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In his life, Buck was sure he had seen a lot – he had sure survived a lot. It wasn’t always that he was surprised or caught off guard by something happening. Every now and then he still had a few nightmares involving Shannon’s doppelganger and the day she surprised him at the fire station, looking for Eddie to gift him brownies. He still wasn’t sure the way his best friend handled the situation was for the better, but he was done trying to meddle and fix things for him.
Still, right now he feels like having some sort of déjà vu as he watches a woman walking around the firehouse, spinning on her own axis as she takes the whole place in. It’s the end of the day; he was on his way to take a quick shower and dress in his civvies before leaving. Mystery woman stopped as soon as she saw him, wide eyes as if she wasn’t expecting to get caught so soon. He can’t pinpoint how, but she feels familiar in a way. Kind, curious, a bit scared, blue eyes and an uncertain smile as Buck approaches her. It takes him back to when Maddie came to see him once at the firehouse, right when she came back. The woman in front of him has a cross-body purse, her hands holding the strap tightly.
“Hey, can I help you?” Buck asks her, aiming for his most cordial tone of voice and smile, hoping he’s giving reassurance. The firehouse can be an intimidating place, he knows that, so does his tall, bulky presence.
“Sorry to just walk in,” her voice matches her eyes, kind and quiet, a bit fearful, giving away how nervous she is. “I’m looking for Tommy?”
“Tommy?”
“Yeah, hm… Tommy Kinard?” She asks, complementing the information. Buck feels his stomach plummeting inside his body. Of all the time and places for this to happen…
Before he can react and ask who she is – praying she’s not some secret wife of daughter Tommy forgot to mention, like when he hid his former engagement with Abby – she pulls an old envelope, where he can recognize Tommy’s handwriting. “He works here? At least it’s what it says here… It’s been a while, I’m probably in the wrong place and you never even heard of him. Or maybe he lied…”
“Tommy wouldn’t lie…” Buck stops her before she can continue. He still has no idea of who she is, but he’s not going to let her call Tommy names, least of all a liar. Sure, he hid some stuff, but he never lied to Buck. “It’s true… I mean, he did work here. He doesn’t anymore, it’s been a few years.”
“Should’ve known it was too good to be true.” She sighs, looking down at the envelope, manicured hands tracing the messy handwriting of the pilot. “Do you know where I can find him?”
“I’m sorry… Who are you?” He’s curious, but he’s also not going to give random information about Tommy – or anyone, actually – without knowing the bare minimum.
“Of course, sorry,” she chuckled, sniffing slightly. “I’m Gina… Well, Angelina Kinard. I’m his sister.”
Yeah, there is definitely a lot that Tommy didn’t tell him in the six months they dated. He mentioned his complicated relationship with his father, and alluded to something about his mom, but never mentioned anything about having a sister. And even though he should be asking for some sort of proof, now that she mentioned, he can see where and how she feels so familiar when he first saw her. Most of the similarities are in the eyes and the dark hair, but there’s also something about the way she fidgets with the strap of her purse, and the soft smile she offered when introducing herself. Other than that, she’s short and slim-built – once again, it makes him think of Maddie, how they don’t look that much alike either.
He's curious to know why she’s here after so long without any contact with Tommy – if the last thing she has is a letter from when he was still working at the 118, it’s been over a decade of no contact – but more than that, he wants to know why Tommy never talked about her.
Part of Buck wants to spend some time digesting the new information, trying to find the bottom of their actual problems and why they didn’t work out. Seems like the answer to that is pretty obvious, maybe they just didn’t want to address it. Keep their honeymoon phase bubble lasting as much as possible or whatever. Opening the whole Abby door was a first to a deep, meaningful conversation. Something they should’ve done a lot more instead of just making out and having sex every time they were free. Not that the sex was bad or that he ever complained, but it does leave him wondering if things could’ve been different.
And knowing that they could.
He files to go back to that later, noticing the fidgety woman in front of him and knowing he needs to do something about it. Would she trust him? He could take her to Tommy’s – he could also give her his address and let her get and Uber there, but she doesn’t need to know that. She doesn’t need to know he’ll take any excuse to see Tommy again, even though it’s been a couple of months and he was the one who haven’t reached out ever since Bobby’s funeral.
He checks the time; his shift is almost over. He’s pretty sure Chim won’t mind letting him go a few minutes earlier so he can do his civic duty and bring together two siblings – Chim has seen him and Maddie back when she came back into his life, he would understand right?
“Well, hm… I’m Buck, nice to meet you,” he offers his hand, which she takes. Her hand is soft and warm, very different from the callouses he’s used from Tommy’s touch. “Tommy’s stationed at Harbor nowadays.”
“Harbor?”
“Harbor Station, yeah. It’s a bit out of the city, helicopters, places… Air assistance, basically, they need the space. He’s a pilot. Still a firefighter too, actually, firefighter-pilot,” he’s rambling, and has no idea why he feels so nervous by telling her all of that. Her and Tommy have years to catch up and Buck is sure that just giving an update on his work status won’t be enough, but also, he shouldn’t be the one telling her what’s been happening in her brother’s life lately. Not that he would know. He should probably join her and learn a few things about the pilot, actually.
“Did you work together?”
“Kinda?” Buck chuckles. “I actually took his place here when he left. We properly met over a year ago, when he flew us into a hurricane to help save my Captain and his wife.” He blurts out, as if it’s a daily occurrence to fly into a hurricane.
“I’m… I’m sorry, did you say hurricane?” Gina asks, eyes wide in panic.
“We got medals,” Buck points out, smiling proudly. He can see fear threatening to take over as Gina process what he’s dumping on her and forces himself to stop before he full-on traumatizes the poor woman. “Anyway… I think he’s off duty today, so, if you want, my shift is almost over… I can take you to his house. I’m assuming you’re new in town? I don’t feel good about putting you on an Uber or something.”
“I’m… I’m just passing, actually…” She admits, hands going back to clutching the strip of her purse tightly. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“You wouldn’t, I promise… I’m heading that way.” No, he’s not, his place is in the opposite direction, but she doesn’t need to know that. He has a feeling she’s not one to disturb people’s routines, and he can relate to that.
“Are… Are you sure?” She asks, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she studies him from head to toe, probably trying to decide whether or not to trust him.
“Or I can call him, if you want?” The idea seems to horrify her even more if that’s possible. He would assume that after years of no contact, a phone call would be pretty terrifying. Not more than a face-to-face visit, he thinks. He can’t even think of how much courage it took Maddie to come back into his life, even though Buck always kept the lines of communication open between them, with his frequent postcards.
“If it’s really no trouble for you… I’d like to go see him, actually,” she tells him, voice small, like the idea is still a work in progress inside her own head. Buck beams at her, trying to sound positive and show her she’s making a good choice.
“Yeah, of course,” Buck nods in approval. “Do you want some coffee or water? You can wait for me upstairs. I’m just going to change out of my uniform and grab my stuff, then I’m free to take you.” He also needs to tell Chimney about his plans of leaving a bit earlier, but she doesn’t need to know that either. “Come on, I’ll show you.
Gina looks as comfortable as you would expect when letting someone alone in a unknown environment. He promises to be quick and sticks to his promise, changing into civilian clothes, shoving everything inside his duffle and stopping at Chim’s office to let him know he needs to head a bit early. His brother-in-law is too caught up in reports and stuff to sign to be bothered about asking his reasons, just waving him a way and wishing Buck a good night.
As he goes back upstairs, he watches Hen keeping Gina company, chatting about something he can’t understand but that seems to put the new woman at ease for a bit. Her eyes find him immediately and her body tenses a bit, probably not a reaction to his presence, but what it means.
“Hey, you ready?” He asks, to which she nods. “See you later, Hen.”
“Drive safe, Buck. Nice to meet you, Gina,” she waves them goodbye.
He opens the door of his Jeep to Gina and waits until she’s inside to close it and open the back door so he can shove his duffle bag inside. As he types Tommy’s address on his phone to find the best route at this time, he wonders if he should give the man a heads up and let him know Buck’s driving his sister. Looking at the woman sitting next to him, he considers that if she wanted Tommy to know she was on her way, she would’ve told him so. Gina didn’t even want to call him; she sure didn’t want to announce her presence over a text.
The drive is quiet for a few minutes, Buck watches from his peripheral vision as Gina takes in the city and the traffic – not too bad for the time, to which he’s thankful. It also helps that Tommy lives closer to Harbor so they can avoid some of the cross-town traffic. He puts some music on, but lets it low, barely audible, offering a safe space for Gina to say anything if she wants to. He has a lot of questions, but it’s not his right to demand their answers.
“Did… Did he, hm… Did he ever mention me?” She asks after they’ve been driving for twenty minutes or so. “You seemed surprised to see me, especially after I said my name… Unless you’re not that close… I shouldn’t assume you are.” He wonders how much he can share; does she know about Tommy? He guesses, based on what he actually knows, that probably no, she doesn’t. Tommy only came out when he went to Harbor, and if her letter is from his days at the 118, he was still closeted. He wouldn’t out the guy like that.
“We… We’re friends,” he says, grimacing internally. They are not not friends, not exactly. But it’s complicated. “But, sorry, he never mentioned you. He barely talks about your family, actually.” Or his life, his past relationships, his fear of taking big steps, his desire to spend the rest of his life with Buck and still dump him… It’s a long list.
“Yeah, I guess he wouldn’t,” she sighs. “I probably shouldn’t even be here… He probably doesn’t even wanna see me. He’ll probably shut the door in my face.”
“No, that-that’s not Tommy. He wouldn’t do that,” Buck defends him. More than that, it’s not even something that needs defending, it’s just a fact. “He shows up to his people, no matter… No matter how much they hurt him.”
“I hurt him a lot,” Gina whispers. It’s barely audible, but the car is pretty quiet, so nothing gets lost.
“I did too, and he still came when I called. He was still willing to risk his job to help me out,” Buck admits, fighting against the lump in his throat. “You’re his sister, he’ll forgive you no matter what.”
“I hope so.” Gina sighs heavily and rests her head against the window, eyes focused on the traffic. They spend the rest of the journey in silence.
An extra thirty minutes later, Buck parks his car in front of the house he once thought could be his forever home.
Tommy bought it right before he left the 118 and fixed the entire thing by himself (mostly) over the years. Buck loved how it felt; how cozy, familiar, comfortable it was. How it made him feel like he belonged there, like all this time the house had this hole with his shape. When his realtor asked what he was looking for his new apartment, his honest desire was to drive her here and point at the house, saying: “this is what I want: this house, with that man.” Instead, he settled for his new apartment. It wasn’t bad, he was happy with it, but it wasn’t home either. Not like Tommy’s place felt.
“It’s the one with the light blue door,” he points towards it. The bushes and grass are green, a vivid color he never got out of Tommy how he made that work under California constant sun and heat, but Tommy was very proud of it. His neighbors, the Old Ladies, as he would call them affectionately, would eat it all up, begging for his secrets.
Buck gets out of the Jeep as soon as Gina opens the door, and walks around it to stand next to her. “I’ll be here, just in case… You don’t have to do this today. I can drive you to a hotel or something.”
He knew Tommy wouldn’t kick her out, he was too nice to do that, no matter their history. He’ll probably welcome her in, set the guest-bedroom for her: make her bed with the nice, fancy smelly sheets, offer her the fluffiest towels and bring out the lavender-smelling candle, so she can relax and have a good night’s sleep. Buck wonders if Tommy ever got around to changing the mattress in the guest-bedroom like he was planning to do, switching it to a memory-foam mattress. He barely had any guests, but he still cared enough to offer the maximum comfort.
“I’m sure he’s going to love to see you.”
“I’m gonna trust you on that,” she forces a smile, tears already pooling in her eyes as she fidgets with the strap of her purse.
Buck closes the door and leans against the car, watching Gina walk along the stone path Tommy had put down all by himself on the grass. He shoves his hands on the pocket of his jeans and watches as the woman climbs the three steps to the porch and rings the bell. If he hadn’t changed his habits, Tommy would probably be dozing off on his couch, some random movie on as he stubbornly tried to stay awake a bit longer. Buck hoped Gina would be patient waiting for him to find his old-man sliders, as Buck liked to tease him about, and drag his feet to the front door.
The light on the porch turns on and Buck holds his breath as he watches the door opening and a stunned Tommy looking down at the woman disturbing his peace on his day off. From the distance, he can’t hear what they are talking, but Buck smiles when Tommy engulfs his sister in a tight hug after a minute or so. He’s sure that every single fear and doubt she was probably feeling melted away the moment he wrapped his arms around her slim frame. That was the power of a Tommy Hug. Buck loved those. He missed them so much when he was covered in boils – he knew Tommy wouldn’t mind, but Buck didn’t want to risk rubbing the curse on him too. He missed it when Bobby died, in the weeks after the funeral, when he felt so lost and didn’t know who to run to. Well, he did know who to run to, he just didn’t have the guts to do so.
The two siblings talk for a while, Buck thinking he should probably get back to the car and drive to Maddie’s – this interaction making him miss his sister even though they spoke on the phone this morning. He doesn’t though, every thought about leaving coming to a halt when both siblings look back at him, when Gina points towards his direction, probably indicating the one to blame for this encounter. Tommy nods and opens his door wide, giving space for his sister to walk inside, then he comes trudging down the path she just took, towards Buck.
He hasn’t changed at all, maybe a bit bulkier than Buck remembers, probably hitting the gym harder than ever before. Much to Buck’s surprise, he’s barefoot, dark blue sweatpants hanging low on his waist, and he’s wearing an old, faded black shirt spattered of paint from when he painted the house. He’s washed that shirt a million times and the splatters are as stubborn as Tommy. It’s one of Buck’s favorite shirts to see him wearing. A sign of how strong, determined and driven he is. It’s not a small house, and to think Tommy did all of the hard work to turn it into a home, only waiting for the right person to inhabit it with him makes something inside of Buck twist.
He was almost that person. Or so he thought.
“Hey,” Tommy smiles softly at him as he stands in front of Buck.
“Hey, you,” Buck says back. “Sorry to just show up like this.”
“No, please…” He shakes his head. “I’m… Thank you.” Tommy looks back to the house, and then back at Buck. “She said you were very kind. Thank you for offering to drive her here. I know it’s out of your way.”
“Of course,” Buck shrugs. “You’d do the same for me and Maddie.” Tommy nods as if it’s a given, and they both stand in what’s supposed to be an uncomfortable silence but doesn’t feel so heavy.
“Do you want to come in? I’m about to order some pizza for us, there’s room for one more if you want,” Tommy offers. It’s a tempting offer, and any other day, Buck would be running inside the house in a heartbeat but today isn’t about him. Or them. Or their messy relationship.
“I can’t… I have a pizza date with my own sister,” he adds, not really true, but he’s sure not going to show up empty handed for an unexpected visit. “I should go, actually, leave you guys to it.” Tommy nods, but neither of them move. He watches as Tommy does the same thing his sister did almost an hour ago, studying him from head to toe. Tommy’s look is different, though, more heated, more searching, as if he’s looking for clues, signs Buck won’t give away easily. If there’s anyone who could find them, it would be Tommy.
“You look good,” he says at last. “How have you been?” It’s a loaded question that sits heavily on Buck’s stomach.
Since Bobby’s death and his funeral, he hasn’t reached out to Tommy. There was a lot going on, and he kept telling himself, adding to his daily list of chores that he would reach out, text him, call, stop by, see him at work… Anything. But he never did. He would tick off every single other chore, but the one related to Tommy would always finish the day untouched, incomplete.
Tommy risked so much for him. At night, Buck thinks about it, how he shouldn’t have called, shouldn’t have asked him to risk his job – again – to save the 118. But when push came to shove, Tommy was the only name in his mind, the only person he could trust and rely on to help him save the day. He wasn’t ungrateful, but he also didn’t know how to approach the subject, the loaded ‘and for you’, the heavy emotions of the day.
“You know how it is…” He shrugs. He’s doing better, but there’s still a too big of a hole inside of him, not only shaped like Bobby, but also in the shape of the man standing in front of him. “One day at a time.”
“You know you can call me, right?” Tommy asks, like he could see all the thoughts inside Buck’s head. He was good like that, always were. Always capable of reading Buck and looking right through him, under his masks.
“Of course,” Buck nods. “I meant to, before, I just… I didn’t know how…” He confesses, knowing Tommy will understand him. “You should go; you guys have a lot of catch up to do.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he chuckles, looking at the house.
“I, hm, have some experience on long lost sister,” Buck attempts a joke, winning a half-smile from the other man. “So… If you want to talk about it, or not talk about… You can call me, too.”
“Maybe I will,” Tommy nods, taking a few steps back, not needing to say anything else, both knowing this conversation should end right now.
“Have a good night, Tommy.”
“You too, Evan… Tell Maddie I said ‘hi’,” Tommy adds as Buck is getting inside the car. The man nods and observes the pilot standing in the sidewalk until Buck turns on the next corner.
~ * ~
It’s a lot later when he gets back from Maddie. It had been nice – although his sister was very surprised with the unexpected visit – to spend some time with her, remembering the day she came back into his life, feeling lucky that she was still here after everything they both went through. He told her about Tommy and his sister, Maddie – and Chimney, when he joined them – being surprised at the turn of events. He didn’t stay long, not wanting to disturb their new night routine. Buck kissed the kids goodnight and then his sister, making sure to pass along Tommy’s ‘hi’ to her, before driving back home.
He’s just out of the shower, stopping at his kitchen very quickly to grab a slice of the latest lemon loaf he did, adding a dollop of ice cream, before sitting on his couch to catch up to a docuseries he’s been binging over the past few weeks. He has a fork on his mouth and the remote on his free hand, ready to press play when his phone vibrates where it is set on his coffee table. Any other person, he would let go to voicemail, but it’s his selfie with Tommy when they managed to squeeze a quick coffee date in the middle of their busy schedules that flashes on his screen, the name of the pilot right on top.
Buck grabs his phone, remote forgotten for the time being, and swipes the phone to accept the call.
“Hey,” he says, stabbing the piece of loaf with his fork, cutting a new piece. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, actually,” Tommy says on the other side. He can hear some faint voices in the background, too many to be Gina, so he guesses Tommy’s pretty much like him, sitting on his couch, TV on.
“Is Gina okay?” Buck asks, fork entering his mouth as soon as he finishes the question. When Tommy speaks, he can hear the smile in his voice, causing some flutter inside his chest.
“Yeah, she just went to bed, actually,” Tommy lets him know. “Apparently, meeting your brother after a decade of no-contact is exhausting.” He adds, causing Buck to choke on the remainings of his loaf.
“Don’t I know it,” he says. “How did it go? Did you guys talk?”
“Yeah, we… We didn’t cover everything, there’s a lot,” Buck hums around another mouthful. “But it was good.” There’s a bit of silence, filled with the soft voices from Tommy’s TV. “Thank you, Evan.”
He can’t remember a time when he heard Tommy thanking him so much in one night, but he knows how what happened tonight is important and can make you feel so much. After Maddie and him went to bed when she came back, Buck stayed awake, staring at the ceiling for an hour or so, tears streaming down his face, grateful to have his sister back, grateful that she was good, that he hadn’t lost her.
“Of course,” he tells him. “I’m here if you need me.”
There’s a long silence this time, and he’s sure he can hear some sniffling followed by a shuddering breath. Buck puts his plate to the side, wishing nothing more than to be able to reach over his phone, to jump through the screen and teleport to where Tommy is, to hug him, hold him tight and promise everything will be okay. When Tommy speaks again, his voice is a bit wobbly from the tears he’s probably still shedding.
“Can I need you now?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, I’m here.”