Archive of Our Own

“Lo peor son los primeros cinco días, hay esperanza, pero luego se va. Llega el sexto y te armas de valentía y te prometes no volverla a buscar”

“The worst are the first five days. There's hope, but then it's gone. The sixth comes, and you work up the courage and promise yourself never to look for her again.”

The apartment was too quiet —an almost suffocating silence, broken only by the low, monotonous hum of the refrigerator. It was a silence that didn’t belong to a home, but to a waiting room where time stretched and mocked you.

Buck had arrived just a few minutes ago from the airport, after leaving Abby at her gate. 

Those last moments were carved into his mind: her gentle voice saying, “You don’t have to wait for me,” and the way her eyes had flickered, as if she already knew he would anyway. And he, stupidly brave, hopelessly in love, had said what his chest was screaming: “I want to. I will.”

Because it was true. Abby had changed him. She had been the earthquake and the reconstruction. The reason he could say he wasn’t just Buck 1.0 anymore —the reckless guy, the boy chasing bodies and thrills. With her, he had learned to breathe, to wait, to want more than the fleeting. She had shown him he could be a man who put on his pants every morning with a purpose.

With a heavy sigh, Buck collapsed onto the couch, stretching out his long frame as if trying to cover the emptiness beside him. He pressed a hand over his eyes, forcing a deep breath through his lungs. His voice slipped into the quiet, soft and certain:

“Of course I’m going to wait for you… No matter how long.”

He believed it. God, he wanted to believe it.

When the morning arrived, it did so without asking. He’d fallen asleep on the couch, his neck stiff, his back aching, his phone lying uselessly on his chest. The pain was nothing. What mattered was keeping the routine alive, keeping himself worthy. If he worked hard enough, if he kept moving, Abby would come back to the version of him she believed in.

At the station, he tried to drown in the noise of the job. But her absence clung to him like smoke. He checked his phone every time it buzzed, every time it lit up —even when it was just some app notification or a reminder he didn’t care about. He longed for her name, for her voice telling him she’d landed, for a picture of where she was. Something. Anything.

Bobby’s eyes followed him across the firehouse, full of a quiet knowing that made Buck’s stomach twist. Chim and Hen muttered things, maybe pity, maybe teasing —it didn’t matter. He forced himself not to listen, not to let their words stick. 

On a call for a car accident on the freeway, he almost missed Bobby’s order to grab the med kit. His eyes had darted back to the rig, where he’d left his phone charging. 

“Buck! Focus.” Bobby’s voice cut sharp through the haze.

He snapped to it, guilt flooding him, cheeks burning as he rushed forward. Later, while they hosed down their gear, Chim muttered just loud enough: “Guess somebody’s waiting for a love letter.” Hen smirked, though hers was softer, almost sympathetic.

Buck pretended not to hear. Or maybe he really didn’t. Because Abby wasn’t gone. Not really. She was just… on pause. Their love was not over. He wouldn’t allow it to be over.

The second day bled into the third. Wake up. Text Abby. Wait. Work. Train. Return to Abby’s apartment like a loyal shadow. Sleep on the couch that already smelled of him and loneliness. Repeat.

On the third, a structure fire tore through an old apartment complex. Smoke so thick it stung the eyes, heat pressing like a wall. Buck pulled a family of three down the stairs, adrenaline singing in his veins. For one shining moment, he was fully present —alive, needed, heroic.

But then, back on the truck, drenched in sweat and soot, his first instinct wasn’t to drink water or peel off his gear. It was to check his phone.

No message.

Chim leaned over with a bottle of Gatorade, shaking his head. “Man, you look worse than the fire. She’s not gonna text faster just because you stare at it.”

Buck’s jaw tightened. “I wasn’t—”

Hen raised a brow. “You were.”

Even Bobby said nothing, and that was worse. Silence from Bobby was a verdict all its own.

By the fourth day, doubt was gnawing at the edges of his chest. The silence of her phone felt louder than the sirens at work. He told himself stories —Abby was busy, Abby needed space, Abby would answer when she was ready. He forced maturity into his veins like a drug, whispering, ‘She just needs to reconnect with herself. And I’m grown-up enough to understand that.’

But Buck’s kind of maturity came with cracks. Because the fear crept in: fear of being left behind again, fear that he was once more the expendable person in someone’s story. The hope was still there, stubborn and shining, but his days were already hollowed out without her.

That shift, they responded to a child trapped in an elevator. Buck crouched with his head pressed against the steel, speaking softly through the doors until the kid’s sobs slowed. He smiled, reassured, kept talking until the team pried it open. The boy ran straight into his mother’s arms, and Buck’s chest ached —not with relief, but with longing.

Because he wanted that too. Someone waiting for him at the other side of the door.

Hen clapped him on the shoulder. “Nice work.”

He smiled back, but his eyes already flicked to his phone. Still blank.

By the fifth day, his messages had become a river flowing one way. Words piling on his side of the screen, met with nothing but blankness. No little typing bubbles, no replies. The only trace of Abby were the photos she started posting on social media —filtered glimpses of places and smiles that didn’t need him in the frame.

Every time she posted one, Buck’s finger hovered over the screen. He would press like, a small gesture, a breadcrumb trail, and then force himself to move on. Move on, but never forward.

That night, after a brutal shift that left his body wrung out and sore, he collapsed again on the couch, recreating the déjà vu of that first night. The phone was in his hand, the glow of the screen burning into his tired eyes. He stared at it until the letters blurred, until he typed with a mix of exhaustion and yearning:

“We responded to a huge fire today. I thought about you. You always said I was getting into bigger trouble than I could handle.”

He pressed send. And then he waited.

One second. Two. Three.

Nothing.

An hour. Two. Still nothing.

In the darkness of that house that wasn’t really his, Buck lay flat on the couch, eyes fixed on the ceiling as if the plaster could give him answers. His chest felt hollowed out, and yet too heavy at the same time.

By the next morning, there was still no reply.

The first day of her absence had almost felt like a reprieve, a small test of patience he thought he could pass. By the fifth, hope still clung to him like a drowning man to driftwood —maybe Abby would miss him, maybe she’d come looking for him, maybe love was enough.

But on the sixth… On the sixth, the weight broke him.

He stood in front of the mirror, pale and unshaven, his reflection almost unrecognizable. His hands shook as he gripped the sink. His voice came out in a whisper, a vow meant for no one but himself:

“I won’t write to you again. Not until you answer. I don’t want to be a nuisance to you.”

The words trembled in the air, fragile and almost noble. He wanted to believe he had that kind of strength.

And yet—

The next day, his thumb betrayed him. The message was sent before he could stop it. Because Buck was many things —reckless, hopeful, desperate— but never someone who knew how to stop loving once he’d started.

“Pasan seis meses que parecen seis vidas y aunque hay mil flechas que quisieras usar. Habría que ser experto en anatomía para apuntarle a un corazón que no está”

“Six months go by that feel like six lifetimes, and there are a thousand arrows you'd like to use. You'd have to be an expert in anatomy to aim at a heart that isn't there.”

Buck still couldn’t fully understand what led Abby to leave. Don’t take him the wrong way —he did understand. He knew Abby had spent years tethered to her mother’s illness, years where she’d placed herself last, where dreams had gathered dust and grown brittle. He understood that she needed to run, to breathe, to rediscover herself outside the cage of duty.

But still —was it really so impossible to do that with Buck at her side?

He’d changed so much since meeting her. She had challenged him to be more, to want more, and he had listened. He had taken Bobby’s words to heart, that he wasn’t supposed to drag Abby out of her struggles, but to walk into them with her. And he had —he’d been ready to shoulder the weight. And for a while, it had felt good. Right. Like he had finally stopped being just “Buck 1.0,” the reckless guy who lived off adrenaline and women’s phone numbers. With Abby, he had felt capable. Grounded. Like he could be the man he wanted to be.

But apparently, all that hadn’t been enough.

Because six months had passed —half a year— and Abby hadn’t come back. Not even to end things. She’d simply left him in the purgatory of silence, where time stretched and twisted until Buck felt like it had aged him decades. He was twenty-something, but inside he carried the exhaustion of someone much older.

He would wake and already feel tired. He would fall asleep only to find her again in his dreams. Abby’s absence followed him like a shadow that even firelight couldn’t burn away.

Work was the only anchor left. So he clung to it, desperate. First to volunteer, last to leave the flames, the one charging headlong into danger with something that looked like bravery but tasted more like punishment. Adrenaline numbed the ache, silenced the questions, gave him whole seconds where Abby’s name wasn’t echoing in his chest.

It was in the middle of one of those chaotic shifts that he met Eddie Diaz.

Eddie had walked into the station like he already owned it —straight-backed, calm, serious to the bone. His precision rubbed against Buck’s wild edges like flint and steel, sparking friction instantly. Buck’s childish, competitive side reared its head, eager to prove himself, to bite back at this new guy who looked like he had everything under control.

But Eddie wasn’t just order. Beneath the discipline was a kind of quiet steadiness that began to pull Buck in, until annoyance turned into respect, and respect into something warmer.

And then came Christopher.

That little boy with the lopsided smile and wide eyes, who looked at Buck like he was made of sunlight. The first time they met, after the earthquake, Buck had felt his heart tighten and expand all at once.

“You’re my dad’s friend, aren’t you?” Christopher asked as Buck helped him into the car. His voice was curious, trusting. “Dad talks about you at home.”

“Best friend,” Buck corrected with a grin, throwing Eddie a sidelong glance that earned him a lifted eyebrow and the hint of a smirk. “Although, depending on your answer, I might leave that part out. So tell me —what do you prefer? Jellyfish or sharks?”

Christopher’s whole face lit up, the gloom of the disaster around them evaporating as he launched into a story about his science teacher, about the aquarium trip he’d been dreaming of, about how jellyfish were like floating aliens and sharks were misunderstood kings of the ocean.

Buck listened —really listened— and for the first time in months, the hollow space inside his chest didn’t feel so cavernous.

That night, after dropping Eddie and Christopher off, Buck drove home in silence. The streets blurred by, headlights carving thin white lines across his windshield. His mind replayed Christopher’s laughter, the way the boy had lit up when he talked about sharks, like the world was still vast and full of wonder.

Buck gripped the steering wheel tighter. The sound of that laugh had eased something inside him, but it had also cracked something else wide open.

By the time he reached Abby’s apartment —the place he still called home even though it didn’t feel like one— he was shaking. He tossed his keys on the counter, sat on the couch, and pulled out his phone.

Her number was still pinned at the top of his messages, stubbornly waiting, like a wound he refused to stitch. Six months. Half a year. A hundred half-written texts, unsent. And still, part of him believed —no, needed to believe— that if he just heard her voice, it would all make sense.

His thumb hovered over the screen. He imagined it: Abby’s voice on the other end, maybe tired, maybe distant. Maybe relieved. Or maybe —worse— indifferent.

What if she answered with politeness instead of love? What if she spoke to him the way strangers spoke to each other in elevators —gentle, detached, waiting for the ride to end?

The thought gutted him.

“Just call her,” he whispered to himself, pressing the phone harder in his hand. “Just one call. She’ll explain. She’ll —she’ll still love you. She has to.”

He stared at the number, at the little green phone icon, at the abyss between wanting and daring. His chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself.

For a second, he swore his thumb would betray him, that he’d press down and shatter the silence.

But then Christopher’s voice echoed in his mind: “You’re my dad’s friend, aren’t you?” The boy’s trust, his bright eyes. Eddie’s faint smirk. The way it had felt to be… Needed.

Buck exhaled sharply, lowering the phone onto the table as though it had burned him. He buried his face in his hands.

“Not tonight,” he muttered. “Not tonight.”

And for the first time in months, he didn’t send the message. He didn’t dial the number. He sat in the quiet and let the ache roll through him, realizing that moving forward didn’t mean erasing Abby —it meant surviving her absence, one unbearable night at a time.

Then Maddie came back.

And with her return came something Buck hadn’t realized he’d been starving for: home. Her voice, her warmth, the way she looked at him like she still saw the little brother under all the chaos —she gave him a piece of himself he’d forgotten. She reminded him he wasn’t just the man Abby had left behind; he was Maddie’s brother, someone worth loving, worth protecting, worth being proud of.

Between Maddie’s gentle presence, Christopher’s laughter, and Eddie’s calm companionship, life began stitching itself together again in patches. There were still nights when Buck stared at his phone until his vision blurred, still mornings where the silence in Abby’s absence pressed like a bruise.

But sometimes —just sometimes— the pain softened.

The question, though, never left him. It sat under his ribs like a thorn: Why didn’t she want to stay?

Because Buck had come to understand the cruelest truth of all: It’s hard to tear someone from your heart when they’re not even there to begin with.

“Para ese entonces le has devuelto su ropa y le has rogado a ese trago que no te obligue a llamarla, y aunque tal vez quemaste todas las cosas que escribiste a su lado, nada te ayuda a olvidarla”

“By then you've given her back her clothes and begged that drink not to make you call her, and even though you may have burned all the things you wrote next to her, nothing helps you forget her.”

Little by little, the apartment lost its shape. The furniture stayed the same, but the air shifted, hollowing out as the cardboard boxes multiplied. Each one was a coffin for the life he had tried to build with her. He folded t-shirts that no longer smelled like her perfume, packed sweaters she would never wear in front of him again, wrapped books whose spines she had bent with absent fingers on quiet mornings. The photos —God, the photos— he packed face-down, unable to meet their eyes.

And then, with all the dignity he could summon, he taped the boxes shut and had them sent to her brother’s house. His fingers hovered over the keyboard one last time, writing another message to a woman who would not answer:

“As soon as the lease on the apartment is up, I’ll leave. Your things are at your brother’s. You didn’t get to say it was over, so I’ll say it. This is over.”

The words looked brave on the screen. They felt hollow in his chest.

That night, Chim insisted they go out. 

“One drink, Buckaroo. Just one. It’s Friday night, you look like a ghost, and Maddie’s finally free of her crazy shift schedule. Don’t make us beg.”

Buck wanted to stay home, drown in silence, but Maddie’s soft smile convinced him. He let himself be pulled into the hum of the bar, neon lights buzzing like wasps overhead, the music thudding against his ribs.

He sat between them, a beer in hand, trying not to check his phone every five minutes.

“So,” Chim said, leaning back in his chair, scanning the crowd. “Plan for tonight: Buck gets hammered, Maddie babysits, and I make bad decisions. Everybody wins.”

Buck snorted weakly. “You really think Maddie’s babysitting me?”

Maddie raised a brow. “Who do you think’s been babysitting you all week?”

Chim cackled. Buck rolled his eyes but the corner of his mouth lifted, just a little. He brought the glass to his lips, letting the burn quiet the ache in his chest.

And then he saw her.

Across the bar, Taylor Kelly. Red hair catching the low light, lips curved in the kind of smirk that promised trouble.

He remembered her immediately —the reporter who had flirted with him on that chaotic call a few days earlier, slipping in sly comments while he tried to keep focused on his job. Back then, he’d brushed it off with a laugh, still too raw from Abby’s absence to even consider it. But now… now her eyes lingered and she lifted her glass in a toast meant just for him.

Buck’s pulse jumped.

Maddie noticed his sudden stillness, followed his gaze, and frowned. “You know her?”

“Reporter,” Buck muttered, knocking back the rest of his drink. “Ran into her on a call.”

Chim leaned forward with interest. “Ohhh, that reporter. She’s hot. Dude, she’s waving at you. What are you waiting for?”

Maddie shot him a glare. “What he’s waiting for is a little self-respect. Right, Evan?”

Buck ignored them both. His chest felt tight, his phone heavy in his pocket. If he stayed at the table, he’d end up scrolling through Abby’s old texts, whispering lies to himself about closure. If he walked across the bar… maybe he’d forget.

Just for a moment.

Taylor didn’t make him wait. She slid through the crowd like she’d been born in it, leaned a hand on their table, and bent close enough for her perfume to swallow him whole.

“Firefighter Buckley,” she said, voice low and amused. “Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

“Guess you’re lucky,” Buck replied, too quick, too sharp. He could feel Maddie’s eyes boring into him, but Taylor only smirked wider.

“Or maybe you’re the lucky one.”

Chim grinned. “Well, don’t let us keep you, Buckaroo.”

Maddie’s voice cut through, quiet but firm. “Evan. Maybe think twice.”

He looked at her, saw the worry in her face, the plea. And then he looked at Taylor —the easy smile, the distraction wrapped in red lipstick and confidence. One promised pain. The other promised escape.

He stood anyway. “I’ll be back.”

The bathroom stall was quick, messy, and hollow. Taylor laughed breathlessly against his mouth, her nails scraping down his back, her legs locked around his hips. His body moved on autopilot, muscle memory carrying him through the motions. For a handful of minutes, his head went blessedly silent, the ache dulled by heat and alcohol, and he almost fooled himself into believing he could drown Abby’s absence in someone else’s skin.

But when it was over, the silence came rushing back, louder than before.

Buck pulled his shirt back on, washed his hands without meeting his reflection in the cracked mirror. His eyes looked dead. Taylor smirked at him, unbothered, adjusting her hair. “Not bad, Buckley. Call me sometime.”

He nodded, muttered something noncommittal, and left before she could press her number into his phone.

Back at the table, Chim was already raising his brows knowingly. Maddie’s lips pressed into a thin line. Buck sat, tugging at his shirt, downing the whiskey Chim shoved in front of him like it was water. 

He laughed too loud at something Chim said, nodded too quickly when Maddie asked if he was okay. He wanted to scream, No, I’m not okay, I’ll never be okay because she’s gone and she won’t even give me the mercy of closure.

Instead, he let the alcohol answer for him.

Nothing hurt as much as the truth: that even this —this hollow attempt to scrub her out of his body— wasn’t enough to make someone decide to stay.

Later, at home, the buzz faded and left him with a sour taste of shame. His apartment smelled of stale smoke and loneliness. On the floor, he dragged out the stack of letters he had written to her over those endless months. Pages filled with the desperate ramblings of a man trying to hold onto something already gone: apologies for not being different, declarations of love she would never read, promises he would never get to keep.

He didn’t even reread them. He couldn’t.

He set them in a tin pan, struck a match, and watched.

The flames licked the edges first, curling the paper like it was alive and in pain. Then they devoured everything —his pleas, his confessions, his love— turning months of devotion into smoke and ash. The crackle of fire filled the silence, mocking him with every pop and hiss.

Buck stared into the blaze until his eyes watered, until the room blurred. He told himself the fire was purging him, that he’d wake lighter, freer.

But when the last ember went dark, the truth sat heavy in his chest.

Inside him, the ashes still burned.

And the emptiness was still there, untouched.

The morning light was merciless.

It slipped through the blinds in harsh stripes, turning the apartment into a crime scene where the only body was Buck’s.

His head throbbed, temples pounding in rhythm with the whiskey he’d drowned in the night before. His mouth tasted like ash and regret. His shirt was still half-buttoned, the smell of smoke and alcohol clinging stubbornly to his skin.

He tried to sit up, but his stomach lurched violently. He stumbled to the bathroom and leaned over the sink, gripping the porcelain like it might keep him from falling apart. Cold water splashed his face, but it didn’t wash anything away. Not the memory of Taylor’s laugh. Not the sound of pages crackling in the fire. Not the silence that came after.

A knock on the door snapped him out of his daze. Three steady raps, then a pause, then two more. Maddie’s knock.

Buck swore under his breath. He thought about pretending not to be home, but the boxes stacked in the hallway betrayed him through the crack in the blinds. He shuffled to the door, each step heavier than the last, and opened it.

Maddie stood there, coffee tray in hand, her expression unreadable. She didn’t wait for an invitation —just pushed past him, setting the cups on the counter with the efficiency of a nurse used to cleaning up messes.

“You look like hell,” she said simply, turning to face him.

Buck tried for a smile, but it came out crooked. “You should see the other guy.”

“Funny,” Maddie deadpanned. “Except the other guy is you.”

She folded her arms, her eyes scanning the apartment. The boxes. The lingering smell of smoke. The exhaustion carved into her brother’s face. She exhaled slowly. “So… do you want to tell me about last night, or should I guess?”

Buck dropped onto the couch, dragging a hand through his messy hair. “There’s nothing to tell. I had a drink. I… didn’t want to think for a while.”

Maddie sat across from him, legs crossed, her gaze sharp. “And Taylor Kelly helped with that?”

The sound of her name made Buck flinch. He stared at the floor. “It wasn’t— It didn’t mean anything.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Maddie shot back. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was cutting. “You’re trying to fill a hole with people who don’t even care if you bleed out.”

Buck’s jaw clenched. 

“What do you want me to do, Maddie? Sit here and keep writing letters to someone who’s never going to read them? Pretend I’m fine while Abby’s out there living her life without me? I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to move on.”

Maddie leaned forward, her voice softening but not losing its edge. 

“There’s a difference between moving on and running away, Evan. Last night? That wasn’t moving on. That was you hurting yourself and hoping it’ll make the pain stop.”

Her words hit harder than the whiskey. Buck swallowed, his throat tight. He wanted to argue, to push back, but all that came out was a whisper. 

“It’s just… quiet without her. Too quiet. And sometimes I’ll do anything just to make it stop, even for a few minutes.”

Maddie’s expression cracked then, a flicker of sorrow slipping through. She reached over, resting her hand over his. 

“I know. I know it’s quiet. But you don’t have to sit in it alone. Not when you’ve got me. Not when you’ve got all of us.”

Buck stared at her hand, at the warmth anchoring him when everything else felt cold. His chest ached, but for the first time in weeks, it wasn’t the hollow kind of ache. It was the kind that reminded him he was still alive.

“I burned the letters,” he admitted suddenly, voice breaking. “All of them. And it didn’t make a damn difference.”

Maddie squeezed his hand. 

“Good. Maybe now you can start writing something new.”

He looked at her then, eyes red-rimmed but a small, fragile smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. For the first time, the thought of Abby wasn’t the only thing in the room.

“Te hacen falta tantas noches en vela, de esas que al doler solo te hacen más fuerte. Porque si el amor es un juego sin reglas, unas se ganan y otras se pierden”

“You need so many sleepless nights, the kind that hurt only makes you stronger. Because if love is a game without rules, some are won and others are lost.”

Once Maddie and Chimney were finally together, their voices shaky but alive, and Doug’s ghost no longer weighed like a stone on the chests of the Buckley siblings, Buck felt something inside him unclench. He hadn’t realized how tight he’d been wound until that moment —like his ribs were a cage and his heart had been thrashing against the bars.

Eddie had been the one to drag him into his house, steady and wordless, like he knew Buck would never get there on his own.

They were both exhausted; days of running on fumes, on adrenaline, on sheer terror had left them hollow-eyed and heavy-limbed. Buck moved through the doorway like a man twice his age, shoulders slumped, boots dragging. 

Inside, the Diaz home was dim and quiet —the kind of quiet that didn’t demand anything from him, the faint smell of laundry detergent and something faintly lemony in the air. It felt safe.

Eddie didn’t say much, just handed him a beer and Buck took it gratefully, clutching the cold glass bottle like it could anchor him.

Buck let out a long sigh as the first sip slid down his throat. He let his mind cling to the truth: Maddie was alive. Chim was alive. They’d made it. Everyone was okay.

Eddie nudged him toward the couch, and Buck followed willingly, sinking into the cushions with a weight he hadn’t noticed pressing him down. Eddie dropped beside him. Their bodies touched —shoulders, thighs, arms— and neither pulled away. They sat in silence, bottles rising and lowering in the same rhythm, the fizz crackling faintly when they tipped them back. The rhythm was almost hypnotic.

Minutes stretched. The silence should have been suffocating, but instead it was grounding, a permission slip for Buck to finally let the walls break.

The sobs came suddenly —wrenched out of him like his ribs had finally given way—, raw and messy. He bent forward, one hand clutching his bottle, the other fisting in his jeans.

Eddie didn’t flinch. He set his bottle aside and placed a steady hand on Buck’s back, stroking slow circles.

“It’s okay. You’re here. Maddie’s safe. Everything’s okay.” His voice was low, a rasp of comfort.

The words tethered Buck, pulling him out of the drowning panic until he could breathe again. He clung to them, to Eddie’s touch, to the weight of someone who didn’t expect him to hold it together.

When the storm finally eased, Buck leaned back, wiping at his wet cheeks with the heel of his hand. His chest felt raw, scraped open. He let out a shaky sigh, and the silence returned —thicker this time, stretched over minutes that felt like hours.

His voice broke it, barely more than a whisper.

“Have you ever felt like you lost something you couldn’t afford to lose?”

He didn’t look at Eddie when he said it. His eyes stayed fixed on the bottle in his hands, fingers picking at the beer label until it peeled in ragged strips.

Abby’s name whispered in his mind like a cruel echo. Maddie and Chim had just fought their way back to each other, clawed through fear and danger to hold on. He thought of Chim gasping Maddie’s name, of Maddie holding onto Chim like she’d been drowning. That kind of love had weight. Gravity. 

He wondered what it would’ve been like if he and Abby had had that. If they’d had more time, if she had stayed long enough for him to matter that much.

But she hadn’t. And maybe he hadn’t.

Eddie stayed quiet for a long moment, his gaze soft on Buck’s profile. He opened his mouth once, shut it, ran his tongue over his lips like he was choosing each word with care. Finally, he sighed.

“All the time,” he admitted, voice low and certain.

Buck looked up, startled, only for guilt to crash into him as realization dawned. Eddie had lost Shannon —months ago, but it was fresh enough that the wound still bled.

Eddie’s eyes dropped, his thumb running along the neck of his bottle. 

“I lost her long before she was gone, you know. She’d… she’d look at me and it was like she was already somewhere else. Like I couldn’t hold her no matter what I did.” His breath caught, a crack in his armor. “And then she left. And I thought —God, I thought I’d die from it. That I couldn’t raise Chris alone, that I wasn’t enough. And then she came back, and for a second, I thought maybe-” He stopped, swallowed. “But sometimes love isn’t enough to make someone stay. And then she was gone for real. And I… I didn’t even know what to feel. Anger. Relief. Guilt. All of it.”

The raw honesty of it twisted something in Buck’s chest. He wanted to say he understood, but he didn’t —not fully. Instead, he whispered, “I lost, too. But it was different. I don’t even know if I was ever enough for her.”

Eddie’s brow furrowed, but he stayed quiet, waiting.

Buck’s voice cracked, spilling into the silence like confession. 

“Abby saved me. She changed me. I thought —hell, I knew— that I loved her. But… I don’t know if she ever really loved me back. Or if she just… needed someone. And I was there. And I was so desperate to be enough for somebody that I didn’t see it until it was too late.” His laugh came out bitter, sharp. “She didn’t even break up with me, Eddie. She just… left. Didn’t even think I deserved an ending.”

His eyes stung again, hot with tears. He pressed his palms into them, shaking his head. 

“And it makes me feel pathetic, because here I am —months later— and I’m still waiting for her ghost to stop haunting me. For her voice to stop echoing in my head. For it to stop hurting every time I check my phone and see nothing.”

The words hung there, heavy and naked. Eddie’s hand found his shoulder, squeezing firm and grounding. 

“That doesn’t make you pathetic,” he said, voice steady. “It makes you human. You loved her, Buck. And losing love like that… it doesn’t just vanish. But it doesn’t mean you won’t love again. It doesn’t mean you’re not enough.”

Buck turned toward him, meeting his gaze. The earnest weight in Eddie’s dark eyes was almost too much —warm and steady, like he believed every word he said.

He let out a shaky laugh, bumping Eddie’s shoulder. “You always this good at therapy?”

“Only for you.” Eddie smirked faintly, but his voice was soft. “Sometimes losing is what saves you.”

The simplicity of it knocked the wind out of Buck. No elaborate advice, no empty reassurances —just a truth stripped bare.

And Buck sat with it, letting it sink under his skin. Maybe Eddie was right. Maybe in losing Abby, in losing the fantasy of what they could have been, he had stumbled into something real. Into Maddie being safe. Into Chim being alive. Into Eddie sitting right here, warm and solid against his shoulder.

Yes, Buck had lost. But maybe —just maybe— he’d gained more in the spaces that loss had carved open.

“Para olvidar no hay atajos, su nombre quiebra tu voz. Pero el tiempo hace el trabajo de juntar los pedazos si se rompe el amor”

“There are no shortcuts to forgetting, her name breaks your voice. But time does the work of putting the pieces back together if love is broken.”

The days kept passing, stubborn and indifferent. They slid into weeks, which bled into months, and Buck barely noticed the calendar flipping forward. What he did notice —what he couldn’t ignore— was how Abby’s ghost slowly started to loosen its grip.

In the beginning, she had been everywhere. Her coffee mug on the shelf, the indent of her body still on the side of the mattress where she used to sleep, her voice echoing in the empty rooms whenever Buck let his mind wander. Even silence reminded him of her, because Abby’s silence was never this absolute —hers was filled with the weight of presence, with thought, with choice. This silence was empty.

But time is stubborn too. And little by little, Abby was less in every corner.

Her name still trembled on his lips —when someone asked, when a memory caught him off guard, when he caught himself about to say it and bit down hard instead. It still echoed in his head like a song he couldn’t unlearn. But then there were days with Christopher, where laughter broke through the cracks of his chest. There were nights at the station, surrounded by the family he’d found in fire and chaos, where exhaustion left no room for longing.

The pieces didn’t fall back together all at once. They shifted slowly, unevenly, but they moved.

And then Buck realized: the apartment had become unbearable.

Every wall carried her absence. Every room held a broken promise. It wasn’t his space —it had been hers, and he’d stayed like a caretaker for her memory, like he was guarding a shrine instead of living a life. If he wanted to breathe again, he needed new walls. Walls that would hold him.

So he packed.

Boxes piled up in stacks, heavy with what little of him was left to move. Sweat clung to his temples, the smell of cardboard and tape sharp in the air. He was halfway through dragging another load when a knock sounded at the door.

Eddie stood there, sleeves rolled up, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. Beside him, Christopher leaned against his leg, grinning wide as soon as he spotted Buck.

“Are we leaving the ghosts behind?” Eddie asked softly, one eyebrow arched, his voice threaded with humor but also with something else —something heavier. He rested a hand on Christopher’s shoulder, grounding both of them. “Do you need a hand?”

Buck exhaled a laugh, setting the box down with a dull thud. 

“Yeah,” he admitted. 

His smile softened when he bent down to Christopher, who flung his arms around Buck’s neck. Buck kissed the top of his head, the boy’s hair smelling faintly of sunscreen and Eddie’s cologne.

“It’s time to start over.”

Eddie stepped inside, his gaze scanning the half-empty apartment. He picked up a box labeled kitchen like it weighed nothing, but his eyes lingered on Buck for a moment longer than necessary. “Starting over’s easier when you don’t do it alone.”

Christopher, perched on Buck’s hip now, chimed in, puffing out his chest.

“I can help too! I’m super strong.” He flexed an arm, his small fist curled tight, and Buck let out a genuine laugh that reached his eyes.

“Stronger than me, huh?” Buck teased.

“Way stronger,” Christopher confirmed solemnly, making Eddie huff a laugh as he carried the first box out the door.

They fell into a rhythm. Eddie moved like he’d done this a hundred times —steady, efficient— while Buck alternated between carrying and fussing with the boxes, as if he could organize the ghosts away. Christopher trailed them, offering commentary.

“Why do you have so many pans, Buck?” he asked, peering into an open box. “You don’t even cook that much.”

Eddie smirked from where he was adjusting another stack. “Good question, kid. I’ve wondered the same thing.”

Buck scoffed. “I cook!”

“Sure,” Eddie drawled, shooting him a sidelong look. “If heating frozen pizza counts as cooking.”

Christopher laughed so hard he nearly tipped over a box labeled books. Buck reached over, tickling his side until the boy squealed.

“Hey, I do cook,” Buck insisted, fighting a grin. “I make a mean grilled cheese.”

“Oh, so that’s where all the pans went,” Eddie teased. “Grilled cheese empire.”

The banter lightened the air, box by box, until Buck noticed how much easier it felt to breathe.

At one point, Buck paused in the doorway, a box in his arms, watching Eddie guide Christopher around the corner, one large hand steady on his son’s small shoulder. The weight in Buck’s chest shifted. This wasn’t the life he’d imagined —but maybe it was the life that was waiting for him.

Hours later, as the last boxes were stacked in the new apartment, Buck leaned against the doorframe, catching his breath. Sweat dampened his hairline, his shirt stuck to his back, but his chest felt lighter. Eddie was on the couch, Christopher nestled against him, both looking at Buck expectantly —as if waiting for him to sit down, as if this space already belonged to him.

Life, with all its roughness and sweetness, did the work he couldn’t.

And it did so in the most abrupt ways possible —with a bombing that shook his faith, with a blood clot that nearly took him from the people he loved, with a tsunami that swallowed whole families, with a lawsuit that stripped him of his footing. But even in the wreckage, life stitched him back together.

Piece by piece, he built around something new —around laughter and shared dinners, around Christopher’s questions and Eddie’s quiet steadiness, around Maddie’s company and the station’s relentless heartbeat.

And slowly, Abby became what she was always meant to be: a chapter. Not the whole book. Not even the ending. Just a chapter, one he had read too fast, too hard, underlining every word until the pages tore, one that had left him with scars, but also with a heart that still knew how to love.

Now, there was only the blank page of what came next.

“Te hacen falta tantas noches en vela, no se aprende a amar ni se olvida por suerte. Porque en el amor pasa igual que en la guerra, unas se ganan y otras se pierden”

“You need so many sleepless nights, you don't learn to love, nor do you forget by luck. Because in love, it's just like in war, some are won and others are lost.”

He tried again.

He really tried.

But no matter how much he dressed himself up in new shirts, no matter how many jokes he rehearsed in front of the mirror, no matter how many swipes he made on a dating app, the idea of being too much for others clung to him like a ghost. A whisper in his ear at night, a shadow curling around his bed when the apartment was quiet.

Too much. Too eager. Too needy. Too… Buck.

A part of him feared it would all happen again —the slow unraveling that had destroyed him with Abby. Or worse, that he’d fall back into the reckless spiral of Buck 1.0, the version of himself that believed affection was something you earned with a grin and a body, not something you deserved by simply being.

But amidst that fear, Eddie was still there.

Eddie, with his calm voice and steady presence, the way he made space for Buck without asking him to shrink. Every time Buck felt the familiar prickle of shame, every time he thought he was taking up too much room, Eddie would tilt his head and apologize.

Apologize.

For not listening enough, for not seeing enough, for not catching it sooner. He’d repeat over and over, in that quiet, certain way of his, how valuable Buck was, how important.

Buck wanted to believe him. God, he wanted to.

Because Eddie wouldn’t lie to him. Not like that. Not when he looked at him with those eyes —brown, steady, filled with a softness Buck had only ever seen directed at Christopher. Eyes that made his chest ache with something sharp and unnameable.

Now, in his heart, there wasn’t just the ghost of the affection he’d once had for Abby. There was something else, something warmer, something that stung and burned at the same time. He didn’t have a name for it yet. Maybe he didn’t dare to name it. But it was there. And whenever it rose up, it soothed the hollow ache in his chest, quieting the fear of being too much.

He thought dating again might help him. A distraction, a proof that he hadn’t been ruined by what Abby left behind.

So he tried. Once. Twice. Three times.

Three nights of small talk over clinking glasses, of forced laughs, of stories about childhood pets and bad bosses that fell flat in the air between him and strangers. Three nights of feeling like he was performing, waiting for someone to see past the act and into him, the way Eddie always did so effortlessly.

By the third date, Buck knew. He set his phone on the nightstand, deleted the app, and exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath for months.

Not because he didn’t want love. No —wanting was the easy part. Wanting was the core of him, stitched into his bones. All Buck had ever wanted was someone to love, someone to come home to, someone who would look at him and decide to stay.

But he needed to start somewhere else first.

He needed to start with himself.

That was what his therapist had told him, in sessions where Buck picked at the frayed threads of his past like scabs. Over and over, he reminded him that he had to learn to give himself what he so easily gave to others. And Buck repeated it like a mantra, scrawling it in the margins of notebooks, whispering it to himself before shifts, gripping it tight when the fear rose in his throat.

You are not too much. You are enough. You deserve more than crumbs.

And maybe —just maybe— if he’d believed that from the start, things would have been different.

If he’d given himself the value Maddie saw in him, the value Bobby repeated in his steady way, the value Hen and Chim teased him for but never let him forget, the value Eddie and Christopher gave him without even realizing…

If he’d believed in that Buck, he would never have allowed Abby to leave things in silence. He would never have curled himself into waiting, starving for scraps of affection. He would never have let Taylor press her way into his life that night when he mistook attention for care. He would never have accepted crumbs and called it love.

But he was learning now. Slowly. Painfully. Day by day.

That night, after their shift, Eddie invited him over. Christopher was already asleep, curled up in his room with his science books scattered across the floor. The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that only Eddie’s house knew how to hold —safe, steady, waiting.

They sat at the kitchen table, two beers between them, the overhead light dim. Eddie leaned back in his chair, his eyes half-lidded with exhaustion, but his attention never wavered from Buck. He had a way of making silence feel like conversation, of letting Buck breathe in it until he was ready to speak.

And Buck was.

“I stopped,” Buck blurted, fingers drumming nervously against the label of his bottle.

Eddie’s brow furrowed. “Stopped what?”

“Dating,” Buck said, with a little shrug, as if the weight of it wasn’t pressing against his ribs. “Deleted the apps. I’m done trying to… force it.”

Eddie sat up straighter, his lips twitching like he was fighting a smile. 

“That’s not a bad thing.”

Buck huffed out a laugh, low and bitter. 

“Yeah, well. Took me three disasters to figure that out. And that’s just counting the official dates, not…” He trailed off, not needing to say Taylor’s name out loud. Eddie’s eyes softened anyway, like he already knew.

For a long moment, Buck stared down at his hands. His thumb picked at the condensation sliding down the bottle. 

“I think I’ve been chasing this idea of love —like it’s supposed to fix me, or prove something about me. And I just keep…” He swallowed hard. “I keep ending up in places where I’m begging for crumbs. Like if I’m grateful enough, they’ll stay.”

The confession sat heavy in the room, heavier than the beer, heavier than the exhaustion in their bones.

Eddie didn’t rush to fill it. He never did. 

He leaned forward instead, resting his forearms on the table, and said quietly, “You deserve more than crumbs, Buck.”

Buck’s throat tightened. He looked up, caught Eddie’s gaze, and almost had to look away from the warmth there. 

“Sometimes I don’t believe that.”

“Then I’ll keep saying it until you do,” Eddie said simply.

The words hit Buck harder than he expected, sinking under his skin like a balm and a brand at the same time. He wanted to believe them. He wanted to believe Eddie. Because when Eddie said things like that, it didn’t feel like pity or reassurance. It felt like truth.

Buck let out a shaky breath and leaned back, tipping his chair onto two legs.

“Therapist says I need to love myself first. I laughed when he said it, because it sounds like the kind of thing people put on inspirational posters with sunsets and mountain views.”

Eddie’s mouth quirked. “She’s not wrong, though.”

“Yeah.” Buck let the chair land back on the floor with a soft thud. “So… I’m trying. No more apps. No more chasing. Just… me. Figuring out how to be enough for myself before I go asking anyone else to believe it.”

Eddie nodded, and something unspoken passed between them. It wasn’t dramatic, it wasn’t loud, but it was steady —like Eddie himself.

“Sounds like the bravest thing you’ve ever done,” Eddie murmured.

Buck laughed, this time softer, without bitterness. 

“Braver than running into burning buildings?”

“Way braver,” Eddie said, his lips curving. “Fires you know how to fight. Yourself? That’s a whole different battle.”

For the first time in a long time, Buck didn’t feel the urge to argue. He just sat there, the quiet wrapping around him, Eddie’s words anchoring him.

Maybe this was what healing looked like. Not dramatic gestures. Not chasing ghosts. Just sitting at a kitchen table with Eddie Diaz, learning how to breathe again.

And for now, it was enough.

“Después de un año ves que sigues con vida, pues nadie ha muerto al intentar olvidar y aunque su amor dejó un llama prendida: Estás a un beso de poderla apagar”

“After a year, you see that you're still alive, because no one has died trying to forget, and although their love left a burning flame: You're just a kiss away from extinguishing it.”

A year.

That was how long it had been since Abby had spoken to him, since he had last heard her voice directed at him —not an echo, not a ghost, not an update filtered through a photo caption or a tagged smile on her social media.

And then suddenly, there she was. Not calling to check in, not even to tie up loose ends, but to ask him to help find her fiancé.

Fiancé.

The word burned —not like a longing, not like a wish to switch places with the man, but like a scar he couldn’t help prodding. Because even after all this time, some part of him still wondered: What could I have done differently? What part of me was so easy to walk away from?

The job got done. Of course it did. They were professionals, and Buck never let his personal wounds bleed into the work. But the air had been thick with Bobby’s quiet disapproval, the kind that carried no words but said everything. And Eddie —Eddie had watched him with eyes Buck couldn’t decode, heavy with something that made him feel stripped bare.

Hours later, as dawn cracked against the city, the team rode back to the station in silence. Buck’s gaze clung to the window, the world outside blurred with exhaustion and something deeper he refused to name.

A year had passed. He hadn’t kept track, not really —not since Eddie had barreled into his life like a storm and Christopher had tethered him like an anchor. Somewhere along the line, the texts he never got back had stopped being a daily ache. Somewhere between near-death and the quiet moments in Eddie’s kitchen, Buck had stopped counting.

And still —he was alive. He hadn’t died from trying to forget, even on those nights when the emptiness in his chest pressed so hard he thought his lungs might collapse. He was still standing.

They stripped out of their gear in the locker room, the fluorescent lights humming above them, and Buck was gathering his things when he felt it: Eddie’s hand, warm and steady, pressed against the small of his back.

“Will you follow me home?” Eddie asked, his voice soft, careful, like Buck might refuse. Like Buck ever could refuse him.

“Yes,” Buck whispered before he could stop himself. He barely caught the always that wanted to slip free, but Eddie’s faint smile told him it was heard anyway.

Because it was true.

At some point —he couldn’t even say when— his memories of past lovers had stopped intruding when he thought of family, of desire, of love. Abby’s face, Taylor’s sharp smile, Ali’s brief flicker —they had all faded like static. And what remained, always, was Eddie.

And that terrified him. But it also felt… inevitable.

The house was dark when they arrived, the hush of early morning wrapping around them like a blanket. Carla met them at the door, her smile soft and knowing, as though she saw more than they dared admit even to themselves.

Christopher was already asleep, his snores echoing down the hall in that small, familiar rhythm that made Buck’s chest ache with affection.

They didn’t talk much at first. The night had been long and brutal, and silence was sometimes the kindest medicine. They sank into the couch with bottles of beer, the low light from the kitchen casting long shadows across the room.

Buck stole a glance at Eddie, catching the same haunted expression he’d worn while pulling Sam from that train car. It clung to him even now, hours later, refusing to fade.

The words slipped out before Eddie could stop them. 

“Do you still love her?” His voice was gentle, almost tentative, like a hand brushing against a scar, unsure whether it was healed.

The question landed like a stone in Buck’s chest. He blinked, caught off guard, his breath stuttering as his gaze snapped to Eddie’s.

Abby’s name hadn’t been spoken aloud in months —not by him, not by anyone. She was a ghost he’d thought he could keep locked in memory. But Eddie had just flung the door wide open.

Buck swallowed hard, eyes darting away to the label of his bottle, fingers picking at it until it tore. 

“No,” he said finally, his voice soft, but certain. “I don’t.”

He hesitated, then added, “I thought I did, for a long time. I thought if I held on to the hurt, it meant what we had was real. But… whatever I felt for her, it isn’t there anymore. Not like that.”

Eddie nodded, the faintest crease forming between his brows. 

“Then why’d you risk your life like that? Going in after him —you didn’t even stop to think.”

Buck’s laugh was hollow, broken. 

“Because that’s who I am, Eddie. You know that. If there’s a chance to save someone, I take it. It wasn’t about her. Not anymore.”

Eddie’s jaw clenched, his eyes dark as they fixed on him. 

“You can’t keep throwing yourself away like you don’t matter. Because you don’t think twice about risking everything —not just your life, Buck, everything— and one of these days, I won’t be fast enough to drag you back.”

The words gutted him. Buck’s chest tightened, his breath catching as shame and something sharper twisted inside him. 

He tipped his head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling, laughter spilling out —bitter, frayed at the edges. 

“It was a shitty thing she did, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was” Eddie said without hesitation.

And then —unexpected, grounding— Eddie’s hand slid across the couch and found his. The touch was warm, solid, deliberate. His thumb traced slow circles over the back of Buck’s hand, as if to erase the words Abby had left carved into his skin.

“But you don’t have to keep punishing yourself for someone else’s choice,” Eddie said quietly. “You’ve carried that long enough.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty anymore. It pulsed with something alive, something dangerous and fragile all at once.

Buck turned his head, eyes meeting Eddie’s, searching for the meaning behind his words. Eddie didn’t look away. His gaze was steady, unflinching—locked on him like he was the only thing in the room.

And then Buck noticed: Eddie’s eyes flickered, just for a moment, to his lips.

Buck’s chest tightened, his pulse loud in his ears.

And in that instant, Buck knew. The flame he thought Abby had left burning inside him wasn’t hers at all. It wasn’t nostalgia or regret. It was fear—the fear that maybe he wasn’t enough, that maybe love would always leave him behind.

But sitting here, Eddie’s hand warm against his, he realized that flame could finally go out.

Eddie leaned in first —slow, certain, as if giving him every chance to pull away. His hands slid up Buck’s arms, steady and deliberate, before cradling his face. Buck’s eyes fluttered shut, and then—

The kiss.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t desperate. It was steady and burning, the kind of fire that consumed not to destroy but to cleanse. A fire that spread through every nerve, devouring the ashes of every failed relationship, every ghost that lingered. A fire that didn’t burn him down but rebuilt him, piece by piece.

When they broke apart, breath mingling in the hush of the living room, Buck finally understood. Abby had never been the love of his life.

Because the love of his life was sitting right here —had been beside him all along, steady and unyielding, never letting him face the darkness alone.