Chapter Text
Christmas Day
There was utter silence in the wake of Abuela’s outburst, a silence initially broken only by her footsteps as she made her way to the back door. They heard her shove it open and then it slammed shut a moment later. Eddie shoved Gavin into Sophia’s lap so he could get up to chase after her. His parents moved to follow, but he heard Buck stop them with a firm,
“Help me get the food to the table.”
If it had been Buck that stormed out after an outburst like that, Eddie knew, he would’ve been a mess of frenetic energy as he paced to work out his frustration. Eddie himself would not have been too much different, if more tightly coiled. But Abuela was not like either of them, however much she had contributed to the Diaz family’s stubbornness. When Eddie stepped out into the backyard, he found her simply standing at her garden and glowering down at the blooms: chrysanthemums, orchids, roses, and star-of-bethelehems.
She acknowledged his existence with a quick glance as he joined her, but she didn’t say anything in greeting. Eddie stayed silent as well, entirely uncertain of just what to say. Abuela had accused them all of looking at her like she was already dead, and Eddie could not lie and claim innocence on the matter. Because ever since Carla brought up her concerns, ever since the doctors confirmed them, he’d seen only the clock that was ticking down towards the end.
(“I felt like she saw me,” Buck had said about that death doula they’d met on a call, in the weeks after the lightning strike. “She saw me and not my corpse!”)
However much Eddie was hurting, it had been unfair of him to do that to his abuela. He owed her an apology, which was probably the best place to start.
“Perdóname, ‘Buela,” he told her. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to make you feel like that.”
“I know you didn’t, gordito,” she said. She sounded weary. “It is nothing.”
“No, that- It’s no wonder you and Buck get along so well.” He shook his head. “It was bothering you, it was hurting you, and we weren’t seeing it. I should have seen it, instead of focusing on what I was feeling. And I should have been there for you.”
Abuela let out a harsh tsk, tilting her head to fix him with a sharp eye.
“You have not been there for me? Then who is it that has gone to every doctor’s appointment with me, hm? A secret twin? An identical stranger?” She had watched far too many of those shows of hers. “I am not so far gone that I have forgotten it was you that has gone to every one of them with me, so far.”
“Pepa and Carla have gone, too,” he reminded her.
“But not to every one,” she insisted. “This is difficult for all of us, I know. It is unfair to all of us. I did not mean to lose my temper like that.”
“You’re allowed, though.”
“As if I have ever needed permission to give anyone a piece of my mind.” Abuela sniffed, a bit haughtily, and then patted Eddie on the cheek. “This is especially difficult for you, I know, because there is nothing you can do. That has never been something you’ve handled well, but hopefully this time you won’t be getting into fights.”
“Abuela.” Eddie was a grown ass man with children, he did not whine. He didn’t!
“I know that Buck has already gone through this before,” she said. “That he’s helped someone he cared about through this before. He knows what’s in store for us, and I understand why he sees that when he looks at me. And I understand that you’re hurting and afraid. I just wish…”
“That we’d stop looking at you as if you were already dead,” he quietly finished for her.
“Yes. I have some time in these old bones, yet. I do not want to spend it all at my own funeral.”
Eddie opened his mouth to apologize again, but the word caught in his throat. Instead, he wrapped his arms around his abuela and pulled her close, to hold her as tightly as he dared. She wrapped her arms around him and didn’t pull away, not for some time. When she did, it was with some reluctance and an attempt at discretely wiping her eyes.
“Buckito should’ve gotten the food set out by now,” she said with a sniff. “I hope they have not started eating without saying grace.”
“Buck wouldn’t let them,” he assured her.
They made their way back inside, a slow and easy pace, with Eddie holding the door open for her. Everyone had already been served, or perhaps served themselves, but they were all sitting patiently, with the exception of Gavin, who was already chewing on a piece of ham. Someone, it was probably Buck, had even set out plates full of food for the two of them. Eddie walked her to her seat at the head of the table and pulled the chair out for her, receiving a quiet “gracias” and a quick peck on the cheek in payment.
He took his own seat between her and Buck, taking both of their hands in his own when they were offered. While Abuela led them in grace, her voice steady through the words she had spoken a hundred thousand times before, Buck caught his eye. The question was silent and unspoken, but loud all the same. Eddie shook his head in answer. They’ll talk about it later.
February
It wasn’t precisely planned, their going out for Valentine’s Day. Not by them, anyways. But Bobby came over and practically kidnapped Gavin and Chris, after the latter came home from school, with the declaration that he was taking them to May’s. And then Abuela chased them out the door with Pepa’s aid. Buck didn’t resist it too hard, though, and neither had Eddie.
In early January, Eddie was called up as one of those selected to help fight the blazes threatening to consume the city. He wasn’t the only one, the same special deployment list was used from when they were sent off to fight the wildfires in Texas. Except this time, Buck hadn’t been sent with him, because someone still needed to respond to all the everyday emergencies in the parts of Los Angeles that weren’t burning. And so, for weeks, Eddie had been so close yet so fucking far.
Buck would like to think he coped with the separation quite well; everyone else’s opinions on the matter were not to be trusted. Though, yes, there might’ve been a little bit of crying on both their parts when Eddie finally came home at the beginning of the week. Buck couldn’t deny that fact, no matter how much the two of them might want to, because their brat of a son posted video proof of it to the internet.
There’d been palpable relief from everyone else the day prior, when Eddie walked into the station for his first shift back. More so than for the others that had been drafted up and returned.
(Buck might’ve gotten a bit unbearable towards the end.)
“I don’t think this is quite what they had in mind, mi sol,” Eddie said, picking out a fry from the bag clutched between his knees. There was a bright purple flower tucked behind his ear, from the bouquet that Buck stopped to get him.
They were both perched on the hood of the jeep, overlooking one of the city’s beaches - the Santa Monica pier jutted out into the black ocean a bit north of them, a dark shape outlined by bright, fluorescent lights. A lack of time to make a reservation, plus the way everything had been thrown out of sorts, meant they’d made do with hitting a drive-thru. Neither of them really cared, in truth.
They were not the only ones at the beach. While it wasn’t as crowded as it typically was, even accounting for the off-season, it was still impressive just how quickly everyone went from “Oh, God, everything’s on fire and we’re all going to die!” to “What? Oh, yeah. Whatever.” Buck was pretty sure houses were still burning when the transition happened.
“I don’t think I care,” Buck told his husband. The way he pressed closer to him was only partially because of the cool night air; it had rained the last couple of days, thankfully. “If they wanted us to have a fancy date night, they coulda done the work for it themselves.”
“Wow. So I’m not even worth the effort of doing it yourself anymore,” Eddie teased.
“Shut up.” Buck smacked him in the stomach; the thin cushion that had been there before was gone, something he’d taken note of before but still kept being surprised by. Eddie had come home to him haggard and worn. “Are you excited?”
In a couple weeks, Eddie would be starting the courses to officially be paramedic certified. They were supposed to have begun earlier, but things had been delayed on account of apocalyptic conditions. Plus, Eddie’s background as an army medic was transferring over as credit towards… Something or other, Buck wasn’t entirely certain. He just knew Eddie would be missing a lot of shifts until it finished, and then he’d actually be getting paid for the paramedic work he got shoved into so often.
“A bit,” Eddie said. He dug into his bag again, frowned when he came up empty, and didn’t even hesitate to reach into Buck’s for a fry. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone to school.”
“Eh, you and Chris helped me.” Buck bumped their shoulders together with a smile. “We’ll help you. Though I don’t think you’ll need it quite so much. Oh! We need to get you school supplies!”
“Oh, could I get a Superman lunchbox? Please? All the cool kids have ‘em!” Eddie pitched his voice high, making them both laugh. “You sure y’all will be okay without me? I heard the horror stories from last month.”
“It won’t be so bad this time, since we won’t be down so many,” Buck told him. It had been painful, because they were all stretched so thin and it seemed like so many people were taking the opportunity to be idiots. “We’ve got a new probie starting on Sunday, anyway. You’ll hardly be missed.”
Buck threw his husband a grin. Eddie scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“Know anything about ‘em?”
“Just what was on the paperwork I was sent,” Buck said. “Pops took me to the academy to watch the class, a couple weeks ago. Claimed it was for a scouting mission, but I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be looking for.”
Plus, Buck was fairly certain it had mainly been an attempt by Bobby to distract him from Eddie’s absence. Bobby spent the time as they watched the cadets run through drills making comments on each of them, and Buck dutifully jotted them down on the clipboard he brought along. It was close enough to graduation that the ones who couldn’t hack it were already long winnowed out, but there were one or two that he knew weren’t going to make it to the end of the year if they didn’t shape up, just by how they acted with the others.
The problem, mainly, was that Buck had no clue what to look for. Sure, by this point in his career, he knew the things that made a good firefighter on paper. But he was also well aware that they weren’t individuals existing in a vacuum, that the ability to fit in with the rest of the team was just as important. More important, even. It had been part of why Bobby recruited Eddie so hard, why he poached Ravi from B-shift and Albert from the 133. It had been the second biggest reason that Dalton Wolfe didn’t work out.
Buck knew what made a bad recruit, that was easy. But the specific things to look for in a good one? He wasn’t so good at that yet. He was just stuck hoping that the new probie would work out and it wouldn’t be as big of a disaster as the last one.
(No one from the recent group of graduates was related to any of the brass, that was something he’d made a point of checking.)
“Sounds like a good father-son bonding exercise,” Eddie quipped. “Hopefully this probie won’t start any fires.”
“That is literally my bare minimum,” Buck said. He sighed and let his head fall onto Eddie’s shoulder. “I missed you, baby.”
He could feel the smile on Eddie’s lips when they brushed against his hair, and he could hear it in his voice when he said,
“I missed you, too.”
Sunday shifts were not Buck’s favorite. Sundays were supposed to be reserved for days spent in the kitchen and evenings spent around the dining table, surrounded by all his family. Unfortunately, he chose a job with a shift schedule that did not allow them to get every weekend off. He wouldn’t trade it for the world, a nine to five desk job was pretty much his version of hell, but it still sucked at times.
As always, he and Eddie arrived at the station already in their uniform and earlier than the rest of their shift. Eddie took their bags with their change of clothes to their lockers, Buck losing sight of him when he went into the locker room. Towards the end of January, in the middle of what might have quite possibly been a fit of mania, Buck brought in rolls of privacy film that he’d paid for with his own money and spent a shift applying it to the glass panes between calls, because he’d taken one look at them in the middle of their previous shift and just finally had it with the lack of privacy. He couldn’t even remember what it was that finally pushed him to and then right on over the edge.
No one bothered him while he worked, everyone giving him a wide berth until he was done.
(It was possible he didn’t handle Eddie’s prolonged absence quite as well as he’d like to claim.)
Captain Mayfair was upstairs, sitting at one of the smaller tables with paperwork spread out in front of her as her crew finished up and prepared for the handover. She was looking more than a bit strained these days, the dark circles beneath her eyes steadily growing over the past month. She lived in Altadena.
Past tense.
“Morning Buck,” she greeted him, with just as much cheer as usual. “Yesterday wasn’t all that exciting, nothing really to tell you about. Everything’s in the book.”
The book being the logbook, where the captains jotted down everything and anything important that happened on their shifts. The calls they went on, incidents of note, if they went on a grocery run, if they exploded any vehicles, all of it written down and dated. Past ones were tucked away in a filing cabinet in the captain’s office.
“Aw, dang it Maria, now you’ve jinxed us,” Buck complained without any heat as he took the seat across from her. “How’s…?”
He trailed off. It was the same question he’d asked her at every shift change since the fires started. The answers she gave didn’t change very much, either.
“We’re all fine,” she said, the same answer. “Our insurance company is already being a pain. Did Tim tell you?”
Tim Reynolds was the captain for their B-shift, as large in form as he was in personality.
“He mentioned his daughter finally settled on a school, somewhere out east,” Buck said, a bit uncertain. “Why?”
“He’s thinking about retiring, mentioned it to me yesterday morning.”
“That’s…” Buck was gonna say it was a bit sudden, but it really wasn’t. The man had been here since before even Bobby, taking command of his shift sometime after Gerrard got the boot and the brass started cleaning out the house. “Did he say why?”
“Doc diagnosed him with COPD,” she said, both of them grimacing with it. “And the last of his brood is about to leave the nest.”
“How many kids does he have?”
“I don’t know. Seven? Eight? Too many.” Mayfair shook her head. “His poor wife.”
Personally, Buck thought seven or eight kids sounded perfectly fine. Then again, short of a medical miracle, he wasn’t the one that would have to carry them around for nine months before squeezing them out in a mess of screams and blood. That probably tended to color one’s opinion on these things.
There were things he had to do before his shift got started, instead of sitting around chatting. However much he enjoyed sitting around chatting. Most of it surrounded the new probie that would be starting today, including assigning them a locker and a gear cage, and making sure their turnouts were there. There was also the various paperwork that needed to be printed off.
By the time he got all of that done and started on breakfast for everyone who might want some, his shift had trickled in while the previous changed and hurried out. Hen, of all people, chose to invade the space for the morning. She usually spent it watching the morning news or chatting with Chimney. But Buck meant to check in with her, anyway, so this was more than fine.
“How’s the neighborhood?” he asked, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder.
“Mostly okay,” she said. Hen lived in Altadena, too. “We were extremely lucky.”
“No kidding,” Eddie added, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He opened his mouth to no doubt thank the machine as he did Hildy, caught himself, and then glared at Buck when he sniggered. “It was a nightmare.”
“He was a nightmare while you were gone,” Hen said, and it was Buck’s turn to glare at someone.
“I was not that bad!”
“I’m pretty sure you made Ravi cry.”
“I did not!” he protested. “Did I?”
“Uh, hi?” A woman’s cheery yet uncertain voice had him turning around. She stood at the head of the stairs, a denim jacket over a black top, a duffel bag hanging from her shoulder. Her hair was braided in tight plaits that fell to just below her chin and hung around her face. “I’m Maribel Frey, they told me to report to Captain Diaz? Someone downstairs told me he was up here.”
“That would be me!” Buck raised his spatula in a wave. “You can just call me Buck.”
“Okay, Captain Buck.”
He elbowed Eddie when his husband hid an amused snort in his coffee.
“Important questions first,” Buck said. “Anything you prefer to go by?”
“Everyone calls me Bell,” was the answer he got, along with a shrug.
“Bell it is, then. And anything you can’t eat?”
“I have a shellfish allergy?”
“My shrimpathies,” he told her, and grinned at the groan it elicited from everyone in the loft. “This is just scrambled eggs, though. You want some?”
“Sure!” Bell bounced a little as she said it.
“Then grab a plate,” he told her, and raised his voice to let the others know that, “Food’s done!”