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When Buck sees the baby basket resting on the table in the morning, he thinks it’s a prank. He thinks back at the conversation he had with his sister the day before. Thinks that maybe she talked to Chimney about it and he thought it would be funny to leave one of little-Jee’s old Moses baskets and wrap it up as if a wishbaby was in there.
Except that when Buck steps close enough to see through the thin tule-like covering, there is a leaving, breathing baby in there. Eyes closed in a peaceful sleep, all swaddled up and being kept company only by a nice looking envelope wedged in between the mattress and the basket.
He calls Bobby.
“Buck?” says the voice on the phone. “Is everything okay?”
“There’s a baby in my living room,” Buck says, not being able to keep the edges of panic from his voice.
“Okay,” Bobby says, as if he’s trying to calm himself as much as he was trying to calm down Buck. “Do you know who the baby’s parents are?”
“I think that’s the envelope.”
“The envelope–” Bobby repeats, cutting abruptly at the realisation. “Buck, do you have a wishbaby?”
“Bobby, I swear I didn’t– I don’t know how–” he stutters.
“Buck,” his voice is firm, like he is trying to get Buck to snap out of something. “You are not in trouble. This is a good thing, you’ve always loved kids, always talked about having them. The universe thought you were ready for it now.”
“Okay,” Buck says, though there is still a panic in his chest that the universe messed up somehow. It’s not that he doesn’t want the baby—he’s not even known them for five minutes and he already knows there is no way he could ever want to part ways with them—but he just doesn’t feel like he is responsible enough yet.
He’s subletting Eddie's house, he’s never managed to keep a plant alive by himself, Buck doesn’t even have a partner to raise this baby with. It’s not that he doesn’t want the baby, he does with his entire heart, but he can’t help but think of all the other families this baby could have been wished into and how much better their life might be there.
“Buck,” Bobby’s voice startles him a little. “Do you want me to come over?”
“Yeah,” Buck says, because he’s weak and he’s scared.
“Alright,” Bobby says. “I’ll have to hang up, though. Is that okay?”
Though he really didn’t want to be alone with the baby, Buck knew he had to let Bobby go so the man could actually be there with him.
The line goes silent on the other end and Buck is left staring at the impossibly small baby in front of him. Like many other things, Buck had spent some time researching all there was to know about wishbabies. Buck knew that the baby would stay in a trance-like sleep until someone picked them up. He knew that the fancy looking envelope contained the name of the baby's parents and would be required to issue a birth certificate. He also knew that all-in-all very little was known about how anything worked.
Which doesn’t help Buck understand how the universe picked him of all people to give a baby to. He doesn’t even remember wishing for a baby, it’s not something he would ever dare to do, knowing his job and his history, he doesn’t even have anyone to wish up a baby with.
And yet, somehow, it has not stopped the universe from spawning a baby on his dinner table.
“Buck? Where are you?” Bobby’s voice comes through his thoughts.
Before Buck can respond, though, Bobby has already seen it.
“You haven’t picked the baby up yet?” Bobby asks and Buck shakes his head softly.
“I still don’t– I’m not sure what to do.” Buck confesses, dropping his head. He feels Bobby’s hand on his shoulder.
“Buck, you know I’ll support you no matter what you choose to do here,” he says. “If you don’t want to keep the baby that’s perfectly okay, but I know you, and I know the look in your eyes, and I really don’t think that that’s what you want.”
Buck forces himself to take a deep breath. He wants to look at Bobby but he can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from the baby. His baby.
“Bobby, I– I can’t. It’s my baby. But I can’t– I don’t know how to take care of a baby. I don’t know how to be a parent.”
“Buck…” Bobby now has both hands on Buck’s shoulders, a grounding touch. “No one is born knowing how to take care of a baby. And you have a leg up on most. I’ve seen you with babies, Buck. I’ve seen you with them in scenes and I have seen you with Jee-Yun. You might not have children of your own, but you have children in your life, Buck. You have helped Eddie raise Chris and you have been the best uncle Maddie and Chimney could have asked for their child. And for the things you don’t know, you have more than a few people in your corner who would turn the world upside down to help you and your baby.”
It’s not exactly like the words change Buck’s mind, they seem to give his heart permission to want this more than his brain is telling him that he can’t have it.
“Do you want to pick them up?” Bobby asks, voice softer than Buck thinks he’s ever heard it.
That’s– Picking the baby up is accepting the baby. As soon as Buck picks up the baby, there is no turning back. As soon as the baby is in his arms, Buck would be a father. Except he knows, deep within him, that he has been one since he woke up to a baby on his table. Buck nods.
“Can you–” Buck starts, though he doesn’t know what he is asking for.
“Of course,” Bobby agrees anyway, stepping back a little, but still standing closeby.
Carefully, Buck lifts the covering, extending his arms to reach the impossibly small newborn. As soon as Buck has them in his arms the baby starts to let out soft cries that seem to be hardwired straight to Buck’s heart.
He sits down on the floor—drops down, really— and he’s not sure how long he stays there like that but eventually he sees that Bobby is crouched down in front of him. The baby is still moving in his arms, but the little cries have stopped. Buck focuses on the soft raise and fall of their chest.
“Do you want me to call Maddie?” Bobby asks and Buck nods, knowing he’d be unable to form words at the moment. “Good, I’m going to do that now, okay?”
Buck thinks he nods again, but he is not entirely sure. At that moment, his entire world is limited to the little human in his arms.
“Evan?” It’s Maddie’s voice now. It takes Buck longer than it probably should have to realise that it’s not coming from the phone.
Tearing his eyes from the baby is still not an option, so Buck forces himself to let out a noise Maddie will hopefully hear as acknowledgement.
“Do they have a name yet?” She asks, sitting down by Buck’s side.
He shakes his head. He doesn’t even know if it is a boy or a girl yet. God, he knows nothing about this Baby. Buck hadn’t even thought about that yet. How can anyone trust him to take care of a newborn?
Maddie rests her head on Buck's shoulder and that somehow breaks his single-focus enough for him to check.
“You have a baby girl,” Maddie says softly and Buck can almost hear the smile in her voice. “I have a little niece.”
“Hi,” Buck says to his daughter, bringing her close against his chest. “I’m your dad.”
At some point, Maddie or Bobby had called Chim to bring over some of Jee-Yun’s old baby stuff and pick up some other things that they would for the day. Buck would really need to find a way to thank them once he could stop to think about anything beyond the baby still in his arms.
They were in the living room with Bobby now, Maddie and Chim having left not long ago to do something that seemed important but that Buck did not pay attention to.
“You’re going to need to open the letter, you know?” Bobby says carefully.
The thing is, Buck knew what name he was going to find besides his own. He still can’t figure out how he wished up a baby, but he knows there has ever been one person he has ever so much as considered having a family with.
“I know,” Buck says.
“And you will need to call him,” Bobby doesn’t specify who, but they know all the same.
“I can’t– Bobby,” Buck stammers. “He will want to come back, and he can’t do that. He needs to be there for Chris right now. I can’t– I can’t ask him for this, to mess that up just because I’m selfish.”
“Buck,” Bobby’s voice is stern, breaking through the spiral Buck could feel himself falling into. “I can’t tell you what to do, but unless there is just one name in that envelope, you didn’t wish for this baby alone, yeah? If Eddie’s name is in there it means he has wished for this baby too.”
Buck swallows around nothing, feeling his heart beating far too quickly in his chest. He reaches his hand to the envelope, still in the Moses that was now on the coffee table.
It’s not a surprise, though it is still startling, when Buck turns over the envelope to find Evan Buckley neatly tucked against Edmundo Diaz in fancy cursive.
There is nothing he can do to stop the wounded noise that comes out of him then. He’s not sad, or angry or confused, it’s just– a lot.
Then there’s a hand on his shoulder, squeezing firmly in a reassuring manner.
“Do you want me to call him for you?” Bobby asks.
“I need– I need to be the one to tell him.”
There’s a phone in his ear then, the ringing tone reminding Buck of an EKG monitor.
Eddie picks it up on the fourth ring.
“Bobby?” He sounds worried. “Is everything okay?”
“Uh, hi–” Buck trails off, not knowing what to say or how to say it. “Eddie.”
“Buck?” Eddie sound even more worried now. “What happened?”
“Uh– I don’t–” Buck looks up to see Bobby taking exaggerated breaths. He copies him. “There’s– I need to tell you something.”
“Buck, what’s going on?”
“There’s– there’s a baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yeah.”
“Whose baby?”
“Ours.”
The line goes quiet then. So much so Buck might thing the call might have disconnected weren’t it for the fact that he could still hear Eddie’s breathing on the other side.
“Buck…” Eddie’s voice is full of an emotion he can’t properly place. “I need– Tell me this is not a prank.”
“It’s not. Eddie, I would never… Not about this.”
He hears as Eddie exhales heavily on the other side of the line.
“Evan.”
“I just– I woke up today and there was a baby on the table,” Buck says. “I didn’t– I didn’t know what to do so I called Bobby and I picked her up and I don’t really remember anything else besides holding her until just now when I looked at the envelope.”
“And it had our names.”
“Yeah,” Buck replies even though it wasn’t a question.
“We have a baby,” Eddie says, awe in his voice. “A girl?”
“Yeah,” Buck can’t help but smile. He hears some shuffling on the other side of the line.
“I need–” Eddie stops as if he is doing something on the other end. “I’m picking Chris up right now and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”
“Eddie, you can’t–”
“I can Buck,” Eddie interrupts him. “Whatever you were going to say next: I can. I am picking Chris up and we will be in LA by tonight. Everything else we can figure out once I’m there.”
“Okay,” Buck says, not finding it in him to fight Eddie on that. He knows he’s being selfish but he really wants Eddie there.
“I’ll need to let you for a moment so that I can drive there,” Eddie sounds unhappy about that. “Call me okay? If there’s anything you need? Just call me.”
Buck makes a noise of assent before the call disconnects. He lets Bobby pick up the phone from where it’s resting on his shoulder.
“I take it he’s on his way?” Bobby asks.
“Yeah,” Buck says.
The little girl in his arms starts to stir again and he lets himself believe, for the first time in a really long time, that things might be okay.