Chapter Text
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; 1991
Jack Abbot was twenty-three years old, fresh off his first tour in the Army, and had just signed up for his second, when he met her; Thea Montgomery. She had recently moved to Pittsburgh from a small town in Utah and was a preschool teacher. She was beautiful. Thea had deep brown hair, honey eyes, and a cute rose red birthmark over her left eyebrow. She also had one of the brightest smiles Jack had ever seen in his life.
He could’ve fallen in love with her if they had more time together before he shipped off to an active war zone. It would’ve been easy. Instead, they had a month and half together, where they were passion and fire and promises that would never be kept.
He promised to write to her every week, and call when he got the chance. Thea promised to wait for him. Neither promise was kept after a couple of months. Their fire fizzled out as quickly as it erupted.
Jack wrote to her once a week, telling her about his experiences over seas. Thea wrote back a few times before he was met with silence. His calls went unanswered, his letters returned unopened. Jack assumed she had met someone else, someone who could be with her and stay by her side as Thea always wanted. Jack couldn’t provide the stability she was looking for at that time in his life, and he thought she understood.
About two years into his second tour, around the springtime in nineteen ninety-three, he got hit with an IED, blackout out before he hit the ground. Jack woke back up to pain in his right leg, pain all over his body, and then blacked out once more.
When Jack woke back up again, he was stateside, down a leg, and honorably discharged from service. He tried to call Thea, hoping to have a familiar face in his life, but someone else answered the phone, saying that the previous owner of the number no longer had it. He had nothing else to go on, so he just gave up.
It wasn’t until a month later when he was looking through old papers, he came across an obituary; Thea Montgomery, January 10th, 1971 - September 1st, 1992. Passed away suddenly, leaving behind friends and family. Thea is survived by her parents, Mark and Lisa Smith (neé Griffin) and one older sister, Tabitha Davidson (neé Smith). Jack had been around the block enough times to know that “passed suddenly” usually meant suicide, and that made his heart hurt a bit. He didn’t understand why Thea, a bright light personified, would take her own life.
As he got older, Jack Abbot matured, learning how to navigate life as an amputee field medic, growing into the person he would later become. He made lifelong friendships, even found the love of his life in his male best friend, Michael Robinavitch, who he later became luckily enough to call his husband in 2015 after it was legalized. Jack and Robby (Michael) both became residents of the Pittsburgh Trauma and Medical Center, and then later both were attending physicians. Jack helped out the SWAT team as a medic when he could, but most of his time was spent at the hospital, or with his husband.
Jack was the happiest he’d ever been, even if the job sometimes made him want to do a swan dive off the roof. Which was why he couldn’t understand why he felt like something was missing, like a part of him was left behind? And no, he didn’t mean the part of his leg that was blown off.
He had no idea the answer to his question would show up unexpectedly looking for him, too.
~||~
Los Angeles, California; 2019
Evan Buckley had lost everything that mattered to him in his life. His job, his family. About a half a year before, Buck was involved in an explosion that caused the ladder truck he was riding in to fall on his left leg, crushing it. He did everything he could to get back to work. He passed every test, jumped over every hurdle in his way, but it didn’t matter. As soon as he was welcomed back, he had a pulmonary embolism, causing him to cough up blood in his boss’ back yard. After that, nothing he did was enough. Bobby and his wife, Athena Grant, had invited him over for dinner one night where Bobby admitted that he was the one holding Buck back from his job as a firefighter. He didn’t think Buck was ready, so he told the higher ups to keep him away.
Buck was devastated and betrayed by the reveal. Bobby was the closest person to a parent he had since his own parents didn’t seem to care about his existence, so his boss filled that void. He trusted the older man more than anything, and he betrayed him, went behind his back. Buck wasn’t sure what he was going to do, he even thought about suing the department and Bobby.
One little email stopped him, though.
He was lying in bed, scrolling through his messages that had been going unanswered from everyone; his best friend, Eddie, his sister, Maddie. He sighed, about to put his phone away, when a notification popped up letting him know an email just came through. He opened it, seeing it was from AncestryDNA. Chimney, one of his old co-workers and the boyfriend of his sister, talked him into doing a DNA test months before.
“This is stupid,” Maddie had laughed with a head shake, swabbing the inside of her own cheek. The three them sent off the tests and then the following week a ladder truck landed on his leg.
‘You have a match to explore! Click HERE to learn more!’
Buck honestly thought it was just Maddie’s profile that was going to pop up, but he was curious, and honestly more than a little bored, so he clicked on the link. It directed him to his profile, and he clicked on ‘matches’ and was extremely surprised to not see Maddie’s name listed. Instead, it was someone he’d never heard of. Multiple someone’s he’d never heard of, actually.
You and Lisa Smith share DNA. Explore the match.
You and Tabitha Davidson share DNA. Explore the match.
Buck’s mind was spinning. Who were these people? And why did he share almost twenty-five percent DNA with Lisa Smith and about nineteen percent with Tabitha Davidson? He swiped the screen, clicking on his phone icon and finding Maddie’s number quickly and calling her. The phone rang twice before his sister’s tired voice answered.
“Buck, hey,” she greeted.
“Hey, Mads, are you busy? I need to talk to you.”
“Buck, not now. I don’t want to get in the middle of you and Bobby,” she said, voice firm.
“No, Maddie, that’s not-”
“I don’t want to be dragged into this, Evan. I’ll talk to you later.” There was a click and then silence. His sister had hung up on him. Well, according to this, not his sister? He was so confused. It didn’t take long for another email to pop up and he opened it, heartbeat starting to pick up when it read that he had a message. His thumb hovered over the link for moment before he tapped on it, curiosity getting the better of him. It was a message from Tabitha Davidson.
Hi,
My name is Tabitha Davidson, and I think you might be my nephew? I know I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I attached a picture of my sister and I and I just really hope you contact me back.
Tabitha
There was a phone number at the bottom, as well as a picture of two young women. One had dyed blonde hair with dark roots, hazel eyes, and a bright smile. The other – the other must have been the woman Tabitha believed was his mother. Looking at her, Buck understood why. The sister had dark brown hair, honey brown eyes, and the same bright smile as Tabitha. The same bright smile as him, he noted warily. But, it wasn’t their shared smile that made him believe that Tabitha was right. No, it was the red birthmark over her left eyebrow. One that identical to his own.
He saved the phone number under her name in his phone and then called it. The line rang for a few moments before a voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Uh, hi? Is this Tabitha?”
“Evan Buckley?” He nodded, and then answered in the affirmative when he realized she couldn’t see him. “Thank you for calling me.”
“Yeah, of- of course. I saw the picture you sent, and I can see why you think your sister is my mom.”
“Was,” Tabitha correctly softly. “She passed away in ninety-two.”
“That’s the same year I was born,” Buck commented.
“Thea, my sister, had a baby in June of ninety-two. A boy. He went missing the next day from the NICU ward. Thea was in shambles. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. She committed suicide in September of the same year when no traces of her son came up.” Buck felt his heart break for this woman he never met, both women. The woman who lost herself to grief, and the woman who was left to pick up the pieces. “You have the same birthmark Thea had. The same birthmark my nephew was born with. And then seeing you come across that stupid website my daughter made my do it just-” She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “I’m sorry, you don’t need to listen to the ramblings of a crazy woman.”
“No, no I think you might be on to something,” Buck agreed. He wasn’t sure yet, but he looked more like Thea and Tabitha than he did either of his parents or Maddie. “I need to talk to my parents, see if there’s something their hiding from me, and I’ll call you back tomorrow?”
“Yes, of course, Evan,” Tabitha agreed easily. “When we talk next, if you get confirmation, I’ll tell you all about Thea.”
The two said their goodbyes, and hung up. Buck immediately dialed his parents’ land line, his father answering quickly. “Dad? We need to talk.”