Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Buck first experienced symptoms of a mental health condition when he was fourteen years old, although he didn't realise at the time that the tightening in his chest when he thought about going home from school was anything but normal. Why would anyone feel anxious about returning home yet experience relief at the thought of going to school? He was well liked among his fellow ninth-graders, and although his parents only paid attention to him when he hurt himself, even then Evan shouldn't have felt anxious about going home. It wasn't as though he was being abused.

In the early 2000s, high schools rarely discussed mental health. They barely addressed sexual health, and students who sought help from school counsellors were often labelled “crazy” or “nuts”. Buck, or rather Evan, was neither. Therefore, when Dr Copeland asked Buck about his first memory related to mental illness, he recalled his high school years, though he would prefer never to think of them again.

Buck’s next significant memory is the day he crashed his bike. It occurred not long after he had started college, when he was riding home to collect his clothes before his parents discovered that he had dropped out. He recalls thinking, “Would anyone even care if I just rode my bike into oncoming traffic?” At the hospital, the nurse contacted a member of the psychiatry team to assess whether he was suicidal, even though he insisted that he hadn't actively attempted to kill himself. Years later, he realised that the reason the team had been called was because he'd used the word “actively”.

When Buck first began working with Dr Copeland during the pandemic, she explained that although Buck hadn't been actively attempting to kill himself in certain instances, such as during his bike crash, he was nevertheless passively suicidal, meaning he hadn't taken steps to prevent his own death.

Buck was thirty years old when he received paperwork to evaluate whether he had any mental health conditions and to obtain an official diagnosis of ADHD. The ADHD diagnosis wasn't a surprise to him. During high school his parents had been asked to give the school nurse permission to contact his family doctor for a possible assessment. However, they decided he didn't need testing and simply needed to behave better in class. When Dr Copeland officially diagnosed him and explained how his parents had failed him, Buck was shaken to realise that he'd never been a “naughty child”. Rather, his brain functions differently and he doesn't learn in the same way as others.

This understanding also helped Buck recognise similar behaviours in his stepson, Christopher. Christopher has a multidisciplinary team of specialists working with him. However, because he has cerebral palsy, a condition that can include symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity, his ADHD wasn't identified during the first eight years of his life. Buck and Eddie are grateful that his symptoms were recognised while he's still young enough to benefit from early intervention.

The surprising part was not Buck’s ADHD diagnosis but rather his diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. His initial reaction was disbelief. He acknowledged that he could be intense at times, yet he didn't believe he had an underlying personality disorder. True to form, Buck engaged in extensive research, which ultimately clarified many aspects of himself that he had previously disliked. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an individual must exhibit at least five of the nine diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder, and upon honest reflection he recognised that he met seven.

Fear of abandonment.
Buck recognised that even an hour without a response from his husband could make him feel as though Eddie disliked him or intended to leave him. He also recalled his reaction when Bosko temporarily replaced him while he was recovering from the ladder truck bombing. He knew his response had been excessive, yet he was terrified that her presence meant he'd been permanently replaced and would have no job to return to.

Unstable relationships.
Buck observed that his relationships rarely felt secure. Even within marriage he continued to doubt whether Eddie genuinely wanted to remain with him. Similarly, in his professional life he often forgot that Bobby cared for him, misinterpreting being kept off duty as rejection rather than concern.

Unclear or shifting sense of self.
Buck realised that referring to himself as “Buck 1.0”, “Buck 2.0”, and so on was a method of masking his identity because he did not fully understand who he was. His aversion to being called “Evan” also reflected rejection of his former self rather than an expression of his current identity.

Impulsive or self-destructive behaviours.
According to Dr Copeland, one of the first indicators of borderline personality disorder in Buck was his recklessness, both professionally and personally. Although he neither used drugs nor abused alcohol after joining the fire department, he had previously engaged in risky sexual behaviour. Before his marriage he'd been dismissed from several jobs for workplace affairs, and he even jeopardised the firefighting position he valued most by engaging in inappropriate relationships during work hours and, on one occasion, by stealing the fire engine.

Self-harm and suicidal behaviours.
Buck maintained that he'd never intentionally harmed himself. However, upon reflection he recognised that during childhood he had deliberately injured himself in order to gain his parents’ attention. Dr Copeland later reminded him that his pattern of passive suicidality also fulfils this diagnostic criterion.

Extreme emotional swings.
Although Buck would not describe himself as someone whose mood changes rapidly, he recognises that he often exhibits an all-or-nothing mindset. This pattern, referred to as black-and-white thinking, is commonly associated with borderline personality disorder.

Chronic feelings of emptiness.
Buck realised that although he does not label it as such, his habitual response of “I’m fine” when asked how he is may reflect an underlying sense of emotional emptiness. He often feels either overwhelmed by emotion or entirely numb, leaving him uncertain how to describe his state. Dr Copeland explained that this experience is related to his difficulties with identity formation.

Explosive anger.
Buck's confident that this particular criterion does not apply to him, as he rarely experiences anger and when he does it develops gradually rather than impulsively.

Suspiciousness or dissociative experiences.
Buck's pleased to note that he does not exhibit this characteristic. He remains grounded in reality and humorously observes he might have benefited from more suspicion, as he was a victim of identity theft during his probationary year.

Dr Copeland is optimistic that, through a combination of therapy and medication, Buck will be able to reduce the extent to which borderline personality disorder affects his daily functioning. He already knows he will begin treatment for ADHD and then his borderline personality disorder, introduced gradually rather than prescribing multiple new medications at once. The doctors explained they would have preferred inpatient monitoring, but with Eddie being a paramedic they felt satisfied he would be well cared for at home.

Both Eddie and Buck have been granted at least a week off while Buck adjusts to his ADHD medication, as one of the common side effects of Adderall XR is drowsiness during the initial adjustment period. Eddie will remain with him because, in rare cases, the medication can trigger psychosis or seizures. When Buck begins his antidepressant, it will also be introduced gradually to ensure compatibility and minimise adverse reactions.

Buck is confident that his husband will review the accompanying medication information sheets, but he also wants to understand what physiological effects he may experience. He plans to use his time off to learn more about his recent diagnosis, explore ways to adapt his work while on the new medications, and reflect on how his conditions have influenced his professional behaviour. He hopes to reduce the impulsive risks he tends to take, behaviours that often cause significant anxiety for Eddie and Christopher.

Chapter Text

Dr Copeland explained that the symptoms of borderline personality disorder he identified with didn't make him a bad person. Buck wanted to believe that, but the more he researched the symptoms, the worse he felt. He knew it wasn't his fault that he had a deep fear of abandonment and how it manifested, yet that didn't mean he didn't want to improve. He wanted to trust that his husband was here to stay. He wanted to believe his team wouldn't turn away from him at the slightest issue. He wanted to stop sabotaging his relationships and break the mindset that leaving first meant he wouldn't get hurt. He knew it would take time, and he knew it would be difficult, but he was willing to do the work.

When he reflected on it, he realised he needed to return to his childhood and confront how his parents had neglected him. As much as he knew he had Maddie, it didn't lessen the damage they caused. His only memories of them caring for him were tied to his injuries. They might have been physically present, but they were emotionally absent; it was Maddie who fed him, not them. He didn't know why, and perhaps one day he would feel strong enough to ask why they hadn't chosen abortion or adoption if they didn't want him. He knew adopted children sometimes struggled with belonging, but he believed it would have been better than growing up constantly wondering why his parents didn't care.

Given the age gap between him and Maddie, he assumed he'd been an accident, but even unplanned children didn't deserve to grow up believing they were hated. For the first nine years of his life, he had only one loving person in the house: Maddie. When she left for college, he experienced both emotional neglect from his parents and the physical loss of his sister’s presence. At first she called weekly, but Doug was already a large part of her life and soon the calls came only once a month. Their conversations grew shorter; he barely had time to tell her what he'd learned in school before she had to hang up, leaving him once again in a cold, lonely house. When she eventually moved back after college, he only saw her when he was injured. His pattern shifted from harming himself to gain his parents’ attention to hurting himself enough to end up in the emergency department, knowing Maddie would be on shift.

When he examined the symptoms connected to his fear of abandonment, he recognised many in himself. He was overly sensitive to criticism and often acted out to gain reassurance. He struggled to trust people beyond a surface level; the only person he trusted easily was Eddie, once he moved past the fear that Eddie had been brought in to replace him. He found it difficult to make friends, which was why he spent nearly all his free time with the 118. He didn't trust others not to leave him. He had a long pattern of unhealthy relationships. Before Eddie, even with Abby, he allowed others to ignore his boundaries simply to keep them around. He became attached too quickly, and when relationships ended the pain lingered for months. He worked hard to please others without considering the cost to himself. He blamed himself when things went wrong, such as with Devon, the man he lost during his probationary year. Even after Devon’s sister explained that Devon had been suicidal, Buck still held himself responsible.

He also clung to relationships that were unhealthy, such as with the men he travelled from Peru with. He still checked in on them even though they never asked how he was. They didn't reach out when he was crushed on national television by a ladder truck, nor when he could have been caught in the Los Angeles tsunami.

Buck knew he needed to improve and stop allowing others to reinforce his fear of abandonment, but he also knew he had to show himself compassion. It wasn't his fault he had been neglected. He'd been a child, and his parents were adults who chose not to care for him. While he could acknowledge that his behaviour in adulthood sometimes worsened his pain, such as seeking affection through casual encounters, he also recognised those actions came from a desire for love. He reminded himself he was not to blame for wanting affection.

He also knew he wasn't alone. Whenever loneliness crept in, he looked around his home and saw his belongings intertwined with Eddie’s, or the ring on his left hand reminding him he is loved. By being open about his fears with his 118 family, they could now recognise signs of distress and help him address it instead of letting him withdraw or lash out. Christopher, his stepson, already noticed when “his Buck” seemed sadder than usual. On those days, the Diaz family made a special effort to show patience and affection.

Buck kept a box of handmade cards from the 118 children, gifts from times he had been hospitalised. His favourite was from Christopher after the bombing, thanking him for never giving up. It now sat framed beside his bed so he could see it each morning. Down the hallway, photographs from their wedding and trips around Los Angeles decorated the walls. His favourite hung near the door beside a photo of Shannon and Eddie with newborn Christopher: their engagement picture, a daily reminder of love and connection.

When people asked whether it bothered him that Shannon’s photos remained in their home, he felt hurt. He could never replace her, nor would he want to. Shannon will always be Christopher’s mother and Eddie’s first love. Buck only hoped to add to the love she brought into the world. Seeing her picture reminded him to work hard, love openly, and always come home safely to her son. He enjoyed hearing stories about her from Eddie and Christopher. When they spoke about Shannon, he never felt excluded or replaced. Even when she and Eddie briefly reconnected, she made a point of including Buck as part of the family. She was the first to notice Eddie’s feelings for him. Tragically, before she could finalise their divorce, she died in the car accident that took her life.

In a way, Buck was glad Shannon died a Diaz, as it forever connected her to her son. He helped Eddie find grief counselling for both himself and Christopher so neither would feel abandoned by her death. Buck remembered the looks from Chimney and Hen when he encouraged Eddie to go to Shannon’s side; they seemed to expect jealousy, but all he felt was grief and empathy. He was heartbroken for his boys losing the light that was Shannon Diaz.

Her death affected him personally as well. They had become friends, meeting weekly for coffee to complain about Eddie and learn more about one another, planning to share family life for years to come. Her death brought Buck his first experience of deep personal grief. For a long time he constantly checked on Eddie, terrified something would happen to him too. Eventually Eddie suggested they share their locations instead of constant calls, a compromise that brought comfort without crossing boundaries.

Buck knew he'd improved but also accepted that therapy might bring setbacks. When that happened, he reminded himself he is loved by Eddie, by Christopher, and by the 118. One day, when he'd healed further, he hoped to make friends outside firefighting or dispatch, perhaps through hiking or joining a book club, so he could simply be himself, a healed version of Buck

Chapter Text

During downtime at work, Buck has been writing about his significant relationships in the notes app on his phone. He includes both romantic relationships and friendships. As he records each one, he notes whether the relationship struggled and whether it survived those struggles or ended. He also reflects on how he felt during and after each relationship. Through this process he develops a deeper understanding of his emotional history, revealing patterns of attachment, trust, and personal growth. He wants to be prepared for when Dr Copeland asks about them.

Relationship with His Parents

He begins with his relationship with his biological parents, writing that he feels he was neglected throughout his life and that they kept important parts of his childhood hidden from him. He recalls watching his classmates’ parents attend ordinary events such as parent–teacher conferences and feeling jealous because he never had that experience. He recognises that his recklessness began as a desperate attempt to gain their attention and knows he would never want his own children to feel that way.

Although he has tried to forgive his parents for their past behaviour, he finds it difficult because they continue to favour his sister. He acknowledges that, as an adult, he has made little effort to repair the relationship, but when he discovered that they knew about the truck bombing and neither visited nor called, he decided he was no longer willing to try. He concludes that the only things they gave him were life itself and a lesson in how not to treat his own children. He recognises their struggles, yet it does not change how alone he felt growing up. He wishes them well but hopes they consider themselves to have only one child.

Relationship with Maddie

Next he writes Maddie’s name. He describes how she effectively saved his life during his first nine years and how he will always be grateful she's his sister. However, he also writes about the pain he felt when she left. Although he understands she was in an abusive relationship, learning that the abuse didn't occur while she was at college made him realise she had chosen not to maintain contact during that time. He feels frustrated that he offered her an opportunity to leave when he was nineteen and she refused, though he recognises no one can be forced to leave an abuser.

He recalls being happy when Maddie moved to Los Angeles but later noticed, during his recovery from the truck bombing, that she could be controlling. He notes that she resisted his wish to support Eddie when he received his shield after completing probation. He also recognises that she has used her relationship with one of his colleagues to pressure him when he tries to establish boundaries. When he asks for space she rarely respects it, which causes him to withdraw further. He finds it particularly frustrating when these tensions enter his workplace and prevent him from finding peace. He loves his sister deeply but admits he sometimes misses the calm that existed before she dated his colleague.

Relationship with His Husband, Eddie

Then he writes his husband’s name. The first thing he notes is that he can be clingy, though he feels fortunate that Eddie shares that trait. Buck appreciates that Eddie sets firm boundaries and helps him maintain them. He relies on Eddie to recognise when he is becoming overwhelmed, as he's learned to distrust his own instincts after years of being told he is “too much”. Eddie supports his need for space and never forces him to pretend he's fine.

Buck recalls moments when he tried to push Eddie away and expresses gratitude that Eddie responded with reassurance rather than pressure, simply saying he's there if needed. He considers Eddie his safe place and first source of support, even at work, a pattern that has existed since early in their friendship. Unlike previous relationships where Buck gave far more than he received, he now feels both partners give and take equally. He describes their bond as a true partnership in which both recognise their weaknesses and support each other. He values that they maintain separate interests, allowing him to pursue his passions without sacrificing them to please Eddie as he once did in other relationships.

Relationship with Christopher

Next he writes Christopher’s name. He notes their relationship has evolved alongside his romantic relationship with Eddie. He understands such changes are natural when transitioning from a friend of the child’s father to a stepparent. Still, he struggles with feeling he has no right to call himself a parent because Eddie is an excellent father.

Buck notices Christopher now turns to him for help and emotional support, requests once directed solely to Eddie. While grateful to be part of Christopher’s life, Buck feels guilty, worrying that if he and Eddie expand their family he might struggle with parenting because he doesn't always feel like a parent to Christopher and does not want him to think he loves another child more. He also recognises how his moods affect Christopher and wants to become more comfortable showing genuine emotions rather than always appearing cheerful.

High School and Early Friendships

He then writes about his high school friends, recalling how they often made him feel guilty for being “too much” while encouraging recklessness. He no longer speaks to anyone from Pennsylvania, though he admits he misses them and wishes them well. He recognises he ended those friendships by changing his number and deleting them from social media when he left home. He cannot remember having a specific reason beyond wanting to escape quickly. Although he would not want his own children to have friends like them, he acknowledges they gave him some relief from the emotional neglect at home.

During the years he spent moving from place to place before reaching Peru, he avoided forming friendships and kept relationships strictly professional. If anyone became too close, he distanced himself. He did not want anyone to know the real Evan Buckley. The closest he came to friendship was during BUD/S training, yet he lost contact after the man rang the bell. Buck admits fear has kept him from reaching out and he does not even know whether the man is alive. He knows Samuel was a good friend who did not deserve to be cut off, and he feels guilty about that decision. At the same time, he realises he would not have felt comfortable maintaining a friendship in the SEAL environment where emotional detachment was encouraged.

Friendships Formed in Peru and Los Angeles

He writes the names of the men he travelled with from Peru to Los Angeles, noting the only one he still maintains distant contact with is Connor, and only through social media. He remained in touch with the others before the truck bombing, but only Connor reached out afterwards. Feeling let down, he cut the others off completely. Although he had always been closest to Connor, their silence reinforced his belief that he'd invested more effort than they ever did. He realises this imbalance shaped his expectations when he first joined the station, making him assume he would always need to be the one making the effort.

Relationship with Chimney

He writes Chimney’s name next and reflects that although they are now brothers-in-law, their relationship hasn't always been easy. During his probationary year Buck felt Chimney was less welcoming than the other firefighters. He believes Chimney can be inconsistent, supportive one moment and mocking the next, which prevents Buck from fully relaxing around him. Buck feels Chimney often fails to acknowledge his growth. Even when Buck began dating Eddie, Chimney made jokes implying his intentions were purely physical despite Buck no longer engaging in casual sex after his first loss on the job.

He also views Chimney as Maddie’s mouthpiece at work, often echoing her opinions when Buck attempts to set boundaries. Buck finds this painful because it makes the workplace feel unsafe. He recalls Chimney sharing private matters with patients and making fun of Buck’s attempts to organise his day using a clipboard, even after being told such strategies help with ADHD. As a result, Buck keeps him at a distance. He knows Chimney would never harm him physically but cannot fully trust him emotionally and recognises this is unhealthy in a friendship.

Relationship with Hen

Next comes Hen, whom he feels has been more of a big sister over the past four years than his biological sister has been since he was nine. He feels he can turn to her when emotionally lost. She first noticed he was struggling after his single session with Dr Wells. She also realised he hadn't been prescribed anticoagulants while his leg was in a cast, an observation his surgeon said likely saved his life.

He trusts Hen more than anyone else on the team apart from his husband. She acknowledges his growth and reminds him it is acceptable to struggle. She doesn't let him push her away, instead giving him space while reassuring him she remains present. She never forces him to talk but listens when he is ready. Through her he has learned what it means to be a good friend and hopes to be as good a friend to her as she has been to him.

Relationship with Bobby

Next comes Bobby, whose relationship he struggles to define. At times Buck feels Bobby has been more supportive than his biological father ever was, yet at others he senses Bobby doesn't fully trust him as a firefighter. He feels he has to explain each step on the job because Bobby still sees him as probationary, though occasionally Bobby appears to be preparing him for leadership.

Buck believes Bobby supports him yet sometimes joins jokes at his expense or asks him to compromise boundaries to maintain workplace harmony even when Buck isn't the source of conflict. He questions whether Bobby will ever promote him or encourage further development, as Bobby rarely supports internal advancement. He also worries Bobby may not remain in contact after retirement and wonders how that loss would affect him. He recognises his fear of abandonment has led him to push Bobby away and intends to make an effort to stay connected when that time comes.

Relationship with Athena

He recognises he and Athena didn't begin well because she believed he was trying to instruct her when they first met, though he was the one following protocol. He feels she doesn't always see the man he has become. Although he affectionately calls her Mama, he doesn't feel she treats him with the same care he would show his own children. He believes she often chooses silence outside work when speaking up would be difficult, whereas he prefers to do what he believes is right. He also believes that if Bobby left the station and cut ties, Athena would likely do the same. As a result, he keeps emotional distance to protect himself.

Other Romantic Relationships

Finally, he writes about his past romantic relationships, reflecting on how he allowed people to use his body for temporary comfort because he was desperate for connection, which led to emotional pain when they didn't stay. He often hoped a single night of intimacy would become something meaningful, driven largely by loneliness.

When he entered a relationship with Abby, he realised she wanted distraction rather than partnership, yet he continued hoping for months that she would return even after she stopped responding. He later understood he'd allowed her to use him much like previous one-night encounters and again hoped she would not take advantage of his vulnerability. This experience made it difficult for him to open up to Eddie romantically because he feared being hurt in the same way. Nevertheless, he remains grateful for Abby, as the relationship proved he was capable of commitment even when that commitment was not returned.

Chapter Text

When Buck examined what it meant to have an unclear or shifting self-image, he learned the term identity disturbance described the experience. The concept reflected his awareness that his sense of self was fluid and situational, shaped not only by the name he used but also by his goals, beliefs, and behaviour.

As a child he was Evan, a boy desperate for his parents’ attention even at the cost of hurting himself. He internalised the idea that love had to be earned through suffering. This began with deliberate accidents, such as the skateboard incident and the day he learned to ride a bicycle, intended to draw his parents’ attention. Although that attention was conditional and hollow, it reinforced the association between injury and care. When Maddie left, that attention, painful as it was both physically and emotionally, became the only form of connection he recognised. Consequently, he disengaged from school and focused instead on finding ways to be noticed. By adolescence he'd grown used to feeling unimportant and stopped investing in things others considered meaningful. The only reason he joined the high school football team was because his father cared about football.

After leaving home, Buck’s unstable sense of self appeared in his relationships. He used sex as a substitute for attachment and convinced himself that even brief intimacy justified allowing others to use him as long as they paid attention to him. Without direction, he changed jobs and states frequently until, shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, he encountered firefighters and chose the career that became the one for him. Even after completing the academy he struggled to feel settled in his role. Only when his friendship with Eddie developed did he begin to feel genuine belonging.

Adopting the name Buck symbolised an attempt to separate himself from Evan, the neglected child who wanted affection. The name became both protection and reinvention. His attachment to it grew so strong that he responds to it almost exclusively, except when used by his sister or husband. When others use his birth name critically, he shuts down. His habit of describing personal change as an “upgrade” shows both humour and discomfort with accepting himself as he is.

His sexual orientation reflected the same uncertainty. For years he described himself as straight while recognising his attraction to men, particularly Eddie. The internal conflict contributed to awkwardness and defensiveness early in their partnership. When he eventually accepted and disclosed that he was bisexual, he again framed it as an upgrade, using humour to soften vulnerability.

Although Buck dislikes jokes about his sexual history, he rarely challenges them. His desire to be liked outweighs his need for respect, reinforcing his tendency to people-please and remain silent about discomfort. Early at the 118 he tolerated Chimney’s teasing as a way to belong, learning to trade honesty for acceptance.

Eddie has observed that Buck hides his struggles from most people. Buck admits he presents a stable front because he fears rejection if he appears vulnerable. He trusts only a small group: Eddie, Maddie, and Athena. Maddie because she cared for him in childhood, Eddie because he notices what Buck does not say aloud, and Athena because she offers direct advice rather than dismissal. By contrast, Bobby’s shifting role between captain and paternal figure leaves Buck unsure how to relate, and although he often feels safe with Hen, certain moments have made him cautious.

Dr Copeland observes that when Buck describes himself he lists factual details such as his nickname, age, occupation, and relationship status but struggles to name values or personal qualities. He mirrors others’ opinions and prioritises their needs over his own. She interprets this as an ongoing difficulty asserting self-worth and maintaining boundaries.

She also notes that Buck tolerates emotional or physical harm more than most people would. When Bobby once pinned him to the wall, Buck justified it as his own fault rather than recognising it as inappropriate until others intervened. He tends to interpret others’ behaviour as evidence he must improve instead of recognising when behaviour towards him is unacceptable.

1. Further Indicators of Buck’s Identity Disturbance - Buck’s difficulties extend beyond individual experiences. Several broader behavioural patterns further reveal the instability of his self-concept.
2. Role Absorption - Buck defines himself primarily through external roles such as firefighter, partner, and brother rather than internal qualities. When these roles are disrupted, his sense of self destabilises, suggesting dependence on situational validation.
3. Emotional Mirroring - He habitually adopts others’ emotions and opinions to maintain harmony, particularly with authority figures. This imitation prevents the formation of independent self-understanding.
4. Chronic Need for External Validation - Praise from superiors or loved ones temporarily stabilises his self-esteem, whereas criticism triggers disproportionate distress.
5. Perfectionism as Identity - Buck bases his self-worth on competence and usefulness. Success feels like acceptance; mistakes feel like rejection.
6. Shifting Moral Compass - His ethical boundaries often change depending on relationships, indicating reliance on external guidance rather than internal principles.
7. Comparative Self-Definition - He defines himself by contrast, “not like them” or “better than before”, rather than through self-generated beliefs.
8. Emotional Compartmentalisation - He presents different versions of himself in different settings and struggles to integrate his personal, professional, and emotional identities.
9. Inconsistent Self-Narrative - His accounts of major life events vary depending on mood and audience, reflecting a context-dependent identity.
10. Avoidance of Introspection - Meaningful self-reflection usually occurs only during crisis or therapy, while he prefers distraction through action or care taking.
11. Care giving as Self-Substitute - Rescuing others becomes a way to construct identity through usefulness. When he cannot help, his sense of self collapses.
12. Lack of Sustained Personal Interests - He rarely maintains hobbies or pursuits independent of other people, suggesting an externally driven identity.
13. Fragmentation Between “Evan” and “Buck” - The separation between his two names represents a split between vulnerability and performance, leaving internal conflict unresolved.
14. Self-Blame as Identity Anchor - Buck interprets failures as proof of personal inadequacy, using guilt as a stabilising mechanism to maintain control.
15. Ambivalence Toward Vulnerability - He alternates between oversharing and withdrawal, unsure how to balance openness with safety.
16. Relational Identity Construction - He defines himself through relationships, and when they shift or end his sense of self destabilises.

Buck’s identity disturbance is therefore not tied to a single event but to a lifelong pattern of conditional attention, external validation, and emotional masking. His movement between Evan and Buck, between self-sacrifice and self-protection, shows a fragmented identity still seeking integration. Developing a stable sense of self will require valuing himself independently of roles or approval. Therapy shows early progress, yet the process remains one of reconciling the neglected child with the capable adult and allowing both to exist within a single, accepted identity.

Chapter Text

One of the easiest borderline personality traits for Buck to recognise in himself is impulsive or self-destructive behaviour. He has been impulsive throughout his life, often described by others as reckless. Although he doesn't engage in substance misuse such as drugs or excessive alcohol, he consciously avoids it after meeting Bobby because he never wants to carry the kind of guilt Bobby does. Buck knows that letting down his friends and family in that way would hurt more than any consequence he has previously faced.

When reflecting on his past, Buck realises his impulsivity often bordered on recklessness. During his probationary period he repeatedly risked both his career and his safety despite being told to stop and think before acting. Looking back, he acknowledges that if he were in a leadership position he wouldn't allow a probationary firefighter to behave as he once did. If a team member climbed a ladder truck without protective gear, he would send them back for retraining, something he now believes Bobby perhaps should have done with him and something he wishes he had done when he saw Eddie free-climb a drainpipe to reach a child. Likewise, if a firefighter entered a dangerous building against orders, as he himself once did, Buck admits he would formally document the behaviour as endangering the firefighter, the team, and the public.

Buck’s impulsive tendencies often arise from emotional dis-regulation rather than deliberate choice. When he experiences intense emotions, particularly guilt, rejection, or fear of abandonment, he acts before processing them, which often leads to further pain. The pattern reinforces his belief that action provides control and attention even when the action is self-defeating. In many ways immediate behaviour feels easier to manage than emotional vulnerability, which leaves him exposed.

His impulsivity extends to speech as well. He often talks before considering consequences, not only for himself but for those around him. Because he internalises feelings rather than communicating them calmly, he sometimes lashes out, even at authority figures, creating consequences he fails to anticipate. He has begun to recognise impulsivity as a defence mechanism, distracting him from uncomfortable emotions. Rather than sitting with shame or disappointment, he converts those feelings into action, convincing himself he's solving a problem when he is actually avoiding it, which often creates further problems.

This impulsivity appears in his personal life as well. Before settling in Los Angeles, Buck moved frequently and never remained in a job long enough to establish stability. His career path, from farmhand to Navy SEAL trainee to firefighter, reflects a tendency to act without long-term planning. He also recognises that in the past he used his body to seek attention. While physically safe, he was emotionally reckless, allowing people into his life without considering the psychological impact. Even in his relationship with Abby he failed to maintain boundaries, focusing on being useful rather than acknowledging his own emotional needs.

His emotional impulsivity left him vulnerable. He became attached to Abby after only hearing her voice, and when she left he cared for her apartment despite her having no intention of returning. He remained in denial for more than six months despite the concern of those around him.

Within his family his impulsivity has often meant overstepping boundaries. With Maddie he tries to fix situations without considering her perspective or readiness, particularly after her abusive relationship. His instinct to help can override her autonomy and risk pushing her away. At the same time he allows her to pressure him into situations he does not want which leaves him emotionally unsettled and more prone to recklessness at work.

In his relationship with Eddie, Buck is fortunate his husband understands his impulsive behaviour often comes from good intentions. Nevertheless Eddie worries Buck’s recklessness on the job could have fatal consequences, leaving him a single parent again. Eddie encourages him to pause and think before acting, helping minimise risk both professionally and personally. He also reminds Buck that his thoughts and feelings matter off duty and allows him space to process emotions safely.

With Bobby, Buck’s impulsivity has had serious repercussions. His decision to search Bobby’s black book, a deeply personal record, resulted in a physical confrontation and strained their relationship. Acting without considering protocol has repeatedly jeopardised his standing at the firehouse. Buck recognises how close he came to losing his position and now understands the seriousness of his earlier behaviour, even feeling grateful Bobby didn't give up on him.

Athena has also been affected by Buck’s impulsivity. Their relationship began with tension when he enforced protocol during a call and inadvertently challenged her authority. Her response reminded him that actions have wider consequences and that sometimes saving a life outweighs strict adherence to rules. Over time she has become one of the few people willing to hold him accountable without emotional bias, something Buck deeply respects. Like Eddie, she encourages him to sit with his emotions rather than react immediately.

His dynamic with Chimney has been shaped by this trait as well. Early in Buck’s career Chimney viewed him as immature and irresponsible, often calling out unprofessional behaviour, even if he occasionally used Buck’s antics to impress his girlfriend at the time. Though this caused friction, Buck has come to value Chimney’s honesty and recognises the concern behind the criticism.

Hen’s methodical nature once clashed with Buck’s impulsivity, yet she became the first to openly believe in his potential. Buck now trusts her both professionally and personally. He now understands from having Hen in his life that his behaviour can create lasting tension and that others cannot always separate personal and professional impact.

Buck’s impulsivity also connects to his unstable sense of self. Because he struggles to define who he is, action often precedes reflection. He behaves in ways that temporarily give him identity, rescuer, protector, problem-solver, and only later questions whether those actions align with his values. This cycle both stems from and reinforces his identity disturbance.

When Dr Copeland asked whether his impulsivity had endangered his life, Buck initially answered no. On reflection he recognised that acting without thinking has repeatedly put his safety, emotional well being, and relationships at risk. This realisation became a turning point in therapy. He now works intentionally to reduce impulsive behaviour to build stability in both his relationships and career. Through therapy he's learning to recognise triggers and pause before reacting, developing a more measured and self-aware approach to work and life, an early but meaningful improvement in emotional regulation and impulse control.

Chapter Text

When Buck was first asked whether he had ever engaged in self-harm, he told Dr Copeland with complete certainty that he hadn't. As therapy progressed, however, he began to recognise that the injuries he deliberately caused himself as a child in order to gain his parents’ attention did constitute as self-harm. He'd always framed the behaviour as attention-seeking, but Dr Copeland pointed out that most children seek attention through achievement or positive behaviour, not physical injury.

She further explained the clinical reasoning: self-harm is defined not by an intention to die but by the deliberate infliction of pain or injury to fulfil an emotional need. Even if Buck’s conscious motivation was attention rather than self-punishment, the behaviour still represented a maladaptive strategy for emotional regulation. His injuries functioned as a way to elicit care in an environment where affection was conditional or absent, placing his actions within recognised models of non-suicidal self-injury.

Dr Copeland clarified that ordinary childhood activities, such as learning to ride a bicycle, do not qualify as self-harm. However, when Buck began attempting stunts he knew he couldn't perform while intentionally avoiding safety equipment, it demonstrated deliberate self-endangerment. This pattern continued into adolescence and early adulthood. During his motorcycle crash, for example, he wore no protective gear and rode while overwhelmed by emotion. Regardless of intention, he knowingly placed himself at risk of severe injury or death.

She extended this understanding to Buck’s adult life. Although he wears protective equipment at work, he continues to take unnecessary risks on emergency scenes by disregarding orders. While he never endangers civilians, he repeatedly enters structures deemed unsafe or unstable, sometimes to retrieve sentimental objects for children and almost always against the Incident Commander’s instructions. He often volunteers for the most dangerous tasks, telling himself that everyone else has someone to come home to, whereas he doesn't see himself as Christopher’s “real” family because they aren't biologically related.

She emphasised that this thinking reflects an undervaluing of his own life intertwined with the identity disturbance explored earlier. Because Buck struggles to recognise his own worth, he instinctively treats himself as expendable. Dr Copeland reminded him that by viewing his life as less valuable, he ignores the emotional harm his injury or death would cause his team, his husband, and especially his stepson.

She also reminded him how profoundly his found family was affected after the truck bombing. She referenced Eddie and Christopher’s distress during his hospitalisation and the support his team provided afterwards, then asked Buck to recall his own panic when Eddie was trapped underground with no apparent escape. She encouraged him to consider how it must have felt for Eddie, who had survived years in war-zones, to see Buck trapped after an explosion. Only then did Buck begin to understand that his safety mattered deeply to the people who loved him.

Dr Copeland then explored the emotional dimension underlying Buck’s past sexual behaviour. When he used his body for brief connection, knowing the encounters would last only a single night, he was attempting to numb loneliness. Even in his first relationship he expected abandonment, which eventually happened and left him feeling lonelier than before. When he began his relationship with Eddie he carried the same expectation. Eddie insisted they build the relationship gradually, prioritising emotional intimacy before sex. In earlier sessions Buck explained this helped him feel safe and allowed him to trust in a way he never had before.

At the end of one session, Dr Copeland asked Buck to research passive suicidality and risk-taking in first responders. He was shocked to discover many of his behaviours aligned with recognised markers of passive suicidal ideation. What he'd always perceived as doing what needed to be done appeared to others, including mental health professionals and his captain, as disregard for his own life. He realised that while he rarely cared about injuring himself, having grown desensitised to pain since childhood, he became deeply distressed when Eddie suffered even minor injuries.

His reaction deepened when he read the line: “Volunteers for the most dangerous tasks because they feel they’re expendable.” It felt written about him. Although Eddie had told him for years that he mattered, Buck had never recognised that his belief he was replaceable mirrored passive suicidality.

He made notes to discuss with Dr Copeland how he might re-frame his thinking from “I am expendable” to “my life is as important as anyone else’s”. When he shared this with Eddie, his husband admitted he had never considered Buck suicidal because he associated suicidality only with active intent. Eddie wanted to learn alongside him so he could recognise patterns and support him better.

Eddie explained that while he would be required to report active suicidal ideation to Bobby, Buck was already receiving appropriate treatment for passive suicidality. However, Buck must disclose any active thoughts if they arose, as they would require more intensive support than weekly therapy and medication alone. He reassured Buck the department likely had specialised mental health resources for firefighters and that seeking help wouldn't compromise his job. Additional support, such as peer groups for first responders, might help him feel more grounded while adjusting to medication.

Chapter Text

One of the most challenging traits for Buck to examine is his pattern of extreme emotional swings, also known clinically as affective instability. Dr Copeland explains that this trait involves rapid shifts in mood that are often disproportionate to the situation and are typically triggered by interpersonal stress, perceived rejection, or fear of loss. For Buck, these emotional fluctuations have been present since childhood, though he lacked the language and support to understand them.

Buck has always been emotionally intense. As a child, moments of disappointment, loneliness, or perceived rejection immediately escalated into overwhelming distress. Without consistent emotional guidance, he developed no framework for managing these reactions. Instead, he internalised the belief that his feelings were “too much”, a message frequently reinforced by his parents’ detachment and, later, by peers who viewed his emotional expressiveness as excessive. This left him with a chronic fear that his emotions were dangerous, burdensome, or unacceptable.

In adulthood, Buck’s emotional responses remain heightened. When something good happens, he feels joy with remarkable depth, an intensity Eddie once described as sunlight breaking through. But when something goes wrong, his emotions can fall with equal force. He often moves quickly from optimism to despair, confidence to shame, and connection to withdrawal. These shifts aren't manipulative or deliberate; rather, they reflect the difficulty he has regulating emotions that are inherently strong and deeply felt. This is also recognised as black-and-white thinking. There is no middle ground in his thinking, only extremes, and he often doesn't realise it's even happening.

This affective instability becomes particularly visible in situations where Buck perceives abandonment or criticism. A small misunderstanding can trigger feelings of rejection, and a firm directive from a superior can leave him convinced he's failed beyond repair. He experienced this during the uncertain period after Abby left. He held on, hoping she would return, while Chimney made jokes about him waiting, which left him feeling unsupported by the team. Yet he also remembers that Chimney initially mocked the women who were cat-fished before helping Buck track down the man using his identity, which eventually made Buck feel supported. The contradiction confused him. He often feels he never truly knows whether people are trustworthy, so he tends to trust fully until hurt rather than keeping distance at the start.

Similarly, after the truck bombing, Buck’s emotional state fluctuated dramatically. He oscillated between gratitude for surviving, shame for needing help, resentment toward those who treated him differently, and desperation to prove himself. His inability to find stable emotional ground made recovery psychologically exhausting alongside the physical trauma. He also felt that only Eddie and Hen were consistently present for him, particularly when Hen noticed he had not been given blood clot prevention information. Maddie felt distant after the cast was removed, and he did not feel supported by her while recertifying for his job.

Inter-personally, Buck’s emotional swings often lead him to misinterpret situations or react more intensely than others expect. He may assume someone is angry when they are simply distracted, or believe a relationship is threatened by a minor disagreement. These reactions stem from deep fears rather than conscious thought. For instance, if Eddie becomes quiet or preoccupied, Buck often assumes he's done something wrong. Eddie has pointed out that even during minor disagreements Buck quickly blames himself and asks him not to leave, despite marriage and repeated reassurance that Eddie loves him and intends to stay.

Dr Copeland notes that Buck’s emotional intensity is not inherently maladaptive. It allows him to form strong connections, demonstrate empathy, and experience joy deeply. However, the instability of these emotions, how quickly they shift, how strongly they surge, and how much influence they have over his behaviour, creates internal chaos and miscommunication with those around him. She also explains that such rapid emotional change can be physically exhausting because of the energy required to manage it.

These emotional swings also influence his impulsive behaviours. When overwhelmed by distress, fear, or guilt, he tends to act immediately to relieve emotional pressure. This connection between emotion and impulsivity forms a central pattern in his psychological profile: intense emotion, impulsive behaviour, regret or shame, followed by increased emotional distress. Dr Copeland explains that this topic will require multiple sessions to address and that she will warn him beforehand so he has time to rest afterwards.

Eddie, who knows him best, has learned to recognise these patterns. He helps Buck slow down, ground himself, and separate the emotion of a moment from its meaning. When Buck spirals into negative self-talk, Eddie gently reminds him that strong feelings are not evidence of failure. This steady presence provides Buck with an emotional anchor he never had growing up. It also supports the journaling Buck has begun, helping him recognise the signs earlier. When he can't step away, Eddie reassures him he can rely on him for grounding.

During therapy, Buck has begun learning skills to regulate these emotional swings. Dr Copeland introduces grounding exercises, cognitive reframing strategies, and mindfulness techniques to help him identify early signs of escalation such as a clenched jaw, racing thoughts, and difficulty breathing. By recognising the onset of an emotional shift, he can intervene before the feeling becomes overwhelming. Buck admits this is difficult work but recognises emotional regulation is essential for stable relationships, sound decisions, and his wellbeing.

Despite the challenge, Buck has shown early signs of progress. He has begun pausing before reacting, asking clarifying questions when he feels rejected, and reminding himself that strong emotions don't always represent reality. Most importantly, he's beginning to accept that his emotions, however intense, are valid and deserve space, understanding, and compassion.

Chapter Text

When Dr Copeland first mentioned this BPD trait to me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk about it. It was too overwhelming. Because of this, she suggested I take some time and write down how I was feeling; the only instruction she gave me was to be honest with myself.

When I mentioned this to Eddie after my last session, he told me that Frank has him do the same thing when a topic becomes too much to talk about. He said that’s what the locked journal is for, his safe place to write everything down, and he only shares it with Frank. He inspired me, so I decided to get one for myself, hoping it could help me track my progress throughout therapy. I know I’ve only ever briefly mentioned Dr Wells to people, and I have to actually deal with what happened if I want to move past it instead of doing what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years.

So here’s my first entry in my therapy diary. If my husband or my son ever find this unlocked, please put it back where you found it and don’t read it.

When Dr Copeland first asked me whether I struggled with chronic feelings of emptiness, I didn’t know how to answer. I told her I got lonely sometimes, or that I felt disconnected, but I didn’t think it was anything unusual. It wasn’t until we talked more that I realised it wasn’t just loneliness. It was something I had carried my whole life, a hollow, quiet ache inside me that no amount of company ever really erased.

Looking back at who I had been for most of my adult life, it became obvious how much that emptiness had been driving me. 

In the early days at the 118, I chased connection in the quickest ways I knew how. Casual sex felt like the simplest solution, just enough distraction, just enough closeness, to make me feel something other than the constant dull ache of not being enough. At the time I pretended it was fun, that I liked living that way. But every time I went home afterwards, I felt worse. The emptiness always returned, louder and heavier.

Then I met Abby. And before we had ever stood in the same room, I felt myself attaching to her so quickly it scared me. Hearing her voice made me feel held in a way that didn’t mirror anything from my childhood or my life up to that point. When she chose me, when she saw me, that emptiness went quiet for the first time I could remember. I clung to that feeling like it was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

And when she left, the emptiness came back with such force that I didn’t know how to cope with it. I told myself she would return, that she just needed time, because the alternative, accepting she was gone, meant facing the void inside me again. I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t even know how to begin facing it.

My second year at the 118 only made it clearer that the emptiness didn’t care how many people were around me. I could be surrounded by the team, laughing and working and saving lives, and still feel like something inside me was missing. After big calls, especially the earthquake, I felt detached, almost like I needed someone else’s reassurance just to feel real. I leaned on every bit of validation I received, and the slightest shift in tone or mood from the people around me made the emptiness flare again.

My third year brought that emptiness into sharp focus, especially after the truck bombing. Recovery forced me to slow down, and slowing down meant being alone with myself. I had avoided that feeling my entire life. I pushed myself because I couldn’t handle the idea that I wasn’t useful. Being sidelined felt like disappearing. Without the job, without helping, without being needed, I didn’t know who I was. That empty space inside me grew until I didn’t know how to quieten it. Without Eddie and Chris, I truly believe I would have lost myself.

And even in smaller moments, the emptiness showed itself:

• hovering near conversations, hoping someone would pull me in,
• panicking when Bobby’s tone shifted,
• lighting up at small signs of trust from Hen,
• grounding instantly whenever Eddie expressed belief in me,
• worrying the tiniest change meant I had done something wrong.

Looking back now, as someone who eventually married Eddie and became a stepdad to Christopher, it is strange to realise how disconnected I once was, from myself, from others, from any sense of stability.

When Dr Copeland asked what had begun to fill that emptiness in healthier ways, Christopher was one of the first things I thought of. Becoming his stepdad changed me in ways I hadn’t understood at the time.

Christopher offered a kind of affection I'd never experienced before, steady, consistent, unconditional. He didn’t love me because of what I could do, or how impressive I was, or whether I saved a life that day. He loved me simply for being there, for showing up. After a childhood of conditional affection, the simplicity of that was healing in a way nothing else had ever been.

Being his stepdad also gave me a purpose grounded in emotional presence rather than performance. My value to him came from listening, helping, supporting him, being steady, not from adrenaline or heroics. He actually hates when I’m “too heroic”. It was one of the first roles in my life where who I was mattered more than what I could do.

His trust also challenged my belief that I was expendable. Christopher saw me as essential in his world, and that made it harder to see myself as someone whose life mattered less than everyone else’s. Losing Shannon and watching him grieve her also made me stop putting myself in unnecessary danger. I would hate to be the reason he had to grieve someone else.

Becoming part of his life gave me a sense of belonging I had never known before. Not a place I had to earn. Not a place that disappeared when I messed up. A home. A family. That alone eased an ache I once thought permanent.

And when I comforted him, or when he came to me for reassurance, something inside me softened. I learnt vulnerability didn’t push people away and that emotions didn’t make me “too much”. I could care and be cared for without fear.

His need for me wasn’t a burden. It was grounding. Stabilising. Healing.

Eddie had always been steady in my life, even before we were together, but becoming his husband deepened that stability in ways I hadn’t expected. 

Growing up, affection was inconsistent and unpredictable, something I had to perform for. But Eddie didn’t love me like that. He didn’t disappear when things got hard. He didn’t withdraw when I struggled. His consistency softened wounds that were decades old. 

Eddie also loved me without requiring perfection. I didn’t have to earn his affection with heroics or usefulness. He loved me on the days I showed strength and on the days I fell apart. That challenged the belief behind my emptiness, that I only mattered when I performed. 

Being his husband also gave me the belonging I had always wanted but never believed I could have. I wasn’t a guest in his life. I wasn’t waiting to be replaced. I was part of a home emotionally, legally, spiritually. That belonging quietened an internal ache I had never relieved before. 

Eddie understood me in ways I had never let anyone understand me. He could see when I was overwhelmed, when I was spiralling, when I was lost in thoughts I couldn’t articulate. Being understood that deeply made it harder for the emptiness to convince me I was invisible or unimportant. 

And he shattered the belief that I was expendable. The fear in his voice when I was hurt, the way he held me afterwards, none of it matched the story I had always told myself about my place in the world. His love proved losing me would break him. 

He also gave me emotional intimacy I never believed I deserved. He listened without judgement, stayed when I was vulnerable, and accepted the parts of me I once believed were unlovable. 

Being Eddie’s husband finally gave me a stable identity. I wasn’t defined solely by my job or by what I could provide. I was a partner. A stepfather. A man who belonged to a family. My sense of self came from connection, not performance. 

Being Christopher’s stepdad and Eddie’s husband didn’t erase the emptiness entirely, but they softened it. They gave me emotional safety, identity, purpose, belonging, and a kind of love I never thought I could have. They helped me build a life where emptiness didn’t define me anymore. I didn’t just care about people. I had a family. 

And that meant something solid inside me too. One day I hoped to expand the little family we had. Maybe Maddie being pregnant influenced that thought, but I would have loved to share sleepless nights with Eddie and watch Chris become a big brother. Even if it never happened, I knew I would still be happy being with my boys. 

Chapter Text

When Dr Copeland told me she wanted us to explore the BPD trait of “inappropriate, intense, or explosive anger”, I felt my entire body tense. I tried to brush it off, saying I wasn’t really an angry person. I didn’t shout or throw things or get into fights. I wasn’t violent. I wasn’t explosive.

But she just looked at me with that soft, steady expression she uses when she knows I’m avoiding something.
Then she asked, “Is that truly how you feel, or is it the version of yourself you’ve learnt is acceptable?”

And just like that, something twisted inside me, because I knew she was right.

I’ve spent my whole life believing that anger was dangerous. Not dangerous to others, but dangerous to me. Something that would be used against me. Something that made me ungrateful, unworthy, too much.

But as she talked me through the trait, I realised something I had never allowed myself to consider:

My anger was explosive.
It just didn’t explode outward, it exploded inward.

Growing up, I learnt very early that my emotions were unwelcome.

If I cried, I was dramatic.
If I asked questions, I was “difficult.”
If I pushed back even slightly, I was “making trouble.”
If I needed comfort, I was “too sensitive.”

I can still hear them saying:

“Stop overreacting, Evan.”
“Your sister doesn’t behave like this.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“For once, don’t start.”

But alongside the dismissal was something stranger, the sense that there were things I wasn’t allowed to know.
Conversations that stopped the moment I entered the room.
Looks exchanged over my head.
Phrases like:

“We can’t go through that again.”
“Just leave it - he doesn’t remember.”
“It was different before…”

Before what?
Remember what?
What couldn’t we “go through” again?

Every time I asked, they reacted the same way:

“Drop it, Evan.”
“Stop being nosy.”
“This isn’t something you need to know.”

Because I was a child, I assumed the problem was me.
That I was prying.
That I was asking for too much.
That I was somehow wrong for wanting to understand the things that clearly made them uncomfortable.

I didn’t realise until much later that they weren’t protecting me; they were protecting a truth they had no intention of ever sharing.
A truth that shaped how they saw me long before I was old enough to see myself.

Dr Copeland says that when children sense a secret but are never allowed to name it, the confusion turns into a deep, quiet anger, the kind that becomes part of you before you even know it’s there.

It explained more of my childhood than I wanted to admit.

When I was little, the only time I got real attention from them was when I was injured.

A sprained wrist.
A broken bone.
A fall that scraped my skin raw.

Suddenly my mum would fuss.
Suddenly my dad would sit beside me.
Suddenly I existed.

So of course I learnt to seek affection through injury, because that was the only time they ever offered it.

But even that stopped when I was about fourteen.

After that, they barely looked up at all.
It was like whatever shadow hung over our family, whatever truth I wasn’t allowed to know, had made loving me something they simply couldn’t be bothered with anymore.

And I grew up thinking their withdrawal meant something was wrong with me.
That if I had been better, easier, quieter, they would have chosen me the way they chose Maddie.

It took me years to realise that nothing I did would change the way they saw me.

They didn’t check in on me when I moved across the country.
They didn’t congratulate me when I became a firefighter.
They didn’t even pretend to take interest in my life unless it was convenient for them.

But the moments that hurt the most were the ones when it was painfully obvious they didn’t care about me at all. 

When Maddie was kidnapped by Doug, they didn’t even answer the phone.

I rang them over and over, desperate for help, for information, for anything.
They didn’t pick up.

I left a voicemail, choked, frantic, terrified, telling them Maddie was missing.
They didn’t return the call.
Not then.
Not later.

They said nothing.

Their silence felt like a punch to the chest.

When Devon died on national television, they still didn’t reach out.

Devon was my first loss on the job.
My first failure.
My first experience of real on-duty grief.

I didn’t know until later that he hadn’t reached for my hand because he was suicidal.
At the time, all I knew was that I had watched a man die in front of me, a man I’d promised to save, and it played on national television.

People I didn’t know sent messages hoping I was alright.
Paramedics from other states wrote to say they were thinking of me.

My parents?

Nothing.

Not even a call to ask if I was coping.
Not even a message acknowledging that they’d seen it.
Not even an awkward, shallow attempt at sympathy.

Nothing.

And the silence, again, felt like confirmation:

If I wasn’t injured or useful, I didn’t exist to them.
And now, even injury wasn’t enough.

After the truck bombing, when I was in the hospital, they didn’t contact me at all.

The footage ran on every major news channel.
I know, because I saw it replayed again and again from my hospital bed, firefighters pulling people from wreckage, smoke rising into the air, my own body strapped to a stretcher.

The whole country had seen what happened.

My parents hadn’t even sent a text.

Not “Are you alive?”
Not “We saw the news.”
Not “We’re thinking of you.”

Nothing.

A void so loud it was impossible to ignore.

Their silence became a form of anger inside me, one I never allowed myself to express.

I didn’t rage at them.
I didn’t confront them.
I didn’t allow myself to feel betrayed.

Instead, I turned the anger inward:

telling myself I was overreacting,
convincing myself I shouldn’t expect anything from them,
assuming I must have done something wrong,
deciding their neglect was my fault, not theirs.

Dr Copeland told me:

“You learnt that expressing anger made you unlovable.
So you learnt to aim it at yourself instead.”

And hearing that hurt in a way I wasn’t ready for.
Because it finally explained why my anger never felt like anger - why it felt like shame, or self-blame, or self-hatred.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have explosive anger.

It was that I’d spent my whole life detonating it inside myself.

When Shannon died, it opened up a kind of anger I wasn’t prepared for.

Not because she was my partner, not like Eddie. Eddie and I were already in a relationship by then and we all co-parented Chris together.
But she mattered to me. We had built a friendship, a real and honest one, outside of everything complicated between her and Eddie. She trusted me, and I cared about her as an important part of our family.

Losing her felt like the ground shook beneath all of us.

So much of my anger came from watching Eddie and Christopher navigate their grief. Eddie was devastated, even if he tried to hold himself together. And Christopher… watching him try to understand why his mum wasn’t coming back was one of the hardest things I’ve ever lived through.

I wasn’t angry at Shannon.
I was angry at the injustice of it.
At the timing.
At the cruelty of losing someone who was trying so hard to rebuild her life and her place in her son’s world.
At my own helplessness.

I didn’t know what to do with that anger, so it came out sideways:

getting irritated at things that never usually bothered me,
feeling restless and short-tempered at work,
reacting sharply when Eddie said he was “fine” even though he clearly wasn’t,
getting overwhelmed by the responsibility of supporting both of them and terrified of failing.

Dr Copeland later told me this was misdirected anger - the kind that appears when the real target is too painful to face directly.

I wasn’t angry at Eddie.
I wasn’t angry at the job.
I wasn’t angry at the world around me.

I was angry at loss.
At grief.
At the terrifying fragility of life.

And underneath that anger was fear I didn’t want to name:
if someone as determined and good as Shannon could be ripped away so suddenly… what did that mean for the people I loved? For Eddie? For Chris? For us?

That fear fed the anger, and because I didn’t express either emotion safely, they turned inward - the way they always had.

It didn’t help that so soon after the funeral I was hospitalised and away from my boys for a while.

Once Eddie and I were officially together, emotions felt bigger. The stakes felt higher, because suddenly I had a life I didn’t want to lose.

So anger appeared in places it didn’t belong:

if Eddie didn’t text back quickly, fear disguised itself as irritation;
if he pointed out something I could improve at work, I shut down because I felt like a disappointment;
if he needed space, even gently, I felt rejected;
if he worried about me, I got defensive because I didn’t know how to accept care.

None of this was about Eddie.
It was old wounds reacting to present safety and not knowing what to do with it.

Eddie never met my anger with anger. He would sit quietly, steady and patient, and say things like:

“You’re overwhelmed, not angry at me.”
“It’s okay to feel this.”
“I’m here. I’m not leaving.”

And that consistency broke me open in a way nothing else had.

When Hen noticed that I hadn’t been given anything to prevent blood clots after the crush injury, it was like the ground dropped out from under me.
I hadn’t realised anything was wrong, not yet, but she had. She recognised the risk immediately and pushed until the hospital corrected their mistake.

Everyone else reacted with relief.
With gratitude.
With the kind of fear you only feel when you realise how close you came to losing someone.

But me?

I was furious.

Not at Hen.
And not at myself this time, which surprised both me and Dr Copeland.

I was angry at the doctor and the nurse who discharged me after the bombing without the medication I needed.
Angry at their carelessness.
Angry at how casually they had treated my life.
Angry that my fiancé, my son, and my team had been put through unnecessary fear because someone didn’t follow basic medical protocol.

And beneath that anger was something raw and humiliating:

I hadn’t noticed.
I should have noticed.
I should have protected myself better.

Dr Copeland told me this was the kind of anger people feel when their sense of safety has been shaken, that part of me was reacting to the idea that my life had been treated as if it didn’t matter.

She said:

“You were angry because someone else failed to protect you, and you’ve never been comfortable with needing protection in the first place.”

That sat with me for a long time.

Because it was true.
Accepting that Hen had noticed something I hadn’t, something serious, made me feel vulnerable in a way I didn’t know how to sit with. And that vulnerability twisted into anger faster than I could understand it.

It wasn’t just anger at the medical negligence.
It was anger at how small and fragile I’d felt when Hen told me.
Anger at how easily things could have gone wrong.
Anger at the fact that needing care still made me feel weak.

But more than that, there was anger on behalf of Eddie and Christopher, imagining what could have happened if Hen hadn’t intervened. Anger that my family could have been hurt by someone else’s mistake.

And that was new.
Anger shaped not by self-blame, but by the fear of what my loss would do to the people I love.

It was the first time my anger felt protective, not destructive.

Being married to Eddie didn’t fix everything, but it changed the way I related to my emotions, and the way he related to his too. For the first time in my life, anger wasn’t something I had to hide, and for the first time in his, he didn’t have to carry his alone.

I hadn’t fully understood how much anger Eddie was carrying after Shannon’s death.
He wasn’t just grieving, he was furious. Furious at the timing, at the cruelty of it, at the fact she had fought so hard to rebuild her relationship with Christopher only to be taken before she ever saw it flourish. Furious at himself for not being able to protect Chris from that pain.

But the truck bombing cracked open a different kind of anger in him.

He wasn’t angry in a general, unfocused way.
He was angry at Freddie Costas, the man who climbed under the engine and deliberately planted the device that nearly killed me. Angry that someone looked at firefighters doing their jobs and decided we deserved to die.

And he was angry at the mechanic who had signed the engine off as safe. The mechanic who hadn’t checked properly. Who hadn’t caught what Freddie had done. Who hadn’t noticed the thing that might have saved all of us.

Eddie held that anger close at first, tight, silent, swallowed down the way he had learnt in the army.
But I recognised it immediately, because it was my kind of anger too.

And just like he did for me, I stayed with him through it.

I let him talk when he needed to and held him when talking wasn’t possible. I reminded him again and again that anger didn’t make him reckless or unreasonable. It made him human. That he didn’t have to carry every terrible thing alone. That it wasn’t on him to prevent every loss.

Helping him through his anger helped me understand mine.

Because when I shut down, spiralled, or snapped without meaning to, Eddie stayed. He learnt my patterns. He learnt how to ground me before my emotions tipped into self-blame. He learnt the difference between me needing space and me slipping into a place where I didn’t feel safe inside my own head.

And in the same way, I learnt his.
His silence didn’t mean he was shutting me out. It meant he was trying not to crumble. I learnt when to give him space without making him feel abandoned, and when to close the distance without overwhelming him.

We became mirrors for each other - reflecting the parts we had both been taught to hide.

He helped me learn anger didn’t make me unlovable.
I helped him realise he didn’t need to pretend to be invincible.

And neither of us had to face the hardest parts of ourselves alone anymore.

Being Eddie’s husband didn’t erase my anger or his.
But it made it safe.
Shared.
Manageable.

For the first time, anger wasn’t something that threatened to break me.
It became something we learnt to navigate together.

Explosive anger doesn’t always look like shouting for me.
It looks like shutting down, snapping at the safest people in my life, drowning in guilt, misdirecting frustration, and turning every feeling inward.

But therapy, and Eddie, and Christopher, are teaching me:

Anger isn’t the enemy.
Silencing it is.

I’m learning to feel anger without fearing it.
To express it without punishing myself.
To accept it without assuming it makes me unlovable.

Maybe one day I’ll understand it enough to see it not as danger, but as a signal.

Chapter Text

When Dr Copeland introduced the final BPD trait, “transient, stress-related suspiciousness or dissociative experiences”, something in my chest tightened before she even finished the sentence.

My instinct was to deny it outright.

I told her she must have the wrong person.
I said I wasn’t paranoid.
I didn’t “lose time”.
I didn’t slip into some alternate version of myself.
I stayed in control. I stayed present. I stayed useful.

She didn’t interrupt.
She just let me talk until the words sounded thin, even to my own ears.

Then, in that quiet, steady tone of hers, the one that feels almost too gentle for the weight it carries, she asked:

“Evan, what do you believe dissociation looks like?”

I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

Because I genuinely didn’t know.
I had always pictured something dramatic: blackouts, hours missing from memory, people coming to on the other side of town with no idea how they got there.

Not… me.

I never connected the word to the moments I call zoning out.
The moments where the world goes slightly soft around the edges, or sounds feel like they are coming from underwater, or everything inside me folds tight and quiet because it is the only way I know how to keep myself intact.

She explained that dissociation is often subtle.
Quiet.
Almost invisible, even to the person experiencing it.

And then she asked me to describe what zoning out feels like.

As I talked, the room seemed to shift around me, not physically but emotionally, like something inside me was rearranging itself into a shape I had spent years avoiding.

Because as the words left my mouth, I realised I wasn’t describing something harmless.
I was describing dissociation.

And I hadn’t even known.

We went back to my childhood next.

I didn’t want to.
Every part of me resisted it.
But she said dissociation often begins long before someone realises it is happening.

She asked what happened when I got upset as a child.

And the response came out without hesitation, like muscle memory:

“If I cried, I was dramatic.
If I asked questions, I was difficult.
If I needed comfort, I was too sensitive.”

She nodded slowly, as if she had expected exactly that.

Then she asked how I coped.

And before I could filter myself, I told her the truth:

“I went quiet.
I tried to make myself smaller.
I learnt not to take up space, because being noticed usually meant being dismissed… or criticised… or compared.”

A deep breath.
A pause.

She explained that in children who grow up without emotional safety, dissociation is not a choice. It is a survival instinct.
A way of disappearing from internal pain when external escape is not possible.

Hearing that made something shift inside me, an uncomfortable, expanding awareness, like someone had turned on the lights in a room I did not realise I had been sitting in.

We moved forward to the early days at the 118.

I told her how, after Devon died, everything felt strangely distant, foggy, unreal, too sharp one moment and too blurred the next.

I explained that it had been just Bobby, Hen, and Chim on that call.
Athena during the aftermath.

I told her how the moment replayed in my mind over and over: Devon not reaching for my hand, the metal groaning, the crowd roaring with panic, Bobby shouting, my own voice cracking as I begged him to just hold on.

And then…

Nothing.

Or everything at once.

“I don’t remember parts of that day,” I admitted, and the words felt heavier than they should have.
“I remember the sounds. The shouting. The smell of the metal. But the middle bit, the part where it all happened, it’s like looking at it through fog.”

She nodded.

“That’s dissociation, Evan. You were functional enough to act, but not present enough to experience. It’s a trauma response.”

And hearing that, hearing someone name it without judgement, was the first moment I allowed myself to believe that what happened that day wasn’t a professional failure.

It was trauma.

Real trauma.

And my mind had tried to protect me the only way it knew how.

Then Dr Copeland asked about what happened after Devon’s death.
Not the call itself, not the metal, not the cameras, not the moment everything went quiet, but the aftermath.

My face went hot before I even spoke, because I knew exactly what she meant.
And I knew there was no avoiding it this time.

I told her how I had been drowning.

After Devon died, I didn’t sleep.
I couldn’t eat.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his hand not reaching for mine.
I thought I had failed him.
Failed the team.
Failed myself.

And because I didn’t want to fall apart, I did what I thought you were supposed to do when you weren’t coping:
I reached out for help.

Bobby found me a therapist.

And that was when everything unravelled.

The words felt thick and clumsy in my mouth.
Like they had been jammed somewhere behind my ribs for years and were finally fighting their way out.

I told her I still don’t understand how it happened.
How someone who was meant to protect my well being crossed a line I didn’t even realise existed until it was already behind me.

How, in the moment, nothing felt clear.
Everything felt soft, blurred around the edges, like thinking through fog.

How I was vulnerable, exhausted, ashamed, desperate for someone to tell me I wasn’t broken beyond repair.

How being seen, actually seen, after weeks of spiralling felt intoxicating in a way my brain confused with safety.

Then I said the part I had never told anyone:

“I don’t remember all of it.
I don’t remember what I said.
I don’t remember if I said no.
I don’t remember if I even thought of saying no.”

She didn’t interrupt me.
She didn’t look horrified or confused.
She just waited, not for justification, but for truth.

“I don’t know if I agreed,” I whispered. “I don’t know if I froze. I don’t know if I dissociated the entire time. I just know I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t present. I wasn’t thinking clearly. And I was crying, actually crying, before anything even happened.”

Her brow softened with a kind of restrained sorrow, professional but human.

“Evan,” she said gently, “dissociation blurs memory when the mind is overwhelmed or frightened. The fact that you cannot remember whether you consented does not mean you are responsible. It means you were not in a position to give consent in the first place.”

Something inside me twisted sharply, a deep, painful recognition.

“And even if you had said nothing,” she continued, “even if you froze, even if you said yes because you were confused or afraid, she was your therapist. You came to her in crisis. The power imbalance made any sexual advance unethical, inappropriate, and harmful. You were violated, Evan. Whether you realised it at the time or not.”

Hearing that, hearing someone name what I had been too afraid to look at, felt like something in my chest cracked open.
Not broken apart, but opened up.
Exposed.

Then she asked, quietly:

“Have you ever told anyone what really happened?”

My breath shook.

“I told Chim once,” I said. “The next day. I didn’t explain it, not the tears, not the confusion, not… anything real. I just said something had happened with my therapist.”

My stomach clenched as the memory rose.

“And he joked about it,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “Called it a ‘fantasy come true’. Everyone laughed. I laughed too. But it made me feel sick.”

Dr Copeland didn’t look surprised, but something in her eyes tightened, a controlled flicker of anger on my behalf.

“You were testing the safety of the disclosure,” she said. “And the reaction taught you it wasn’t safe. That people would minimise it, mock it, and that you couldn’t trust your own discomfort.”

Her voice softened.

“And what did you do with that feeling?”

I swallowed hard, feeling heat behind my eyes.

“I buried it,” I said.
A pause.
A breath that scraped all the way down.

“Told myself men don’t get… violated. No, not violated. Raped.”

The word tore something open in me, ugly and heavy and too honest to take back.

“I told myself it wasn’t that. That it was just sex. That I shouldn’t make a big deal of it. That it didn’t matter.”

She shook her head slowly.

“It mattered, Evan. The blank spaces, the confusion, the shame, those are trauma responses, not indicators of consent.”

Hearing her say that, right after naming what happened, felt like the ground shifting beneath years of silence.

It didn’t fix anything.
But it made understanding possible.
For the first time, I wasn’t fighting myself. I was listening.

And somehow, that was enough to keep breathing.

When I finally stopped speaking about Dr Wells, the room felt heavy, not suffocating, just… full.
Full of things I had spent four years avoiding.

I think Dr Copeland sensed that weight, because she let the silence stretch.
Not to make me uncomfortable, but to let me breathe.

Then, gently, she shifted the session forward.

“Evan,” she said, “I’d like to talk about another moment where your sense of safety with others was shaken. The cat-fishing incident, during your probation.”

That made something cold travel down my spine.

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

Because I hadn’t thought about that day, really thought about it, in years.
Not since long before I had allowed myself to acknowledge what Dr Wells had really done to me.

And suddenly the two events felt linked, twisted together in a way I had never understood before.

I told her the truth: the cat-fishing didn’t happen in the “wild” early days of my twenties.
It didn’t happen before I knew better.
It didn’t happen before I understood what vulnerability looked like.

It happened after Dr Wells.
After my sense of trust had already been shattered.
After I had convinced myself I couldn’t let anyone see how easily I broke.

I had only been with Abby after Dr Wells, and even that had taken time.
Care.
Patience on her end, and hyper-vigilance on mine.
And even then, even with her kindness, I struggled to let myself believe she truly wanted me.

So when women suddenly began confronting me…

Throwing drinks in my face.
Slapping me.
Calling me a liar.
A manipulator.
A predator.

It felt like confirmation of every terrible thing I had been telling myself.

“I thought I had done something wrong,” I told Dr Copeland. “I thought I had hurt them without realising. I thought I was… dangerous somehow.”

She tilted her head slightly.

“And this happened not long after the violation you experienced from your therapist?”

I nodded.

“That’s significant,” she said softly. “A person who has been sexually harmed often becomes hyper-aware of unintentionally causing harm. You may not have had the words for it then, but emotionally you were already carrying enormous guilt, guilt that didn’t belong to you.”

My throat tightened.

“I kept thinking it was like…” I paused, searching for the right words. “It was like their anger made sense. Like their disgust made sense. Like the universe was just… confirming what I already feared after Dr Wells, that something about me invites danger. Or disappointment. Or disgust.”

She didn’t speak, just listened, the way you listen to a wound being uncovered.

I explained how humiliating it had been.

How public.
How confusing.
How the team had jokingly called it “a rite of passage”.

How I laughed along, again, because I had learned that anything else got me labelled dramatic.

How, deep down, I was terrified that something truly monstrous lived inside me and I just didn’t know it.

I told her how:

I questioned my own memory
I questioned my own judgement
I questioned whether I could trust myself to be around women
I questioned whether I had accidentally led someone on without realising

Most of all, I questioned whether people saw me, or a version of me they had invented.

And she said something that made everything inside me go very still:

“After experiencing rape, Evan, the fear that your identity can be taken from you, misused, twisted, rewritten by someone else, becomes profoundly destabilising. The cat-fishing didn’t just violate your public image. It violated the fragile sense of self you were still desperately trying to rebuild.”

My eyes burned before I could stop them.

Because she was right.

It wasn’t just embarrassment.
It wasn’t just confusion.
It was fear.
Fear that I didn’t have control over how the world perceived me.
Fear that someone could harm others while wearing my face.
Fear that I would be blamed for something I hadn’t done, the way I had blamed myself for something Dr Wells had done.

Fear that I was, somehow, replaceable.

Expendable.

Easily rewritten.

And then she asked the question I didn’t expect, the one that drew a straight emotional line from Dr Wells to the cat-fishing to Abby and, eventually, to Eddie:

“How did that experience affect the relationships you formed after it?”

It hit me so hard I genuinely couldn’t speak for a moment.

Because until that second, I had been talking as if the whole thing had only affected my self-esteem, my trust, the way I saw my place with people.

But it had changed more than that.

“I didn’t just struggle emotionally after it,” I said quietly. “It changed sex for me too.”

Her expression softened, but she didn’t interrupt.

I took a shaky breath.

“I didn’t realise it at the time. I told myself I was fine. That it didn’t matter. But after Dr Wells… sex stopped feeling like something I chose. It started feeling like something that just… happened to me. Something I went along with because I thought it was expected, or because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, or because I thought saying no made me too much work.”

I rubbed my hands together, grounding the tremor in my voice.

“With Abby… I cared about her. I really did. But even then, after what happened, I kept waiting for the moment she would see I wasn’t enough, or that I wasn’t what she imagined. Sex with her became… careful. Measured. I was always checking myself, making sure I was doing what she wanted, not what I wanted. I didn’t know how to separate desire from obligation anymore.”

I swallowed.

“And after the cat-fishing, it just got worse. I felt like my body wasn’t mine. Like anyone could take it, or claim it, or use it, and I wouldn’t notice until it was too late. And if someone confronted me about something sexual, even something I didn’t do, I automatically assumed it was my fault.”

I let out a shaky laugh, the humourless kind.

“It was easier not to want anything at all than to risk wanting something and being wrong again.”

She nodded slowly, encouraging me without pushing.

“It wasn’t until Eddie,” I continued, voice softer, “that sex became… safe again. Not immediately, not suddenly. But he never rushed me. Never expected anything. He cared more about whether I felt okay than whether anything happened. He asked. He listened. He stopped if I even hesitated. He made space for me to have boundaries I didn’t even know I needed.”

My chest tightened in a way that felt almost like grief.

“He was the first person who made sex feel like a choice. My choice. Who made intimacy feel like trust instead of a trap. And I didn’t realise until now how much of that came from him undoing the damage Dr Wells left behind.”

I wiped at my face, startled to realise I was crying.

“I didn’t just mistrust people after the rape,” I said. “I mistrusted myself. My own judgement. My own desire. My own ability to say yes or no. And it took years, and Eddie being patient and gentle and not asking for more than I could give, for any of that to start feeling like mine again.”

Dr Copeland nodded, her voice calm and certain when she finally spoke:

“Because it is yours, Evan. It always should have been.”

When I finally stopped talking, the room felt too quiet.
Not uncomfortable, just heavy in a way that made it hard to breathe.

Dr Copeland gave me a moment before she spoke.

“Evan,” she said softly, “what you’re describing, the loss of bodily autonomy, the fear of desire, the belief that sex is something that happens to you instead of with you, those are common aftermaths of sexual trauma. What you experienced wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t a lapse in judgement. It was rape.”

I didn’t flinch from the word this time.
I didn’t want to hide from it anymore.

But hearing it again, spoken so plainly, made something deep inside me crumble.

I felt the tears sting, hot and sudden, and I didn’t bother wiping them away.

Because for the first time, I wasn’t crying out of shame.

I was crying out of recognition.
Validation.
Relief.

And grief for a version of myself who had spent years believing he deserved it.

“Evan,” she said, gentler still, “when trauma steals control of the body, the mind protects itself by disconnecting. That dissociation doesn’t end when the moment ends. It follows you. Into relationships. Into intimacy. Into every place where you were taught you didn’t have a right to needs or boundaries.”

I nodded, because my throat wouldn’t let me speak.

We sat like that for a moment, the silence more grounding than anything.

Then she continued:

“And when you were cat-fished, right after this violation, it reinforced the idea that your identity, your body, your image… were things other people could take, distort, or weaponise. Of course your trust fractured. Of course you questioned whether affection was real. You had just survived a trauma, and then the world handed you another violation, different in form, but similar in impact.”

I felt that like a bruise under my ribs.

“It wasn’t just humiliation,” I murmured. “It was like the universe kept proving I didn’t have control over myself, over how people saw me, or treated me, or touched me.”

She nodded. “Exactly. And when someone is already dissociating from shame or fear, that kind of experience deepens it. Not because you’re weak, but because you were already wounded.”

I let out a shaking breath.

“And then Abby,” I whispered.

She waited.

“I think I clung to her so hard because she felt safe,” I said. “Not sexually, not at first. Emotionally. She wanted me for more than my body. She didn’t treat me like a joke or an object. After Dr Wells… that felt like salvation.”

My voice cracked.

“But even with her, I was still scared. I kept waiting for the moment she’d see something broken in me. And I never told her what happened. Or why I sometimes froze. Or why I never initiated anything. I just hoped she wouldn’t notice.”

“And when she left?” Dr Copeland asked softly.

“It confirmed everything Dr Wells had carved into me,” I whispered.
“That if someone sees the real me, the vulnerable me, they leave.”

She nodded knowingly.

“That belief is the root of trauma-induced dissociation.”

I swallowed hard.

“And then Eddie,” I said, almost to myself.

“What changed?” she asked.

I smiled, small, fragile, honest.

“He didn’t flinch,” I said. “Not from my feelings. Not from my fears. Not from the parts of me that shut down or spiralled. He just… stayed.”

“And what did that teach you?”

“That my presence mattered,” I whispered.
“That my body wasn’t just something to be used or abandoned.
That intimacy could be slow.
Safe.
Chosen.”

My voice trembled.

“And that I never had to dissociate to survive him.”

Something in my chest eased, like a knot tugged loose.

Then Dr Copeland shifted us gently:

“Evan… trauma affects how you relate to your body. But dissociation isn’t just about intimacy. It shows up whenever your mind feels unsafe. Including at work. Including in danger.”

And just like that, the bombing returned to the centre of the room.

Not the explosion.
Not the injuries.
Not the footage on the news.

But the moment under the truck.

The moment my mind began to drift somewhere far away.
The moment I believed I was nothing more than collateral damage.
The moment survival stopped feeling necessary.

She asked quietly, “Can we talk about that now?”

And for the first time since it happened, I nodded without hesitation.

Because suddenly I understood that the boy who learnt to disappear,
the man who was violated and didn’t know how to stay present,
the firefighter who dissociated under six thousand pounds of metal,
they weren’t separate versions of me.

They were one continuous story.

And I was finally ready for all of it to make sense.

When she asked if we could talk about the bombing, I expected the usual tightness in my chest, that reflexive clamp of fear and shame.
But instead, something inside me just… settled.

Not comfortably.
More like bracing for impact.

I told her, “Yeah. I think I’m ready.”

And for the first time since the explosion, I meant it.

She didn’t start with questions.
She just said, “Tell me what you remember.”

So I did.

Or at least, I told her what I thought I remembered.

I told her how everything flashed white-hot, then red, then wrong.
How the pressure crushed down on my leg before I even realised I had been thrown.
How the sound around me warped, too sharp, too muffled, like the world couldn’t decide whether to deafen me or drown me.

But the detail that came out next was the one I never say out loud.

“It didn’t feel like pain at first,” I admitted. “It felt like distance. Like the world was happening somewhere else, and I was just watching it.”

Her expression softened, but she didn’t interrupt.

“And then Freddie,” I said, my voice tightening.

I could still see him crouched down beside me, calm, almost gentle, like he was talking to a child instead of a man trapped under six thousand pounds of metal.

“He didn’t help,” I said. “He didn’t even look worried. He just stared at me and said I was collateral damage.”

The words alone made my stomach drop.

Because I remember the exact moment they landed inside me like a truth I had been waiting to hear.

“I believed him,” I whispered. “That’s the part that scares me. I believed him so easily. Like my brain had just been waiting for someone to confirm it.”

She didn’t speak, but I could tell the silence wasn’t judgement.
It was space.

“And once I believed it,” I said, “I stopped fighting. It was like… something inside me just let go.”

My eyes burned, throat tightening.

“I could hear people shouting. I could hear Hen. I think Chim yelled my name. But it all felt like echoes. Like it wasn’t happening to me. Like I had already left.”

I paused, because saying the next part felt like peeling something raw.

“I wasn’t scared,” I whispered. “I should have been. But I wasn’t. It almost felt… peaceful. Like nothing mattered anymore. Like disappearing would be easier than trying.”

Her eyes softened in a way that made my own tear up.

“That’s dissociation in its most extreme form,” she said gently. “When the mind truly believes you are safer detached than present.”

I nodded slowly.

Because for once, I didn’t feel ashamed.
I felt understood.

“But something pulled you back,” she added softly. “What was it?”

I closed my eyes.

“Eddie,” I said. “His voice.”

I didn’t remember seeing him at first, not his face, not his hands, not the panic in his breathing.

But I remembered the sound.

“It cut through everything,” I said. “Like it was the only real thing in the world. Like it reached whatever part of me hadn’t completely shut down yet.”

I laughed quietly, bitterly.

“I didn’t even remember him pulling me out. Not until I saw it on the news later. But the moment I heard him shouting for me to stay with him… something inside me stopped drifting.”

She asked, “Did you feel safe?”

I thought about it.

“Not safe,” I said. “But… claimed. Like someone still believed I was worth saving, even when I didn’t.”

And that broke something open inside me, grief so old and deep it felt like it came from childhood, from every moment I felt unwanted, overlooked, unimportant.

I wiped at my face.

“I don’t remember the civilians lifting the truck,” I continued. “I don’t remember Eddie getting to me. I don’t remember Bobby’s hands on my shoulders or Hen telling me to breathe. None of it stayed.”

I swallowed.

“I didn’t even remember Eddie dragging me clear or the way he held my face and said my name like he was terrified. None of that came back until I saw the footage in the hospital.”

Her voice was soft when she spoke.

“Watching your own rescue instead of remembering it must have been deeply unsettling.”

“It was,” I whispered. “It made me feel like a ghost. Like I wasn’t even part of my own survival.”

A few tears slipped down my face before I could stop them.

“I felt guilty,” I admitted. “Like I should have been stronger. Like I should have stayed present so Eddie didn’t have to save someone who wasn’t even conscious enough to know he was there.”

She shook her head gently.

“You weren’t absent by choice. You were traumatised. Dissociation saved your life the only way your mind knew how.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“But Eddie didn’t need you to be present,” she added. “He needed you alive. And he fought like hell for that.”

Something in me cracked open at those words, not pain exactly, but an ache for the part of myself that never believed I was worth fighting for.

We talked next about how dissociation followed me home, into conflict, into moments when Eddie was frustrated or worried or quiet.
How I would vanish emotionally without even understanding why.
How he learnt to call me back gently, grounding me with just my name.

“That,” she said softly, “is what healing looks like.”

By the time she asked me the final question, “When you dissociate, Evan… what are you trying to escape?”, I already knew the answer.

Not because I had said it before.
But because everything in the room had been leading to it.

“The fear that I’m too much,” I whispered. “Or not enough. That one wrong reaction will cost me everything. That needing anything makes me a burden. That anger makes me unlovable. That I can’t trust myself to stay safe.”

She nodded slowly.

“Dissociation protected you once,” she said. “But you don’t need protection from your own emotions anymore.”

For the first time, I believed she might be right

Chapter Text

Eddie was waiting outside the therapy building the way he always did, leaning against the truck, arms folded, eyes softening the second Buck stepped outside. He didn’t smile, not fully. He never did on days like this, not until he knew where Buck’s head was at. 

Buck climbed into the passenger seat quietly. Eddie didn’t start the engine. 

“You okay?” he asked softly. 

Buck opened his mouth to lie. 

Then shut it again. 

“…not really.” 

Eddie nodded. Not prying. Not pushing. Just giving permission. 

“Do you want to talk now,” he asked, “or once we get home?” 

Buck stared at the dashboard, jaw trembling. 

“Now,” he whispered. 

Eddie turned off the ignition. 

Buck took a shaking breath. 

Buck stared forward, fingers twisting together, breath unsteady. 

“I… talked about something today,” he said, voice barely audible. “Something from years ago. Something I’ve never said out loud.” 

Eddie didn’t push. “I’m right here.” 

Buck swallowed hard and whispered, “She said… what happened with my therapist… it was rape.” 

Eddie went completely still. 

Not in shock, in heartbreak. 

His voice softened into something devastated and tender. “Oh, Buck…” 

Buck’s chin trembled. “I didn’t think it was that. I never let myself think it. I told myself it was just… I don’t know… a mistake. Something I misunderstood.” 

He shook his head, eyes wet and unfocused. 

“I don’t even remember everything. I don’t remember what I said. I don’t know if I said no. I don’t know if I froze. I just know I wasn’t okay.” 

Eddie moved closer, but slowly, letting Buck see every inch of the movement before he made it. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not ready to tell,” Eddie murmured. 

Buck pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I was in a really bad place after Devon died. Bobby sent me to a therapist, and I thought it was going to help. I thought I finally had someone who saw me.” 

He swallowed thickly. 

“And then she…” His voice broke. “I can’t even say her name right now. I don’t want her in my mouth.” 

Eddie’s hand slid gently around the back of Buck’s neck, grounding. “You don’t have to say her name. You don’t owe her that.” 

Buck nodded once, a tiny, damaged motion. 

“She crossed every line,” Buck whispered. “Every line a therapist shouldn’t cross. And I didn’t stop it. I don’t even remember if I could’ve stopped it.” 

His breath hitched. “I told Chim once. The next day. Just the surface stuff. And he… he joked about it. So I thought maybe it wasn’t…” 

He choked on the next word. 

Eddie leaned in, forehead almost touching Buck’s but not forcing contact. 

“You were vulnerable,” Eddie said, voice steady. “She took advantage of that. That’s abuse. That’s wrong. That’s not your fault. None of it.” 

Buck let out a broken sound, something between a sob and a laugh. 

“You’re not disgusted?” 

Eddie shook his head instantly, fiercely. “Buck. There is nothing, nothing about you that could ever make me feel disgust. I’m horrified for you. Not at you.” 

Buck’s shoulders sagged with relief, grief, exhaustion, maybe all three. 

“She took something from me,” Buck whispered. “Something I didn’t even realise was gone until… until you. Until I finally felt safe with someone again.” 

Eddie swallowed hard, emotion thick in his throat. “I’m glad you feel safe with me. I’m honoured by that.” 

Buck closed his eyes. 

“You gave me back choices,” he whispered. “You never rushed me. You asked. You stopped if I hesitated. You made it mine again. And I didn’t know how much I needed that.” 

Eddie rested his forehead gently against Buck’s temple. 

“I’ll always make it yours,” Eddie murmured. “Always.” 

Buck’s breath shook as he let the confession settle between them, the truth he’d carried for years now sitting raw and trembling in the quiet space of the truck cab. 

Eddie didn’t move away. If anything, he shifted closer, one hand sliding down to hold Buck’s, thumb brushing gently over his knuckles. 

“How long,” Eddie asked softly, “have you been carrying this alone?” 

Buck let out a small, cracked laugh. “Since it happened. I didn’t even let myself think the word until today.” 

Eddie didn’t flinch. “You didn’t deserve what she did. You didn’t cause it. And you sure as hell didn’t need to shoulder the shame alone.” 

Buck leaned his forehead against Eddie’s shoulder. 

“I was afraid,” he whispered. “Afraid you’d look at me differently. Like I was… broken.” 

Eddie’s arms wrapped around him instantly, fiercely protective but impossibly gentle. 

“You are not broken,” he said, voice thick. “You were hurt. There’s a difference. A big one.” 

Buck closed his eyes, breathing Eddie in, grounding himself in the steady warmth he had always trusted. 

“I don’t know how to… process all this,” he admitted. 

“You don’t have to do it today,” Eddie murmured. “Or tomorrow. You don’t have to rush healing just because the truth finally has a name.” 

Buck swallowed hard. 

“I just… didn’t want to hide it from you anymore.” 

Eddie pressed a kiss into his hair, tentative, reverent. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. “For trusting me with this. For letting me be here.” 

Then, quieter: 

“You deserved someone in your corner back then. You have me now. For every part of this.” 

Buck felt something inside his chest loosen, something old and tight and terrified finally exhaling. 

“Can we go home?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said, brushing a tear off Buck’s cheek with his thumb. “Let’s go home.” 

Eddie drove with one hand, the other held firmly in Buck’s lap the whole way, silent, solid, grounding. 

A promise. 
A presence. 
A beginning. 

They didn’t talk much on the drive home. Buck stared out of the window, jaw tight, the session still clinging to him like fog. Eddie kept one eye on the road, one eye on Buck’s hands, loose, trembling slightly, the way they got when a session cut deep. 

When they stepped through the front door, Buck paused like he wasn’t sure what to do next. 

Eddie gently closed the door behind them. 

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Before you sit down, can I check in with you?” 

Buck nodded, exhausted. 

“Can I touch your arm?” Eddie asked. “Just grounding. Nothing else.” 

Buck’s voice cracked. “Yeah. Please.” 

Eddie touched him softly, warm, steady, present, and Buck’s shoulders sagged as if he had been holding himself upright by force. 

“You want to change?” Eddie asked. “Sometimes it helps to get out of the clothes you had the session in.” 

A shaky breath. “Yeah. I don’t… I don’t like how these feel anymore.” 

“Okay,” Eddie said. “Do you want me to come with you or wait outside the bedroom?” 

“Come,” Buck whispered. “Just… not too close.” 

Eddie followed him down the hall, giving him space but not distance. 

Inside the bedroom, Eddie paused. 

“I’m going to close the door halfway,” he said. “Is that okay?” 

Buck nodded. 

Eddie closed it gently. 

Buck stared at the buttons on his shirt. His hands flexed. They didn’t move. 

“I can’t,” he murmured, frustrated. “I can’t get my fingers to work.” 

Eddie stepped closer, slow enough for Buck to see every inch of movement. 

“Do you want help getting your shirt off?” Eddie asked. “You can say no.” 

Buck met his eyes, vulnerable. “Help. Please.” 

Eddie nodded once, grounding himself before grounding Buck. 

“I’m undoing the first button now.” 

“Okay.” 

Button by button, he worked down the shirt, slow and careful, watching for the smallest flinch. When he reached the bottom, he asked: 

“I’m going to slide it off your shoulders. Still okay?” 

“Yes.” 

Eddie eased it off, folded it neatly, and set it aside. 

Buck shivered lightly in the cool air. 

“What do you want to wear?” Eddie asked softly. “Something soft? Something warm?” 

Buck hesitated, then whispered: 

“Your Army shirt.” 

Eddie’s chest tightened, not with sadness but something tender and protective. 

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.” 

He crossed to the dresser and pulled out one of his old Army PT shirts, soft from years of washing, big enough to swallow Buck in comfort. 

He held it up. 

“You want me to help you put it on,” he asked, “or do you want to try?” 

Buck’s eyes flickered downward, ashamed. “Help.” 

“Hey,” Eddie said gently. “Helping isn’t a burden. You’re doing the hard part, talking to me.” 

Buck didn’t quite smile, but something in him loosened. 

Eddie lifted the shirt slowly. 

“I’m going to pull it over your head now.” 

Buck nodded. 

Eddie guided the fabric down, easing Buck’s arms through, adjusting the hem. The shirt hung on Buck the way Eddie had always secretly liked, like it meant something. Like home. 

Buck touched the fabric lightly, breathing out. “It smells like you.” 

“That’s the idea,” Eddie said softly. 

Buck’s throat bobbed. 

A moment later, his knees wobbled slightly, not from weakness but from the emotional crash of having finally spoken the truth. 

“You want to lie down?” Eddie asked. “Rest a little before we get Chris?” 

Buck nodded numbly. 

“I’m going to help you to the bed. Is that alright?” 

“Yes.” 

Eddie guided him with a hand on his back, slow, present, careful, and Buck lay down with a quiet exhale, curling slightly toward the warmth of Eddie’s side. 

Eddie brushed hair from his forehead, pausing before each touch. 

“You’re safe,” he murmured. “I’m right here.” 

Buck’s eyes fluttered closed, the Army shirt draped over him like something protective, anchoring. 

Within minutes, he was asleep. 

Eddie stayed beside him, fingers resting lightly on Buck’s arm, not holding, just present, keeping watch the way Buck had done for him countless times.

EDDIE POV 

Buck fell asleep so quickly it startled me. 

One moment he was curled into my side, wearing my old Army shirt like armour, and the next his breathing dropped into that heavy, exhausted rhythm that only happens after someone has held themselves together for too long. His fingers stayed twisted in the fabric, like letting go might pull him back into something he was not ready to feel anymore. 

I sat up a little, keeping one hand on his arm. He didn’t stir. 

And for the first time all day, I let myself feel everything I had been holding back. 

The first wave was grief, deep and aching, for what he had survived. 

The second was anger. 

Cold. Sharp. Devastating. 

She raped him. 

The words kept repeating in my head, over and over, like my brain didn’t know how to accept them. Buck said it like he expected me to flinch. Like he expected disgust. Like he expected doubt. 

Like he had already rehearsed the possibility that I wouldn’t believe him. 

And that thought alone made my stomach twist painfully. 

He had been so vulnerable when he told me. Small. Tight. Barely holding on. 

And suddenly an old image, one I had not thought of in years, flashed across my mind. 

Buck on the news the day Devon died. 

Covered in dust and metal residue, eyes blown wide with shock, voice cracking as he tried to explain what happened. His hands shaking. His face pale. His throat working like he could not breathe. 

I had not known him yet. But even through a screen, it had been obvious he was shattered. 

Lost. 

A kid trying to hold the weight of death in his hands for the first time. 

And now I knew what came next. The grief, the spiral, the desperate plea for help, and how the person who was supposed to protect him had violated him instead. 

He had been that vulnerable. 
That raw. 
That alone. 

And Chim had made a joke out of it. 

Buck didn’t tell me the exact words. He was not ready, and I didn’t push. But hearing even the smallest piece of it made something inside me go icy. 

Buck had gone to his friend, hurting and confused and still in shock after Devon’s death, and instead of support he got a joke. A laugh. A dismissal. 

Just like Chim always dismissed “Buck 1.0”. 
Like the version of Buck who slept around and sought validation was something funny. 
Something entertaining. 
Something that didn’t require compassion or understanding. 

But now I saw exactly what was underneath that version of him. The childhood neglect, the empty ache he never talked about, the violation he didn’t know how to name. 

Buck was not reckless back then because he thought it was fun. 

He was reckless because he was hurting. 

And Chim had turned that hurt into a punchline. 

I felt my jaw clench. 

I had never resented those jokes before. Sometimes they annoyed me, sure. But now? 

Now they felt cruel. 
Careless. 
A way of reducing Buck to something shallow so no one had to look deeper. 

And Buck, God, Buck, had laughed along because what else did he think he deserved? 

I looked down at him sleeping beside me, brow still furrowed even in rest. He curled closer, like his body recognised safety even if his mind couldn’t yet. 

My chest tightened. 

He thought he had to apologise to me for being raped. 

He thought he had to explain why he didn’t fight. 
Why he didn’t remember. 
Why he froze. 

He thought he had to defend himself to the man who loves him. 

I brushed a hand through his hair, gentle enough not to wake him. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I whispered. “You were hurting, and she took advantage. That’s not on you.” 

He didn’t wake, but he breathed out, a soft, shaky exhale, like some part of him believed me. 

I leaned back against the headboard again, letting the anger settle into determination. Into resolve. 

He had carried this alone for four years. 
He had lived with shame he never deserved. 
He had let people make jokes about versions of him that were born out of trauma, not choice. 

And he thought he had to keep all of that inside. 

Not anymore. 

I pulled the blanket a little higher around him, watching the way he curled toward the warmth. 

“I’ve got you,” I murmured. “You’re safe. You’re not alone.” 

He didn’t stir. 

But I kept my hand on him anyway. 

And as I sat there, listening to him breathe, watching the soft rise and fall of his chest, I made myself an unbreakable promise: 

No one would ever diminish Buck’s pain again. 
No one would ever make him feel small, or ashamed, or like he was to blame. 
No one would ever reduce him to a joke, not his trauma, not his history, not any version of him that he used to survive. 

He wasn’t alone anymore. 

And he never would be again. 

After a few minutes, I slipped my phone out with my free hand and fired off a quick text to Carla: 

“Hey, could you grab Chris from school today? Buck’s had a really rough session and he’s wiped. We’re okay, just need the house quiet for a bit.” 

Her reply came almost immediately: 

“Of course. Don’t worry about anything here. I’ll bring him home after.” 

Some of the tension eased out of my shoulders. 
One less thing for Buck to worry about. 
One less demand on him when he woke up.

I must have drifted at some point. Not fully asleep, just resting. When I stood up to use the bathroom, my legs felt stiff from staying in one position too long. 

Buck didn’t move. 

He was curled on his side, swallowed in my old Army shirt, breaths deep and steady. The kind of sleep exhaustion forces rather than grants. I brushed a hand lightly over his shoulder before stepping out, not wanting him to wake disoriented. 

It could not have been more than a minute. 
Maybe two. 

But the second I opened the bathroom door, I heard it. 

Not loud. 
Not dramatic. 
Just a small, broken sound, like someone trying not to cry. 

“Eddie?” 

My heart dropped. 

I moved fast, not running, but close. When I reached the bedroom doorway, Buck was sitting halfway upright, eyes wide and unfocused, chest stuttering with quick breaths. His hands were fisted in the sheets like he was trying to hold himself together. 

“Eddie?” he whispered again, voice cracking like it physically hurt to say my name. 

“I’m right here,” I said immediately, stepping into his line of sight. 

He startled, like he had not believed I would answer. 
Like he had prepared himself for me not to. 

I sat on the edge of the bed, keeping a careful distance until he reached for me himself. It took only a second. His fingers grabbed my wrist with a desperation that made my chest ache. 

“You… you left.” 

“No,” I said softly, cupping the back of his hand with my free one. “I went to the bathroom. I’m right here. I wasn’t leaving.” 

He shook his head, breathing quick and shallow. “I didn’t hear you. I woke up and you weren’t here and I thought…” 

His voice cracked again and the rest dissolved into a choked inhale. 

God. 

He thought I had left him. 
Because he told me the truth. 
Because he finally said rape out loud. 

I felt something sharp twist behind my ribs. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, leaning closer, slow, giving him time to pull away if he needed. He didn’t. He clung harder. “Buck, look at me.” 

He lifted his eyes, wide and terrified and still half asleep in that vulnerable, unguarded way trauma brings out. 

“Why would I leave?” I asked gently. 

He swallowed again, throat working. “Because you know now. And I just… I thought maybe you needed space, or time, or maybe you realised…” 

He could not finish. 
He didn’t need to. 

I moved closer, gently prying his fist open so I could hold his hand instead. “Buck. No. You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing you told me changes anything between us. Absolutely nothing.” 

A tear slid down his cheek, fast, like it surprised him. 

“I didn’t want you to see me like that,” he whispered. “Like someone who let that happen.” 

Oh, Buck. 

“You didn’t let anything happen,” I said firmly, not harsh, but clear enough to cut through the fog he was drowning in. “You were hurt. You were vulnerable. She took advantage. That’s on her. Not you.” 

His breath hitched again, but this time it wasn’t panic. It was relief fighting its way in. 

He leaned forward, forehead pressing into my chest, like he needed physical proof I wasn’t disappearing. I wrapped an arm around him immediately, guiding him down slowly so he wouldn’t jolt awake again later. 

“Eddie?” he murmured, already fading. 

“Yeah?” 

“Don’t go far.” 

I exhaled softly, pressing a kiss into his hair. 

“I won’t. Not even to the bathroom without telling you first.” 

His body loosened at that, tension melting out of his shoulders like a knot finally letting go. He curled into my side again, grip loosening but not releasing entirely. 

Within minutes, his breathing evened out. 

He was asleep. 

Deeply, but still holding onto me like letting go meant losing something vital. 

I tightened my arm around him, settling against the pillows. 

“I’m here,” I whispered, even though he could not hear me. 
“I’m staying. Always.” 

And this time, when he slept, he didn’t look afraid. 

Buck slept like someone who had run out of every last reserve. Not restless, not thrashing, just heavy and surrendered, the way exhaustion forces you to be. His fingers were still loosely curled around my shirt, like letting go would wake him. 

I watched him breathe for a long time. 

Too long, probably. 
But after what he told me today, I did not know how not to keep watch. 

I brushed my thumb slowly over his knuckles, grounding myself as much as him. My mind kept circling back to the same thought: 

How do I help him heal from something that never should have happened in the first place? 

He did not need me to fix anything. I knew that much. This was not something that had a solution or a quick answer. Trauma did not work like that. I knew it better than most. 

But he did need something. 
Consistency. 
Predictability. 
Reassurance that I was not going anywhere. 
Space to talk when he could, and silence when talking hurt too much. 

And patience. So much patience. 

He needed a world where nothing about him was “too much”. 
Where he did not have to guess whether I loved him. 
Where touch was always a choice. 
Where safety was not conditional. 

I could do that. 

I would do that. 

And I made myself a quiet promise that no matter how hard it got, no matter what fallout came from finally facing something he had buried for four years, he was not facing it alone. 

Not anymore. 

I pressed my palm gently to the back of his head, fingers sliding into his hair. 

“You’re safe,” I murmured, barely above a breath. “I’ve got you.” 

He did not stir, but his hand tightened minutely in my shirt, like some part of him heard me anyway. 

I do not know how long I sat there watching Buck sleep, but the sound of the front door opening snapped me back. 

“Eddie? We’re back!” Carla’s voice floated down the hallway. 

Right. School run. 

I glanced at Buck. Still out. His face was softer now, less pinched, fingers still curled in the fabric of my shirt like it anchored him. 

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered, even though he was too deep under to hear. 

I eased myself off the bed, tucked the blanket a little higher around him, and left the door mostly closed. Not shut, not open. Just enough. 

In the front room, Christopher was rolling his backpack off his shoulder while Carla shut the door behind them. 

“Hey,” I said, managing a small smile. “How was school?” 

“Long,” Chris huffed, but his eyes were bright. “Maths was boring. But I got a sticker in English.” He held up the little star on his jumper like it was solid proof. 

“That’s my boy,” I said, ruffling his hair. 

Carla watched me for a second, eyes narrowing slightly, the way she did when she was quietly assessing without prying. 

“Where’s Buck?” she asked. “His truck’s outside.” 

“He’s resting,” I said. “Therapy ran a bit heavy today.” 

Carla’s expression softened immediately. “Ah. One of those days.” 

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “One of those.” 

Chris’s head snapped up at that. “Is Papa okay?” 

The worry in his voice hit me straight in the chest. 

“He’s okay, mijo,” I assured him quickly. “He’s just really, really tired. He talked about something big today and it drained him. He’s sleeping.” 

Chris frowned slightly. “Did he get hurt at work?” 

“No, no,” I said, crouching so we were eye to eye. “This wasn’t a work thing. This was an inside thing. Feelings stuff. Sometimes when you talk about something hard, it makes your whole body tired.” 

Chris considered that, brows knitting. 

“So like after Mum died,” he said quietly, “when I would cry a lot and then fall asleep on you even if it wasn’t bedtime?” 

My chest tightened. 

“Yeah,” I said softly. “Exactly like that.” 

Carla placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t we get started on your snack and homework, sweetheart? Then your dad can check on Buck properly.” 

But Chris shook his head, eyes fixed on me. “Can I see him? Just to know he’s really here?” 

God, this kid. 

“Yeah,” I said gently. “But we have to be super quiet. And remember, whatever Papa talked about today is private. He gets to tell us only if he wants to. So you don’t need to ask him questions. Just be kind to him, okay?” 

“I can do that,” Chris said immediately. 

“I know you can,” I said, pride swelling in my chest. 

We padded down the hallway. I opened the bedroom door just enough for us to slip in. 

Buck lay exactly where I left him, on his side, breathing deeply, my Army shirt clutched in one hand. He looked younger in sleep, softer. Like everything heavy in him had finally loosened its grip. 

Chris’s whole expression gentled. 
“He looks really tired,” he whispered. 

“He is,” I said. “Therapy can make your brain work overtime. It’s like running a marathon without leaving your chair.” 

Chris stepped closer to the bed, careful. He rested his small hand on Buck’s forearm. 

“Hi, Papa,” he whispered. “I’m home. You can keep sleeping. I love you.” 

Buck didn’t wake, but his fingers twitched, like somewhere deep under the exhaustion he heard his boy. 

I felt something in my chest pull tight. 

“That’s perfect, mijo,” I murmured. 

Chris looked up at me. “Can I leave him a note? So he knows I came in?” 

My heart nearly melted on the spot. 

“Yeah,” I said softly. “He’ll love that.” 

I guided Chris back toward the hallway, keeping my voice low. “Go work on homework with Carla. I’ll sit with Papa. If he wakes up and wants you, I’ll come get you.” 

“Okay.” Chris nodded, still looking a little worried. “Tell him… tell him I love him lots and lots.” 

“I will,” I said. “Promise.” 

Carla met us in the kitchen, already unpacking snack things. 
“How’s he doing?” she asked quietly. 

“Sleeping,” I said. “And that’s exactly what he needs.” 

She nodded. “We’ve got this out here. Go on.” 

I touched Chris’s shoulder gently. “I’ll be with Papa, okay?” 

He nodded, then leaned in for a quick hug, a sign of how worried he actually was. 

“Make sure he knows I’m here,” he whispered. 

“I will,” I said, hugging him back. 

I returned to the bedroom and closed the door partway, same as before. I sat on the bed beside him again, careful not to wake him, and took his hand gently. 

“Chris came home,” I whispered. “He loves you. He’s worried, but he’s okay.” 

Buck didn’t stir. 

But his fingers curled just a little tighter around mine, even in sleep finding the safest place he knows. 

And for the first time since the session, the air in the room felt a little less heavy. 

Buck slept like someone who’d run out of every last reserve — not restless, not thrashing, just heavy and surrendered, the way exhaustion forces you to be. His fingers were still loosely curled around my shirt, like letting go would wake him. 

I watched him breathe for a long time. 

Too long, probably. 
But after what he told me today? 

I didn’t know how not to keep watch. 

I brushed my thumb slowly over his knuckles, grounding myself as much as him. My mind kept circling back to the same thought: 

How do I help him heal from something that never should’ve happened in the first place? 

He didn’t need me to fix anything — I knew that much. This wasn’t something that had a solution or a quick answer. Trauma didn’t work like that. I knew it better than most. 

But he did need something. 
Consistency. 
Predictability. 
Reassurance that I wasn’t going anywhere. 
Space to talk when he could, and silence when talking hurt too much. 

And patience. God — so much patience. 

He needed a world where nothing about him was “too much.” 
Where he didn’t have to guess whether I loved him. 
Where touch was always a choice. 
Where safety wasn’t conditional. 

I could do that. 

I would do that. 

And I made myself a quiet promise: 
That no matter how hard it got, no matter what fallout came from finally facing something he’d buried for four years, he wasn’t facing it alone. 

Not anymore. 

I pressed my palm gently to the back of his head, fingers sliding into his hair. 

“You’re safe,” I murmured, barely above a breath. “I’ve got you.” 

He didn’t stir, but his hand tightened minutely in my shirt, like some part of him heard me anyway. 

I don’t know how long I sat there watching Buck sleep, but the sound of the front door opening snapped me back. 

“Eddie? We’re back!” Carla’s voice floated down the hallway. 

Right. School run. 

I glanced at Buck. Still out. His face was softer now, less pinched, fingers still curled in the fabric of my shirt like it anchored him. 

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered, even though he was too deep under to hear. 

I eased myself off the bed, tucked the blanket a little higher around him, and left the door pulled mostly closed — not shut, not open, just enough. 

In the front room, Christopher was rolling his backpack off his shoulder while Carla shut the door behind them. 

“Hey,” I said, managing a small smile. “How was school?” 

“Long,” Chris huffed, but his eyes were bright. “Maths was boring. But I got a sticker in English.” He held up the little star on his jumper like it was solid proof. 

“That’s my boy,” I said, ruffling his hair. 

Carla watched me for a second, eyes narrowing just a bit — the way she did when she was quietly assessing without prying. 

“Where’s Buck?” she asked. “His truck’s outside.” 

“He’s resting,” I said. “Therapy ran a bit heavy today.” 

Carla’s expression softened immediately. “Ah. One of those days.” 

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “One of those.” 

Chris’s head snapped up at that. “Is Papa okay?” 

The worry in his voice hit me straight in the chest. 

“He’s okay, mijo,” I assured him quickly. “He’s just really, really tired. He talked about something big today, and it drained him. He’s sleeping.” 

Chris frowned a little. “Did he get hurt at work?” 

“No, no,” I said, crouching so we were eye to eye. “This wasn’t a work thing. This was an… inside thing. Feelings stuff. Sometimes when you talk about something hard, it makes your whole body tired.” 

Chris considered that, brows knitting. 

“So like after Mommy died,” he said quietly, “when I would cry a lot and then fall asleep on you even if it wasn’t bedtime?” 

My chest tightened. 

“Yeah,” I said softly. “Exactly like that.” 

Carla placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t we get started on your snack and homework, sweetheart? Then your dad can check on Buck properly.” 

But Chris shook his head, eyes fixed on me. “Can I see him? Just to know he’s really here?” 

God, this kid. 

“Yeah,” I said gently. “But we have to be super quiet. And remember — whatever Papa talked about today is private. He gets to tell us only if he wants to. So you don’t need to ask him questions. Just be kind to him, okay?” 

“I can do that,” Chris said immediately. 

“I know you can,” I said, pride swelling in my chest. 

We padded down the hallway. I opened the bedroom door just enough for us to slip in. 

Buck lay exactly where I left him — on his side, breathing deeply, my Army shirt clutched in one hand. He looked younger in sleep, softer. Like everything heavy in him had finally loosened its grip. 

Chris’s whole expression gentled. 
“He looks really tired,” he whispered. 

“He is,” I said. “Therapy can make your brain work overtime. It’s like running a marathon without leaving your chair.” 

Chris stepped closer to the bed, careful. He rested his small hand on Buck’s forearm. 

“Hi, Papa,” he whispered. “I’m home. You can keep sleeping. I love you.” 

Buck didn’t wake, but his fingers twitched — like somewhere deep under the exhaustion, he heard his boy. 

I felt something in my chest pull tight. 

“That’s perfect, mijo,” I murmured. 

Chris looked up at me. “Can I leave him a note? So he knows I came in?” 

My heart damn near melted on the spot. 

“Yeah,” I said softly. “He’ll love that.” 

I guided Chris back toward the hallway, keeping my voice low. “Go work on homework with Carla. I’ll sit with Papa. If he wakes up and wants you, I’ll come get you.” 

“Okay.” Chris nodded, still looking a little worried. “Tell him… tell him I love him lots and lots.” 

“I will,” I said. “Promise.” 

Carla met us in the kitchen, already unpacking snack things. 
“How’s he doing?” she asked quietly. 

“Sleeping,” I said. “And that’s exactly what he needs.” 

She nodded. “We’ve got this out here. Go on.” 

I touched Chris’s shoulder gently. “I’ll be with Papa, okay?” 

He nodded, then leaned in for a quick hug — a sign of how worried he actually was. 

“Make sure he knows I’m here,” he whispered. 

“I will,” I said, hugging him back. 

I returned to the bedroom and closed the door partway, same as before. I sat on the bed beside him again, careful not to wake him, and took his hand gently. 

“Chris came home,” I whispered. “He loves you. He’s worried, but he’s okay.” 

Buck didn’t stir. 

But his fingers curled just a little tighter around mine — even in sleep finding the safest place he knows. 

And for the first time since the session, the air in the room felt a little less heavy. 

It was almost an hour later when Buck finally stirred. 

Just a small shift at first, a twitch in his shoulder, a shaky breath, the kind of half wakefulness where his body remembered how to move before his mind caught up. 

His eyes blinked open slowly, unfocused. 

“Hey,” I said softly, brushing my thumb across the back of his hand. “You’re okay. You’re home.” 

He blinked again, grounding himself on my voice. 
“Eddie…?” 

“Right here,” I murmured. “I haven’t gone anywhere.” 

A relieved breath slipped out of him. His shoulders eased, but his eyes darted around, confused, scanning the room like he needed proof nothing had changed while he slept. 

Then he noticed the yellow sticky note on the bedside table. 

He frowned lightly. “What’s that…?” 

I passed it to him. 

In Christopher’s careful handwriting, it read: 

Hi Papa 
I saw you were sleepy. 
I love you lots and lots. 
– Chris 

Buck’s breath caught. His eyes went glassy in a way that always broke me open. 

“He came in?” he whispered. 

“Yeah,” I said gently. “He just wanted to check you were okay. He didn’t wake you.” 

Buck held the note like it was something fragile and sacred. 

“I don’t deserve him,” he whispered. 

My chest tightened. “Buck. Don’t say that.” 

His chin trembled. “I just… I don’t want him to see me like this. Not today.” 

“Chris didn’t see anything except that you were tired,” I told him. “And he handled it perfectly. Because he loves you. Not the perfect version of you, not the strong version. You.” 

Buck swallowed hard and pressed the note to his chest. 

“Can I… can I sit up?” he asked, voice small. 

“Yeah,” I said, “but let me help, okay?” 

He nodded, not fighting me for once. 

I shifted closer and placed one hand behind his back. 
“Is it okay if I touch you here?” 

He nodded, eyes soft but exhausted. “Yeah. Please.” 

“And your leg?” I asked. “Any pins and needles? Pain?” 

“No. Just tired.” 

Together, we eased him upright. He sagged slightly into my side, not collapsing, just letting go. Something he didn’t do often. 

The fact that he let me hold him like that made my throat ache. 

“How long was I out?” he whispered. 

“About an hour.” 

He scrubbed at his face. “I didn’t mean to crash like that.” 

“You don’t need to apologise,” I said. “Today was hard. Really hard. And you did the work anyway.” 

He pressed his forehead to my shoulder. “I don’t feel brave.” 

“That’s because bravery doesn’t feel brave while you’re doing it,” I murmured. “It feels exactly like this.” 

He breathed out shakily. 

“Do you want to talk about any of it?” I asked carefully. “Only if you’re ready.” 

A long silence. 
Then: 

“I don’t know if I can talk,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to be alone.” 

“You’re not alone,” I said. “Not today. Not ever.” 

His hand found mine and squeezed. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

“You don’t need to thank me.” 

“I do,” he insisted weakly. “Because you didn’t… you didn’t pull away. Not even for a second.” 

My chest tightened, warm and aching. 
“Buck, nothing about today made me want to pull away. Not one thing.” 

He nodded, trusting me, really trusting me, and rested against my shoulder again. 

“Can we… just sit for a bit?” he asked quietly. 

“For as long as you want.” 

By the time Buck felt steady enough to move, the afternoon light had softened, turning warm and gold through the curtains. I helped him stand slowly, checking each step, and we made our way to the living room. 

Chris spotted us immediately. 

“Papa!” he said, eyes lighting up. “You’re awake!” 

Buck smiled, tired but genuine. “Hey, buddy.” 

Christopher approached him gently, like he understood Buck might still be fragile. 

“Did you see my note?” he asked. 

Buck nodded, voice thick. “Yeah. It meant a lot.” 

Chris beamed. “Good. I wanted you to know I was thinking about you.” 

Buck crouched enough to pull him into a hug, holding him just a few seconds longer than usual. Chris did not mind. He held on right back, arms around Buck’s neck, face tucked in tight. 

Carla watched from the kitchen doorway, smiling softly. 

“You boys want some tea?” she asked. “Or should I make something small before dinner?” 

Buck shook his head. “Tea’s good.” 

I guided him to the sofa, not hovering, not crowding him, just staying close. Chris plopped down beside him, leaning lightly against his side. 

We spent the next hour in that gentle kind of quiet, the house humming with normal life: 

Carla chopping vegetables in the kitchen, 
Christopher showing Buck his homework, 
Buck listening more than speaking, 
and me keeping one eye on him without making it obvious. 

He didn’t dissociate. 
He didn’t retreat. 
He didn’t spiral. 

He just existed. 
Held by the two people who loved him most. 

When dinner was ready, Buck sat with us, not eating much but staying present. Afterwards, Chris curled up against him for cartoons, and Buck carded a hand through his hair, grounding both of them. 

By the time Chris got ready for bed, the tension in Buck’s shoulders had softened. 

“Papa,” Chris said, pausing at the hallway, “I’m glad you’re okay.” 

Buck’s breath caught, but he smiled. 

“Me too, buddy.” 

Later, when the house was quiet again, Buck sat beside me on the sofa, knees drawn up slightly, my arm draped behind him. 

“I’m scared,” he admitted softly. 

“I know,” I said. 

“But I feel lighter. A little.” 

“That’s what happens when you stop carrying something alone.” 

He nodded slowly. “Thank you for everything today.” 

“Always,” I said. “And tomorrow. And the day after.” 

He leaned into me, tired, healing, but no longer afraid I would disappear. 

And for the first time all day, I felt him breathe without shaking.

Chapter Text

Athena was upstairs finishing paperwork when Bobby opened the front door, already knowing who would be standing there. 

“Hey,” he said gently. “Come in.” 

Buck stepped inside hesitantly, shoulders curled inward, holding a thin folder against his chest, not like paperwork but like something fragile he wasn’t ready to open. 

“You never have to knock twice,” Bobby said, guiding him towards the living room. “We’ve got privacy. Athena’s upstairs.” 

Buck nodded stiffly. He perched on the edge of the sofa like someone bracing for impact, ready to stand the moment emotions got too close. 

Bobby sat across from him, giving him space but not distance. 

“Eddie said you wanted to talk.” 

Buck swallowed. His fingers tightened around the folder. 

“Yeah. I, uh… I got the results. Officially. From the evaluation.” 

Bobby’s voice softened. “Alright. Take your time.” 

Buck stared down at the file like it might burn him. 

“So… ADHD is confirmed. Combined type.” 
He let out a shaky breath. “She said I’ve basically been compensating my whole life without knowing I was compensating.” 

“Not surprising,” Bobby said gently. “You’ve always run hotter than the rest of us.” 

Buck huffed out a laugh, short and cracked. 

“Yeah. Dr Copeland said something similar. That my brain’s not wrong, just wired faster. But…” 

The word hung between them. 

“But she wants me to start Adderall XR.” 

Bobby nodded. 

“In a week,” Buck clarified quietly. “Not now. I told her I’m still on the roster for the Texas wildfires.” He exhaled. “It made more sense to take my week off then. Start the meds when I’m home. Safe. I’ll be having daily check-ins as well. I can’t exactly answer my phone whilst fighting a fire.” 

“That’s good planning,” Bobby said. “Gives you control over the timing.” 

Buck didn’t look convinced. 

“It also gives me a week to freak out.” 

Bobby tilted his head. “About the medication?” 

“Yeah.” Buck rubbed both hands over his face. “I know it’s supposed to help. I know millions of people take it safely. But I’m scared.” 

“What are you scared of?” 

Buck’s voice dropped to something almost childlike. 

“That it’ll change me too much. That I won’t be me anymore.” 

Bobby didn’t flinch. “What makes you think that?” 

Buck stared at the floor. 

“Because what if the parts of me that make me good at my job, the quick decisions, the weird connections, the instinct stuff, what if that’s ADHD and not actually me?” 

His throat worked as he forced a breath. 

“And what if the meds dull it? What if I lose something important? What if I get quiet and Eddie looks at me and I’m not the person he fell in love with? What if Chris notices and doesn’t connect with me the same way?” 

His voice shook. 

“What if you look at me and don’t see your son anymore?” 

Bobby’s expression softened into something that held grief and love in equal measure. 

“Evan,” he said, steady and grounding, “you are not your diagnosis. ADHD doesn’t create your heart. Or your instincts. Or your courage.” 

Buck blinked hard, jaw trembling. 

“And there’s more,” he whispered. “I’m scared of addiction.” 

A quiet stillness fell over Bobby, not judgement but recognition. 

“Alright,” he said softly. “Tell me what that fear looks like.” 

“When I had the crush injury,” Buck murmured, “I rationed my pain meds because I was terrified of becoming dependent. I didn’t tell anyone. Not Eddie. Not even Hen. I just pushed through it. I didn’t trust myself not to like how they felt.” 

Bobby inhaled slowly. “That must’ve been hard.” 

“I thought it was better than the alternative.” Buck swallowed. “And now the idea of stimulants, even monitored ones, it scares me. I don’t want to hurt the people I love. I don’t want to ever put Eddie or Chris through what you went through.” 

He shook his head quickly. 

“I’m not saying I’d ever. I know I’m not you, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean the fear’s still there.” 

“Fear doesn’t mean danger,” Bobby said gently. “It means you care enough to do this responsibly. And I know you aren’t comparing yourself to my situation. You’re just using what I’ve taught you about how my addictions started and being cautious.” 

Buck’s breath trembled. 

“Dr Copeland said the same thing. That the meds won’t erase me. They’ll just quiet the noise so I can actually hear myself think.” 

“That sounds like a good thing,” Bobby said. 

“It does,” Buck admitted. “But I don’t know who I am without the noise.” 

Bobby’s eyes softened again. 

“That’s not something you’ll face alone.” 

Buck’s lip wobbled. 

“And I’m angry too.” 

“At who?” 

“My parents.” His voice trembled. “All those years I struggled. The school told them to test me and they ignored it. They called me lazy. Dramatic. Difficult. They should’ve helped me.” 

His voice went small. 

“I grew up thinking ADHD and trauma were character flaws.” 

Bobby let the anger exist. 

“I don’t know how to fix decades of that,” Buck whispered. 

“You start by understanding it,” Bobby said. “And by letting people stand with you.” 

Buck swallowed. 

“There’s more. A lot more. Dr Copeland’s helping me see things I never wanted to look at.” 

His hands shook slightly. 

“I think I’m ready to tell you the rest.” 

“I’m right here, son.” 

Buck breathed out. 

“Borderline Personality Disorder.” 

He rushed ahead. 

“I know what people think it means. I know the department reviews mental health files and I didn’t want you to think I’m unsafe.” 

“Look at me,” Bobby said gently. 

Buck did. 

“I’m not afraid of you. Keep going.” 

Buck nodded shakily. 

“When she went through the criteria, I realised I meet all nine. Just quietly.” 

He explained identity disturbance, emotional instability, abandonment fear, unstable attachment, impulsivity, self harm patterns, chronic emptiness, inward anger, dissociation. 

“I thought I was seven out of nine. I was all nine.” 

Bobby leaned forward slightly. 

“None of this makes you broken.” 

Buck swallowed. 

“I was scared you’d think I couldn’t do the job.” 

“I think you’re brave.” 

Buck breathed unevenly. 

“She also said I have passive suicidal ideation.” 

Bobby stayed steady. 

“What does that mean for you?” 

“I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t care if I lived.” 

He described childhood risk taking, the motorcycle crash, the bombing. 

“I thought I was collateral damage.” 

Bobby closed his eyes briefly. 

“And now?” he asked. 

“I want to stay. For Eddie. For Christopher. For me.” 

“That’s the beginning of healing.” 

Buck wiped his face. 

“There’s one more thing.” 

He gripped the folder. 

“I was raped.” 

Silence held. 

“My therapist. After Devon died.” 

His voice shook as he described confusion, dissociation, Chim’s reaction, minimising it. 

Bobby leaned forward slightly. 

“It mattered. You mattered.” 

Buck whispered, “I thought you’d regret recommending her.” 

“I don’t.” 

Then Bobby spoke quietly. 

“I reported her. I didn’t know everything, but I knew something was wrong.” 

Buck froze. 

“They issued a formal reprimand and required her to practise under supervision.” 

Buck stared, shaking. 

“You… did that?” 

“Yes.” 

Buck cried silently. 

“And Chim?” he asked. 

“I required corrective training.” 

Buck inhaled sharply. 

“I thought I was alone.” 

“You never were.” 

Buck whispered, “Thank you.” 

Bobby paused, then gently asked, “Do you feel ready to report it?” 

Buck hesitated. 

“I’m scared.” 

“You won’t do it alone.” 

“Athena has someone safe?” 

“Yes.” 

Buck breathed slowly. 

“Next week. After Texas.” 

“That’s your choice.” 

“You think someone will believe me?” 

“I do.” 

Buck nodded, shoulders lowering. 

“Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll do it.” 

Bobby squeezed his hand once. 

“I’ll take care of the rest.” 

Bobby lingered in the doorway, giving Buck a quiet moment to breathe while he stepped upstairs. 

Athena was still at her desk, glasses perched low, finishing paperwork from her shift. She hadn’t heard the front door earlier and remained fully unaware Buck had arrived at all. 

When she looked up and saw Bobby’s face, her expression shifted instantly, concern first, then readiness. 

“Bobby?” she asked gently. “What’s happened?” 

He closed the door behind him for privacy. 

“It’s Buck,” he said softly. “He’s downstairs with me. He’s alright. Emotionally shaken, but safe.” 

Athena nodded slowly, attentive but steady. 
“What does he need?” 

Bobby exhaled carefully. 

“He came to talk about some things he’s been working through with his therapist. One of them was an assault that occurred years ago. By his previous therapist.” 

Athena’s eyes widened with sorrow, then narrowed with controlled, protective anger. But she stayed composed. 

She asked quietly, “Is he the one who named it as assault?” 

“He is,” Bobby said. “Today was the first time he called it what it was.” 

Athena nodded. She didn’t need details. 

“So,” she said, voice gentle but firm, “what do you need from me?” 

“He’s ready to report. Not tonight. He wants to do it next week, after the Texas deployment. He asked me to help him start the process. And he’d feel safer if the detective was someone patient. Trauma-informed.” 

“Athena understood immediately. 
“Ramos,” she said. “He’ll take care with Buck.” 

“It’s Athena Grant-Nash.” 

His tone shifted immediately. “Hey, Sarge. What’s going on?” 

“I’m calling about something delicate,” she said. “Something that’s going to require patience and care.” 

“You know you can be straight with me.” 

“I have a young man in my house,” she said. “Someone very close to my family. He disclosed today that he was assaulted several years ago by a therapist he saw during a crisis.” 

Ramos went quiet. 

“Does he recognise it as assault?” 

“He does. Today was the first time he named it.” 

“And he wants to make a report?” 

“Yes. Next week.” 

“That’s completely fine. We work when he’s ready.” 

Athena softened slightly. 

“He’s going to need a trauma-sensitive interview room. And someone willing to go slow.” 

“You’ll have both. If it takes multiple sessions, that’s standard. We work at his pace.” 

“He wants his husband and his captain present.” 

“No problem.” 

“He’s afraid of being disbelieved.” 

“That’s common. Lack of memory doesn’t discredit him. I’ll explain that myself.” 

Athena’s throat tightened. 

“Thank you, Miguel.” 

“Tell him he’s not alone.” 

“I will.”

They hung up, and she lowered the phone slowly. 

For a few seconds, she let herself feel the weight of what Buck had finally spoken aloud — the years he’d carried the silence, the layers of shame he didn’t deserve, the bravery it took to tell Bobby. 

Then Athena straightened. 

Her voice steady. 
Her resolve firm. 
Her heart aching — but ready. 

She headed downstairs to rejoin Bobby, ready to support one of the young men she loved like her own. 

Chapter Text

The drive back from Texas was quieter than the drive there, not silent, just worn out. A three person deployment always felt heavier on the return, like the empty seats carried the ghosts of the calls they had run. 

Hen sat in the front passenger seat, head tipped against the window, eyes half closed but alert in that way only Hen could be, resting and still somehow in charge. Eddie drove, posture stiff from hours behind the wheel, right hand steady on the column shift, left wrist loose enough to reach back and check on Buck when he needed to. 

Buck sat behind them on the bench, turnout jacket folded under his head, helmet beside him, dried soot making dark smudges across his neck. He had showered at the Austin fire camp twice, but wildfire soot had a way of sticking to your soul more than your skin. 

The engine rumbled down the highway, LA still hours away. 

Eddie glanced up at the rear-view mirror. 
“You still with me back there?” 

Buck blinked out of a thousand yard stare he had not meant to slip into. 

“Yeah,” he muttered, voice rough. “Just tired.” 

Hen turned slightly in her seat. 
“Texas tired?” she asked. “Or everything else tired?” 

Buck let out a humourless breath. “Both.” 

He leaned his head against the cool metal wall behind him. 
“My body’s wiped from fire lines but my brain will not shut up. I have tomorrow’s shift, then the week off, then starting ADHD meds, then…” 

He stopped himself before the word report could leave his mouth. Hen did not know yet. Only Bobby and Eddie did. 

Eddie did not push. He reached back, palm up, and Buck slid his hand into Eddie’s without needing to be asked. Eddie squeezed once, grounding, not prying. 

“One thing at a time,” Eddie murmured. 

Buck swallowed. “One thing at a time,” he echoed, but it did not feel that simple. 

The landscape changed slowly, Texas scrub turning into long empty stretches of desert highway. Three firefighters returning from a deployment always felt lonelier than a full crew, fewer voices, fewer distractions, more room for the thoughts Buck had been trying and failing to outrun since the therapy session. 

The moment they crossed into California, Hen let out a soft relieved sigh. 

“I never thought I’d say this,” she said, rubbing her temple, “but I miss our ridiculous kitchen table at the station.” 

Buck managed a tired smile. “Missing Chim nagging you about your protein shakes?” 

Hen snorted. “Absolutely not. But I miss home. And my wife.” 

Buck nodded. “Yeah. Me too.” 

But home was not simple anymore. 
Home meant choices. 
Home meant next week. 
Home meant saying rape in a room full of detectives and trusting he would not break apart in the process. 

Hours later, Eddie backed the engine into the station bay. The familiar clang of the door rising echoed in Buck’s chest like a heartbeat returning. 

Hen stretched until her spine popped. “If I do not sleep for twelve hours straight, it will be a crime against public health.” 

Eddie set the parking brake and turned off the engine. 
“Go home,” he told her. “Bobby already approved full rest.” 

Hen nodded, then rested a hand briefly on Buck’s shoulder as she passed him. 
“You did good out there,” she said softly. “Do not let your brain tell you otherwise.” 

Buck swallowed around a lump. “Thanks, Hen.” 

She squeezed once, then headed out. 

Buck climbed out of the back of the engine and stood in the empty bay, the adrenaline leaving his limbs in a slow unwinding. Eddie came around the side and stood in front of him, close but not crowding. 

“You ready to go home?” Eddie asked. 

Buck hesitated because home meant everything waiting for him. 

But Eddie softened his voice. 

“Just home,” he murmured. “Not next week. Not the meds. Not the report. Just tonight.” 

Buck nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go home.” 

The ride to the police station was quiet, not empty, just full. 
Full of fear, resolve, exhaustion, and something Buck had not been able to name yet, the weight of finally being believed. 

Eddie drove. 
Bobby followed in his own car, not hovering, not crowding, just close enough to step in the moment Buck needed him. 

When they pulled into the back lot of the police station, the entrance reserved for sensitive cases, Buck did not move. His fingers stayed curled around the seatbelt, knuckles white. 

He stared at the building like it might swallow him whole. 

Eddie turned off the engine but did not reach for him. He simply sat, steady and present. 

Buck swallowed. 
“I don’t know how to do this.” 

“You don’t have to know,” Eddie said softly. “You just have to walk inside. The rest, you don’t do alone.” 

Buck nodded, breath trembling. 

He opened the door slowly, like stepping into cold water. Eddie came around the truck to meet him. 

Buck’s voice was small. Terrified. Honest. 
“Don’t let go of my hand in there. Okay?” 

“I won’t let go,” Eddie said immediately. 

When Bobby got out of his car, he approached with his hands relaxed and visible, the way he wished someone had approached him in his own worst moments. 

“Buck?” he said gently. “Can I put a hand on your shoulder? Just grounding.” 

Buck looked at him, scared, overwhelmed, grateful. 
“Yeah. That’s okay.” 

Only then did Bobby step close and rest a warm, steady hand lightly on his shoulder. 

Not control. 
Contact. 
Permission. 
Safety. 

“Alright,” Bobby murmured, “one step at a time. You’re not walking in there alone.” 

Buck nodded. Tight, but steady. 

Together, Buck in the middle, Eddie at his right, Bobby at his left shoulder, they walked toward the secure entrance. 

Inside, Athena waited near the inner door, calm but fiercely protective. She did not touch him at first. She met his eyes instead. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said softly. “You ready? We’ll move at your pace.” 

Buck swallowed and nodded. 

Eddie gave his hand a firm, grounding squeeze. 

And Buck stepped inside. 

The quiet of the secure interview wing pressed around him. Too quiet. His pulse felt loud enough to echo off the walls. 

Athena led gently from the front, never more than a few steps ahead. 
Eddie walked beside him, their hands linked, Buck’s cold, Eddie’s warm. 
Bobby followed behind, a steady presence at his back. 

When they reached the interview suite, Athena paused. 

“You ready to meet the detective?” she asked. 

“No,” Buck answered honestly. 
A beat. 
“But I’m here.” 

“That’s enough,” Athena murmured, and opened the door. 

Detective Miguel Ramos stood inside. 

Latino, Bobby’s age, warm eyes. Eyes that did not flicker with surprise or pity when they landed on Buck. Just quiet understanding. 

He stood slowly, hands in view, voice gentle. 

“Evan Diaz?” he asked, carefully using Buck’s legal name. 

Buck nodded. 

“I’m Detective Ramos,” he said. “Thank you for coming in. Before anything else, may I shake your hand, or would you prefer distance?” 

Buck blinked, stunned by the choice. 
“Distance is okay.” 

Ramos nodded respectfully and stepped back. 

“Before we begin,” he continued, “I need to know who you want in the room. You’re allowed up to two support people.” 

Buck inhaled shakily. 
“Bobby and Eddie. I need them.” 

“Absolutely fine,” Ramos said. “Athena will step out, but she’ll stay nearby.” 

Athena lifted her hand slightly, pausing until Buck gave a tiny nod, then touched his arm gently. 
“You call for me if you need me,” she murmured. 

She slipped out, closing the door softly. 

Buck sat nearest Eddie. He kept one hand tangled in Eddie’s, the other flat on the table like an anchor. 

Ramos angled his chair slightly, not directly opposite, not confrontational. 

“Before you tell me anything,” he said, “I’ll explain your rights and what to expect. Is that alright?” 

Buck nodded. 

“Your memory does not have to be complete. Dissociation is common in trauma. Missing pieces will not be held against you. You can stop at any time. You control the pace. Understand?” 

Buck nodded again, and something in his posture eased. 

“I’m going to start with grounding questions,” Ramos said. “Is that okay?” 

“Yes,” Buck breathed. 

“What name do you prefer?” 

“Buck.” 

“And who is with you today?” 

He squeezed Eddie’s hand. “My husband. And my captain.” 

“Good,” Ramos said. “If things get overwhelming, I may pause to ask where you are, who’s here, or what year it is. Not a test, grounding. Alright?” 

“Okay.” 

Ramos opened a notebook. “Whenever you’re ready, tell me about the therapist you saw after the Devon Madison call.” 

Buck’s breath caught. Eddie squeezed his hand. 

Buck began. 

“It was after my first major loss,” he whispered. “I wasn’t sleeping. I blamed myself. Bobby helped me find someone to talk to.” 

“Was the therapist a woman or a man?” Ramos asked. 

“A woman. Dr. Helena Wells.” 

Ramos nodded. “Tell me what you remember about the session.” 

Buck closed his eyes briefly. 

“I remember more than I thought. Not everything, but enough.” 

“Take your time.” 

“When I sat down, she asked why I was there. And I told her what I told everyone then, that I was a sex addict.” 

Eddie’s jaw flexed but he stayed silent. 

Buck continued softly. 
“I said it like a joke. She didn’t laugh. She said, ‘That sounds painful, Evan.’ And I froze. Because no one had ever said it like that.” 

He swallowed. 

“She noticed I was uncomfortable. Said she treats a lot of first responders. Said avoiding feelings was normal. Then she said I was running from something. I told her I wasn’t, that Bobby insisted I go.” 

Ramos nodded. 

“She already knew about the call where I froze. She said she’d been briefed, that I stared at the patient too long, picturing Devon, that Bobby had to call my name twice. She said first losses stick with you. That I’d question everything. And she was right. I kept thinking it didn’t have to happen.” 

“What did she say to that?” 

“She asked if I thought I could have done something differently. And then she asked if I blamed Devon.” 

Buck blinked hard. 

“I told her he wouldn’t take my hand.” 

The first tear slipped free. 

“And that’s when I started crying. Really crying. She moved closer, not all at once. Just bit by bit. She gave me reasons Devon might not have reached for me. Soft reasons. Ones that made it feel like she cared.” 

Buck’s breathing grew uneven. 

“She touched my arm. Right here.” 
He tapped the spot above his wrist. 
“Where my watch sits.” 

Eddie’s fingers tightened. 

“And that’s when I asked about the Facebook thing.” 

Buck drew a shaky breath. 

“I got a friend request from someone with her name. I didn’t realise it was her at first. My face was all over the news after Devon died, so I thought it was some stranger. I didn’t accept it. It felt awkward.” 

“When did she send it?” 

“The same day I made the appointment. Before I ever met her.” 

Eddie went completely still. 

“And when I brought it up, she lied. Said it must have been sent before the appointment was made. But it wasn’t. She told me to delete it. Said it was inappropriate.” 

A tremor moved through him. 

“And after that, things blur. Like smeared paint. I remember her saying I was brave. That she could help me feel safe. And then…” 

His breath hitched. 

“And then she initiated it.” 

Silence tightened around them. 

“I froze,” Buck whispered. “Completely. I didn’t understand what was happening. I thought maybe this was therapy. Maybe this was how trauma gets fixed. Maybe this was what I was supposed to do.” 

Tears spilled freely. 

“I know better now. But I didn’t know then.” 

He exhaled sharply. 

“When I left, I felt wrong. Confused. Dirty. Like I ruined everything. I told Chim the next day. Just the surface version. And he joked. So I laughed too.” 

“You know now it was serious,” Ramos said softly. 

Buck nodded. 

“I never went back. And I never said why. I didn’t think I was allowed to call it what it was.” 

His voice broke. 

“Rape.” 

Ramos did not interrupt. 

“Thank you for telling me,” he said quietly. “Everything you’ve described is consistent with coerced assault by a provider. Dissociation is normal. Freezing is a recognised trauma response. None of this is consent.” 

Buck breathed out shakily, a breath that seemed to take part of the weight with it. 

“Do you want a break?” 

Buck shook his head. “I want to finish.” 

The interview continued, slow, gentle, never pushing past Buck’s limits. 

When it ended, Buck looked drained but lighter, like the truth no longer had to live in his body alone. 

He leaned into Eddie, resting his forehead against his shoulder. 

Ramos stood. 
“Buck, you’re not alone in this. Not anymore.” 

And for the first time, Buck believed him. 

Outside, Athena waited. She did not touch him until he stepped toward her. 

When he did, she wrapped him in a gentle hug. 

“You did so good, baby,” she murmured. 

Buck breathed in, shaky but whole. 

The house was quiet when they got home. 

Not the peaceful kind of quiet. The kind that holds something. The kind that comes after a storm, when the world has not decided yet whether it is safe to exhale. 

Buck walked in first, but his steps were slow, uncertain, like he was not sure the floor beneath him was real. Eddie closed the door gently behind them, dropping the keys into the bowl with a soft clink that sounded too loud in the stillness. 

“Buck?” Eddie asked softly. “Do you want to sit? Or lie down? Or…” 

Buck shook his head, not in refusal but confusion. 

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I feel floaty. Like I’m in my body but not fully.” 

He pressed a trembling hand to his chest. 
“I don’t know how to come back down.” 

Eddie nodded once. 
“Okay. Let me help you. Can I touch you?” 

Buck swallowed. 
“Yes. Please.” 

Eddie stepped closer, slow as gravity, hands visible before he placed them, one on Buck’s upper arm, one over the centre of his back. Light. Steady. Grounding. He did not guide him anywhere, he just held him without holding him down. 

Buck sagged slightly. 

“Good,” Eddie murmured. “You’re doing good. Can you tell me one thing you can feel?” 

Buck blinked, disoriented. 
“Your hand,” he whispered. “Warm.” 

“Good,” Eddie said again. “And something you can hear?” 

Buck listened. 
The faint hum of the refrigerator. 
The distant whoosh of a car passing outside. 

“Home,” he murmured. “It sounds like home.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie said softly. “We’re home. You’re safe.” 

Buck nodded, but his breath hitched, the emotional crash beginning now that adrenaline was gone. 

Eddie guided him gently toward the sofa, checking again. 

“Can I sit with you? Touch you?” 

Buck nodded, small and shaky. 
“Don’t go far.” 

“I won’t.” 

They sat. Buck folded into himself first, knees up, head bowed, until Eddie shifted slightly closer and Buck leaned sideways, resting against his shoulder. Eddie did not wrap him up immediately. He waited until Buck tipped more of his weight onto him. 

Only then did Eddie slide an arm around him, gentle and slow. 

Buck melted. 

Eddie POV 

I had never seen Buck like this. 

Not after the bombing. 
Not after the surgery. 

This was different. 

He looked emptied. Like speaking the truth out loud had taken something from him and left space in its place, space he did not know how to fill yet. 

His breathing was shallow, not panicked, just tired to the bone. The kind of tired that comes from dragging buried grief into the light. 

I kept my hand on his arm, rubbing slow circles with my thumb. Not to soothe him, just to keep him here with me. 

“You did so good today,” I murmured. 

Buck shook his head. “I didn’t feel brave.” 

“You don’t feel bravery while you’re doing it,” I said. “You feel exactly like this.” 

His breath hitched. 
“Everything feels too big. Like my brain’s vibrating.” 

“That’s okay,” I said softly. “It’s how your body lets go of fear.” 

He was quiet a long time, until he whispered, 

“Did I make sense? When I was talking? I feel like I kept breaking apart.” 

“You made perfect sense,” I told him. “Everything you said was clear. You were strong. And honest. And you didn’t run.” 

He closed his eyes, leaning harder into me. 

“I thought I was going to pass out when I said the word. When I said rape. It felt like I was betraying myself.” 

My chest tightened painfully. 

“You weren’t betraying yourself, Buck. You were protecting the version of you that didn’t have protection back then.” 

He swallowed hard. 

“And you stayed.” 

“Of course I stayed.” 

“You didn’t look at me differently.” 

I turned slightly so I could see his face. 

“Buck, there is nothing you could tell me that would make me look at you with anything but love.” 

His breath trembled, and he curled closer, forehead resting against my collarbone. 

I held him steady. 

Buck POV 

“Do you want water?” Eddie asked. 

I shook my head. 
“I want…” 
I stopped, embarrassed. 

“What do you want?” Eddie asked gently. “It’s okay to say it.” 

I whispered it like a confession. 

“Can you hold me tighter? Just for a minute?” 

Eddie squeezed my arm softly. 
“Yeah. Of course. Is it okay if I pull you closer?” 

“Yes.” 

He did, carefully, one arm around my back, the other around my shoulders, guiding me into warmth. 

I let out a breath that felt like something breaking and healing at the same time. 

I tucked my face into his chest. 

“I feel like I’m going to cry again,” I whispered. 

“Then cry,” Eddie said. “Nothing bad happens if you cry.” 

And I did. 

Not loudly. 
Not dramatically. 
Just quietly, tears slipping into his shirt, breath hitching as the weight softened. 

Eddie held me through it, murmuring softly, 

“I’ve got you.” 
“You’re safe.” 
“I’m right here.” 

When the tears slowed, my body loosened. 

“Can we stay like this a little longer?” 

“As long as you need.” 

I drifted in and out, not asleep but not fully awake. Eddie stayed with me, steady. 

When he finally slipped away to the bathroom, he said quietly, 

“I’m going to the bathroom, okay? I’ll be right back.” 

I nodded. 

When he returned, my eyes opened immediately. 

“You came back,” I whispered. 

“Always,” Eddie said, sitting beside me again. 

I leaned into him. 

“Thank you.” 

“For what?” 

“For staying. For being here after everything you heard. For still wanting me.” 

Eddie kissed the top of my head. 

“I don’t want you in spite of what you’ve been through. I want you. All of you. Exactly as you are.” 

For the first time since the interview room, I felt a small flicker of peace. 

Small. 
Quiet. 
Real. 

And Eddie held me until it steadied. 

The quiet after the interview still wrapped around Buck like a thin, trembling blanket. Eddie’s arms were steady around him, Buck’s forehead pressed against his shoulder, his body finally beginning to unlock. 

Then Eddie’s phone buzzed. 

Just one vibration. 

Buck’s whole body jerked like a wire snapped inside him. 

Eddie shifted slowly. “Hey. I’m just going to check who it is, okay?” 

Buck nodded, breath still shaky. 

Eddie looked at the screen. 
“It’s Maddie.” 

Buck’s chest tightened immediately. 

He answered. “Hey, Maddie. What’s up?” 

There was wind behind her voice, the unmistakable hum of the road. 

“Is Buck with you?” 

Buck pulled away slightly, sitting upright even though everything inside still felt unstable. 

“I’m here,” he said quickly. 

Maddie exhaled, relieved. “Okay. Good. Um… Ev, I need to tell you something.” 

Something in her tone twisted tight around his ribs. 

“Just say it,” he whispered. 

“They’re coming to LA. Mum and Dad. They’re on their way right now.” 

The floor seemed to drop beneath him. 

“Why?” he croaked. “Why would you… why now?” 

A pause. Heavy and telling. 

“I invited them,” she said gently. “Ev… I’m pregnant. And I want my daughter to have a complete family. Grandparents. Uncles. People who love her.” 

The words stabbed through the thin stability he was clinging to. 

“A complete family?” he repeated, voice rising. “You want a complete family?” 

“Ev, don’t…” 

“You waited until they were already on their way to tell me!” His breath shook violently. “You knew I’d fall apart if you warned me days ago. You knew, Maddie!” 

“That’s not fair,” she snapped back. “I didn’t hide it to hurt you…” 

“You did hide it!” His throat burned. “If you wanted your daughter to have a complete family…” 

The words erupted before he could stop them. 

“Then you should’ve had a baby with someone who could actually provide that!” 

Silence. 

Cold. 
Cutting. 
Horrified. 

Maddie finally spoke, quiet and shaking. 
“Oh my God. Ev… what the hell? How could you say that to me?” 

The anger vanished instantly, replaced by sharp, freezing shame. 

“Maddie, I… I didn’t mean… I wasn’t thinking…” 

“No,” she said sharply. “You weren’t. That was cruel, Evan.” 

Eddie’s hand hovered near Buck’s back, waiting for permission. 

“I’m sorry,” Buck forced out. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.” 

“Then why did you say it?” Maddie demanded. 

“I don’t know. I’m overwhelmed and today was… I can’t…” The words tangled. “I didn’t mean it.” 

“You can’t just say things like that because you’re overwhelmed,” she said, hurt. “You don’t get to throw daggers and then take them back.” 

“I know,” he whispered. “I know.” 

A shaky inhale from her end. 

“I don’t know what’s going on with you today,” she said quietly. “But you really hurt me.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“We’ll talk later. I need time.” 

The call ended. 

Silence slammed into the room. 

Buck’s hands shook. His breathing sped. Shame pressed tight against his throat. 

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he whispered. “Jesus, what is wrong with me?” 

“Buck.” Eddie moved closer, slow and obvious. “Can I hold you?” 

Buck nodded weakly and Eddie grounded him against his chest. 

The phone buzzed again. 

Maddie. 

Buck shook his head. “I can’t talk to her again right now.” 

“You don’t have to,” Eddie said gently. “I will.” 

He answered. 

“Hey, Maddie,” Eddie said quietly, calm but firm. 

Her voice was brittle. 
“Eddie, what was that? He said… he actually said…” 

“I know what he said,” Eddie cut in gently. “But you need to hear me right now.” 

Silence. 

“Buck is not okay today,” Eddie said. “He wasn’t okay before your call.” 

“I didn’t know that,” Maddie argued. “I didn’t even see him today.” 

“You didn’t give him the chance,” Eddie said evenly. “You waited until your parents were already crossing the state line.” 

“That’s not fair…” 

“It is fair,” Eddie said. “Buck is in serious therapy. You know sessions hit him hard. He deserved warning so he could prepare.” 

Maddie went quiet. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said softer. “I thought if I told him too early, he’d panic.” 

“He panicked anyway,” Eddie replied. 

A measured breath. 

“And he panicked alone because you didn’t trust him with time.” 

Her silence shifted. 

“I get that you wanted something,” Eddie continued. “A happy announcement. A complete family. That’s a good thing to want.” 

He paused. 

“But you asked Buck to swallow years of pain instantly.” 

Buck’s breath hitched. Eddie tightened his arm around him. 

Maddie’s voice came out smaller. 
“I didn’t think of it that way.” 

“I know. You meant well. But it still hit him like a freight train.” 

Another pause. 

“Is he okay?” she finally asked. 

“He’s overwhelmed. And ashamed of how he reacted. But he’s not angry because he hates you.” 

Buck shook his head quickly. “Wait, no. I am.” 

Eddie glanced at him gently. 
“That’s allowed,” he murmured. 

Then into the phone, 
“He is angry. Because he’s hurting.” 

Maddie inhaled sharply but did not lash out. 

“I’ll give him space,” she whispered. “When he’s ready… we’ll talk.” 

“Good,” Eddie said. 

Another pause. 

“Tell him I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean for this to hit him like that.” 

“I will.” 

“And Maddie,” Eddie added, “when you talk again, let him explain. You’ll understand better.” 

She sighed softly. 
“Okay.” 

They hung up. 

Buck’s face was wet. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t want you to defend me.” 

Eddie guided his forehead to his chest. 

“That wasn’t me defending you instead. That was me defending you with you.” 

Buck sobbed once. 

“I shouldn’t have said that to her.” 

“No,” Eddie agreed gently. “But she shouldn’t have blindsided you either.” 

A trembling breath left Buck. 

“She doesn’t know what happened today,” Eddie added. “She doesn’t know what you walked through.” 

“It’s not an excuse.” 

“It’s context,” Eddie said softly. “You’re allowed that.” 

He brushed Buck’s cheek. 

“You’ll apologise when you’re ready. And she will too once she understands.” 

Buck curled closer. 

“You didn’t lose her,” Eddie whispered. “You just reacted from a wound she didn’t know she touched.” 

Buck’s breathing slowed against him. 

“And you’re going to be okay,” Eddie finished quietly. 

The station was already moving when Buck walked in. Coffee brewing, lockers clanging, Chim making questionable breakfast choices. 

Normal. 
Steady. 
Something he could lean on. 

Bobby met him near the turnout lockers, tablet in hand. 

“Buck, you’re man-behind today. Your turn in the rotation.” 

Buck nodded. Standard. Expected. Safe. 

“Helmet tags are updated,” Bobby added. “And your clipboard’s on the apparatus bay table. Same place you left it last time if you find yourself with downtime.” 

That was it. 
No special tone. 
No hidden meaning. 

Just normal. 

“Thanks, Cap.” 

Bobby nodded once and moved on, checking in with Hen about medic inventory. 

For a moment Buck just stood there, letting the familiarity settle into his bones. After the week he’d had, normal felt like oxygen. 

The first call came twenty minutes into shift. Lift assist at a residential home. 

“Diaz, Hen, Buck, you’re up,” Chim called. 

Man-behind meant he rode but did not gear for suppression. Fine by him. 

Hen grinned as they climbed in. “You get the heavy end.” 

“I always get the heavy end.” 

“Because you’re built like someone who doesn’t understand portion control,” Chim said. 

That did it. The teasing loosened something tight inside him. 

The call was simple. An elderly man slipped between bed and nightstand. They helped him up, ran vitals, talked for a few minutes, left him smiling. 

Easy. Predictable. Good. 

Back at the station they reset the medic bags and the others drifted inside for water. 

Buck stayed in the bay a moment. 

His clipboard sat exactly where Bobby said. Pen clipped neatly on top. 

He flipped to the inventory sheets. 

Boxes to tick. 
Numbers to reconcile. 
Compartments to check. 

Structure. Order. Edges. 

Some days that was enough. 

Around noon they got another medical. Chest pains at a gym. 

Routine again. 

Hen led assessment. Eddie took vitals. Buck ran ECG pads and monitored during transport. 

Nothing complicated. Nothing heavy. 

Just work. 

Lunch was comfortable. 

Hen “accidentally” dropped an extra bread roll onto Buck’s plate. 
Chim made a joke about Eddie eating like a raccoon stealing campsite food. 
Ravi argued about MRE rankings. 

Eddie stared at him like he’d committed a crime. 

“Oh my God, Ravi, you cannot put beef chilli mac below southwest chicken. That is heresy.” 

Ravi blinked. “Why do you care so much about MREs? You’re a firefighter, not military.” 

The table went silent. 

Hen snorted. Chim covered his mouth. Buck nearly inhaled his water. 

Eddie blinked slowly. “…Ravi.” 

Hen pointed at him. “You didn’t know Eddie was in the Army?” 

Ravi’s eyes widened. “In the what?” 

“Army,” Eddie muttered. “Combat medic.” 

“And,” Chim added perfectly, “recipient of a Silver Star.” 

Ravi gasped. “You have a Silver Star?” 

Eddie groaned into his hands as everyone burst out laughing. 

Hen smiled smugly. “Watching you find out organically was funnier.” 

Buck laughed. A real one. Deep and unforced. 

Family. 

Later Buck returned to his clipboard. 

Hoses checked. 
EMS bags restocked. 
Extrication tools noted. 
Generators logged. 

Order steadied his breathing. 

Tomorrow he started the medication. 

His grip tightened on the pen. 

Footsteps approached. 

“Can I come closer?” Eddie asked. 

Buck nodded. 

Eddie stood beside him without touching. 

“You okay?” 

“I’m trying.” 

“You don’t have to solve everything today,” Eddie said. “Today is just a shift.” 

Buck exhaled slowly. 

Eddie nudged the clipboard. “Some people meditate. You do inventory.” 

“It works.” 

“It does,” Eddie said softly. “You make order out of chaos. That won’t disappear.” 

Buck swallowed. 

“I’m still scared.” 

“I know,” Eddie replied. “That’s why I’m here.” 

The rest of shift stayed quiet. Minor allergic reaction. Equipment clean-up. Final inventory pass. 

By the end every line was filled. 

Order. Clarity. Control. 

Tomorrow would come. 

But today he finished his list. 

The station had settled into end-of-shift quiet. Radios low, dishes washed, turnout gear half-hung and waiting for morning. 

Eddie wiped down Engine 118’s dash in the bay, humming under his breath. Hen and Ravi sorted an oxygen tank discrepancy. Chim lingered in the kitchen, packing leftovers into containers he would either forget or pretend to forget so Hen would not scold him. 

Buck stepped inside, clipboard tucked under his arm. 

“Hey.” 

Chim looked up immediately, boyish grin ready. 
“Hey, Buckaroo. You finish inventory?” 

Buck nodded. “Yeah. Bobby already signed it off.” 

Chim waited for the usual joke. 

Buck did not smile. 

He set the clipboard down and leaned against the counter, arms crossed tight, holding himself together more than guarding himself. 

“Chim… I need to talk to you about something.” 

Chim’s grin faded. Concern replaced it. 
“Yeah. Of course. What’s going on?” 

Buck swallowed. 

“It’s about something that happened years ago. Something I told you. About Dr Wells.” 

Chim went still. 

“Oh,” he said softly. “Buck, I… I honestly haven’t thought about her in years. I barely remember…” 

“You joked,” Buck whispered, not accusing. Naming it. “I told you something happened in that session and you made a joke. I laughed because you laughed. I was confused and scared and I thought… if you didn’t take it seriously, maybe it wasn’t serious.” 

Chim’s face crumpled. 

“Buck…” 

Buck shook his head quickly. “I’m not blaming you. I just need to say this out loud to the people who were there back then.” 

Chim stepped closer but not into his space. 
“Okay. Say whatever you need.” 

Buck’s eyes shone. 

“It was rape.” 

A sharp breath escaped Chim. Shock, horror, grief. 

“Oh, Buck. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know. If I had known…” 

“I didn’t know either,” Buck said. “Not the words. Not the freezing. Not the missing pieces. I was ashamed. You were someone I trusted, so when you joked… I shut it down.” 

Chim covered his mouth, eyes wet. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I thought it was some weird inappropriate therapist situation. I thought humour would make it easier to talk.” 

“I know,” Buck said softly. “You didn’t hurt me. She did.” 

Chim nodded, struggling to steady himself. 

Then realisation hit him. 

“The training Bobby made me take. The trauma disclosure course. That was because of you?” 

Buck nodded once. 

Chim sat heavily at the table. 

“Jesus… Bobby never said why. Just that I hurt someone I cared about. I thought I messed up a call.” 

“It wasn’t punishment,” Buck said gently. “It was correction. Now you know how to help someone if they come to you like I did.” 

Chim wiped his eyes. 

“I wish I could go back,” he whispered. “Tell you it wasn’t your fault.” 

“You’re telling me now.” 

Chim nodded, voice thick. 
“Are you reporting her?” 

“I already did. With Eddie and Bobby.” 

Chim exhaled shakily. “Good. She deserves consequences.” 

Buck lowered his gaze. 
“I don’t want you hating yourself over it.” 

Chim gave a weak laugh. “I don’t hate myself. I hate that I wasn’t what you needed.” 

“You are now.” 

Chim slowly reached out and waited. 

Buck nodded. 

Chim placed his hand over Buck’s. 

“You’re my brother,” Chim said quietly. “I’ll do better.” 

Buck smiled, tired but real. “I know.” 

They sat in repaired silence. 

Eddie appeared in the doorway, eyes flicking between them, checking without asking. 

Buck nodded slightly. Everything was okay. 

Chim stood and cleared his throat. 
“I’m gonna go check if Hen fixed that oxygen tank issue.” 

“She absolutely did,” Buck said softly. 

Chim gave his shoulder a gentle pat before leaving. 

Eddie walked over. 

“You ready to clock out?” 

Buck nodded and stood. 

He was tired. Scared about tomorrow. Starting medication in the morning. Beginning something hard. 

But he was not carrying it alone. 

Buck was quiet on the drive home. 

Not withdrawn. 
Not dissociating. 
Just quiet in the way Eddie recognised. The quiet of someone who had finally put down something heavy. 

The station faded behind them. Sunset washed the truck in warm orange light. Buck rested his head against the window, watching the world blur past like he did not trust himself to reach for anything steady yet. 

Eddie kept one hand on the wheel and the other resting palm up between them. An invitation, not a requirement. 

Buck did not take it. 

Not until they turned onto their street. 

Then, almost absent-mindedly, his fingers slid into Eddie’s. 

Eddie squeezed once, slow and warm, and said nothing. 

When they stepped inside the house, Christopher waited with a stack of flashcards, bouncing on his toes. 

“Papa! I finished my maths homework even though it was the hard kind!” 

Buck let out a soft laugh that cracked at the edges. 

“Yeah?” he said gently, kneeling just enough for Christopher to wrap his arms around his neck. “I’m proud of you, buddy.” 

Christopher pulled back, studying him carefully. 

“You okay?” 

Buck swallowed and nodded. “Just tired.” 

Christopher accepted that and ran off to grab the cards. 

Eddie brushed his fingers lightly against Buck’s back, asking. 

Buck leaned into the touch. 

“Dinner?” Eddie asked. 

“Please.” 

They kept it simple. Pasta, garlic bread, routine. Buck ate slowly but finished enough to ground himself in the normal rhythm of family life. After dishes were rinsed and Christopher settled with cartoons, Buck checked his phone. 

Daily Mental Health Check-In – 7PM 

He exhaled shakily. 

Eddie noticed. “You want privacy?” 

“No,” Buck said immediately, then softer, “Stay?” 

“Always.” 

They sat on the sofa. Eddie stayed close but not crowding. A blanket settled across Buck’s lap because Eddie knew the shaking would start soon. 

Buck tapped the number. 

“Hi, Evan,” Dr Copeland said warmly. “Are you somewhere safe to talk?” 

“I’m home. Eddie’s here.” 

“Good. How are you feeling after this week?” 

Buck hesitated. “Like my brain is too full and too empty at the same time.” 

“That’s normal after a trauma disclosure and deployment. Your nervous system is exhausted, not failing.” 

Buck breathed out. “Yeah.” 

“Tomorrow morning you’ll take your first dose. We’ll monitor daily. Tell me honestly, one to ten, how scared are you?” 

Buck closed his eyes. “Eight.” 

Eddie turned his hand palm up again. Buck took it instantly. 

“Good,” she said gently. “Naming fear reduces its power.” 

Buck swallowed. “I’m afraid I’ll change. That I won’t be me.” 

“You won’t lose yourself. You’ll lose noise. Medication clarifies, it doesn’t erase identity.” 

He blinked hard. 

“Tonight I want rest. No processing. Let your system settle. Text me before your dose tomorrow.” 

“I will.” 

“I’m proud of you, Evan.” 

“Thank you.” 

The call ended. Buck let the phone fall beside him and leaned into Eddie with a long exhale. 

“You did good today,” Eddie murmured, wrapping an arm loosely around him. 

Buck curled into his side, softer than usual. 

“Eds?” 

“Yeah, baby?” 

“What if tomorrow changes everything?” 

Eddie kissed his temple. 
“Then we face everything together.” 

“You mean that?” 

“With my whole heart.” 

Christopher peeked around the corner holding his stuffed dragon. 

“Papa, can I sit with you?” 

Buck lifted an arm. “Come here.” 

Christopher climbed between them, head on Buck’s chest, feet on Eddie’s lap. The three of them fit together easily. 

Safe. 
Warm. 
Home. 

Buck let out a long breath, the first peaceful one of the day. 

Tomorrow was still terrifying. 

But he was not alone. 

And for tonight, that was enough.

Chapter Text

The pill sat in Buck’s palm longer than it should have. 

Small. 
Blue. 
So ordinary it almost felt insulting, like this couldn’t possibly be the thing that had shaped his entire life. 

His fingers curled slowly around it, then loosened again. 

If he didn’t take it, nothing would change. 
If he did… 

Everything might. 

Eddie stayed a few steps away, leaning against the counter, watching Buck with the careful stillness he used on bad days. Not hovering. Not pretending this was casual. 

“Okay,” Eddie said softly. “Before you take it, let’s do the checklist.” 

Buck let out a breath that trembled on the edge of a laugh. “You’re really calm for someone about to mess with my brain chemistry.” 

“I’m calm because I’m prepared,” Eddie said. “And because I trust you.” 

That landed harder than Buck expected. 

Eddie slid a plate towards him. Toast. Peanut butter. A banana cut cleanly down the middle, like Eddie had thought about it. 

“Eat first.” 

“I’m not hungry,” Buck said automatically, then winced. “I mean… I know I should be. I just don’t feel it.” 

“I know,” Eddie said again. “That’s why it’s on the checklist.” 

Buck stared at the food for a long second, then picked up the toast. His hands were steady, but his chest wasn’t. He chewed slowly, forcing himself to stay present instead of letting his mind sprint ahead. 

What if it dulled him. 
What if it flattened him. 
What if Eddie woke up tomorrow married to someone quieter. Slower. Less. 

Eddie moved through the kitchen with quiet efficiency, opening cupboards and scanning labels like he was clearing a trauma bay. 

“No cold meds. No decongestants. No energy drinks.” He glanced over. “Coffee?” 

“Half a mug,” Buck said. “I stopped.” 

“Good.” Eddie nodded like Buck had passed a test. “Water?” 

Buck lifted his bottle. “Full.” 

Eddie’s eyes flicked to the counter again. “Supplements?” 

“Cleared with Copeland.” 

“And sleep?” 

Buck hesitated. “Six hours.” 

Eddie grimaced. “Not ideal.” 

“But not catastrophic,” Buck offered. 

“I’ll take it,” Eddie said. 

Then he leaned back against the counter, grounding himself before grounding Buck. 

“Last check.” 

Buck swallowed. 

“How scared are you?” 

The question hit somewhere tender, because Eddie wasn’t asking as a medic. He was asking as someone who loved him. 

Buck closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. 

“Seven,” he said quietly. “Maybe eight.” 

Eddie nodded, completely unalarmed. “Okay. That’s workable.” 

Buck snorted weakly. “You say that like fear has a dosage chart.” 

“It does,” Eddie said gently. “And this is still in the safe range.” 

Buck nodded, throat tight. 

Eddie reached out, slow and visible, and rested his fingers lightly against Buck’s wrist. Not gripping. Not claiming. Just there. 

“Remember,” Eddie said, “this isn’t permanent. We can adjust. Stop. Change course. You’re not losing yourself.” 

Buck breathed in through his nose. 

“Okay,” he whispered. 

He tipped the blue capsule into his mouth. 

For a split second, panic flared, sharp and instinctive, like his body wanted to spit it back out. But he swallowed, chased it with water, and set the glass down carefully. 

There. 

It was done. 

Nothing exploded. 
Nothing shifted. 
The world didn’t tilt. 

Eddie glanced at his watch. “Timer’s on. Observation mode. No major life decisions today.” 

Buck let out a soft huff. “So no redecorating the living room.” 

“No tattoos,” Eddie added. “And no emotionally loaded phone calls unless you initiate.” 

Buck smiled faintly, but his chest was still tight. 

They sat at the table together for a few minutes, Buck picking at the banana, Eddie pretending not to watch him too closely. Buck kept waiting for something dramatic to happen. Dizziness, clarity, fear, anything. 

Instead… 

Quiet. 

Not silence. 
Not numbness. 

Just… 

Space. 

About forty minutes later, Buck realised he’d stopped clenching his jaw. He’d stopped running three conversations in his head at once. The world wasn’t softer, it was sharper, but calmer. Like the edges were finally staying where they belonged. Dr Copeland called and asked him to describe how he felt, which was strange to explain. 

An hour later, Buck stood in the bedroom doorway, staring at the wardrobe. 

It wasn’t bad. 

But it was wrong. 

The shirts were uneven. The hangers mismatched. The colours scattered without logic. 

And suddenly, very calmly, he started fixing it. 

No rush. 
No anxiety. 

Just focus. 

Uniform shirts first, aligned, buttoned. Station tees folded to identical widths. Eddie’s old Army shirts handled more carefully, the worn cotton grounding under his fingers. And in a garment bag, Eddie’s dress blues with his ribbons on and space for his Silver Star. As good as Buck thought his husband would look in it, he never wanted to see Eddie wear it, because it meant someone had died. 

This feels good, Buck realised, surprised by it. 

Not frantic good. 
Not compulsive. 

Just… 

Right. 

Time slid sideways without him noticing. 

“Buck?” 

Eddie’s voice cut gently through the focus. 

Buck blinked, heart stuttering like he’d been shaken awake. “Yeah?” 

Eddie leaned in the doorway, scanning him the way he’d scan a patient. “You alive in there?” 

Buck glanced at the clock and startled. “I… may have started something.” 

Eddie took in the wardrobe, then Buck’s posture. His jaw. His breathing. 

“You reorganised.” 

“And the dresser,” Buck said. Then faster, aware of the words piling up. “And I was thinking about the hall cupboard because the batteries are everywhere and it doesn’t make sense and…” 

“Pause,” Eddie said softly. 

Buck stopped immediately. 

That part scared him a little. How quickly his brain had latched on. How cleanly it obeyed the track it chose. 

Eddie stepped closer. “Body check.” 

Buck closed his eyes, scanning inward like Copeland had taught him. 

“Jaw’s not as tight. Mouth’s kinda dry. Not hungry.” He swallowed. “Brain feels quiet. But very focused.” 

“Any dizziness?” 

“No.” 

“Heart racing?” 

“No.” 

Buck hesitated. “I feel… capable.” 

Eddie smiled. “That’s allowed.” 

Buck laughed softly, shaky. “I don’t want to overdo it.” 

“That’s why we made rules,” Eddie reminded him. 

No leaving the house. 
Breaks every hour. 
Water. Food. 
No emotional ambushes. 
No surprises. 

As if on cue, Buck’s phone buzzed. 

Maddie. 

His chest tightened, not panic exactly, but a wobble in that new quiet space. Like the calm had thinner walls. 

Buck watched the screen for a second too long. 

Then he answered, grounding himself first. 

“Mads?” 

She sounded careful. “Hey. I just wanted to check in.” 

“I’m okay,” Buck said slowly. “I started my meds today.” 

“Oh.” A pause. “How do you feel?” 

Buck searched for honesty instead of reassurance. “Focused. And… fragile.” 

“I was hoping,” Maddie said gently, “that I could come by.” 

Buck covered the phone and looked at Eddie. “I want to see her,” he said. “But I need structure.” 

Eddie nodded. “Then you lead.” 

Buck uncovered the phone, voice steadier now. 

“You can come over,” he said. “But I need to set some rules.” 

“Okay,” Maddie said immediately. 

“I’m not leaving the house today. If I get overwhelmed, I pause or stop. No pushing. Eddie stays the whole time.” 

“Of course.” 

“And call when you’re outside. Don’t knock.” 

“I will,” she promised. “Thank you for telling me.” 

They hung up. 

Buck let out a long breath, shaky but proud. 

“I advocated,” he whispered. 

Eddie smiled, eyes warm. “You did.” 

Buck looked back at the wardrobe, neat, ordered, quiet. 

“…Can I finish the hall cupboard?” 

Eddie laughed softly. “Water first.” 

Buck grinned, small, bright, emotional in a way that surprised him. 

“Deal.” 

For the first time that morning, Buck felt something settle. 

Not certainty. 
Not confidence. 

But the fragile, powerful sense that maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t been too much. 

Maybe he’d just needed help hearing himself think. 

Buck’s phone buzzed in his hand. 

He didn’t jump this time. The vibration still registered, sharp but manageable, like his nervous system noticed without spiralling. 

Maddie. 

Eddie shifted beside him on the sofa, thigh pressed firmly against Buck’s, their shoulders touching. The contact was deliberate, grounding. Buck leaned into it without thinking, letting Eddie’s body heat steady the low hum under his skin. 

He answered. 

“Hey,” Maddie said. “I’m outside.” 

“Okay,” Buck replied. “You can come in, but I need to set a few boundaries first.” 

There was no pause this time. No defensiveness. 

“Alright,” Maddie said. “Tell me what you need.” 

Buck took a slow breath. The medication made that easier, not effortless, but possible. 

“I’m on my first day of new meds,” he said. “My mind feels organised right now, but it’s fragile.” 

Eddie’s arm slid fully around Buck’s back, solid and warm. 

“You know how Chris and I are reading Harry Potter?” Buck continued. “Occlumency? It’s not about blocking thoughts. It’s about sorting them so they don’t crash into each other.” 

“I remember,” Maddie said softly. 

“That’s what this feels like,” Buck said. “Everything’s quieter. Clearer. But if too much hits at once, it’ll overwhelm me fast.” 

“Okay.” 

“So,” Buck said evenly, “no surprises. No raised voices. And if I say I need a break, we stop. Immediately.” 

“Agreed.” 

“And I’m not leaving the house today,” Buck added. “If things get intense, Eddie might step in. Not to talk for me, just to help slow things down.” 

“That’s fair.” 

Buck waited a beat, checking how his chest felt. 

Steady. Present. 

“Alright,” he said. “Come in.” 

He ended the call and set the phone aside. 

Eddie didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He stayed exactly where he was, shoulder firm against Buck’s, arm warm and secure around his back. 

“You okay?” Eddie asked quietly after a moment. 

Buck nodded. “Yeah. Nervous. But I feel… here.” 

“That’s all we’re aiming for.” 

When the door opened, Maddie stepped inside carefully. Her eyes went first to Buck, then to Eddie, then back again, reading the room instead of rushing into it. 

“Hey,” she said. 

Buck stayed seated, feet planted, Eddie’s warmth solid at his side. 

“Hey,” Buck replied. “Before we get into anything, this isn’t a fight. I’m not here to attack you.” 

Maddie nodded. “Okay.” 

“I’m going to be honest today,” Buck continued. “But I need you to listen all the way through before reacting.” 

“I can do that,” she said immediately. 

Eddie spoke then, calm and brief, exactly where his voice belonged. 

“These are things we agreed on together,” he said. “They’re about keeping Buck regulated, not shutting you out.” 

Maddie met his eyes, then turned back to Buck. “I hear you.” 

Something in Buck’s chest loosened, not relief exactly, but space. 

“Okay,” Buck said. “Then sit.” 

Maddie took the armchair across from them, posture careful and open. 

Buck leaned back into Eddie without thinking, shoulder pressed to Eddie’s chest, Eddie’s arm a steady weight around him. 

“I’m ready,” Buck said, grounded, clear, and finally in control of the pace. 

Buck was quiet for a long moment after he finished explaining the rules. Not shut down, just heavy. Eddie stayed close, arm warm around his shoulders, his presence steady enough that Buck didn’t feel like he was going to tip over. 

“I need to tell you something,” Buck said finally. His voice was soft but tight. “And I don’t know how to say it without sounding like I’m accusing someone.” 

Maddie shook her head immediately. “You’re not. Whatever it is.” 

Buck swallowed, throat working like it physically hurt to get the words out. 

“I didn’t go into therapy looking for a diagnosis,” he said again, firmer this time, like he needed her to really hear it. “I wasn’t trying to find something wrong with me. I wasn’t searching for labels or explanations or excuses.” 

He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers like he was checking they still belonged to him. 

“I just wanted help,” he whispered. “I wanted my head to stop being so loud. I wanted to stop feeling like I was one bad day away from losing everything. I wanted to sleep without feeling like I was failing at being a person.” 

Maddie’s eyes shone. She didn’t interrupt. 

“So when Dr Copeland suggested an evaluation, I freaked out,” Buck admitted. “Because I thought she was telling me I was broken. That there was something fundamentally wrong with me.” 

His voice cracked slightly. 

“ADHD came first. Combined type.” He let out a small, shaky breath. “And I didn’t believe her. Not at first.” 

Maddie frowned. “Why?” 

“Because I thought ADHD meant hyper little kids who can’t sit still,” Buck said. “Not this.” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Not the constant mental noise. Not the emotional overwhelm. Not the impulsivity that feels like my brain hits go before I even know what I’m doing.” 

He shook his head, eyes glassy. 

“I wasn’t masking it as a kid. I wasn’t hiding it. I was loud. Emotional. Too much. I felt everything at once and didn’t know how to slow it down. Instead of anyone helping me understand that, I got told to calm down. To try harder. To stop being dramatic.” 

Maddie’s breath hitched. “Buck…” 

“When I was fourteen,” he continued, voice trembling now, “school flagged it. Teachers suggested assessments. Said I struggled with focus, impulse control, emotional regulation. That I was smart but overwhelmed.” 

Her face fell. “I didn’t know.” 

“I know,” Buck said quickly, eyes lifting to meet hers, urgent and protective. “And I’m not saying that to hurt you.” 

He leaned forward slightly. 

“You weren’t there then. You’d already moved to Boston. And before that…” His voice softened painfully. “You raised me. For nine years, Maddie. You were the one who got me dressed. Who helped with homework. Who sat with me when I couldn’t sleep because my head wouldn’t stop.” 

Tears slipped free now. 

“You kept me alive,” he whispered. “So this isn’t about you failing me. You were a kid yourself. You wouldn’t have known what to look for.” 

Maddie wiped at her cheeks, already crying. 

“It was Mum and Dad,” Buck said, voice going thin. “They ignored the school. They said I was lazy. Dramatic. Difficult. That I needed discipline, not doctors.” 

His chest hitched. 

“So I grew up thinking everything that was actually ADHD was just me being defective. Every time I failed, it meant I hadn’t tried hard enough. Every time I messed up, it meant I was a bad son. A bad kid.” 

He laughed weakly. 

“And that didn’t go away. I just got older.” 

Eddie’s arm tightened around him, grounding. 

“When Dr Copeland explained it to me,” Buck went on, “I felt this huge rush of relief and grief. Because if someone had listened back then, maybe things wouldn’t have been so hard. Maybe I wouldn’t have hated myself so much for things I couldn’t control.” 

Maddie reached out, then stopped herself, waiting. 

Buck nodded. 

She took his hand. 

“And then,” Buck whispered, voice shaking again, “she brought up something else.” 

Maddie’s grip tightened. 

“Borderline Personality Disorder,” he said. “BPD.” 

Maddie didn’t flinch. She just listened. 

“And I rejected it,” Buck admitted immediately. “Hard. I told her there was nothing wrong with my personality. I thought she was saying I was the problem. That everything about me was bad.” 

He swallowed thickly. 

“But BPD isn’t a personality flaw,” he said. “It’s a trauma based disorder. It’s what happens when your nervous system learns that attachment isn’t safe, or consistent, or predictable.” 

His voice dropped. 

“For me, it shows up quietly. Fear of abandonment so bad it feels like physical pain. Emotions that hit fast and hard and leave me exhausted. This constant hollow feeling like I only exist if someone needs me.” 

Tears spilled freely now. 

“My anger doesn’t explode,” he said. “It turns inward. I blame myself. I shut down. I convince myself I’m unlovable the second I mess up.” 

Maddie was crying openly now. 

“And learning that,” Buck whispered, “learning that this isn’t because I’m weak or dramatic or broken… it broke my heart a little.” 

He looked at her, raw and open. 

“I wasn’t looking for a diagnosis,” he said again, voice shaking. “I was looking for help. And instead I found out how much pain I’ve been carrying without understanding why.” 

The room was silent except for their breathing. 

“And that’s why,” Buck finished quietly, “this next part matters so much.” 

Maddie nodded, barely holding herself together. 

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’m here.” 

There was a stretch of silence after Buck finished talking about the diagnoses. 

Not awkward. 
Not empty. 
Just heavy. 

Maddie was still holding his hand, thumb tracing slow circles over his knuckles the way she used to when he was little and overwhelmed. Eddie stayed close at Buck’s side, solid and warm, his presence keeping Buck anchored to the couch. 

Buck drew in a breath that shook. 

“There’s one more thing,” he said quietly. 

Maddie stilled immediately. “Okay,” she said. “I’m listening.” 

Buck didn’t look at her. He stared at the carpet, jaw tight. 

“This part is harder,” he admitted. “Not because I don’t want you to know. But because once I say it, I can’t unsay it.” 

Maddie squeezed his hand. “Take your time.” 

“When I first became a firefighter,” Buck began, voice low, “I lost someone on my first big call. His name was Devon Madison.” 

Maddie frowned slightly. “I don’t remember him.” 

“You wouldn’t,” Buck said gently. “He wasn’t family. He was a civilian. It was my first death on the job. I was barely six months in.” 

Her face softened with understanding. 

“He was hanging from a roller coaster car,” Buck continued. “There was a strap. I reached him. I told him to grab my hand through it.” 

His throat tightened. 

“And he let go.” 

Maddie’s breath caught. “Oh, Buck…” 

“I watched him fall,” Buck whispered. “Afterwards I couldn’t stop thinking that if I’d said something different, or moved faster, or something, it wouldn’t have happened.” 

He swallowed. 

“After that I wasn’t sleeping. I kept replaying it. Bobby helped me find a therapist because I was falling apart.” 

He hesitated. 

“I only saw her once.” 

Maddie tilted her head. “Why only once?” 

Buck took a breath that trembled all the way through his chest. 

“Because she raped me.” 

The word landed between them, heavy and undeniable. 

Maddie went completely still. 

“She was my therapist,” Buck continued quickly, momentum carrying him forward. “Dr Wells. It happened in that first session. I froze. I dissociated. I didn’t understand what was happening.” 

Maddie’s hand tightened around his. “Oh my God.” 

“I didn’t know how to name it then,” Buck said. “I thought maybe I’d misunderstood. Or that it was somehow my fault for being there.” 

Tears welled in Maddie’s eyes. 

“I told Chim the next day,” Buck said softly. “Not everything. Just that something happened in therapy.” 

Maddie’s jaw clenched. “And?” 

“And he joked,” Buck said. “So I laughed. And I decided it must not have been serious.” 

Maddie surged to her feet, fury sharp and immediate. “He what?” 

“Maddie,” Buck said gently. “I need you to hear the rest.” 

She stopped pacing, breathing hard. 

“I talked to Chim recently,” Buck continued. “I told him the truth. He apologised. He owned it. And Bobby addressed it years ago with corrective training without telling me why at the time.” 

Maddie stared at him, stunned. “You handled that yourself?” 

Buck nodded. “I needed to.” 

Her anger didn’t vanish, but it shifted into something controlled and fierce. 

“And the therapist?” she asked. “What happened to her?” 

Buck took a steadying breath. 

“I reported her,” he said. “To the police.” 

Maddie’s eyes widened. “You did? When?” 

“Yesterday,” Buck said. “With Eddie and Bobby. Athena helped get the right detective.” 

He hesitated, then added quietly, “And the phone call with you was right after I got back from the station. Right after I gave my statement.” 

Understanding hit her all at once. The timing. The rawness. The way his emotions had been right at the surface. 

“Oh, Ev…” she whispered. 

She crossed the room and stopped just in front of him, searching his face. 

“Is it okay if I hug you?” 

Buck nodded. 

She wrapped her arms around him carefully, holding him the way she used to when he was small, protective and steady. 

“I am so proud of you,” Maddie said fiercely. “For surviving. For telling the truth. For going to the police.” 

Buck’s breath broke. “It didn’t feel brave.” 

“It never does,” she said. “But it is.” 

She pulled back just enough to look at him. 

“I’m angry,” Maddie admitted. “At her. At Chim. At the fact that this happened to you at all. But mostly I’m heartbroken you went through it alone.” 

Buck shook his head gently. “I wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet. Not then.” 

She nodded, accepting that. 

“You are not broken,” Maddie said firmly. “Not by this. Not by anything.” 

Eddie spoke quietly from beside him. “He did everything right.” 

Maddie looked at Eddie, then back at Buck, eyes shining. 

“Thank you for trusting me with this,” she said. “I won’t waste that trust.” 

Buck leaned back into Eddie, exhaustion and relief tangling together. 

For the first time, telling Maddie didn’t feel like reopening the wound. 

It felt like letting someone help hold it closed. 

The room stayed quiet for a long moment after Maddie thanked him. 

Not heavy. 
Not awkward. 
Just suspended. 

Buck sat curled slightly into Eddie’s side, the blanket still around his shoulders. The medication hummed under his skin, not loud, not numbing, just present. Like someone had turned the volume down enough that thoughts stopped colliding but left him more exposed to what did get through. 

Maddie watched him carefully, hands wrapped around her mug even though she hadn’t taken another sip. 

“Buck,” she said softly. 

He looked up. “Yeah?” 

“There’s something I need to tell you too.” 

Something in her voice made Eddie shift, not away, not forward, just closer so Buck could feel his body heat steady against his side. Maddie noticed. Her shoulders loosened a fraction. 

“Okay,” Buck said slowly. “You’re scaring me a little, but okay.” 

Maddie swallowed. 

“You remember how Mum and Dad were when we were kids,” she began. “The rules. The secrets. The things we just didn’t talk about.” 

Buck huffed faintly. “Yeah. That wasn’t subtle.” 

She gave a weak, sad smile. “This was different. They made me promise. Over and over. They said it would destroy you if you knew.” 

Buck’s stomach tightened. 

“Maddie,” he said quietly, “what are you talking about?” 

She took a breath that shook all the way through her. 

“We had a brother.” 

The words hovered, unreal and disconnected. 

“I… what?” Buck blinked. 

“His name was Daniel,” Maddie said. Her voice wavered but she didn’t stop. “He was sick. Before you were born.” 

Buck shook his head automatically. “No. We don’t have a brother.” 

“You didn’t grow up with him,” Maddie said gently. “But he existed. He mattered.” 

Eddie’s hand rested more firmly on Buck’s knee now, anchoring the moment. 

“How old?” Buck asked, voice flat. 

“Five when he was diagnosed,” Maddie said. “Seven when you were born. Eight when he died.” 

Buck sucked in a breath that burned. 

“What did he have?” 

“Juvenile leukaemia.” 

The word settled heavy in Buck’s chest. 

“They tested everyone,” Maddie continued. “Mum. Dad. Me. No matches. And Daniel needed a bone marrow transplant to live.” 

Buck’s breath caught. 

“So,” he said quietly, as it clicked into place, “when no one matched… they made one.” 

Maddie froze. 

Buck didn’t look at her. His gaze dropped to the floor, voice low and precise. 

“Me.” 

Silence stretched, raw and exposed. 

Then Maddie nodded, tears spilling freely. “Yes.” 

Buck’s pulse spiked. 

“The cord blood helped,” Maddie said quickly. “When you were born they used it to stabilise him. His counts improved. It bought time.” 

Buck closed his eyes. 

Time. 
Hope. 

“And when you turned one,” Maddie whispered, “they did the transplant. Your bone marrow.” 

Buck went very still. 

“It worked,” she said, voice breaking. “Your marrow took. His body accepted it. For a while he was better. He was responding. We all thought…” 

Her voice cracked. 

“We thought we’d won.” 

Buck’s throat worked. “But…” 

“He got an infection,” Maddie said softly. “After the transplant. His immune system was still rebuilding. His body couldn’t fight it.” 

Silence pressed in. 

“So,” Buck said slowly, “I worked.” 

Maddie nodded, crying. “You saved him. You gave him more time.” 

“And he still died,” Buck finished. 

“Yes.” 

Buck leaned back into the couch, eyes unfocused. 

“That’s why they looked at me like that,” he said quietly. “Like I was fragile. Or temporary. Like loving me too much would tempt fate.” 

Maddie nodded. “They didn’t know how to stop grieving him without being afraid of losing you too.” 

Eddie shifted slightly so Maddie could see him as clearly as Buck could. 

“You both deserved better than that,” he said quietly. 

Maddie’s breath hitched. “Thank you.” 

She turned back to Buck. 

“You left when I was nine,” Buck said. “I don’t remember him. You never told me.” 

“I wanted to,” she whispered. “They made me promise when I was still a kid myself. And then I left. Every year it felt harder.” 

Buck looked at her properly. 

“You were a kid,” he said softly. “You wouldn’t have known what to do. I don’t blame you.” 

That broke her completely. 

“I almost told you,” she sobbed. “When you scared me. When you didn’t care if you got hurt. I kept thinking if you knew why you existed, maybe you’d stop trying to disappear.” 

Buck’s chest ached. 

“Or maybe it would’ve made it worse,” he said quietly. “Maybe I would’ve thought that was all I was for.” 

Eddie’s thumb brushed once over Buck’s knee. 

“You’re not,” he said softly. Then to Maddie, just as steady, “and neither of you are responsible for what your parents couldn’t handle.” 

Maddie nodded, wiping her face. 

“He met you,” she said. “When you were born. They brought you into his room.” 

Buck’s breath caught. 

“He held your hand,” Maddie whispered. “Just for a minute. He smiled and said you sounded loud. That it meant you wanted to live.” 

Tears slid freely. 

“He named you,” she added. “He said Evan sounded like someone brave.” 

Buck covered his mouth, shoulders shaking. 

“And the bike,” Maddie said. “The one I taught you to ride?” 

Buck nodded faintly. 

“That was his,” she said. “He wanted it saved for you. Told me not to let you be scared.” 

Buck leaned fully into Eddie, grief finally given shape. 

“I think he’d be mad if he knew how little I thought I mattered,” Buck whispered. 

Maddie laughed softly through tears. “He’d be furious.” 

Eddie squeezed Buck’s knee once, firm and grounding. 

“And he’d be proud of both of you,” Eddie said. “For surviving what no one should have had to carry alone.” 

Buck nodded, crying openly now. 

“He was real,” he whispered. “Thank you for making him real.” 

Maddie reached out and this time Eddie shifted so Buck was supported on both sides as she took his hand. 

“He always was,” she said. “You just finally get to know him.” 

And for the first time, Buck grieved a brother he had never known, not as a purpose, not as a replacement, but as family. 

The room stayed quiet after Maddie finished speaking. 

Not brittle. 
Not strained. 
Just full. 

Buck sat very still, curled slightly into Eddie’s side, the blanket still around his shoulders. The medication hummed through him, not unpleasant, not numbing, but different. Like the walls between his thoughts had thinned. 

Everything got in easier. 
Everything stayed longer. 

Maddie watched him closely, eyes red, hands clenched together like she was bracing for something to break. 

Buck swallowed. 

“I…” He stopped, frowned slightly, trying again. “I need a minute.” 

Maddie’s shoulders tensed immediately. “Okay. Yeah. Of course.” 

“It’s not that I’m mad,” Buck said gently. “I’m not upset at you.” 

She stilled. 

“I just…” He pressed his palm flat against his thigh, grounding himself. “You just told me something that rewrites my whole life. And I’m on new meds. Everything feels closer than it usually does.” 

Eddie shifted subtly beside him, not touching yet, just aligning himself so Buck had something solid at his back. 

“I don’t want to react wrong,” Buck continued quietly. “Or say something I can’t take back. I need time to let this land.” 

Maddie’s eyes filled again, but this time she didn’t rush to fill the silence. 

“You’re allowed that,” she said softly. “I know I dropped something huge on you.” 

Buck nodded. “I’m really glad you told me. Truly. I just…” He took a slow breath. “I can’t hold it and you at the same time right now.” 

The honesty trembled between them. 

Maddie’s voice wavered. “So you need space.” 

“Yeah,” Buck said. Then carefully, “Just for tonight. To think. To feel. To not feel. I don’t know yet.” 

She nodded, blinking hard. “Okay.” 

There was a beat where it looked like she might argue, apologise, or take it personally. 

She didn’t. 

Eddie finally spoke, voice low and steady. 

“He’s not pushing you away. He’s doing exactly what his therapist would want him to do.” 

Buck glanced at him, grateful. 

Maddie let out a shaky breath. “I can respect that.” 

She stood slowly, like she didn’t want to startle him. 

“I’m really proud of you,” she added quietly. “Not just for today. For all of it. Even this.” 

Buck’s throat tightened. 

“Thank you. For telling me. And for giving me room.” 

She hesitated, then stopped herself from reaching for him. 

“I love you,” she said instead. 

Buck nodded. “I love you too.” 

She gave Eddie a small grateful look, then headed for the door. 

When it closed behind her, the house seemed to exhale. 

Buck slumped back into the couch, suddenly boneless. Eddie turned slightly towards him. 

“Can I?” Eddie asked softly. 

Buck nodded immediately. 

Eddie wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in just enough to be grounding, not overwhelming. Buck leaned into him with a shaky sigh. 

“I feel raw,” Buck admitted. “Like someone peeled me open.” 

“That makes sense,” Eddie murmured. “You just learned you existed before you were ever allowed to exist for yourself.” 

Buck huffed a weak, breathless laugh. “That’s one way to put it.” 

They sat quietly for a while. No talking. No fixing. 

Just breathing. 

Eventually Buck said softly, “I’m glad she told me.” 

“I know,” Eddie said. 

“I just need time.” 

Eddie kissed the top of his head. “Take all of it.” 

Buck closed his eyes, letting himself rest against the warmth of Eddie’s body, the truth heavy but no longer crushing. 

He wasn’t running from it. 

He was letting himself be human enough to carry it later. 

And for now, 

that was enough. 

Chapter Text

Buck woke to quiet. 

Not the gentle kind he was used to, the early-morning hush where his brain usually revved anyway, lining up worries and plans before his eyes even opened. This was different. This quiet felt deliberate. Structured. 

Unavoidable. 

He lay still, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the familiar surge. The noise, the mental pile-up, the constant internal commentary that usually flooded in the moment he woke. 

It didn’t come. 

Instead, his thoughts arrived one at a time. 

Neat. 
Separated. 
Nowhere to hide. 

Buck swallowed. 

So this was what quieter meant. 

His chest tightened, not with panic, but with something more unsettling: awareness. Without the usual noise to blunt things, everything underneath rose up sharper, clearer. 

Daniel. 

The name surfaced without resistance. No distraction shoved it aside. No competing thought drowned it out. It just stayed. 

Buck shifted onto his side, careful not to wake Eddie, and stared at the thin band of morning light creeping around the curtains. His brain didn’t scatter away from the thought the way it normally would. 

Yesterday, Daniel had been words. A revelation. A shock. 

This morning, Buck tried to make him real. 

Eight years old. 

He tried to imagine Daniel standing in their house, their kitchen, their hallway. Tried to picture what kind of kid he might have been if he’d been allowed to be one. Whether he’d been loud or quiet. Careful or reckless. 

And then his brain, traitorously calm, made the comparison for him. 

Chris. 

Chris at ten. Tall for his age. Sharp-eyed. Opinionated. Old enough to argue his point, old enough to slam a door and still come back five minutes later asking for help with homework. 

Chris, who had outlived Daniel without ever knowing it. 

Buck’s breath hitched. 

Chris was older now than Daniel ever got to be. 

Daniel never made it past eight. Never grew into this stage. Never learned who he would have been. Never stood in a kitchen complaining about school. 

Never got to become a person beyond sickness. 

Buck squeezed his eyes shut and immediately another eight-year-old slid into place. 

Himself. 

Buck at eight, too loud, too emotional, too much. Buck at eight, learning rules without anyone spelling them out. 

Crying didn’t work. 
Asking didn’t work. 
Being scared didn’t work. 

But getting hurt did. 

He could see it now with awful, unfiltered clarity. 

How pain made them look at him. 
How blood made urgency snap into their voices. 
How injury made him matter, even briefly. 

At eight, Buck learned that hurting himself earned attention. 

At eight, Daniel went into a hospital before his birthday and never came home. 

The contrast lodged in Buck’s chest like something sharp. 

Daniel didn’t get to learn survival strategies. 
Didn’t get to learn how to contort himself to fit. 
Didn’t get to learn that pain could be currency. 

Daniel didn’t get to learn anything past that hospital bed. 

Buck pressed his palm flat against the mattress, grounding himself in the present. Eddie’s steady breathing behind him, the faint hum of the fridge, the distant sound of traffic waking up outside. 

Daniel never turned eight at home. 

Never scraped his knees in the driveway. 
Never tested boundaries. 
Never became “too much”. 

Buck had spent his whole life apologising for taking up space Daniel never got to claim. 

A quiet, broken sound slipped out of him before he could stop it. 

Behind him, Eddie shifted. 

Not startled. Not rushed. Just awake. 

“Hey,” Eddie murmured, voice rough with sleep. “You okay?” 

Buck hesitated, instinct screaming to say yeah, to smooth it over, to protect the moment from getting heavy. 

Instead, he told the truth. 

“My head’s quiet,” he said softly. “And it’s… strange.” 

Eddie exhaled slowly and shifted closer, the mattress dipping as he pressed warm and solid against Buck’s back. 

“Quiet how?” he asked. 

“Like everything finally stopped shouting,” Buck said. “And now there’s nothing buffering the hard stuff.” 

Eddie’s arm slid around Buck’s waist, not tight, not possessive. Just there. 

“What’s the hard stuff?” Eddie asked gently. 

Buck swallowed. 

“Daniel,” he said. “And… comparisons I didn’t ask for.” 

Eddie didn’t interrupt. 

“I keep thinking about him at eight,” Buck continued, voice thin. “And then I think about me at eight. And then I think about Chris now, and it’s like my brain keeps lining them all up and...” 

His voice broke. 

“Chris is older than Daniel ever was,” he whispered. “And Daniel never even got to be difficult. Or messy. Or alive enough to be a problem.” 

Eddie tightened his arm just enough to anchor him. 

“That’s a lot for one morning,” he said quietly. 

Buck huffed a shaky breath. “The meds didn’t make it easier. They just made it clearer.” 

“That’s what they’re supposed to do,” Eddie said. “They don’t take away grief. They just stop it from hiding under noise.” 

Buck nodded faintly. 

“I don’t know how to grieve someone I never met,” he admitted. “And I don’t know what it means that I learned how to survive in ways he never had to.” 

“You don’t have to know yet,” Eddie said. “You just have to let it exist.” 

They lay there together, the quiet stretching, not empty, not dangerous. Just new. 

“I thought day two would feel different,” Buck murmured. 

“It does,” Eddie said softly. “Just not the way you expected.” 

Buck let himself breathe, letting Eddie’s warmth hold him steady while his thoughts stayed lined up, painful, honest. 

Day two wasn’t gentle. 

But it was real. 

And for now, that was enough. 

Chris came into the kitchen carefully, crutches tucked under his arms, backpack already slung over one shoulder like he had been waiting for permission to leave since dawn. 

“Papa,” he said, pausing when he spotted Buck at the counter. “Can I have eggs before school, please?” 

Buck turned toward him immediately. 
“Yeah,” he said, warm and steady. “Eggs sound good.” 

Eddie appeared a moment later, barefoot and quiet, mug in hand. He leaned against the doorway, watching the two of them with the kind of stillness that meant he was fully awake even if the rest of the house had not caught up yet. 

“I was thinking,” Buck said as he cracked the first egg into the pan, “I could take you to school today. If that’s okay.” 

Chris’s eyebrows lifted. 
“Really?” 

“Really,” Buck confirmed. “No rushing. We’ll leave early.” 

Eddie’s gaze shifted to Buck, not questioning, just checking in. 

“I’m coming too,” Eddie said easily. “Shotgun.” 

Buck glanced over his shoulder, something soft blooming in his chest. 
“Of course you are.” 

Eddie stepped closer, close enough that Buck felt him at his back without being touched. 

“I’m your permanent passenger,” Eddie added quietly. “Where else would I be?” 

Buck huffed out a small breath, half laugh, half sigh. 
“My passenger princess.” 

Eddie smiled, small and fond, entirely unbothered. 
“I accept that responsibility with honour.” 

Chris made a face. 
“You’re gross,” he announced. “Can you just make the eggs?” 

Buck grinned and slid the plate toward him once they were done, cooked exactly the way Chris liked, edges just set, yolks still soft on his toast Buck had prepared when he heard the tap of the crutches. 

After Chris ate, Buck grabbed his keys, the weight of them familiar in his palm. 

“Alright,” Buck said. “Let’s roll.” 

The drive to school felt deliberate. 

Buck kept both hands on the wheel, posture upright but not rigid. The world outside the windscreen looked a little sharper than usual, not overwhelming, just clearer, like someone had wiped the glass clean. 

Eddie sat angled toward him in the passenger seat, knee turned in, presence open. Watching Buck without watching him. 

Chris hummed softly in the back, tapping his fingers against his backpack in a rhythm only he understood. 

“I’ve got spelling today,” Chris announced. “And maths. And Mrs White says we’re starting fractions.” 

Buck’s chest tightened. 

Ten years old. 
Older than Daniel ever got to be. 

He swallowed and forced a grounding breath. 

“That’s cool,” Buck said carefully. “Fractions are just pieces of things. You already know how to do that.” 

Chris frowned. 
“I do?” 

“Yeah,” Buck said. “You just don’t call it fractions yet.” 

Eddie smiled faintly but didn’t speak. 

They pulled up to the kerb, the familiar morning chaos unfolding around them. Kids darting past cars, parents calling reminders out open windows, life moving forward without hesitation. 

Chris unbuckled, then hesitated. 

“You’re picking me up later, right?” he asked, glancing at Buck. 

Buck met his eyes in the mirror. 
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be here.” 

Satisfied, Chris leaned forward and hugged Buck quickly, then Eddie, before hopping carefully out of the car with his crutches. 

They watched him go until he disappeared through the gates. 

Buck didn’t pull away from the kerb right away. 

“He’s doing really well,” Buck said quietly. Not questioning. Just noticing. 

Eddie turned toward him, a soft smile pulling at his mouth. 
“He is.” 

Buck nodded, eyes still fixed on the building. 
“He works so hard,” he added. “He doesn’t complain. He just figures things out.” 

His chest warmed, pride uncomplicated and fierce. 

“That kid,” Buck said, voice softer now, “he’s going to be okay.” 

Eddie let the moment exist before answering. 
“He already is.” 

Buck breathed out slowly, shoulders easing. 

As he waited to ease the car back into traffic, the thought crept in, quieter than the ones from the night before, but persistent. 

He wondered what Daniel’s days had looked like. 

Did he have lessons in the hospital? 
Books brought to his bedside? 
Did someone teach him maths between treatments, or did the sickness take too much space for learning to fit? 

Buck frowned faintly, not in pain, just curiosity threaded with grief. 

He hoped Daniel had learned something. 
Something normal. 
Something that was not hospitals. 

Eddie glanced over at him, catching the shift. 

“Thinking?” he asked gently. 

Buck nodded. 
“Yeah,” he said. “Just hoping he got to be a kid sometimes.” 

Eddie reached out then, resting his hand briefly over Buck’s on the gearshift, warm and steady. 

“I think he did,” Eddie said softly. “At least a little. And if he didn’t, he’d be glad Chris gets to.” 

Buck let that settle. 

Routine intact. 
Love present. 
Pride louder than grief, for now. 

The school parking lot emptied faster than Buck expected. 

One minute Chris was waving from the kerb, backpack crooked, crutches steady, grin bright. The next the space beside Buck’s truck was just asphalt and morning light. 

Buck stayed where he was, hands resting on the steering wheel, engine still off. 

“You okay?” Eddie asked quietly from the passenger seat. 

Buck nodded automatically. 
“Yeah. Just giving my brain a second.” 

Eddie didn’t argue. He shifted slightly, shoulder brushing Buck’s, grounding without crowding. 

Buck watched the front doors of the school for a beat longer, then finally started the engine. The truck rolled forward slowly, like neither of them was in a rush to fill the quiet. 

They had made it almost a full block before Buck’s phone buzzed in the cup holder. 

The sound cut through him sharper than it should have. 

He glanced down. 

Maddie. 

His stomach tightened, not panic, not dread, just that familiar sinking weight that came with unfinished conversations. 

Eddie noticed immediately. 
“You want me to read it?” he offered gently. 

Buck shook his head. 
“No. I’ve got it.” 

He pulled over before reaching for the phone and read. 

Mom and Dad are in LA. 
They arrived late last night. 
They want dinner tomorrow. All of us. They’re being very firm about it. 

That was it. 

No cushioning. 
No warning. 
No are you okay with this? 

Buck stared at the screen longer than necessary, like maybe the words would rearrange themselves into something less heavy if he gave them time. 

“They’re here,” he said quietly. 

Eddie didn’t ask who. He already knew. 

Buck swallowed. 
“And they want dinner. Tomorrow night.” 

Eddie’s jaw tightened just slightly but his voice stayed even. 
“Do you want that?” 

Buck opened his mouth. 

Closed it again. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to feel about it.” 

The truth sat heavy in his chest: 
he didn’t feel ready, 
he didn’t feel strong, 
and he definitely didn’t feel like the version of himself his parents expected to see. 

Eddie reached over and rested his hand on Buck’s thigh, slow and deliberate, giving him time to pull away. 

Buck didn’t. 

“They didn’t ask,” Buck said after a moment. “They decided.” 

Eddie exhaled through his nose. 
“That tracks.” 

Buck huffed a weak, humourless breath. 

“I just…” He shook his head. “I found out something yesterday that rewrote my entire life. I started meds yesterday morning. And now I’m supposed to sit at a dinner table and pretend I’m fine?” 

“You’re not going to pretend,” Eddie said softly. “Not anymore.” 

Buck glanced at him, something raw flickering behind his eyes. 

“What if I can’t handle it?” he asked. “What if I fall apart?” 

“Then we leave,” Eddie said simply. “Or we don’t go. Or we go and set rules. Nothing about this is mandatory.” 

Buck nodded, but the word mandatory echoed anyway, pressing against old reflexes that didn’t listen to logic. 

His phone buzzed again. 

Maddie. 

He didn’t open it this time. 

“I can’t answer her yet,” Buck said quietly. “I need time.” 

“That’s okay,” Eddie replied. “You don’t owe anyone a response just because they’re louder than you are.” 

Buck leaned back into the seat, letting his head rest against the headrest. 

The quiet in his mind, the new unfamiliar quiet, made the weight of the message feel heavier, not lighter. There was nowhere for it to hide now. No mental noise to bury it under. 

“They’re going to expect me to show up,” Buck murmured. “The good son. The grateful one.” 

Eddie squeezed his thigh gently. 
“You don’t owe them gratitude for surviving.” 

Buck closed his eyes. 

The truth of that landed harder than Maddie’s text ever could. 

When they returned, the house felt different once they were alone. 

Not empty. Just quieter in a way Buck wasn’t used to yet. 

Chris at school meant no cartoons humming in the background, no rhythmic thump of crutches moving room to room. Just sunlight through the kitchen window and the soft click of Eddie setting his keys down on the counter. 

Buck stood at the sink, staring at the glass of water like it might bite him. 

He didn’t rush this time. 

Yesterday he had swallowed the pill with fear buzzing under his skin. Today the fear was sharper, not louder, but clearer. 
And now it had a shape: a dinner table, a city he hadn’t invited them into, expectations pressing at the edges of his chest. 

Eddie leaned against the counter, close enough to reach him but giving him space. Always the same distance. Always chosen. 

“You still good to take it now?” Eddie asked quietly. 

Buck nodded. 
“Yeah. I want to. I just needed the school run first. I didn’t want questions from our ten year old I wasn’t ready to answer.” 

“Fair,” Eddie said. 

Buck opened the bottle and tipped the capsule into his palm. 

Blue. 
Small. 
Unassuming. 

Yesterday it had brought quiet. 
Today it brought thoughts. 

This won’t fix the parts that hurt. 
This doesn’t change why you exist. 
This won’t make you easier to love. 
This won’t make them listen this time either. 

His throat tightened. 

Buck closed his fingers around the pill for a moment, grounding himself in the physical reality of it. 

“This is just for my brain,” he said aloud, more to himself than Eddie. “Not everything else.” 

Eddie nodded. 
“Exactly.” 

Buck swallowed the pill and chased it with water, setting the glass down carefully, like control still mattered. 

For a minute nothing happened. 

Then his mind filled the quiet with old patterns. 

You’re calmer because you’re being managed. 
This version of you is more acceptable. 
They’ll like you better like this. 

His chest tightened. 

Buck leaned his hands against the counter, breathing through it. 

“I don’t feel worse,” he said, voice steady but thin. “But my head keeps telling me this is the only reason I’m tolerable right now. Like if I stay calm enough, manageable enough, people won’t decide I’m too much.” 

Eddie didn’t rush to contradict him. He stepped closer, not touching yet. 

“That’s not the medication talking,” Eddie said gently. “That’s the part of you that learned love was conditional.” 

Buck swallowed hard. 
“I know. And knowing doesn’t make it shut up.” 

Eddie nodded. 
“No. But it helps you recognise it.” 

Buck let out a shaky breath. The thoughts kept coming, not spiralling, just sharp. 

Daniel had to be their son to be loved. 
Evan had to be useful to stay. 
Chris gets to be loved just because he exists. 

Buck pressed his thumb into the edge of the counter, grounding. 

“I keep thinking… what if they only loved me when I was doing something for them?” he admitted. “And what if now, without chaos, I’m not worth as much?” 

Eddie closed the distance then, resting a hand on Buck’s back. Warm. Solid. Real. 

“You don’t disappear when things get quieter,” Eddie said softly. “You just finally get to hear the parts of you that were always there.” 

Buck closed his eyes. 

The medication didn’t erase the ache. 
Didn’t touch the grief. 
Didn’t soothe the fear of being unwanted. 

But it did one crucial thing. 

It let him sit with those feelings without drowning in them. 

“That’s why this feels harder,” Buck said slowly. “Because I can’t outrun it.” 

Eddie nodded. 
“Exactly.” 

Buck leaned back into Eddie’s hand. 

“And I know,” Buck added quietly, “this isn’t the full plan. Copeland said we’d look at antidepressants once we know I tolerate this. This is just step one.” 

Eddie squeezed his back gently. 
“One step at a time.” 

“I don’t regret taking it,” Buck said. “I just didn’t expect this part to be so loud.” 

Eddie pressed a gentle kiss to the back of his shoulder. 

“That’s okay,” he murmured. “We’ll handle that part together too.” 

Buck breathed out, slow and shaky but present. 

ADHD noise softened. 
BPD fears exposed. 
Nothing fixed, but nothing hidden anymore. 

And for today, that was enough. 

Buck didn’t plan to research. 

He told himself he was just checking one thing. A definition, maybe. A timeline. Something small enough to hold without it spilling everywhere. 

Instead, the laptop sat open on the coffee table, tabs multiplying quietly, one after another. 

Juvenile leukaemia — paediatric outcomes. 
Bone marrow transplant infection risk. 
Sibling donor long-term health effects. 
Trauma history and immune response. 

Buck sat on the floor with his back against the sofa, knees pulled in, Eddie’s leg a steady weight beside his shoulder. Eddie hadn’t asked what he was reading. He hadn’t told him to stop. He was just there. 

That mattered. 

The medication helped, not by stopping the fear, but by slowing it. Letting Buck read without his thoughts collapsing into each other. 

“Okay,” Buck murmured, scrolling carefully. “Okay…” 

Numbers. Percentages. Conditional language. 

Improved survival with matched sibling donors. 
Post-transplant infection remains primary cause of mortality. 

Buck’s throat tightened. 

“So the transplant working wasn’t the end,” he said quietly. “It was the most dangerous part.” 

Eddie nodded once. 
“Yeah.” 

Buck clicked another tab. 

Sibling donor outcomes typically favourable. 
No significant increase in long-term malignancy risk. 

His chest tightened anyway. 

“But I wasn’t just a match,” Buck said, voice low. “They used IVF. They selected an embryo that was genetically compatible.” 

Eddie shifted slightly, attentive. 
“Say that again.” 

“I was created to be a match,” Buck said. Not accusing. Just stating it. “They didn’t get lucky. They made sure.” 

He swallowed. 

“And I had the crush injury last year,” Buck continued. “My immune system was already under stress.” 

Eddie moved a fraction closer, still not touching. 
“Say the rest.” 

Buck exhaled shakily. 

“What if that matters?” he asked. “What if being a match means whatever made him sick is in me too? And the injury, the surgeries, the meds — what if that lowered my resistance? I don’t even know what testing they did.” 

Eddie didn’t dismiss it. 

“Those are valid questions,” he said. “And they’re not ones you have to answer alone.” 

Buck let out a weak laugh. 
“I feel like I’m finding out my body has a user manual I was never given.” 

Eddie huffed softly. 
“Yeah. That tracks.” 

Buck stared at the phone on the table. 

“I don’t want to spiral,” he said quietly. “But I don’t want to ignore this either.” 

Eddie nodded. 
“Then we ask the person who can give answers.” 

Buck hesitated. 
“You won’t talk for me.” 

Eddie met his eyes. 
“I won’t take the wheel. I’ll sit shotgun.” 

That pulled a breathless huff from Buck despite everything. 
“Figures. Passenger princess.” 

Eddie smiled, small and fond. 

Buck nodded, then tapped the screen and set the phone down between them, speaker on. 

It rang twice. 

“Good morning, this is Dr Hamza’s office. How may I help you?” 

Buck inhaled slowly. 
“Hi, it’s Evan Diaz. I’m one of Dr Hamza’s patients. I was hoping to speak with him about some family medical information I’ve just learned.” 

The receptionist put him on hold only briefly. 

“Good morning, Evan,” Dr Hamza said. “How are you holding up?” 

Buck exhaled. The familiarity helped more than he expected. 

“I’ve learned some new family medical history,” Buck said. “And it’s messing with my head.” 

“That’s understandable. Go on.” 

“I had a brother. He died of juvenile leukaemia. I was his donor.” 

A pause. Attentive, not alarmed. 

“And,” Buck added, voice tightening, “I was conceived through IVF specifically to be a genetic match.” 

The silence shifted, precise rather than worried. 

“I see,” Dr Hamza said carefully. “Thank you for clarifying that.” 

“I know you already have my recent history,” Buck continued. “The crush injury last year. Surgery. Recovery. Labs. I guess I’m scared that being a deliberate genetic match, plus the trauma, means I should be worried.” 

Dr Hamza didn’t rush the answer. 

“Let me be very clear,” he said. “Being conceived via IVF for compatibility does not increase your risk of leukaemia. Matching HLA markers does not mean sharing disease risk.” 

Buck’s shoulders lowered a fraction. 

“And your crush injury,” Dr Hamza continued, “although significant, does not activate or trigger blood cancers. Trauma stresses the body, but it does not cause leukaemia.” 

Buck nodded slowly. 

“So I’m not ignoring something dangerous?” he asked quietly. 

“No,” Dr Hamza said firmly. “You’re responding to new information with concern. That’s different.” 

Eddie’s hand rested lightly at Buck’s back. 

“However,” Dr Hamza added, “because this family history is new to us, it’s appropriate to establish a fresh baseline.” 

Buck looked up. 
“Bloodwork?” 

“Yes. A full blood count with differential. We’ll compare it to your post-injury labs so we’re looking at trends, not just numbers. We can also arrange genetic screening so we know what, if anything, needs monitoring.” 

“And if something was wrong?” 

“Then we’d catch it early,” Dr Hamza said. “Which is exactly why this is the right step.” 

Buck closed his eyes briefly. 
“Okay. That helps.” 

“I’ll have my office schedule the labs this week,” Dr Hamza said. “And Evan, given everything you’re processing, anxiety makes sense.” 

Buck let out a breath that was almost a laugh. 
“That’s one way to put it.” 

“You did the right thing calling. If the worry escalates, tell me. We adjust support, we don’t white-knuckle it.” 

“Thank you,” Buck said quietly. 

“We’ll talk soon.” 

The call ended. 

Buck stayed still for a moment, then leaned back against the sofa, tension finally having somewhere to go. 

“They’re checking,” he said softly. “Not because something’s wrong. Just because it makes sense.” 

Eddie nodded. 
“Good.” 

“I don’t feel crazy,” Buck admitted. “I feel scared. But not lost.” 

Eddie’s hand settled between Buck’s shoulder blades, warm and steady. 

“That’s the difference,” he said. “You’re not alone in it anymore.” 

The laptop still glowed with unanswered questions. 

But Buck had asked the right one. 

And for now, that was enough. 

The email sat in Buck’s draft folder longer than it should have. 

Not because he didn’t know what to say, 
but because hitting send meant admitting the check-in hadn’t been enough. 

The prescriber call that morning had been exactly what it was meant to be. 

Ten minutes. 
Vitals. 
Side effects. 
Sleep. 
Appetite. 
Any thoughts of self-harm? 
No. 
Okay. 
Call again tonight. 

It hadn’t touched the thing unravelling in his chest. 

Subject: Emergency therapy session request 

Hi Dr Copeland, 
We did the medication check-in this morning and I’m tolerating the Adderall physically. But emotionally I’m not okay. My regular session is three days away and I don’t think I can hold this until then. I’m safe like I was last night, but I’m spiralling and I need help processing before it gets worse. 
Evan Diaz 

He stared at the screen after sending it, waiting for the familiar wave of shame. 

It didn’t come. 

That scared him more than if it had. 

The medication hadn’t numbed the feelings. 
It had made them clear. 
Sharp. 
Impossible to outrun. 

Eddie was at the sink, rinsing mugs, when Buck spoke. 

“I asked for an emergency session with Dr Copeland.” 

Eddie didn’t turn too fast. Didn’t crowd him with questions. 

“Okay,” he said evenly. “Do you want me nearby or out of earshot?” 

“Nearby,” Buck said immediately. Then corrected himself. “But not part of it.” 

“Got it,” Eddie said. “Bedroom. Door open.” 

Buck nodded, laptop already open. 

The reply came quickly. 

I can move things and see you in ten minutes. This will be a full session, not a medication check-in. 
Thank you for recognising you needed more support. 

Buck’s throat tightened. 

When Dr Copeland appeared on the screen, her posture was relaxed, her expression steady, signalling this was not routine. 

When she appeared, Buck broke before she even spoke. 

Not loudly. 
Not dramatically. 

Just folded. 

His shoulders caved inward, his hands came together like he was holding himself in one piece, his eyes fixed just below the camera. 

“Hi, Evan,” she said gently. “I’m here.” 

That did it. 

Buck’s breath hitched, sharp and involuntary, and suddenly he was crying in a way he didn’t recognise. No dissociation. No numb buffer. Just raw, leaking pain. 

“I don’t…” His voice cracked completely. He swallowed hard. “I don’t know how to put this back in my body.” 

She didn’t rush him. Didn’t fill the silence. 

When he managed to breathe again, she asked softly, “What happened after our check-in last night?” 

“My sister came over yesterday,” Buck said, words tumbling unevenly. “And she told me something my parents hid my entire life. It’s taken until now for me to fully process what she said.” 

Dr Copeland’s expression sharpened with focus. 
“Okay. What did she tell you?” 

Buck shook his head, a broken laugh slipping into a sob. 
“That I only exist because someone else was dying.” 

She paused, attentive, careful. 

“I need you to slow down with me,” she said calmly. “Who was dying?” 

Buck’s jaw trembled. 

“My brother,” he whispered. “Daniel.” 

She frowned slightly, not confusion, but recognition that this was new information. 

“You haven’t mentioned a brother before.” 

“I didn’t know,” Buck said, voice shredded. “Until yesterday.” 

She nodded once. 
“Alright. Tell me what you learned.” 

Buck pressed his palms together hard, grounding. 

“He had juvenile leukaemia,” he said. “They tested everyone. No one matched. So they did IVF. Chose an embryo that would be a genetic match.” 

His breath stuttered. 

“Me.” 

Dr Copeland stayed silent, letting him own the word. 

“They used my cord blood when I was born. It helped. Bought time. And when I turned one, they took my bone marrow. It worked. He got better.” Buck squeezed his eyes shut. “And then he got an infection. No immune system. He died.” 

Silence settled, heavy and deliberate. 

“You’re learning,” Dr Copeland said gently, “that your origin story was framed around survival and loss.” 

Buck let out a weak, broken laugh. 
“That’s one way to say it.” 

Another sob tore out of him. 

“I can’t stop thinking that if he hadn’t been sick, I wouldn’t exist. And if he’d lived, maybe I wouldn’t have been allowed to.” 

“That belief,” she said carefully, “sounds like trauma logic, not truth.” 

“I know,” Buck snapped, then immediately softened. “I know. But it feels so real. Like my life’s been a replacement plan this whole time.” 

She leaned forward slightly. 

“How did this come up now?” she asked. “What prompted your sister to tell you?” 

Buck’s chest tightened again. 

“Our parents are in LA,” he said. “They showed up. Maddie told me because she didn’t want me blindsided.” 

Dr Copeland’s brow furrowed. 
“They’re physically nearby.” 

“Yes,” Buck whispered. “And they’re insisting we all go to dinner tomorrow night. Like this is just a family visit.” 

His laugh collapsed into something closer to a sob. 

“They don’t know I know,” he said. “They don’t know I’ve reported my former therapist. They don’t know I’ve been diagnosed. They don’t know I’m barely holding myself together.” 

“And you’re processing all of this,” she said evenly, “on the second day of stimulant medication.” 

Buck nodded. 
“My brain’s quiet enough that I can’t run from it anymore.” 

“That explains why this feels unbearable,” she said gently. “The Adderall has reduced cognitive noise, but it hasn’t given you emotional regulation yet. You’re experiencing clarity without cushioning.” 

“I feel flayed,” Buck admitted. “Like everything gets in.” 

“That’s a common early effect,” she reassured him. “It’s not dangerous, but it is vulnerable.” 

He wiped at his face with the heel of his hand. 

“I’m scared I’m going to walk into that dinner and disappear,” he said. “Or explode. Or say something I can’t survive.” 

“That’s an understandable fear,” she said. “And it’s also why we slow this down.” 

She paused. 

“Right now, you don’t have to decide anything about dinner. Or your parents. Or what this means for your identity.” 

Buck shook his head helplessly. 
“It feels like I do.” 

“You don’t,” she said firmly. “Today is about containment, not resolution.” 

He took a shaky breath. 

“What do I do with the thought that my existence was conditional?” he asked quietly. 

“You notice it,” she replied. “You don’t obey it.” 

Buck swallowed hard. 

“And when it says I was only born to be useful?” 

“You remind yourself that usefulness is not the same thing as worth. Trauma lies convincingly.” 

He nodded slowly, tears still falling. 

“I don’t feel strong,” he admitted. 

“You don’t need to,” she said. “You need to be supported. For today: low stimulation, no further research, food, hydration, and real connection. We’ll revisit medication layering once we know you’re tolerating the stimulant, including antidepressant support for mood stability.” 

That steadied him. 

“I didn’t dissociate,” Buck said softly. “I asked for help.” 

“You did,” she agreed. “That matters.” 

The session ended not with answers, but with Buck still breathing. 

When the screen went dark, Eddie was there instantly. 

Buck leaned into him, shaking. 

“I’m not okay,” Buck whispered. 

“I know,” Eddie said, arms firm and warm around him. “You don’t have to be.” 

Buck pressed his face into Eddie’s shoulder. 

“They’re here,” he said. “My parents are here.” 

Eddie held him tighter. 

“Then we’ll deal with them when you’re ready,” he said. “Not a second before.” 

Buck let out a sob that felt like something cracking open. Painful. Terrifying. Real. 

For the first time, he wasn’t running from the truth. 

He was falling into it. 

And he wasn’t alone. 

The house had settled into that late afternoon quiet, not sleepy, not active, just paused. 

Sunlight lay in pale strips across the living room floor. The hum of the fridge. The distant hush of traffic through closed windows. 

Buck sat curled into the corner of the sofa, blanket pulled around his legs out of habit more than need. Eddie was at the counter sorting the post, slow, ordinary movements, like he was deliberately keeping the world small. 

Then Eddie’s phone buzzed. 

Once. 
Soft. 
Unavoidable. 

Eddie glanced at the screen and didn’t hide it. 

Buck noticed anyway. 

He didn’t stiffen exactly. But his shoulders shifted, spine aligning as if his body had decided to brace before his thoughts caught up. 

“It’s Maddie,” Eddie said quietly. 

Buck nodded. 
“Okay.” 

Eddie crossed the room and sat on the arm of the sofa, close but not crowding. He held the phone loosely in his hand, not like something he was about to read at Buck. 

“I want to be clear before I say this,” Eddie said. “These are her words. Not mine.” 

Buck looked up at him. That mattered. 

“She said she knows you read the first message. She knows you didn’t read the second one or anything after. She’s not angry. She said that explicitly.” 

Buck exhaled slowly. 
“Of course she knows. I have my read receipts on.” 

Eddie glanced back at the screen. 
“She said your parents are being firm. They expect you and your family to come to dinner tomorrow night.” 

The words landed heavily, but not explosively. 

Buck didn’t react right away. 

No spike. 
No spiral. 

Just a long, quiet stillness. 

“My family,” Buck repeated softly. 

“Her wording,” Eddie said gently. “Not mine.” 

Buck swallowed. 

“I can’t do that,” he said finally. Not sharp. Not defensive. Just certain. “Not like that.” 

Eddie nodded immediately. 
“Okay.” 

Buck’s fingers tightened in the blanket, then loosened. 

“My family includes Chris and Chris isn’t going,” Buck added, firmer now. His voice didn’t shake. “That’s not negotiable.” 

Eddie didn’t question it. He just waited. 

“They don’t get to talk about me or around me like I’m a problem,” Buck continued quietly, anger low and controlled. “And they absolutely don’t get to do it in front of my kid. Chris doesn’t need to hear that kind of crap about his Papa.” 

Eddie’s jaw set, not in disagreement, but alignment. 
“No. He doesn’t.” 

Buck leaned back, breath shallow but steady. 

“I don’t care if they frame it as concern or disappointment or family honesty,” Buck said. “I grew up hearing that. Chris won’t.” 

Eddie rested his forearm lightly against Buck’s shoulder, present, not restraining. 

“Then that boundary’s set,” Eddie said. “We don’t bend on that.” 

Buck nodded once. 

After a moment, Eddie added, “Maddie also said she didn’t want to keep texting you when you hadn’t opened the last one. She didn’t want to overload you.” 

That softened something tight in Buck’s chest. 

“Tell her thank you,” Buck said quietly. “For stopping.” 

“I will.” 

Silence settled again, not awkward, not brittle. Just held. 

The dinner still existed. 
The pressure still waited. 

But now there were lines. 
Clear ones. 

After a moment, Eddie spoke again, careful not to rush. 

“We don’t have to decide tonight,” he said. “But we can plan exits.” 

Buck blinked. 
“Exits?” 

“Pre-made ones,” Eddie said. “Not agreeing to go. Not refusing yet either. Just deciding that if tomorrow morning you still feel like this or worse, we’re not trapped.” 

Buck considered that. 

“We go without Chris,” he said slowly. “If we go at all.” 

“Yes.” 

“And we don’t stay if it turns ugly.” 

“Not even a minute.” 

Buck let out a small, breathless huff. 
“You’re really good at this.” 

Eddie’s mouth tilted. 
“I’m married to you. I’ve had practice.” 

That earned a faint, tired smile. 

“I can breathe with that,” Buck admitted. “Planning doesn’t feel like surrender.” 

“It isn’t,” Eddie said. “It’s choice.” 

Buck glanced at his phone on the coffee table. It stayed dark. He didn’t reach for it. 

“Tomorrow doesn’t get to decide today,” Eddie said softly. 

Buck nodded, leaning subtly into Eddie’s presence. 

“No,” he agreed. “It doesn’t.” 

The pressure was still there. 
The conversation still coming. 

But Chris was protected. 
Buck was heard. 

And for tonight, that was enough.

Chapter Text

Buck woke before the alarm again. 

Not with panic. 
Not with dread. 

Just… awareness. 

The quiet in his head was still there, unfamiliar, a little unnerving, like someone had cleared a crowded room and left him alone with the echo of himself. He lay still, breathing slowly, cataloguing sensations the way Dr Copeland had taught him. 

Heart steady. 
Chest tight, but manageable. 
Thoughts ordered, not kind, but contained. 

He turned his head and found Eddie awake, watching him. 

Not staring. 
Not worried. 

Just present. 

“How long have you been up?” Buck asked softly. 

Eddie shrugged. “Couple minutes. You went very still. Thought I’d wait.” 

That alone told Buck how tuned-in Eddie had become lately, how carefully he’d been tracking Buck’s moods, breathing, silences. It made something twist in Buck’s chest. 

“Hey,” Buck said quietly. “Can we… check in?” 

Eddie’s arm tightened around his waist automatically, thumb pressing a grounding line into Buck’s side. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “What kind?” 

“All of it,” Buck admitted. “Marriage. You. Me. The last two weeks.” 

That woke Eddie fully. 

He didn’t joke. Didn’t deflect. He just nodded once. “Okay. Go ahead.” 

Buck stared at the ceiling again, words lining up more easily now that his brain wasn’t shouting over itself. 

“I know I’m the one who had to say the words,” Buck said carefully. “And make the report. And start meds. But none of that happened in a vacuum.” 

Eddie stayed quiet, listening, not interrupting. 

“You held my hand through the interview,” Buck continued. “You sat with me while I fell apart. You’ve been running interference with Maddie, thinking three steps ahead so I don’t get blindsided. And then…” His voice faltered slightly. “You find out the person you married was literally created to save someone else.” 

Eddie exhaled slowly. 

“That’s a lot,” Buck said. “For you too.” 

Eddie shifted closer, resting his forehead lightly against Buck’s temple. 

“It is,” he admitted quietly. “But that doesn’t mean I resent it.” 

“I didn’t say you did,” Buck said quickly, then paused. “But I need to know you’re not just absorbing it. Like you don’t get to react because you’re busy taking care of me.” 

Eddie was quiet for a moment. 

Then he said, “Marriage isn’t fifty-fifty.” 

Buck turned towards him. “You said that when we spoke about getting married.” 

“And I meant it,” Eddie replied. “Sometimes one person can only give ten. Sometimes less. And the other meets them with ninety, not because it’s fair, but because it’s what love looks like in that moment.” 

Buck swallowed. “And you’re at ninety right now.” 

Eddie shook his head. “No. I’m just at more. Because you’re dealing with things that are foundational. Identity-level. Trauma-level.” 

He paused, then added, quieter, honest in a way that didn’t ask Buck to soothe it: 

“I didn’t understand that with Shannon. I wasn’t meeting her where she was, and I wasn’t matching her at any point. I learned a lot from that, things I’ve been holding onto so I don’t make the same mistakes with you.” 

Buck’s throat burned. 

“And about you,” Eddie added quietly. “Because no one should have to learn they were born under conditions.” 

Buck’s voice dropped. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to be strong because I can’t right now.” 

Eddie reached up and cupped Buck’s jaw gently, thumb brushing along his cheekbone. 

“I’m not strong instead of you,” he said. “I’m strong with you. And when I get tired, I trust you’ll notice.” 

Buck nodded, tears stinging but not spilling. 

“I will,” he promised. “I don’t want us to disappear into roles. Patient and caretaker. Hurt one and steady one.” 

Eddie leaned in until their foreheads touched. 

“Then we keep checking in like this,” he said. “Even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially then.” 

Buck let out a slow breath. 

“I feel more open today,” he admitted. “Like everything gets in easier.” 

“That’s day three,” Eddie said calmly. “Stimulants quiet the noise before they build cushions.” 

Buck huffed weakly. “Lucky me.” 

Eddie smiled softly. “We’ll build the cushions together.” 

They stayed there for a moment, tangled, breathing in sync, the morning light sliding across the walls. 

Buck wasn’t fixed. 
Eddie wasn’t untouched. 

But they were aligned. 

And for now, that was enough to face whatever the day decided to bring. 

The house felt too still once Buck realised what day it was. 

Not in a dramatic way, just that subtle shift, like the air changing pressure before weather hits. 

Dinner was tonight.