Archive of Our Own ^beta

The strenuous ceasefire that had been established between Maddie, Buck and the elder Buckleys didn’t even last until dessert. Not that Buck had expected it last any longer than that.

In fact, in anticipation of the oncoming disaster he had promised Eddie and Chris he’d be back home in time for Chris’ nighttime routine.

A full hour before the agreed time Buck had left the Diaz house with a kiss goodbye and a vow from Eddie’s that he would pick him up whenever needed.

The entirety of the car ride he had spent alternately practicing Dr. Copeland’s de-escalation techniques and trying to prepare himself mentally for any backhanded compliments, slights or general disregard of his person. Only to lose it within the first hour.

Of all possible topics it was Stan, today's failed bomber, that had tipped the scale.

Chimney, still set on making a good impression on his future in-laws had started talking about some of their calls. Clearly, he was working under the assumption it was a save topic. Buck disagreed. But just like Maddie he had chosen not to intervene. There was no such thing as a safe topic with the Buckleys.

In the beginning Chimney had stuck to their more harmless calls like the flock of crows following a bunch of kids, or the time Buck had saved the little girl from inside the claw machine. The latter merely gained an uninterested hum from Margaret while the former at least caused some back an fourth between Chim and Phillip that stopped the moment Buck involved himself in the conversation.

Not long after they had broached more heavy calls the mood had shifted. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment but it must’ve been some time after the 9-1-1 call that had led them to today's scene and the bomb squad that had been waiting for them.

“You all seem to have very dangerous jobs,” Phillip Buckley pointed out after Chimney had finished the tale of how he’d single-handedly disarmed the asthmatic perpetrator.

“Not really,” Maddie said, doing her best to play down the threat. “I mean, most of the time, it's pretty run of the mill.”

“Yeah. And Stan wasn't a bad guy. He just... needed someone to see him. To understand how much pain he was in. He probably wasn't gonna blow the place up.” Chimney didn’t sound as convinced as Buck would have wanted him to be.

“Still seems...” Phillip paused, “very risky. I mean, from what I hear, Evan has spent quite a lot of time in hospitals.”

“From what you hear?” Buck repeated, his eyebrows rising in disbelief, “'Cause you coulda come. Seen for yourself.”

“Evan, I've told you...” Margaret's voice was getting high-pitched before she broke off entirely.

“You, uh, you're not good with hospitals. I got it.”

On cue, Margaret started crying. “I'm not good seeing my children in them. You don't know!”

Buck scoffed, he couldn’t help himself. He had to bite back a retort he’d probably come to regret later on. Not for a second did he fall for her fake tears. After years of the same pattern, he knew better. Thankfully, Margaret’s sniffles were loud enough to hide his reaction.

Maddie, on the other hand, shook her head at her mother. “Mom,” she said, her voice soft and calm but missing the confidence she showed whenever she was talking to a victim on the phone at dispatch. “Mom.”

Margaret started to speak again but watching Maddie cower to her parent’s whims broke something in Buck. He had held his tongue during the whole train wreck of a first family dinner, ignored every jab at Maddie’s high-risk pregnancy at forty, and smiled when they enthused about their chance of finally becoming grandparents at their age. There wasn’t any patience left for another night of false pretenses.

"Did you know I tried out for the Navy SEALS?" he asked to the room at large, knowing full well he only ever talked about his failed endeavor with Bobby and Eddie. It wasn’t so much the failure to go through with it that had kept him silent, it was what it had brought to light.

For once he saw the distaste towards him drop from the Buckley’s faces, they both looked bewildered by his choice of topic. Margaret looked like she was about to interrupt him, but he didn’t let her, earning a pointed glare from Phillip for it.

"You probably aren't aware what that entails. Sure, everyone has heard of BUD/s. Hell week. The physical requirements. But there's a step before that. They want to see some documents. Your High School Diploma, your last addresses, things like that… most importantly though, they want your birth certificate."

The effect was immediate. Buck watched with satisfaction as Margaret's cries stopped the second the metaphorical bomb dropped. All color had left the Buckley’s faces, including Maddie’s. He did feel bad about that, he didn’t mean to hurt her, but he couldn’t stand the charade any longer.

Chimney, in contrast, appeared clueless. His eyes bounced wildly between the four of them as though one of them would surrender and offer him an easy explanation. He should’ve known by now that wasn’t how Buckleys did things.

As if to prove the point, Phillip tried to end any further mention of the topic at hand altogether. “That’s enough, Evan. Howard, where'd you put that box we brought?”

“Seriously?” Buck muttered and even Chimney looked a little gob smacked at the blatant deflection. Phillip didn’t even try for subtle; he’d just dismissed Buck without an ounce of shame or guilt.

Chim recovered faster than Maddie who was looking down at the table, hands clenched in her lap and eyes suspiciously wet. He jumped up from the chair with false cheer.

“It's over by the couch,” he said, “Let me grab it.”

As soon as Chim left the room Margaret turned to Maddie with a small smile that fell just a bit short of genuine. “I like him, Maddie.”

Maddie, still visibly overwhelmed nodded in agreement.

Unbothered by her daughter’s uncharacteristic silence Margaret continued. “You picked a good one this time.”

Buck sighed in exasperation, wondering not for the first time about the lack of empathy Maddie’s parents brought to the table. Maddie was the perfect opposite of them in many ways, but the most glaring difference was the warmth and compassion she carried with her wherever she went.

The first time he had noticed this contrast between the two maternal figures in his life Buck had been five years old. His best friend from kindergarten, a little girl named Jenny, had moved away from Hershey, leaving tiny Evan heartbroken.

Maddie had listened to his teary mumbling for days until Margaret caught them hugging it out in Maddie’s bedroom about a week later. She had looked at Buck with hard eyes and told him not to waste ‘his sister’s precious time’.

At age twenty, Maddie had already met Doug and was on her way to nursing school, studying all day, every day. That didn’t stop her from caring for Buck, though. It was only ever the elder Buckleys who would tell him to ‘grow up’ or ‘stop being a nuisance.’

"What? It was a compliment, Evan.” 

“Oh,” Buck feigned surprise, “was it?”

Margaret scoffed at Buck before returning her attention to Maddie who was staring at the box on the table in front of her. With hesitant fingers she traced her name engraved in the rich wood.

“Your baby box,” Margaret explained with a too bright smile when neither Maddie nor Chim made a move to open it. “I thought you might wanna pass on some of these things to your little girl someday.”

“That’s amazing!” Chimney said, taking Maddie’s shaking hands in his. “Maybe we’ll do something like that for our little one.”

“When do I get mine?” Buck’s question itself seemed innocent enough, even though none of the people present, except possibly Chimney, would take it to mean anything other than it was. A provocation.

“Hey, you're not even a grown up yet. They're probably still adding stuff to it.” Chimney did his best to relieve the tension that tainted the usually so cozy living room of the Buckley-Han household. For all his flaws, Chim always tried to be both a good partner to Maddie and a good friend to Buck. He had no way of knowing that the secret he’d been trying to keep for Maddie all week was but a drop in the ocean of Buckley family secrets. Whatever secret she had told him, it clearly wasn’t this one.

“No they don’t,” Buck said, using the uncomfortable silence to get back to his previous point. "All my life I wondered, why you wouldn't love me. Why you wouldn't even try."

“We tried,” Phillip protested, waving his hand dismissively. “But you always...”

When Phillip couldn’t finish his sentence Margaret took over. “You never made it easy on us. Either one of you.”

“We were supposed to?” Maddie spoke up, having found some composure. “We were kids.” Her voice broke on the last word.

“Evan, I don't know-" Margaret started up again but once more Buck didn’t let her.

"That day, when I saw the certificate for the first time, I learned why there only ever was one person who loves me unconditionally."

Buck remembered the moment vividly. He had applied for the certified copy online, reasonably sure that his parents wouldn’t even pick up the phone if he called them. Two weeks later he opened the envelope. The first thing he’d noticed had been the missing fathers name which had confused him for about five seconds until he read his mothers maiden name and his world came crashing down around him.

“Enough of that, Evan,” his Phillip snapped, “There’s no need for these theatrics, son.”

"No, you don't get to call me son. You are not my father. You're nothing to me." Buck could feel his fists clench where his arms lay crossed on the table.

“You don’t talk to me like that! We raised you better than that.”

And hell, no.

"You did not raise me, Maddie did."

All Buck could hear was his own heartbeat in his ear and Maddie’s loud sobs; His blood pressure must’ve been up the roof. In the background he was sure he saw an increasingly confused Chimney asking his girlfriend what they were talking about but Buck was locked in a silent stare-down with Phillip.

Phillip broke away first.

“You could’ve helped Maddie raise me,” Buck continued after taking a few calculated breaths in an effort to calm himself down. “Hell, you could’ve adopted me and let her live her life. Instead you abandoned her the moment she was in trouble. Not once, no, you did it twice.”

Buck saw the moment the pieces finally clicked for Chimney as his eyes grew wide in shock. In any other context Buck would’ve laughed about the over-exaggerated way his mouth fell open in a perfect ‘oh’. Right now he only felt bitter.

Unfortunately, Margaret didn’t much care for Chim’s revelation an marched on with a new inconsiderate statement.

“We may not have agreed with all the choices she made but we never gave up hope that she’d come back to her senses. And she did.”

“You never gave up hope?” Buck couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Buck hated how easy it was for them to rile him up. There wasn’t much that would get him to raise his voice. Unfortunately, the Buckley’s were on top of that short list.

“You guys didn't even go to her wedding.”

“Oh. She was making a terrible mistake. We told her that.” A quick glance in Maddie’s direction confirmed that he wasn’t the only one affected by those words. Chimney, too, looked about ready to tell Margaret to shut it. Maddie simply looked hurt.

“Yeah, people make mistakes. Doesn't mean you give up on them. But you did. She married Doug, and you cut her off.”

Phillips reply to Bucks angry accusation was hesitant and slow. “At the time, we thought it was... for the best.”

“We didn't know what was going on,” Margaret said, reaching over the table with one hand before thinking better of it. “I swear, Maddie. We didn't know he was hurting you.”

“Well, you should have. You shoulda known!” Buck glared at his parents, avoiding looking in Maddie’s direction.

“You shoulda known! You were right there in the same town. How could you not know?  Actually, you know what? Maybe it does track, 'cause you barely knew what was going on with your own daughter when she was under your roof. Maybe you never gave up hope... You sure as hell gave up on her.”

Buck’s voice had been rising with every word but that wasn’t him. Yes, he was angry. Angry at Phillip and Margaret for being shitty parents and even worse human beings. Angry at Doug who had hurt his … who had hurt Maddie so badly she had to take a life. Angry at himself, for not being there for her when she needed him. But most of all, he felt devastated for Maddie and himself.

“You gave up on both of us.”

He stood up, unable to sit still any longer. His next words started calm. They didn’t stay that way, the emotions had been held back for way too long.

“You let you daughter raise her own child like a brother, forcing her to keep it secret. She was fourteen! Don’t think for even a moment I’m not aware that the secrecy was your choice. You belittled everything she’d ever done for me, told her I’m not her responsibility. You told her to leave her ‘little brother’ to fend for himself. You punished her for caring about her own damn son!”

By now he wasn’t even trying to stay calm, he felt hot all over, breathing hard.

“Oh, and, uh, and you wanna know why I'm really in therapy? It is because I have spent my entire life feeling like a constant disappointment. And you wanna talk about our jobs? You think my job is dangerous? I have walked through fire every single day of my life because of you. That is why I am in therapy. Because nothing I ever did was good enough!”

“What were we supposed to to?” Margaret pleaded, crying in earnest now.

“The same thing my Mom did. Love me anyway.”

It should’ve been a mic-drop moment. He should feel relieved and free after finally, finally saying the words out loud that had been festering in his mind for years now. Mostly, though, Buck felt numb.

He could hear Maddie sobbing, the sound muted as she pressed her head into Chim’s neck. Margaret and Phillip were sitting in a similar, yet less intimate position. Phillip was holding his wife while still glaring daggers at Buck. He couldn’t care less about his grandparents antics.

Out of the corner of his eye Buck saw Chimney mouth “Boom”. He was pretty sure the implications hadn’t fully hit Chim yet.

Now that he had said his piece Buck wasn’t sure where to go from there. Margaret was still crying, although Buck doubted the tears were still genuine and Phillip was preoccupied with comforting her. Maddie, too, was still crying but unlike his grandmother’s he knew her tears were real.

Buck would’ve slapped both his hands on his thighs with an accompanying ‘right’ in the universal sign for ‘I’m leaving now’ but he was still standing in the middle of Maddie and Chim’s living room without any idea what to do.

“Maybe I’d better-” he started but was cut off fast.

“Don’t,” Maddie said, her voice unexpectedly firm. “Stay.”

She de-tangled herself from her boyfriend and turned her gaze to her parents. “I think it’s best if you leave now.”

Predictably, the Buckleys started protesting but Maddie held firm. Under her fixed stare they got up from their chairs and were guided outside by an ever so helpful Chimney.

Then it was just Maddie and Buck left in the living room. There was a nervous tension in the room that was new for the two of them. Buck didn’t like it.

Maddie’s eyes were red-rimmed when she made eye contact for the first time since his outburst. "Why didn't you say anything when I came to LA? All this time you knew."

“You weren’t ready.” The truth, but not all of it. Maybe it was time to lay it all out. “I wasn’t ready. Still not sure I am, if I’m honest.”

“Buck. Evan- I am so, so sorry for keeping this from you.”

“Don’t apologize.” Buck walked over to her and took her small hands in his. “You were a child. You were a child and you still did better than they ever could.”

Getting a bit emotional he cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry, too. For, uh, outing you like that in front of Chimney. I’m not sure how he’s going to take it.”

At that, Maddie started laughing hysterically, Buck joining in. All of it was too much, too weird and they all would need time to process the evenings revelations.

Buck couldn’t wait to come home to his Diaz boys. Since they’ve forgone dessert he might be able to convince his boyfriend to have some ice cream in bed.

With a sigh Buck straightened up from his crouched position at Maddie’s feet. He took her head between his palms and smacked a kiss on the top of her head before saying his goodbyes.

On his way to the door he passed Chimney who had waited for them to finish their talk. Chim gave Buck a squeeze of the shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Buck.”

He was halfway out the door, when Maddie called him back.

“Buck,” Maddie said and he turned to her, not letting go of the door-handle.

“Yeah?”

Her smile was wobbly but tender and so very familiar. “I love you. Be safe.”

Buck felt warmth travel through his body and returned her smile. They were going to be OK.

“Love you, too, Maddie.”

This time he did actually leave.