Chapter Text
'Cause I'm still in love
With every single part of you
Even that part of you that ripped out my heart
In a way that no one else could do
But I'm glad it was you
I hate that it’s true- Dean Lewis
The Thanksgiving after Eddie packed up and left for Texas, Buck was on shift. He worked Christmas, too. And New Year’s Eve, of course. The firehouse was loud, alive with the chaos of ringing phones, alarms, and the occasional burst of laughter from his team. But when the calls slowed down and the station quieted, Buck stole away to the corner of the bunks, phone pressed tight against his ear, voice low and warm. Both holidays were spent that way—long phone calls stretched across state lines, his heart anchored firmly in El Paso with his favorite Díaz boys.
On Christmas night, as their conversation wound down, Chris’s voice broke through the line, bright and earnest:
“Next year, we have to celebrate together. Promise?”
Buck grinned so wide his cheeks hurt, nodding even though no one could see him. “Promise, buddy,” he whispered. But behind that sunshine smile, his throat tightened painfully, as though agreeing out loud made the distance between them suddenly more unbearable.
Birthdays came and went in much the same fashion. Chris’s, then Eddie’s—Buck calling, laughing, sending gifts he hoped made them feel a little closer.
When Buck’s birthday rolled around, his phone buzzed with a video. Chris and Eddie, side by side in their living room, beaming into the camera.
“Happy birthday, Buck!” Chris shouted, his grin stretching ear to ear, while Eddie added more softly, “Hope you’re having a good one, man.”
A separate text followed, simple but so heavy with the weight of absence it almost knocked the wind out of him:
Hey Buck, I hope you have a wonderful birthday. We miss you. Maybe we’ll see each other at Christmas.
Two weeks after Buck's birthday, Bobby almost died, and Buck's world was torn apart. Buck didn't know who called Eddie and told him about the lab and that Bobby was in the hospital , but he did know about the „get better“ card that came in the mail, followed by an empty seat next to Bucks in the hospital on Bobby’s Bed.
That night was the last time he called Eddie. He was too drunk to remember what he said, but he remembered how angry he was and how hurt and how desperate Eddies voice sounded through the fog of fear.
That Christmas, an envelope arrived in Buck’s mailbox. Inside, a family photo—Eddie, Chris, Abuela, Tía Pepa, the whole Díaz clan gathered together, radiating warmth. Underneath, scribbled in Eddie’s unmistakable, slightly messy handwriting:
I miss you, Buck. I am sorry. I hope one day you’ll forgive me.
One Christmas card turned into the next, and before Buck fully realized it, nearly four years had slipped by. Four years since Chris had left Los Angeles, with Eddie following him half a year later. Four years since Buck had watched them both drive away, carrying with them a piece of his heart he hadn’t been able to replace, no matter how hard he tried.
___
The bar was louder and more crowded than Buck would have liked. Music thumped from the speakers, lights blinked across the dance floor, and clusters of people laughed too loudly at jokes that weren’t that funny. He wasn’t exactly in the mood for this kind of chaos. But the others had insisted—it was Bobby’s birthday next week, and they’d decided they couldn’t wait that long to celebrate. Or maybe they just needed an excuse to drink together without the shadow of duty hanging over them. Either way, here they were.
What Buck still couldn’t quite get used to was the fact that Bobby hadn’t come with them. Everyone else had walked straight from the station to the bar like they always used to. Bobby, though—Bobby was different now.
The memory of Bobby’s long hospital stay still clung to Buck like a weight. Months of rehab, of seeing their Captain—their steady, unshakable leader—struggling just to walk across a room without pain. It had taken nearly two years before Bobby could move freely again, before he could live without grimacing every time he bent his knee or shifted his weight. By then, Chim had long since stepped up as interim Captain, and when Bobby finally decided to retire officially, the title had passed fully to Chim without ceremony.
But Bobby wasn’t gone. Not really. He still showed up—family dinners, birthdays, moments like this one where he could share a laugh or a story. Buck forced himself to remember that, to hold onto the fact that Bobby was still here. They’d lost enough already. Two people gone from their team in the span of a few years. But at least Bobby wasn’t thousands of miles away, living in another time zone, unreachable in the ways that still tore at Buck late at night.
He swallowed hard, pushing the lump in his throat down.
Nobody talked about Eddie anymore. At least not in front of Buck. It was like an unspoken rule—his name hovered in the silence but never crossed anyone’s lips. And that silence was sometimes louder than words.
A hand landed lightly on Buck’s shoulder, pulling him back into the present. He turned and found Ravi standing there, smiling at him with easy warmth.
“You good?” Ravi asked.
There was a time Buck might have bristled at the question, might have felt the need to defend himself. But Ravi had been there in his life long enough to know when Buck’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. After the lab accident, after Bobby’s hospitalization, Ravi had been one of the few people Buck leaned on. They’d even hooked up a few times back then, two men trying to find comfort in each other’s arms. It hadn’t lasted, though. They’d figured out quickly they worked better as friends than anything else.
Buck’s gaze dropped to Ravi’s hand, where a small ring caught the light and glittered faintly. A simple band, but beautiful in its simplicity. May had insisted on getting Ravi one of his own after he’d proposed to her three months ago. It fit him—solid, unpretentious, but meaningful.
Buck’s lips curved into a genuine smile. “Yeah. I’m good,” he said, trying to sound as sincere as possible.
Ravi arched a brow, unconvinced, and gave a small shake of his head. “Not tonight, man. No sulking allowed. Come on, next round’s on me.”
And just like that, Buck let himself be pulled along.
They passed by Chim, who was proudly showing Hen the newest pictures Devins first day of kindergarten that Maddie had just texted him. Hen’s face lit up, cooing at every new snapshot. The sight tugged at something tender in Buck’s chest.
Near the corner, Bobby sat with Harry, the two of them deep in conversation about the training program Harry had started. Bobby looked proud—relaxed in a way Buck hadn’t seen him in years—as he listened to Harry talk about firefighting drills and the latest repairs he was making on the family house.
By the time Buck and Ravi reached the bar, May was already there. She leaned across the counter to kiss Ravi in greeting, her eyes bright and her laugh easy. She raised her glass toward Buck with a grin.
“To surviving another week,” she toasted, and Buck tapped his glass against hers, the clink sharp over the hum of the crowd.
May had gone back to the dispatch center over a year and a half ago, finding her place again after everything. Everyone, it seemed, had found their place. Everyone’s lives kept moving forward—new jobs, new marriages, new babies, new beginnings.
Everyone’s except his.
Buck lifted his drink, took a long swallow, and let the burn settle in his chest. Around him, the people he loved most laughed, celebrated, lived. He smiled with them, nodded at their stories, cheered at their jokes.
But deep down, he knew the truth: his life was still on pause, stuck in the silence of a goodbye he’d never really said, haunted by the absence of the one person he couldn’t seem to stop missing.
__
The girl to his right was asleep, her breathing shallow and even, her head pressed against the pillow. Buck’s own head was pounding, and he wished desperately he could remember her name. Louise? Maybe Mary? He honestly had no idea. She was young—too young, really—at least a decade younger than him, maybe more.
And she looked like they always did. Brown hair, brown eyes. Bonus points if they were Latinos. He knew he had built himself a type. He also knew it was becoming a problem.
If Maddie ever found out? Yeah, she’d read him the riot act, no question. But Devin was in his “I-don’t-have-to-do-what-you-tell-me” phase, so Buck figured no one was really paying close attention anyway.
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, nausea churning in his gut, his skin prickling like it was on fire. Once, nights like this had been a relief—a way to shake off the loneliness, to lose himself in someone else’s warmth. But at some point, the one-night stands had stopped being a comfort and had started to feel like punishment.
He knew exactly when that shift had happened: the day he fought so hard to save the only person who had ever been a dad to him. One of the most important people in his life, almost left him. And next to him, there had been no brown-haired Latino, no steady hand on his back, no voice murmuring that it would be okay.
He had stopped calling Eddie after that. After Bobby left the hospital months after the incident and Eddie hadn’t come a single time. Buck couldn’t sever the tie completely—he never could—but the silence had cut deeper than he’d ever admit. Eddie’s absence these months left a scar that still burned every time Buck touched it in his thoughts.
His phone rang, sharp and jarring in the too-early morning. Buck groaned, rolling his eyes, fumbling for it on the nightstand. “Who the hell calls at this hour?” he muttered under his breath, pressing accept anyway.
“This is Evan Buckley,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
Beside him, Not-Louise-Not-Mary shifted against the sheets, stirring at the sound of his voice.
“Hello? Buck?” A woman’s voice on the other end—familiar, yet distant enough to make his brain stutter.
“Who is this?” Buck asked, sitting up now, heart already uneasy.
“This is Sophia Díaz. I’m calling about Eddie.”
Buck’s entire world froze. His chest squeezed so tight he could hardly breathe. His heart skipped, then thundered against his ribs.
“What happened? What’s going on with him?” The words tumbled out of him in a rush, desperate and terrified, his panic barely disguised.
Sophia’s voice wavered slightly, but she forced it steady. “He was in a car accident. Right now, he’s unresponsive.”
The room tilted. Buck pressed a hand to his temple, trying to stop the spinning. He could barely hear her through the ringing in his ears. September. It was late September. He hadn’t heard Eddie’s voice in years. The last thing he got from him was the Christmas card the December before. Why the hell were they calling him?
“…Anyway, we need you to come out here,” Sophia’s voice broke through again, dragging him back.
“What? Why me?” His voice cracked on the question, raw and ragged. He hated how broken he sounded, hated even more that it was Eddie—Eddie—pulling the pieces apart. He didn’t know if he could survive following him to Texas, not after all these years of distance and half-healed wounds.
Sophia didn’t let him breathe. She spoke in a rush, words tumbling over each other: “Eddie is in a coma. And when we tried to bring Chris home, we found out that legally, you’re the only one listed as his guardian. At least temporarily—until Eddie wakes up, or Chris turns eighteen, or a judge says otherwise.”
She must have been in her mid-twenties by now, Buck realized numbly. Way too young to be making this kind of phone call, carrying this kind of weight. Her voice cracked at the edges when she added softly, “So you need to come, Buck. Please. He needs you. They both do.”
The plea hit him hard. It sounded so much like Maddie when she’d begged him, once upon a time, to take care of himself.
“You owe him that much.”
The words landed like a blow. Did she mean Eddie? Or Chris? Both? Either way, anger sparked inside him. He wanted to shout, to tell her he didn’t owe them anything, not after the silence, not after the absence, not after being left alone again.
But he didn’t shout. He didn’t even argue.
“I’ll come,” he whispered instead, voice hoarse, before ending the call.
The room was suddenly too quiet. Too heavy. His chest ached with the weight of it.
“Everything okay?” murmured the girl beside him, her voice groggy, her accent soft.
Buck blinked down at her, realizing only then that tears were slipping down his face. He swiped at them with the heel of his hand, but they kept coming, steady and unstoppable.
“No,” he whispered, barely audible. “No, it’s not.”
___
Buck didn’t tell anyone. Not Maddie, not Ravi, not Bobby, not the other guys at the 118. He left Los Angeles that very night, under the cover of darkness, packing just enough for the road and leaving the rest behind. The only notice he gave was a brief email to Chimney: Using the rest of my vacation days. No explanation. No apologies. Just four words typed in the dead of night, then sent.
He glanced at his phone one last time before slipping it into his jacket pocket. Fourteen hours. If he stuck to the plan, he could be in Texas in just over half a day. Fourteen hours. Enough time for the world to feel distant, enough time for him to try and steel himself for what he might find.
The engine hummed to life, and Los Angeles faded in his rearview mirror. Streetlights blurred as he merged onto the highway, the smell of the night air and exhaust filling the cab. His hands gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary, knuckles white, eyes forward but thoughts wandering endlessly to Eddie, to Chris, to the silence that had stretched too long.
The first stop was a 24-hour gas station just north of the city. Buck climbed out, legs stiff, and made his way inside. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as he filled his tank.
“Evening, sir. Long drive?” the cashier asked, a young woman with a crooked smile and a coffee-stained apron.
“Yeah,” Buck said, giving a small nod. “Late night.”
“You heading far?” she asked, scanning his card.
“Texas,” he replied automatically. For a moment, he caught himself thinking about why. About who he was going to see. But he didn’t explain. Just smiled politely and took his receipt.
Back on the road, the highway stretched endlessly into darkness. He let the radio play low—classic rock, nothing too cheerful, nothing too sad. Sometimes, his mind drifted to the brief, stolen joys of the last years: laughter with Eddie, late-night talks with Chris, a Christmas card from four years ago that still sat on his fridge. And then the grief, raw and tight, pressed back in.
He stopped again mid-drive at a small diner somewhere in Arizona. The smell of frying bacon and brewing coffee hit him before he even entered. He ordered a black coffee and a simple breakfast, sitting alone in a corner booth, watching the waitress shuffle plates across the floor.
“Coffee okay?” she asked, sliding a cup toward him.
“Perfect,” he said, voice quieter than he intended. He didn’t explain the red-rimmed eyes, the way his fingers trembled slightly around the mug.
Conversation stayed casual, light—nothing personal. A nod here, a thank-you there. But even in these brief, ordinary interactions, Buck felt the world moving around him while he hurt quietly inside.
Hours passed. He watched the sun climb over desert mesas, painting everything gold and orange. The miles ticked by, each one bringing him closer, yet the weight in his chest only grew heavier. He thought about what he might walk into: Eddie in a hospital bed, Chris frightened, Sophia waiting impatiently on the other end of the phone. And the guilt, oh, the guilt of having left for so long, of missing birthdays, of missing Christmases.
Finally, as the sun began to dip low in the western sky, the city of El Paso appeared on the horizon. Buck’s hands tightened around the wheel again, eyes tracing the familiar, sprawling streets, the faint outlines of the mountains beyond. He drove in silence for a few minutes, taking it all in, feeling the tense knot in his chest loosen slightly, even as his heart raced faster than ever.
He parked the car near the hospital, engine still running, and took a deep breath. The air smelled different here—hotter, drier, tinged with dust and desert sage. And somewhere deep inside, beneath the fear and the grief, a spark of determination lit.
He was here now. And no matter how broken things had gotten, he was ready to face whatever waited on the other side of those doors.