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Hen immediately jumped into action at Captain Gerrard’s order for everyone to get ready for a line-up and inspection. Maybe it was muscle memory, some Pavlovian response that her brain had never unlearnt even after so many years working under Bobby. Or maybe she just knew all too well how abusive her former captain could be when he found a laundry list of faults to harass you for.
As she hurried into the locker room, she was unsurprised to find Chimney hot on her heels. No doubt he remembered it all, too. Not trusting her words yet, she shared a look with her friend. It read oh god and this is going to be hell and how do we fix this? The one she got in return was empathetic but far from full of answers.
Captain Gerrard returning to the 118 was the stuff of nightmares. Literal nightmares, on occasion. They weren’t a common occurrence anymore, now that the 118 felt like family and everyone seemed so embedded and permanent, but while the building blocks of that support network had still been settling into place, Hen had feared it. And now it was coming true. The villain in her history was back, no doubt ready to do his damn best to make her feel as small as he had back then.
Hen was stronger now. She knew how to hold her head up and own her space in a room, but she didn’t doubt Gerrard would look for chinks in her armour. Besides, she wasn’t the only person she needed to worry about. As she stashed her things in her locker, her gaze fell on Buck and her heart broke. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—let Gerrard beat down any of his confidence.
Buck had taken to figuring out he was bi the way he took to most things – with enthusiasm, copious amounts of research, and a grin on his face. It was incredibly endearing, even after Hen had sat through multiple rides in the rig being told 101 facts about the history of queer rights internationally. Once he’d found his feet, it no longer seemed to occur to him that there were people out there who thought he ought to feel ashamed for who he loved. Hen loved that. She wanted him to keep that. But those people did exist in the world and he was about to come face-to-face with one of them.
Before Buck could leave the locker room, she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the corner so they had some semblance of privacy.
“Hey,” he protested, but Hen shook her head.
“Buck, listen to me,” she said, her voice low and her face serious. “This is not something I would ever normally say, but pay attention. If Gerrard doesn’t know about you and Tommy, doesn’t know about you, that’s something you’re going to want to keep quiet.”
It took him a moment for him to register exactly what she was saying, but the moment it clicked was obvious. The confusion on his face became surprise, then disappointment by way of pain. Hen hated that the suggestion hurt him—it hurt her, too, to be the one bringing it up—but she needed him to understand.
“You’re telling me to lie about who I am and what I do in my free time?” Buck asked, unimpressed.
Hen flinched. That wasn’t exactly how she’d choose to describe it. It was survival. That wasn’t something Buck had needed to learn yet, not when it came to this aspect of himself, and Hen wasn’t thrilled about the crash course he was about to get, but it was necessary.
“I worked with this guy. He’s a textbook homophobe. Hopefully it won’t be long until we can get this ironed out and get Cap back, but I don’t want your life to be hell until then,” she tried to explain.
Buck’s brow furrowed. “What about you?”
It was sweet of him to think there was anything either of them could do to make this new, surprise, unwelcome second stint serving under Gerrard more tolerable, but that was Buck. Everyone else always came first. Hen knew she couldn’t get him to move past his self-sacrificing protective streak without talking him through it.
“That ship sailed years ago. He knows I’m a lesbian, and even if he had forgotten, my marriage to Karen is in my personnel file. She’s my next of kin,” she said. “On paper, you’re scot-free.”
“So your life is going to be hell?” Buck pushed. “Maybe between us we can at least split the hellishness?”
Hen shook her head. “Not how it works with Gerrard. That well is bottomless,” she said, with the sigh of someone who had learnt that lesson a dozen times over. Reaching for Buck’s hands, she squeezed them tight. “I am so happy you figured this out about yourself and that you have Tommy. You know I’m your loudest cheerleader and that telling you to do this is the last thing I’d normally be doing.”
“So I just don’t ever mention Tommy? Never let him pick me up or drop me off at the station? Just never talk about that part of my life around the firehouse or on the rig?” Buck asked, his disappointment evident.
Hen wanted him to have all those things. She wanted Buck to be able to live his life however he pleased, and she liked Tommy too. As far as she was concerned, he was more than welcome to visit the 118, whether that was a quick visit to play taxi service for Buck or to take a seat at their table again for a family meal. It wasn’t rare to have guests – the extended family of the 118, from kids to significant others, had an open invitation.
If Buck wanted Tommy around too, Hen wanted nothing more than to allow him that. But it wouldn’t go the way she was sure Buck was imagining. It wouldn’t be like with Cap, all smiling and laughing around the table and open armed greetings to each person who came through the door. Gerrard didn’t see the significant others of his firefighters as people with their own agency. If he liked them, he acknowledged them well enough. If he didn’t, they were fair game for criticism and viper-sharp opinions, the insults split equally between the guest and the firefighter who had dared to bring them. Hen wouldn’t put Buck through it. She wouldn’t put Tommy through it.
“Buckaroo, please. I want to protect you,” she insisted. “This is the only way I know how to do that. I want you to be able to be as loud and proud as possible, but I can’t watch you get squashed under this guy’s boot.”
Especially not while Buck was still new to all this. Maybe he’d taken to it like a duck to water, but he hadn’t had the time or the need to build up the stone-fast shield you had to have to survive Captain Gerrard if you weren’t straight, white and male.
“I liked being honest,” Buck said softly, his eyes big and blue and in that puppy-dog state that always hurt the most to say no to.
Hen knew they were running down the clock on Gerrard’s stopwatch before line-up, and she still wasn’t in uniform, but she didn’t think twice about taking the time to pull Buck into a hug.
“It would be self-preservation, not lying,” she promised him. “And only here. With us, with Tommy,’ she couldn’t help but notice Buck’s smile, the sweet way he blushed and ducked his head at the name, ‘with everyone else, you be the special blend of Buck that we all know and love.” She squeezed his arm, needing him to know this wasn’t any kind of punishment. “You can always choose to let someone in, but it’s almost impossible to shut them back out. If you decide a week in that you’d rather be honest, you can do that. But it doesn’t work the other way around.”
“Fine,” Buck said with a sigh. “Okay. I get it.”
Hen wasn’t sure he did, but she really hoped learning wouldn’t be a trial by fire. At least if he agreed to lay low, they had a fighting chance of surviving Captain Gerrard with Buck’s trademark smile still intact. And, god, were they going to need it.