Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Buck was woken by the incessant buzzing of his phone a mere couple of hours after he got off his shift. It hadn’t been too bad of a shift, but they had enough calls to keep them from getting a full night's sleep. He had planned to sleep until noon at least, but at 9:30, less than 2 hours after he initially had gone to sleep, his phone was buzzing off his nightstand.

As he reached for his phone he went through the list of people that could be trying to contact him so badly right after a shift. His first thought was that it was Eddie, but they hadn’t talked since he told the team he was leaving the 118 during the Christmas party and it was now February. It could have been Christopher, texting or Facetiming as they had been often, but he should be at school. His next thought was that it was Maddie, but she was still not picking up his calls. He thought maybe Taylor, but they had run into each other as he got back this morning and she knew he had been planning on sleeping and she was working all day. None of them were viable candidates for who was texting him, but they still were all more likely than the name he saw on his screen. 

Rebecca.

His stomach dropped and he was suddenly wide awake. He could remember the last text that he got from her as if he had received it yesterday, even though it had been two years ago. He had been wallowing in his apartment the day after the arbitration for the lawsuit when his phone lit up with two texts from her. A picture of a newborn baby, and a text that just said a name, Azalea Rose.

Obviously, Buck tried to get in contact with Rebecca to get an explanation, but she only responded a few times, just to let him know that yes, Azalea is his daughter, but no, he can’t be in her life. He seriously considered finding her and suing for custody, but he didn’t even know her last name, and besides, he had learned the hard way how much lawsuits can hurt everyone involved, even if they are justified. Rebecca also mentioned that she had left the state, making it even harder to find her. 

Over the past two years, he thought about Azalea every day, but he never told anyone else about her. At first, it was because he didn’t have anyone to tell, the lawsuit kept him from contacting anyone, but then it was just because there wasn’t much to tell. He had one picture and a name, not nearly enough to satisfy the questions everyone was sure to have, especially because he never even told anyone about Rebecca.

Buck’s hands were shaking as he unlocked his phone to see the texts from Rebecca. He worried that there was something wrong with Azalea, but to his surprise, she wasn’t even mentioned.

Rebecca:

Buck

I know this is really out of the blue. But can you meet me at the Starbucks on Grand?

10:00

I know that’s in half an hour.

It’s an emergency.

Please

Buck didn’t hesitate to text back immediately. 

Buck:

Is Azalea ok?

What’s going on?

He was tense as he stared at his phone waiting for a reply, but he did get up and start getting dressed. If the mother of his child was wanting to meet with him, there was no way that he was going to say no, even if he would like more context first. Luckily he didn’t have to wait long for a text back.

Rebecca:

Azalea is fine. 

I’ll explain what is going on in person.

Can you be there?

Buck breathed a bit easier knowing that Azalea was fine, but he was still so confused, and with LA traffic, it was going to take him a while to get to where she wanted to meet. He quickly texted back that he would be there, and ran out the door, trying to make sure that he wouldn’t be late. 

He walked through the door at 10 on the dot and quickly spotted his ex. Immediately after moving out of Abby’s place he had gone on two dates with her, sleeping with her on the second. She wasn’t a one-night stand, he thought that there was a real chance of a relationship with her, but after the second date she had texted him to break it off. Her meager explanation was that she wasn’t in a good headspace for a relationship at the time, and honestly, he believed her. She was a great girl, but she seemed to have a lot on her plate, so he didn’t take it too personally. 

They had dated for such a short amount of time that he hadn’t told anyone at the station about her, but he couldn’t forget her face. Especially once he knew that she was the mother of his child. 

To his surprise, she was not alone, but she also didn’t have a child with her. She was sitting at a table with a lady in a nice suit, and Buck was suddenly suspicious that he was about to be sued for child support. He wouldn’t mind if that was the case, because he could countersue for at least visitation rights, and after his grandparents died years ago he had a sizeable inheritance that he was hesitant to spend on himself. 

“Hey Rebecca, good to see you again.” Buck plastered a smile on his face to greet his ex.

“Buck! I’m glad you could make it!” Rebecca stood to greet him. 

After an awkward hug, Buck took the open seat at the table and looked at the two women expectantly. He was dying to ask about his daughter, but he needed to know what they called him there for so urgently first.

Rebecca didn’t seem to have the same urgency, because she immediately started with small talk. “How have you been? I think I’ve seen you on the news?”

“I’m fine, but you didn’t ask me to meet you here and say it was an emergency to ask how I’ve been. What’s going on?” Buck leaned forward in his seat, wishing he had thought to order a coffee before this conversation, even if only to have something to hold in his hands. 

“Well first, I should apologize. It was cruel of me to text you about our daughter but to not let you into her life, I’m really sorry about that.” Rebecca took a deep breath as if she was gathering the courage to continue.  “But when I met you I was going through the worst time in my life. I was depressed and was still a mess from my abusive ex and— that’s not the important part.” Rebecca shook her head like she was trying to shake her thoughts away like they were drawings on an Etch A Sketch. 

“After I left LA, not long after I broke things off with you, I moved back in with my parents on the east coast and tried to forget my time in LA. I thought that I could get better if I just ignored everything that happened here, but then I had Azalea. I got PPD really bad and my parents helped me get treatment, but it wasn’t super successful. For the past two years I have tried everything to fix my mental health, but every time I see Azalea, I am reminded of LA and I am brought right back to the same mental state that I was in while I was here. I can’t live like this, and she deserves better than a mother that can’t look at her.” Rebecca had tears in her eyes and Buck found himself also fighting back tears as he realized where the conversation was heading. 

“This afternoon we have a meeting with a judge. I plan on giving up all my parental rights. As her father, you can choose to also sign away all rights to her, or you can take full custody.”

Buck remained silent for a while. Out of all the things this conversation could be about, when he showed up, he was not expecting this. He had a million questions, but he figured he would start with the legal stuff and go from there. 

“Is this even legal? Can you just sign away all parental rights like that?”

Rebecca remained silent and let the lady sitting next to her respond instead. “Normally no, it would be considered child abandonment. However, your case is unique. If you decide to not take custody, we would petition that you have no responsibilities to a child that you didn’t even know about and have never met and that Rebecca is unfit to be a parent due to her mental health. Ultimately it would be up to a judge, but we can make a good case for it. 

“If you decide to take custody, then a custody agreement will be drawn up giving you full custody of your daughter. At that point, you could also petition for child support.”

Buck leaned back in his seat, still trying to process everything, realizing as well that he hadn’t actually been introduced to the woman sitting there with Rebecca. “I’m sorry, we should have started with this, but who are you?”

“Oh! Sorry, I am Mary Johnson, Rebecca’s lawyer. I will be helping you through this process.” 

Buck shook the woman’s hand when offered but didn’t say anything else. From the second Rebecca told him about Azalea he wanted to be in her life, so he was overjoyed to finally have that opportunity, but suddenly becoming a single dad to a 2-year-old was a lot to process. He didn’t know anything about Azalea except for her name, and he didn’t even know her or her mother’s last name still. 

“I have always wanted to be a dad, but I have already missed 2 years of Azalea’s life. I would love to take her in, but I’m worried that it won’t be what is best for her. I can’t image how traumatic it might be to suddenly be away from everything she knows.” Not too long ago Buck had gone down the research rabbit hole and ended up learning a lot about adoption and the trauma surrounding it. Technically he wouldn’t be adopting Azalea, but he still would be transplanting her from everything she knew. 

Rebecca sighed. “There is no one else to take her in. My parents were her main caretakers, but they died of covid a few months back. No matter what, she will end up being in an entirely new place surrounded by new people.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.” Buck felt bad that he was almost relieved to hear that he was the only person in line to take care of Azalea. He wanted what was best for her, but he couldn’t help but hope that it was him. 

“Thank you.” Rebecca nodded in gratitude before pulling out a large scrapbook and notebook. Buck was surprised that he hadn’t seen either of those things before, but it looked like she had hidden them beside her on the floor. “My mom created this scrapbook of all of Azalea’s firsts. I spent so much time in inpatient centers so I missed just about everything. She made this so I would at least have pictures and stories to look back on once my mental health got better, but I don’t think I will ever be able to open it.” 

Rebecca wiped a tear from her eye as she placed her hand on the scrapbook before moving to the notebook. “After my dad died and covid got worse she took the time to create this notebook. She wrote down everything Azalea likes and dislikes, her medical history, and her vaccine record. Everything that could be important for someone to know if they are to take care of Azalea. A few things have changed like she has a new favorite toy now, but otherwise everything is up to date.” 

Rebecca flipped through the pages before offering the notebook and scrapbook to Buck. “If you decide to take her in you can keep both and all of her toys and things will be going with you. It’s not the same as being there for the first couple of years of her life, but it might help.”

“Ok…” Buck looked Rebecca in the eye instead of at the books she had passed over to him. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Buck loved Azalea from the moment he found out about her, even though he knew absolutely nothing about her. He couldn’t imagine someone giving up their child willingly, but that was what Rebecca was doing. 

“Yes,” Rebecca sounded so sure of herself. “If my parents weren’t so religious I would have never had her in the first place. I didn’t want her then, and I can’t handle her having her now.” 

Convinced that Rebecca wasn’t going to change her mind and subsequently break his heart, Buck glanced at the cover of the scrapbook, getting a good glimpse of it for the first time and all doubts about taking in Azalea left his mind. He had only ever seen one photo of his daughter. In that photo, she was sleeping, but the photo on the cover was of a wide-awake little girl, her blue eyes staring into the camera. If it wasn’t enough to see that his daughter had his eyes, he also saw her full name for the first time. 

Azalea Rose Buckley. 

He traced her last name with his finger in awe. After the text he originally got with her name did not include a last name, he assumed that it was because Rebecca gave their daughter hers. 

“She’s my daughter.” Buck couldn’t help but whisper to himself, his voice full of awe. After a moment he snapped out of it and turned to the women sitting in front of him. He took a deep breath and then said the most important sentence of his life. “Yes, I’ll take custody of her.”

Rebecca smiled at him in relief while Mary jumped into action. She pulled out a stack of papers and set them down in front of Buck. She explained what they were and how the rest of the day would play out.

Buck’s head was spinning by the time they left the coffee shop, but his day was far from over. They had spent a while ironing out the details of the custody agreement. Buck was getting full custody, which was not questioned, but Rebecca was offering to pay child support and Buck didn’t really want or need that. His inheritance was more than enough to cover all his expenses, however, Rebecca insisted. She kept saying that she would feel guilty for abandoning Azalea if she didn’t pay. Buck bit his tongue to keep from pointing out that Rebecca was abandoning her daughter and no amount of money would change that. 

They reached a decision only when Mary pointed out that if Rebecca paid child support, she would still have some rights to Azalea. When that was pointed out, Rebecca changed her mind, she would rather feel guilty with no connection, than remain connected to her daughter in any way. It honestly upset Buck that Rebecca was just throwing her child away like that, but he refrained from commenting in an attempt to make the day go by a bit smoother. He had thought that Rebecca was a great woman and he remembered their dates fondly, but as the day went on, he started to think that she wasn’t as great as he initially thought. 

Once they had that all figured out they made their way to the park so Buck could meet Azalea. During their meeting, Mary’s husband had been watching her, but she would be going to meet the judge with them. 

Buck had to take a second in the parking lot to catch his breath before he met his daughter. Honestly, he never thought this day would come, but he wasn’t about to complain, even if he wished that it wasn’t all moving so quickly. Rebecca had explained a bit in the coffee shop about why she was moving everything had to get done in one day. Apparently, her mental health has been getting worse since her parents died, and coming to LA made it even worse, so as soon as this was all figured out she would be checking herself into another inpatient facility. Buck couldn’t hold it against her while hearing just how much she was struggling. 

Walking into the park was harder than Buck expected it to be, but he managed to get to Mary and Rebecca standing at the edge of the playground. Buck felt lost for a moment looking at the many kids playing in front of him. His daughter is standing right in front of him, but he had no idea which kid was his. 

“Azalea!” Rebecca called out, and a little girl came running. 

“Mommy!” The girl stumbled running up to her mother, but Buck was finally able to see her. She had dark curly hair that was held out of her face with a pink clip. The blue of her jumper made her eyes pop. Her skin was a few shades darker than his, but her features were all him. There was no denying that she is his daughter.

Azalea seemed eager to jump into her mother’s arms, but Rebecca kept her at a distance. It was obvious immediately that Buck’s ex had no idea how to interact with her daughter. 

“There is someone that I want you to meet Azalea, why don’t you introduce yourself?” Rebecca redirected Azalea’s attention to Buck as soon as she could. Buck knelt down to be closer in height to his daughter. 

“Hi, me Lea!” Azalea stuck out her hand in an adorable attempt at a handshake.

“Hi Lea, I’m Buck, I’m your dad.” Buck gently shook Azalea’s outstretched hand.

Azalea squinted at his face for a moment before screaming in delight. “Daddy!” Buck couldn’t keep the shock off his face as she threw herself at him for a hug.

“My parents didn’t agree with my decision to keep you out of our lives. They found pictures of you online and showed them to her. She’s always known you to be her dad, even if you didn’t know anything about her.” Rebecca explained as Buck looked at her in confusion.

Buck didn’t get any more time to talk to Rebecca as Azalea dragged him off to where she was playing. She showed him each of the toys that she had brought with her with a giant smile on her face, and Buck wasn’t about to miss a second of it. The first time she laughed he almost cried, but he held it together, and all too soon he had to leave. 

They were all going to meet at the courthouse in a bit over an hour, but Buck had dressed to meet an ex at a coffee shop, not a judge in a courtroom, so he needed to change. Now that he knows her, it was a struggle for him to leave Azalea, but the knowledge that it was just temporary helped.

As Buck quickly changed and headed towards the courthouse he debated calling someone just for moral support, but there wasn’t anyone he could call. He knew that Hen and Bobby would both at least answer his call, but they were busy dealing with their own lives, and everyone else he could think of wouldn’t even answer. 

Buck didn’t know what to expect heading into the custody hearing, but he wasn’t expecting it to go as quickly as it did. He had heard all these stories about long-drawn-out custody battles, but with both of them on the same page, it took less than an hour. 

Before he knew it, Buck had a trunk full of all Azalea’s stuff, a sleeping toddler in her car seat, and a folder with paperwork giving him full custody. He had yet to process everything, and he had yet to even open the notebook with all her information, but he was officially responsible for his daughter. 

The first issue that he ran into came about the second he walked in the door of his loft. With the shock of everything and the chaos of the day, he hadn’t thought for a second about his current living situation. A loft apartment with no actual bedrooms was not at all reasonable for a child. When Maddie was pregnant with Jee he had at least babyproofed the place, but after she was gone and Taylor moved in it wasn’t babyproof anymore. 

He knew that Taylor would also be an issue, he hadn’t talked to her about any of this, but to start out, he focused on making the loft a safe space for a two-year-old. He blocked off the stairs so she couldn’t climb up and fall and then focused on securing everything he could, removing breakable things and choking hazards, and moving around some furniture to fit her bed. It was chaotic and tiring, especially with Azalea running around but he managed it. With how hectic the afternoon had been he barely had the chance to read the notebook, but he was able to scrounge up dinner for her and follow her nightly routine to get her to bed. 

She had just fallen asleep when Taylor walked in the door. She opened her mouth to greet him, but he shushed her immediately and dragged her into the kitchen. 

“What the fuck?” Taylor hissed, thankfully keeping her voice down.

Buck sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “Azalea is asleep.” 

“Who the fuck is Azalea?” Taylor looked at him suspiciously.

“Uh.. my two-year-old daughter.” Buck shrugged sheepishly, unsure about how to approach this conversation.

“What the fuck! You have a daughter! What the hell Buck, why didn’t you tell me about this? Who is the mother?” Taylor’s voice steadily got louder as anger won out.

“I didn’t tell you because up until today I had only gotten one picture and a text to let me know about her. I never thought I would get the chance to even meet her, but her mom contacted me today and gave me full custody—” Buck tried to explain.

“—Full custody! Buck how could you agree to that without talking to me, we haven’t even discussed having kids.”

“I have always wanted to be a father, there was no way I could give her up.”

“Well, I have never wanted to be a mother.”

“Taylor—”

“—Buck, I don’t like children, I never have. I can’t live here with a child. I can’t date someone who has a child.”

“So… this is it then?” 

“Yeah, I guess this is it. Look I was going to discuss this with you tonight but I guess now there is no reason for me not to go. I was asked to go to New York for two weeks for my job, I’ll be leaving in two days. Until then, I will stay with a friend. After I get back I will look for somewhere else to live.”

“No, you keep the loft. This place isn’t really suitable for a two-year-old. I’ll find somewhere and hopefully be moved out by the time you get back.” Buck sighed. “I’m really sorry Taylor. I didn’t want to end like this, but there was no way I was going to subject my daughter to the foster care system.”

“I know… I didn’t want it to end like this either, but it would have ended eventually. You’re a great guy Buck, just, not the guy for me.” Taylor kissed his cheek and ran up the stairs to pack herself a bag. 

Buck grabbed a beer and sat at the table as she packed, struggling to process the day. He got off shift this morning in a relationship, only vaguely aware that he had a daughter, and now, after a very dramatic day, he suddenly is single with full custody of his daughter. 

Taylor finished up and stopped in front of Buck before she left. “I’ll stop by sometime tomorrow or the next day to pack more for my trip. Maybe sometime when I don’t have to worry about waking up a sleeping toddler.”

“Yeah, yeah of course. Just let me know when. I can take Azalea to the park or something.”

Taylor snorted. “You’re daughter is named after a flower?”

Buck was a little offended but he tried to pass it off by laughing quietly, “Yeah, Azalea Rose Buckley. I guess Rebecca really liked flowers.” He shrugged, sheepishly, it wasn’t like he had anything to do with naming her, and honestly, he kinda liked her name.

Taylor looked kind of awkward for a moment before she turned and walked towards the door. “I’ll text you.”

Buck nodded and watched as she walked out of the apartment. With nothing else better to do, he turned his attention to the notebook and started to read. He learned that Azalea is more used to going by Lea, she sleeps with her favorite blanket and stuffed animal every night, and so much more. Rebecca’s mother had really noted everything, down to what laundry detergent she was used to. 

By the time he finished reading the notebook, it was late. Buck was about to get up and go to bed, but he caught sight of the scrapbook and he couldn’t help himself. He spent an hour looking at photos from his daughter’s life. Just about every milestone in her life was captured on camera and there was a little blurb next to each photo telling the story. It hurt Buck to know that he already missed so much, but he was so excited to be able to witness the rest of her life.

Chapter Text

Buck started off his first full day with his daughter early. He had a lot to get done and he couldn’t put any of it off. His first thought was to immediately start making calls. He needed to talk to Bobby about getting some time off, then he needed to start calling around to find childcare and a realtor. However, he noticed the time right before he hit the call button, and decided to put that off. It really wasn’t socially acceptable to be making phone calls before 7 am if it wasn’t an emergency, and while this was urgent, it wasn’t quite to emergency standards.

Instead, he started researching online for a new place to live. He thought about starting with childcare, but he had less of an idea about where to look for that. At first, he searched for places that he could afford just on his firefighter salary, but his search didn’t return anywhere better than the loft he was currently living in. When he argued against Rebecca paying child support he had reached the decision that he would use the inheritance that had remained untouched up until this point, but he was still trying to avoid it if at all possible. However, it looked like he really didn’t have much of a choice. 

By the time he had come to that conclusion, it was late enough in the morning that he could finally call Bobby. He thought about telling the man who had become almost like a dad to him everything, but he ultimately decided against it. He knew without a doubt that Bobby would come running to help him figure everything out, but Bobby needed to focus on his own family. They tried to act like everything was fine, but Buck could tell that Athena and Harry hadn’t fully recovered from everything that had happened with Jeffrey Hudson. 

At one point Buck might have thought that he was part of Bobby’s family. But recently he had become more distant and they had barely talked outside of work for months. They used to have breakfast on occasion after work and have a cooking lesson at least once a week, but that hadn’t happened since Harry had been kidnapped. Buck understood, but it hurt to have proof that he really was just a coworker. It made it even worse when he overheard a conversation the other day where Bobby mentioned retiring. 

Buck kept the phone call short, convincing Bobby that he just needed a couple of weeks of personal time. Bobby tried to question him about it, but ultimately he just agreed without getting any answers. Buck felt a bit guilty, but he knew that it was for the best. He would probably tell everyone eventually, once he had figured everything out. But for now, he didn’t want to add any more to everyone’s already full plates.

After his conversation with Bobby, Buck moved on to search for childcare. Almost immediately he was overwhelmed. There were a million different services he could choose from, and they all claimed to be the best. He had no idea how to tell which one was actually the best, and he had no frame of reference for childcare costs, so looking at the pricetag didn’t help him much either. 

He was about to give up and turn back to house hunting when he was struck by an idea. Honestly, he was embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of it earlier. He had watched while Eddie was in a similar situation back when he first got to the 118, and Buck found the person that could help him. Why couldn’t she help now? Without a second thought, he searched through his contacts to call the familiar number. 

“Hey, Buckaroo what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” Carla sounded happy to hear from him and Buck could feel the tension he hadn’t even noticed building start to subside. 

“Hey Carla, I actually had a favor I wanted to ask you.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Would you be able to help me find a good nanny or babysitter, or do you happen to know of any? I have no idea what I’m looking for.”

“Of course. Who are you looking for a nanny for though? As far as I know, you don’t have any kids.”

“Right, about that…” Buck paced around the room, unsure how to break the news to her.

“Buck, tell me you didn’t call me to ask for help but you are avoiding telling me you have a kid.” 

“I’m not avoiding telling you, it’s just a lot to handle, I’m just barely wrapping my head around it still.”

“Oh, Buckaroo… why don’t I head over there, it sounds like you could use a friend.”

“I really could.” Buck pulled the phone away from his ear as it buzzed with a text message. “Actually, could you meet us at the park instead, we need to get out of the apartment.” 

They finished up the phone call quickly after that, agreeing to meet at the park in 45 minutes. Before gathering up Azalea and some toys Buck took a second to text Taylor back, letting her know that they would be out of the apartment for a while. She was already on her way, it was her text that came through while he was talking to Carla, and while she said in the text that she didn’t mind if he and Azalea were still there, he didn’t really want to have her meet Azalea just to leave. 

According to the notebook, the park was one of Azalea’s favorite places to go, and she certainly acted like it. Her scream of excitement left his ears ringing but her joy was contagious. She was so excited that she couldn’t keep still, which meant that buckling her into her car seat was a challenge, but after about 10 minutes, he finally managed it. 

Unfortunately, Buck’s fight with the car seat ended up making them a bit late, so Carla was already sitting on a bench waiting for them. She smiled as they walked up but Buck could see her eyes widen when she caught a glimpse of Azalea. 

“Hey, Carla!” Buck waved as they walked up. Buck was carrying Azalea, but she was trying her hardest to be put down so she could play. 

Buck put his daughter down and kneeled down to be a similar height to her. “Lea, this is my friend, can you introduce yourself to her?”

Carla crouched down to bring her to a closer height to Azalea. “Me Lea!” Azalea introduced herself and stuck out her hand just like she had when she met Buck.

“Hi, Lea.” Carla shook her hand gently. “I’m your dad’s friend Carla.”

“Carla!” Azalea grinned at her but then immediately turned back to Buck. “Play now Daddy! Please?” Azalea grabbed his hand and tugged towards the playground. 

Buck smiled at Carla and shrugged. She just laughed in response. 

“So Buckaroo, where have you been hiding this sweetheart?” Carla questioned as they made their way to the playground.

“I wasn’t really the one hiding her. Her mom sent me a picture and a text of her name when she was born, but I hadn’t heard anything else until yesterday. Apparently, they had been living on the east coast, but her mom has been struggling with her mental health and just couldn’t do it anymore. As of yesterday afternoon, I have full custody.” Buck explained as Azalea tugged him along. 

“I have to ask, how old is she? She looks to be around 2 or 3?” Carla questioned and Buck knew immediately why she wanted to know.

“She’s almost 2 and a half. I was with her mom between Abby and Ali. We only went on two dates so I never mentioned her to anyone.” Buck explained. Azalea did look a bit older than she actually was, so it would make sense to assume she was conceived around the time that he was with Abby, but Buck didn’t cheat. In fact, he is realizing that he was too loyal, holding on long after she left. 

“Ah,” Carla nodded. Carla looked around the playground. “I’m surprised that no one else from the station is here. You are all so close I figured they would be lining up to meet Lea.”

Buck scratched at the back of his neck, “Yeah, I haven’t actually told anyone about her.”

“Why not? They would all be so excited for you.”

Buck chuckled with self-deprecation. “I don’t know about that, I can practically hear the jokes already. I’m just the kid who now has a kid, and you know they will find a way to squeeze in a joke or two about my Buck 1.0 days catching up to me.”

Carla frowned at him while waiting for a real answer. 

Buck sighed. “Everyone has so much on their plates right now, I don’t want them to have to worry about anything else.”

“Now I know you are smarter than to think that. You know every damn person in your life would be overjoyed to meet your daughter.” Carla stared him down, daring him to argue.

Buck chuckled again and smiled sadly. “You’re right. I know they would all be happy to meet her, but… she just got abandoned by her mother a couple of months after her grandparents died. Everyone that she knew is gone now. I don’t want to introduce her to anyone else that is just going to leave her.” 

“You don’t seriously think anyone is leaving you? Come on now, you have a whole family here.”

“That’s exactly what I think Carla. Maddie and Chimney are both gone, and they both are mad at me. Eddie and I haven’t talked since he left the 118. Hen is going to be leaving soon to be a doctor. And the other day I heard Bobby mention retiring after everything that happened with Harry and Athena. Everyone is either leaving or already gone.”

“Oh, Buckaroo.” Carla pulled him into a hug as he tried to hold back tears.

“I’ll probably tell them all eventually, but I need to figure out what my relationship is with them all first. I see them as my family right now, but I can’t introduce them to Lea like that only for them to leave.”

Before they could continue their discussion Azalea catches their attention and drags them into playing with her. Buck didn’t mind the distraction, already feeling overwhelmed with how emotional the conversation had become. 

They spent a few hours playing at the park with Carla before the whole group headed back to the loft. Taylor had texted that she was done an hour into their time at the park, so they were able to head back without any worry of running into her. 

After setting Azalea down for a nap Carla and Buck sat down in front of a computer and got to work. They spent that afternoon researching, and then Carla came back the next morning to help out more. She was there as often as she could trying to help Buck figure everything out. 

It took a couple of days, but Carla was able to connect him with Vanessa, an ex-preschool teacher turned nanny. Carla had met Vanessa when she was a teacher, she taught an ex-client of hers and they had kept in contact for things exactly like this. Vanessa had been a good teacher, but she didn’t like how she was left alone to deal with way too many children only to get yelled at by their parents later. She had switched over to nannying a few years back and with a stroke of perfect timing, her last clients had just moved, leaving her without a job. 

Buck had her start immediately, coming in while he was still there so he would be able to get other things done. Azalea liked her immediately, calling her Nessa. Buck had been worried about finding someone that could handle his firefighting schedule, he didn’t want a live-in nanny, but the nanny would have to stay nights sometimes when he works 24hr shifts. Vanessa was fine with that, her wife is a police officer, which wasn’t quite the same, but she is familiar with the life of a first responder.  

Before Carla helped him find Vanessa, Buck was able to find the perfect house. It was for sale rather than for rent, and it was bigger than he needed, but he fell in love with it as soon as he saw the pictures online. He was going to get a mortgage for it, but after realizing that would make escrow take up to two months he put in a cash offer. His grandparents had left him with plenty of money to be able to do that, and escrow only takes a week or two if he doesn’t need to get a loan. 

The house has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, which is a lot more than he actually needed for just himself and Azalea. They could have been fine with 2 bedrooms, or 3 so they could have a guestroom, but Buck was happy that there were 4. He told himself it was so they could have more guests over, or so that in the future their family could grow.

 Buck was lying to himself though, he already had a plan for that extra room. He wanted Christopher to decorate it, so he would always have a place there. He refused to admit it to anyone, but he had also made sure that the bathrooms were accessible and that it is a one-story house so Chris could get around easily. He and Eddie may not be talking, but he had made a promise to Chris that he would always be there for him, and he had hope that one day he and Eddie would make up. He knew better than to think that they would ever have what Buck thought they had been building to, but he really wanted to have Eddie back as a friend again. He still daydreamed that their relationship would grow to be something more, that they would one day be partners in every sense of the word, but ever since Ana, he knew that was just a dream. 

The house was also perfect for hosting, with a large living room, family room, kitchen, and backyard. He bought a house that would fit his dream life, even though his dream life was currently far out of his grasp. He had a house for hosting with no one to host and a bedroom for a kid he loves as his own but who he will never be more than the backup dad for. 

The night before he had to go back to work he hosted Carla, Vanessa, and her wife Julia for dinner. They had all helped him move a couple of days before and he wanted to thank them for everything. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much furniture, only keeping the armchair, the tv and stand, and the dining table and chairs from the loft, but they made it work. He also hadn’t managed to completely unpack the kitchen yet, so dinner was a bit of a challenge, but it was a great evening with some great people. 

By the end of his two weeks off Buck was feeling better about being a father. He was still overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility that had just been thrust on him, but he had a new house and some new people that he could rely on. He already considered Vanessa and Julia friends, even though technically he was paying Vanessa, and Azalea was settling in well. 

He still had yet to tell anyone in his found family from work about Azalea, and he was starting to think he wasn’t going to. During his two weeks off the only contact he had with the team was a couple of text messages from Bobby. No one else said a word to him. 

The one person that Buck really wanted to meet Azalea was Christopher, but that wasn’t really possible without talking to Eddie. He thought about going behind Eddie’s back by finding a time that Chris would be with Carla, but that seemed wrong. He already felt like he was doing something wrong by continuing to text and Facetime Chris without his dad knowing.

The first thing Buck did when he got to the station on his first day back was find Bobby. He wasn’t planning on telling him much about what he had spent the last two weeks doing, but he was required to keep an updated address on file, and he had moved. 

“Hey, Bobby!” Buck found Bobby in the kitchen, making breakfast like he usually did during the start of their shifts.

“Buck! Glad to see you back! Is everything ok?” Bobby questioned looking Buck over carefully. Searching him for any hint as to why he had asked for two weeks off with no notice.

“Yeah, everything is great! I actually need to update some paperwork though if that’s okay?” Buck snagged a piece of bacon off the plate Bobby was putting on the table. 

“Sure, after breakfast we can head over to my office.” Bobby turned back to the stove to finish cooking the eggs. 

In the couple minutes it took for the eggs to be done cooking the table filled up with hungry firefighters, most of them greeting Buck as they sat down. Hen and Ravi seemed to be the most excited to see him, Jonah didn’t care, and things were still a bit awkward with Lucy. 

“So Buck, where have you been?” Hen questioned as they all started to dig in.

“Nowhere really, I needed some time for myself and I had some stuff to get done.” Buck wasn’t ready to tell everyone about Azalea, but he wasn’t a great liar, so he figured being vague was the way to go. 

“You took two weeks off while we are short-staffed because you needed some time?” Lucy snorted, “Damn dude, I thought you liked this job more than that.”

Buck winced, “I just had some personal stuff to deal with that I don’t really want to talk about.” Buck tried to sound nonchalant, but his voice came out snappier than he intended. 

“Damn, sorry, don’t bite my head off.” Lucy laughed him off and went back to eating but the rest of the table continued their meal in awkward silence. 

Hen looked over at Buck every couple of minutes, obviously concerned. Buck knew why. He had a record of oversharing. Since he had started with the 118 this might be the first time he didn’t readily volunteer information, and that was bound to worry the people that knew that.

Breakfast finished up quickly after that, without any more conversation. As everyone split off to do their chores Buck followed Bobby to his office to get the paperwork sorted out. 

“So what paperwork needs to be updated?” Bobby asked as soon as they were inside with the door closed.

“I need to update my address.” 

Bobby was silent for a second before he turned around to face Buck. “You moved?” Bobby had managed to keep the surprise off his face, but he was unsuccessful at keeping it out of his voice.

“Yeah… something came up and I had to get a new place to live. That’s part of the reason I needed the time off.” Buck shrugged.

“Ok..” Bobby thumbed through a filing cabinet to get the correct form. “Is everything ok? Normally moving with short notice isn’t because of something good.”

“Oh yeah, everything is fine. The loft just wasn’t working anymore.” Buck was suddenly hit with the urge to tell the man everything, but he pushed it aside. He would tell him eventually… probably… maybe…

“If you’re sure then I won’t pry, but if you ever need to talk about anything I’m here.” Bobby found the form he was looking for and handed it to Buck to fill out. 

“Thanks Cap!” Buck filled out the form quickly and handed it back to Bobby. As Bobby filed it, Buck left the office to do his own chores for the day.

As the day went on Buck was realizing just how different the job is with a kid. He technically had been a father for over 2 years, but everything was different now that he was responsible for her. He found himself checking his phone constantly. He had asked Vanessa to update him on Azalea every few hours, but he was checking every five minutes instead. While out on calls he was much more cautious, it was one thing to be a backup parent like he was for Christopher, but it was something else entirely to be a single parent without a backup for Azalea. If something was to happen to him, she would have no one. 

They were having a slow day as far as calls went so by mid-afternoon Buck found himself sitting on the couch, staring at the black screen of his phone. It had originally been open to the message screen with Vanessa as he had been debating about texting her, but he took so long to decide that his screen timed out.

“Buck!” Hen practically yelled right in front of him.

“What!” Buck jumped and almost threw his phone.

“I have been trying to get your attention for five minutes, what’s going on?” Hen took a seat next to him, looking concerned. 

“I’m fine, I just… got lost in my head.” Buck shook his head, trying to focus on anything other than his daughter.

“Are you sure? Buck, I’ve never seen you this distracted before.” Hen sounded so genuinely concerned and Buck almost felt guilty for not telling her what was going on in his life. 

“Yeah, no I’m good. I just have a lot on my mind.”

Hen reached out to squeeze his knee. “I know that there is a lot going on right now, but if you need anything just let me know.” Hen looked at him with a tight-lipped smile before getting up and walking away. 

As soon as she walked away Buck groaned and melted into the couch, wiping his hand down his face. He thought he was doing a good job acting normally, but apparently, he was not. Before he could dwell on it too much his phone vibrated in his hand with a text.

Vanessa:

Lea’s been asking for you. 

Can you Facetime or call?

Buck didn’t even bother to answer. He shot up from the couch and started to run to the roof. He took two steps before realizing how suspicious he looked, so he did his best to slow down, but he was still fast walking. As soon as he was on the roof and away from everyone he Facetimed Vanessa.

She answered immediately. 

“Oh thank god, Lea’s been getting progressively more fussy. I can handle a lot but I have never heard a kid get that high-pitched before.”

Buck laughed. “Yeah, she’s gotten my ears to ring a few times.” 

The screen abruptly switched to a view of the ceiling for a second before Azalea’s face was on the screen. “Daddy!” She squealed.

Buck couldn’t hold back the grin. “Hey, sweetheart! Are you being good for Nessa?”

“Nessa!” Azalea giggled as she leaned into her nanny. 

Buck laughed along with her. “So, what did you do today?”

“Park!” Azalea wiggled and laughed.

“Oh! You went to the park! Did you do anything else today?” 

“Watch Poo!” Azalea squealed in laughter.

“Uhh… that’s great sweetheart…” Buck was confused about what exactly that meant, especially when Vanessa broke out in laughter in the background.

“Winne the Pooh,” Vanessa struggled to talk through her laughter. “We watched Winnie the Pooh.”

Buck burst into laughter as well. By the time he managed to get control of his laughter the alarm was ringing so he said a quick goodbye. As soon as he got in the truck he texted Vanessa to let her know that he would try to call again at bedtime but he couldn’t know for sure if he would be able to. 

He knew that he was smiling like an idiot in the engine on the way to the call but he couldn’t help it. His conversation with his daughter had made his whole day better. The only thing that could make his day any better would be talking to Chris, the other kid he loved like his own, but that wasn’t likely to happen. They tried to Facetime as much as they could, but they didn’t get a chance to talk often. 

Everyone looked at him funny, but they didn’t question him. Probably learning from that morning that he wasn’t going to answer. Buck tried his best to relax his face before they got to the scene, but he was struggling. He only managed to finally drop his smile as they pulled up to the multicar pileup they were called to. 

The call took a couple of hours but Buck was just happy that they got back to the station before Azalea’s bedtime. As soon as they pulled in he ran back up to the roof and texted Vanessa to let her know that he was available to Facetime whenever she was ready.

He didn’t have to wait long before his phone was ringing. He picked up with a grin, smiling even more when his daughter’s smiling face filled the screen. They didn’t talk for long because it was bedtime for Azalea, but it was still nice to see her face. It was turning out to be harder than expected to be at work while she was at home, but he would have to get used to it. Technically he didn’t need to work, but he loves his job, and he wouldn’t be able to handle giving it up, that had been obvious from the whole lawsuit fiasco.

Buck had been planning on heading back inside when his call with Azalea ended, but a couple of minutes after they hung up, before he went in, he got another Facetime call.

“Christopher!” It was official, it was a great day. 

“Buck!” Christopher grinned back at him.

“What’s going on bud? I didn’t think you had time to talk today.”

“I don’t really, Dad thinks that I am doing homework but I really miss you.”

“Chris… when we started Facetiming we had an agreement…” Buck started to reprimand him.

“I know, I am not allowed to call you to avoid doing my homework or chores, but I’m not I swear. I just wanted to say hi and then I’ll get right back to it, I promise.”

“Ok… If you say so.” Buck couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

Christopher’s smile dropped and he looked hesitant for a moment. “Buck?”

“Hmm?”

“Are we still friends?” Buck’s heart broke at Christopher’s question. 

“Of course we are! I will always be your best friend!” 

“Even though you aren’t friends with Dad anymore?”

Buck tried to keep his face neutral even as he was internally wincing. “My friendship with you is completely independent of my friendship with your dad. I don’t know where I stand with him right now, but I will always be there for you, no matter what.” 

“Can we hang out sometime then? I don’t like only being able to Facetime, it feels like quarantine all over again!” Chris looked at him with his patented puppy eyes and Buck was weak to resist.

“Everything is kinda complicated right now but I will try and figure something out.”

“Promise?”

“I promise I will try to figure out some time for us to hang out.” Buck knew he couldn’t promise that they will be able to hang out, his relationship with Eddie was too tenuous for that, but he could promise to try.

Chris stared at him through the screen for a moment. “Ok, I gotta get back to my homework now. Bye, Buck! Love you!”

“Love you too Superman!” Buck waved before the call ended. 

Buck sighed and buried his face in his hands. He felt terrible that Christopher was so affected by what was going on between him and Eddie, but he didn’t know how to fix it. After the conversation at the party, when Eddie said he was leaving, Buck was upset. He avoided messaging Eddie for a few days in an attempt to calm down before he talked to him. Logically he knew that Eddie was just saying he was leaving the 118, not Buck, but he still felt betrayed and abandoned. By the time he calmed down and tried to reach out to Eddie, the other man ignored him. 

After two text messages went unanswered Buck stopped trying. Two messages might not have been a lot, but he didn’t want to feel as pathetic as he felt when Abby left him. He held on for so long and sent so many messages that went unanswered. Looking back at it he was embarrassed, and after telling Taylor about it, she had advised that any more than one message was already heading toward being clingy. 

At the time he went with what Taylor said because she was his girlfriend, but since their relationship ended he has been reevaluating everything. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but she had been subtly pushing him away throughout their entire relationship. It was like she thought his entire personality was too clingy. 

With that realization, Buck had thought about messaging Eddie again, but he ultimately decided it was too late. The first messages were sent a couple of days after Christmas, but he didn’t realize that he should try again until late February. Now sitting on the roof at the beginning of March he was debating trying again anyway, but even if he did muster up the courage to send a message, he had no idea what he would say. 

Buck hung out on the roof for a while, reflecting on how much had changed in his life since the beginning of the year. It’s only three months into 2022 but his life is unrecognizable from what it was the year before. He would have stayed on the roof longer, but the alarm rang, forcing him back to work. 

Over the next few weeks, Buck got into a routine. He spent his days off with his daughter and he Facetimed her as often as he could at work. He also finally managed to send a text off to Eddie in an attempt to spend time with Christopher, but he never got a response. 

During that time he also attempted to go furniture shopping, but he was unsuccessful. He couldn’t decide on anything, so the only room in his house that was fully furnished was Azalea’s room. His room and one of the guest rooms had beds in them, and he had a dining room table, an armchair, and a tv, but that was it. There was toddler furniture spread throughout the house as well, but that wasn’t helpful for having anyone over. Luckily, Carla, Vanessa, and Julia, the only people that ever came over, didn’t care much. 

Vanessa and Julia quickly became some of Buck’s closest friends. They were some of the only people in his life that knew about Azalea but they also just got along really well. They all had dinner a few times when Julia and Buck had the same days off. They could talk for hours exchanging stories, and Buck found it amusing that Julia works with Athena and she had for years, so she has some great stories of her. 

Buck was happy with his life for the most part, but he knew it could be better. Vanessa and Julia were great, but they weren’t the found family he had made at the 118. He missed his team, but more than that, he missed his sister. He hadn’t heard from her in months, until one morning, he was sitting on the floor playing with Azalea and his phone buzzed.

Maddie: 

I stopped by your apartment but Taylor said you weren’t living there anymore?

Where are you?

What is going on?

Chapter Text

Maddie: 

I stopped by your apartment but Taylor said you weren’t living there anymore?

Where are you?

What is going on?

Buck nearly dropped his phone as he read the texts from his sister. She is back, and she is looking for him. He sent a quick response of his address and an assurance that he would explain everything in person and then he got to frantically cleaning.

He had been sitting on the floor playing with Azalea when he got the message, her toys spread out all over the floor, and his table still covered with dishes from breakfast an hour ago. Normally he would clean up immediately after eating, but he wasn’t the best at saying no to Azalea yet, and she was insistent on playing with the new toy he had gotten her yesterday. 

Luckily there wasn’t a lot to clean up, so he was just finishing up wiping down the table when he heard a knock on his door. Buck looked back at his daughter and smiled, watching her playing on the floor before taking a deep breath and heading to the door. 

Buck took a second to take in the sight of his sister standing there on the porch before he practically knocked her over with a hug. She had come alone, which while surprising, was probably for the best. It was probably better that Azalea was meeting her Aunt Maddie alone, and it meant that Buck didn’t have to worry about any drama with Chimney yet.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” Buck pulled away from the hug to look at his sister.  “You are back, right? You’re not leaving again?”

“I’m back.” Maddie smiled at him. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Buck started to move to let Maddie inside before blocking the entrance again. She looked up at him in confusion. “I’m sorry, should I not have come?” 

“No, no, I want you here, I just realized I should explain something before we go inside.”

“What’s going on?” Maddie looked at him expectantly.

“So about a month and a half ago, I got a text from my ex—”

“—Please tell me you didn’t break up with Taylor and move in with an ex.” Maddie raised her eyebrow. Buck knew that she wasn’t a fan of any of his exes, for a good reason, so he wasn’t surprised at her reaction.

“Taylor and I did break up, but I didn’t get back with an ex.” Buck took a second to take a deep breath. “I have a daughter. I knew about her, she was born during the lawsuit, but her mom refused to tell me anything other than the fact that she existed. But a month and a half ago my ex decided that she couldn’t handle being a mother anymore. She gave me full custody.”

Maddie remained silent as she stared at him with wide eyes. After a moment she whispered, “I’m an aunt?”

Buck smiled. “Yeah, I would have told you earlier, but…”

“But I wasn’t answering your calls. I’m so sorry Buck, I should have been there to support you through all this.” Maddie looked like she was close to tears.

“No no, Maddie, it’s ok, I just wanted you to get better. I am really excited for you to meet her though.” Buck moved aside to let Maddie into the house.

“Buck, there is no furniture in here,” Maddie noted before she squealed seeing the little girl playing on the floor.

Buck led her over to sit on the floor in front of Azalea. “Hey, Lea, this is my sister Maddie. She is your Auntie.”

Azalea squinted at Maddie for a second before sticking out her hand. “Me Lea!” 

Maddie grinned and shook the outstretched hand, cooing at how adorable her niece is. Azalea immediately dragged her into playing with her new toys, and Maddie was happy to oblige her. 

They spent the rest of the morning together. Buck told her the whole story of what had happened while she had been gone and got Maddie to agree not to tell anyone about Azalea, he wanted to be the one to let everyone know. Maddie filled him in on everything that happened in Boston. She wasn’t happy to hear about what Chimney had done before he left, but she also wasn’t sure where her relationship stood with Chimney. They had broken up on the drive back home. It wasn’t that they didn’t love each other anymore, it was just that everything had gotten so complicated and they really needed some time apart. 

Maddie had to leave a bit after noon, but Vanessa, Julia, and Carla were coming over to dinner that night, so Buck extended the invitation to Maddie as well. She agreed to come, but she would have to have Jee with her. At first, Buck was hesitant, thinking that Chimney would be coming as well, but once Maddie explained that it would just be her and Jee he was excited. It would be good to have Azalea meet her cousin. 

Dinner that night went amazing. Azalea and Jee had a great time together and Maddie got along fabulously with Vanessa and Julia. For the first time in months, Buck felt like he really had a family again. There were a lot of people missing, but his sister was back, and that helped a lot. 

Work continued to be the same, but the majority of the team was counting down the days until Chimney was back at work. Buck wanted to join in on the excitement for his return, but after the way they left things, he wasn’t sure that Chimney would be excited to see him. Jonah was also getting increasingly annoyed at the prospect of Chimney returning, knowing that he would soon be out of a job. Between the two of them dreading the man’s return and everyone else’s excitement for it, the energy in the station was strange. 

Hen and Bobby both tried to talk to Buck about his mood, but he hadn’t told either of them about what had happened when Chimney left. The only person that knew Chimney had punched him was Eddie, everyone else only knew that Chimney was mad at him. As the day Chimney was coming back got closer, Buck found himself wishing more and more that he was still on speaking terms with Eddie. 

He missed his best friend, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. So he started texting him. At first, he just sent apology after apology, hoping that Eddie would finally respond, but then he just started sending him anything he could think of. He never got a response, but he started texting him as if they never had a fight. Whenever he didn’t get a text telling him to cut it out he felt a bit more hopeful. 

Surprisingly, texting Eddie about the situation with Chimney helped, even though he wasn’t actually getting any response. He knew Eddie well enough that he was able to guess what the other man would say, and that was enough for him to stop panicking about seeing the father of his niece. 

By the time Chimney worked his first shift back, he was no longer almost having a panic attack at the thought of seeing him. He still wasn’t excited, but he managed to walk into the station and get changed without any incident. He was the only one that wasn’t excited, Jonah had worked his last shift with them days before.

Buck had made sure to get there early, even though it meant less time with Azalea. He wanted to make sure that he was there before Chimney so he had a little bit more control over their meeting. He tried to sit on the couch and wait, but he was too anxious, so he ended up pacing the loft. Bobby gave him a concerned look when he noticed, and so did Hen, but neither said anything to him. 

Eventually, Chimney walked up the stairs. Buck hung back as everyone crowded him, but to his surprise,  Chimney pushed past them to walk towards him. Buck couldn’t read the look on his face, so he tensed more with every step, flinching and closing his eyes once Chimney was close enough to reach him.

Buck waited to be punched again, but instead, he just heard a gasp. Cautiously he opened his eyes to see Chimney had backed up a couple of steps and he had a wrecked look on his face.

“ Oh god, you seriously thought that I was going to punch you again. I’m so sorry Buck,  I was so angry but I never should have punched you like that.” Buck heard gasps from the rest of the team behind Chimney but he refused to look away from the man’s face. “You were just trying to protect your sister and I couldn’t see that. I am so sorry.” Chimney grimaced as he continued. “I understand if you are uncomfortable working with me. I won’t hold it against you if you avoid me forever, but I need you to know that I am so sorry and I will never do it again.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—”

“—No, don’t apologize for that. You were just trying to do what you thought was best for your sister. I didn’t get that back then, but I get it now.”

Buck searched Chimney’s face for any hint of a lie. Finding none he made a decision and he pulled the man he once thought of as a brother into a hug. “Welcome back Chim!” Buck hadn’t expected to ever forgive the man, but Buck could see that he was actually apologetic for what he had done, and it looked like the situation was weighing on him just as much as it was on Buck. 

Chimney tensed for a moment before wrapping his arms around Buck. “Thanks, Buck”

When they pulled away both of them were blinking furiously, trying to hide that they had teared up. The past few months had been hard. Buck hadn’t realized how much the whole thing had been weighing on him until he was faced with seeing Chimney again, but now that he had solved things with him, he felt so much lighter. 

Once they had composed themselves they turned back to the rest of the team only to find them all staring at them.

“He punched you! That’s why you have been acting so weird?” Hen questioned Buck.

Buck scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I didn’t tell him everything I knew about Maddie leaving because she asked me not to and he found out. He wasn’t too happy about it.”

Chimney looked sheepish. “It wasn’t my best moment.”

“I’d say! What the hell Chim!” Hen looked shocked. 

Bobby opened his mouth to say something but the alarm went off before he could make a sound. They all jumped into action, ending the conversation, and both Buck and Chimney let out sighs of relief. 

As soon as they all settled into the truck Chimney started a conversation, probably to steer the conversation away from the topic they had been on earlier, but it just made Buck feel the weight of not being around his best friend anymore. “So how is everyone? Oh wait how is Eddie? I haven’t heard from him recently.” 

“When I talked to him last he was doing alright, he is in charge of the LAFD updates Twitter over at dispatch. He said he was going to start trying to get back to us soon. But I haven’t talked to him in a while. Buck, do you know how he’s doing?” Bobby brought everyone’s attention to Buck.

“Oh, uh… I haven’t talked to him since Christmas…” Buck jumped out as soon as the truck stopped moving, knowing that he was going to get a lot of questions. Buck and Eddie had been BuckandEddie for years, it wasn’t like them to go months without talking, in fact, since the lawsuit the longest they had gone without talking had been a few hours. 

Buck hoped that by the time they got back in the engine to head back, the conversation would have been forgotten about, and when no one asked him about it he thought that he was in the clear, but Hen cornered him as soon as they were back in the station.

“Buck—”

“—Hen, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

She looked at him for a moment, searching his face. “Ok, but if you change your mind we are all here for you.”

Buck pushed by her, muttering a thank you as he walked away. He wasn’t trying to be rude, but talking, or even thinking, about his broken friendship with Eddie was not a good idea if he wanted to function for the rest of the shift. He was dealing with it better now that he was texting him and he even left a few voicemails, but the radio silence was still getting to him. Talking to Christopher was starting to get painful, just because the kid’s mannerisms are so similar to Eddie’s and he really misses his best friend. 

Thankfully no one mentioned Eddie again after that, but the next time they were all in the engine Chimney started another awkward conversation. 

“So Buck, how’s Taylor?” Taylor was never mentioned at the 118, none of them liked her or ever wanted to hear about her, so by asking about her, it was obvious that they were getting worried about his lack of talking after Eddie had been brought up. Buck could tell that Chimney was just trying to get him to join the conversation and make up for the previous awkward topic, but unfortunately, he was about to make the whole situation worse. 

“Good probably, I don’t know, we broke up a while back.” Buck shrugged and wished that they could get there faster.

“I thought your relationship was going well, didn’t you move in with her?” Bobby turned in his seat to look at Buck as he asked. 

“She moved in with me back in January, so when we broke up in February I moved out,” Buck explained, shrinking in his seat under the curious eyes of his team.

“In February… Wait, was that when you took those two weeks off?” Hen’s eyes lit up when she figured it out.

“Yeah, I had to find a new place and move while Taylor was in New York. It was pretty hectic.”

“Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you move.” Bobby frowned. 

Buck shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry you guys. Besides, we got rid of most of my furniture when Taylor moved in, so there really wasn’t much to move.”

“Still, we could have at least been there for you. Breakups are never easy.” Hen reached over to give his knee a reassuring squeeze. 

“Thanks but I wasn’t too broken up about it. We both want such different things in life, we were bound to break up at some point.” Their conversation ended abruptly as they reached their destination and Buck couldn’t have been more relieved. 

After multiple uncomfortable conversations, Buck was ready for his shift to be over, but it just dragged on. Buck was scared that somehow Chimney was going to ask him something that would require him to tell the team about Azalea. He wouldn’t put it past him to ask why Buck was the one to move out even though the apartment was his, but to his surprise, Chimney didn’t ask. What was even more surprising though, was that none of the uncomfortable conversations that they had were brought up again over the next few weeks.

Buck walked into work a couple of weeks after Chimney came back expecting the day to go just like every other day, but he was quickly proven wrong as he entered the locker room to see someone he was not expecting. 

“Eddie?”

Buck almost dropped his bag in surprise and Eddie got his arm stuck in his shirt as he tried to pull it on. Once Eddie got his shirt situation figured out he turned to Buck, and they just stared at each other.

A million thoughts were going through Buck’s mind. He knew that Bobby had mentioned Eddie wanting to come back a few weeks ago, but he had been expecting a warning before suddenly walking in on him changing in the locker room. 

Eddie broke eye contact first saying only Buck’s name while nodding before walking out of the locker room, now fully dressed. Buck remained frozen, barely inside the room. He had no idea how he was supposed to act. After Eddie had forgiven him for the lawsuit they always had been on the same page. There was never a question of how to act around each other, and there was never any awkwardness between them, until now. 

It took him a while to finally get changed, but eventually, he left the locker room and started toward the loft. He wasn’t sure what to say to Eddie, or if he was going to say anything at all. Buck had texted him so many apologies in the past month that he wasn’t sure what else remained unsaid. He didn’t want to ignore Eddie, but the ball was in his court. 

Buck seriously considered starting his shift off with a workout. It would give him the chance to work through some of his anxious energy and it would postpone seeing Eddie. However, it was Eddie’s first day back, which meant that Bobby had made a nice breakfast to celebrate, and everyone was expected to be there. If he hadn’t already seen Eddie, the emptiness of the truck bay would have given away that something was different than usual. From the looks of it, Buck was the only one that wasn’t in the loft, and he knew from experience that if he didn’t get up there soon, someone would be sent to retrieve him. 

Sure enough, when he reached the top of the stairs he was greeted by the sight of everyone crowded around the table for breakfast. What threw him off, however, was that there wasn’t an open seat left for him. He looked on in confusion as he counted people, trying to figure out why there wasn’t a chair for him. Realizing that there was a full shift of people seated at the table, Buck started to turn towards the schedule, but the team sitting at the table had noticed him.

“Buck! Come on, we are waiting to eat!” Chimney yelled at him, waving him over. 

Buck walked up to the table and looked around again, hoping another chair would appear out of thin air to spare him the embarrassment. 

“Uh, Cap, did you overschedule this shift?” Hen asked as she noticed the lack of an open chair. 

“No… I double-checked when I added Eddie back to the schedule.” Bobby looked around the table, searching for who might be out of place. 

“Why don’t we figure it out after eating? The food is getting cold.” Buck did his best to get all eyes off him. He felt like a bug under a microscope even though it wasn’t his first day back at work. All the attention should have been on celebrating Eddie’s return, not staring at him as he pathetically looked for a chair that didn’t exist.

“But then where will you eat?” Eddie squinted at him. 

“I can sit on the couch, it’s no big deal.” Buck shrugged, avoiding Eddie’s eyes.

Not waiting for anyone to argue him Buck made himself up a plate and made his way to the couch, ignoring all the eyes on him. After a while, talking and laughter broke out at the table, and Buck’s heart broke, but he chose this. He knew that if he were to insist on being at the table they would have made room and found a chair somewhere, but by the time they did that all the food would have been cold and everyone would have been knocking elbows. His solution wasn’t ideal, but it was better than ruining the morning for all of them. 

After he finished eating Buck cleaned up his plate and moved back to the couch. Bobby had announced while they were eating that no one should start their chores for the day until they figured out who was supposed to be working, so Buck had nothing better to do than sit there. He pulled out his phone and was about to start scrolling on Instagram when he felt someone sit down next to him.

“You didn’t have to sit here all alone you know, we could have grabbed you a chair.” Hen was looking at him with a sad smile. 

“I know, but then everyone would have been uncomfortably squished together. Besides, I already made everyone wait long enough.” Buck shrugged.

“So this had nothing to do with you ignoring Eddie?” Hen raised her eyebrow.

“I’m not ignoring him, I’m just not sure what else there is to say to him.” 

Hen looked confused by his admission, but when she went to say something, Bobby brought everyone’s attention to him by clapping. 

“It looks like there was a glitch in the system tying Ravi and Lucy’s schedules together.” Bobby turned to look at the two in question. “Why did neither of you point out that you were scheduled exclusively for doubles?”

“I figured that someone else called off for a few weeks so we are short-staffed?” Ravi shrugged sheepishly. 

Everyone’s attention turned to Lucy who didn’t seem put off in the least. “I wasn’t about to complain, I love my job and the overtime pay definitely wouldn’t hurt.” 

Bobby just shook his head and motioned for the two of them to follow him to his office to figure it out. As they walked away Buck was suddenly hit with a wave of relief. He knew that there was only a slight chance that he was the one in the wrong, but because he was the last one upstairs and after everything that happened recently, he still had the lingering feeling that he was the one that wasn’t supposed to be there. 

Hen must have picked up on his relief because she looked at him in shock. “Did you seriously think that you were the one that wasn’t supposed to be here? Buck, how many times do we have to tell you? You are a part of this team, you belong here.”

“I know, I know, but…” Buck sighed, “I was the last one up here and with everything that happened with Chimney and with Eddie not talking to me, it would make sense to move me to a different shift or something.” The possibility that Bobby would just fire him entirely remained unsaid, but Buck was sure that Hen could see what he meant. 

“Buck…” Hen’s voice cracked. “You’re stuck with us, you know that right?”

Buck smiled sadly, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. “That’s what Eddie said.”

Unable to handle the conversation anymore Buck walked away. With the schedule all figured out they had a better idea of the chores for the day, so Buck got started on his. The reminder that Eddie had said that Buck was stuck with them, just weeks before he left, was like a knife to the heart. Luckily his chores were off away from everyone, he wasn’t sure he could handle being around anyone while he recovered. 

Eventually, the alarm rang for a call, and then it didn’t stop for the rest of the morning. Most calls were minor, with mercifully short rides to get to them, so Buck didn’t have to worry about spending too long in close proximity to Eddie. 

The situation from that morning had been solved by Lucy leaving. She was being moved to B shift, and Buck was honestly a little relieved. It was awkward between them after they kissed while Buck was dating Taylor, and Lucy seemed to hold it against him. He knew he was in the wrong, but she seemed to not want to let it go, and then when he tried to be less reckless after he got custody of Azalea, she seemed to take it personally. The situation with Eddie meant that there was still a lot of awkwardness, but without Lucy there it was a bit better. 

It took until a bit after noon for them to have a break, but as soon as they did Bobby enlisted Buck’s help to make lunch. As soon as they started cooking Bobby started talking.

“So Buck, I talked to Hen earlier…” Bobby looked over at Buck, obviously hoping that he would bait him into talking but Buck didn’t respond. 

“She mentioned that you were worried that I moved you to a different shift.” Bobby again looked at Buck for a response, but he still didn’t get one.

“Buck,” Bobby sighed, “I have no plans to transfer you to a different shift. You are part of this team, and yes it would work better if everyone always got along but that is unrealistic.”

“Thanks, Bobby, but you can’t seriously think that this is working well between Eddie and me.” Buck let out a humorless laugh.

“Well no, but I have faith that you two will figure it out. You just need to talk.”

Buck let out another humorless laugh. “That’s a lot easier to say than to do. I’ve run out of things to say.”

Bobby looked surprised as he opened his mouth to respond, but the alarm rang out before he could.

As they started on the way Bobby filled them in on what they were heading to. “There was a police officer shot. The 133 is already on the way. We were just called in to help with crowd control and to help with the injuries from the resulting chaos.”

Chapter Text

Hearing that another first responder was shot was always difficult, but Buck wasn’t too personally affected by it until he saw where they were going. He recognized the place, a small cafe where Vanessa liked to take Azalea to meet Julia for lunch, where they were planning on meeting today. 

As they pulled in his stomach started to fill with dread. As soon as the engine stopped Bobby started to give out assignments, but Buck was already moving. He had to find out if it was Julia, if Azalea was there, and if she was safe. 

“Julia!” He wasn’t able to stop his anguished shout as he saw his friend, surrounded by paramedics, losing a lot of blood. 

“Buck?” She weakly cried out apparently having heard his voice.

He had planned on staying away, giving the paramedics space to do their jobs, but as soon as she called for him he knew he had no choice but to go to her. 

“I’m here, Julia, I’m here.” Buck did his best to stay in her line of sight without obstructing the paramedics. 

“Tell…tell V’nessa… tell her… I love her…” Julia struggled to stay awake. 

“She already knows, and you can tell her again at the hospital ok?” Buck tried to stay positive. She had been shot twice, one bullet went through her shoulder, the other through her thigh. She was lucky that neither seemed to hit an artery, but she was still losing a lot of blood. 

Buck was pushed aside as the paramedics got her into the ambulance. He almost moved to follow her, before realizing that he still didn’t know what happened to Vanessa or Azalea. He searched the crowd that he was supposed to be helping contain for a familiar face, but he found nothing. He was about to pull out his phone to call Vanessa when he saw them.

Vanessa was running towards the crowd, carrying Azalea, who had her face hidden in her neck. She was coming from the parking lot, so it was likely they had just gotten there, meaning they didn’t know what was happening. As Buck was about to run over to her, he noticed Athena helping with crowd control.

“Athena!” Buck waved her down and motioned her to follow him. He knew that Vanessa had met her a few times, so she would at least understand who they were talking to.

As soon as Athena was following him Buck took off towards Vanessa and his daughter. Once he was close enough, Vanessa started asking questions.

“Buck! What is going on? They said someone was shot.” 

Buck could see Athena looking at him with her eyebrows raised but he ignored her. He reached out to take Azalea, causing his daughter to turn to him for the first time since they got there. 

“Daddy!” Azalea cheered as he took her, and Buck plastered on a fake smile for her benefit before pulling her in close, tucking her head into his neck. He knew Athena must be confused, but there were more important things to worry about. 

Once Azalea was no longer in her arms Vanessa finally noticed Athena standing there. “Sergeant Grant— what— is Julia…?” Vanessa started crying before getting an answer.

“Julia was shot, she is being rushed to Cedars right now. She was stable when they left and I can drive you to the hospital if you would like.” Athena offered and then pulled the crying woman in for a hug. 

“Please… but Buck…” Vanessa looked between him and Azalea. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out. You just worry about Julia. Keep me updated please.” Buck pushed them towards Athena’s car as he took Azalea’s bag from her. 

They left quickly and then Buck was left standing there, holding his daughter, with no idea where he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to be doing. He just stood there for a moment and then he made his way to the engine. 

The crowd was thinning out by the time he got to the truck, and the rest of his team was already standing there waiting. He could see them talking into their radios, but he didn’t hear anything from his. Looking down, he noticed that somehow it had been turned off. 

He winced as he walked up, knowing that he was about to get a million questions, starting with where he was. Chimney was the first to see him.

“Buck, where have you been?” Chimney yelled when Buck was still far away, but as he got closer, Buck could see Chimney’s eyes widen in shock as he noticed Azalea. “Uhhh, what’s with the kid?”

Chimney’s yell had caught the attention of the rest of the team, so they were now looking between Buck and Azalea in confusion. 

“This is my daughter, Azalea.” Buck introduced her to all of them and then turned to Bobby. “Can she come back to the station with us? I’ll figure something out for the rest of the day, but her nanny is on the way to the hospital to be with her wife.”

Everyone was looking at Buck in shock, but Bobby shook it off to respond. “Yeah… yeah of course.” 

As the team piled into the engine Buck showed Azalea around, but once they sat down Hen took over entertaining her. In the meantime, Buck pulled out his phone to text his sister. He was hoping she would be able to watch Azalea, but she responded that she was just starting her first shift back at dispatch. He knew that was coming up, but he silently cursed that it was today.

Reading Maddie’s response, Buck sighed and ran his hand through his hair. The only other person Azalea knows is Carla, but she was currently watching Christopher and he couldn’t ask her to take Azalea as well. He also doubted Eddie would be comfortable with it.  

“Buck, is everything ok?” Bobby looked at him in concern as Buck was pulling at his hair.

“I’m just trying to figure out someone to watch her. I was hoping that Maddie would be able to but she is working.”

“Is there anyone else you can ask?” Hen looked up from Azalea to ask.

“Not really, the only other person that she has met is Carla.” Buck noticed Eddie quickly grab his phone but he didn’t pay too much attention to it, he was too busy racking his brain trying to figure out what to do. 

“I’ll have you as the man behind until you can find someone, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.” Bobby offered a partial solution, but Buck really hoped that he wouldn’t need to be the man behind. 

“So, are we going to get an explanation on how you suddenly have a daughter?” Chimney asked after the silence dragged on for a while.

“Yeah…” Buck glanced over at Azalea, “But not while she is here.” Buck had decided to be honest with Azalea about the situation with her mother, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to rein in his anger while telling the whole story, and he didn’t want her to witness that. 

His answer got some raised eyebrows, but no one pushed. They got to the station a few minutes later and Buck took Azalea on a tour. She wasn’t really paying attention to their surroundings but she was smiling and laughing so Buck kept going. Buck ended the tour by collapsing on the couch in the loft, only to shoot up again when he heard the familiar sound of crutches walking into the firehouse.

“Where is the little flower?” Carla’s familiar voice rang out. 

Buck sprinted down the stairs carrying Azalea. 

“Buck!” Christopher yelled out at him as soon as he was in his line of sight.

“Chris!” As much as Buck wanted to immediately greet Chris, he stopped at Carla first and handed Azalea to her. As soon as his arms were free he sank to his knees and pulled Christopher into a tight hug.

Eventually, he got up off the floor and turned to Carla as they made their way to the loft. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard that you were looking for someone to watch Miss Lea here.”

Buck looked between Carla and Christopher. “What… but…”

“Do you seriously think I can’t handle these two angels?” Carla raised her eyebrow at his hesitation. 

“No, no… it’s just…” Buck looked around for Eddie.

“What? You think Eddie isn’t ok with it? Buck, who do you think asked me to come?” Buck looked at Carla in surprise.

Carla sighed and shook her head. “You boys just need to talk to each other!” 

Buck chuckled. “Everyone keeps telling me that, but I’ve already said everything I can think of to him and he hasn’t responded.” 

Carla’s eyebrows shot up at that statement, but they had finally made it to the rest of the group in the loft so she let the conversation end. Carla handed Azalea back to Buck and made her way to talk to the rest of the team while Buck headed toward where Christopher was sitting on the couch. 

“Chris there is someone I want you to meet.” Buck knelt down in front of Chris holding Azalea. “This is my daughter, Azalea.”

“Me Lea!” Azalea held her hand out to Chris. 

Buck had expected Chris to respond to her, he has always been a polite kid, but he ignored her, looking at Buck instead. “Is she why you don’t hang out with me anymore?” 

Buck felt his heart break, and he searched for someone to hand Lea off to so he could talk to Chris. The team had made their way over to the couches to join them, so it wasn’t hard for him to hand Azalea off to Carla. 

“No, it’s nothing like that…” Buck tried to think of a good way to explain. “Do you remember that conversation we had when you took an Uber to my house?”

“Yeah, you said you would never leave… and then you did.” Christopher pouted. 

Buck sighed. “I know I haven’t been around to see you at all, but that has nothing to do with you and nothing to do with Lea. I tried but…” Buck trailed off, realizing too late that it would be better for Chris to think it was his fault they hadn’t seen each other than for him to know it was because his dad never responded. 

“But my dad kept you away… didn’t he? He quit and then you stopped coming by.”

“I’m sorry Chris I should have found a way even though your dad wasn’t responding to me.” Buck apologized again, trying to redirect the blame to him instead of Eddie. 

“Wait! What do you mean about not responding to you? You never responded to me after Christmas so I was giving you space.” Eddie moved around the couch to sit next to his son, looking at Buck in confusion. 

“I texted you two days after Christmas! I texted you a month ago asking to see Chris, and then like a hundred times after that apologizing! I called you like a dozen times!” Buck pulled out his phone and scrolled through the texting history as proof. 

Eddie pulled out his own phone to show his message history, showing the last messages as having been from Christmas. Buck took the phone from him and looked at his contact information. 

“You blocked me?” Buck asked, hurt. He hadn’t thought to look and see if his messages were delivered, he had just assumed that their relationship was strong enough that no matter what they wouldn’t block each other. 

“What? No!” Eddie looked mad at the accusation before his eyes widened in realization. “The day after Christmas I drank a few too many beers and I kept almost texting you even though it was obvious you needed space so I blocked myself from being able to text you just in case.” Eddie explained, looking at his phone in confusion.

“Eddie… that’s not how blocking someone works,” Buck spoke slowly, rubbing his face with his hand. 

“What?” Eddie looked completely baffled.

“When you block someone, you can still message them, but none of their messages to you get delivered,” Hen explained gently, even as she was holding back laughter.

“Dad, are you seriously saying that the reason I haven’t been able to see Buck is because you don’t know how phones work?” Chris was unimpressed, staring at his dad with his eyebrows raised. His deadpan question made everyone except Eddie laugh. 

“Yes, that is what I’m saying… Dios, I’m so sorry.” Eddie buried his face in his hands. 

“Wait, is that why you all were telling me to talk to him?” Buck looked around at the rest of the people in the room. “You guys thought that I was the one not saying anything?”

“After you mentioned that the two of you hadn’t talked since Christmas we asked him about it. We would have asked you, but you made it pretty clear that you didn’t want to talk about it.” Hen explained kindly. 

Buck groaned. “So this all could have been solved a lot sooner if I had just mentioned to literally anyone that I had been texting him?”

“Yeah pretty much.” Chimney unhelpfully supplied and everyone else agreed.

Buck turned back to Chris. “Well, now that our communication issue has been fixed we can set up a time to hang out. How does the zoo sound?” 

“Yeah!” Chris cheered before his face fell to a more neutral expression. “Will Lea be there?” 

“Do you want Lea to be there?” Buck asked hesitantly.

“I don’t know, does she like the zoo?” Christopher asked without giving away his feelings about her being there.

“I don’t think she’s ever been.” 

“Well, then she has to come! We can show her everything and tell her all the cool animal facts!” Christopher started to get excited and Buck was hit with a wave of relief. He would have been fine spending a day with just Chris, especially after not seeing him for so long, but it was nice to know that Chris wasn’t against having Azalea around. 

With that figured out their little group dispersed. Christopher insisted on introducing himself to Azalea, and the rest of the team all wanted to get to know her as well. While that was happening, Eddie dragged Buck away from the group.

“I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t mean to block you. I just knew that you needed space and I didn’t want to—” Eddie frantically stuttered out an apology when they reached the kitchen.

“—Eds, it’s ok. I appreciate that you were trying to give me space, but I really overreacted to the whole thing. I knew that you meant that you were just leaving the 118, not me, but I have been left so many times so it felt like that is what you were saying. I—” Buck sighed, unsure how to explain everything. After a moment he took out his phone and started scrolling through their message history, only stopping when he got to the last thing Eddie had said to him.

“Here.” Buck handed his phone to Eddie. “You were supposed to get all these messages, so you might as well read them now. There are also some voicemails, but those will be on your phone.” As Eddie started scrolling Buck walked back to the group. They would need to continue their conversation later, but there were a lot of texts for him to read first. 

As Buck watched his team interact with his daughter he felt more at home than he had in a long time. Seeing Chris and Azalea interact and play while surrounded by the people he spends so much of his time with just seemed right. For a moment, Buck was able to forget everything that had happened recently, and they felt like a family again. 

He was laughing and joking along with everyone when Eddie yelled out to him from where he was scrolling through his phone in the kitchen. “Hey Buck, you are getting a phone call from Vanessa!” 

Eddie held up the phone like he would be able to see it from the couch and Buck almost fell over trying to get to him. He didn’t mean to be rude, but he snatched the phone from Eddie without a second thought.

“Do you have news?” Buck didn’t bother to say hello.

“She’s out of surgery. The doctors said that she should be just fine.” Buck could hear the relief in Vanessa’s voice even as she was sniffling from crying.

“Thank god.” Buck slumped against the nearest wall. “Are you doing ok?”

“I’m barely holding it together but Athena sat with me the whole time and that helped a lot.” 

“She’s good at that. Is she still there with you?” 

“No, she left after we heard from the doctors. She said something about questioning that boy about having a damn kid.” Vanessa chuckled. 

“So she should be here soon then. Great. Thanks for the update. Let me know if I can do anything.”

“Of course, thanks, Buck.” Vanessa hung up the phone a moment later, and Buck turned to see the confused faces of his team.

“Julia’s ok?” Carla asked. 

“Yeah, she just got out of surgery, and she should make a full recovery.” Buck handed his phone back to Eddie so he could keep reading, but Eddie was more interested in the phone call.

“So who was that?” Eddie asked as everyone else kept looking at him.

“Oh, that was Vanessa, Lea’s nanny,” Buck explained but no one looked any less confused. 

“Who was in surgery?” Hen questioned when Buck didn’t volunteer any more information.

Buck looked confused that they didn’t already know. “Her wife was the officer shot earlier, that’s why I had to take Lea. I told you that earlier.” 

“No, you just said she was going to the hospital to be with her wife,” Chimney said slowly.

“Sorry, I thought it was implied.” Buck shrugged. 

“It wasn’t, but it makes a lot more sense that you ran away the second we got there. I’m guessing you knew that they were going to be there?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, they like to meet up at that cafe for lunch. I was terrified that Lea was there when the shooting happened, but they didn’t get there until after us.” Buck moved back over to sit on the couch. 

Conversations started back up around the room, and at some point, Bobby brought out some sandwiches for a late lunch and Athena showed up. They talked for about an hour, until Carla decided that it was time for her and the kids to leave. Eddie finally came over and handed back Buck’s phone as she said her goodbyes. 

“Ok, Buckaroo, I would take them to your house cause it is so much bigger, but since you don’t have any furniture we will be at Eddie’s.” 

“I have furniture!” 

“You have a dining table and an armchair.” Carla deadpanned. 

“I’m not very good at furniture shopping.” Buck shrugged sheepishly. 

“Yeah well, maybe you can get someone here to help you with that. You have a lot of space to fill in that huge house of yours.” Carla laughed as she walked out with the kids.

“So uh… how big is your house exactly?” Chimney questioned him as soon as she left.

“It’s like 3,000 square feet or something like that. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. It’s a nice house, but only like half the rooms currently have furniture.”

“Why do you need such a big house for just the two of you?” Chimney looked confused by the whole situation.

Before Buck could respond Hen spoke up. “Ignore him for now. Are we going to get an explanation on how you suddenly have a 2-year-old?” 

“Right, yeah.” Buck sighed. “Between Abby and Ali, I went on a couple of dates with a woman named Rebecca. After our second date, she texted me saying that she wasn’t in a good place for a relationship. I thought that was the last time I would hear from her.” Buck started from the beginning, because he knew none of them knew about Rebecca, and he didn’t want any of them to assume that it had something to do with Abby or Ali. 

“The day after the arbitration for the lawsuit she texted me a picture of a newborn and the name Azalea Rose. She refused to tell me anything other than that she is my daughter and that I would not be allowed to be in her life. I didn’t even know her last name and all I knew about their location was that they had left California. I wanted to look for them, but I didn’t have enough information.” Buck pulled out his phone and showed them the picture he got that day. 

“Mid-February of this year she texted me again asking to meet. That day we went in front of a judge and she gave me full custody. Apparently, she had been in and out of inpatient treatments for her mental health since she left LA. Azalea was taken care of by her parents, but when they both died from covid she had to take custody. She couldn’t handle even looking at Lea. 

“Rebecca gave up all parental rights to her and she doesn’t want anything to do with her anymore. She tried to pay child support so she would feel less guilty about abandoning Azalea, but when she found out that she would still have to maintain rights to her to do that she changed her mind instantly.” Buck started to let anger seep into his voice. “She just abandoned her!” Buck took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. “I don’t want to be mad at her for it. I understand she was struggling but how could she just leave her daughter? Especially after she made sure to keep me out of her life for so long.”

“Oh, Buck.” Hen pulled him into a tight hug. 

“The day I got Lea I stayed up late reading the notebook Rebecca’s mom made that detailed everything about my daughter. I had to consult a notebook to learn about my own daughter!” Buck threw his hands in the air in frustration. He took a moment to calm down and then he continued the story.

“Taylor broke up with me the second she found out I had a daughter. She never wanted kids so Lea was a dealbreaker for her. It was a pretty amicable breakup, but it put a deadline on when I had to move out by. She was going to New York for two weeks, and I needed to be gone before she got back.” Buck shook his head. “If it wasn’t for Carla I would have been stuck. She helped me hunt for a place to live and she got me connected to Vanessa. Carla, Vanessa, and Vanessa’s wife Julia got me moved into my new house a couple of days before I had to go back to work, and they all have been helping me a lot since then.”

“Why didn’t you ask any of us to help?” Bobby looked upset at the fact that he was left out of the loop.

Buck sighed. “There were a lot of reasons but the biggest one was that I didn’t want to introduce Azalea to people that I wasn’t sure were staying. She had just moved away from everything she had ever known and her mom abandoned her. I wasn’t going to set her up to be abandoned by anyone else.” Buck shrugged.

The whole team looked stricken by that. “Buck, you know we would never abandon you, right?” Hen whispered.

“I mean, not really. Chim and Maddie left and neither were talking to me. Eddie left the 118 and was refusing to talk to me. Hen, you are going to leave to be a doctor soon. And Bobby, I heard you mention that you were thinking about retiring after everything that happened. We all claim to be a family, but it’s been proven over and over again that we only act like it if we are connected by the 118. Outside of this station, we are acquaintances at best.”

Wide eyes looked back at him but surprisingly it was Athena that broke the silence. “Buckaroo, this family you made here has nothing to do with the station. Yeah, this place brought everyone together, but you can’t seriously think that we would just walk out of your life so easily.”

Buck let out a humorless laugh. “Why not? Everyone else has. And you’ve all done it before.” Buck sighed. “People aren’t permanent in my life, I know that very well at this point, but I want better for my daughter.” 

“When you say that we’ve done it before… when are you talking about?” Eddie was hesitant to ask.

“After the ladder truck and the pulmonary embolism, you all left me behind. Taped over my name with Bosko’s, and stopped spending any time with me. I was so confused when you all got so upset about not being able to contact me during the lawsuit because none of you were really talking to me much before that. Eddie, outside of using me as free childcare we didn’t spend much time together so I really didn’t think the lawsuit would change much, especially after my lawyer assured me that it would be a fairly quick process. Don’t get me wrong I love Chris and I loved spending so much time with him, but my only friend being a nine-year-old wasn’t really sustainable.”

No one said anything for a long time. Guilt was all over everyone’s faces, but it was obvious that none of them had any idea how to respond to everything that Buck had said. Before any of them had to, the alarm rang, sending them out on a call. They had been lucky to have such a long break, but once it ended, they didn’t get another. 

A few hours later, on their way to another call, Bobby started the conversation again, focusing on anything but the elephant in the room. “How’d you manage to find a place that big to rent in LA? When I first moved here I could barely find an apartment.”

“Oh, I’m not renting, I bought it.” Buck shrugged.

Bobby turned entirely around in his seat to face him. “You bought it? How did you do that in two weeks? Escrow normally takes over a month!”

“Cash only takes a week.” Buck grinned. 

“How the hell could you afford that?” Chim’s eyes were wide.

“My grandparents left me a pretty large inheritance cause they felt guilty for everything with my parents. I avoided using it for years but I figured Lea was a pretty good reason to use it.” Buck explained with a shrug.

“If you have so much money then why do you still work here?” Chimney looked baffled at the thought of someone willingly working when they don’t have to.

Buck squinted at him. “Because I love this job and the 118. I thought I made that clear with the lawsuit?” 

“What do you mean?” Hen asked slowly.

“I was offered a huge settlement but I turned it down to come back to work…” Buck took in all the shocked faces, even Bobby looked surprised. “Did no one tell you that?”

“I was only told that you dropped the lawsuit, not that they offered to settle.” Bobby’s eyebrows were at his hairline. 

“How big was the settlement?” Chimney questioned.

“A few million.” Buck shrugged. “I don’t remember the exact number. As soon as I saw they wanted to give me money I turned it down. I just wanted to come back to work.”

Everyone looked at him with their jaws dropped, only moving to jump into action when they arrived on the scene they were called to. When they finished up and piled back into the engine Hen started the conversation up again.

“So if they were offering to settle that means you actually had a case?”

“Yeah…” Buck glanced at Bobby to see him looking uncomfortable. “I mean, I was cleared by my doctors, physical therapist, even the department. It was only Bobby that was keeping me from working.” 

All eyes turned to Bobby, and guilt filled the man’s face. “It was a mistake that I will never be making again. I was so scared of you getting hurt again that I ended up making everything worse. I’m not sure I ever apologized for that, but I am sorry Buck, I should have never let my emotions affect how I treated you.” 

“I appreciate that Cap.” Buck nodded at Bobby before looking around at everyone else. Eddie, Chimney, and Hen all looked like they were deep in thought, while Ravi just looked completely confused. He was abruptly reminded that Ravi wasn’t there for the lawsuit, and he probably hadn’t heard about it before because of how much they hated talking about it.

Buck thought about filling Ravi in, but he figured that there wasn’t much else to tell that they hadn’t already covered. Instead, he just remained silent for the rest of the ride, and so did everyone else. 

Throughout the rest of the shift, Buck found himself constantly being approached by his teammates as they attempted to reassure him that they had no plans of leaving. Bobby clarified that he wasn’t planning on retiring for a while and he invited Buck to lunch with him and Athena. Hen suggested monthly gatherings with all of them and their families. Chimney suggested getting dinner sometime soon so Jee Yun could spend some time with her cousin. He was a little upset to find that they had already met, but that just made him more determined to get them to spend more time together. 

The only person that didn’t pull him aside to reassure him was Eddie, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. They both knew that they needed to have a long conversation about what had happened and being constantly called out to emergencies was not conducive to that. Eddie did try to start a conversation a few times, especially once it was late and everyone else had gone to sleep, but they never successfully managed to talk.

Chapter Text

Buck was grateful when the shift finally ended, but he couldn’t just go home. Carla had taken Azalea back to the Diaz residence, so Buck had to follow Eddie home to pick up his kid. They still hadn’t managed to talk after Eddie read through all of the texts Buck attempted to send him, so Buck still felt a bit awkward around him. Everything he needed to say had been said, or rather, read, but Eddie had yet to say a word back.

The drive to Eddie’s house was short, but it seemed like it took forever because of how on edge Buck was. He really wanted Eddie back in his life, but he wasn’t sure if Eddie wanted the same, and he wasn’t sure that Eddie wouldn’t abandon him again. 

Buck wasn’t expecting to feel like he was coming home as he pulled into Eddie’s driveway, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. There was once a time when he spent more time there than he did at his own place, a time when he slept better on his best friend’s couch than he did in his own bed, but that time was past. Walking up to that door may have felt like coming home, but it also felt wrong, like he wasn’t supposed to be there, not when they still had so much to talk about.

He pushed through the feeling of wrongness and stepped through the door, only to immediately almost be knocked to the ground by Chris and then Azalea. Eddie had walked through the door right before him, but the other man got pushed aside in favor of Buck, and while he did feel a little guilty at that, he was just happy to have his kids in his arms. 

“Wow, Chris, you can’t even say hello to your dad?” Eddie had his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall in the hallway, but he had a smile on his face.

“Hi, Dad!” Chris gave him a quick hug before returning his attention to Buck and Azalea.

“Dad?” Azalea questioned looking between the two men before sinking more into Buck. 

At seeing Azalea’s reaction to Eddie, Buck was suddenly hit by the realization that Eddie had been in the kitchen reading through text messages while everyone else met Azalea. She had no idea who he is. 

“Lea, this is my dad! He was at the station yesterday too!” Chris excitedly introduced them before Buck could. 

Azalea hesitantly stepped forward and introduced herself as she did to everyone else. “Me Lea!” she stuck her hand out and Buck watched as Eddie melted.

Eddie crouched down to her level and took her hand. “Hi Lea, I’m Eddie.” 

When Buck fantasized about introducing Azalea to his found family he always imagined the introductions going a bit differently than they ended up. Hen would be Auntie Hen, and Ravi and Chimney would be Uncles. Bobby would be Grandpa and Athena would be Grandma or some other variation of that they would prefer. Meanwhile, Eddie would be introduced as another father figure. Instead, not a single person was introduced with a title, and honestly, it hurt. 

Even with those thoughts running through his head, Buck couldn’t hold back a smile while seeing Eddie interact with Azalea. He was so good with her and she was giggling almost instantly. It gave him a little hope, hope that maybe their relationship wasn’t as broken as it seemed. 

Buck was distracted from watching Eddie with Azalea as Christopher hugged him again before rushing out the door. 

“I’ll get Chris to school this morning, you two just hang out with the little flower. I’ll see you later. Buck, let me know if you need me to watch Lea again.” Carla gave Buck’s arm a gentle squeeze before she left, winking at Eddie.

Eddie looked up in surprise turning his attention away from Azalea for the first time since they had been introduced. Normally he would be the one to drive his son to school after a shift, but apparently, that wasn’t happening. 

“Umm… do you want to come in?” Buck tried to keep from laughing as Eddie realized that they hadn’t even made it past the entryway. 

“Why don’t we go sit down? I think it's about time we talked.” Buck offered with a small smile on his face.

“Yeah, yeah ok…” Eddie stumbled as he tried to stand. He windmilled his arms as he struggled to keep his balance, sending Azalea into a laughing fit. 

Buck laughed as he scooped up his daughter and offered a hand to help Eddie up. Eddie took it even as his face reddened.  They made their way to the living room where they sat on the opposite ends of the couch. Buck tried to get Azalea to play with her toys that were still sitting on the carpet where Carla had obviously set up a space for her. However, Lea was not interested in playing alone. She kept bringing her toys to Eddie, showing off her favorites, and attempting to get him to play with her. 

It was hard for Buck to keep a straight face as Eddie looked between the two of them. He was obviously torn between the conversation he was supposed to be having and the adorable toddler that was begging for his attention. Buck waited to see what Eddie was going to do, not sure which he would prefer him to do. Eventually, the other man shrugged at him apologetically and then slipped off the couch to the floor, joining Azalea. 

Buck watched them for a moment with a small smile on his face before he moved to join them. His smile grew when Eddie’s small smile turned into a full grin. They played with Azalea for a while, but her attention span didn’t last long and she turned to playing alone soon enough. 

The two men made their way back to the couch, where they sat silently, looking at each other. Buck almost said something multiple times, but he needed Eddie to be the first one to talk. Eddie already knew what Buck wanted to say, he saw the text messages, but Buck wasn’t sure what Eddie was going to say in response. 

After a long time, and both men opening and closing their mouths stupidly, Eddie finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry…”

 Buck barely heard the apology it was so quiet but he didn’t respond to it. He needed to know more, he needed to know what Eddie was sorry for.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said again louder, “I messed up. I got so caught up in how Chris was worried about me and I just wanted to fix it. I thought that I thought it through, leaving the 118, but I didn’t. I didn’t think for a second about how that would affect you, or anyone else. I said the whole reason I was leaving was because of Chris, but if I had thought for one second, or if I had talked to literally anyone about it before I made up my mind, I would have realized that leaving wasn’t the answer. 

“Buck, I never meant to leave you, I didn’t mean to leave anyone, but I was so scared. I almost died… that day on the street… I almost didn’t make it home… I thought that if I left the 118 I would be less scared, that Chris would be less scared, but it had the opposite effect. I threw out my support system, and it almost broke me.

“I asked Bobby if I could come back almost immediately, but he refused. I hated him for it at first, but he was right. I started therapy— Dios, I went to so much therapy. But it helped. I’m not so scared anymore. I’m doing so much better, but nothing felt right until we were back working beside each other.

“I wanted to leave behind my fears, not you. I know that you have been through so much, and you have been left by so many people, and I hate the fact that I am one of those people. I hate the fact that you couldn’t reach out to me these past few months, that you had to suddenly be a single father all on your own. 

“I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for being so stupid. For letting you think that I didn’t want you to contact me. For not learning how to work my damn phone. My heart broke when I read your text messages. You wrote me apology after apology when you had absolutely nothing to apologize for. 

“You did nothing wrong. I am the one that needs to beg for your forgiveness. I am the one that messed up. Buck, I will do anything to make this up to you, to fix my mistakes. 

“I fought these past few months to get back to the 118 to be back with you. When I never got any of your messages I thought that you needed space, so I never said anything. But the whole time I was trying to get back to the 118 so that you would know that I wasn’t leaving you. I wasn’t sure how else I could get my point across, and I’m still not sure how I can prove that I won’t leave you, but I will do whatever it takes.” 

Buck had started crying early into Eddie’s speech and by the end he was bawling. Eddie was also crying, wringing his hands on his lap. As Buck got his tears under control the only other sound in the room was Azalea, shuffling around on the floor, playing with her toys. 

Eventually, Buck was able to speak again. “Eddie…” Buck sighed, unsure what else to say. The other man looked up at him, his eyes were red and puffy, tear tracks staining his cheeks. 

Wordlessly Buck moved towards the middle of the couch, closing the distance between the two men. He gave Eddie ample chance to pull away, but when he didn’t, Buck pulled him into a tight hug. “Thank you,” Buck whispered into Eddie’s shoulder.

“What the hell are you thanking me for?” Eddie pulled away from the hug, leaning back, forcing eye contact.

“For coming back, for apologizing, for everything being a big misunderstanding and not you actually leaving me.” Buck shrugged and did his best to avoid Eddie’s eyes.

“Buck…” Eddie’s voice cracked as he moved his hand to Buck’s neck, gently turning his head to make eye contact again. “Don’t thank me for that. Please…” Buck could see the tears in Eddie’s eyes, matching the tears in his own. “Please don’t thank me for the bare minimum…”

The air between them was charged. They were still sitting close, staring into each other’s eyes as Eddie’s hand remained over Buck’s pulse point. It was like everything else in the world ceased to exist for a moment. Buck couldn’t tell which one of them was moving, but the space between them was getting smaller. Buck glanced at Eddie’s lips, noticing as he looked back up that Eddie had done the same. They inched closer as Buck licked his lips in anticipation.

“Daddy!” Azalea shrieked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room. Buck jumped backward slamming his knee into the plastic toy Azalea was holding out to him.

“Shh-” Buck forced himself not to swear in front of his kid, even as tears filled his eyes. The plastic toy shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but it hit a nerve perfectly. 

As Buck recovered Eddie jumped in to play interference with Azalea. She had been wanting someone to play with her again and Eddie seemed happy to do that. He moved back onto the floor to where she was playing and grabbed a toy. Within minutes they were so immersed in whatever game they were playing that they both seemed to forget Buck was even there. 

Buck recovered fairly quickly, but he remained on the couch, reflecting on what had just happened while watching Eddie play with Lea. Just 24 hours before he had been thinking that their relationship was irreparable, but now he was watching Eddie play with his daughter after they finally talked out the major misunderstanding. 

After a while, Buck made his way to the floor to join them, where they played until Buck and Azalea had to leave to go to Bobby and Athena’s for lunch. On their way out the door, Eddie stopped them.

“Hey Buck, when I first moved here with Chris… it was a lot. I was struggling to say the least, but then you showed up, brought me Carla, and just helped me with everything without me needing to ask. I just— I know how hard it can be to be a single parent. And well, I guess I’m just trying to say— I’m not good at helping like you are, I don’t intuitively know to help. But I want to. So please, if there is anything I can do, please tell me.” Eddie shuffled his feet as he looked away from Buck, avoiding his eyes. 

“Thanks, Eds… I really appreciate that and uhhh…” Buck scratched at the back of his neck. “There is one thing you can actually help me with.”

“Of course, what can I do?” Eddie looked at him with wide hopeful eyes, as if Buck was agreeing to do him a favor, not the other way around.

“Can you help me find a couch?”

“A couch? You don’t have a couch?” Eddie looked baffled at his request.

“Well a couch and a bunch of other furniture, but I think the lack of a couch is starting to annoy Carla.” Buck tried to laugh it off, but it fell flat. He hated not having a couch, but he couldn’t find a good one.

“What happened to your couch?” 

Buck sighed. “When Taylor moved into my loft in January we had to decide who’s furniture to keep, and who’s to get rid of. She didn’t like most of my stuff so I got to keep my armchair, the tv and tv stand, and the dining table. Everything else was hers. For my new place, I’ve bought a bed for my room and one of the guest rooms, and Azalea has stuff in her room, but other than that I don’t have anything.”

“You lived together?” Eddie looked shocked at that. “Wait, you need to go… we can talk about this later. Are you free tomorrow for furniture shopping?”

“Tomorrow works! I’ll text you later to figure out a time, but you’re right, I’m already late!” Buck smiled and rushed out the door, feeling lighter than he had all year. 

Buck’s smile remained on his face as he got to Bobby and Athena’s house and rang their doorbell. 

“Buckaroo! Lea! Come on in!” Athena greeted him at the door. 

Buck walked into the house expecting Bobby to greet them, but he wasn’t there. He looked around in confusion for a moment before Athena took Azalea from his arms and pointed him toward the kitchen.

“Bobby is in the kitchen, why don’t you join him while I spend some time with this cutie.” Athena may have phrased it like a suggestion, but Buck knew her well enough to know that he really didn’t have a choice. He was going to the kitchen to join Bobby.

Normally when Bobby was in the kitchen there was plenty of noise to be heard, but as Buck entered it was silent. He was there for lunch, but there was nothing cooking. Bobby wasn’t even in the actual kitchen, instead, he was sitting at the table hunched over a pile of paperwork. Buck couldn’t see what the paperwork in front of Bobby was, but he imagined that it was transfer paperwork for him, or a pink slip, or something along those lines. Bobby had said that Buck was staying a part of their team, but that was before he found out that Buck has a daughter and enough money to never work again. 

“Hey, Bobby.” Buck struggled to get the words out as he fought the urge to run, to leave before he got left again.

“Buck! I didn’t hear you come in. Why don’t you pull up a chair? I have something I want to talk to you about.” Bobby seemed nervous, and that amplified Buck’s anxiety even more.

His hands shook as he pulled up a chair to sit next to Bobby. In an attempt to lessen the suspense, Buck looked over the papers in front of Bobby, but they were in an unlabeled folder, making it even stranger that Bobby had been staring at nothing when he had walked in.

Bobby took a deep breath and Buck braced himself for the worst. “I’ve had these papers saved for well over a year now, but I was never sure if I should go through with this or not. Honestly, I have no idea how you are going to react, but after hearing your concerns yesterday I had to say something.” Bobby paused to take another breath.

“Over a year…?” Buck hated how small his voice sounded, but it broke his heart to know that Bobby had been thinking of getting rid of him for so long. He couldn’t bear to look at the man, worried about what he might see on his face, so instead Buck kept his head down, eyes focused on his hands in his lap. 

“Honestly, I started filling out the papers as soon as you came in joking about how your parents had you for spare parts.” Bobby looked down at the folder and started fiddling with the corner.

 Buck’s heart broke even more hearing that his father figure hates him for the same reason that his own parents did. 

“You… You deserve so much better than that.” Bobby almost growled.

Buck whipped his head around to stare at his boss in confusion. He was shocked to see actual anger on the man’s face as he gripped the folder.

“I know that I am not a great father, but I can’t possibly imagine not loving my son… not loving you.” Bobby took a deep, calming, breath and opened the folder, taking out the papers. He held them in a way that Buck still couldn’t see what they were, but even if they were facing him, he wouldn’t be able to read them because of how badly Bobby’s hands were shaking. Buck was so confused, but he sat there silently with wide eyes, waiting for Bobby to explain what the papers were as he sounded less and less like he was firing him.

“I don’t expect you to agree to this, and you definitely don’t have to decide anything right away, but I need you to know how much you mean to me. I need you to know that you aren’t expendable, or replaceable and while you are a very important member of the team, you are an even more important member of my family.”

Bobby finally placed the papers in front of Buck so he could read the title. It took him a moment to register what it said, and then he couldn’t read anymore because of the tears clouding his vision. 

“Buck, I have seen you as my son for years now. I understand if you would prefer to stay connected to your own parents, but, if you are interested, I would like to adopt you.” 

Buck opened and closed his mouth a few times, searching for what he wanted to say, but he was coming up blank. He had seen Bobby as his dad for years and he had even called him Pops a few times, but he always assumed that at most they might verbalize their connection, he never imagined that he could actually get to be Bobby’s son legally. 

Apparently, Buck had taken too long to respond because Bobby spoke again. “There is no pressure. Take as long as you want to decide, and no matter what you decide, nothing will change at work. If you don’t want to be legally connected but still have that same relationship that is fine as well. I just want to give you that option and let you know that I am not going anywhere—”

Buck could tell that Bobby was starting to ramble so he cut him off. “Yes!”

Bobby startled at the sudden interruption but after a moment a large smile grew on his face. “Yes?”

“Bobby, I have thought of you as my dad for years, but I always figured that it was either one-sided or that it would remain this unspoken thing. I don’t want to be a bother though so we don’t have to go through the work with all the paperwork and everything. Just knowing that you love me like a son is more than enough. That’s already more than my parents think of me.” 

“Buck, you aren’t a bother. If that is the only reason you don’t want to be legally adopted don’t worry about it. But if there is something else stopping you that's fine. I know that you have been trying to have a better relationship with your parents—”

“—I’m not. We tried therapy after they left but that blew up. I haven’t talked to them since and I’m not really looking to talk to them ever again. I will have to talk to Maddie about it though.” Buck explained as soon as he realized that Bobby thought he still wanted his parents in his life. 

“Ok, there’s no rush.” Bobby looked happier than Buck had ever seen him. He couldn’t help but pull his dad into a hug. 

After a long moment, Buck pulled back and stood up, heading towards the other room. “After I got custody of Azalea I thought a lot about introducing her to you and the team. Whenever I imagined it I always imagined introducing you as her grandpa. I wanted that so bad that when I thought I couldn’t do that, I just didn’t introduce you at all.” Buck stopped before he walked out and turned back towards Bobby. “So Pops, Can I introduce you as that now?”

Bobby shot out of his seat. “Of course!” 

They walked out into the other room where Athena was playing with Azalea. As Athena looked up and saw their smiling faces she grinned. “I take it went well?”

Instead of answering Buck turned to his daughter. “Hey Lea, why don’t you come over here and say hi to your Grandpa Bobby!” 

Bobby had tears in his eyes as Lea shouted and made her way to Bobby. “Grampa!” 

As Bobby started playing with her Athena made her way over to Buck. She pulled him back into the kitchen. “I don’t know exactly how your conversation went or what you decided, but he’s not the only one that thinks of you as family. I’ve gotta be honest Buckaroo, I wasn’t much of a fan of you at first, but you’ve really grown on me. Legally I just need to consent to Bobby adopting you if you decide to go that route, but if you’d like, I’d be happy to be your mom.”

Buck pulled Athena into a hug. “I want to talk to Maddie before I make a decision, but you have become like a mom to me, I would be honored to be your son.” He smiled and pulled away. “So, should we formally introduce you as Grandma Athena to Lea?”

“Oh god no, grandma makes me feel old. What about Nana?” Athena smiled and started making her way out to her granddaughter and husband.

Buck stood back and watched with a smile on his face as Athena reintroduced herself to Lea and joined in whatever game Bobby and Lea had been playing. After months of feeling like his found family was falling apart, Buck was watching his daughter play with his parents. Maybe his found family wasn’t as broken as he thought.

Chapter Text

Buck started the day happier than he had been in a long time. After the emotional conversations at the beginning of his visit with Bobby and Athena the day before, Lea and Buck spent the afternoon and evening with them. Eventually, they sat down and had lunch and then dinner a while later. May joined them for dinner as well, excited to meet her niece. After Buck got home and put Lea to bed, he texted Eddie to iron out the details for furniture shopping, and Buck was overjoyed that his texts were getting a response for the first time in months. He went to bed with a smile, and when he woke up, it was still there.

He knew that the day was going to be long, as furniture shopping always was, but he was going to be with Eddie all day. Originally Buck had wanted to meet at Eddie’s but he realized that Eddie needed to see the space that they would be shopping for. Buck had tried to explain how large his house was multiple times, but he could tell that Eddie had no idea just how much open space Buck needed to fill. With that realization, they decided that Eddie would come over for a tour before they left. 

Buck had mentioned their plans to go furniture shopping to Bobby and Athena while they were having dinner and Bobby was so overjoyed that they were finally working things out that he offered to watch Azalea so they would have an easier time shopping. Buck hastily accepted the offer, so he was going to drop Azalea off with them on the way to the store. He normally would try to spend as much time as he possibly could with his daughter on his days off, but he could only imagine how exhausting it would be to drag a toddler to multiple furniture stores. 

Eddie showed up right on time and Buck couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed that his best friend ignored him to greet Azalea, after all, he often did the same with Chris. Only after Eddie greeted Lea, did he finally look around at the house.

“Wow, this place is huge Buck, and so empty.” Eddie laughed at the comical sight of the lone armchair in the center of the living room, looking tiny in all the empty space. 

“I know!” Buck groaned, dragging his hand down his face. 

“Why did you get a place this big? There are only two of you.”  

Buck started leading Eddie around the house. “I know, I know, but… I don’t know, I just fell in love with it, and I didn’t have much time to be picky. Finding a nice place in LA is hard, but it’s even harder with such a short deadline.”

Eddie nodded, “You’re not wrong about it being difficult to find something in LA. When Chris and I first moved here, when I was at the academy, we had to stay with Pepa while I looked for somewhere. I got lucky with my house, but it has its own problems.”

Their conversation switched gears to talk about what furniture was needed. One bedroom still needed a bed and all of the bedrooms except Azalea’s needed dressers and nightstands. The living room and family room both needed couches. The backyard was set up to have two seating areas, so he needed furniture for that. The list kept getting longer, and Eddie looked more and more overwhelmed with each thing they added to it. 

“Buck… how are you going to afford all this? Furniture is not cheap.” Eddie looked at the list in dismay. 

Buck shrugged, not worried at all. “I have my inheritance from my grandparents.”

“And that was enough to buy this house in cash and fill it with furniture?” Eddie looked skeptical.

“Yeah, I mean my family comes from old money, so my grandparents were way richer than anyone has any business being. They left a lot of it to me when they died because they felt bad that my parents ignored me. Maddie got a little too, but nowhere near the same amount and I think Doug ended up spending it all.” Buck explained.

“Wait, if Doug used all her money then you must have had it for years, why didn’t you ever use any of it? When we met you were living in your ex’s apartment, and I heard from Chim and Hen that before that you were living in a frat house. Why wouldn’t you get your own place?” Eddie squinted at him in confusion.

“Even without my grandparent’s money I could have found somewhere else to live, but I liked living with people. It wasn’t until I really felt like I belonged at the firehouse that I was ok with living alone.” Buck shrugged. 

“I didn’t use their money because it felt like a consolation prize for my parent's love and I tried for years to get my parents to love me. I didn’t even understand the entire situation until last year but even now knowing the whole story, I still probably would have kept trying to earn my parents' love by ignoring the money. That changed because of Lea though. She made me realize that I don’t want my parents’ love anymore. I don’t want them anywhere near her, so I might as well use the money to give her the best life I can.”

Buck looked at Eddie for a moment before quickly looking away. He couldn't handle seeing the sadness in his friend’s eyes at his situation with his parents. For a moment he was tempted to minimize how terrible his parents were to get that look off Eddie’s face, but instead, he realized that there was something else he could tell him that would do the same thing.

“I’ve stopped caring that they don’t love me. I have something better now, I have parents that actually care about me and don’t think that I am worthless. I have parents that love me. Yesterday, Bobby and Athena offered to adopt me.” Buck was unable to keep the smile off his face as he spoke. Before he had left their house yesterday he had asked whether they cared if he told people, and Bobby had made it clear that he would prefer if the whole world knew that Buck was his son, that was the point of the paperwork after all. 

The sad look on Eddie’s face was slowly replaced with a smile as he processed Buck’s words. “Really? I’m so happy for you Buck. Are you going to go through with it?”

“I want to, but I need to talk to Maddie first. I know that she still gets along somewhat with our parents and I’m worried that legally replacing them could hurt her.” Buck explained.

They had finished the tour while they were talking so they started packing up to leave. It made the most sense to take Eddie’s truck instead of Buck’s Jeep. They probably weren’t going to walk out with much actual furniture, most things were probably going to be ordered, but it would be good to have a way to get stuff home just in case. Buck had intended to retrieve the car seat from his Jeep to move it to the truck but Eddie stopped him. 

“I actually stopped to get a car seat yesterday afternoon. It’s already installed and everything.” Eddie explained as Buck looked at him with wide eyes.

“You… bought a car seat for my daughter?” 

“Well, yeah… you got a booster seat for Chris when will still barely knew each other. Of course, I got a car seat for Azalea.” Eddie said it like he hadn’t said anything outstanding. Like it was completely normal and expected that he would buy something like that for Azalea, and maybe if it hadn’t been for the past few months, it might have been.

Buck had to blink away the tears that were building in his eyes. After everything that happened in the past few months, he was overwhelmed. Everything had changed so much so fast and now Eddie was making his way back into his life as if he had never left. 

“Woah Buck, are you ok?” Eddie must have noticed the tears that Buck was trying to hide.

“Yeah… yeah… it’s just… a lot…” Buck continued to try and blink away the tears.

“I’m sorry, I can take it back if you want. I didn’t mean to overstep.” Eddie was quick to backtrack. 

“No, no! You didn’t overstep. I’m just… I’m a bit overwhelmed. I went months thinking that everyone was leaving me behind again and then in the past two days that’s all changed and you bought a car seat for my daughter.”

Eddie pulled Buck into a hug. “No one is going anywhere… or at least anywhere without you, we do actually need to get going if we want any shopping done today.”

Buck laughed and finished loading into the car, finally ready to go. They dropped off Azalea with Bobby and Eddie had to drag Buck away, but a couple of hours after Eddie originally arrived at Buck’s house, they were finally shopping.

Over the years Buck had gone furniture shopping with a few different people; ex-girlfriends, roommates, and his sister. Every one of those times it was inevitable that tensions would rise and there would be at least one argument. Buck was the type of person who, while he wanted his space to look nice, would rather it be comfortable. That meant that his choices, while not ugly, were often not the best looking for his space. He was expecting shopping with Eddie to go similarly to how it had with everyone else he had shopped with. He knew that his friend secretly liked watching HGTV when he couldn’t sleep, so he was expecting some strong opinions about interior design, but to his surprise, he had the same mentality as Buck. 

They agreed on almost everything, so instead of things getting tense, they were laughing and joking around. Throughout the day they took time to catch each other up on what had been happening in each other's lives. Buck told Eddie all about what happened with Taylor, how he kissed Lucy and then Taylor moved in with him only for them to break up a month later. Eddie told him stories from his time at dispatch and how therapy is going. It was like the past few months hadn’t happened and their friendship continued from where it left off back in December. The only difference that Buck noticed was that they found reasons to touch more often, and occasionally, they would make eye contact for a moment, and Buck was sure that there was something between them.

Buck tried not to get his hopes up. He had been pining after Eddie since they met, but then Shannon came back and Eddie dated Ana. Other than the tense moment on the couch the day before, he had no reason to believe that Eddie even likes men, and he just got him back as a friend, so he couldn’t dare hope that there was something else there, even as they practically flirted over couch cushions. 

By the time they had to pick Chris up from school, they had found most of the furniture that they needed. They still needed to find a couch for the family room and furniture for the second guest room, the room that Buck has started to think of as Chris’s. That room had been the one point of contention throughout the day. Eddie had suggested a lot of things for it, but Buck couldn’t bring himself to admit that he wanted the room to be for Chris, so he vetoed every suggestion. Buck could tell that Eddie was getting a bit annoyed by it, but he didn’t know how to say that he wants Chris to have a room at his house without overstepping. 

In the end, it was Christopher that brought it up. They had picked him and Azalea up and were back at Buck’s house. Eddie and Buck were sitting at the dining table looking at Buck’s laptop, searching online for furniture as Chris sat nearby doing his homework and Azalea was napping in her room. 

“Hey, Buck?” Buck looked up to see Chris was no longer doing homework, instead, he was looking at the laptop with them.

“Yeah, bud?”

“Can I help decorate one of the guest rooms?” Chris looked so unsure of himself but Buck was overjoyed that he asked.

“Of course! We haven’t found any furniture for one of them, why don’t you help us look once you finish your homework?” Buck answered immediately, excited that he didn’t need to be the one to bring it up. Excited, Christopher immediately got back to his homework, putting in headphones to tune out distractions. 

Buck only realized how suspicious it was that he didn’t think twice before answering when he caught a glimpse of Eddie’s face. He was staring at him with his eyebrow raised and an expression of disbelief on his face. “Was that your plan all along?” Eddie saw straight through him.

“...Uhhh… maybe. I just… I don’t know, you know I love him and I just really wanted him to have a space here. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it before agreeing. I’ve been meaning to bring it up to you all day, but I didn’t know how. I don’t want to overstep.” Buck explained sheepishly. 

“Buck, I’m not mad… ok well maybe I’m a little mad, but it’s not because you want him to have a space here. I am actually really happy about that. You aren’t overstepping, in fact, if my house had another room I would do the same thing for Lea.” Eddie smiled at him.

“But you are mad…?” Buck asked hesitantly.

“I spent so long trying to help you find furniture for that room and you just kept saying no to everything! If you had just told me that you want Chris to pick it out we could have saved so much time!” Eddie threw his hands up in annoyance before bursting into laughter, proving that he wasn’t too upset about it, but Buck could feel his cheeks heat up. 

“Sorry,” Buck winced before laughing along with Eddie. 

“It’s fine.” Eddie laughed again. “So we just have a couch for the family room left right?”

“Yeah, but I just had an idea about that, have you ever heard of giant beanbags?”

By the end of the evening, all the furniture that they had set out to buy was ordered. While Buck had been expecting to order most of it, he had hoped that they would find a couple of things in the stores, just so that when Carla came over the next day she would be able to sit somewhere other than the dining table or the lone armchair. She had agreed to watch Azalea and Chris there while they were at work so that someone would be there for the deliveries, but Buck knew that she would rather be somewhere that had actual places to sit. Unfortunately, they didn’t find anything they could bring home that day, so Carla would have to go at least one day with minimal furniture. 

Eddie and Chris left before dinner, with the promise that they would see each other tomorrow. Buck wasn’t happy to see them go, he invited them to stay for dinner, but Maddie was coming and Eddie wanted to give him the opportunity to discuss Bobby and Athena’s offer. 

Buck honestly had no idea how he was going to approach the topic with Maddie. Other than the initial explanation of everything that happened in her absence they hadn’t had any deep or important conversations. They had talked quite a few times and Maddie had joined in when he would invite Vanessa, Julia, and Carla to dinner, but they always kept the conversation light. 

He anxiously cleaned his already clean kitchen as he waited for Maddie to show up. She had offered to bring Chinese for dinner, so he had nothing to cook to keep his mind off the conversation they were going to have. It wasn’t that he was worried about her answer but he was worried about hurting her. He could handle whatever her answer would be now that he knows that Bobby and Athena think of him as a son, but bringing up their parents so soon after Maddie had come back from major mental health issues might not be good for her. That thought almost made him change his mind about the entire thing.

Maddie showed up half an hour later than she said she would, carrying the bags of takeout in one arm and Jee in the other.

“Can you believe people! They had our order all ready to go, just sitting on the counter when I got there, but before I could grab it, some asshole walked up, took it, saw that it wasn’t the food he wanted, and then threw it out while yelling at the workers. It wasn’t even his order, it said my name on it!” Maddie ranted instead of greeting him. “The workers were really nice about it and they replaced our food but what kind of person does that?” 

Buck could feel his anxiety lessen as Maddie pushed past him to get to the dining table. She sounded more like herself than she had the entire time she had been back, and that gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, he won’t send her on a downward spiral by bringing up their parents. 

He almost wanted to start the conversation immediately, just to get it over with, but he didn’t. Maddie was known to get hangry, as evidenced by her rant as she walked in the door, so waiting to have important and emotional conversations until after they ate was a necessity. 

As they ate Buck told Maddie about the past few days. He didn’t mention Bobby and Athena, and she already knew about the conversations at the firehouse due to Chimney, but he told her about how he is figuring things out with Eddie. And they both laughed at Eddie’s confusion over technology.

Buck was having such a great time talking with his sister that he almost forgot about the conversation that he had invited her over to have. They chatted for a while after they ate and played with Jee and Lea until both kids fell asleep. Maddie started going through her usual routine to leave when Buck realized that he had run out of time.

“Maddie, wait! I uh… actually had something I really wanted to talk to you about.” 

“Oh… uh… ok?” Maddie sat back down.

“Sorry for not bringing this up earlier, but I didn’t know how to bring it up… I still don’t really but uh…” Buck stuttered trying to figure out where to start. 

“Buck, what’s going on? You know that you can talk to me about anything right?” Maddie looked concerned. 

“Yeah… it’s just…” Buck paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t know exactly what Chim told you about all of the conversations we had after everyone found out about Azalea, but at one point they all asked why I didn’t tell them before.”

“Ok… so what did you tell them? Howie didn’t go into detail about any of it.” Maddie prompted him to continue.

“I-I told them the truth. I didn’t tell them about Azalea because I wasn’t sure that they were going to stay. You were gone and everyone else was leaving and I didn’t want to let anyone into Lea’s life that might abandon her like her mom did.”

“Oh, Buck—” Buck could tell that Maddie was about to start apologizing so he cut her off. 

“—It’s ok. You came back and the past few days everyone has made it their mission to convince me that they weren’t going anywhere, which is actually the thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Buck took a deep breath and tried to get his hands to stop shaking. “I had lunch with Bobby and Athena yesterday. They uhh… they asked to adopt me.”

Buck kept his eyes down as he fidgeted with his hands on his lap, waiting for Maddie to say something. It was silent for a long time and Buck didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t bring himself to look up at his sister and every moment that she didn’t say anything, that he didn’t know what her thoughts were, his anxiety grew. 

“Adopt you?” Maddie finally questioned. Her voice was so small that Buck couldn’t help but look at her and see the tears in her eyes.

“Yeah…” Buck’s voice cracked. “Mads, I love you, but I don’t love our parents, not anymore. I tried, I really did, but I will never be good enough for them, I will never be Daniel. I don’t want them in Azalea’s life, but I want her to have grandparents. I love Bobby and Athena, and they love me. I won’t go through all the paperwork and everything if you don’t want me to. I don’t want to hurt you or mess up your relationship with our parents, but no matter what I don’t want them in my life anymore.” Buck struggled to keep his voice steady as he spoke. 

“Oh, Evan!” Maddie pulled Buck into a hug. “I’m so happy for you!” 

Buck pulled away in confusion. Tears were streaming down his sister’s face, but she was smiling bigger than he had seen in a while. “You- you are?” 

“When I was gone I spent almost all of my time in therapy. A lot of topics got brought up, including our parents. I didn’t realize it when I invited them here, but we really had two completely different childhoods. They raised me, but they didn’t raise you.” Maddie moved her hands to gently hold Buck’s face. “Evan, no matter what I will always be your sister, but you deserve to have parents that love you. Don’t worry about me. Go and have the family that you deserve.”

Buck pulled Maddie into a tight hug, burying his face in her neck. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” Maddie returned the hug just as tight. They stayed motionless, gripping each other and crying for a long time. Buck knew that he should pull away, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He had been so worried about hurting her, about her leaving again, that he couldn’t let her go. 

Maddie was the one to let go first, squeezing him one last time before letting go and pulling back. “I think I actually have to go now, it is well past Jee’s bedtime, and Chimney is waiting up.”

“Right, sorry for keeping you so long.” Buck pulled back to scratch at his neck, a sheepish smile on his face. 

“Don’t worry about it, you know I always love spending time with my little brother!” Maddie pulled him into a quick hug before grabbing Jee. Buck kissed her cheek as they walked out the door. 

As soon as they were gone Buck put Azalea to bed and then collapsed on the armchair. He was so relieved that the conversation had gone well, or really, that the past few days had gone well. Over the past few months he had been carrying so much tension, but he hadn’t noticed until it was gone. Everyone finally knows about his daughter, and not only are they not planning on leaving them, but not a single person had made a joke like he had been expecting. Everything was finally looking up.

Chapter Text

Over the weeks following the team finding out about Azalea, Buck found a new normal. His house slowly filled with furniture as everything that he and Eddie had ordered arrived. Eddie and Chris spent a lot of time at his house, and when they weren’t there, more often than not Buck and Lea were at their house. 

Julia was eventually released from the hospital, and Vanessa resumed being Azalea’s nanny. Carla was happy about that, ready to be back on her usual schedule. She didn’t have any issues taking care of both Christopher and Azalea, but normally her hours didn’t include while Chris was at school, however, Azalea was too young for school, so she was required to be with her the entire time Buck was gone. Even with Vanessa back, however, Carla would often bring Christopher by after school so they could all hang out. 

Vanessa and Julia had met the team a few times and they fit in well. Julia wasn’t too mobile, still recovering from being shot, but Vanessa brought her and Azalea by the station a few times and they had been at the most recent team barbeque. 

The first weekend that Buck and Eddie had off they took Chris and Azalea to the zoo, and both kids had an amazing time. Chris spent the whole time excitedly telling Lea every fact that he could think of about the different animals they saw. He may have been hesitant about her when they first met, but after just a day of spending time together at the zoo, he claimed Lea as his sister, and neither Buck nor Eddie bothered to argue. 

Buck had managed to have dinner with Chimney, Jee, and Maddie multiple times. The first couple of dinners were a bit awkward. Buck had forgiven Chim, but outside of work they hadn’t really interacted, so they didn’t really know how to act, but they got past that quickly. Maddie and Chimney were also dancing around each other again, something that Buck didn’t hesitate to tease them about. That stopped however when he attempted to get Eddie to join in on the teasing during a dinner that Eddie and Chris had joined them for as well. Maddie and Chimney had turned the teasing onto them, and that was the end of all the jokes. 

Somehow after that, Eddie and Buck managed to not talk about why they were being compared to Maddie and Chimney. Buck knew that he had been flirting a lot more, but he couldn’t help it, and Eddie hadn’t complained, in fact, he seemed to reciprocate. Buck still refused to let himself hope that it was anything more than friendly, but he daydreamed often about their little makeshift family unit becoming a real family unit. 

Everything was going really well, up until it wasn’t. As soon as his house was fully furnished and decorated, as soon as it felt like home, Buck was itching to host a party. Luckily, he was immediately given a reason to throw one. After his conversation with Maddie; Buck, Athena, and Bobby started the adoption process. As soon as they knew the date for the hearing, Buck started planning a party for the next day.

They were pretty sure that the adoption would happen, there was no reason for the judge to say no, so Buck wanted to have people over to celebrate. Besides, if the judge did end up saying no, Buck was still planning on calling them his parents, and that was something to celebrate too. 

Everything was planned, and at first, everything went perfectly. The adoption went through, and everyone showed up to the party. Eddie and Chris were planning on spending the night after the party, supposedly to help clean up, but really Chris could not be convinced to wait any longer to spend the night in the room that he decorated. It seemed like everything was going perfectly until the doorbell rang.

Buck had no idea who it could be because everyone that was invited was there already. The 118 and their families, Carla, Vanessa, Julia, Pepa, Abuela, Albert; everyone that Buck could think to invite was there. Buck was slow to open the door, and once he saw who was standing there he tried to slam it in their faces, but a foot was jammed inside, and the door remained open. 

Buck stared at the faces of two people he hadn’t wanted to ever see again, the two people he was currently celebrating not having as parents anymore. He must have been standing there for too long because they got impatient.

“Well Evan, are you going to make your parents stand out here or are you going to let us in?” Phillip glared at Buck, and he almost moved aside, before remembering who he was talking to.

“My parents are already inside.” Buck did his best to keep all emotion out of his voice. He had sent an email to his parents once he decided to be adopted by Bobby and Athena. He didn’t go into too much detail, not mentioning names or anything more than the basics of it, but he was very clear that he didn’t want them in his life anymore.

“What are you talking about Evan? You can’t just disown us! Move aside and let us in!” Margaret snapped. 

Buck almost reflexively took a step back, but that would have given them space to come inside, so he fought the reflex. 

“No.” Buck took a deep breath. “I am celebrating my family, and you are no longer a part of that. Please leave.” Buck was shaking but he refused to back down. He refused to let them into his life right after he cut them out. 

Fury filled Phillip's face, while Margaret just looked broken. Buck wished that someone would walk up and save him from this terrible interaction, but the party was mostly taking place in the backyard. There was a good chance that no one else had heard the doorbell, Buck had only heard it because he had come in to go to the bathroom. 

Buck didn’t expect Phillip to leave without a fight, Margaret maybe, but Phillip was known to have a bit of a temper. He hoped that the fight would just be verbal, Phillip hadn’t laid a hand on him in years, but he wasn’t that lucky. Instead of leaving, Phillip slapped him. 

Buck had always had great reflexes, he was an athlete when he was in school and it was one of the reasons that he was such a great firefighter, but when it came to Phillip he just froze up. Phillip hadn’t gotten physical often, preferring to use words to tear him apart, but when he was really angry, he would lash out. 

Buck is bigger than Phillip, taller and stronger, but seeing them had been so unsettling that one slap almost knocked him over. In an attempt to balance himself, Buck had taken a step back, and Phillip took that opportunity to push past him, dragging Margaret inside. 

As his ex-parents forced their way into the party, Buck tried to recover. He had never told anyone that Phillip was abusive. He always let everyone believe what Maddie said about them; how they are not bad people just bad parents. Buck knew the truth though, they are bad people. No good person slaps their children or destroys them with words. He knew that, but he didn’t want everyone else to know that. Obviously, everyone had an idea that they weren’t good to him, that was apparent in the fact that Bobby and Athena even offered to adopt him in the first place, but he didn’t want them to know the full extent of it. Not even Maddie knew how bad they got after she had left, and he didn’t want her to know. It made him feel weak, and he didn’t want to see the pity in everyone’s eyes if they were ever to find out. 

He doesn’t want everyone to worry, so he did his best to put himself together. He wiped away the few tears that had escaped and checked to make sure that his face wasn’t red enough to warrant concern. There was a moment where he contemplated slapping his other cheek, just so the redness would be more even, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he just hoped that no one would notice the slightly different shades of his cheeks. 

After a quick check in the mirror, he walked back out. He had expected his parents to head straight to the backyard to join the party, but apparently, they decided to snoop through his house first. He walked in on them inspecting the picture frames that had been placed on his mantle. He had pictures of his whole family up there. The group photo from the 118 Christmas party the year before, pictures of him and Chris, of him and Azalea, of him and Maddie and Jee, and of him with Bobby and Athena. He had so many pictures there, but the one they were holding was probably his favorite. It was from the zoo trip a few weeks ago. A random person had seen them attempting to get a selfie of the four of them and had offered to take it. It was the first picture they had of all four of them, and he knew that Eddie had the same one framed on his mantle. 

Buck took a deep breath and rhythmically clenched and unclenched his fists in an effort to calm down. They had no right to touch that picture, and they definitely had no right to whisper over it like they were. Buck could only imagine what they were talking about. He wouldn’t put it past them to be saying something abelist, racist, or even homophobic, because while he and Eddie weren’t together, the picture really did make it look like they were. Or they could be whispering about Azalea, about how Buck is probably a terrible influence on her. What hurt the worst about it though, is that Buck knows them, he knows that they are probably saying all of those things, plus more.

After a moment Margaret looked up at Buck, and then towards the sliding glass door leading to the backyard. “Well, aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?”

“No, I have already asked you to leave.” Buck clenched his fists and tried to focus on his breathing.

Phillip looked over at him, huffed, and then walked over to the sliding door. “You can’t kick your parents out.” 

Before Buck could do anything his parents were walking into the backyard. At first, no one noticed them. Buck walked out behind them and closed the door, but his anxiety caused him to slam it a bit harder than he meant to, catching everyone’s attention. 

All adult conversation stopped. The kids continued to play on the grass, unaware of the tension, as everyone else stared at the newcomers. The team had met them before, so they knew exactly who had walked through the door, but everyone else could only rely on the tension in the air to clue them in on what was happening. 

“Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?” Maddie stepped forward shakily, looking at Buck with a concerned and questioning look. Looks of realization were visible on the faces of anyone that hadn’t met them, but the looks of realization were quickly replaced with icy glares. 

“Can’t we just come down and visit our children?” Margaret had a smile plastered on her face, but Buck recognized it as fake.

“How did you even get this address?” Maddie questioned and Buck felt ice fill his veins. He hadn’t even thought of that. It wasn’t that Buck actively tried to hide his location from them, but he had never even told them that he moved. As far as he knew, they had no way of finding out his address. 

“Oh, that’s not important. Although Evan, you should have told us you moved.” Margaret looked around, taking in the backyard. “I don’t know how you managed to afford such a nice house though. But that’s always how you’ve been. Act first, think about it later.” Margaret chuckled as if she wasn’t insulting him. “So irresponsible, you’ll probably be on the streets in a few years.” 

It was silent as everyone took in the words she just said. Even most of the children had frozen at her insult. Only Jee and Lea continued to make noise, too young to understand what had just been said. 

Buck was shaking again, unsure how to act now. He didn’t want to let his new family know just how bad his ex-parents are, but he didn’t know how to stop them from finding out. It was like an inevitable trainwreck; all he could do was stand back and watch. 

Because of the silence Margaret and Philip had no issue finding Azalea and Jee. They were still giggling to themselves where they were playing, so Margaret and Phillip crouched down in front of the two of them. Buck didn’t mention Azalea in his email, if it was up to him, they would never know about her, but she was in those pictures on the mantle, and she really did have his eyes. They absolutely already had an idea of who she is. 

“And who is this?” Margaret asked as if she didn’t already know.

“Me Lea!” Azalea introduced herself like she always did, with her hand out waiting for a handshake. Buck had wondered where she learned that, but it wasn’t mentioned in the notebook or scrapbook, so he would probably never know. He almost smiled at how adorable his daughter is, but before he could he remembered who she was introducing herself to, and the smile never made it onto his face. 

Instead of shaking her hand like what was expected, Margaret reached out to pick up Azalea. Buck was across the patio from them but as soon as he realized what she was doing, he was there, snatching up Azalea before Margaret could touch her. 

“Daddy!” Lea giggled as he hoisted her up on his hip. She was smiling and giggling, but she clung to him as if she had picked up on the tension in the air. 

“Evan, let your mother hold her granddaughter!” Phillip ordered. Buck could see his hand and a muscle in his face twitch, a telltale sign that Phillip was getting angry enough to lash out. “She will have to get to know her eventually, there is no way that you can handle taking care of a child!”

Buck knew that he was just adding fuel to the fire, but there was no way he was going to let either Phillip or Margaret touch his daughter. “She is not your granddaughter. I thought I made it clear when I told you to leave, you are not my family anymore.”

Buck did his best to put distance between himself and Phillip, if not for him than for his daughter, but Phillip refused to back down. He kept walking closer, his hands flexing beside him just like Buck knew they did before he started getting violent. 

“We are your parents! You can’t kick us out, and you can’t replace us. Do you know how hard it was to raise you? You were always getting into trouble, and now you have a child! Where is her mother Evan? You couldn’t even keep her around huh?” Phillip ranted, spit flying in his anger as Buck cowered in front of him.  “You have always been our biggest disappointment and now we are going to have to clean up your mess again! It should be illegal for you to be around children! You’ll just turn them into fuck-ups like you!”

Up until this point no one else there had moved. Buck didn’t blame them, if he was them he wouldn’t know what to do either. But as Phillip continued to advance towards him, yelling terrible things, multiple people shot up. One second Buck was backing away from Phillip, flinching away from the hit he knew he was coming while trying his best to shield his daughter, and then the next second, Azalea was inside with Vanessa, Carla, and the rest of the children while Eddie, Maddie, and Hen were checking on him away from the rest of the group.

Buck couldn’t see Margaret or Phillip from where he had been dragged, but he did see his new parents' backs as they stood there defending him. Everything was blurry as tears streamed down his face, clouding his vision. Hen, Maddie, and Eddie all were talking to him, but he couldn’t make out the words. What Phillip had said to him played on repeat in his head instead.

“Is that a handprint on your face?” Hen’s voice was loud enough to break through to him and she sounded horrified. Immediately all three of the people surrounding him leaned in to look at the side of his face. Maddie let out a sharp gasp as soon as she got a good look, and Buck could feel Eddie tense at the same time.

“Buck…?” Eddie made a wounded noise and Buck tried to hunch further into himself.

“I wouldn’t let them in.” Buck offered as he kept his head down, staring at his feet. “It wasn’t too bad, he didn’t even wind up for it, and he wasn’t wearing his ring.” Buck pointed out, as though the fact that he wasn’t wearing his ring wasn’t the worst part.

Phillip always wore his wedding ring on one hand and his college class ring on the other, for him to not have been wearing a ring when he slapped Buck he would have had to take one of them off. Meaning that it wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment act of anger, he thought about it first. Eddie and Hen might not have realized the significance of that, but Maddie did. Maddie had known her father longer than Buck had, and she had never seen him without his rings on. 

“He- he wasn’t wearing a ring?” Maddie’s voice cracked.

“No, doesn’t want to leave a mark.” Buck tried to pull away from the attention he was getting.

“He doesn't want to… Buck, has he hit you before?” Maddie gently forced his head towards her so that he would make eye contact.

Buck froze, and over Maddie’s shoulder, he watched as Bobby and Athena did too. Maddie, Eddie, and Hen had pulled him to stand away from the group, but not far enough that no one had heard their conversation. He hadn’t realized that more people heard, but once he knew, he just wanted to run and hide even more. 

“Buck…” Maddie must have realized that he wasn’t really listening to her because he asked him again. “Has he hit you before?”

Buck pulled away from her, Eddie, and Hen, putting some distance between him and everyone else before finally answering while staring at the ground. “He prefers to yell, he hadn’t hit me in years.” 

Buck refused to look up and see his family’s faces. He hadn’t wanted to worry them, but now it was out in the open. He could vaguely hear shouting, but he refused to look up to figure out what was happening, and there was too much going on for him to really hear words. 

A gentle hand pressed lightly against his lower back, leading him away from the yelling. He faintly noticed that whoever was guiding him was taking him inside, but he didn’t fight it. Different gentle hands pressed on his shoulders until he was sitting. He didn’t look up to see where he was sitting, but he knew that he was inside, away from the yelling, sitting on something soft. Occasionally he could hear people trying to talk to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus enough to understand them. 

At some point, after some unknown amount of time, a weight was suddenly on Buck’s lap, and another weight settled in next to him. Small hands were on his face, and he felt himself start to come back to himself.

“Daddy!” Azalea’s voice was the first thing that Buck listened to as he recognized her as the weight on her lap. 

“Buck!” The second voice that Buck heard came from next to him. Christopher was huddled up to him, leaning into his arm. 

As soon as Buck recognized them, he pulled them both in for a tight hug. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but his kids made it better. 

“Daddy why sad?” Lea placed her hand on his cheek, on his tears, as he pulled away. He looked between Lea and Chris, both of whom were looking at him with wide eyes. Seeing their faces, even through the tears, Buck couldn’t help but smile. 

“I’m ok, my little flower.” Buck pressed a wet kiss to her cheek and then reached out to ruffle Chris’s hair. “Some people just said some mean things to me.” Both Chris and Azalea laughed at his actions and Buck’s smile grew. “I’m ok now though, you two always make it better.”

Buck finally looked around to find that he was sitting in his bedroom, on his bed. He was confused as to why he was there and not in the living room, but he didn’t question it. The other thing he noticed was that they weren’t alone. Eddie was leaning against the door watching them. They made eye contact and then Eddie came over to sit on the side that Chris wasn’t. Buck pulled Chris a bit closer and let himself lean slightly into Eddie. 

“There’s a lot of people that are trying to get to you, Bobby and Athena are about to break down the door. They all want to make sure that you are ok.  I’ll tell them all to leave if you want, but Margaret and Phillip are gone.” Eddie rubbed Buck’s back as he updated him on the situation. “Bobby and Athena yelled at them for a while and as soon as they stopped Maddie went off. I’m honestly shocked that no one was taken out of here in handcuffs, although I really believe Phillip should have been.”

“No! I don’t— He doesn’t—” Buck didn’t want Phillip to be arrested but he couldn’t verbalize why. 

“Buck, it’s ok. He wasn’t arrested. We figured that you wouldn’t want that so they just made him leave.” Eddie assured him.

“Thanks, I…” Buck didn’t know what else to say. Everything was so overwhelming, he wanted to see his family, but he didn’t know if he could handle seeing or hearing their reactions to what had just happened. 

“You don’t have to talk about it, they just want you to know that they are here for you, and they want to make sure that you are ok,” Eddie reassured him.

“Yeah Buck, we love you and want to make sure you’re happy!” Chris chimed in, grinning up at him. 

“Happy!” Lea pulled at the corners of Buck’s mouth, making sure he was smiling.

“Thanks, guys,” Buck squeezed them and then pulled away to get up. “Why don’t we head back out there?” 

Chris cheered which caused Azalea to cheer as they all got up off the bed. Buck was bracing himself for when Eddie would move his hand from his back, but it never happened. Eddie kept his hand firmly pressed against Buck’s lower back as they walked out of the bedroom.

Athena and Bobby were waiting for them in the living room. As they got close Eddie’s hand finally left Buck’s back, but he didn’t mourn the loss for long. Eddie gently pulled Azalea from his arms and then his new parents pulled him into a tight hug causing Buck to have to blink away more tears as he melted into them. They stood in the living just holding each other for a long time before they finally pulled away. 

Eventually, they all headed back into the backyard where everyone was waiting. The mood was definitely different than what it was before, but it seemed like everyone was still intent on celebrating. Buck was pulled into a hug by everyone before finally being pulled aside by Maddie.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Maddie looked heartbroken.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Buck explained. 

“Buck… ” Maddie’s voice cracked.

“Maddie, you said it yourself. We had widely different childhoods. They still loved you and you deserve to have parents. I didn’t want to ruin that for you.” Buck scratched at the back of his neck.

“Buck, I don’t want them in my life if they actively hurt you. I don’t want anyone like that around Jee. I spent years thinking that they weren’t bad people, just bad parents, but they are terrible people.” 

“I’m sorry—”

“—Don’t you dare. Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong. I just wish I knew because I would have cut them out earlier. Maybe then they wouldn’t have shown up here, actually, I know that they wouldn’t have shown up here. I’m so sorry Buck. After everything with Doug, they convinced me to share my location with them, I completely forgot about it, but that is how they got this address. I’m so sorry.”

“Mads if I can’t apologize then you can’t either.” Buck barely finished his sentence before he was pulled into a tight hug by Maddie. 

The siblings stood there holding each other for a moment before Buck felt a familiar hand on his lower back. He pulled away from Maddie, leaning into the pressure on his back. 

Maddie looked up at him, and then next to him, smiled, and then ducked away. As she passed Buck faintly heard her whisper to the man next to him, “Take care of him.”

“Always,” Eddie whispered back, just barely loud enough for Buck to hear. 

Buck melted into the familiar warmth at his side as Eddie turned his attention to him. “You ok?” Eddie whispered as he turned to him, trying to make eye contact.

“Yeah… yeah I’m ok…” Even as he claimed to be ok Buck was quick to accept the hug from his best friend. 

Eddie stayed close by for the entire rest of the party and Buck was so grateful. Knowing that Eddie was always nearby helped calm him. He trusted every person at the party with his life, but knowing Eddie had his back always made everything better. Often, Eddie wasn’t even involved in the same conversations with him, but he was standing nearby, talking to someone else, always making sure to stay within Buck’s line of sight. 

It didn’t take long for the party to wind down. The mood had been ruined by the arrival of the Buckleys, and no matter how much everyone tried to bring the mood back up again, it just wasn’t possible. Other than Eddie and Chris the last people to leave were Bobby and Athena. As they were heading to the door Bobby pulled Buck aside. 

“Hey, I know that you were planning on announcing your new name to everyone at the party, and that didn’t happen, so do you still want your new turnouts and nametag next shift? You can keep going by Buckley for now if you want to have a big announcement.” Bobby was kind to offer, but Buck was already shaking his head.

“Pops, I’m a Grant-Nash now, the only part of Buckley that I want to keep is the first four letters. While I want everyone to know that I am legally your son, I don’t care about making a big announcement.” Buck had barely finished speaking before Bobby pulled him into a tight hug. 

“I’m so proud of you kid,” Bobby spoke into his hair as he squeezed him. 

“Thanks, Pops.”

The cleanup after the party was blissfully quick, and mostly done before anyone left, so when Bobby and Athena finally walked out the door Buck had nothing left to do except collapse on the couch. Chris had insisted on a movie night, so within minutes the three of them were cuddled up on the couch with blankets and popcorn, a Disney movie on the screen. Azalea was already in bed asleep, having passed out the second the party ended. 

Buck was in the middle, with Eddie and Chris on either side of him. They were pressed up against him completely, and Buck felt more at ease than he had since the Buckleys showed up. That was probably why, not even ten minutes into the movie, his eyes fluttered closed. 

The room was dark as he woke, and he was surprised to find himself sitting alone. The tv was off, and all the lights in the house were off as well. He thought for a moment that Eddie had left him there to sleep, but before he could dwell on that too much, he heard footsteps heading back toward him. 

“Eds?” Buck thought he recognized the footsteps, but he wanted to be sure.

“Hey, you’re awake.” Eddie turned on the lamp in the corner. The dim light was just bright enough for Buck to see his friend come around the corner of the couch. 

“Sorry for missing the movie.”

“Don’t worry about it, you’ve had a long day.” Eddie reassured him and walked over, but didn’t sit. “Are you going to head to bed or are you up for a beer?”

“Beer sounds good.” Honestly, something a lot stronger sounded better to Buck but beer was good enough. 

Eddie nodded in response and disappeared into the kitchen. After he left, Buck took the opportunity to stand and stretch, his new couch may be comfortable, but sleeping on it the way he had left him a bit achy. Buck didn’t notice when Eddie returned, but he slid onto the couch a second after Buck did. 

They didn’t say anything for a while. Buck nursed the beer that Eddie had handed to him as he thought through the events of the day. Phillip’s words refused to leave his mind. 

There is no way that you can handle taking care of a child!

You have always been our biggest disappointment!

You’ll just turn them into fuck-ups like you!

His insults played on repeat and Buck felt a tear carve a path down his cheek. He had thought he was doing an ok job, but maybe he was wrong, maybe Azalea would be better off with a different family. Maybe he should have signed his parental rights away that day. 

Buck didn’t hide that he was spiraling well, Eddie caught on almost immediately and leaned in closer. “Buck, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

Tears started falling more freely as Buck took a shaky breath. “Eddie, do you think I’m a good dad?”

Eddie breathed in with a sharp gasp and did his best to make eye contact with Buck.  “Buck, you’re an amazing dad. Azalea has only known you for a few months but she adores you. I honestly don’t know how you do it. I struggled when Shannon left Chris with me and I had my whole family there to help. You were pretty much on your own when you got custody of Lea and yet she is thriving.”

“I had Carla, that’s a far cry from being on my own.” Buck tried to argue. 

“Buck just take the compliment. You are an incredible dad.” Eddie bumped his shoulder against Buck’s. 

“Thank, although I guess I did learn from the best.” Buck kept his head down as his face flushed. He had never been great at accepting compliments about anything other than his looks.

“The best? You mean Bobby? There’s no way you’re talking about Phillip right?” Eddie seemed completely confused.

“I mean partially Bobby, but mostly you. You are an incredible dad to Chris and I have been lucky enough to have a front-row seat to watching you raise him.” Buck explained returning the small shoulder bump.

“Front row seat? Buck, you’ve been raising him with me!” Eddie spun around so that they were fully facing each other. 

“What?” Buck tried to ask but the word got caught in his throat.

“You’re an incredible dad to Lea and you’ve really stepped up since she’s been in your life, but you’ve been an amazing father figure to Christopher for years. I know you love him like he’s yours, don’t even try to deny it.”

“I- I don’t want to overstep…” Buck wrung his hands as he avoided looking at Eddie.

“Buck, you aren’t overstepping, honestly, I don’t think you can overstep. You’re his parent too, his other dad. You have been for years.”

“Eddie…” Buck started to argue but he didn’t know what to say.

“Evan, last year I told you that you are Christopher’s legal guardian in case something happens to me, but I was too scared to tell you what that really meant. You have my heart, you’ve had it for years.” Eddie took a moment to take a deep breath and Buck finally stopped staring at his hands to look at Eddie. “Chris loves you, but more than that,” Eddie took another deep breath as he stared into Buck’s eyes. “I love you. I told you once that you were exhausting, but that was so far from the truth. You are energizing and inspiring. You are so good. You love so completely and unashamed. I’ve been stuck in your orbit since we met and there is nowhere I would rather be. Buck, you are incredible. You are an amazing dad, a phenomenal friend, and the best partner I could ever ask for.

“I don't expect you to return my feelings, but you need to know that you are loved. You need to know how incredible you are, how- how good you are. You need to know that you are part of this family that we built. I need you to know that I am in love with you.”  

Buck teared up the moment that Eddie started talking, but by the end he had tears streaming down his face. He opened and closed his mouth multiple times, he had a million things he wanted to say, but he had no idea how to start. 

“I… I don’t…” Buck stumbled over his words. He was trying to tell Eddie that he didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t realize what it could sound like until he saw Eddie’s face fall. Buck quickly tried to correct the assumption, but Eddie beat him to it.

“It’s ok, I don’t expect anything of you Buck. I don’t expect you to love me back.”

“No, no, I do… I do…” Buck shook his head and grabbed Eddie’s hand. “I love you too… I just… I don’t—I don’t know what to say— I never thought I could have this. I never thought that you would love me back. I just—” Buck squeezed Eddie’s hands. “I’ve loved you for so long but I couldn’t let myself hope.”

Eddie carefully pulled one of his hands away from Buck’s to cup his cheek. “Buck…” Eddie’s eyes were glossy as he looked at Buck in awe. “Can I kiss you?”

“Please—” Buck barely managed to finish the word before Eddie leaned in. The kiss was chaste, just the barely there pressure of their lips against each other, but to Buck, it was the best kiss he had ever had. 

As Buck fell asleep that night, wrapped around his new boyfriend, he thought about how over the course of six months his entire life changed. At the beginning of the year, he was the most alone he had been since the lawsuit. In the six months since then, he gained full custody of his daughter, gained some new friends, strengthened his bond with his found family, got adopted, and got a boyfriend. He had spent his life waiting for everyone to leave him, but for the first time ever, he no longer expects it. No matter what happens, he finally has a family.