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The light falls soft and golden, spilling through the high windows like a blessing from above. Dust drifts in the air in tiny halos caught in sunlight and for a second, Eddie can’t breathe. The chapel is quiet but alive, humming with the pulse of anticipation. Rows of people in muted colours. The faint scent of lilies. A low murmur rippling through the pews.
And up there standing at the front, hands clasped loosely, jaw tense in that familiar way is Buck.
Evan.
His Buck.
Eddie’s chest swells, a thousand emotions rising and colliding, unnameable. Buck looks nervous and radiant all at once, the way he always does when everything is about to change. His hair catches the light, turning that warm, honey-gold that still makes Eddie think of afternoons in L.A. sunlight and laughter over coffee.
God, he looks beautiful.
Christopher’s beside him, grinning from ear to ear. Bobby’s up front, dressed in his best suit, pretending he isn’t crying. Hen squeezes Karen’s hand. Chim’s cracking quiet jokes under his breath. Maddie, radiant, keeps looking between Buck and Eddie like she might burst.
Eddie almost laughs. The whole 118, their family here, gathered for this. It’s perfect. The kind of day he never thought he’d have. The kind he didn’t dare dream about.
When the music starts, I Get to Love You plays softly and the world narrows to Buck.
Buck, who’s looking straight at him. Buck, who smiles that small, private smile that’s only ever been for Eddie.
Eddie’s breath catches.His hands shake. His throat burns. He starts down the aisle, each step slow, reverent. The world feels weightless and the soft rustle of fabric, the warmth on his skin, the quiet hum of the song wrapping around him like a vow.
Every memory flickers past, their first shift together. Removing the grenade from the mans leg. To Buck interjecting himself into Eddie and Christopher's life. The trips to the zoo. The day Buck introduced Eddie to Carla. When Buck had gone feral in trying to reach Eddie when he had gone under the mud. The truck bomb. The tsunami. The numerous laughs, claps on the back and the hugs. The tears. The fights. Buck’s laughter in the dark, the way he’d once said “I trust you with my life” and for a heartbeat, Eddie believes this is real. That maybe, somehow, this is how it was always meant to end.
He reaches the front. Buck’s eyes shine. There’s that breathless pause, that silence before the leap.
Bobby’s voice trembles. “Who gives this man to marry-”
Hen clears her throat. “-we all do.”
Laughter bubbles through the room. Chim whoops. Christopher’s practically bouncing. Eddie’s mouth curves without meaning to. His palms are slick, his heart a drumbeat that doesn’t stop.
He turns to Buck. Buck’s smiling that stupid, dazzling smile, the one that could make the dead believe in life again. The one that made Eddie believe, once, that maybe love wasn’t a sin.
“Do you, Evan Buckley,” Bobby says softly, “take this man-”
Buck’s answer comes before the question finishes.
“I do.”
Eddie laughs through the lump in his throat. His turn.
“And do you, Edmundo Diaz, take this man-”
His lips part. The words rise like prayer.
“I do,” he whispers.
There’s clapping somewhere. Someone’s crying. Buck’s thumb brushes his hand, grounding him, steadying him like always. They exchange rings. Simple gold bands, warm and shining. Buck fumbles his, of course, swears under his breath, and everyone laughs. Eddie just shakes his head and slides the ring onto Buck’s finger, holding it there a moment longer than he should.
“By the power vested in me-”
The music swells.
The world holds its breath.
Buck leans forward, eyes soft, mouth curved in that way that says home.
Eddie closes his eyes.
And when he opens them
The light’s still golden. The chapel’s still full. But the space beside him is empty. Christopher’s hand is dangling near his, warm and safe and right at the front is Buck is standing alone. Waiting.
Not for him.
Eddie blinks once, twice, as the world sharpens painfully back into focus.
He’s not at the altar.
He's somewhat behind Buck. His best man's tux tight and uncomfortable
And Buck, his Buck is still up there, but not looking at him. Not waiting for him.
Because the doors have just opened.
And she’s walking in.
Faith Mercer.
Dark hair falling like silk down her back. Hazel eyes shining, almost golden. Skin sun warmed, radiant under the glow of the stained glass. Her dress gleams ivory and simple, hugging strength rather than hiding it. She walks steady, sure footed in the same way she must have when she ran into that burning warehouse a year ago and pulled Buck from the wreckage. She's beautiful, in the kind of beauty that feels grounded and the kind you can build a life around. She moves as if she’s been walking toward this moment all her life. And Buck, his Buck, watches her like she hung the stars herself.
Eddie’s heart cracks wide open, silently.
The air shifts. The crowd stands. The song begins,a gentle piano version of Only You fills the room. It echoes to the rafters, it fills the pews and Eddie’s stomach drops.
Because it isn’t their song, it’s his. The one he’s been hearing in his head since El Paso. Since the night he realised what it all meant. What Buck meant, what everything meant up to that moment. What everything Eddie hadn't said meant.
El Paso had been quiet. Too quiet. Christopher had finally fallen asleep in the next room, the Texas night pressing against the windows like a weight. Eddie had been sitting there, beer in hand, staring at the ceiling fan spinning slow circles. Thinking of L.A., of the 118, of Buck. Always Buck. And it had hit him sudden and absolute in the way lightning splits the sky.
That what he felt wasn’t friendship. Wasn’t loyalty. It wasn’t something he could pray away.
He’d spent years running from it. From himself. From the idea that the only person who ever truly saw him was the man sitting across from him in his kitchen, making dumb jokes while stirring the pasta. Buck had always been light, warmth, gravity. And Eddie had been orbiting him for years without even realising it.
He thought distance would dull it. He thought his faith, his God, the discipline drilled into him since childhood, would burn it out of him. He thought coming home would then help.
But there are some fires you can’t extinguish.
And he looks at Buck, really looks and catalogues the nerves, the wonder and the the raw adoration etched in his face as Faith comes closer. And suddenly Eddie understands that this is what it looks like when someone saves you. When someone pulls you from fire and makes you want to live again. It was the way he had no doubt looked at Buck when he'd woken from being shot. It was the way Buck had looked at him, dazed still from his coma after hearing that Eddie had raced up that ladder, even after being hit himself by the same bolt.
Faith had saved him.
The irony stings like salt.
Eddie had clung to his own faith his whole life. To the Church, the discipline and prayers whispered to walls that never answered. He thought it was what made him strong, what kept him steady and from crossing lines he couldn’t uncross. It had been the thing that told him love like this was wrong for so long. Wrong for him.
And now Faith, the person, was the one standing where he’d once imagined himself. Faith had saved Buck’s life and in doing so, she’d taken the place Eddie never dared to reach for.
The ceremony begins. Words blur at the edges. Eddie tries to focus on Bobby's words, on the sound of breathing, on anything that doesn’t feel like dying. But everywhere he looks, Buck is there. Buck’s smile, Buck’s nervous laugh, Buck’s fingers brushing Faith’s as they exchange the rings that Christopher had carried with care. Every gesture feels like a lifetime condensed into seconds and every second, Eddie feels the ground shift beneath him, soft and endless and cruel. Their ceremony is different. Different words and different gold. Buck’s voice cracks when he says “I do.” Eddie closes his eyes and tries to pretend it’s still him hearing it.
Buck’s smile changes when he looks at her. It softens and deepens with the same warmth Eddie used to imagine was only his. Now it belongs to her.
And that’s right. It’s good. It’s what Buck deserves.
The chapel erupts in applause as their lips meet.
Eddie claps too, because that’s what you do when your best friend gets married. He smiles, because that’s what everyone expects. And when Christopher cheers beside him “They did it, Dad!” - Eddie squeezes his shoulder and nods.
“Yeah, mijo,” he says softly, his voice barely above a whisper. “They did.”
His vision blurs for a second, light and colour smearing together like watercolours left in the rain. Somewhere in the haze, Buck catches his eye for just for a moment. That same bright, easy grin he’s worn a thousand times. The one that used to make Eddie feel like the world wasn’t such a cruel place after all.
And then Buck turns back to Faith.
Eddie exhales and the world keeps turning.
The reception hums like a heartbeat.
Laughter, the clink of glasses, the shuffle of feet over polished wood. Someone’s cousin is already drunk enough to request Mr. Brightside from the DJ. Bobby and Athena are on the dance floor, moving in that easy rhythm of two people who’ve known both heaven and hell together. Chim and Hen are laughing over some inside joke, and Christopher is a whirlwind of joy spinning in stumbled circles with May, cheeks flushed, tie crooked.
It’s perfect. It’s unbearable.
Eddie keeps to the edges. He’s got a beer in his hand, but it’s warm and mostly untouched. He watches, listens, lets the noise blur into a soft, distant hum. It’s easier that way. Easier to breathe when he doesn’t have to hear the words love and forever tossed around like they don’t weigh a ton.
Maddie had passed him earlier, a gentle hand pressed on his shoulder and that warm smile that was made to make everything feel okay even if for a fraction of a second.
And Buck and Faith are in the centre of it all. He fits there, like he was always meant to.
She’s glowing, her head tipped back in laughter. Buck’s hand rests at the small of her back, easy, familiar. He leans in to whisper something, and Faith’s eyes soften and Buck has that same look Eddie’s seen a hundred times before, only it used to be directed at him after a hard shift or after a rescue gone wrong
He looks away. The song changes inro something slow. You Are My Sunshine by Jasmine Thompson summons bodies to the dancefloor. Eddie swallows. People sway together, couples folding into each other as if the night belongs to them.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away.
He steps outside.
The air’s cooler here, soft with the scent of roses and rain. The garden glows faintly under strings of fairy lights. He leans against the railing, loosens his tie, and lets his shoulders drop. The sounds of laughter spill faintly through the open doors behind him, but out here, everything feels distant and like he’s finally alone with the ghost of what he almost had.
He doesn’t hear the door until it clicks shut again.
“Thought I’d find you out here.”
Eddie turns, and there he is, Buck with his jacket gone and sleeves rolled up.His tie loose and that same disarming grin playing at his lips. The lights catch in his hair, turning it copper-gold.
“Hey,” Eddie says, voice low.
“Hey yourself.” Buck steps closer, rests his elbows beside Eddie’s on the railing. “You hiding?”
Eddie huffs out something that might pass for a laugh. “Little bit.”
Buck smirks. “Knew it. You always disappear when the slow songs start.”
“Yeah, well,” Eddie murmurs, eyes on the horizon. “Some of us don’t have anyone to dance with.”
His words hang between them, heavy and weighted.
“Chris was looking for you,” Buck says gently, moving them into a safe, comfortable topic. “He wanted to show you his dance moves.”
“I’ll join him in a bit,” Eddie replies, swallowing hard. “He’s happy.”
“He is,” Buck says. There’s pride in his voice, the kind of pride only a father can have. Eddie’s chest tightens. “You’ve done good with him, man. You really have.”
Eddie nods. “Thanks.”
They fall quiet. Crickets hum in the distance. The song inside fades into another. For a while, it’s just them and the soft thrum of life around them.
Then Buck says, quietly, “Thanks for coming. For being my best man.”
Eddie looks at him. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
Buck’s eyes soften. “Yeah, but still. I know weddings can be…a lot.”
“Yeah,” Eddie manages. “They can.”
Buck laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Guess I still can’t believe it’s real, you know? That this actually happened.”
Eddie forces a smile. “You deserve it, Buck.”
Buck looks at him, really looks at him, with that same searching gaze he’s had since the first day they met, the one that’s always felt like it could see straight through him. “You okay?”
Eddie opens his mouth. The truth rises, wild and desperate, pressing against his throat.
No. I love you. I’ve loved you longer than I knew what love was. I’ve built my life around the space you fill. I left the city to forget you, and I couldn’t. I came back, and you were already gone.
Instead, he exhales. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Buck studies him for a moment longer. Then he smiles that soft, sun drenched smile that kills him every time. “You’re a terrible liar, Eddie.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, barely above a whisper. “Guess I am.”
Buck chuckles, turns his eyes to the sky. “Still… thanks. For everything. For always being there.”
Eddie nods. “Always.”
For a second, one impossible, perfect second the world goes still. Buck’s hand brushes his on the railing, fingers warm, familiar. Neither of them moves. The air between them crackles, just like it used to. Like it always does. Like it always will.
Then someone calls from inside, Faith’s voice, light and laughing. “Babe! Come dance with me!”
Buck glances back toward the doorway, then at Eddie again. There’s something like apology in his eyes. Something like understanding.
“Duty calls,” Buck says softly.
“Go,” Eddie murmurs. “She’s waiting.”
Buck hesitates, then reaches out and squeezes Eddie’s shoulder, the same way he always has. “Don’t disappear before we get a photo, okay? Maddie’ll kill me.”
“I’ll be around,” Eddie says.
Buck grins one last time. “Good.”
And then he’s gone, back into the light, back into the life that isn’t Eddie’s.
Eddie stands there until the music fades, until the laughter becomes nothing more than a hum against the dark. The ring of the words for always being there keeps echoing in his chest, like a promise and a curse all at once.
He tilts his head back, staring at the string lights overhead. Somewhere inside, Only Love Can Hurt Like This begins to play, maybe on purpose, maybe coincidence. Either way, it fits.
Because tonight, he understands it better than ever.
He loved a man made of sunlight.
And sunlight, by its nature, was never meant to stay.