Done Well – 1 – DarkJediQueen

Reading Time:
50 Minutes

Buck pulled onto Eddie’s street, and he frowned at the house, seeing that there was nothing strange about it. He wondered whatEddie wanted out of him. He hadn’t been told what Eddie wanted other than that Eddie wanted him to talk to him. He expected there to be someone else there, like Eddie needing him wasn’t out of the norm, but Eddie usually gave him more.

Buck knew that things had been hard for Eddie since Shannon’s death, but he had tried to support Eddie as much as he could. Before he had been blown up, Buck had been around Chris a lot, shouldering the burden of taking care of him when Carla couldn’t, when it came to giving Eddie time to work on Shannon’s effects. The apartment she had been living in, the last of the things from her mother’s estate that fell to Eddie now, since they were still married. Everything was going into a trust for Chris because it was all that Eddie could think to do with it, but it meant a lot of meetings with a lawyer, and that meant that Chris would be bored as hell just sitting in the waiting room of the office.

Eddie was taking longer to get it done because he had to schedule stuff around his and Chris’ already full schedule with work and school. Buck didn’t mind helping at all. He liked being useful, and after everything with the lawsuit, he wanted to make sure that Eddie knew that he was all there. It still felt wrong when Eddie was very much upset by what happened. Which was shitty as hell, but Buck could only be the one to stay by his side until Eddie stopped acting like a kicked puppy.

It was the military in Eddie, Buck knew that. It was why Buck had not lasted even trying out for the SEALs. He had been able to do the physical part of it so well, but in the end, he couldn’t be the perfect soldier who was a killing machine. SEALs didn’t have places for people like Buck.

Buck parked the Jeep, and he debated how long he could sit there before Eddie looked out and saw him. He shut off the Jeep and jumped when his phone started to ring. He had forgotten that he turned the ringer up a lot when he had been working on stuff and waiting on a call from the super about coming to do a small repair of something inside the loft. It was Bobby. Buck answered and put Bobby on speaker and laid the phone in the holder so he could be hands-free.

“Hey, Bobby,” Buck said, sounding more chipper than he felt.

“Are you busy?”

“Nah, just sitting in the Jeep getting ready to get out. What do you need?”

“Do you want to come over?”

Buck felt like he was in trouble. He swallowed and looked at the house where Eddie was looking out the window, but was just staring at him. That wasn’t normal Eddie behavior.

“I’m getting ready to head into Eddie’s. He called me over for a talk.”

“Ah, he got the nerve up before I could call you. Look, I know that I handled Eddie’s joining the team a little wrong. You didn’t even know that we were filling that spot after being put on a hiring freeze, so I get it. I know that I made it a little worse than it should be, so I wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Heads up about what?”

“Eddie didn’t pass the exams to go back to work. The near-death experience after your lawsuit meant that he was put through a little more of a ringer, and he’s not happy, but I told him that I would have his spot warm for him when he got back.”

“So you are getting a replacement for Eddie?”

“Short term only. I know a guy who is looking for a change of scenery after a hard loss on the job. He wants to get away from where it was, and he used to work at the 118, and when I saw his name being floated to certain houses that have some people going out for various kinds of leave, I jumped at the chance to snag him.”

“Who?”

“Nope, you don’t get to know that name. I know that there are a few names you would know, but you are going to tell Hena and Chim, and I want it to be a surprise. He’s a good man, and he’s going to be perfect for you to fill the spot that Eddie’s leaving on the team. He’ll be there on the next shift tomorrow. He might have a day to adjust because he’s not been on a ground crew in a few years.”

Ground crew meant their kind of teams, which meant that this guy either worked out of the 217 or one of the SAR branches. That meant he was good at what he did, which was all that Buck cared about since Eddie would be back.

“Is that what Eddie wants to talk to me about?”

“He wants to tell you about his side of things, not just the whole not passing the mental exam, but where his head is at after the well.”

That kind of shocked Buck because Eddie didn’t do that kind of shit. Hell, Buck and Hen were the two on the team who were most in touch with their feelings. Eddie buried shit, and it was part of why the whole fight club thing had happened. Buck knew that Eddie would have punched him in the store if Eddie hadn’t been around the rest of the team. He had seen it in his eyes. He knew the kind of man Eddie was when he was down to his base feelings. He tried not to be that persona, and that was why Buck liked him. He controlled himself, and he tried. After Shannon, things had been hard. They had never talked about that part of things. Eddie didn’t seem to want to like how he had leaned too much on Buck.

The therapy that Buck was in right now was dealing with the lawsuit and his own fucked up childhood. He had debated actually doing it, but then he had started to slip back into the place where he was willing to give himself up to make things better. The way he was wasn’t the best. He didn’t want to be like that anymore. He wanted to be happy, and he wanted to love people because they loved him, not because of what he could do for them.

On the job, Buck was at his best. He handled the job like a fucking boss, the well notwithstanding, but if that had been anyone else stuck in that well, he would have been the same. That was his work partner, yes, but if that had been Chim down there. He would have been the same. If it were Bobby, he would have been worse. The thing that had stuck out with him was that he wasn’t sure there was a single person on the team at that moment who would have reacted like Buck did if it had been under there. other than Bobby, but Bobby’s the captain, and he would react like that but be restrained.

“That’s good. Sorry, I was thinking about something there. Um, I’m going to go because Eddie looks like he’s at the end of his rope waiting for me to go into the house.”

“If you need to come over after you are done there, just text me. I’m here, and Athena’s out working. May’s around somewhere, and Harry’s with Michael, so we will mostly be alone. May’s good at staying away when she understands that she doesn’t need to be a part of that conversation.”

“Thanks, Bobby. I will. Um, can I meet the guy outside of work?”

“Buck, you’ll be fine. He’s great, and he’ll mesh with you well, I promise. You are both damned good at your job. He’s been in the LAFD for a long time.”

Buck knew that there were guys out there who started when they were eighteen, but he hadn’t been one, so being on the job a long time didn’t mean he was much older than him. Chim and Hen had both started late in the game as well. Bobby had been in since he graduated high school, but he had been in Minnesota. He would have to get over the nerves of dealing with floaters. They used them a good bit, but usually it wasn’t their core four team. When Bobby was out, there were random people on the shift who stepped up, or even one of the captains from the other shift if Bobby just had a meeting or something like that. When the rest of them were out, there were floaters who Buck knew nothing about, but they didn’t usually want to work steadily at the same station for a long time.

“How long will Eddie be out?”

“He thinks a few weeks, but things could be longer. My guy will be willing to stay with us until the point in time that Eddie can come back, even if he’s cleared himself to go back up in the air.”

“Bye, Bobby,” Buck said, and he waited for Bobby to say his goodbyes before he hung up and looked at Eddie again. Eddie was still in the window, and he looked worried. Buck smiled as he got out of the Jeep, nearly forgetting to grab his phone and the bag he had brought with him. He wanted to try to make scones, and he thought that since Eddie wanted to talk, it would give them both something to do that would keep their hands busy while they talked.

Eddie met Buck at the door with a grim smile on his face. Buck just gave him a bright smile.

“Hey, I’m glad you are taking the time that you need,” Buck said.

Eddie’s shoulders slumped like a weight had been lifted off. “Bobby called?”

“Yeah, he nearly didn’t get me in time. I’m glad that I got to hear from him about the replacement for you from Bobby after the fumble that was you joining the team.”

Eddie rubbed the back of his neck, and he looked at least a little guilty about that. “Yeah, it was the perfect storm. I get why you were upset thinking I was replacing you while the Abby stuff was going on, and then I got along with everyone after you had such a hard time getting any of them to like you. I heard from Bobby that things were rough when you came in because while the team loved the guy you replaced, they kind of felt alone, and it was just…I think you were the change for them to be honest.”

“Yeah, that’s what my therapist thinks as well.”

“You are going to therapy?”

“I was having issues, and I didn’t have anyone to help me through it, so I thought that I would try it.”

Eddie looked at Buck like he was seeing him for the first time. “No one to help you through it? You have all of us.”

Buck shrugged because he didn’t want to get into that. Yeah, they were there for the big stuff, but even after his leg, they had slipped away. They had their lives, and Buck had no one. So he had to become someone who didn’t need anyone else to help take care of him. It was just the way it was. It was just the life he was living. There was nothing to do about it because it was what it was. He just had to find someone to be there in his corner every time that he needed them, which meant a best friend who he could be the same for or a girlfriend who would actually stick around.

“Buck,” Eddie said.

“You have your own lives. You guys were there at the start with me after my leg was crushed by the ladder truck in the bombing. You were all there for the big shit, but then as time went on, the needs of your life were bigger than my needing things. I went three weeks without seeing any of you. I would text, but no one had time, and that’s fine. I just learned that everything else in your lives is more important than me. And that’s okay.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Eddie said.

“It’s what it is. I’m never going to ask you to put me before Chris in anything; I would never do the same with Hen and the kids.”

“You aren’t mentioning Maddie.”

“I learned a long time ago that her significant others were always going to be more important than me. That’s just something that is with her. She wants someone in her life more than she wants me. That’s fine.”

“And Bobby.”

“I think his guilt over the bombing is what drove him away there at the end. I know that it had to be hard to see me like that, but I needed someone because I was still stuck at home a lot, and taking an Uber or other public transport kind of sucked. I could walk places that were close to the apartment, but it got boring after a while.”

Eddie exhaled like he was seeing things for the first time from Buck’s POV, which was fine. It wasn’t like he was that important to anyone. He got it. He was the lovable younger brother to them, and sometimes the happy, go-lucky dog who didn’t need anything and soaked up whatever little love was sent his way. His therapist hadn’t used those words, but also hadn’t told Buck that he was crazy for thinking that one he said shit from his POV.

“I’m sure that from other POVs it’s different, but that’s the point of therapy. To see my side and make sure that I’m not the one who is fucking it up. I need to learn how to adapt to the life I’ve got. I’m glad you are getting the help that you need.”

“I almost gave up in that tunnel. I nearly did, but it was Chris who brought me back. I couldn’t leave him. Shannon did. She hadn’t been planning on it being so permanent, but she did, and I could not do that to him.”

Buck nodded, and he slipped over to hug Eddie. Eddie clung to him, and it felt like maybe this was going to be good for Eddie. Taking the time that he should have taken in the wake of Shannon’s death, it was later, but it was better than never.

“So, Bobby let me meet the guy who is going to replace me at the station. I think you’ll like him. He’s good at what he does. He also promised me that he was going to take care of you.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of,” Buck said.

“Not like you think, but you need someone to ground you, someone to push you. I know you, Buck. I’ve learned that over the last two years that I’ve been your partner. You need someone who is going to challenge you, and it makes you better. So that’s what I want him to do.”

Buck wasn’t going to cry. He felt like he needed a few moments to himself, so he slipped out to the bathroom. He wanted to have Eddie with him on the job, but maybe it would be good to have someone else who pushed him; maybe it would be the good thing that he needed.

Only time would tell how well this new guy did with Buck.

—

“Are you really going back there?” Sal said as he stepped into Tommy’s house without even knocking or greeting Tommy in any fashion.

Tommy sighed and knew that this was going to need more than the beer he had thought they were going to drink. He went to the kitchen without even answering Sal. If Sal heard about it, then that meant that Sal knew about it. He knew that it was true.

“Bobby needs someone, and I need a way out of a helicopter every single day,” Tommy said.

“How is the therapy going?”

“Good. I’m…opening up more, but I need to get a lot of things under control. I need more therapy than I can get while I’m faced with a helicopter every day. This is more than just getting back on the horse can fix. I know it’s not my fault, but I feel like I could have done more.”

Sal said nothing, which was good. Tommy worked on getting stuff together for three cocktails, two for him and one for Sal, so that Sal would be able to drive home without issue. Neither of them ever drank enough to make them even think that they might have a few seconds of delay when driving. They had seen too much shit. LA, being a city full of Uber drivers and other kinds of transport, made team drinking nights good. He remembered Bobby driving some of them home sometimes, too, then collecting them the next day to take them to get their cars.

“So, ground crew with another station, so you aren’t faced with the same helicopters you are supposed to be flying?”

“Yes. I’ve been in contact with Howie more after the thing where he finally got a hold of me to help with a water drop with dispatch being down. I knew that shit went down there, and the guy who needs someone else to replace him for a while is also getting the mental help that he needs, only his needs to be without him working, where I need to do something to keep me busy. However, the guy has a kid, a pretty sweet kid at that. He was happy to talk to me for a few moments to make sure that I was good to work with his Bucky.”

“Buck? That’s the one who replaced you, right? Nash had filled my spot, and then that asshole left, right?”

“Yeah, Bobby was so fucking pissed at him. That’s when he decided to go with a recruit for the guy to hopefully finally replace you. He had a few issues with that as well, but settled on the guy I’m replacing, which I find funny as hell.”

“Yeah, I always knew that you wanted to be better than me, and replacing me for a short time makes you feel better,” Sal said.

Tommy’s hoved him and handed over the drink before he waved him out into the backyard.

“Who is moving next door?” Sal asked.

“I’m not sure. Not met them. They were there over the weekend working on the walls. I know that the last tenants didn’t take care of the place and the landlord hadn’t been able to get the place fully fixed up before they made an offer that he couldn’t pass up for the place, and was told that the walls were going to be gutted anyway when they replaced the electrical so he might as well just not even touch that. Their last house burned after an issue with the electrical system, which they had been renting, and the landlord tried to blame it on them. Still, the investigator found the issue to be the wiring that should have been updated years before, after a small fire in the kitchen from a stove fire. He cut corners when getting the place ready for renting again. It was a whole mess.”

“Yo know a lot for someone who has never met them.”

“That’s what the realtor told me when I talked to her. It was an enlightening talk. I was pretty sure that they were going to turn the place down, but they liked it. Still, I don’t mind a couple moving in next door. You know that I don’t care about anything but them not having parties that keep me up all night before I have to work.”

Sal held up a glass, and Tommy clinked his off it. Then he sat down in the chair that he liked to sit in. His backyard wasn’t as good as he wanted it to be, but he was hopeful that he would get it worked on more while he had the time, because he would end up working closer to normal hours. After all, there were days when he worked overtime because a flight thing started before the shift ended, and someone else got in from the next shift.

“You sure you want to go back there? Have you told any of them about…” Sal trailed off.

“I told Hen after I left, and I’m pretty sure that Bobby knows. It’ll just be Howie, and honestly, once he knows everyone else, they will know. You know that he cannot keep a secret that’s not about him from anyone. He just bursts it out.”

Sal laughed, and he relaxed back in his seat, and he sighed. “I just worry about you. Gina does too.”

“I know.” Tommy would take care too. His and Sal’s friendship was hard-won. They were both idiots years before, and while they banded together against Gerrard as much as possible, it was Sal who had forced him to see that what he was doing to his ex-fiance wasn’t what he should be doing. He needed to accept that he was gay. Sal hadn’t come out and said gay, but that he might not love a woman like that. Tommy had not been happy with him, but after a time, he had settled down. He had broken things off and had been happier for it. It had been a hard fight to accept himself as gay, and the therapy with that was something that he had fought against. It was why he had been more than willing to go after nearly dying.

There were days when he woke up and wished he had died too. That was what scared him. That was why he had started to talk to someone about something deeper going on in his brain than just being the only one who survived the crash. It wasn’t that he wanted to die so that the mother and three kids in here could live; no, he wanted to die along with them.

It had been impossible to stop the crash. There had been someone who had shot a fucking rocket launcher at the tail of his helicopter; there had only been getting them landed. The issue came when he had been made to dodge a second on that which had been dead for them. It had been an act that had been looked into by the FBI, and the perp had been found, someone who thought that he was a disguised SWAT helicopter. He had, of course, not been a cop helicopter at all. No, he had been a LAFD helicopter that had been airlifting a mother and her three children out of there. The mother had been stable enough, and with the weight of the kids, he hadn’t been able to take his work partner with him. He was glad about that because Miriam was new at the station and would have hated to have her die as well. It had ended with the kids getting thrown out and the mother dying in the crash. Tommy had come out with a concussion and bruised ribs, which was the worst of it.

“So, you will be filling in while this guy is out and then swap back to Harbor when the time comes?”

“Yeah, I’m going to work my best there and hope that by the time Diaz comes back to work, I’ll be able to get into a helicopter again. Melton’s ready for me to get back there, but he’s also not pushing me because he knows that pushing means that I could choke when the time comes. I have been shot down before, but never in LA.”

Sal nodded at that because he had heard all of the stories. Sal hadn’t been able to join the Army as he had planned out of high school, and he didn’t want to be a cop, so that was why he had joined the LAFD.

“So, Sally’s asking for books that are her age level on being queer,” Sal said.

“Yeah? Which aspects?” Tommy asked. He could do this talking. This kind of talk was normal for him. He was glad that Sal was accepting his reasons for going back to the 118. It wasn’t regression; it was retreating to a place where he knew he was safe to work, and he did want to work. He wanted to be happy again. Well, he was happy, but he wanted to be happy to work again, with the helicopters that he loved. He loved flying. He loved living and felt like there were times when he only lived when he was in the cockpit.

“Not gender, or at least no trans it seems. She doesn’t know if she likes boys or girls, or neither. That’s the big thing. She doesn’t know if she likes anyone. She said that getting kissed by Abigail and by Harold at school felt the same, disgusting.”

“Ah, okay. So she could be ace or demi.”

“I need a primer on those things.”

“I’ll get you a book. I’ll also find a few books for her and go and talk to her. I know that they know I’m gay and there to talk to them about anything they want that they feel they don’t want to talk to you about, but I will reaffirm that.”

Sal held up his glass as a toast, but didn’t wait for Tommy to raise his again. There was something soft about the way that Sal was now, fully settled at his station where he never wanted to go. Sal would never admit to Bobby that the move away from the 118 was the best thing for him. He saw what everyone said he was lacking when it came to being a captain, because he had been the stand-in of sorts for too long. After all, there was no voice in the room that anyone listened to at the 118. Tommy knew that it had been good for him, and he had been happy about the move for his friend, even if his friend didn’t think it was a good move.

“If you need a different station, let me know. I can find a space for you with my captain,” Sal said.

Tommy nodded. He didn’t think he was going to need that out. Bobby ran a good team, but the outs were there all the same, and it was a good thing.

—

Tommy shouldered his bag as he shut the door to his truck. He looked at the 118, a place where he thought he escaped and would never have to face again, but this time, looking at the facade on the outside of the building didn’t fill him with dread. He wasn’t sure what was going to come of the trip there, but he was hopeful that things would be fine. He wasn’t early by the normal strength, but he knew that Bobby would already be there, and he wasn’t sure who else would be there from the shift. Bobby hadn’t gone over who was still there beyond Hen and Howie.

“Henrietta Wilson,” Tommy said when he saw her on a ladder affixing the banner that welcomed him back. He was happy that it wasn’t overt, but the coloring of the banner was the gay pride flag colors, which was good. He was glad that he wasn’t going to have to be kept silent.

“You are early, Kinard, and that is the only one you get.” Hen was careful as she went down the ladder. She glared at Tommy before opening her arms.

Tommy tossed his bag down on the floor, and he moved over to hug her. He hugged her tightly, and he was glad that she still gave fucking good hugs.

“I’m always early, and you know it.”

“Yeah, when it’s not Gerrard who is here. The rest of the shift beyond Buck isn’t here yet. He’s up in the loft working on breakfast.”

“Not Bobby?”

“Oh, Bobby’s up there, but I didn’t figure that you wouldn’t think that he wasn’t here.”

“That’s good. I’ll head to the locker room.”

“You have the locker that has a red heart on it beside Buck’s locker. You can store your stuff there. We have been given your turnouts already from Harbor, and a new helmet should be in your turnout locker. Please check those over as soon as you can.”

Tommy nodded. He took the out as what it could be. He headed to put up his things in the locker room. It was easy to find Buck’s locker, and it wasn’t because of the whole thing with the red heart. Now, Buck’s locker was covered in a bunch of pictures of him and a kid, along with who Tommy assumed was Diaz, given the LAFD shift they were both sporting. Buck’s locker was also open. Tommy was glad that things with Buck and Diaz were going well on that front. He knew that sometimes losing the person that one worked with was harder, even if they were going to be back. Tommy had vowed to go off Buck’s cue when it came to things. Yes, Tommy had been a firefighter a long time, and he had been at the station longer than Buck, but right now, Tommy was the interloper.

Then he checked his helmet to make sure that it would fit his big head. He glanced at the loft where he was sure that Bobby and Buck knew he was here already because Hen hadn’t been silent, but he was hopeful that they would let him head up there in his own time. This place was some of his good memories of his job, but also the worst. It was also safe as hell with Bobby there, and it was the whole reason why he had picked it.

When there was nothing else to do, Tommy headed up the stairs to see what was on offer for breakfast. Bobby had told him to bring an appetite and that they had an hour and a half after the start of the shift with some downtime to get Tommy used to a few things that would be different from when he was here the last time.

Tommy stopped in his tracks as he saw the guy who was with Bobby at the stove laughing. He really, really hoped that was not Buck because he wasn’t sure that he was going to survive working with him. He was like all of Tommy’s wants in a single package. He was big and looked like he was still packing on the muscle at that. He had a smile that made Tommy’s gut clench. His hair looked like it was gelled down, but also like it could be curly. Tommy wanted to run his fingers through it to see if he could get it to pop up.

“Tommy came over here and met Buck,” Bobby said when he finally noticed that Tommy was there.

Tommy went over, and he cursed himself for having a preference for me.

“Bobby,” Tommy said.

“Buck, this is Tommy Kinard. He used to work here, I think…we had Robbins to replace, Sal, right?”

“Yes, then Robbins left because his wife got a job across the country, and then you were looking for that one guy when I left, who I found out was not a good fit at all. So, yes, Buck is the guy who replaced me, and I’m filling in for the guy who ultimately replaced Sal.”

Bobby laughed, and he held out his hand. Bobby seemed lighter now; there didn’t seem to be as big an issue as he had when Tommy was still there, which was good because it was better that way.

“Evan Buckley,” Buck said when he held out his hand.

“Thank you for not introducing yourself as Buck Buckley. I might start looking for chicken.”

“As long as it’s not a rooster, right?” Bobby asked.

Tommy glared at Bobby, but he grinned a little. “I mean, it’s a good thing that we were on that call, right? You ended up marrying Sergeant Grant, right?”

“What?” Buck asked as he looked at Tommy and then at Bobby before looking back at Bobby.

“It was right after Bobby started. We got a call out to deal with a guy who had been attacked. We had a lot of fun trying to catch the rooster with a blade on its foot. None of us had ever had to chase a chicken, so we were not doing well at all. In the end, Bobby is the one who caught Maurice, and then Sergeant Grant showed up, and Bobby just calmly handed over the perp to her and left. She was so pissed.” Tommy could see the smile on Bobby’s face, the happiness there that had never been there when Tommy had worked there.

Howie had said that Buck joining the team had been the change in Bobby that was needed. Now, if only Tommy could figure out what was going on with the lawsuit, because they had all heard about it. Tommy hadn’t thought much about it. He had heard from Howie about it and a little from Hen, but Tommy thought that maybe part of it was that they were too attached to Bobby to see both sides of it. If that had been Gerrard or any of the parade of captains after him keeping them from the job, they would have sued faster. Tommy didn’t know why the union wasn’t gone through, but he had a few ideas. Sal also had ideas, and he had been dealing with those issues he knew were there for a while.

“I’ve never heard that before. I didn’t realize that your first meeting was like that. I mean, I know that she was married then, so I get why you might not want to talk to others about it. But me?” Buck asked.

“I actually forgot it was our first meeting. I’ll have to talk to Athena about it because I’m sure that she didn’t remember either. Neither of us was in a place where we wanted to have anything close to a relationship. Maybe I should buy something to take home.” Bobby turned away from them and started to type on his phone.

Tommy was pretty much left alone with Buck, who was looking at the stove like he was trying to watch the eggs there.

“So, do you like it here?”

“Yes,” Buck said. He looked up at Tommy and grinned. The smile softened, and Tommy felt that jolt in his stomach. This was not the time or the place for that, especially since he didn’t know what sexuality Buck was. He didn’t want to hit on him and make it a thing. He tried to remember if this was the probie that Howie griped about a lot right after Tommy left back in 2018. It felt like forever and also so short a time ago.

“I’m glad. This place wasn’t good before Bobby got here. He made it better, which I was glad to have been a part of before I left.”

“Helicopters, right? That’s what Hen said yesterday when I pestered her about the guy whom I replaced. You fly?”

“Yes, and please don’t ask about why I don’t want to fly right now.”

“Oh, I understand. Don’t ask about the bombing and the lawsuit.”

Tommy liked that boundary. He hadn’t been the best at boundaries for a long while, but he was working on them. The only person in his life who didn’t cross them on purpose was Sal. He crossed a few on accident, but usually when he was pushing Tommy to do something that he needed, so Tommy forgave him because he knew that Sal would never do it unless he felt he had to. It was going to be an interesting stay here working.

The rest of the shift came in, and there were faces that Tommy knew who were happy to see him again. Hugs and smiles were the norm, and Tommy was glad about that because he felt like he was being welcomed back after being gone, and that was always good, especially given how the whole shift was tight-knit these days.

After the meal, where the rest of the shift got to know him a little bit, and Buck stayed pretty close to him, Buck took him down to the engines and showed him the ropes, and Tommy was glad because there were things that were not in the same place where they had been when he was there. New guys meant new places for things, and that sometimes was a good thing. Everything worked well, and it was closer to how the engines were at Harbor when they were used. It was going to be interesting to see how he did the first call out.

“How are you feeling?” Bobby asked when he found Tommy along for the first time since he had come into the station.

“Good. I feel good.”

“If Buck gets too much, just let me know. He can be a lot.”

“NAh, he’s fine. He needs the stimulation, and talking to him before bringing me in seems to have helped.”

“He told you?”

“He didn’t want me to be worried. He told me all about Diaz’s introduction and how it could have gone better if he had known that you were allowed to hire someone else into the station.”

Bobby rubbed the back of his head, and he laughed a little bit. “Yeah, that was not my finest moment. There were other reasons for that as well, but that’s more personal. Eddie and Buck have gotten close, and I thought for a while that I was going to have to file paperwork on them, but they have settled into brothers.”

Tommy nodded. He could see where that might be something that Bobby was worried about, but the way that Buck talked about Eddie was like Tommy and Sal were. There was a lot of respect and a love there that was more fraternal than romantic. Still, things would go the way they went when it came to things like that.

“Are you seeing anyone? I haven’t looked at your paperwork to see who your emergency contact is,” Bobby said.

“Still Sal and his wife. I haven’t been with someone for long enough to want to have them be called when I’m hurt.”

“So, if you get injured here, I have to deal with Deluca?” Bobby asked.

Tommy laughed, but before he could answer anything, the bell went off. They all listened to who was being called out, and it was all of them. Then Tommy moved to get his turnouts on. They were set to go.

—

Buck grabbed the gear that he could carry alone before taking it over to where they were going to be staging to get them down to the couple that was hanging by roots with a very little ledge to have their feet on. They had been standing on the cliff looking out into the city when it had given way. The drop-down was still pretty big, and they were afraid that an air strike was going to destabilize the area even more.

Tommy had agreed with the assessment when Buck made it about the cliff. The ground had given way when they had been looking down at the couple, so Hen was set up off to the side, where the ground seemed more stable, and radioed information on the cliff and everything around. They had the board laid out to spread out the weight of it as they worked on getting everything set up. Tommy was working on getting the harnesses for the two of them set up, as well as what they were going to be affixing to the two people they were heading down to save. They had their attack point picked with Buck and Tommy debating that in a way that made it seem like they had worked together longer than this, being their first call.

It reminded Buck of Eddie in a way that felt like it was old hat. Tommy was good at what he did, and he didn’t let ego get in the way. That he and Tommy were about the same in everything meant that, unlike with Eddie, sometimes, who weighed less, it was no big deal which one of them went down on which side.

“Buck!” Tommy called out, and then he tossed Buck’s harness to him.

The gear was all laid out so that Chim or Bobby could send down things if they needed them. It was better to have all of the possible gear out than to have to wait for someone to go and get it. Buck grabbed the harnesses out of the air, and he started to get it on him. He worked as fast as he could because he had no idea how long that couple could stand it. They were working from a new bit of equipment that allowed them to use stable arms to move them over once they got down over the side of the cliff. They weren’t going to go down where the couple went down, just to be safe. They would go off to the sides and then move toward where they were and hope that no other parts of the cliff gave way.

Buck got himself in position, and he looked to see Tommy going the same way. They both nodded and then made him jump down to get on the cliffside. Then Buck’s entire focus was on what he was doing. He worked himself down to where he was level with the couple. Then he started to move to the side, Bobby giving him help when he needed it by having Hen tell him what was happening with Tommy, or if he needed to go lower because of something in the way that he didn’t want to try to work around.

Tommy met him at the spot with the couple at the same time. It was the kind of thing that he and Eddie did. Buck smiled at him, and then he looked at the man who was on his side now. When they had started, it had been the other way around.

“My feet are smaller, and this ledge gave way a little,” the woman said.

“Brace them?” Tommy asked.

Buck nodded, and he moved to where the rope was above them all, and he made sure to help where he could, but he was ready to catch them if the ledge gave away or they lost their grip on the roots that were from the dead and mostly gone tree that was on the cliff. It was nerve-rattling just to hang there while Tommy did what he did, but he understood it. Buck had done that kind of thing before when Eddie had no way of stopping people from slipping down.

The moment that Tommy had the harness on the woman, he got her moved around to where she was behind him and hanging onto them, taking the time to get her clear of the area to get her up could cost the man his life. So she stayed where she was, hanging onto him. Then Buck was helping more because once the man was in the harness and then hooked to him, they were getting out of there, and it would be easy to get him up. They would clear this area just a little bit because of the issue the tree stump caused.

“Go,” Tommy said when he made the last clip with the harness, and then Buck was getting the guy moved around to where he was behind just as the ledge he was on gave way.

Buck waited for it to stop rolling down because he needed to have a secure place to get his foot to get moved over. Then he was going. They cleared the area, and the tree gave way and went down. The thud that it made when it hit the bottom was felt more in Buck’s chest than he heard it. He was glad that they had worked as well as they had together. It was good. He was happy about it. That meant that he could work with Tommy while Eddie was out.

Bobby started to help get him up, and the man was taken from him as soon as he was up, and they could get him. Then Buck could get himself up and over the edge. He dropped to his back and looked up. Despite not needing his strength that much, he felt like he had been lifting for hours. He looked over to see that Tommy looked the same.

Buck hoped that whatever Tommy was looking for while he was there was going to help him trust himself to get up in the air again.

—

“You and Buck get along,” Hen said as she came over with a cup of coffee in her hands. She sat down beside him.

A nightmare had woken Tommy long before he should have been awake, which was fine. He was dealing with the nightmares as they came. He wrote it down, and what he thought it was trying to get him to deal with. He would deal with it as much as he could before he talked to his therapist.

“We are both professionals.”

“I know that. You can get along with anyone because you want to get the job done. I never realized how much of that was you protecting yourself until you told me. I never hated you for it. I understand that under Gerrard, there were those who were like him, or at least seemed like it, and then there were those who were not. I heard rumors after you left that one of the guys died on your shift and that you all thought that Gerrard caused it, but no proof was ever found.”

“Yeah, we never proved enough to go to anyone, but we did submit an anonymous report about it, but we aren’t sure what ever came of that. We hope to one day find more information.”

“I’m shocked that Buck took Eddie being replaced as well as he did,” Hen said.

Tommy knew that Hen would get to her point at some point. He wasn’t shocked that she said what she said. He was pretty sure that she was of the mindset that Buck was a kid who needed to be watched a lot. He was sure that the lawsuit didn’t help, but he had been allowed back. Tommy had heard from Sal about how much the kid was offered before the case went to a jury because it was a slam fucking dunk about him winning. The LAFD didn’t give away that much money unless they were sure that the winning of the case was a sure thing and that he would be given so much more. That Buck just wanted his job back, talked about how much Buck did want back.

“Telling him what’s happening is something that helps, so it’s understandable to do it. I know that every single whim doesn’t need to be dealt with, but a good captain knows the best way to make sure that they are telling their team things in the best way. He seems like his life wasn’t the best.”

“What do you mean?” Hen asked.

“He checks in with Bobby a lot, and I don’t just mean if he needs something from Bobby or needs something else to do. He looks at all of you like you are going to disappear. I don’t know if that started before the lawsuit or not. I’ve never met him before.”

“What did you think of the lawsuit and him telling his lawyer everything that went on here?”

Tommy just stared at Hen. She liked it blunt, and while she liked being the one to give that kind of stuff over, she was usually happy someone gave her the same treatment back. “I know what Sal told me about the facts of the case, how much Buck was offered, and what he took in return. The money to help with the medical bills and everything else when he was not getting disability anymore, since insurance wouldn’t pay it, considering he was cleared to go back to work, and he was not allowed at first, and then given a desk job. The city got off lucky that he wasn’t actually looking for money. Also, to what he told the lawyer, does it really matter that he was the one who was upfront about the differences in how you were all treated? Discovery is a thing, and every single reason for leaving and coming back under Bobby’s watch was going to be given over.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those files that Bobby puts in for leave clearance, reasonings, and then coming back are all files that would have been given over in the discovery phase, Hen. Buck told his lawyer not a single thing that he wouldn’t have found out in one way or another. It was also relevant to the case that Buck was forming. I’ve not seen any of it, but Sal’s still the union rep for his station. He heard all about it and what came of it. He knows exactly what was going to happen with the lawsuit. Should Buck have gone to the union, yes, but I cannot know why he didn’t.”

“Ah, that goes back to something that happened when he was still a probie, and the union did nothing about it. I’m not gonna say anything about it because that’s his to tell, so I bet that he did try and go there, and got rebuffed again.”

“Name?”

Hen looked at him and then smiled. She gave over the name, and Tommy typed it to Sal and made a note to tell him to ask about him when they were off shift.

“I think that maybe you being here will be good for a lot of reasons. I’ll be honest, I never once looked at it from Buck’s POV for a lot of things.”

“If that was you being kept back from your job after you had been cleared, tell me that you wouldn’t have fought your ass off. Is it because he’s young? He’s white?”

Hen opened her mouth, and she shut it. She looked a little upset at herself. “I think I need to call Karen. Thanks.”

Tommy relaxed as Hen left to go and call her wife to talk to her. Tommy knew that Hen did her best thinking when talking to her, and he wasn’t upset that she wanted to talk to Karen about things. Karen was smart as hell, and she had a look on the outside while also knowing Buck.

As if talking about him, Buck came up the stairs. He didn’t seem to notice Tommy at all and went for the coffee pot, making himself a cup and looking like he wanted to be asleep still. Tommy just watched him as he was measuring out the creamer and other things that went into the cup. He grabbed something from the fridge and started to shake it a little before he popped the cap on it and added in a powder from a container in the cabinet where a lot of the guys kept things like vitamins and protein powders, things to help them get calories on the days that they just couldn’t eat enough to maintain their muscles. Tommy had his own still in the cabinet at Harbor. He still wanted to be able to make sure that he could be the kind of firefighter that was needed when he was needed. Just because he was in a helicopter didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to be needed to run with someone on his back. They had the same kind of workout schedule that other stations had, as well as the training needed to keep their wings if they were pilots. The medics had different kinds of schooling, which is why they kept you, because they needed something different. They were called for the hard cases or had to get people out of the stupid things that they did. There was more than one time that Tommy was pulled from the pilot seat, and he was the one going out the side of the helicopter to get someone from a place where his body strength was needed.

Buck shook the bottle after he added more propylene powder. It looked like something that was unappetizing; maybe that was why it was put into something that looked like it had something else inside of it. He just watched Buck as he made his way over to him. Tommy would have thought that Buck hadn’t seen him at all.

“Morning,” Buck said before he dropped to the couch, and he seemed to want to get closer, but kept a good distance from Tommy, like he needed the comfort of a person, but didn’t think that he could do what he really needed from him.

“You could move closer. I mean, we were pressed together for an hour yesterday working on getting those idiots out of the vent where they got themselves stuck.”

Buck laughed, and he moved.

Tommy knew that it was strange that it wasn’t taking him long to get used to Buck. He wondered if it was because of trying just to make things easier. He knew how it was to get a new partner on the job, even if it was just for a short time. It was the kind of thing that made it hard to get used to the job sometimes.

“Nightmare?” Tommy asked.

“Nah, I just couldn’t get my brain to shut off after I woke up about two hours ago. I tried to rest as much as possible, but this morning is going to suck like ass.”

Tommy laughed.

“I mean, I would use suck like cock.”

Buck laughed, and he took a sip of his coffee before leaning forward to set his protein shake down on the coffee table on a coaster that was there. It was already starting to sweat a little bit.

“How are you really doing?” Tommy asked.

“With you in Eddie’s spot? Really good. We click well, and we are fucking rocking at our jobs. How do you think we are doing?”

“I think that we are doing really well as well. I’m good at what I do, but sometimes it’s hard to click. I’m glad that we do because I would hate to have to tell Bobby that we don’t click.” Tommy took a sip of his coffee, and he looked at where the doors were closed. There was a button for people to ring to get someone’s attention when they needed them. It wasn’t like they kept the doors open all the time because that was inviting someone to come in and steal shit, or just wreck it.

“Albertson was a little upset that it took little time for us to get settled,” Buck said.

“A betting pool? Yeah, that’s normal here.”

“I’m well used to it. Hen’s usually in charge, but I think that she didn’t want to make me upset.”

Tommy nodded because Hen was good at reading a room. He wondered if she was going to take what he said to heart about the lawsuit. Maybe that was a good thing that he was here right now. He could help them with everything that they were going through at the moment while dealing with what they were trying to do to help the people of LA.

“Are you cold?” Tommy asked when Buck shuddered again.

“Yeah, I always am when I wake up. I’m normally in a hoodie when I get out of bed, but I forgot to grab it when I went to the bathroom and didn’t feel like going back for it.”

Tommy grabbed the blanket that was on the far side of the couch and draped it over both of them. Tommy knew he could be a furnace.

“You don’t have to…” Buck trailed off when Tommy just made a shushing noise.

Buck kept on drinking his coffee and only emerged from the blanket to grab the protein thing when he was done with the coffee.

Maybe being here was going to help Tommy in so many other ways.

—

“Hen told me that you two are trying to kill them,” Eddie said.

Buck looked up from where he was helping Chris with a report on fish. He tried to understand what Eddie was talking about.

Eddie looked worse than he had in the aftermath of Shannon’s death; he was at the point where therapy was leaving him more raw than anything else. Which was why Eddie only really dug in deep in therapy when he knew that Buck was going to be able to come over and help with Chris, because Eddie wanted to be a good father and keep with therapy, but he wasn’t in a good place to deal with Chris sometimes right after it. It helped a lot to have someone there to trust who could get Chris out of there if Eddie was having a really bad time after it. Yes, Chris should see Eddie grieving, but there was so much tangled in Eddie’s mind that his parents had put in there that it was hard to untangle it in a way that wouldn’t freak Chris out or take it on that it was Chris’ fault.

“We are not trying to kill them. How are we trying to kill them? And who is this we?”

Eddie laughed. It was a deep laugh from the gut, and it was the kind of laugh that he didn’t do enough. Buck felt like maybe things were really going to be better for Eddie at the end of this. Chris looked up and laughed a little bit before he went back to writing on his report. Buck had the book open to the section that Chris needed help understanding, and since Buck had read the book already, it had been easier just to have Buck help him.

“You and Tommy.”

“What? How are we trying to kill them? We are just doing our job.”

“Yeah, well, you are both too competent in what you are doing, and it makes the whole shift look bad.”

“How?” Buck asked.

Eddie looked at him like he didn’t understand him. “You both went through the work given to you and started to help everyone else. You guys pretty much raced to finish all of the side work in the whole station and see who could be done first.”

“No, we didn’t. Well, we did help them, but we just wanted to get some time in the gym, and Bobby said that everyone could only break to do that when everything was done.

“So you went through and did everything for them?” Eddie asked, looking like he was trying to hold back laughter.

“We helped, we didn’t just take over, except for that idiot. I took over because he was messing up the system that you and I have for the supplies that we keep on hand for the engine in case we are in a different area than the ambo,” Buck said.

Eddie’s laughter disappeared, and he looked at Buck like he wanted to murder someone.

“No one should touch your things,” Chris said.

“No, they shouldn’t.”

“Dad, I’m going to go and play for a little while. I’m…”

“Frustrated?” Eddie asked.

Chris nodded.

“Okay, you get half an hour.” Eddie picked up his phone, and he set a timer on it, but he didn’t start the timer until Chris had made his way into the living room and had the Switch turned on. Eddie smiled when Chris brought up whatever game he had been playing. “The time for him to play while he gets calmed down was a good idea. Thank you.”

“I had that issue sometimes. I would get myself worked up because I know that I should be able to do something, but my brain just didn’t want to, and then if I kept on, I would make it even worse. I’m glad it’s working.”

“You are calmer than I would expect, even with Bobby and me both talking to you.”

“I know I can be a lot. I know that I’m weird when it comes to things. I just don’t feel like Tommy’s trying to do anything to prove that he’s better than me, not like that.”

“No, you two are just being the best at your job and making everyone else look like they are chumps,” Eddie said.

Buck felt the flush creeping up his cheeks. He knew that everyone was confused about how well he had taken to Tommy being there. He knew it. He just didn’t care. There was something in Tommy that made Buck want to be his best. He wanted to show Tommy that he was good at what he did.

Hen told me a little bit about what happened with Tommy, the stuff that was in the report that Bobby let her see because she was worried about him. He’s a little like me, but his issues are all about flying and not other things, isn’t it?” Eddie asked.

“I don’t know. He asked me not to ask about it, and I asked the same of the lawsuit. We’ve talked about the lawsuit a little bit, but when I’ve brought it up, Tommy’s offered nothing but help with it.”

Eddie rubbed the back of his neck and started to look at anything that wasn’t Buck.

“Eddie?” Buck asked.

“Hen and Tommy talked about it too, and then I guess that Hen went to Bobby and talked to him. Then to Chim, and finally she called me with Karen on the line as well. We all really messed that up, didn’t we?”

“You guys were hurt.”

“Yeah, we were hurt, but we were hurt about the wrong things. We acted like you telling your lawyer what he needed was a big overstep, but in the end, he would have found it. Discovery was gone over a lot with me, and Karen made sure that Hen knew exactly how much worse it could have gone if you had gone to the union.”

Buck nodded. He started to mess with the book in front of him, marking the spot where Chris was at, and then he started to flip the pages, without looking at a single thing on the pages.

“So, I owe you an apology,” Eddie said.

Buck nodded because while Eddie would say that, he knew that Eddie was never going to say the exact words that he was sorry. It was something that Eddie just didn’t do unless it was to Chris or his close family.

“So, I’m sorry.”

Buck looked at Eddie in shock.

“Yeah, that look on your face tells me that I’ve got a lot of work to do on that front. I am sorry about that.”

“What are you sorry for?” Buck asked.

“I hold too much to the chain of command, which I know irks you. It’s there for a reason, but mindlessly following it isn’t good. I was blind following it. Bobby became something a little different to me than to you, but still like a father figure as well as commanding officer, so it made me very pissed off that you did what you did. Karen asked me what I would have done if I hadn’t been allowed to work and was fit enough to work, not even the mental stuff, but the physical stuff. I would be pissed. I would have done worse. You didn’t follow the chain that you should have, but I’ve heard about a lot of shake-ups at the union when it came to a few things, so I assume that you did try there first and got nowhere. Hen also told me that if you had gone to the union, the inquiry wouldn’t have stopped if you pulled it like you did the lawsuit. They would have kept on going. None of us would have escaped without a push to work on our issues, which I am doing now.”

“Yeah, the same guy that I reported Doctor Wells to was the one who had all of us set to go to him. So the issue with Bobby never went anywhere. It was never going to go anywhere either. They were going to bury it, and that’s when I went to the lawyer. I went to the wrong kind of lawyer, which I know now. I just wanted to come back to work.”

“Which, if you had gone to any of us, probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere at all. We would have told you just to wait and trust Bobby. You turned down a fucking lot of money, Buck.”

Buck snorted at that because he had. He didn’t care about the money. The money wouldn’t have gotten him his team back. The money would have just put him apart from them all.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said.

“Thank you. I’m sorry for blindsiding you all.”

“No, I think we needed that. We all pulled back from you, and I also realized that. I was talking the lawsuit out with my therapist. She wanted to push at it because it came so close to Shannon, and I felt like you betrayed me over it. Not being able to see Chris and me. She pushed me into seeing that I was putting things on you that I had no right to do. I was Chris’ father, and I was the one who should have found a way for Chris to see you. She also talked about how I would have been after being shot down overseas if I had been isolated like you were when you were getting better. I was around my parents, so they were there all the time, helping with Chris and the things that I needed. If I had been left alone with Chris, it would have been a different story.”

“I think I’m done with the…” Buck waved his hand around.

“Okay, that’s fine. We can drop it. I’ve said what I needed to say, and you have heard it.”

Buck smiled, and he looked at where Chris was playing his game. “How does tacos for dinner sound? I can chop, and you can cook.”

Eddie laughed, and he stood up to head over to talk to Chris about what he wanted for dinner, and Buck just sat there and thought about what Eddie had said. He knew that things had been a little weird with Chim, Hen, and Bobby, but he hadn’t realized it was because of the lawsuit and them looking at it differently. Buck was glad that they saw things from his way now, but he wished that they had seen it before this. It was the kind of thing that made him feel like maybe they were looking at this differently. Maybe he would be treated less like the stupid little brother.

Only time would tell, and he would have to figure out what he wanted to do about it.

---