. “I’m Christopher!”
Hen recovers first.
“Hi, Christopher,” she comes over and holds out her hand for a shake. “I’m Hen.”
“I’m Chimney,” Chim waves with a smile. He’s a little awkward — but in the way of someone who is usually a little awkward with kids, someone who maybe doesn’t spend a lot of one-on-one time with elementary schoolers, not in the way of someone judging.
“Daddy,” Christopher tries to whisper, but doesn’t quite manage it, “he has a funny name.”
That prompts Hen and Buck to burst into laughter, poking fun at Chimney and getting Christopher to laugh with them. He gets his kid situated on the couch and everyone gathers around like Chris is the best thing they’ve ever seen. They’re enamored with him, charmed by his curiosity and his little-kid humor.
Hen and Chim take him down to tour the ambulance. He insists that Buck comes, too, to learn with him. Bobby makes him a gooey grilled cheese, melted cheddar oozing out the sides of the crisp toasted bread.
His kid, so friendly, so easy to love. God, he’s proud.
They bring him on the low-priority calls, the ones with minor gore and minimal danger. They all work together to help him slide down the shiny steel pole from the loft to the engine bay, holding him with gentle, careful hands.
After Pepa takes him home for the night, Eddie is met with compliments from his team for the rest of the shift. It starts in the back of the engine, on the way back from an easy call.
“That’s a hell of a kid you got there, Eddie,” Bobby compliments with a clap to Eddie’s shoulder. “We might have a legacy firefighter on our hands.”
Buck can’t shut up about it. “Chris is just the best kid,” he gushes. He lists off things they talked about, like everything that came out of his seven-year-old’s mouth was of the upmost importance. From anyone else, Eddie would be taken aback, maybe a little wary, but he’s seen Buck with kids on calls. It’s like Buck feels like he has to give every kid all the attention that he obviously didn’t get himself.
Hen immediately suggests a playdate. Her son is about Christopher’s age — and she tells him that Sergeant Grant’s son is a similar age, too. “We should get the boys together!” She shoots Bobby a pointed look, who holds up his hands like he’s refusing to get involved.
“Brave kid, to have had three surgeries already and still be smiling. I had the one,” Chim taps at the scar on his forehead, “and it bummed me out for a long time.” The joke doesn’t land. The mood in the room is immediately brought down, the other three members of their team going quiet. Desperately, Chim adds: “But he must get his good looks from his mom. Definitely didn’t get them from you, Diaz.”
Eddie ducks his head, already feeling raw. “Yeah, he does.”
“His mom. . .” Hen trails off. “She’s not in the picture?”
“She’s not,” he admits. “It’s just the two of us.”
“That’s not really our business,” Bobby chimes in, raising his eyebrows meaningfully — though Eddie doesn’t really know what the meaning behind it is. “Not everyone wants their coworkers to know everything about them.”
Hen laughs. “If you don’t want us making bets about you, don’t be so obvious about having your tongue in Athena’s mouth.”
“Ewwww,” Buck whines, covering his ears like a disgusted, offended teenager.
“Hen!” Bobby scolds with a laugh, like he’s surprised at her. “I’m your boss!”
“I’ve been here longer than you,” she waves his comment — and his tone — away.
“And I’ve been here longer than her,” Chim says, popping his gum. “Compared to us, the rest of you are like little babies. Little baby imports to Los Angeles from all over the country.”
Buck frowns, shaking his head like a confused puppy. “That’s now how imports work. You can only import things from another country, not from another state. You’re the only import here, technically.”
“The word you’re looking for is transplant, I think,” Hen says. “Migrant, maybe?”
“Whatever.”
“Well,” Buck smiles, “I’m glad we all transplanted here.” They all take a moment to look at him before bursting into laughter as a group. “Yeah, that didn’t sound right.”
Their knees knock together from their cramped places in their jumpseats, one of Buck’s long legs wedged between both of his. He offers Buck a smile, the weight of their acceptance wrapping around him like a warm, familiar sweatshirt. “I’m glad we transplanted here,” he says softly.
“Yeah?” Buck’s eyelashes flutter, like he’s bashful.
“Yeah.” He leans back in his seat, surrounded by friends on all sides. “I think Chris and I are right where we need to be.”
Carla is a godsend.
She sits down with him for hours in Buck’s — Abby’s? — apartment, helping to guide him through forms and red tape and every single thing that’s been stressing him out for months now. She hands him a folder with details on every single school in his district that has the kind of accommodations that Christopher needs, explains the pros and cons of each one, promises to tour them with him and help get Christopher what he needs.
She just smiles at him, gets him a glass of water and rubs his shoulder, when he has to take a break and put his face in his hands to hold back the relieved tears trying to well to the surface.
Buck orders them food, leaves it on the table and disappears back into the bedroom with a soft bump of his hip against Eddie’s chair. “Don’t forget to tell him about the childcare options, Carla.”
And she does. She explains accessible childcare outside of school hours, which schools have it and which schools charge for it and what programs are available outside of before-and-after-school care hours, the ones that will cover his overnight shifts and the ones that won’t. Tentatively, towards the five-hour mark of the meeting, she offers:
“Buckaroo did mention that I’m a home healthcare aide, right? Do you know what that is?” When he shrugs, she goes on. “It means I have a client that I stay with when their family isn’t home to care for them. I cared for Patricia, Abby’s mom, while she was at work or out with that handful in there.” She tilts her head in the direction of the bedroom, where Buck is sprawled on his back watching some Youtube true crime thing on his phone.
“You love me,” he calls out, cheeky.
She laughs, sweet and hearty. Eddie is charmed. “No pressure, but I’d like to offer to be Christopher’s aide. You would have to fill out a contract with the company I work for, but you could request me specifically. That would help with childcare and Christopher’s particular needs, because he would have a registered nurse babysitting. And my company has discounts for veterans and single-income families.”
“That—” Eddie is. . .kind of stunned, to be honest.
“You’re a good man, Eddie. Buck wouldn’t have gushed about you if you weren’t. He’s a pretty good judge of character — and so am I. I can tell you want to best for your son. I can also tell you’d probably feel better about leaving your son with someone if you actually know the person who will be taking care of him.”
“That would be wonderful,” he says, “but I — I’d have to check with Christopher first. You’d have to meet Christopher first.”
She smiles, so beautiful and kind. “I’d love to meet him. If he’s anything like his dad, I’m sure he’s a real charmer.”
They set up a playdate, which feels a little weird.
Carla comes over. She hands Eddie another folder, this one with all the forms he’ll need to sign up with her company, and introduces herself to Christopher. And, instantly, she’s Christopher’s new best friend. Everyone Chris meets is his new best friend, but Carla is special.
“What do you think, Chris?” Eddie asks that first day, when she’s leaving their house and he’s still a little unsure about leaving his son with this stranger, no matter how nice she is or how highly recommended she comes. “Would you like to keep hanging out with Miss Price?”
“Carla, please, Eddie.”
Chris beams. “Can we keep hanging out?”
“If you want to.”
“I want to. I really like her. She knows a lot of stuff. Like Buck, but less confused.” He looks up at Carla, leaning in like he’s sharing a secret. “He has a lot of trouble staying on task.”
She laughs. “He does, doesn’t he?”
“So that’s a yes to more time with Miss Pr — Carla?”
“YES!"
“She’s pretty great, huh?” Eddie agrees.
“We have really good friends, Daddy.”
He kisses Christopher’s forehead and gives Carla a smile. “We do, don’t we?”
He fills out and submits the forms that night.
Tuesday is grocery shopping day, as long as Eddie has the day off.
Tuesday mornings and afternoons, Eddie has found, are the only times during the week that their grocery store — the one he likes to go to, the only one he likes the layout of — isn’t bustling and crowded. Eddie likes to shop best when there’s no crowd, no people to judge the groceries in his cart, no fear of it being too much, no fear of losing Chris in the crowd.
So they do their grocery shopping on Tuesdays.
(Routine is important to the Diaz family.)
It starts out just the two of them. Eddie picks Chris up from school in then afternoon and together they traverse the grocery store and pick out their meals for the week. Once Shannon re-enters their lives, it becomes a family activity — even as lopsided as their family feels finding their footing as three, instead of two.
(It’s almost always been two. Eddie and Shannon. Shannon and Chris. Chris and Eddie. Never the three of them together. It’s all new to them.)
Shannon likes to grocery shop alone. She always has. Even when they were dating, even when they were just friends, she would refuse his company if there was a grocery store involved. When they lived together, she would drop Chris into his lap and leave for hours, coming back with a car full of plastic bags and everyone’s favorite snacks.
But now she’s desperate to be included in any way she can, so she’ll trail behind the two of them like a lost duckling, watching as they add all their favorites to their cart. She’ll ask when and why things became staples in the Diaz household and she won’t pick out anything for herself or her own kitchen.
“Dad,” Chris asks, holding up a box of chickpea noodles — some kind of vegan macaroni and cheese — and blinking up at Eddie with big, pleading eyes, “can we get this?”
“What is it?” Shannon moves around the cart to get a better look.
“I don’t know, mijo,” he takes it from his son, turns it over to read the back. “We’ve never had noodles like these before. You might not like it. I might not like it.”
And Chris — he just shrugs, like it’s no big deal, like trying new things isn’t scary and stressful. “We’ll never know if we like it, if we never try it,” he says sagely. He drops the box into the cart. “And besides, the cheese isn’t real, so Buck can eat it. If we like it, then we can make him dinner!”
“That’s very kind of you. Chris. We’ll try it. If you like it, we’ll get another box and you two can make it next time he babysits, okay?”
Chris makes a disgruntled noise. “Buck doesn’t babysit me, Daddy. We hang out.”
“Of course,” Eddie holds his hands up in surrender, “my mistake.”
“Mommy,” Chris tucks himself into his mom’s side, “did you know that vegan means you can’t eat cheese and ice cream?” He says the word like he’s testing it out, like he’s been practicing in the mirror.
“I did know that.” She casts a look up at Eddie. Her smile shutters a little, but she pets a hand over Christopher’s curls anyway. “But I didn’t know your friend Buck was vegan.”
“Yeah, Buck gets ice cream that’s made out of cashews.” Chris wrinkles his sweet little nose up at her.
“Ew,” Shannon giggles playfully. She bends down with a wide grin, like Chris alone brings her joy, and stage-whispers to their son: “Do you think Daddy will like the vegan noodles?”
Chris laughs, head tipping back against her hip. God, Eddie loves them both so much, even when they’re making fun of him. “Probably not. But he’ll try them. He’s been pretty brave about trying new things, especially when we try them together.”
“I learned that from you, kid,” Eddie tells him.
“I know,” Chris smiles. “I’m pretty brave, too.”
(He lets Chris pick an extra snack, just for being so cute.)
If Eddie is honest with Shannon about anything at the last dinner they ever eat together, it’s this: “Being his dad has been the single greatest joy of my life. That little boy has taught me more about being a man than war ever did.”
He and Christopher share a bed after the funeral.
His parents have taken up residence in his bedroom — and, honestly, Eddie can’t bring himself to sleep in there without Shannon, anyway. So, every night, he curls around Chris like a single, lonely, open parenthesis. He puts his back to the door and wraps an arm around his sweet, sad son, Chris crying himself to sleep between him and the wall. The Saturn-shaped nightlight he bought for Chris when they moved here casts shadows along the ceiling, gives him just enough light to see the sparkle of his son’s tears on his red cheeks.
“Shh, mijo,” he whispers each night, running his fingers through Christopher’s curls — the curls he got from Shannon’s side of the family. “It’s okay. I’m here. Daddy’s here.”
“Daddy,” Christopher answers, “I’m so sad. My heart hurts.”
“I know. I know. My heart hurts, too.”
“My heart is breaking.”
“I’m so sorry,” he tugs him closer, hunches over him like he can protect him from the whole world if he just tries hard enough. He doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m so sorry, mijo.”
Christopher goes through hell. There’s no other way to describe it.
His mother passes. Buck almost dies, twice. They get caught in a fucking tsunami. Eddie doesn’t know how his kid is functioning so well, after going through all of that — especially considering the old trauma of his parents’ separation, the move to L.A., everything in between.
(Christopher has been in therapy since they lived in El Paso. Eddie might not have been open to it himself, but he knows that his kid deserves better.)
It’s the nightmares — the shouting, kicking, can’t-wake-up nightmares — that make Eddie realize that something is really, really wrong. That he needs to do something more for his son. He knows he’s not the best at talking, knows that he can forget that just being there isn’t enough.
As he’s putting Christopher to bed one night, tucking him in tight and safe, that he finally finds the words to talk about it.
“You know if there’s anything bothering you, you can talk to me about it. You know that, right?”
Christopher tells him he knows, saying good night like nothing’s wrong.
Its Christopher’s drawings that open his eyes to the issue at hand, The drawings he’s been doing for days now, the drawings from months ago, all tying together to show him what Christopher has been trying to tell him all along. Maybe he’s not the only one who struggles with his words.
My kid is a lot like me, he thinks, and that’s something I need to fix.
“Christopher?” He holds up the picture of the drowning woman. “Is this Mom?”
Chris looks away, like he’s ashamed. Eddie taught him that.
“Is that who you’ve been dreaming about? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to make you sad.”
His sweet, sensitive, wonderful kid.
He drops to his knees beside Christopher’s bed, pulls him in for a hug. “There is nothing wrong with being sad. I loved your mom. I miss her — and I probably always will. But we’ve still got each other, which means we’re gonna be okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I love you, Daddy.”
(Things feel good for a moment, a single moment. It’s like the world has started spinning again. Eddie promises himself he’s going to try to talk to Chris more, to give him what he needs.)
(But then Buck sues the department. He won’t — can’t, legally, apparently — answer Eddie’s calls. It feels an awful lot like being abandoned again, like waking up in an empty El Paso bedroom with a note on his bedside table. Chris asks for him and Eddie, once again, can’t give his son what he needs.)
In Eddie’s first round of sessions with Frank, in a time filled with confusion and grief and self-hatred, in a time when he refuses to label any of those things, Frank asks him one simple question:
“So why do you keep coming back?”
And, maybe for the first time — but not the last — in this office, Eddie is honest.
“I don’t want my kid to be like me.”
They’re at the park, sitting in companionable silence, back on solid ground together after the craziness of the lawsuit and the street fighting, when Buck says it.
“I love when he does that,” Buck says like they’d been in the middle of a discussion, knocking their elbows together.
“When he does what?”
“That.” Buck gestures to the play area, where Chris is gently talking smaller kids through taking their turns down the slide and back up the ladder. He’s letting the littlest kids go first — and then go again — before he even gets a chance to slide down. And when he does finally reach the plush, rubber floor, he waits at the bottom and encourages the kids who are too scared to slide down.
“There’s just so much of you in him. I love when he makes a face and I know he’s mimicking you or — or when he repeats something that I know you’ve told him. He does stuff like this, help people just for the sake of helping people, and I see how much he adores you, how much he follows your lead and learns about being a good person.” Buck shrugs, ducks his head like he’s suddenly embarrassed. “I don’t know. He’s a good kid, Eddie. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I—” Eddie is at a loss for words. “I always thought he was more like Shannon than me.”
“I think you underestimate how much he’s like you, how much he wants to be like you. He looks up to you, man. He’s lucky to have a dad worth looking up to.”
“I’m the lucky one,” Eddie argues. “He’s all the best parts of me and Shannon — and you.”
Now Buck is the one without the words. He blinks at Eddie, his mouth dropped open and catching flies. It takes him a full minute at least to regain his faculties. “M-me?”
Eddie laughs. “Don’t get humble on me now, Buckley. You think I was the one who inspired him to learn about cooking? Or about natural disasters? Or any of the other things the two of you have researched?” He nudges their shoulders together. “He gets his curiosity from you.”
Buck has tears welling in his eyes. “Really?”
“Really.”
“The best of us,” Buck agrees, a bashful smile on his pink lips. “With none of the bad shit.”
Eddie will admit that he might have overreacted with Miss Flores.
It’s not her fault his kid got on a skateboard. It’s not her fault his kid can’t use a regular skateboard like either kids can. It’s not her fault that his kid wants so badly to try new things with his friends. Maybe he shouldn’t have yelled at her, maybe he should’ve been more understanding, but it is her fault that it happened on her watch, when she’s responsible for making sure the kids in the class are safe.
When it comes down to it, it’s not about Miss Flores. And it’s not about Eddie or his reaction to her. It’s about Chris, who suddenly doesn’t want to go to school anymore.
He picks Chris up and deposits him on the couch, leans in to get in on his level.
“You still upset about the other day?”
“I just want to be like everyone else.” He whispers it like a confession.
Eddie’s heart breaks for his son, so like him. He remembers being young, wanting desperately to be like all the other kids, knowing he was different and not knowing how to fix it. He remembers how isolating and lonely it was.
My son is a lot like me, he thinks, and sometimes that means I am uniquely qualified to love him the way he needs.
He sighs. “I know. But you’re not. I know I told you that you can do anything and that was a dumb thing for me to say—”
“Because I have CP.”
“No . . . because nobody can do everything. And, yes. There are going to be things in life that you’re not going to be able to do. And there’s going to be other stuff that you are going to be able to do, but it’s going to be a lot harder for you because you have CP.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t skateboard again.”
“It’s not about the skateboarding.” He reaches out, touches the sleep-soft fabric of his son’s pajama shirt. “I just don’t want you to be scared. You tried something and it didn’t work out. Maybe next time it does.”
He tries to explain to Chris that different people have different strengths, that Eddie is bad at things and good at others. He tries to explain that he used to be afraid to try things, because he was afraid of disappointment and failure. “I don’t want you,” he says, “to ever stop trying. But maybe, until you get a little older, we can keep trying new things together, okay?”
Chris is nodding already. “Like we did when I was little and you were scared to try things.”
“Yeah.” He hooks his hand onto the back of Chris’s neck and gives it a soft, reassuring squeeze. “You’re not like any other kid. You’re my kid. I love you more than anything in this world.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
They hug and Eddie plants a loud, smacking mwah to Christopher’s curls.
He and Buck, they spend the entirety of their next day off at the loft, piecing together a CP-friendly skateboard —and, okay, squabbling over how to put it together. It takes forever, because they’re not engineers, but it doesn’t look half bad by the time it’s finished. Even Carla deems it perfectly safe and well constructed. And the excited, screeching laughter echoing through the skate park when they push Chris up and down the path is absolutely worth it.
After the well, Eddie makes a choice for Chris — and it really is the only choice.
He goes into his lawyer’s office and he makes it so if anything ever happens to him, Christopher will be taken care of. He makes it so Christopher will be loved and encouraged and listened to the way he deserves.
He never tells Buck, but he does tell Chris as he’s putting him to bed one night.
His body is still tender and aching. He still shivers with phantom chills, like he’s still submerged in the cold water underground. He pulls the covers up to Chris’s chin and tucks the blanket around him.
“Buddy, can we have a man-to-man talk for a minute?”
“Sure, Dad, but it’s already passed my bedtime.”
Eddie chuckles. “I know.” He smoothes the curls out of Christopher’s face. “But I just wanted to let you know that I made some changes to some really boring grown-up stuff. The only important part for you to know is that I made it so that you and Buck are kind of officially family.”
A grin grows on Chris’s face. “Really?”
“Really. It’s called a will. And I put it in my will that, if I’m ever not around for whatever reason, Buck will take care of you.” He ducks his head to catch Chris’s eyes. “Is that okay with you?”
“That’s totally okay with me, Dad.” He shifts under his blankets. “Is — is Buck still officially a part of our family even if you’re around? I don’t want you to go away.”
“Of course he is. The three of us are a family, no matter what. And I don’t intend to go away ever, okay? I always want to be around. The will is just in case.”
“Does that mean Buck can pick me up from school?”
Eddie squints at him. “Buck already picks you up from school. He’s on the list.”
“No, not like at the end of the day or when I’m sick. Like, if he just wanted to come get me and go hang out or get ice cream or something. He could do that?”
“Don’t push your luck, kid, and don’t try to convince Buck to play hooky with you. If Buck’s part of our family, that means he can’t always be your best friend. He’s got to be responsible for you, too, and make smart choices — like making you stay in school.”
“So, like a dad.”
“Yeah, like a dad.” He smoothes the covers over Chris again, a nervous habit. “Would — would you be okay with that? With Buck being like a dad and not a best friend?”
Chris shrugs. “It’s already like that.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
Once again, Eddie’s only connection to his son is through a screen.
It’s not by choice this time, as much as it feels like it is. The entire world is shut down, except for essential workers like them, and it’s not safe for him to be home with his son.
(They’d discussed it, him and Buck, the option of him staying home with Chris and taking a leave of absence, but he couldn’t afford it. Buck had argued that he could stay home with Chris, leave the job that gave him purpose to care for another man’s child, but Eddie wouldn’t agree to it.)
(I have savings, Buck insisted amongst Eddie’s stressed protests, and some money from my parents. If I stay with Chris, we can live off that, easy. You and Chim and Hen can stay at my place and split the rent, if you’re all so insistent on paying for something. Come on, Eds, let me do this for you.)
Instead, they live like this.
Every night, they come home from the station. The chore chart is updated. The shower schedule is updated. Hen collapses onto Buck’s pull-out couch. Chim hides away on his blow-up mattress under the stairs. He and Buck stumble up the steps, swap into their most comfortable pajamas, and curl up together against the headboard to FaceTime with Christopher.
At first, Buck had tried to give them some privacy. He’d stay downstairs while Eddie talked to Chris, didn’t want to impose on the very little father-son time they could have. But listening to Chris ask for Buck, watching Buck’s eyes well up when Eddie caught him up on what was new with Chris — it was too much. He couldn’t let himself be selfish enough to keep this for himself and he didn’t want to, either.
So, now, they always call Chris together.
He regales them with tales of his summer with Tía Pepa, what they’re doing with their endless isolated days. He tells them about breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He tells them how he’s practicing his Spanish, how he’s getting even better than Eddie. He shows them the packages that were delivered yesterday and were sanitized enough today that they could open them.
They tell him about their days, too, the parts that aren’t too depressing or scary. They read him bedtime stories, the books that Buck ordered to both residences so they can follow along together. They tell him how much they miss him, but don’t mention how much dimmer and grayer the world is when they’re away from him.
And when it’s time to say goodbye, after they smother him in I love yous, after they promise they’ll talk in the morning, talk tomorrow night, call him as soon as they can, when it’s time to hang up — Eddie rolls onto his stomach and pushes his face into his pillow to hide the tears.
Buck drapes his extra-large frame over Eddie’s back, holding him tight to his chest, and buries his face in his neck. He kindly doesn’t mention how Eddie’s body shakes with sobs. In return, Eddie never mentions the way Buck’s tears drip onto his shoulders.
“I hate this,” Eddie whispers.
“Me, too.”
“It’s not fair,” Eddie complains.
“I’m so sorry, Eds.”
“I miss him so much. I promised myself I would never do this to him again.”
They fall asleep like this.
They wake up in the morning and do it all over again.
Christopher is nine — rapidly going on ten — when he runs away.
Eddie’s heart is in his throat.
The usual twenty-minute trip to Buck’s loft takes about ten. He’s not proud of it. Heart pounding in his chest, the elevator feels too slow. He fumbles his key, trying to unlock the door, but Buck is already there, opening it wide.
He puts his hand on Eddie’s chest to stop him in his tracks.
Buck — he advocates for Chris, all while trying to soothe Eddie.
Eddie laughs like he doesn’t know what else to do, more a shaky exhale than anything. “You trying to good cop my bad cop?”
“Just trying to explain where he’s coming from. I already gave him the spiel about your side of things. Figured I’d even out the playing field.” His hand drops from Eddie’s chest as he takes a step back, opening up the doorway for Eddie to pass through. “He’s all yours.”
Eddie can’t push past him fast enough.
There’s Chris, waiting on the couch. He’s hunched over, eyes a little red like he’s been crying. He knows he’s in trouble. His precious, perfect curls — so much like Buck’s — spill over his forehead when he looks up. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, mijo.”
“I’m sorry.”
He reads him the riot act again. He lists everything wrong with Chris’s behavior. He wants to yell. He wants to rage. He wants to insist that he would’ve never done anything like this to his parents. He tries to stay calm. He tears up instead. “You scared the fucking shit out of me, kid.”
Christopher blinks up at him behind his glasses. Eddie doesn’t know if it’s the cursing or the tears in his eyes that are taking his son by surprise.
“I’m really sorry, Dad. I just—”
“You just what?”
“I needed to see Buck.”
They argue about that, too. Eddie tries to explain that there are safer ways for him to have done what he did, that there is no excuse for this. He tries not to get so upset that he loses the ability to communicate, that he loses control of his words. Chris insists that Eddie just doesn’t get it. Their voices start to raise.
“Chris—” Buck tries, but Chris barrels onward.
And Chris bursts into tears, too. He yells at them like he’s never yelled at them before, wiping at his running nose with his sleeve. This kid, his kid, who has been left so many times by so many people, who has spent months isolated from the world. God, what kind of father is he, that his son feels so abandoned?
Eddie crouches in front of his son, takes his hands. “Hey. No one is making Buck go away. Buck isn’t going anywhere. The three of us are a family and that’s not going to change. Never. But families — they grow.” He looks up at Buck, then away. “You know I loved your mom. You know I love you and Buck, too. I’m just trying to find someone new to love. Loving someone new won’t take away from how much I love you or Buck or your mom. Okay?”
Chris shrugs, sullen. “Okay.”
Eddie clucks him on the chin, wipes at his tears. “We good?”
“We’re good.”
“Good.” He pushes Chris’s curls back, presses a kiss to Chris’s forehead. “You’re grounded, by the way. Two weeks, no video games, no TV. That counts for home and for here.”
Chris nods. “That’s fair.”
Eddie blinks. “It is?”
“Yeah.” Chris tosses him a mischievous smile. “Buck said a month but he also said you’re the boss. I’ll take the two weeks.”
They sleep at Buck’s that night, the three of them piled into his big bed like old times — like before the pandemic, back when this happened with startling regularity. If Eddie clutches Chris closer to himself than he usually would, that’s his business and nobody else’s.
Who would blame him, anyway?
Chris is clingy after the shooting.
Buck had said that Chris was doing better than him, that he was still insisting on going to school and functioning like normal, that he was maybe a little withdrawn but overall doing well while Eddie was in the hospital.
It's when he gets home that Chris starts to struggle.
Suddenly, he wants to sleep in the big bed with Eddie. He wants to sit on the couch and watch whatever Eddie wants to watch. He stops cooking with Buck in favor of staying in the dining room with Eddie in anticipation of the meal being prepped in the kitchen. He begs to come to doctor's appointments and physical therapy with them. He often instructs Ana to be careful with him, reminds her that he's healing like they're all not overly aware of it.
It's when Eddie is coming out of the shower, having had Buck re-wrap his wound in the steamy privacy of the bathroom, to find Chris sitting on the floor outside the door that he knows they need to have a talk.
He can't pick Chris up himself, but one look is all it takes for Buck to scoop him up and carry him over his shoulder to the couch. Buck leaves him there with Eddie and disappears back into the bathroom to clean up the leftover bandages and mop up the water Eddie dripped all over the floor.
"I know this was scary," Eddie sits gingerly beside his son. "But I'm not going to disappear if you take your eyes off me."
"You can't promise that."
"I can," he insists. "I am not going to disappear, Chris. I'm right here with you. I don't need you worrying about me. I'm the dad. You're the kid. It's my job to worry about you. Not the other way around."
Chris collapses into his good side, hugging him tighter than strictly necessary. "I worry about you all the time."
And maybe Eddie should've followed up on it. Maybe he should've done more, said more, to calm his kid's fears. But he's fine. He was shot. He almost died, but he didn't. He's going to be fine. He and Chris, they have a great support system: the 118, Abuela and Pepa, Ana, Carla, Buck. It's all going to be fine.
He says as much to Chris.
(Maybe if he says it enough, it will start to be true.)
Eddie quits his job for Chris.
Eddie works regular nine-to-five hours for Chris.
Eddie starts going to therapy — for himself.
Frank gives him a mantra to repeat in the mirror:
My name is Eddie Diaz. I am autistic. I am gay. I am a good dad and I am a good person. I deserve to be happy and I deserve to feel good.
Eddie makes a fool of himself when he comes out to Chris.
He does it in the car, which is one of his favorite places to have hard conversations. Frank thinks it has something to do with the way a lack of eye contact is expected and necessary, because Eddie vocally hates just about everything else about driving all of the time. He has to admit that Frank kind of has a point.
They’re on their way home from the park, just the two of them, just like old times, when Eddie asks him if they can have a man-to-man conversation.
It goes something like this.
“You know I’ve been going to therapy and it’s been helping me a lot. I’ve been learning a lot about myself. Like, how I have autism and that makes me feel things differently from other people. And more.”
Chris smiles, because he’s sweet and happy and wonderful. “I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks, kid. So,” he blows out a breath, “you know how Denny has two moms?”
“Dad, I know about gay people.”
Eddie chuckles, feeling nerves worm their way back up his throat. “Right.”
And, of course, his clever, perceptive kid jumps right into it: “It’s okay to be gay. You know that, right?”
“Of course it’s okay to be gay, Chris.”
“It’s okay for you to be gay, Dad. You know that, too?”
Tears start stinging at Eddie’s eyes. He blinks them away as traffic stalls at a red light. “Yeah. Yeah, I know that now, mijo. I didn’t always know that, but I know that now.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t know it was okay.”
“Me, too.” He turns a little, while they’re stuck where they are, to look Chris in the eye. God, but he’s thankful for this kid. “I wanted you to be the first person I told, because I know you’ve got my back. Right?”
Chris nods vigorously. “I’ve got your back, Dad.”
Buck and Eddie come together like two magnets — inevitably.
Chris is asleep down the hallway when the pining and anticipation comes to a resounding climax in the kitchen, when Eddie confesses his love and Buck responds with his own, when they clear up the previous miscommunication and fall eagerly into bed together.
In the fresh early morning light, waking up satisfied with Buck’s bare skin pressed up against his own naked side, listening to Chris crash utensils around in the kitchen, he realizes he maybe should have talked to his kid about this first. Especially considering how Chris reacted the last time he started dating.
A smashed salad bowl comes to mind.
But first: he needs to get them decent without Chris realizing they spent the night in bed together.
Buck doesn’t respond well to poking and prodding, burying his face deeper into the pillow, but he perks up when Eddie peppers kisses down his shoulder. “Not a dream,” he whispers.
“No, not a dream.” He presses one last kiss to Buck’s bare shoulder, one to his smiling mouth. “But it is a Monday morning and we have a kid to get to school. I’ll let you have the bathroom first.”
They get through the morning rush with little issue. Buck makes breakfast, though Chris has already made an attempt at cereal and toast by the time they get there. They part ways in the driveway, Buck in his jeep heading back to the loft for some laundry and the Diazes in the truck for school drop off, and Eddie aches to kiss him goodbye, now that he can. He holds himself back, just for now. He wonders if that kiss this morning will be the last one he’ll give him.
“So, Chris,” he says as they’re waiting in the stalled carline traffic.
Chris looks up from where he’d be riffling through his backpack. “Are we about to have another man-to-man talk? Right now?”
“I’d like to.” When Chris huffs a sigh, he turns to give him an incredulous look over his shoulder. “Oh, I’m sorry, do you have somewhere to be? Something better to do? We’re stuck in this car together for the foreseeable future.”
He gestures out the window, where the line of parents and kids waiting to move off the main road and into the school parking lot is steady, no movement on either side of the truck.
“Dad,” he sounds so grown up and put-upon, “whatever you have to say, I still love you. You know that, right? I’m proud you’re going to therapy, but we don’t have to talk about everything.”
“I’m in love with Buck,” Eddie says in a rush, “and I told him last night. He loves me, too. We want to be together — but you come first, mijo. You come first for both of us. If — if you think it’s too fast or you need us to slow down or — or even if you need us to stop right now, we will.”
“Is that all?”
Eddie stutters. “Y-yeah. That’s all.” He lets out a heavy breath, shoulders relaxing for the first time since he got in the cab of the truck. “You don’t have to give me an answer now. You can take some time to think about it. And as much as Buck and I love each other, we love you more. If you don’t want anything to change, I — I will talk to Buck and we won’t — we’ll go back to just being friends.”
Chris is quiet. Then: “You’d be just friends.”
“If that’s what you’re comfortable with, yes.”
“But you’d still be in love.”
“Yes. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being in love with Buck.”
“So being just friends, it would make you sad.”
Eddie nods. “Maybe. But I could live with it, Chris. As long as the three of us are a family like we always have been, I could live with it.” He swallows, rubs desperately at the thighs of his jeans. Traffic still isn’t moving. “And Buck would, too.”
“If I said right now that I don’t want anything to change, that I want you to be just friends and to not be boyfriends and to keep everything like it has been, you would break up with Buck?”
Eddie clenches his jaw. “Yes.”
“Would it break your heart?”
And — Eddie takes a minute to think about it, doesn’t want to give Chris anything less than his full consideration. “No,” he decides, “because the love would still be there. I would still feel it and he would still feel it and we would both know that we made the choice not to be together because of how much we love you.”
“That sounds like it would break your heart.”
“It would suck,” Eddie admits, “but I didn’t tell him that I love him because I was expecting anything to change. I told him because I deserved to say it and he deserved to hear it. We’ll still have that love, Chris, whether we do something about it or not.”
Chris leans forward as far as his seatbelt will let him. “And if Buck finds someone else to love, because you can’t be with him because of me? If he marries someone and has babies with them?”
He closes his eyes. “I’d be sad for me. But I’d be happy for him, because he deserves to have that if it’s what he wants. And marrying someone or having other kids, that won’t change anything for the two of you, you know that, right? You and Buck, that’s — he will always love you and be there for you.”
It’s silent in the truck for a long moment, only the rumbling engine under them and the traffic around them. Someone down the line behind them beeps, even though no one can move anywhere.
“Dad?”
“Hm?”
“I would never do that to you.”
“Chris—”
“You,” Chris interrupts, “have loved Buck for a really long time and so have I. We’re a family. We’ve been a family longer than you and me and Mom were a family. Buck — he’s like my dad, you know? He should be your husband, too. I want you to be happy. I want you to be together.”
Eddie laughs, relief bursting out of him as sudden, uncontrollable joy. “Husband?” he jokes. “Who said anything about getting married?”
Chris shrugs and the carline inches forward. “Don’t worry. You’ll get there soon.” He peeks at the clock on the dashboard and then around at the traffic. “I’m going to be late for school, aren’t I?”
“What do you say we play hooky today?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Like all pre-teens, sometimes Chris is a little bit of an asshole.
It’s not a fault or a flaw. It’s a natural part of growing up. He’s testing boundaries, toeing the line, trying to find his independence and learn where he fits in the world as a young adult — even if he’s not quite there yet.
Eddie understands all of this. He tries to be accepting of it.
That doesn’t mean it’s not fucking hard to deal with sometimes.
He can deal with the attitude most of the time, can handle the new desire to curse and pout and avoid any sign of affection. He can adjust to the changing interests, the loss of LEGOs and dinosaurs, the sudden obsession with online video games and gory movies. He can even take Chris’s increasing craving for more time with his friends and less time with his family.
(It’s harder for Buck to process these things, the way Chris shies away from hugs and wants to spend more time on his own, because Buck’s brain always jumps immediately to rejection, to being unwanted. It’s hard, especially when it comes as Buck’s moving in with them a bit at a time, when he worries every step of the way that Chris thinks they’re moving too fast.)
It’s the lying that gets to Eddie.
He gets a call from the school that Chris has been missing science club. Considering Eddie fucking gives Chris money to buy tools for science club experiments, goes to the PTA meetings to make sure they get funding and stay accessible, and listens intently when his son comes home and tells them all about what he’s been working on, he hangs up a little wrong-footed.
Christopher is grounded, they decide, for at least a week.
He brings it to Hen and Chim — more Hen than Chim, if he’s being honest — and they reiterate what he’s already thinking. Kids grow to crave privacy. Half the thrill sometimes is doing something and thinking you’re getting away with it. They just don’t give him any guidance on how to handle it going forward.
And Buck is quiet in the corner, completely disconnected.
“Notice you’re being awfully quiet over there, Buck. You’ve got to start being bad cop, too, you know. You can’t just be the fun parent all the time.”
“Hm?” Buck blinks, like he’s just waking up, frowns, points to himself like a cartoon character. “M-me?”
Eddie lets it slide.
He talks to his dad, instead.
It’s not something he’s used to, having this kind of relationship with his dad. They were never close, ever interaction weighted with the pressure he put on Eddie and the resentment Eddie felt for it, with the constant disappointment on both ends of the relationship, with the way his dad unknowingly made him grow up hating himself.
They’re both trying to be better.
“Maybe you’re overcorrecting,” Papi says, “because I didn’t protect you enough.”
Honestly, it’s kind of nice to hear him admit it, admit that he made Eddie grow up too fast. Papi even tries to ask what Buck thinks — a big step for him, to even mention the man Eddie’s in love with — and Eddie just shrugs, because Buck has been weirdly hands-off throughout the whole situation, deferring to Eddie in a way he usually doesn’t.
“Well, mijo — children, they don’t just pick up on the things we say and do. They also pick up on the things we don’t.”
It’s only a night or two later when Eddie wakes up to the muffled sounds of Christopher talking to someone. It’s hard to hear over their fan, but it’s just noticeable enough to disrupt his sleep. When he throws his weighted blanket off his body, the excess lands on Buck and startles him awake. He makes a confused, sleepy sound, and pulls his white-noise headphones from his ears as his free hand reaches blearily for Eddie.
“What’s going on?” he sits up.
“Chris,” is all Eddie says before he’s out of the room, listening to Buck stumble out of bed behind him.
When he gets to the living room, Chris is seated happily on the couch, headset on and controller in his hands, talking almost too enthusiastically about his friend’s upcoming birthday party.
“Off,” Eddie snaps, reaching for the remote and shutting the TV off. “Now.”
“I gotta go,” Chris rolls his eyes, pulling off his headset.
Buck makes it to the living room and stops in the doorway like a lost little kid while Eddie asks: “What do you think you’re doing? What part of no video games for a week don’t you understand?”
“It’s not fair!” Chris complains, throwing his hands up. “You never let me do anything on my own! I’m not a baby and you guys always treat me like one!”
“I don’t think you’re a baby,” Eddie says and he hates the way he sounds like his father, “but you sure are acting like one.”
“And you’re acting like a jerk!”
“Do not use that tone with me,” Eddie growls.
“Chris.” It’s soft, but scolding, firm, the first real moment Buck steps into this with them.
And Chris — well, he just ducks his head. “I’m sorry.”
It takes Eddie a moment to calm himself down. He draws in a deep breath, unclenches his fists. He wants to yell. He wants to pull his hair. Or — he doesn’t want to, but he feels the bodily need to, the desire to get this frustration out of him. He won’t. He won’t. That’s not what Chris needs and it’s not what he needs, either. It won’t help anything.
He rubs his forehead, comes around to sit on the coffee table. Buck comes forward, too, and sits on the couch beside Chris, all of them leaning in together. “I don’t want you feel like a baby and I don’t want you to think I’m a jerk, but —” he sighs. “Okay, maybe sometimes I can’t help myself.”
“Our instinct,” Buck says, bending forward to try to catch Chris’s eyes, “is always to protect you.”
Chris huffs. “I don’t need you to protect me!”
Eddie shrugs. “Well, I’m not sure we know how to stop.” He sits back. “You’re growing up on me, bud. On us.. But you still need to respect me and to be honest with me. And with Buck, too. We need to look out for each other, all three of us, talk to each other about what we’re going through, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And I love you — but when you break the rules, there are gonna be consequences. Facing them is what makes you a young man. And we’ve already established, clearly, that’s what you are, right?”
“Right.”
“So. . .once your punishment is over. . .we can talk about you going to the park and hanging out with your friends without us around.”
Christ lights up. “Awesome! Thanks, Dad!”
“Don’t thank him just yet,” Buck says. Chris pauses, looks warily between them, and Buck puts a consoling hand on Chris’s shoulder. “Your punishment just got extended by one week.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming. Now get to bed,” Eddie instructs.
“Good night, Dad. Good night, Buck.”
He waits until Chris has left the room, until he can hear the door to Chris’s bedroom close with a soft click before turning to Buck and raising an eyebrow, rubbing his finger over his lower lip. “Extended by one week, huh?”
Buck gives him a small, unsure smile. “I need to be bad cop sometimes, too, right?” He looks away, chews on his cracked bottom lip. “I’m still learning how to do this whole parenting thing. I — I know I’m not great at it, but I’m trying not to let you down, either of you.”
“We’re all still learning. That’s just what being a parent is.” He stands up with a groan, lower back aching, and brushes his hands through Buck’s chaotic curls. “You’re not letting either of us down, baby.”
“I know I’ve been—”
Eddie cuts him off. “Whatever you’re going through, we can talk about it when you’re ready. Don’t worry about whether or not you’re being a good dad. You are.” He presses a kiss to the top of Buck’s head, feels his big hands come up under the hem of his tank top to squeeze his waist.
“Thanks,” Buck whispers, “I’m learning from the best.”
The bridge collapses under their feet, taking everything with it.
Eddie — he’s not really sure how it happens, but he ends up on his stomach in the van, a refrigerator crushing him into the debris scattered over the couch he’s landed against. He stretches his arms out and tries desperately to pull himself forward, but he can’t. The metal of the van creaks around him, threatening to give way.
“I’m still alive,” he whispers to himself, feeling the walls starting to close in as the dust settles. It’s a bright and sunny California day, but he swears he can hear the rain beating down, can smell the mud and the rain and the blood, can feel the water rising in the well with him. His breathing comes fast and the sharp, stabbing pain in his side with each inhale tells him his ribs are broken.
“I’m still alive,” he says again.
“I’m still alive down here!” he yells, hoping someone can hear him.
No answer comes.
Eddie puts his forehead down, rests it against the soft cushion of the couch as best he can. He thinks, suddenly, that he might die down here, crushed under the weight of a kitchen appliance and the rubble from the collapse. He thinks, suddenly, about if the rest of the team is okay, if anyone made it out unharmed — if Buck, his fiancé, the love of his life, the father of his child, is bleeding out or crushed somewhere all alone. He thinks, suddenly, that Christopher might lose both his parents today, might be left an orphan.
He chokes out a sob that comes out more like a wheeze.
The radio crackles — and there, like a guardian angel, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard: Buck’s voice. “One-eighteen,” Buck demands. “I need a headcount.”
Ravi calls out. Safe.
“I’m in the van,” Eddie responds. “Pretty sure I broke a couple ribs — but, Buck, this van, it’s about to get pancaked.”
“Eddie,” Buck says, sounding relieved — and then it’s clear he steels himself, somehow calm and collected, professional, in his element, “Eddie, we’re coming to you.”
They sound off one by one, though there’s no response from Hen or Bobby and it takes Chim a moment too long to answer. Eddie waits patiently — because there’s nothing else he can do — and listens to the metallic creaking sounds echoing every time the ambulance or the van or the rubble moves. He puts his head back down and covers his face as best he can when Buck calls out for him to do so, groans to himself as the saw makes the van and everything inside it shift slightly.
The door comes off. The fresh air rushes in and Eddie lifts his head.
Backlit by the midday sun, feet planted like a man on a mission, Buck removes his safety glasses and gives Eddie the most beautiful smile. The bottom and right of his sweet face is coated in blood, like he’d broken his nose or something.
“Hi,” Buck breathes.
“Hey,” Eddie can’t find it in himself to smile back. “Any sign of Cap?”
Buck — he doesn’t even answer. Just shakes off the question and does a quick inventory of Eddie’s situation, taking in the refrigerator and the couch and the side of the van rapidly creaking towards caving in and crumpling. He holds out his hand. “Sorry about this.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, but he doesn’t hesitate to put his hand in Buck’s. “It’s gonna suck.”
He knows he must make an awful sound as Buck drags from out from the van. “Its okay,” Buck soothes, “I’ve gotcha.” Buck leans him up against a large chunk of the bridge, helping him to hold himself up. “There we go, baby,” Buck presses a kiss to the side of his dust-covered, sweaty head as he hears more than sees Hen vomit off to the side somewhere, “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m coming back for you.”
Eddie loses some time between Buck running off to help Hen down and Chim out of the ambulance. Finding Bobby and digging him out from the bottom of the collapse is a blur, though he knows he chased after his team and helped them get him free. He knows he was transported to the hospital right alongside Hen, with Buck and his bloody face fussing between them and annoying the responding paramedics. He knows the nurses in the hospital ice and wrap his ribs, that they give him some painkillers while he insists that he’s fine and that they need to check out Buck’s scrapes.
He comes back to himself somewhere between walking into the house and getting seated on the couch, when Chris drops down beside him and throws himself into his arms. He lets out a small, involuntary grunt of pain.
“Chris,” Buck pleads, “be careful with your dad. His ribs need to heal.”
“He’s fine,” Chris huffs.
“I am fine,” Eddie agrees. “Just a few broken ribs.”
“See?”
Buck doesn’t roll his eyes; he rolls his whole head around on his neck like they’re the two most distressing people he’s ever met. He has his arms wrapped around himself, self-soothing. The scratches on his face stand out stark and red against the worried dark circles under his eyes.
“I’ll heal. I’m not allowed back to work for six weeks,” Eddie tells him and then turns to Chris, “almost your whole summer vacation.” And then, just to hear him groan: “Plenty of time for you to help me with wedding planning.”
Chris pulls away, gives them both a fond and exasperated smile.
He thinks they’re embarrassing — he’s at that age — and he acts like he’s too old for cuddles, but he never shies away from letting them know he much he loves and needs them. Frank would probably say it’s because he feels free to express himself, has been shown through their words and actions that he can feel his feelings and never has to worry about whether or not they love him. Despite all he’s been though, Chris is growing into a confident, open young man, who is sure that he matters. A secure attachment style, Frank would call it.
“I’m glad you’re both okay,” he says. “What’s for dinner?”
This innocent questions breaks any heaviness lingering in the air. Buck bursts into laughter, head thrown back and back arched at the waist, hands on his stomach. Eddie drops back against he couch cushions with a chuckle, placing his hand in Chris’s curls and ruffling them.
“What?” Chris dodges his hand. “I’m a growing boy!”
“Why don’t you go look in the fridge and tell me what we’re working with?” Buck requests. “I’ll make whatever you want — within reason.”
Chris scrambles off the couch and into the kitchen, the both of them watching him go with a smile.
“Hey,” Eddie grabs Buck’s attention, sees that soft look in his eyes, the one reserved just for their little family, the one reserved for their son. He holds out his hand, takes Buck’s and squeezes it. “We’re raising a pretty great kid.”
“Yeah, it’s ‘cause he’s a lot like his dad,” Buck says.
“Which one?”
Buck opens his mouth to retort — a pretty blush on his cheeks, the way he always reacts when he’s reminded that he’s a father now — when Chris yells from a few rooms over: “Buck! We have nothing to eat! Literally nothing!”
“I’m not taking responsibility for that,” Buck jokes, pointing a finger towards the kitchen. “That kid is all yours.”
“Oh, no — before dinnertime, he’s your son,” Eddie insists.
Chris pokes his head in the doorway. “Hello? Pizza, anyone?”
They share a look. “Okay,” Buck acquiesces, “pizza — but we’re getting veggies on it.”
A big roll of Chris’s eyes behind his glasses. “Ugh. Fine.” He throws his hands up, dramatic, and goes to get the landline and the menu for their favorite pizza spot, the one with options for all of them.
“That is all you,” he and Buck say at the same time.
He and Chris do spend the last few weeks of his mandated recovery time wedding planning.
Some of it is fun, creative, interesting. Some of it ends in paper cuts for both of them. Some of it is nerve-wracking, like figuring out who to invite and who not to invite from all of their friends and family across the country. Some of it is endlessly annoying, like determining which family members can handle sitting beside each other at the reception. Some of it is sad, like choosing a picture of Shannon and a picture of Daniel for their memorial table.
He can understand why Chris isn’t thrilled about it most of the time.
“Hey, mijo,” he says, catching his kid on his way to the living room, where the gaming consoles live. He waves him into the dining room, gestures for him to sit down with him. “Can you help me with this?”
Put upon, Chris sighs. “What is it?”
“My vows.”
“Oh.” He reaches out eagerly for the notebook in front of Eddie, dragging it over to himself. “Let me see that.” He’s quiet for a few long minutes, mouthing the words to himself. He looks up at Eddie, face serious, and folds his hands over the notebook. “How are you so bad at this?”
He can’t help but make an offended sound. “Excuse me?” He shoves at Chris’s hands, trying to pull the notebook back. “What’s so bad about it?”
Chris clears his throat, pulling the notebook further away. “Buck,” he reads off the page, monotone, “I love you and the family we’ve made together. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” He gives Eddie an absolutely scathing look. “Dad.”
“What? It’s true.”
“Yeah, but he already knows that. This isn’t the time to repeat yourself. This is the time to go big. Come on, don’t you think Buck is going to go big?”
“Probably.”
“Buck likes pretty words, Dad.” Eddie nods in agreement, though he means it a little more intimately than he’s willing to explain to his son. “You’ve got to do better than this. Really speak from the heart.” He pushes away from the table. “I’m going to go beat my high score. Call me back in when you actually have something.”
It takes more than an hour, but Eddie eventually enters the living room and interrupts his son’s game, gesturing for him to take his headset off. Chris waits until he settles on the couch beside him to speak. He holds out his hand for the notebook, controller discarded in his lap.
“What do you have for me?”
Eddie doesn’t pass the notebook over. Instead, he clears his own throat and starts to read:
“Evan,” he starts, only mildly nervous, “the first time I knew I could love you forever wasn’t the first time you smiled at me. It wasn’t the first time you bat your eyelashes at me or the first time we saved a life together. It wasn’t that first kiss or the first date or the first hospital waiting room. I knew I could love you the first time I saw you with my son.”
He checks in with Chris, who has been silent, who nods for him to go on.
“He was barely seven. He was tired and cranky and hungry — and so were you, but you smiled at him, got him talking and laughing again. You looked at him like you already loved him. I knew then that I could fall in love with you, if I let myself, and I trusted you with my heart long before I kissed you, because I trusted you with him.”
“Dad,” Chris starts, but Eddie shushes him, tilts his head towards the paper to indicate that he’s not quite finished.
“A very smart woman once told me to follow my heart, not Christopher’s — but I don’t have to worry about that, because both of our hearts led us to you.” He laughs at himself, at the tears springing to his eyes. “Through you, through Christopher, I’ve learned what real love is like, what happiness really is. I cannot thank you enough for loving the both of us, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying. This feels like a good start.” He blinks the tears away and turns to his son. “Well? What do you think?”
“Holy shit, Dad,” Chris says, all of thirteen years old, and throws his arms around him.
“Hey,” Eddie scolds, playful, “language.”
Chris laughs, slapping him on the back before he pulls out of the hug. “You really went big.”
“You told me to.” He drops the notebook into his lap and makes a point to make direct eye contact with Chris. “You like it?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not too embarrassing for you?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?”
Chris gives him a cheeky smile, teasing and fond. “You guys have me wearing a purple suit. Nothing you could say could be more embarrassing than that.”
Eddie frowns, shoves at his shoulder gently. “You like the purple suit. You picked out the purple suit, remember?” He sniffs. “And it’s actually lavender and we’re paying extra for that color because you liked it so much. Don’t blame me for your choices.”
“I’m a teenager, Dad. That’s kind of what we do.”
And Eddie — he remembers being that age, being desperately embarrassed by everything all the time, even his own wants and needs and choices, looking for someone else to place blame on for those things. He relaxes back against the plush cushion of their couch, arm outstretched along the back behind Chris.
“I want to tell you,” he says, “how much I appreciate how involved you’ve been in all of this wedding stuff. I know it’s a lot. It can be boring and embarrassing. But this wedding isn’t just about me and Buck. It’s about the three of us, our family. There is nowhere else I want you but right there with Buck and me this whole time, helping us make the decisions we need to make.”
“I know I complain sometimes, but I like being involved. I want to be involved.”
Eddie sighs. “Good. Because I do have one more big favor to ask you.”
Chris sits up a little straighter.
“You know you’re going to be our best man, that you’re going to stand up in front of everyone with us. But —” He shifts in his seat, planting his feet firmly on the living room floor. “I was hoping you’d be willing to do me the favor of walking me down the aisle, too.”
Blinking fast like he’s trying to clear stinging from his eyes, Chris grins wide. “Really?”
“Really. I want us to walk into this new stage of our life together.”
“Dad, I’d be honored.”