Chapter Text
"Mm, this is really good!" Charlotte told Buck as they walked toward benches after getting their food from a new food truck that they had wanted to try. It was the night before they started their next shift and since they were both free, they decided to try the new food truck.
Buck nodded in agreement but didn't speak, his focus on his food as they sat down. Charlotte threw him a confused look; Buck was usually excitedly chatting about the new food he was trying with her, telling her stories about other foods he had tried over the years. He was quieter than normal and while Charlotte thought most of it was due to losing his first patient on the job, this felt...more. They ate in quiet for a moment, Charlotte waiting to see if Buck would open up on his own but when their bowls were almost empty and Buck still hadn't said anything, she decided to speak up. "How you feeling, Buck?" She wanted to help, the two had become close quickly after the whole debacle of him being fired and then rehired. She had been wary of him after he had started flirting heavily with her as soon as he was introduced to her, he had stopped when she had told him that she wasn't going to date someone she had just met and who was heavily flirting with her while they were at work. The two had stayed away from each other whenever possible, the walls between the two only breaking when he had been rehired and she started to help him find his place with the team. It really helped when they went out for drinks, and both spoke of their difficult relationships with their parents.
Buck sighed. "Yeah, I'm good. Well kind of. It's just..." he trailed off and anxiously played with his utensils.
"You had your first therapy appointment, right? How did that go?"
"Um, yeah. We talked about how I felt about Devon. But-"
Charlotte leaned forward in concern, "But?"
He finally looked up at her, his blue eyes watching her with confusion. "Well, I recognized her. I had received a Facebook friend request from her."
Her eyes narrowed. "Before your appointment?"
"Yeah, she apparently saw the news and sent it. She told me I should delete it."
When he stayed silent, apparently still struggling with something, she pushed. "She probably should have said something when you called for the appointment or at least before your appointment if she didn't recognize your name." It seemed a bit weird for the therapist to not have said anything until Buck had brought it up.
"Maybe. I guess I'm just confused on how I'm feeling." Buck confessed, looking back down at his hands. He didn't understand why he felt ashamed or dirty. He and Wells just had sex; he was a sex addict so it would figure he would have sex with his therapist.
"What's confusing you? That she didn't tell you about the friend request? Or that she requested to be your friend because she saw you on the news?"
"No, that's not it. We ended up having sex and for some reason since I've been feeling ashamed and-"
He stopped talking when Charlotte leaned back suddenly, giving him a narrow-eyed look. "Wait, you had sex with your therapist? Before or after your appointment?"
He gave her a confused look. "...During? I think? I mean, after I mentioned the whole Facebook thing, she kissed me, and we had sex. But I mean, that's normal I'm a sex addict."
Charlotte shook her head, reaching over and grasping his hand, stopping his nervous rambling. "Buck, it doesn't matter if you are a sex addict, self-diagnosed or not, she should not have had sex with you. She is a psychologist; her job is to help you by talking about your feelings and helping you work through them. It is unethical for her to have had sex with you. And basically rape."
"That's probably why she threw me out afterwards, but it's not rape. I didn't say no, Charlotte. And I wanted it!"
"Did you?" she asked, squeezing his hand.
He pulled his hand free. "Yes."
"After talking about Devon, you wanted sex?"
He flinched at the blunt question. He opened his mouth, but no words came as he was speechless. His mouth slowly closed as he tried to understand what she was saying. It wasn't rape! He hadn't said no, and he had reached an orgasm, so he wasn't raped! But did he really want sex at the time? He was hurting about Devon, still was if he was honest even if he had said he had felt better to Wells. Because maybe at that moment he felt better, but as soon as he left the psychologist office's and got in his jeep, all of those emotions had come straight back. He looked away as he remembered the tears that had silently slipped down his cheeks on the way home.
He swallowed and asked lowly. "Is...is that why I've felt ashamed and...dirty?"
Charlotte stood up and moved to sit next to him, silently holding her arms out to him. They had never hugged before; Buck was tactile with the rest of the team but there was still that small wall between them that had always stopped him from showing her affection the same way that he did with the rest of the team. And since she had never initiated them herself, he had always assumed she didn't want him to touch her like that. But since she was now, and he found he really needed a hug...He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her waist and placed his head in her neck. He felt her arms wrap around him and squeeze him close. His eyes closed when he felt her hand lightly cup the nape of his neck and felt tears spring to his eyes before they escaped from his closed eyelids.
After a few moments where they simply sat there in a hug while Buck cried, they pulled apart and she watched as he wiped his face from the tears. She pulled his hands away from his face and looked him in the eye. "You should tell Bobby what happened."
He shook his head, "No! I couldn't-he'll be so disappointed with me. After all of the trouble I put him through and he rehired me, I promised I would keep my head down. I can't just tell him this, especially since he knows I'm a sex addict."
"Buck-Evan, he needs to know that a department psychiatrist had sex with one of his firefighters during a therapy session. No matter what you may think, that is not ok and needs to be reported."
He stared at her, his blue eyes wide, his expression made her think he looked younger than his 25 years. Her calling him by Evan stopped him in his tracks, except for his first day, no one called him Evan only Buck. Her saying his birth name made it sink in how serious his situation was and how serious she was about him telling Bobby. He squeezed her hands and gave a small nod in agreement. She simply reached over and pulled him into another hug, and he felt more tears leak from his eyes.
//***
The next morning, Buck arrived early to the 118. Breathing a sigh of relief when he saw Charlotte pull up and park next to him shortly after he arrived. He had requested she be there with him when he talked to Bobby, and she had agreed. They decided to meet up early before shift, so Buck didn't have to be a nervous wreck throughout his shift.
Charlotte gave him a reassuring look as he stopped out of his car. Once he was standing next to her, she looped her arm through his and gently led him into the firehouse. They headed straight up to the captain's office since that was where Bobby would go first thing at the beginning of every 'A' shift. When they reached the office, Charlotte knocked on the open door causing Bobby to look up at them from the paperwork he was reviewing.
He gave them a welcoming smile, clearly confused about why they were here so early but greeted. "Hey Charlotte, Buck. What's up?"
When Buck made no move to say anything, Charlotte tugged him into the office and said, "Buck needed to bring something to your attention, Captain."
Bobby straightened, Charlotte had only called him Captain if it was in official business like on scene with upper brass or in front of civilian's who weren't patients. She had never called him Captain while at the 118 and before her shift. He looked over to Buck and asked, "What's going on, Buck?"
"Can Charlotte stay?" Buck asked instead of answering.
Their captain became more worried but said, "Sure, if you would be more comfortable with her here. Have a seat. Charlotte, can you close the door, please?" She nodded and closed the door as Buck slowly sat down in one of the chairs in front of the captain's desk.
Buck was tensed, only relaxing slightly when Charlotte sat next to him. He took a deep breath and staring resolutely at the mahogany desk, said, "I had my therapy appointment the day before last. I-uh-I had sex with my therapist." He rushed the last few words out quickly.
Bobby leaned forward, clasping his hands together on his desk as he studied his firefighter. "Before your appointment? Are you saying you knew her in a personal capacity before your therapy appointment?"
Buck closed his eyes, feeling the shame overtake him. "No, we-uh-had sex during my appointment. I...I recognized her. She had sent a friend request through Facebook, and I mentioned it to her. She told me I should delete it and then...then she kissed me, and we had sex. But it's not like she raped me or anything!" Buck finally looked at his captain, trying to reassure him, but suddenly remembered the earlier shame and how he felt afterwards and wasn't confident in his words. "I think? I...I'm pretty sure."
"Oh, Buck. I'm so sorry." Bobby told him, his face falling in sadness. At Buck's confused look, Bobby clarified. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. You should have been safe to talk about Devon and how you were feeling, not have to worry about that happening to you."
"But-but it's not that bad, right? I mean, it's probably unethical that we had sex while she was in the middle of working, I see that, trust me! But that doesn't mean I was..." He trailed off, slowly starting to feel like Charlotte had been right and it was rape, but he was still trying to fight that realization.
Bobby silently reached into his desk and pulled out a piece of paper, sliding it across the desk along with a pen. "I need you to fill out this incident form. And then I will bring it to the brass. Even if you believe that it wasn't rape, she still shouldn't have initiated it and let it go that far." Buck stared at the form, glancing at Charlotte who gave him a reassuring look, and he leaned forward and grabbed the pen before slowly starting to fill out the form.
//***
He pushed the incident to the back of his mind and continued to work as normal. Focusing instead on the burgeoning relationship with Abby, a 9-1-1 dispatcher. He and Charlotte also started to get closer, even gave each other nicknames: Bucky and Charlie.
He had pushed the incident along with his feelings surrounding the death of Devon far down, them only erupting again when Bobby pulled him into his office a couple of months later and told him that Wells had her medical license suspended and was arrested. After Bobby brought his incident report to the upper brass, an investigation had been opened and it was discovered that she had sexual relations with multiple LAFD clients. She had even blackmailed them, threatening to not sign off on them returning to work unless they kept quiet on what happened during their sessions.
Some people apparently had gone to see her multiple times, especially after a work trauma where they had to get clearance to return to work, and during the sessions they were coerced into sex instead of working toward healing from their work trauma.
While Buck was glad that he had helped others get justice, he didn't believe that he was one of Wells victims. He was a sex addict, no matter how many times Charlie scoffed at his self-diagnosis, he hadn't been raped even if he wasn't truly in the headspace at the time to consent or not. Everything worked out and he will just push the incident and emotions into the same box that he had placed his parents' coldness.