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They arrive at Eddie's after their shift, Christopher is at school for another few hours. This is the perfect time to confront Buck about the way he's been acting since they came back from New México.
It's been a rough couple of weeks dealing with the aftermath of everything that happened there, the car accident, the kidnapping, Eddie finding Buck and saving one another.
Buck was acting like everything was okay, and it was making Eddie furious. Everything was not ok and Buck was not processing shit. He was acting like some strange version of himself, being the golden retriever with ADHD he always has been. Except Eddie knew it was all an act, hell, everyone knew it was an act, but nobody knows how to make him talk about it. So it was Eddie's job now.
Buck was going for the couch, wanting to get a nap before their movie night with Christopher, when Eddie decides not to postpone the conversation any longer.
“How are you Buck?” Eddie asked in that accusatory tone of his.
“I’m fine, Eddie” answered Buck for the thousand time of the day.
“I know you’re not, so maybe try that again bud” Eddie said crossing his arms in that fatherly way he does with Christopher when he knows he's lying.
Buck rolls his eyes while an exasperated sigh left his mouth. He didn't answer.
“Buck, what's going on? I need you to talk to me,” Eddie tried again, frustration creeping into his voice.
“Nothing. I told you I'm fine,” Buck shot back, already tired of this conversation. He didn't want to talk about it. It was his mess, his trauma. He didn't want to bring anyone else down with him.
“For the love of God,” Eddie whispered, exasperated, running a hand over his face. “I know you're not fine. Stop acting like nothing happened. You were fucking kidnapped, Buck. You almost died… again.”
He paused, his jaw tightening. He was angry—maybe not angry exactly. There was another emotion there, something he couldn't quite name.
“Please talk to me,” he continued, his voice softening. “I know you don't want to be a burden, but Buck, I'm begging you. You're scaring me. You're not acting like yourself.”
Buck opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I— I don't—” he stammered, words failing him.
Yes, he had almost died again. But so had Eddie.
Too many memories were running through his head—what had happened, how helpless he had felt. How sure he had been that he was going to die… or that he would end up living as someone else, pretending to be a stranger he knew nothing about, just so Eddie could go back to Christopher.
Eddie stayed silent, waiting. He took a slow step forward, keeping his eyes fixed on Buck’s face, searching for his gaze even when Buck refused to meet it.
“I don't want to talk about it,” Buck murmured, already looking away. “So if you'll excuse me, I'd really like to take a nap so–.”
“No.”The single word came out sharp.
Eddie's anger was starting to show—anger at Buck, at the situation, at the horrible feeling that his best friend, the most important person in his life after Christopher, was slipping away into another vicious cycle of self-destruction.
“No,” Eddie repeated, more firmly. “I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you until you talk to me.”
He took another step closer.
“Because this—this thing you keep doing? Bottling everything up and trying to fix it all on your own? It's going to blow up in your face someday.”
Eddie was angry, but he didn't want to take it out on Buck either. The problem was that he didn't know how to make Buck understand that he needed to talk to someone about what had happened—preferably to him, since he couldn't stop thinking about it either.
He still remembered waking up in that hospital room, Buck nowhere to be seen. The terror that had gripped him then, the sick certainty that maybe this time he had lost him for good.
“What do you want me to say, Eddie?” Buck asked hoarsely.
“The truth would be nice,” Eddie cut in immediately.
Buck let out a humorless laugh. “Oh, you want the truth? Fine. Here it is.”
Now Buck was the angry one—not at Eddie, never at Eddie, but at himself, at the storm of emotions clawing their way out of his chest.
“I was ready to die for you, Eddie.”
Eddie froze mid-step, the words hitting him like a punch.
“What?” he breathed, almost inaudibly.
Buck dragged a shaky hand through his hair.
“When you arrived, they were going to kill me,” he continued unsteadily. “Their stupid plan to replace their dead son hadn't worked because I fought back. And I was already dying anyway without proper medical care.”
His voice trembled, but he kept going.
“Then you showed up… and they were ready to kill you too. And all I could think about was Christopher.”
He paused, a tear finally slipping down his cheek.
“I thought you were dead before that,” he admitted softly. “That's why I tried to escape. Because of your stupid will. I couldn't fail you, and I couldn't fail Christopher. I had to get out.” His voice cracked.
“But when they were about to kill me and you showed up…” Buck swallowed hard. “I knew I wasn't going to make it. So the only thing left for me to do was make a deal.”
“Buck—” Eddie started carefully, trying to process what he was hearing. The idea that Buck had been ready to sacrifice himself—for him, for Chris—made his chest ache.
“It was simple,” Buck pressed on, his composure finally breaking. “They let you leave, and I would play the part. I would be whatever they wanted me to be. I would've been Derek if that meant you got to go back to Christopher.”
He was crying openly now, tears running freely down his face.
“I couldn't let him lose another parent,” he choked out. “I couldn't stand there and watch another person I love die while I couldn't do anything about it.”
And there it was.
The guilt.
He felt guilty about Bobby's death.
About getting them lost, about stopping at that stupid diner, about everything that had happened afterward—being thrown off the road minutes later and ending up in that nightmare.But there was another truth buried underneath all of it.
He loved Eddie.
He loved Bobby too, obviously. Bobby had been the father he had always wished for.
But this was different.
This was the truth Buck had been hiding for eight years now, a truth that had been slowly consuming him.
He was in love with his best friend.
Buck's words seemed to drain the air out of the room.
He loved Eddie.
The confession lingered there, unspoken but heavy, trembling between them like a live wire.
Eddie didn't move.
For a moment he simply stared at Buck, trying to make sense of everything he had just heard—every word crashing against the next until none of it seemed real.
Buck, ready to die for him.
Buck, ready to disappear from Christopher's life.
Buck, thinking he didn't matter.
Buck shifted under the weight of Eddie's silence. The longer it stretched, the harder it became to breathe.
He scrubbed a hand across his face, roughly wiping away the tears that wouldn't stop coming. Then he turned slightly, putting a little distance between them, his back half-facing Eddie.
He couldn't let him see. Not the rest of it.
Not the truth behind everything he had said.
The love that had been eating him alive for eight years.
The fear that if Eddie really looked at him, he would see it written all over his face.
“Lose another parent?” Eddie finally repeated quietly. Buck stiffened.
Eddie let out a sharp breath, dragging a hand over his mouth before his voice rose, emotion cracking through the words.
“Lose another parent?” he repeated, louder this time. “Buck, what the hell do you think Christopher would be losing if you died?”
Buck flinched.
Eddie took a step closer.
“How do you think I would explain that to him?” he continued, his voice trembling now despite his attempt to keep it steady. “How do you think I'd tell him that you're gone?”
Buck shook his head quickly, refusing to turn around.
“He'd still have you,” he muttered hoarsely. “That's what matters.”
“That's bullshit.”
The words came out harsher than Eddie intended, but he didn't take them back.
“You think that would be enough?” Eddie demanded.
“You think he wouldn’t suffer losing you too?” Eddie pressed.
Buck stayed silent.
“Buck,” Eddie said more firmly, “you are not just some guy who shows up sometimes. You’re there for the big stuff, the small stuff, the everyday stuff, you helped me raise him, damn it.”
His voice softened slightly.
“You’re family.”
Buck’s shoulders tensed.
“And you think he wouldn’t feel that loss?” Eddie continued. “You think I wouldn’t?”
Buck froze, he didn't have a reply to that.
“You are not expendable, Buck,” Eddie said, quieter now but far more intense. “Not to him. And definitely not to me.”
Buck laughed weakly under his breath, though it sounded closer to breaking.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Sure.” Buck thought about Eddie leaving. How that felt like being abandoned all over again. Why did everyone abandon him?
Eddie's chest tightened.
He knew that laugh.
He had heard it too many times before.
It was the sound Buck made when he had already decided he didn't matter, that he was not enough.
“Do you have any idea what it felt like to wake up in that hospital?”
The question cut through the room.
Buck froze.
“I woke up and you weren't there,” Eddie continued, his voice rough. “Nobody would tell me anything. And for a while I thought—”
His voice faltered.
“Eddie—” Buck tried to stop him.
“ I thought you were dead.” Eddie interrupted suddenly”
Buck closed his eyes.
“And the only thing I could think about was that it was my fault,” Eddie admitted.
Buck turned slightly at that. “What?”
Eddie let out a bitter breath.
“Who was driving Buck?” Eddie asked, looking straight into those blue eyes. “At first I thought they were the jerks from the diner, and who picked a fight at them ah?”
“Eddie, that wasn't—”
“I thought I lost you, and then they told me you were missing.”
Eddie let out a bitter breath.
“And instead of looking for you, the cops decided to focus on the fact that we argued in the diner before the crash.”Buck’s brows knit together.
“They thought I might have done something to you,” Eddie said flatly.
“That I might have been capable of killing you, instead of doing their fucking job and find you.”Buck's head snapped fully toward him now.
“That—”
“That hurt,” Eddie said quietly. His eyes were bright, glassy.
“Because I would never hurt you, Buck. Not like that. Not intentionally. Not ever.”
The words landed between them with quiet certainty.
For a long moment neither of them spoke.
Buck's face was still wet with tears, his breathing uneven.
“Like I’d ever choose to hurt you instead of protecting you.” Eddie scoffs. Buck looked shaken now.
“I was terrified,” Eddie admitted full on crying now too.
The anger faded, leaving something rawer behind.
“First I thought you were dead,” he said. “Then I thought you were out there somewhere hurt, alone, and nobody was looking because they were too busy deciding whether I killed you or not”
The silence in the room was deafening.
“I thought I’d lost another partner” Buck looked at him now, confusion mixing with the raw emotion on his face
“And you think Chris wouldn’t feel that loss?” Eddie continued. “You think I wouldn’t?”
Buck finally spoke, his voice quiet and rough.
“It wouldn’t be the same.”
Eddie frowned. “What?”
Buck wiped his face again, avoiding his gaze.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” he repeated. “Losing me isn’t the same as losing Shannon.”
The words landed like a blow.
Eddie stared at him not believing what he said. In that moment Eddie thought “fuck It” and decides to be brave and tell Buck how he really feels for once.
“I realized something in El Paso,” he admitted.
Buck stilled confusion all over his face.
Eddie rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
“When I was packing up the house… when I was getting ready to leave LA,” he continued slowly, “I couldn’t figure out why it hurt so much.”
Buck watched him carefully now.
“I kept telling myself it was because of life that I have here, the job. Because of the team,” Eddie said.
He shook his head slightly.
“But that wasn’t it.”
A quiet breath left him.
“It was you.” Buck’s heart seemed to stop.
“You were everywhere,” Eddie went on.“In the kitchen, in the living room, on the couch where you always crash when you come over too late to drive home. You were in everything.”
His voice softened.
“You just… became part of my life without me noticing when it happened.”
Buck swallowed hard.
“And when I left,” Eddie said quietly, “it felt like I was ripping something out of my chest.”
Silence stretched a few seconds.
“I thought I had lost you, the same way I lost Shannon,” Eddie continued, his voice shaking now.
“It's always easier when it's me,” Buck continued quietly, staring at the floor again. “People move on and don’t look back.” thinking of all the people who abandoned him, Abby, Ali, Tommy. Even Maddie even though she came back.
Eddie shook his head immediately.
“You really believe that?” he asked slowly. “You really believe losing you wouldn’t matter, that it would be easy?” Eddie shot back.
“You know what I—”
“Oh I know what you mean, but you, are wrong,” Eddie said, he dragged a hand down his face, frustration bleeding into his voice.
“Buck, do you have any idea what that day was like? The day Shannon died?”
Of course he remembers, Shannon on the street, the look of Eddies face when he realized It was her.
“You think that loss is something I’d compare to you like it’s some kind of scale?” Eddie continued and Buck’s gaze dropped again.
“No,” he said quietly.
“It’s still not the same–”
“Of course it’s not the same” Eddie yelled, tears slowly returning.“Because when Shannon died, itwas grief.”
Buck frowned slightly.
“But when I thought I lost you?” Eddie said, voice tight.
“That was something else entirely.”
For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then Eddie took the last step forward between them.
“So no,” he said gently.
“Losing you wouldn’t be the same as losing Shannon.”
His voice dropped to almost a whisper.
“It would be worse.”
Bucks eyes land on Eddies, he was looking for something to tell him that this ain't true, but he saw the love, the devotion, the secrets that he's been holding all this time.
Then Eddie rises his hand to cup Bucks cheek and he melts to the touch closing his eyes, letting a few stray tears fall down finishing their route on Eddies hand.
“Please tell me you understand now” Eddie said merely a whisper, more like a prayer that only God was allowed to hear.
“Eds, I think I need you to say it to believe It” he was still with his eyes closed, not wanting to open them in case this was all a dream.
“Buck– Evan, I love you” and there it is, he finally said it. After all those years of repression, of catholic guilt building up inside of him, he finally said it. “Open your eyes Buck” he does as his told “I love you Buck”
A sob escapes Bucks lips and he feels like he's falling, only that he never touches the floor, because Eddie is there to catch him. Eddie embraces him in his arms saying soothing words to his curls and he directs them to sit on the couch. “I’ve got you, I love you and I’ve got you, always”.
Eddie likes how that three words sound, especially when they are directed at Buck, he thinks now that he has let himself say them outloud he never wants to stop.
After a few minutes just holding Buck and letting him get everything out, he feels him is starting to calm down.
Buck sits up but never leaving Eddies arms. “I– I love you too Eds” Buck said looking directly into Eddies soul. “I love you so fucking much It hurts” a single laugh escapes Eddie, and then Buck joins him and now they are both laughing, at how everything turned out.
“We are such a mess” Buck said, “That we are for sure” Eddie agrees.
And then while they're cuddling on the couch, both of them with puffy eyes after being crying for a long time, Eddie closes the distance between them in a soft, tentative kiss. Buck falls into the kiss like he needs It to breathe.
It’s a sweet kiss, both trying to pour out their feeling into it, all those years of friendship, of how their relationship shifted through out the years, how they became a family, them and Christopher. The fall asleep on the couch, still holding eachother.
When Christopher arrives from school a few hours later he finds them exactly like that, he sees the traces of tears and he sees the weight that has been lifted from their shoulders. He decides to go back to his room and let them sleep some more till it's time for dinner. He thinks if maybe Buck will cook for them, or if it's better to just order something, the both seem exhausted. Chris is happy though, he doesn't know exactly what had happened between his dad and Buck, but he knows that’s his family there on the couch, that’s his parents. And something tells him that they're going to be all sappy glances, heart eyes and kisses.
Eddie and Buck woke up a little disoriented, when they hear the sound of crutches down the hall and Chris enters the living room.
“Hey Dad, are you going to make something for dinner or you prefer we order take out?” Rubbing the sleep of his eyes Eddie answers.
“Hey mijo, I think it's better if–”
“I wasn't talking to you” he interrupted looking at Buck, who was now pannicking a little and was searching for answers on Eddie, but Eddie just smiles glancing back and forth between his son and Buck.
“Uhm– I – I think we should order something, I don't feel like cooking right now” Buck said, still a little perplexed.
“Okay, pizza please?” Chris asks leaving the room, then he turns again, “Oh and by the way, congratulations, you finally pulled your head out of your asses. It took you long enough” he said and then leaves.
“Christopher…” he said in a warning tone
“Damn, control your kid, and where the hell does he get all that sass from?” inquired Buck.
“Oh definitely from you” Eddie teasses, “And, that's our kid” said fondly and both laugh.
This is it, their little family. They have been through so much to be here, but they finally got there.