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His parents coming into town has been stress after stress. Dinner had been exhausting enough, but then opening Maddie’s baby box and holding a photo of a young boy he’d didn’t even recognise, riding the bike Maddie taught him on, it—it’s been a lot.
Seeing Daniel’s face for the first time had been like looking at a childhood photo of himself, had he been born the way he wanted so badly to be, the way that would’ve fit him right. They had the same eyes, the same nose, the same jaw, the same cheeks. Daniel was just missing the strawberry blotches above his eye.
They could’ve been twins.
As Maddie explains everything to him—all at once, a lot of things make a lot of sense. He’s not really sure what to do with the information. If he’s honest, it’s kind of an overload. He has a dead brother, he was a savior baby, the saving didn’t even work, and his parents have been lying to him his entire life because they seemingly didn’t think he deserved to know about their dead son. About his dead big brother.
Suddenly, he has to grieve so much: A childhood he should’ve had, a brother he should’ve known, a life he should’ve gotten to live filled with honesty, and truth, and love.
Before his shift starts, he spends a solid thirty minutes staring at a wall, wondering if he’d been able to save Daniel, would they have wanted him? Could they have loved him? If he hadn’t been such a genetic failure, were his parents capable of adoring him the way they clearly did Daniel and the way they at least, at some point, did with Maddie?
The what-ifs don’t even matter in the end. They got stuck with him. With a daughter they didn’t want, that turned out to be a son they didn’t want, who looked like the son they never got to have. When he’d come out to them, finally, after years of transitioning, they’d pushed back as though it was something that they, or anything, could change.
Are you sure about this? This is such a big change. I don’t know how you expect us to just be okay with this so all of a sudden. Maybe you should talk to a doctor about this. We can help you find someone. This is a serious decision you’re making.
They had eventually come around to some form of existence by the time dinner at the Buckley-Han house had come. The tension had been palpable, despite his parents' attempt at acquiescence—right before it all exploded, at least.
And then—another explosion. This one, quieter, a detonation of his relationship with his parents, with Chimney, with Maddie.
They made one. They made a match. They made him. And once again, he was a disappointment. Though he’s sure that was the first disappointment. The first strike on a list of endless wrongdoings that validated his parents' determination to look through him, rather than at him, his entire fucking life.
The next shift is bad. Messy. Chimney wants to talk, and Buck really, really doesn’t. Maddie shows up, and they argue. He doesn’t like arguing with her. He really hates being mad at her. But she betrayed him—kept this secret for so many years, even when he was crying, injured in a hospital room, miserable about how their parents couldn’t—or wouldn’t love him.
The conversation with Athena helps. She looks at him, loving, patient, and kind, and says,
“I’m sure whoever you saved is just glad you were being Buck.”
Before today—he knew exactly what that meant. But now, he doesn’t. Now he doesn’t know who he is, who he was supposed to be, or who he’s supposed to be going forward.
So, he tells her, “I don’t even know what that means.”
She steps closer, nearing where Bobby is hovering protectively by his side, and explains, “You never give up. That’s what being Buck means to me. But whatever you do, don’t stop.”
And he won’t. He refuses to. He’d been so, so close to giving up in the middle of that fire, exhausted down to the marrow in a way sleep can’t fix. But he can’t give up. He just can’t. It’s not in him. Surrender is not who he is.
…
Buck doesn’t expect his parents to show up at his place of work the morning after the fire. They’ve never shown up for him once before; he didn’t really expect them to start now.
The people who made him feel like nothing more than a ghost in his very own haunted childhood home are now here, in his real house, his real home, the place where he’s felt safest for years. It feels like an invasion, after everything. A large part of him wishes he could stay downstairs with Eddie— maybe drag him to the gym to work out his frustrations, or talk shoulder-to-shoulder in the bunk rooms, with no prying or wandering eyes around, like they often do.
Unfortunately, that won’t make them not here.
Reluctantly, he ascends the stairs.
His mother is sitting—polite and proper, one leg hooked neatly over the other. His father stands behind her, a comforting hand planted securely atop her shoulder.
He steps closer, but still keeps his distance. “You been, uh—waiting long?”
“No, no. Not long,” his mother assures him.
“The other firefighters were very kind. We got to hear a lot of stories about—you,” his dad says, looking somewhere close to proud. It’s a disconcerting scene to witness—his parents here, surrounded by the familiar warmth of the firehouse, looking at Buck, for once, like he’s something worth looking at. He swallows thickly, dragging himself away from the urge to go and find Eddie, to hide from all of this. The second his parents are involved—He’s twelve years old again. Buck just feels so small, young, and vulnerable.
There, only physically, forgotten any time they’re not looking directly at him.
“They seem to like you a great deal,” Margaret adds, smiling.
“Yeah, I um—” His brows scrunch, hands struggling to find a place to perch. “I like them a lot, too.”
When Buck sits, all the pride and false happiness disappear from their faces—and they look just as uneasy as he feels. This is more familiar ground.
“I don’t even know where to start,” she says, tension thick in her voice.
He feels so much anger. Confusion. Hatred, maybe. But still, she sits there, miserable and uncomfortable, and his mom. She’s still just his mom.
He can start for her.
“Uh—” He starts, shifting in his chair, averting his gaze. “I’m sorry. About Daniel. I can’t imagine … what that must have been like — to not be able to save someone you love.”
It’s an olive branch. Buck thinks they might take it. He thinks maybe they can meet in the middle. It’s all he can offer. As furious as he is, as right as he was to fight against them, they lost their kid. Their son. Christopher isn’t his kid; he isn’t. Buck knows that, but he remembers how he felt during the tsunami, for that haunted period of time when he couldn’t find Chris anywhere. He can’t imagine that feeling lasting forever. He can’t imagine losing a part of yourself like that.
His words hang there, for a moment, their eyes wide and breaths held. Instead, his father, maybe even without meaning to, steps on that olive branch. It cracks in half—splintering the fragile air of peace they could’ve had. “Eve—”
Buck’s heart, the shattered, broken thing it is, manages to crack even further. A hammer collides with the glass of it; pieces of him sent scattering and glittering across the floor in shards.
“Buck,” Buck corrects, voice firmer than he expected to be able to manage.
His father physically recoils back, as though the word has knocked him straight in the chest like a punch. Buck understands the feeling—cops it every single time Eve is shot his way, despite the fact it hasn’t been his name in so long that he’s forgotten how it tastes on his tongue.
“Buck. Or Evan. That’s uh—that’s what people who know me say. That’s what they call me.”
In his peripheral vision, he can see his mother’s shaking hands, her furrowed brow that she tries to smooth out before he notices, but he notices. He always notices.
“Right,” he says, uneasy. “Buck.” It sounds alien on his dad’s tongue, like he’s trying out a word in a foreign language, and not his own son's name. Buck sinks against his chair, pressing his foot hard against the floor below.
It’s not the first time his father has heard it. Not the first time he’s been told to use it. And still, still, it sounds like he’s never said it at all. Like he doesn’t know how.
Buck’s mouth goes tight.
“You have to know—we never blamed you,” Philip says.
The thing is—that isn’t his concern. It’s not. And the fact that his dad thinks it is, kind of explains a lot more than Buck is really willing to look at without Dr Copeland in the room. He exhales, face scrunching as he swallows down the urge to say It’s okay. I forgive you. It’s okay. He wants to comfort them. To forgive them. To wave away the responsibility that they had to make him feel loved, wanted, and cared for. The responsibility to want him.
That’s the thing about negligent parents. When they do show softness, or guilt, it makes you want to let all the ill intentions and misdoings slide—because it’s attention. It’s finally, finally attention.
But Buck is an adult now, with love in his heart, and a family that he chose at his back. He doesn’t need their attention, even if deep down, he still craves it.
They don’t deserve his forgiveness.
They had him on purpose. They had him for a purpose. And when he didn’t fulfill it, he wasn’t their kid anymore. He wonders if little Eve Buckley was ever held softly by them. If they ever looked at him, even for a split second, and saw him as anything other than the miracle to save their son. If even for a fleeting, barely there second, he was just their kid. Their sweet baby. Something small that loved them and needed them. Something worthy of their tenderness.
“Yeah,” he says, eventually, after a beat of silence passes, nails picking nervously and absentmindedly at a cuticle. “But you didn’t want me, either. Right?”
“That’s not true,” Margaret defends, her voice wet. “We loved you. We do love you. We’re so proud of you.”
They’re words that many Bucks before him would’ve killed to hear, but this one, here and now, knows what those words truly mean, the value they hold when they’re honest. Maddie loved him. The 118 do love him. The people around him are so proud of him.
His parents are—fuck. He doesn’t want to cry. Not here. Not now.
“Do you?” He asks, trying to keep his voice as steady and low as he can. He remembers, at once, that they’re at his place of work, and that anyone could overhear them. “You didn’t even know I wasn’t your daughter anymore till I was, what—five years deep? Do you know how easy it was to hide that from you? I didn’t even try. I didn’t have to try.”
“You ran away from us. What did you expect us to do?” His mother says, blinking her tears away.
He barely suppresses a scoff. “You didn’t want me there.”
“That’s not true,” his father says, firmer. “We just worried about you. You were reckless, and lost, and—”
“And a kid,” he finishes for him, wiping his sweaty palms against his work pants. “I was a kid. And I was a kid when you forgot my tenth birthday. And I was a kid when you didn’t show up for my middle school graduation. And I was a kid when I learned that the only way to truly, truly get your attention was to end up hurt.”
It’s a confession—one he wants to swallow back down the second it escapes him. It’s true. Undeniably so. They only ever lingered by his bedside to say goodnight when he was sporting an injury or an illness. He remembers when he was sick, his mother making him chicken soup, and kissing him on the forehead, and quietly, she’d said, “I made your favourite.”
It wasn’t his favourite. His favourite was tomato soup. Maddie knew that. Maddie knew that because she’d made it from the can for him so many times, serving it to him in his favourite bowl with his favourite spoon and the gooiest grilled cheese anyone could ever imagine.
He wonders, now, if it was Daniel’s favourite. If his face was pasted over Buck’s. If their eyes were similar enough that they were able to ignore the long hair and the ghost of girlhood that haunted him.
“Eve—”
“Jesus Christ—It’s Evan, mom. It’s Evan,” he corrects, throat working over a lump, his voice rising in volume despite his intentions to keep this steady and civil. His skin feels wrong—warm and tight in ways it shouldn’t. Suddenly, he feels fifteen again, squeezing into a prom dress a size too small, trying to make all of his boyhood fit inside the lace and frills. “Please.”
“Evan,” she says, her bright blue eyes that look so much like his are filled with unshed tears. She looks so much like she did the day he ran out on them, collecting his things, keys to the Jeep clutched tight in his hand. She almost resembles someone who is capable of missing him—even though he knows she’s not. All she sees is a ghost. A son that once was, but isn’t now. “We never wanted things to be like this.”
“We only wanted what was best for you,” his father insists.
“No, you didn’t. You wanted me to be easier. Quieter.” He remembers being small—so small that he’s surprised he remembers it. How come you can’t be more like your sister? His mother had sighed, meticulously and roughly pulling Buck’s long, blonde hair into a ponytail. He was squirming, like kids often do, face scrunched in discomfort as she tugged through knots. She’s such a good girl.
He sighs, shaking his head, dropping his voice even lower. “A good girl, right? That’s what you wish I was?”
His mother looks at him for a long second, trembling bottom lip lowering for a moment before her mouth closes again. Her silence says more than anything she could’ve said. His shoulders curl forward in discomfort, dysphoria crawling over his skin like ants, unrelentingly nipping at his flesh. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise —his dysphoria since they’ve been in town has shot through the roof, haunting him more intensely than it has in years. The frequent deadnaming and misgendering certainly haven’t helped, but the way they look at him is the real root cause of it. He sees it, clear as day, in their eyes; they see him as their little girl, the one they never even wanted. He feels queasy.
His father’s voice hardens as he says, “No one is saying that—”
“We love you,” his mother finally manages. “Even like this.”
Even like this. Like they love him despite who he is, who he’s become, who he always was supposed to be. God, Fuck. He almost wants to laugh. The whole situation feels like such a joke—and once again, he’s nothing more than the punchline. He realises, at once, maybe he doesn’t want their love at all, not if it tastes like this. Finally, after all this time, he doesn’t crave their approval and love so much that he wonders how he can grind himself down to be something smaller, something easier to swallow.
He might later, when he’s alone and in the dark, but for now, for this moment, he feels free. Lighter.
He finds himself smiling, but the curve of it is hollow and joyless. “You can’t even get my name right, Mom. You can barely look at me now. Is it because I look like him?” He watches as his mother’s hand darts up to her necklace, fingers clutching at the pendant. “Is it because I’m not him?” Buck asks. It’s a cruel jab, one that he doesn’t mean—or he does, but he knows he shouldn’t say. He doesn’t know Daniel, doesn’t know the kind of parents they were when he was alive and breathing, but he imagines they were kind, and loving, and—
And they really loved him. And they lost him.
But they still had two kidswho needed them.
He wishes it weren’t so all so twisted—beyond complex, and in the end, unfixable. He wishes that he didn’t care about how much the events of losing Daniel must have hurt and damaged them. He wishes they were just villains—that it were clean cut.
He blinks roughly, rubbing at his eyes, and takes them in. They’re still just his parents.
“Sweetheart …” His mom says, voice filled with misery and hurt.
He looks at them both—the two people that when he was little, he wanted so badly to have the approval of, but here, and now, all he wants is for them to stop. To go.
He exhales, exhausted, and wipes a hand over his face.
“I did it alone,” he begins, soft. “I transitioned alone, living in my car. I did it by myself. For myself. I made something of myself, and then I came here, and I-I became the man I am today.” A man who can stand up to them, a man who thinks he’s someone worth standing up for. “Thanks to the 118. Thanks to Maddie. Thanks to me. And I’m—I’m proud of that. I’m proud of who I’ve become. And none of that, not one single part of it, is thanks to you.”
Just saying the words settles something in him that’s never been steady in his life.
“We’re your parents,” his father scoffs. He hears it for what it is: We made you. Everything you are, is thanks to us. How could you be so ungrateful? So unkind?
Buck rolls his eyes, doesn’t even try not to.
“Yeah. You are. And Bobby—” He gestures behind himself, hand pointed at Bobby’s empty office, “—has been more of a father to me than you have ever, ever been—”
His father’s eyes widen, shoulders pulling tight. Buck fights a flinch, prepares for a barely-concealed anger he knows is bubbling violently just beneath his father's skin. “Your captain?”
“I have to—” Buck stands, the chair scraping harshly against the loft floor, slicing through their conversation. “No. I don’t have to go.” This is his home. His station. They never should’ve come here. They never even asked. They never even fucking ask. “You should go.”
“Honey …” His mother tries, her voice trembling like she’s the one who’s the victim here. Like she’s the one who spent her entire life walking through fire for the approval and love of people who still, in the end, couldn’t—or wouldn’t—want him.
He feels so small. So tired, and young, and hurt. Tears fill Buck’s eyes, his bottom lip trembling and his hands clenching repeatedly at his side, like he doesn’t know what to do with them anymore.
“Please. Please go. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you in my firehouse. In my life. Anywhere near me.” All sternness escapes him; he’s just begging now—pleading for space, for peace. “Please just go.”
“You can’t shut us out forever,” his father says. He even sounds like he wholeheartedly believes that. He truly doesn’t understand the stubbornness Buck is capable of, but that makes sense; they don’t know him at all.
“You shut me out first!” The outburst rips from him, voice raised loud enough that he knows it can be heard from downstairs—wouldn’t be surprised if it was echoing through the rafters. “You abandoned me the second your son died. I was a baby. I was a kid. I was your kid. You didn’t love me. You tolerated me!” The volume of his voice drops again, and it quivers as he says, “You—you need to go. I need you to go.”
His mom’s hand flies over her mouth.
His father pushes on, ever defensive of both of them. “We tried—”
“He asked you to leave,” a voice says from the stairway—a deep, safe, endlessly familiar voice. Buck almost crumples to his knees at the sound of it as it reaches his ears. He turns, and standing there, arms crossed tight over his chest, and jaw set firmly, is Eddie. Relief settles over him like a blanket, covering his itchy, ill-fitting skin. “I’m more than happy to escort you out.”
He wonders how much Eddie heard. Dreads to know how many of his secrets have spread through the station. They brought this here—his past, his childhood, his secret and theirs. They couldn’t do this in a place he could’ve run from, that would’ve been too kind.
A single tear spills over his lashline, running down his cheek, then tipping over his jaw, before racing down his throat. When he looks back, his mother is watching him, looking pained. She catches his eye, though, and nods, wrapping an arm around herself.
“We’ll go,” Philip says, helping Margaret up from her seat.
In the end, Buck doesn’t watch them leave. He just stares at the table, the dinner table he’s had hundreds of family meals at, ones that made him feel safer and more welcome than his parents ever could, and exhales shakily, finding himself on the verge of collapse.
A beat passes. Footsteps echo. Down, down, down the stairs. Then, through the ringing in his ears, he hears Eddie’s soft voice, much closer now. “Hey, man, c’mere—”
And then Buck is being turned around. He follows the guidance, and almost sobs with relief as Eddie’s large, warm hand presses against the back of his head, cupping it, fingers threaded into the short hair at the back of his head as Eddie drags him down and tucks Buck into his neck.
Buck sniffles, fighting the tears that want so desperately to escape him. It’s a losing battle.
“It’s okay,” Eddie says, right beside his ear, his arm wrapping tight around Buck’s body. Buck clutches onto him, holding Eddie flush to him as he buries his face in the safe space between the collar of Eddie’s uniform and the blood-warm skin of his throat.
Buck struggles helplessly and stubbornly against the tears that threaten to spill, but then Eddie smooths a hand along his back, and Buck just crumples against him. Hot, wet droplets spilling freely from his eyes and down flushed cheeks. A sob wracks through his body, the entirety of him shaking with the force of it.
All of this happening here is so unbelievably humiliating. His parents couldn’t even let him speak with them on his terms. Nothing can ever not be on their terms.
Eddie keeps stroking his back, and it does a lot to soothe the gasping breaths, but little to ease the decades-old ache buried in his chest.
Slowly, though, the sobs turn to weeping, and the weeping eventually turns to little wet sniffles. He exhales as he finds himself steadying, but continues clutching onto Eddie like a lifeline.
Then quietly, muffled against the skin of Eddie’s neck, Buck mumbles, “How much did you hear?”
Eddie’s hand stills on his back. “Nothing you didn’t want me to.”
Buck sighs. “Eddie.”
“Buck.”
Years have passed. They tell each other everything. They see each other through every worst moment, every best thing, but this—this thing, his gender, has been unsaid for so long that Buck’s forgotten how to speak it out loud.
He really isn’t sure how much Eddie heard, whether it was all of it, or just the yelling, or if, when his parents lingered in the first place, if they misgendered him, if they used the wrong name, if they outed him without even thinking about it. He doesn’t want to think about it.
If he’s honest—he doesn’t want to know.
Defeated, exhausted, he sinks completely into Eddie’s arms. Eddie catches him. Holds him. Has his back no matter what, like Buck knew he would if he just let him into this. He’d just been so scared. He felt like he had to face it alone.
Buck sniffles again, the tears finally slowing to a complete stop. “I gotta—” He inhales deeply, prying himself from Eddie’s arms. Eddie looks at him, expression soft, brown eyes wide and worried as they search across Buck’s features. “I gotta go,” he finishes, forcing a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Buck,” Eddie exhales, hand lingering on Buck’s arm.
“I just need a sec,” he assures him, wiping at his nose. He really does mean it. “I’ll—”
And then, predictably, almost comically, the alarm goes off. Buck sighs, shoulders sagging, and heads toward the staircase side-by-side with Eddie.
As they ride in the truck, no one says anything, but Eddie, steady Eddie, keeps his knee firmly against the side of Buck’s the entire ride, a constant reminder of his support and that he’s there.
He’ll always be there.
…
The rest of their shift is mostly mundane, but still back-to-back calls. The last few hours completely fly by, gone before he knows it. The rush helps soothe the ache in Buck’s chest. He doesn’t have time to concern himself with the thoughts racing through his head or the fallout of his argument with his parents. The consequences aren’t real yet—not when there are lives to save. He just has to go, go, go.
Unfortunately, when he tries to go, go, go all the way home, Chimney catches him in the locker room right as he pulls up at his locker, ready to change out of his uniform.
He cracks his own locker open, feigning nonchalance. “Things gonna be okay with Maddie?” he asks, because he’s never minded his business a day in his life.
The argument rushes back in, a wave of discomfort and misery crashing over Buck’s weary body.
A series of images flashes through his mind: His parents' miserable, hurt faces. The baby box that he’ll never receive. The brother he’ll never get to know. And then, finally, Maddie standing behind him, her face reflected in the red of the engine’s shine as she begs for him to hear her out.
It’s all too much. He just wants to go home and curl into a ball, the entire world disappearing into blackness as sleep takes him.
Instead, he’s stuck here, his brother-in-law staring at him expectantly, expecting him to bury a hatchet he only just found out was buried in his chest.
He closes his eyes, unable to look down at Chimney’s worried expression, and shakes his head. “Look, Chimney, I—I can’t—”
“You’re totally allowed to be mad at her,” Chim says, unable to let it go. “But if you can solve things with them, you can—”
The words strike him. Solve things? He’s not sure what he did could really be considered solving to anyone but him. He wonders what web of lies they’ve woven when recounting the events to Maddie; he wonders if they’ve told her anything at all. His parents like to keep things private.
“I didn’t,” he whispers.
Chimney stills at his side. “What?”
“I made them leave, Chim. I—I didn’t forgive them.” Buck sighs, wishing the floor would open up and swallow him. “And I don’t know how to forgive her.”
“You don’t know how, or you don’t want to?” There’s no judgment in his tone—but the question still doesn’t sit right. He’s not—he’s not doing anything wrong. He’s just taking a second. He’s rightfully pissed, he thinks, at everyone involved. Eddie would agree with him. He never said anything that wasn’t true.
Buck presses the knuckles of both fists against the cool metal of his locker, taking a steadying breath, his eyes falling closed. He tilts forward, letting his forehead knock and then rest against the grate.
“She should’ve told me,” he says, soft, hurt. He feels so betrayed by her. They were supposed to be a team. They’ve always been a team. More than that, even when they didn’t want him, she was supposed to. He’s stuck on the fact that she knew why they didn’t love him, and she never told him. She never gave him the closure, not even after they’d both long moved out.
“She didn’t want you to think you weren’t wanted. Or loved.” Chimney’s voice is pained as he speaks.
Buck wants to laugh.
He didn’t want to feel like he wasn’t loved or wanted, but he did. Because he had to spend his entire life up until this point in the dark about why the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally just couldn’t. No one, not even Maddie, had the decency to let him in on the big family secret. They had ample opportunity to tell him, to let him know about the brother he never got to know, or love, or grieve. No one ever gave him a chance to reckon with the fact that he was born as spare parts for a sick kid.
It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. He wasn’t wanted. He wasn’t loved. And it wasn’t, in the end, even his fault.
Buck’s eyes open as he turns to Chimney, voice incredulous as he says, “And you know what? I wasn’t.”
“But you were! By her!” Chimney looks exasperated, exhausted. He understands why Chim is defending her, why he’s looking out for her—but he just doesn’t need this right now. Can’t handle it.
“She sent me away, Chim. I needed her, and she wasn’t there. And she lied to me. For years. For my whole freaking life. About—about so much, Chim. She wanted me, she loved me, but she couldn’t tell me the truth? Not once?” He steps closer, pushing himself into Chimney’s space, not trying to make himself bigger, just—struggling to stay still. “I needed her, and she just handed me the keys to a car and sent me on my way. She didn’t want her little brother ruining her life.”
Chimney blinks. “...The Jeep? That’s what you’re talking about?”
Buck scoffs, shaking his head. “Of course, you know about that.”
“More than you, apparently.”
…
The information he receives from Chimney is hard to swallow. He thought he was at his limit of news he could absorb after Daniel—but the truth of what happened to his sister when she’d given him the Jeep settles deep and uncomfortably just behind his sternum. Tucked away to process in any way that he can.
He’s known, for a while now, the kind of man Doug was, but still, even now, there’s so much of Maddie’s past that she keeps from him. Maybe part of it is to protect him, but another part surely must be to protect herself. She’s been through Hell and back, surviving what many people would be incapable of getting through.
It’s not that he forgets what happened to her—but sometimes, when he’s lost in his own pain, he forgets how sad a kid she once was, and then, how scared and hurt of an adult she became.
He knocks on her door with a shaky hand, feet shuffling nervously in place. She opens the door and looks so relieved that she might cry. He pulls her into a hug before he even makes it past the threshold, holding her close and safe to his chest.
Once he does come inside, they talk. Like really, really talk. About Daniel, about their parents, about eachother, and even, for a bit, about Doug. A lot of unsaid things come to light, and eventually, as the sun sets completely outside, he ends up with his head against her shoulder and her arm snug around his broad shoulders.
Silence lingers for a bit—comfortable, but empty. Eventually, though, she squeezes him and says, “I really am so sorry, Evan. I know—I know you forgive me. But I’m still sorry.”
He lifts himself up then, smiling soft and comforting. He doesn’t forgive her entirely, maybe he doesn’t quite know how yet, but he can get there; he knows that much.
He knows she never wanted things to end up this way. It’d been easier to be mad at Maddie and lash out at her, someone he thought he could count on and felt disappointed by, than to be furious with his parents, who, deep down, he knew he could never trust.
He blinks, eyes a little tired from the long days he’s faced, and looks at her, her features aglow under the soft lamp light. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not … it’s not okay, but we’re … I think we’re okay. You and me. I–I’ve got a lot of stuff to work through now, but I like– I like that we can talk about it.” He sits up properly, dislodging her arm but still holding her gaze. “I know you’ve probably wanted to talk about it for a long time with someone. Anyone.”
Her eyes are wet as she nods. “Yeah.”
“You can now. They can’t stop you.” They can’t stop either of them from living their lives authentically and truthfully anymore. Buck doesn’t even know if he ever wants to see them again. He doesn’t say that, though, even though he knows Maddie would likely support him. One step at a time. “They don’t have to control our lives anymore, Mads. We don’t have to let them.”
She reaches a hand up, gently cupping his cheek. “God. You really are all grown up. When did that even happen?”
He rolls his eyes, batting her hand away, but he’s fighting back a smile. “Okay, stop that, I’m—I’m literally an adult, Maddie.”
“My little Evan, all grown up,” she says, sighing wistfully, collapsing back against the couch. And just like that, suddenly, before he knows it’s happening, things feel so, so normal again. Endlessly familiar. Something in his chest eases, like a weight’s been lifted.
As he watches her now, he wonders what Maddie was like as a little sister. He wonders if she bugged Daniel like Buck bugs her. If he gave her advice, or comforted her when she was sad, or loved her like it was all he knew how to do. Buck wonders how much she misses him. If she still thinks about him every day. If at any point she was even able to mourn him at all.
It’s not fair. What happened to Daniel in the first place wasn’t fair—but everything that came after wasn’t fair to the two kids left behind in that haunted house, no matter how justified his parents feel about their behaviour.
“Can you just be normal?” He huffs, his barely suppressed smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I’m very mature. I’ve been very mature. I’m Buck 3.0.”
Maddie’s brows both dance up toward her hairline. “Wait, when was the upgrade? You need to send out a newsletter, Evan. I need to keep up.”
And with that, he whaps her with a soft green circular throw pillow, knocking a puff of breath and a laugh out of her.
He decides, as he gets into the Jeep—the car that was once hers—to leave Maddie’s, that he’s going to tell Eddie about everything going on with his parents soon—the fallout, the silence, the sudden reappearance they had made in his life that should have been, could have been, a reconciliation, but just wasn’t.
He’s going to admit that he doesn’t think he’ll ever let his parents in again, and he’s going to find comfort in the way Eddie will accept this, no questions asked. And then he’s going to tell Eddie about his gender; not because Eddie is owed the information, but because Eddie is his best friend, and Eddie has been by his side through all of this—and Buck just– he wants to be honest. He’s going to tell him. He wants to give that part of himself to Eddie. Because their shared devotion, their shared trust, is unconditional—even if Buck isn’t brave enough to call it love out loud.
Their partnership, their connection, is stronger than anything that could ever try to come between them. Deep down, he knows that’s true. Maybe it’s been true for years. Maybe even since the day they clambered out of an ambulance shoulder to shoulder, declaring that they’d always have each other's backs.
He knows Eddie will have his back in this, just like he swore he always would.
He’s not brave enough to do a lot of things yet, but he can do this. He can offer this part of himself that he’s hidden from the world to the one person he knows would never judge him.
And then, maybe, after extensive amounts of therapy, he’ll, at some point, be okay. With himself, with his life, with everything.
And in time, he’ll get to just be Buck. Whatever that means to him.