Archive of Our Own

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

                      Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                         But I with mournful tread,

                            Walk the deck my Captain lies,

                               Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman

~

Bobby was dead: to begin with.

Bobby was dead and Eddie was gone and Christopher was gone and Tommy was still his ex-boyfriend and Hen was still in the hospital: though, he heard she was being discharged this morning. 

Buck’s confused remembrance was confirmed when, a few minutes later, she walked through the white, vaulted doors of St. Sebastian’s, the dark, paneled wood flanked with pale pine and rising stoically up, up, until the huge, barreled lungs of the organ came into view along the back wall. She was walking stiffly, maybe, but upright, a black cane clutched in one hand, though Buck noted how she was holding it tensely, letting the handled top rest over her forearm rather than use it. Karen was behind her, and her kids. Someone had swung by the firehouse at some point, Buck couldn’t remember who. Hen was the Captain of the 118, effective immediately. Buck might not have thought of it on his own, but the second he heard it, it made complete sense. Apparently Bobby had updated the bylaws, including interim captaincy, a little over a year before. He watched the Wilsons make their way slowly through the greeting party; at some point, May had peeled off, though she had been there when Buck had arrived, exactly on time. Eddie was late-- Eddie was gone, but he was also late, which Buck knew because Eddie had left him a voicemail that morning. Buck had brewed extra coffee, standing in Eddie’s kitchen, before sunrise, anticipating he would probably want a cup after his red-eye from El Paso. His phone rang-- he hadn’t picked up. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to wake Tommy, who was still asleep on the couch in the living room. It wasn’t; he didn’t want to talk to Eddie. But he had listened to his voicemail, a little out a breath, choked with apology, the airport noises in the background near-deafening. He would just meet him at the funeral, then, told Buck he would just get a taxi. Buck had watched the carafe fill up in silence. 

Everyone else seemed to have been able to get there on time; Gerrard, even, whom Buck spotted from across the room. For once, the characteristic machismo and arrogance on his face seemed to have schooled themselves into sobriety. Tommy had driven after Buck, in the bright blue Prius in the rearview. He was mingling with some other old-timers from the station, a big guy named Sal Buck only sort of remembered, some woman he didn’t think he’d ever seen before. They were smiling in the tight-lipped, intentionally downward way of speaking that people had at funerals-- at least, the ones Buck had been to. He thought he should probably know more people here. He had frequently worried if having the firehouse, the station, the team, be his first and primary social circle was a bad thing; he had always won the argument with himself by positing that it was enough : big enough, strong enough, stable enough.

Then where is everyone I know?

So Buck had parked himself at the very end of the aisle, facing the altar, and the wreath of flowers and the sickly coffin. Someone had folded up his turnout coat and left it on the very front pew, inconspicuously. Wasn’t it supposed to go to Athena? Didn’t it actually belong at the station? Weren’t detachable name badges made for this very purpose-- this very moment? So that they could be ripped away at the seam and replaced with another? Those things were expensive to make, after all. But the jacket was just sitting there. The name must have been folded up under it, because Buck couldn’t see the N A S H  he was looking for. But then again-- he didn’t want to. He turned back to the portrait instead. 

He remembered the day they had all gotten them done. It was right after Eddie arrived, which was longer ago than Buck cared to admit, though the increasing stiffness in his bad leg each morning attested to it. But Bobby hadn’t changed much, between that year and this one. Buck kept staring at it all the same, pointing out all the differences he could spot, like some twisted scholastic magazine game he remembered from his childhood. Where before, it was like Bobby had suggested going grey, Buck remembered he had turned rather silver foxy in the past year, the previous summer seeming to have hastened its arrival. The sunspot on his right cheek was the same. The slightly exasperated crook of the eyebrow, the same. His forehead had certainly taken on more wrinkles since then-- and Buck was honest enough to admit he might have been the cause of more than a few of them. Buck couldn’t see his hands in the photo, but he thought of the white slice of scar on his left forefinger, from years and years earlier, when the alarm had gone off as he and Bobby stood side by side, chopping, and both had reached for the cutting board between them at the same time, the cleaver Buck had been holding plowing into his hand. He had spent the ride to the call twisted over into the front seat, apologizing and apologizing at Bobby, who held a paper towel against it and reassured him over and over again that it was just a nick and that it would be fine. It was; that didn’t stop Buck from feeling bad about it. 

He figured it was still there, even now. The tiny, insignificant proof that Buck had been there, at all. In the picture, Bobby was smiling, wryly: also something that hadn’t changed. Or had it? Buck reached and reached, into last week, into last month, New Year’s, Christmas, Thanksgiving. His memory was failing already. He didn’t have a picture of Bobby, not on him, not right now-- or he did, but they were in his phone, in his pocket, they weren’t straight-on, they weren’t clear, he hadn’t even bothered looking for the last one he had, because what if it wasn’t focused? What if it wasn’t centered? What if it wasn’t even of Bobby at all-- what if, in the last material trace he would leave’s in Buck’s life, in his pocket, in the one indelible, provable suggestion of memory they had-- what if he was merely a passing stranger in the background of some innocuous frame, a figure in suggestion, a specter against the backdrop? Buck hadn’t looked. His memory continued to flee before him. He reached back into the past, anyway. 

~

“How’s he holding up?”

Tommy startled a little, whipping his head to the side. Chimney had sidled up next to him, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Tommy cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest before changing his mind and dropping them back down by his sides. 

“Uh… he’s…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Honestly, I don’t know, Chim. I don’t know.”

“You’ve been staying with him, right?”

“Yeah, yeah…”

And he had. Tommy had watched Buck from the grainy, ill-angled security camera-- writhing on the ground in that hallway, jaw unhinged in a silent, agonized scream-- for approximately four seconds before he had spun on his heel, picking up a jog as he breezed past every one of those godforsaken Army officials, past the LAPD, past the WHO and the CDC and whoever else had crammed themselves into the government tent to rubber-neck on the closed-door tragedy that was supposed to be unfolding before them. 

He had batted the folds of each tent layer away from him, the insulated fabric of his conspicuous blue flight suit suddenly feeling too bright, too loud, too hot. He had wrenched open the door to the airlock zone, crossing the space in three quick strides before stuttering to a stop, letting one knee slam to the concrete. He took Buck’s helmet from his hands, putting it off to the side somewhere behind him. He had bent over, his fingertips on the ground in front of him, one hand already extending to Buck’s shoulder. Hey, hey, Buck, it’s-- he hadn’t even made it that far. As soon as his hazy, swimming eyes registered the presence in front of him, Buck had reached an arm out for him, the other braced on the wall to his side. Tommy had grabbed him around the middle, pulling him into his chest as the Buck ground his forehead against Tommy’s collarbone. He could feel Buck wail against him, the sound low and deep and raw, his whole body tense and shaking. The one part of him that remained uncovered, undisguised, by the bulk of his turnouts, what remained within reach, was what Tommy could see directly beneath him: his ears, fiery red, the damp, sweaty mass of his curls, his beautiful, beautiful face, made unrecognizable with distress and sorrow. Buck was crying and he was talking and he was telling Tommy something, but it was too choked, too fast, too off-pitch to tell what it was, so Tommy had just said  iknowiknowiknow,   bringing a hand up to run along the side of his face, down the side of his neck. He held him for what felt like hours. It occurred to him at some point therein, as Evan had clamped one hand over his shoulder, hard, and was leaning most of their weight up against the wall, that Bobby hadn’t died yet. He hadn’t-- but he was about to. Tommy had looked up over Evan’s shoulder at the dreaded door. He couldn’t make anything out through the window, they were too low to the ground. With every external sound, every hint of a whisper from the other side, from the space behind them, made him flinch in anticipation. When the door finally opened, it felt like a mercy. 

Athena had walked their way, steadier on her feet than Tommy had really anticipated. She didn’t stop to undo her suit or take off the face shield. She didn’t even look at the two men on the floor, just stepped carefully over Buck’s outstretched legs and kept walking past them to the tunnel. Tommy could make out a small herd of officials waiting for her; he hoped there was enough of the 118 left standing that they could meet her there on the bridge, too. 

By the time he had looked back down, Buck had stopped. Just-- stopped. He wasn’t crying, his breaths had halted their great, shuddering gasps. He was staring blankly over Tommy’s shoulder. And that had been that. 

“Uh-- I mean: I’ve been sleeping on his couch since… yeah. The past couple days, I guess. Went home on Tuesday for a bit, but…”

Tommy nodded slowly, feeling the crick in his neck catch slightly. He was too old to be sleeping on the couch, and a small one at that, really, but he didn’t want to intrude or overstep or overstay, and it felt like the closest he was able to get without crossing some amorphous and unspoken boundary he had haphazardly set up for both their sakes. 

“I have no idea. He’s been… Jesus, Chim, he’s been so fucking quiet. He hasn’t… he won’t talk to me about anything, or look at me. I mean-- he barely speaks. He hasn’t cried. Not once. It’s… I don’t know, it’s freaking me out.”

“He hasn’t spoken at all ?”

“Well, I mean: he’ll like… talk . But not about… not about anything real. He just, you know, makes the coffee and said he was going for a walk and then asked what I ordered for take-out. But. No, not in any-- real sense.”

“That’s… yeah, Tommy, that’s rough.”

“And it wasn’t like I-- I mean, I tried asking him, you know, what-- what would help. Anything: I asked if he wanted me to leave, if he wanted me to stay, if he wanted me to fuck off or do more or…”

“Nothing?”

Tommy shook his head.

There had been something, of course. There were always somethings . The look on his face when Tommy had wished him goodnight, those hours after the fact. Both of them had resigned to getting no sleep, but showers had been had and clothes had been washed and there was nothing better to do but lie down. Tommy hadn’t been able to discern if it was disappointment or relief when he had grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and thrown it down, returning from the bedroom with a pillow. He had gone with what felt like the safer option and stayed in the living room.

The next morning, Tommy had risen early, staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours before finally rolling over and succumbing to wakefulness, planting his feet on the floor and rubbing his eyes. He remembered sitting in that very living room, over a year ago, now, watching some fight play on the TV on the opposite end of the couch from Eddie, Christopher having talked his ear off about Buck over pizza before finally shuffling back into his room once the match started. The room was so cold, so empty, so… bleak, compared to then.

Tommy had grieved before, of course. His grandparents, all four of them, that one English teacher he had in high school who saved his life in so many ways, at so many different times, and then died of cancer in seven weeks in the fall of his senior year. His mother, a few years ago, a blow so devastating and unbearable, Tommy felt like she had taken a part of him with her. His sister-- though he had been so small when it happened, that he was honestly unsure how to separate memory from story; and no one had ever talked about her all that much, anyway. But the heartache was always, always new: the absence, the want, the itchy, pacing restlessness. The same black tuxedo as every single funeral he had been to since he was twenty-- and it felt like a different man had worn it, every time. He still didn’t know what to do in the hours before he had to put it on. So Tommy had cleaned, very slowly and very silently, tidying the kitchen and organizing the living room corner still full of trinkets and miscellaneous house supplies Evan hadn’t bothered to unpack yet. When he had been in the house a few weeks before, of course, there had been nothing: the rugs were rolled and the furniture unbuilt and every single item still in its taped cardboard box. Not that Tommy had been all that focused on the interior design at the moment. Evidently, Evan had made some progress, but not a lot. Eventually, Tommy had enough boxes stacked in the entryway to justify a trip to the recycling bin parked on the curb. He had gathered them in his arms, also holding the bag of plastic recyclables in his other hand before tottering his way down the driveway. The sun had finally decided to rise twenty minutes ago. He could hear the neighborhood starting to wake up. He stood in the yard for a moment, relishing in the cold chill of the morning, in the dew that caught on his bare feet, the bottom of the long pajama pants-- which were actually Evan’s-- that he was wearing, the mourning dove from an indiscernible direction. Tommy had walked slowly back in the direction of the house. As he made his way back up, he saw Evan through the front window, standing in the hallway, though he hadn’t even heard him stirring. He was staring at the empty living room, not moving an inch. Tommy came to a stop, feeling like Evan’s mirror-- and a funhouse, anguish-addled, warped one at that. The look on his face was one that Tommy had never seen before, more distinguishable by its lack than its character. He watched the younger man stare into the slowly-lightening, empty room for a few more seconds before hauling in a closed-lip breath that he could see stuttering in his chest even from there. He turned into the kitchen. Tommy strode quickly across the grass and pushed the door open quietly. Morning? He didn’t know why it sounded like he was asking a question. He closed the door gently behind him. Buck came out of the kitchen, eyebrows breaking through the blank veneer of his face. Tommy?   He had looked almost surprised to see him. I was just-- I just put out the recycling. Is where… I was. Evan had looked at him blankly. If he was wondering why Tommy was taking out his recycling, or even where it had come from, he didn’t ask, just sort of nodded, numbly, turning to the coffee machine.

And the day before the funeral, the second day after That Night, Tommy had been plating the Chinese they had ordered for the second day in a row, pulling out a fork for either of them, rinsing out the plastic containers. Evan had come so quietly into the kitchen, he was genuinely surprised when he felt his arms snake around his waist from behind. Tommy had placed his hands over Buck’s, resting on his stomach. He had turned around in his arms, bringing them over his shoulders, pulling him close. It was only after twenty seconds of their tight, still embrace that Tommy had felt Buck’s breath ghost over the side of his neck. A few seconds later it was followed by his lips. Tommy’s brow had furrowed in confusion, but he let Buck keep going, a breath escaping his lips, swallowing hard, until Evan came up to capture Tommy’s mouth with his own, the sharp nip of teeth to his bottom lip as stinging as its surprise. Evan…? he had murmured against his mouth, pulling away slightly and putting a firm, stilling hand on either of his hips. Buck had just looked at him, unreadable expression on his face, lips slightly parted. If he wanted something, he could ask. And if he couldn’t ask… they probably shouldn’t. But he hadn’t said anything, just taken one long step back, skirting around Tommy and reaching for his plate, taking it silently back into the living room. After a dazed moment, Tommy had pushed himself off the counter, grabbing his own plate and crossing into the den. He sat closer to him on the couch than he had initially intended. He tried to let the warm press of Evan’s thigh against his own be consolation enough for the-- the woundedness? The disappointment? The… whatever had crossed his face when Tommy turned him down. He hadn’t asked again. 

“I mean. Yeah. Like-- yes. He won’t… it’s like I’m not even there. Or, I am , but -- but he’s not.”

“Yeah… right. I mean. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think anyone does, obviously it’s… it’s hard for everyone…”

“Of course-- and how about you, you’re still feeling okay? Is Maddie still doing alright? ”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s… we’re good. I’m fine. I’m just fine.”

“Hey Chim, listen, don’t-- I know… I know what happened down there. And I know if I was in your spot I’d be feeling… all kinds of things. But…”

Tommy trailed off, not really sure of what he had even really intended to say. He forged ahead all the same, placing what he hoped felt like a steady hand on Chim’s shoulder.

“I just… I’m really glad you’re here.”

Chim just nodded and nodded, letting his eyes trail back over to Buck.

“Uh, thanks… thanks.” Chim answered, distractedly. “Hey, wait a second-- where’s Eddie? I thought… oh my God, he is coming, isn’t he?”

“ Yeah , yeah, don’t-- of course he’s coming. Um. He called Ev-Buck earlier this morning, when he was supposed to be getting in. His flight got delayed, so I think he’s coming straight here. Cutting it a little close to the wire, but I’m hopeful he’ll--”

Movement out of his periphery caught Tommy’s eye. Looking past Chim, at the door that led into the atrium, Eddie Diaz was wearing his best suit. His eyes were fixed somewhere at the front of the church, distracted enough that he had to shake his head back into focus when Athena said his name. He grabbed her hand, giving her a brief hug before continuing to move down the line. But his eyes were fixed up front. 

Tommy didn’t have to look.  Once he had gotten past the mourners, pulling up to the back line of the pews, Eddie came a stop, his hands hanging by his side. He reached up to adjust his tie, pulling uncomfortably on the collar. He was still, again. Just because he was a masochist, Tommy swung his gaze back around to the front. Evan was still standing at the end of the center aisle, hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the portrait of Bobby with a face that gave away absolutely nothing. Chim was watching too, and Hen, sitting five feet away from Eddie, though he hadn’t seemed to notice her, was also looking up at their former teammate. But he was looking at Buck. 

Eddie started walking with slow, measured steps, as if he already heard the mournful bagpipes of the memorial march they would all have to endure later in the afternoon-- one of the more loathsome activities of the job, however heroic, however well-meaning. But he quickly picked up the pace, letting his footfalls carry him forward until he was striding in something that flirted with the edge of being a jog. He was five aisles up from the front when Tommy watched his mouth move in a soundless call; he was too far away and the ambient noise of the room was too loud to really hear him, but Tommy didn’t need to. Evan turned his head over his shoulder, too slow for Tommy’s liking, too delayed, too considered. He let the rest of his body follow. When Eddie reached him, he threw one arm over his shoulder, the other braced behind his waist, the momentum sending Buck stuttering a few steps back. It was a few seconds before Buck finally raised a hand, resting it limply on Eddie’s shoulder blades, the other held awkwardly by his side. Even from across the room, Tommy saw Eddie stiffen. He pulled back, holding Buck by the shoulder, by the waist, looking him up and down. Tommy clapped Chim on the shoulder and went to linger anywhere, anywhere else. He took a final glance over his shoulder at the two men at the end of the aisle. Tommy still couldn’t hear what they were saying; but then again, he didn’t need to. 

~

“ What . ”

Eddie spat out with a surprised little lilt, his voice higher and rougher from a night in the airport than he had been anticipating. He did another once-over of Buck. He had finally been able to get Hen on the phone, who was desperately bored in the hospital, missing Karen, slogging through the long, interrupted, horrible nights that hospitals always contained. She said Buck had been the only one of them that day that had been okay. But the man in front of him looked anything but. Eddie let the bite slip from his tone. It was irrational, he knew, but he was tempted to say it felt like Buck had gotten taller. 

“Buck…?”

“Yeah?”

Eddie looked at him blankly. He hadn’t seen his best friend in almost seven months; since the day they met, they hadn’t spent so long apart. And since he left for Texas, they hadn’t gone as long without speaking as they had since Bobby died. Bobby died . He still remembered Chim’s voice. He hadn’t even stopped chopping the head of lettuce he was dicing up for their dinner, Christopher curled up with his phone on the couch. It was so impossible, so out of place. Died? What do you mean, died? It wasn’t until Christopher had shot up on the couch and yelled at him to give him a name before he realized he said it out loud. His flight was booked within the hour; it would still take him nearly forty-eight hours to get to LA, with the tiny planes and the overbooking and Eddie’s utter lack of liquid assets at the moment. If he hadn’t been so sad and stressed and overwhelmed with the logistics of the trip, he would have been glowing with pride at Christopher’s insistence that his grandparents come stay with him at Eddie’s house, rather than him going back over there. For once, Helena and Ramón had let him make his decisions and move in his own way and go without ridicule or beratement. 

He had spent the whole plane ride wishing he had indulged Christopher’s pleas that he be allowed to come with him. Eddie insisted he stay, noting the three major papers he had due the following Monday, the group project he had already scheduled for the weekend. Besides-- Eddie was hardly confident in his ability to hold himself together, yet alone his son, yet alone… Buck. He hadn’t been able to get him on the phone. He ended up calling Maddie after the seventh time he was sent to voicemail, Eddie growing irrationally angry that he let it ring all the way out every time, not even having the decency to just reject the call. Evidently, she had then spoken to him, because thirty minutes later he had tried again and Buck had picked up, with the audacity to put a big old question mark after his innocuous   Hello?  Eddie was seething, which quickly faded into a chilled kind of confusion. It was like he was listening to a recording of Buck’s voice and not the real thing. It had sent a chilling wave through Eddie’s chest. He nearly broke a few speeding laws getting the airport. The taxi ride had been hell after changing into his rented tux in the airport bathroom-- a particularly humiliating and postmodern experience that Eddie felt as a series of unfolding, déja vu nesting dolls-- every funeral he had ever been to, every plane ride he’d ever taken, every ill-fitting shirt he’d ever worn and buttoned and straightened in a cloudy mirror-- each minute stretching back into the past, into the future, time warping itself, syruped into a big, amorphous ooze, slow and puddled, at his feet. 

“Are you… um. How are-- how are you doing?”

Buck just looked at him.

“I know… I know that’s a dumb question, I just. I don’t know, man, I haven’t-- we haven’t…”

Eddie was trying not to grind his teeth with the anxiety that this silent, this unfamiliar man in front of him, was invoking with each passing second. He cleared his throat. 

“We haven’t talked and I guess I just… wanted to make sure you were… I mean, that you knew I was here. Is all.”

“Yeah, well. I mean, I saw your text, but. Glad you got in okay.”

It took Eddie ten long seconds to realize Buck was talking about his physical arrival. Like a bastard. His intransigence was becoming increasingly frustrating, but behind Eddie’s anger was a buzzing, nervous kind of fear. He was somehow looking into Buck’s eyes, but not meeting them. He wanted to yell, all of a sudden, he wanted to push him, he wanted to step on his toe, hard , just so Buck would react, would flinch, would prove he was actually there. But he didn’t. 

“Um, no, right, I mean… I meant, like, here for you . Here for… everyone, but. I mean, to talk. Or to not talk. Or just… sit. I don’t know. But you… you do know, right?”

“What?”

“Uh, that-- that I’m here for you. To talk to. Or-- or anything.”

“Sure, yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Okay. Great.”

Buck gave a vague sort of nod before turning back to the altar in front of them. Eddie couldn’t tell if he was looking at the wreath that lay in the center, down below the cross in the front of vestry gate, or if he might have been looking higher up, at the mosaic of John the Baptist sweeping along the inside of the regally domed ceiling. He hadn’t really been anticipating this. It had been killing him, of course, as it always did every time Buck was upset, whether he decided to actually show it or not, every time Eddie had to watch as he sat, white-knuckling his way through whatever anger or sadness or petulance until he finally, finally , blew up, acted out, showed his hand. Sometimes it tore Eddie’s heart to shreds, like when Buck’s resolve finally broke that very last night he spent in California and they had had a few too many beers and were sitting on the empty floor in Eddie’s empty house and Buck had reached out a hand, holding it over to him. He just held it. They didn’t say anything. But even then-- at least he knew what was going on. He wasn’t expecting this-- this cold front, this tabula rasa, this unreadable surface. He stood shoulder to shoulder next to him, trying to follow his gaze, his train of thought. Eddie failed. After what felt like thirty seconds but could have been five minutes, could have been fifty minutes, Eddie felt more than saw Buck stir next to him, shifting his weight from one foot to another. He looked over at him, in time to see Buck roll his head in Eddie’s direction, still looking out somewhere past his shoulder. 

“I’m gonna go talk to Athena.”

Eddie let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, nodding shortly. But Buck was still standing there and he kept standing there. Eddie wondered if he was actually going to go talk to Athena-- Athena, who was still greeting everyone at the door, who hadn’t had time to breathe, let alone talk to anymore for more than thirty seconds-- or if he just knew it was the one thing Eddie couldn’t really, morally, prevent him from doing. Little did Buck know, Eddie was going to do it no matter what excuse he offered. As Buck took a step forward to skirt past, Eddie reached out and grabbed his bicep, pulling it into his chest. Buck’s whole body lurched a little bit with the change in momentum. He looked down at Eddie. For the first time since he had seen him, Eddie felt like he was really looking at him. Buck shook his head, so minutely it was probably invisible to anyone further than a few inches away. Eddie released his arm. Buck walked away, only stumbling slightly on his feet. He didn’t even want to watch him walk away, didn’t want to know if Buck was lying to him-- even about something so trivial, so insignificant.

He let himself drop into the first pew instead. Eddie was exhausted, down through his bones, out through the tips of his fingers. He had been sitting all day, first in the airport and then in the plane, but his feet and his back and his soul ached as if he had spent all day doing hard, physical labor. Eddie remembered, again, that he hadn’t done that in a while. He wondered if Buck would realize how out of shape he had gotten in El Paso, if the tuxedo was enough to hide his restlessness and inertia both, the twin strains written out equally on his body. He let out a sigh, feeling disappointed, though he couldn’t discern in whom, feeling shocked, still, that they were here, everyone, all of them, all together. He had seen Gerrard out of the corner of his eye on the way in, saw people he forgot existed until they miraculously appeared in front of him. He saw his family-- his real family-- the people that populated his dreams and his memories and his happiest, happiest days so vividly that Eddie sometimes, eight hundred miles away in El Paso, felt like he could reach out and touch them. They had been so present in his mind that to see them in person was startling; reality had become the dreamscape. Reality had become the dreamscape and Buck had become the statue and Eddie had become the one in near-hysterics at the airport, begging the poor woman at the American Airlines desk to get him to Los Angeles in whatever rickety tin can she could find. He had pulled out every stop he could think of-- the veteran card, the single father card, the firefighter card, the dead step-father card (okay, so he had embellished a little bit there… but it didn’t feel untrue: and that made Eddie even sadder). But he thought it was the real, honest-to-God tears in his eyes that pushed his luck over the edge. He had never cried in public in his entire life. He felt like the gravity in Los Angeles had shifted since he was there last-- and no one had bothered to tell him. 

~

Tommy had to admit to himself, in a vain, self-pitying kind of way, that he was surprised Eddie got the greeting that he did. It made him feel slightly better about his own headway he had been able to make with Evan over the past days. He knew the man well enough to know that the chances were high that, with Eddie’s appearance, he would just break down entirely. Tommy had been expecting it, glad that he was spared the awkward, intimate exposure to their reunion at Buck’s? Eddie’s? Their   house. But he hadn’t. Now Eddie was sitting alone in the front pew, hands sitting limply in his lap, staring at the floor in front of him. Tommy liked to pretend he hadn’t been watching but he had: watched as Buck walked stiffly away, rolling his shoulders in the process, bypassing everyone, murmuring a dismissive kind of thank you to someone who had tried to stop him in the vestibule, clearing the doorway and heading straight out of the church. Tommy didn’t know where he was going: outside, maybe? The bathroom? Just into the foyer to get some air? It didn’t matter-- he was going to take advantage of the opportunity while he had it. 

Tommy crossed the room in long, easy strides, playing with the rim of his hat as he held it in between his gloved hands. He had taken the gloves off, as uncomfortable and awkward as they were, only to realize he had nowhere really to put them, so he had just slid them back on.  He took a wide bend around the corner of the first pew, careful to step into Eddie’s line of sight before clearing his throat. Eddie looked up, distractedly, before his eyebrows dropped in recognition. 

“Tommy.”

It was lower and meaner-sounding than Eddie had intended. He tried again, standing, extending a stiff hand.  Were they back in hand-shaking territory? Tommy took it, an eyebrow raised. Eddie pulled his hand back, running it along the back of neck, then resting it on a hip, then deciding to cross his arms over his chest instead. 

“Eddie. How have you… how have you been? How’s Texas?”

“Oh, good, you know. Hot. But good. I’ve got Christopher, so…”

“That kid doing okay?”

“Well, you know teenagers. But yeah, he’s great, doing great.”

The two men stood an awkward distance apart. 

“I, uh… I heard about your… heroics. That day.”

“What?”

“Maddie told me-- told me how you got the antivirus to Chim on time?”

“Oh, I-- I mean, no , it was… it was a ruse. So that Athena could… I mean, yeah, we were being chased by the government birds over downtown, but we didn’t actually… have it. So.”

“Oh, right, right…”

“I’m really sorry about… about Bobby, man, I know you guys were close.”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks. I mean… I wish I could have… you know. Said goodbye. Or had-- a little more. I mean, a little more time. Which…”

“Yeah. I mean, I think that’s the one… I don’t know-- consolation? That Evan got to say goodbye. You know, right at the end there. I’m glad he-- he got that, because. No one else did. I mean, other than Athena, so. I guess I’m just glad it was him, you know? However…” Tommy blew a breath out through his lips. “However painful that might have been, I think he’ll… he’ll come to be grateful for it eventually. Maybe? I’m not sure.”

Eddie blinked over at him blankly, too surprised even to wrap his brain around the soft poetics in Tommy’s words. Chim had told him everything he had seen, of course, though the lack of audio on the closed-circuit television had meant everyone’s comprehension of what had gone down in there was a little hazy. He cocked his head over at Tommy.

“What do you mean painful?”

“Oh, I just mean, you know… Bobby told him first. Out of-- out of everyone, he was the first to know. And then he… told him he loved him, that he was going to be okay, you know… that was before Athena showed up.”

That was more information than anyone else had been able to give Eddie when he called and called in circles, asking anyone , everyone , for anything they could tell him about that day, that night, about Buck, about all of it. 

“How do you… how do you know that?”

If Tommy realized he had said anything out of order, he didn’t show it. 

“Evan told me. I mean, not the whole thing, obviously, but that was before he… you know. Clammed up? Shut down? Or something. I was gonna ask, but-- I mean, kind of thought he might be talking to you, but-- no?”

“Wh-- he-- no. No, he hasn’t been talking to me. I haven’t even been able to get him on the phone.”

Tommy furrowed his brow at him in confusion.

“At all?”

“No. He hasn’t called me once.”

Eddie recognized the bite in his tone wasn’t necessarily for the man in front of him, but Tommy seemed to realize that too, nodding slowly, eyes scanning the room for signs of the absent Buck. 

“Right, yeah, I guess I would have heard if he…. responded. He’s… he hasn’t been… I don’t know. He hasn’t been talking to anyone -- on the phone or otherwise. If it makes you feel better.”

It didn’t. Eddie let his eyes shut, shook his head a little. If he weren’t so tired, if he weren’t so gritty from travel, and run ragged from a grief he kept kicking down the road so that he could get all the way here without breaking down, if he weren’t so homesick for someone who had just been standing right in front of him but somehow had felt further away than when all those miles of desert stood between them-- he might have held his tongue. But he didn’t have that kind of patience on this day-- and certainly not for him . 

“So sorry-- am I missing something ?”

“I… huh?”

“Tommy.”

“Yes?”

“What the hell is going on?”

“I--”

“ How do you know that?”

Tommy was looking over at him, stupified. 

“Know what .”

“The… it’s-- him ! Buck! Evan ,” Eddie sneered, hating the mocking sound of Buck’s name even as it passed his lips.

Tommy’s head jerked reactively.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, sorry, I don’t…” Eddie let out a sharp breath, trying to get the knot in his chest to go away so that he could breath normally.  “I don’t actually know what I’m asking.”

“Oh…kay,” Tommy replied, as frustratingly patient as ever.

They stood in silence, the sound of Eddie’s breathing suddenly sounding obscenely loud at this quiet end of the church. Eddie had no idea when the service would start, why so much time had been allotted just to mingle . Tommy rocked back and forth on his heels, working his hands into his pockets, nodding vaguely. 

“I, uh… I know your move was pretty sudden, but, with everything that’s happened, I’m glad he was able to take the house for you. I think it’s… I don’t know, a… comfortable place for him to be. Especially right now. I mean, I love what he’s done with the place,” Tommy offered, going for playful. 

Eddie’s eyes narrowed; he turned his head over to the older man like a hawk, trying to read something, anything, into his eyes. Tommy let the gentle grin on his face drop as he saw the expression on Eddie’s. He blinked over at him. 

“You been in my house, Kinard?”

Tommy drew in a breath. So Evan hadn’t-- told him then. He had been wondering about that, just kind of assuming, since they told each other everything. It had annoyed the hell out of him when they were dating, he’d always share something with Evan, something innocuous or out of the way and the next time they were, inevitably, hanging out, the three of them together, Eddie would mention something off-hand.   Oh, hey, I brought over some of that fancy Bengay stuff. You know, for your shoulder?   Or   You have that OTS meeting Wednesday night, so Buck and I were gonna go see that new guitar guy he likes.   Eventually, Tommy stopped wondering how Eddie knew he had pulled his rotator cuff lifting or that he was allergic to walnuts or that he was an ROTC board member for his alma mater. So he assumed that Evan had told Eddie about this, about them, too, but. He had been wrong. Tommy cleared his throat; if they were doing this, he was going to keep his voice even. 

“I was, uh… I was told explicitly that it wasn’t your house. Anymore.”

There was small upturn on Tommy’s mouth, but the lightness in his tone had faded to a dull ring, like a knife struck on the side of the glass. The string of dialogue and civility grew taught between them. Eddie felt his nostrils flare. He swung his head around the room quickly, looking for the familiar silhouette he would know anywhere-- deaf, blind, at the end of grief and in the dark. He didn’t see him; he turned back to Tommy.

“Alright, now I know I missed something-- you want to tell me what the hell it is?”

“Eddie--”

“Don’t Eddie me, Tom, just start talking.”

“I don’t even know what you’re asking me to--”

“I’m too tired for this, truly . Okay? I have been hundreds of miles away and I have to hear everything second hand and then all of a sudden, it’s radio silence for four fucking days: nothing-- I hear absolutely nothing-- until I tell him my flight is delayed, assuming he got my texts about my flight to begin with, and then he goes, ‘k’. K ? As in, the singular letter. And then I show up here and it’s been months and I haven’t seen him, and in my mind, okay, that moment went a lot differently as in, maybe he’s excited to see me? Or… or-- I mean, excited isn’t right for the moment, but-- relieved ? I don’t know-- but something , okay. I expected something, God knows why, except I show up here, and we’ve never, ever, not once, gone this long without seeing one another and he walks away? To-- to where? He said he was going to see Athena, but he’s not over there . He’s just… gone. And then here you are, Tommy, of all fucking people: Evan this, Evan that, he told me so and so, and I -- I mean what ? What is going on? Why do you know that? Any of it? I thought we hated you now? I ate like seven million calories of him processing his feelings via baked goods, trying not to think about you or whatever-- and now you’ve, what? You’ve been over ? He invited you in ?”

Tommy looked over at him, the ease in his shoulders and the annoying, sympathetic spark in his eyes making Eddie’s chest crackle with something he couldn’t quite recognize. 

“I’m… I’m gathering he didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what ,” Eddie nearly spat out. 

“We… I don’t know, Eddie, we… we hooked up again. Like… weeks ago. We ran into each other at a bar, Ravi was there actually, but-- sorry, that’s not important. And… one thing led to another. I don’t know. I thought he-- I thought he told you, sorry. I didn’t mean to, like, ambush you, or anything, I just-- I thought you knew.”

Eddie’s ears were ringing. It was this suit-- it was too hot, too tight across the shoulders. He scoffed instead of adjusting his collar.

“Okay, well, I mean-- falling into bed with his ex wasn’t something he necessarily kept me updated on.” 

Tommy’s silence wore on as Eddie let his eyes take in the room around him. When he looked back, Tommy was still looking at his feet, his brow furrowed in something like concern, but he was still nodding on. Something seized in Eddie’s chest.

“Unless…”

Tommy looked back up at Eddie. 

“Unless you… you guys-- I mean, Christ, did you--? I don’t know, are you back together or something?”

“No…. no.”

“Okay, good.”

Tommy quirked his eyebrows at him, a little disbelieving, chuckled lightly. Eddie wished he would put more weight behind it, wished he would be as bothered, as disgruntled, as Eddie so clearly was. 

“Listen, Eddie. We-- you and I-- were friends , first, that’s the whole reason Evan and I ever… so, I mean: would you really be so pissed off if we were ?”

Yes, Eddie thought, before he could stop the vicious affirmation racing through his head. He answered Tommy’s chuckle with a biting huff of laughter. 

“Well… I mean-- yeah . Yeah, I would as a matter of fact.”

“Where is this-- why?”

Eddie looked at him, trying not to project the bitter taste of distance and the sharper pain of grief onto the man in front of him. It was almost impossible not to. 

“ What are you doing ?”

“Excuse me?”

“What, in your mind, are you doing, Tommy. What do you think-- I mean, what do you want out of this. From him.”

“I don’t want anything from him.”

“Oh, nothing?”

Tommy leveled him with a hard gaze. 

“I was taking care of him, Eddie.”

“ Were you.”

“As a matter of fact, I was.”

“Did he want you to?”

“What? What are you even--”

“ Were you trying to take care of him or were you just jerking him around some more?”

“I wasn’t jerking him around, I --”

“You’ll forgive me if I call the timing a little bit suspicious--”

“I was taking care of him! I was… I had to be there for him.”

“Do you have any idea what he went through when you left? Do you?”

Tommy let out a sharp laugh that, for the venue, for how close Eddie was standing to him, was a little too loud, a little too clear. Too mean. 

“When I left him?” He looked down at Eddie, tilting his chin to the side.  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Something like ice dropped down the back of Eddie’s spine, in sharp contrast to the way his jacket was too tight, too close, too hot, too sweaty. Tommy was still talking.

“When I left him, Diaz, really?”

“He was miserable ,” Eddie bit back, dropping his voice, casting a glance sideways at the guests, the mourners, their family and friends. No one was watching them. 

“At least he felt something ,” Tommy said back, with that tone, always that tone, that bordered on levity, on lightness, but couldn’t be because it was too true, too insightful. 

Eddie jerked back, almost imperceptibly. Something , he had to say something, anything, something -- what did he mean? Buck felt everything, always had-- all at once, sometimes. He had seen it all: pain and suffering and stubbornness and anger and jealousy and hurt and pride, and delight and hilarity and selflessness and courage and strength and generosity and perseverance and curiosity and sensitivity and joy. But not nothing, never nothing. 

“What?”

“Eddie. I know… look, I used to think that-- I mean, I didn’t really-- listen. I know that he doesn’t… doesn’t know. Or… understand, even to himself. Okay? I know that. But, not to insult Evan, but there’s no way you don’t.”

At some point, Tommy had taken a step closer to him. He was looking down his nose at Eddie, a familiar quirk in his eyebrow, a kind of challenge in his eyes that Eddie couldn’t read, a question he didn’t want the answer to. 

“Know what.”

“Eddie…”

And Eddie wanted to hate him, he really did, wanted to spit back something mean and cruel, all the vicious, blistering thoughts Eddie had harbored about him for all those months that he and Buck were together. But his voice was so gentle. His eyes were so knowing. Eddie swallowed hard instead, taking a step back and taking the chance to clear his throat, to swing his gaze around the room again. Eddie looked back over at him, putting his hands on his hips. 

“Well, I mean… obviously, I wasn’t… kept apprised of everything that was going on. What does-- ‘a while ago’, what does that mean?”

“Weeks. Uh, was… I don’t know. A little after Valentine’s day, maybe?”

Eddie nodded, blithely. In those days, those early days before Eddie started working, the first few weeks he was living in El Paso, he felt like he and Buck hardly put the phone down. He would talk to Buck drinking coffee on the couch, fixing the hinges of his new cabinets, while the latter was on shift, in the firestation, sometimes in the bunk room, where Eddie would talk or Buck would whisper or sometimes they would just sit in silence until Buck started to snore and Eddie would stay on the line, inexplicably, until Buck woke-- whether from alarm bell or internal clock. And Eddie would be there. 

And still-- Buck hadn’t told him. Why hadn’t Buck told him? And what did Tommy mean? He was fine, he said he was fine, he looked fine and sounded fine and hadn’t told him anything to the contrary. 

“Eddie, you couldn’t possibly have thought he was… like. Alright . All that time. Did you?”

“Tommy, I…” Eddie realized he was waiting for Tommy to cut him off; but the older man wasn’t going to rescue him from his own point. He continued, weakly. “I thought that… I mean, he said he was fine.”

“Right.”

Tommy was nodding at him with the sarcastic sort of disdain that Eddie immediately recognized in his own chest. He cleared his throat against the self-revulsion that was quickly becoming nausea. 

“You’re saying this didn’t all start with Bobby?”

“No. No, although… it seems to have been the breaking point. He was doing… fine, maybe. Or, better-- at least, that’s what I heard. We didn’t really… keep in touch in between.”

“In-between what?”

Tommy looked at him, eyebrow quirked in sustained surprise.

“Jesus, he really didn’t really didn’t tell you anything, huh?”

Eddie seethed. 

“In-between… I mean, yeah , we-- got back together. For a night. As it were. But then… I don’t know. Ended up… fighting ? Kind of? The next morning, and… I left.”

“What could you possibly have found to fight about in less than 24-hours?”

Eddie didn’t remember Buck ever mentioning them fighting, not about anything, the entire time they were dating-- unless it was about Buck ignoring doctor’s orders or moving too fast through an injury or something. Not a single disagreement that escalated beyond what kind of wine to order or which fancy movie theater to go to. 

“You.”

Eddie blinked.

“What?”

“I don’t know, Eddie, I mean… I hadn’t seen him in months. Then all of a sudden, there he was, and he-- he, for the record-- dragged me out of that bar, and all the way back and then all of a sudden, I was like… is this Eddie’s house?”

“It is my house,” Eddie retorted, his voice at a near growl.

“I mean, at that point, yeah, it basically still was because he hadn’t spent a single night in there.”

“Wait, what?”

Eddie had never felt so stupid, so out of the loop, so disconnected. When had this been? And why? And why was Tommy Fucking Kinard telling him now, of all times, after everything?

“You had been gone a few weeks. He had been… stalling, I think. Maddie’s, hotels, crashed on his friend’s couch a few nights. And man, you could see , it, too-- he looked exhausted.”

“Huh?” Eddie couldn’t even follow what he was saying. 

“He couldn’t spend the night. In ‘your house’. Or, at least he hadn’t, until… until I helped him. Break it in, so to speak.”

Eddie dug his nails into his palms. 

“ Stop,” Eddie hissed.

Tommy just looked at him. If he had been attempting to goad him into something, it had worked. Tommy eased back, a contemplative, narrow look coming over his face. 

“You know, earlier, I said you had to know what’s…. what the deal is. What’s going on-- between the two of you. But it just occurred to me that it might be a secret you’ve been keeping even from yourself.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Eddie, you don’t-- I mean, come on. Don’t you think we’re past this, you and me?”

Eddie met Tommy’s eyes sharply from where his had been fixed on the ground. No . If he was going to say it, ask it, insist on it, Eddie wanted it to be mean, to be jealous, to be seething with anger-- he didn’t want it like this, none of it: Tommy’s soft eyes, full of something like pity, something like understanding. Eddie saw it, then, in a way he had never seen it before. He saw how familiar that look was to him, the same kind of earnest offering that Buck so often presented to him, the same easy way Tommy’s hands were tucked into his pockets as he nodded minutely, slow and easy, how intent a listener he was, how detail-oriented and perceptive and gregarious. And good-- they were both so good.   They were good together   and the thought hit Eddie like a nine millimeter bullet in broad daylight. It left the quiet, curious thing in his chest gasping in gravel, bleeding out in pulsing waves on the street, like a dog. 

“ Why are you telling me this ,” Eddie managed to get out, his throat suddenly dry and tight. 

Tommy looked at him with that same look, that sweet look, that look that said he knew something Eddie didn’t. 

“Because someone has to. It just… it just occurred to me that… maybe no one has. And I know what’s it like to… Eddie, I care about him too much not to. So it’s something you should-- figure out. Or talk to him about or talk to someone because… I don’t know, Eddie. But you’re gonna turn around, and you’re going to get back on the plane to Texas, and I don’t know how he’s going to handle it when you do.”

“ Handle it? What do you mean, handle , that makes it sound--”

“And I’ve… I’ve tried . And I’m not getting through. So you need to step up.”

“Buck’s an adult, he can take care of himself.”

“Eddie, please. It’s too… we’re past that. It’s too serious, this time. The stakes are too high. I don’t know whatever shit you’ve got going on with him, or with you, or whatever , but no matter what happened between you two before , he needs you now , and--”

“ I never touched him .”

Tommy looked at him, blankly, swallowing hard before nodding once, then twice. Eddie suddenly felt too exposed, too seen, too close to the big, silent man in front of him, too hot, too sad. It was a mantra. A refutation. The answer to a question that hadn’t been asked, the defense to a charge that had never been made. Eddie felt branded all the same, scarlet spreading out from his chest, under his collar. He heard his heartbeat thunder in his ears.

Across the scant space between them, Tommy sighed. 

“I… fine. Fine. I guess. Let him be, then. You’ll leave and then he’ll-- what did you say? Take care of himself?”

Eddie held his gaze. 

“I care about him, Tom. I do .”

“Enough to say it out loud?”

Somehow, Tommy managed to make the question sound more curious than cruel. Eddie felt his teeth grind together in the back of his mouth. Tommy hauled in a breath, letting it out as he took in the friends and family and firemen gathered around him. 

“Who the hell knows where he got off to, anyway.”

~

There was a song playing in Buck’s head-- one he barely remembered. Was it from kindergarten? Elementary school? It might have been summer camp, that first summer after second grade when his parents sent him away for eight weeks and he had spent the first week mostly in tears, mostly in the nurse’s office because his tummy was so upset from crying so much. There was one counselor, Katie, who had sang and sang until Buck knew all the words to all the songs and they sang the whole summer through.    The big ship sails on the alley alley oh, the alley alley oh, the alley alley oh. The big ship sails on the alley alley oh, on the last day of September.      He couldn’t discern if he was actually humming it under his breath or if it was just playing in his head really loud. Someone’s horn was blaring a street over. He remembered the Jeep was almost out of gas. Buck pulled his gloves out of his pocket, suddenly remembering the nice material, the way they would crease or wrinkle if he just left them stuffed in there; he flattened them out, thinking he might lay them in his breast pocket. He decided to just hold them in his hands. He had to find out when Eddie planned on leaving.      The captain said, ‘it will never, never do, never, never do, never, never do’. The captain said, ‘it will never, never do,’ on the last day of September.        There were a lot of questions Buck still had, but the answers no longer felt as urgent, as breathless, as all-consuming as he sort of expected they would be. He didn’t know why Bobby had told him that they would need him. Who were ‘they’? And why would they need him ? Buck didn’t understand what Athena meant when she said that he said he had been here on borrowed time. Borrow time-- accidental time? Borrowed from whom? And, if they were-- what, then, were Buck’s minutes worth? But his own understanding felt so trivial, so minescule, so utterly, absolutely inconsequential, that he forgot every single one of them almost as soon as they occurred to him.      The big ship sank to the bottom of the sea, the bottom of the sea, the bottom of the sea. The big ship sank to the bottom of the sea, on the last day of September .       A thin, low cloud had pulled itself solidly over the city for the day, but had been steadily lifting, lending the air a thick, humid pall that Buck associated more strongly with the east coast. He felt a drop of sweat run in a line down his chest, across his back, along the collar of his jacket. It was too hot for this. 

He heard the church doors open behind him, some scuffle of shoe on the gritty concrete of the front steps. He was too incurious even to guess who it was. Where they were going. What they wanted. He kept looking out at the crop of trees outside the church doors, the cars in the parking lot beyond them. He squinted against the weak light of the sun in his eyes. After what couldn’t have been more forty-five seconds, the door opened and then shut. He was alone again. 

And Buck-- felt nothing at all.