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Hen’s house felt wrong the second Eddie stepped inside. Too small. Claustrophobic almost with the intensity that hung in the entry way.
Not because it wasn’t homey. It was. Karen had a blanket draped over the arm of the couch, and there were dishes drying in the rack like any other night. It was the same house that Eddie had been in hundreds of times now. The table was the same one he’d had coffee at the mornings after play dates when Denny and Chris were still little. The living room had the same golden glow from the lamp that had been purchased at a flea market Hen had convinced all of them to go to on their one weekend off one month two years ago. It’s the same bathroom where he’d splashed water on his face, attempting to calm down from yet another panic attack that had come from nowhere. So, it was the same. Still home to Hen and Karen with nothing out of place. But everyone was there, all at once, crowded into the living room in a way that made the air feel thin. The tension crackled between them all like electricity waiting to find its mark.
Eddie hovered near the doorway for a second, already wanting to leave. He’d never been good at this type of confrontation, especially not when they all seemed to be on different sides of the problem. It felt a little like the lawsuit from all those years ago. But, there’s no Bobby there this time to help them, no guiding hand that could take accountability and push them all back into the proper orbit. And that, well, that made the feeling in his gut worse.
His eyes dragged across the room slowly, landing on Buck first, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and jaw tight. Maddie sat on the edge of the couch, twisting her fingers together with an amount of nervous energy Eddie could more than relate to. Chim stood near the kitchen like he was bracing himself for some sort of impact. Then there was Athena and May, a quiet type of resolve between them already seated at the kitchen table.
Hen was in the center of it all.
She looked tired. Not just physically, but something deeper, something hollowed out almost. Eddie knew that look. He’d worn it himself time after time over the years. The most recent had been after Texas, after coming back with pieces of himself still scattered somewhere he couldn’t reach. After barely knowing himself, barely fixing things with Chris, and having to return to a place where everything had changed. Where he had changed, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it.
“Okay,” Chim said in that steady Captain's voice. The one he’d learned the hard way when stepping into the role nearly a year ago. He turned towards Hen. “We’re here because we love you. And because we can’t just pretend what happened didn’t.”
Hen snorted. “Oh, so this is an intervention.”
“We just want to talk,” Karen said softly.
“You fired me,” Hen said, eyes on Chim. “That’s more than just talking.”
Eddie swallowed. Fired. The word hit him again, even though he’d known it. Hen Wilson didn’t get fired. She was the kind of person you built things around. The kind of person they all wanted in their orbit and on their team. Eddie knows what it’s like to want something so badly that you destroy everything around it accidentally. Life, he’s always thought, is a lot like fire. One rogue spark can bring it all tumbling down, and those with an inability to ask for help will always be left standing in a pile of rubble. He’s been the one standing in wreckage enough times to know that lesson. It doesn't make it any easier.
“You lied,” Chim said. “About your health. You put us in danger.”
“I did my job,” Hen shot back. “I saved lives.”
“You could’ve lost one,” Chim said, patience thinning with every word. “You could’ve lost your own.”
The room started to buzz in that low and tense way that Eddie could feel as it began to build. That familiar sense of something about to go wrong. He pressed his hands together, grounding himself the way that Frank had taught him so many years ago. Breath in. Breath out. Stay focused. Stay in the moment.
Hen laughed, a sharp and brittle thing as she moved to the head of the kitchen table and sat. “So that’s it? You all just decided I’m broken now?”
“No,” Maddie said quickly, running to take a seat followed by Chim who immediately sat by her side. “We’re worried about you.”
“And that gives you the right to ambush me in my own house?”
“Hen–” Karen started as the rest of the team filed onto sides of the table, chairs scraping against hardwood as they attempted to try and reason with their co-worker and friend. Eddie found himself sitting last, shoulder touching Maddie’s and knee knocking against Buck’s under the table as he sat on the other side, their eyes meeting in that way where they could communicate without saying a word. Eddie assumed his concern was just a mirror of the blue eyes staring back at him.
“Don’t,” Hen snapped, once everyone was finally seated, turning on her wife.“You don’t get to look at me like I’m a problem to solve.”
Eddie’s chest tightened. This was spiraling. He knew that. He’d been this person before. The person who was supposed to care for everyone around him, only to let himself fail in the process. For him, the damage had been physical. Holes in the wall of his bedroom and fingers that ached around a baseball bat. For Hen? He realizes quite quickly that it’s emotional. That if she’s going down then the rest of them are going down with her. He swallows and breathes deeply, attempting to ignore the way several pairs of eyes glance at him, almost like they expect him to interject, to try and stop the inevitable. He doesn’t move.
Hen’s eyes moved, scanning the room like she was looking for something to push against. Like she was looking for the weakest link. Someone to hurt.
“Chim,” she said, voice steely. “You’re trying so hard to be Bobby you lost yourself. You run that firehouse like if you let up for one second, everything will fall apart. You’re not Bobby. You’re not going to be, no matter how hard you try.”
Chim flinched, just a little.
“Maddie,” Hen continued, “maybe if you spent half as much time on your own kids as you do worrying about me, you’d be less of a mess.”
Maddie’s face went pale and Eddie watched as Buck leaned forward in his chair ready to defend, Hen’s eyes sliding to him easily.
“Buck,” she said, voice low and full of warning. “You’re still playing hero because you don’t know who you are without someone to save. You don’t know who you are so you make it everyone else’s problem.”
Buck sucked in a breath like he’d been punched, eyes going glassy as he blinked.
Eddie’s ears were ringing now. The room felt too bright, too loud. Every word was another hit against his own skull. This wasn’t what they were supposed to be. They were a family. Eddie supposes that’s why it hurts so badly. Only the people who know you the most could hurt you like this.
Hen’s gaze moves to him, skipping over Athena and May entirely. It pays to be friends, he thinks in passing. He knows Hen, but not he way Athean does. And for a moment, he’s jealous of their closeness, of the way that somehow Athena and May will escape the war path.
“And you,” she said. “You came back from Texas and you’ve been wrong ever since. Like you left part of yourself there and now we all have to deal with the fallout. Maybe we’re all sick and tired of having to coddle poor little Eddie Diaz.”
Something cold settled in Eddie’s stomach at the words. He looked down, eyes trained on the wood grain pattern on the table under his fingertips.
“We’re all sick of walking on eggshells around you,” Hen added, almost as an after thought.
The voices around him blurred as everyone started talking at once, defending him, defending each other, yelling at Hen, and trying to pull it back. Eddie barely heard any of it. All he could hear was Texas echoing in his head. The quiet rooms. The things he hadn’t said. The way he’d come back feeling like he was wearing someone else’s skin. All the things that he’d drudged up when he was there, pushed neatly back inside of the boxes buried deep inside him so they could all work through the trauma and guilt of Bobby together. There hadn’t been time for him to think, to process, to know more. He sucks in a breath. It’s not enough.
He couldn’t breathe.
“I–” He stood up so fast the chair scraped loudly against the floor. His hands slammed down on the table between them, the sound cutting through the chaos.
“I’m–” His vision went fuzzy around the edges, voices continuing to overlap, no one seeming to sense his internal torment. “I’m gay!”
The words ripped out of him like something torn loose.
“I’m gay!” he said again, louder, because he had to. Because if he stopped now he might never say it again.
Silence crashed down.
Everyone stared at him.
Eddie’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt. He hadn’t meant to do it like this. He hadn’t meant to say it at all, not here, not now, not with Hen looking at him like she’d just knocked something fragile off a shelf. Not with Maddie’s wide almost panicked eyes staring up at him and Buck’s mouth hanging open, confused gaze refusing to look anywhere but at him.
“I—” His throat closed, words suddenly impossible. “I didn’t mean–”
He couldn’t stay. He couldn’t let them look at him like that. He couldn't face it. So he did what he always did best.
He turned and ran.
The drive home was a blur of headlights and shaking hands. He could barely remember it as he pulled into the driveway, pressing his head to the steering wheel in a useless attempt to calm himself.
By the time Eddie got inside his house, his chest ached and throat felt raw, almost as if he’d been screaming. Chris was asleep, the soft rise and fall of his breathing a quiet anchor in the dark. Eddie stood in his doorway for a long time, just watching him, wondering how he was supposed to explain any of this someday. How he was supposed to raise this child, this teenager, into a functioning member of society when he didn’t know what that looked like at all.
He sank down on the couch and stared at the wall after a while.
He’d said it.
Out loud.
To everyone.
He’d barely thought about it himself or admitted it in front of the mirror. Now they knew. Everyone knew.
A knock at the door made him flinch, bringing him out of the haze.
He knew who it was before he even opened it.
Buck stood on the porch, hair messy and eyes red. Like he’d come straight here without thinking. Maybe someone had stopped him for a moment, told him to give Eddie space. Although they all know he’d never listen to that.
“Hey,” Buck said softly.
Eddie stepped aside. They didn’t touch.
“I didn’t know,” Buck said after a moment. “About you. I–I didn’t know you were struggling or I would have–I swear I–.”
“I know,” Eddie said hoarsely.
“That–what you said back there…” Buck shook his head. “I never expected it. I didn’t–”
“Neither did I,” Eddie admitted. Because that was the truth. He never expected to figure this out about himself, especially not in his mid-30s in a way that would reframe his entire life. And more than that he didn’t expect to ever let that information leave his own head. He had wanted it trapped, stagnant and fragile, stuck inside his own treacherous heart.
They sat down on the couch, close enough to feel each other’s warmth, but far enough away that all Eddie wanted to do was be closer. He always wanted to be closer to Buck.
“I feel like I just…blew up my whole life… again…”
Buck looked at him, eyes gentle and searching. “Or you finally told the truth.”
Eddie laughed weakly. “That’s worse. No one wants the truth like that.”
“Maybe. But it’s also kind of brave, I think.”
Eddie swallowed. “I’m scared. I don’t know what this means.”
Buck’s voice was soft in his reply. “Me too.”
Their eyes met, and something shifted between them, something that had always been there suddenly visible. Eddie felt it in his chest, the way that something ebbed and flowed, the way their eyes opened as if meeting each other again for the first time.
It was Buck who leaned in.
The kiss was careful, almost tentative, like they were both afraid that one wrong move would break the spell. But it felt right, like a piece of something long missing clicking into place. Eddie let his eyes fall closed, scooting a fraction closer on the couch, his arms finding a home around Buck’s body. There was a hand on his face and one against his ribs, his own fingers tangling into curls with ease. He melted into it, the feeling of overwhelming rightness taking over his body.
When they pulled back, Buck laughed softly. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, a little breathless. “Yeah.”
They stayed like that, foreheads pressed together, the world around them finally quiet.