Chapter 7

Athena POV

Athena knew that this would be just a normal brush-off. Both parties are being interviewed but she doesn't know what words are being said inside. She's off this case as it should, but she can't help but worry about Buck. Eddie on the other hand, there's just something wrong with the whole setup.

When she was there at the party, she was just right behind Bobby and what she heard was Bobby saying no to Eddie then the sound of a punch connecting to its target. Then she looked over and saw Buck on the floor, Ana on the side crying, Eddie being restrained by Bobby, then Buck rushing out.

"'Thena?" Carter's voice calls out to her and she sees him at her door.

"Yeah?" Athena looks up and sees Carter holding a folder, "Is the interview over?"

"No, not really. I just wanted to ask about Evan Buckley and Eddie Diaz's relationship." Carter says and Athena raises her eyebrow, "Are they really just best friends?"

Athena laughs at the implications Carter just proposed but when Carter didn't crack a smile she looked at him blankly raising an eyebrow, "Why'd you ask?"

"Well, from where I was standing it would seem like there's more to the story."

"We both know that I shouldn't be involved in this."

"And I know that. But here's the thing, you seem sure about Evan not being guilty. Why's that?" Carter asks and Athena just crosses her arms.

"Because I know who Buck is. He might be a stubborn child at times but that's only when one of his loved ones is involved. He's many things Carter, but a sex offender?" Athena says, shaking her head slowly, "Not a trace."

"Okay. So how should we go with this?" Carter asks Athena.

"Why ask me? As much as I'm concerned I'm not involved."

"Let's call it in as an anonymous tip. It isn't the first time you did that."

Athena exhales gently and looks at Carter, considering carefully what she should say.

EDDIE POV

Eddie walks out of the interview room, his head full of more questions than when he went in. First, the whole thing about the assault on Ana to which he gave them his view didn't make sense even to him as he read it back. But the thing that was nagging at him more was the question the detective had asked. He was replaying it over in his head as he walked the hallway.

"Was Mr. Buckley looking at Miss Flores or you? From what I can see she only seems to mention him staring over when you are with her."

The question replayed over in his head he thought back and when he did something felt off and didn't sit well. As he makes it to the main desk he is handed his stuff and free to go as no charges have been pressed. Another thing Eddie didn't get was why Buck didn't press charges against Eddie even after everything? His head was a cluster fuck and when he saw Carla she looked just as pissed as Athena when he tried talking to her but she wouldn't acknowledge him.

"So, want to explain?" Carla calmly asks but Eddie senses an edge to her voice. He hadn't really told her what happened mainly because of Chris. They walk to the car as he explains the whole thing, leaving out punching Buck, she would go all mother Theresa at that especially after the whole cage fighting.

He starts to walk around the other side of the car when he notices Carla had stopped. He turns around and faces her only to be hit by a slap on the arm.

"Are you really that blind? How could you believe Buck would ever do such a thing and especially in your home?" Carla asks, she was obviously fuming, but her calm eyes and dead face say otherwise.

Eddie didn't know what to say, these last few days since it happened he had spent most of his time with Ana as obviously she was distraught and Eddie was a man of honor so he spent his time comforting her while she expressed her feelings.

"I went off on what Ana said. You should have seen her! She hasn't slept since and is always on edge." Eddie explains as he turns to the car, getting in he sees Carla climb in and just stare at him. "What?"

"Did you talk to Buck about the incident?" And there it was, he knew now he had no choice but to explain what he had done and that he hadn't spoken to Buck but had shouted at him at work and made sly digs. "What did you do?" it was like she could read him and it freaked Eddie out.

"I lashed out." Eddie states blankly.

"What? Just like you did at the grocery store?" She starts.

"I punched him ok? He was assaulting Ana. I heard her say no and I then saw Buck leaning over her! He's a muscular guy taking advantage of a smaller lady, who mind you is actually my girlfriend, so I punched him! What's the big deal anyway?" Eddie snarls out, reliving the image made him so angry, he failed to protect his girlfriend.

"I'm not even going to. You know what? I'll drop you at the station and then maybe you need to have a long long think about everything." She hums at him, her eyes steely cold and unforgiving.

Eddie doesn't dare say anything back at her. He can tell she is mad at him. Yet, he didn't get why she was though! He remembered that one time when she came back to them and Ana got her a cake for returning, Carla suddenly said something that he didn't pay much mind back then. She said to follow his heart, and he didn't pay heed because if Chris was happy then that's all he ever cared about. Now? Now, it seems like she was directing that towards something else than he initially thought.

For the rest of the drive, Carla had turned the radio on, most likely so he couldn't talk to her. He was dreading going back to the station, everyone was on Buck's side and no one seemed to care about what Eddie had to say about the whole thing. They were just trying to turn him against Ana but if they had listened to what she had been saying about how uncomfortable he had made her they would soon be on her side and not Buck's.

The car comes to a halt and he looks up and sees the entrance to the station. He looks and sees Hen and Chim sitting on the front of the rig talking and resupplying it. Seemed like they just got back from a call. He knew they still had a fair few hours on shift and the likelihood of Buck not returning today may put them in a foul mood with himself.

"Ooo there's Hen, do me a favor if it isn't too much hassle. I found Denny's phone when I was sorting out things, could you pass it over to her for me?" Carla asks as she fishes out a phone from her handbag.

Eddie looked at the phone and took it with no arguments. It wasn't the first time one of the boys had left either a tablet or phone at someone else's house. Eddie distinctly remembers it was mostly Harry and Denny who forgets their gadgets at each other's houses. He climbs out of the vehicle and closes the door before he can say goodbye. Carla drives off without saying a farewell back, which shows just how pissed she was with him.

Walking towards Hen and Chim he can see their faces turn as he approaches.

"So they let you out?" Chim asks inconspicuously. If Eddie didn't know better he sounded condescending. But then again, sometimes that's just how Chim is when he too is nervous and masks it with humor or sarcasm.

"Yeah, no charges. Oh Hen, Carla found Denny's phone at mine, here." He says passing it, she just grabs it and gets up to walk off which was unlike her as she normally speaks her mind, "What? You just aren't going to talk to me? We got a shift to finish."

"Believe me, Diaz. You do not want me to open my mouth right now." Hen says fiddling with Denny's phone as she walks away.

"Leave it Diaz." A familiar voice says coming from round the rig, as he turns he sees a face he hadn't seen for a while, Lena Bosko.

"What are you doing here?" He questions.

"Well, I came here just to say hello to the 118 and to formally thank your captain because I never got to thank him properly since the tsunami, even if that was such a long time ago. And then I was also here for some official business. But then I heard that there was drama going on, so now…" Lena pauses then looks at Eddie's confused face, "The business that I mentioned earlier, is that I was asked to drop off some supplies here and that now I've been asked officially to cover a shift today. At the 118, because apparently two of your firefighters are unavailable right now."

" What kind of drama did you hear? Also, can they do that? Take someone from other fire stations to cover for someone else's shift?"

"Uh, I don't know, ask your captain. He was the one who asked for a favor from Cooper. And I think you know what kind of drama I heard, because… Well, you're at the center of it." Lena calmly says, no tone or edge to it, just monotonous, "So you can go on home, because if you hadn't picked it up yet, I'm covering for yours and Buckley's shifts today."

"Really now? Because what if I say no?"

"Take it up with your captain then, and nope as of now, you are done for the day. But for the record, just as I thought you couldn't be any more of a shit friend but you had to take it to a whole new level didn't you? When did you become so ignorant?" she states as she walks off and he watches her disappear with Hen and Chim.

Eddie didn't know what to do. He wanted to argue his case because he knew what he saw, though it looked pointless. So he decides to just grab his stuff and head home. On the drive back he kept thinking at what people had said to him and it nagged at him but as he pulled up at home he saw Ana sat on his porch and every thought he had amplified tenfold.

What were they getting at?

But his thoughts dissipate as he walks up to her and notices her red eyes and tears rolling down her cheeks, he sits next to and pulls her into a hug and she breaks down crying. Eddie hated seeing her like this and all this was because of Buck.

LENA POV

Lena had been busy cleaning the 136 rig. It was a slow day for her team on their patch they covered. Cleaning the rig was the only way she could keep her hands busy enough that she wouldn't start using the punching bag again for the nth time today..

"Bosko! You fancy making a run to 118? They are short on some medical supplies after an influx of calls." Cooper's voice rings round the bay.

She hadn't seen the 118 since she covered for Buck and that had been one hell of a shitshow. The so-called best friends one who made her laugh, Eddie the uptight emotionless man who almost burst up in a grocery store and not forgetting the fight cage, then there was Buck... She actually got why he did the whole lawsuit but what made her laugh was the heart eyes he was giving Eddie all the time.

So she was hoping now things had settled she may walk in to finally seeing them two actually together and she could mess with Eddie about the whole jail thing. Also, now she can properly say thank you to Capt. Bobby for the tsunami. God, that was such a long time ago.

"Sure, why not cap." She shouts back, chucking the rag to the side and heads inside.

She collects the things she needs to take and heads over to the 118 firehouse, thinking of something witty to say as an entrance to the station.

As she pulls up she notices it seems awfully quiet and she guesses most of them are catching five whilst they can. She walks through the bay area looking for people she knows.

"Diaz, where's that woman sized ass of yours?" She shouts in hope of some form of retaliation.

But when none coes she walks up stairs and is greeted by a very somber mood and deafening silence.

"God, who died and made you all miserable?" She jokes but then realises neither Buck or Eddie are upstairs and she hadn't seen them. If they were on holiday she would have been called to help out.

"Bosko? What are you doing here?" Capt. Bobby greets her cheerily as she gently places the supplies she had on the floor. Him greeting her at this kind of atmosphere was, curious to say the least.

"Heard you were short on meds?" Bosko says and he remembers this older asian man's name was Chimney look up to her and then to Bobby.

"I had to pull on some favors." Bobby says as he goes to the kitchen aisle, "Coffee Lena?"

"No, I'm good, thanks. So here's your supplies." She says while Chimney and Hen, who suddenly came in from the back, takes it and checks it.

"Pads, bandages, gauze… Hey the complete package." Chimney looks at Lena, "Thank you so much we were literally out of those."

"Hey, no problem." Lena says and watches as Chimney walks past Henrieta, "Say, can't say I've noticed but it's oddly quiet here. Mostly, it's because Diaz and Buckley were laughing most of the time. Speaking of which, where are they?"

Lena looks as the three, along with other firefighters look at each other awkwardly.

"Did something happen to them?"

"Erm not really, something major happened? Well, didn't but did but not really." Chim tries to explain one foot down the stairs already and the other twitching whether to go down or not. That's when she knew something was up.

"Sit and we will talk you through it." Hen muses and pulls out a chair for Lena to sit in..

She listens as Hen explains the whole thing, she couldn't believe what she had heard. 1. Eddie had found someone (which was impressive at first because he didn't strike her as someone who would be willing to tie down with someone… Well, not after his dead wife.) but then Hen got to the party and she cannot believe that he would believe Ana (I might be inclined to call her a trampy bitch but what do I know.) over Buck. 2. He had punched Buck and 3rd neither of them had obviously explained how they really felt for each other otherwise they wouldn't be where they are now. (She knows she should be more distressed about Eddie punching Buck but are they really that dense? Because if she was there she might not have held her tongue and just told them to get a… room. Oh shit the irony of that statement Lena.)

"I mean, I was expecting them to, you know.." She motions with hands smooshing.

Hen raises an eyebrow and an amused look falls on her face, "What? Them two being so close to each other just seems like a brotherly bond to me. I mean, me and Chim have that also you know."

And Lena just raises her eyebrows and Hen looks at her seriously.

"Wait, really?" Hen says her voice is a mix of amusement and shock.

"And you didn't? I mean hello? Don't you see Eddie's googly eyes shine whenever he talks about Buck and vice versa?" Lena just.

"Well this is a major shitshow, so they're both still at the station?" She questions, wondering if she would get the call to bail Eddie out, or maybe not because the call would be directed to Ana. She hoped he did so she could turn up and smack some sense into him.

"I mean yeah I guess, neither has come back and we haven't heard anything." Chim explained coming from the stairs, evidently that he just finished sorting out the new supplies.

"I'll stay and cover, I'm sure my cap will let me. Our station was q- was not receiving any calls anyway and you're two down." She suggests and sees Hen and Chim eyes go wide.

"Oh no, we couldn't. You were just here to deliver supplies and doing that just seems like us guilt tripping you, especially after hearing what happened to the boys ." Hen politely says.

"I don't mind." Lena nonchalantly says and looks at Bobby, "Listen, you clearly need at least one more person to fill in for the two and I volunteer."

"Are you sure? We wouldn't want to overstep or anything." Bobby says, and Lena notes that not even once did she notice the captain frown. It was either he just wasn't bothered by the shitshow going on, or he's good at keeping his feelings hidden.

"I'm sure. C'mon, we'll talk to Cooper together."

"Well, it still leaves us one short, but you'll do." Chim chimes in and Lena, while walks away with Bobby.

"Yeah, especially with your height that can't be helped. Plus, I'm worth Eddie and Buck combined." She laughs and Hen cackles.

Lena could hear Chim sputter and Bobby beside her chuckle a bit.

A quick conversation with Cooper and it's all clear, and not a moment too soon as they just got hailed. A fender bender on Westwood.

She tries to keep the mood upbeat but even she can't keep it up. She mostly empathized with Eddie before, until the grocery and jail incident. And now after hearing Hen with the details of how all the events went down, Lena couldn't help but go for the other party. Partly, because she wasn't there, but one look at Buckley and she knew someone with his moral integrity wouldn't even touch a woman without consent. And when she got to know Buckley even for a bit, her thoughts solidified and knew it couldn't be.

She knows Eddie is a good person, but it's his uptightness and family values are what gets him into situations like this instead of being himself. It has been just a few hours and they roll back into the station and head up to the loft to relax, the probie has the news on and Lena can hear a familiar voice of one Taylor Kelly. Lena admits that she hadn't liked her even more when she heard what Taylor had tried to do. If she ever saw her she could slap her just for the fun of it. But Lena notices Hen and Chim look in horror at the TV and Lena focuses on it and listens.

'...Was taken in for questioning with regards to a sexual assault on a female at a house party. We don't have any further information at this moment in time we will update you as we get more, this is Taylor Kelly reporting." Lena looks at the bottom of the screen hoping not to see Bucks name and thank god she didn't. It just said LA fire fighter taken in for questioning in regards to sexual assault.

"Did she just… Great, I have a reason to slap her now." Lena says before she thinks about what she said.

"And Buck said she wasn't after stories." Chim says.

"At least they didn't name him." Hen tries to stay optimistic but it flops down as she even realizes the irony of that. Without a name, it would brand all male firefighters as sex offenders. So until they get an identity, not all firefighters would be cleared. But even then, rumours will spread, forever marking firefighters. Or not at all, because maybe after this fiasco people will move on and harp on other issues.

"Yet, she will savor it for later, properly throw him under the bus." Lena remarks, and she takes that with a grain of salt.

"Let's not focus on that, we need to be ready to support Buck as when he sees this…" Bobbys cut off by the alarm.

The call luckily isn't long as it was just another fender bender, this time around Hyde Park and Van Ness. Sooner than expected they made it back to which they were surprised as Eddie was there Lena has to deal with Eddie and his lame excuse to stay, thankfully he leaves and she heads in to check on Hen who's plugging the phone in Eddie gave her.

"Who owns that?" Lena questions.

"Oh, Denny's, kids will leave anything behind. Going to have to start putting bleepers on them." Hen jokes.

"You alright though?"

"Will be, just want Buck to walk through the bay, but looking less likely. Still can't believe Eddie is out, you just know Buck hasn't pressed charges on that idiot."

"He's an idiot who's madly in love with another idiot unfortunately and I can't see how they will ever come back from this." Lena says she knew she was right.

"Yeah." Hen agrees.

"Look, I'm going to take some frustrations out on the bag, shout if you need anything. I'm sure we can get a short stack over there to help out." Lena says smirking at Chim.

"Can she just not leave now?" Chim replies and Lena heads down stairs.

She's twenty minutes into a boxing bag beating when the sound of someone in heels walks down the side of the rig. Lena takes the gloves off and picks a towel as she walks down the right to see who it is and she couldn't believe it when she saw none other than Taylor Kelly.

"You have some nerve showing that trowel of make-up on your face here." Lena snarks

"Excuse me." Taylor quims.

"Oh get off that royal horse you think you rode on here with, we saw your report. I mean I knew you were desperate but using Buck as your story to get you some more prime time, surely shagging your boss would get you that or does he not like gingers?" Lena retorts, toxic seething from her mouth.

"Excuse me? First, shut the hell up! You don't know me and I certainly don't know you. Second, it would have been far worse if someone else did the report as they would have plastered Buck's name and face. I did it to stop his name from going out." Taylor hisses, matching Lena's harsh and brash tone to which Lena was taken aback. Was Taylor telling the truth? She just didn't know, journalists lie, and from previous experiences with journalists Lena's first instinct was just to punch any journalist she knew.

"HEY! When you two are done having a slanging match, you both need to come see this and quick." Hen says looking over the railing making both Lena and Taylor look at each other, their eyes piercing into each other.

Their slagging match wasn't over just yet.

Taylor's POV

Taylor quietly sits at her desk going over some stories that need proofing, but her head was just not in the game for this today. She is worried about Buck, the innocent man that was all heart was accused of something so horrific and what was worse is she knew the only person he would even want to touch is Eddie. Taylor got the info off Chimney who was surprisingly chill in letting her know. She had finally accepted that she and Buck were never going to be a thing, but they grew close as friends and to be honest she loved having a male friend. Looking at her phone there was still no reply from Buck but she guessed he was on calls.

Her thoughts moved to the more worrying signs she had noticed Buck had gotten into. The excessive drinking and the drugs. She knows he said he had stopped taking the drugs but she had a sinking feeling that that wasn't true. She would sit with him tonight and make him confess, that's what she decides to do. She returns to the proof reading about some sill market stall fight.

"Taylor, my office please." Her editor says as he walks by, he had that look like he just got a major scoop. She hoped he had as she needed something juicy to work on.

"How well do you know Evan Buckley from the 118?" It's a simple question but her stomach turned. Why would he want to know that?

"Met a few times on calls and when I did that piece on the fire house, why?" She thought it best leave out the whole sex and friends thing.

"Well, our tipster just informed me, Evan Buckley has been brought in for questioning about an sexual assault. Now, if that isn't juicy I don't know what is. You go live in a few hours so go get ready." He says and Taylor sees that face from his editor again. It was a face he made when he was intrigued, and when he is, he won't let it go.

"Shouldn't we wait till we get the full facts." She says, which wasn't the way they did things, and she can see on her bosses face he is not happy.

"So I guess you do know him more than you just said?" He questions.

"Shit." She curses herself. Well, then this suddenly became a battle of attrition. She knew her boss won't let this go and neither will she.

"How would you know? He's just an acquaintance but don't you think it's unfair that we would report something incomplete and probably untrue just for some clicks and views?" She says she had to make a stand.

"You seem oddly against this. Why?" Her editor looked at her critically, she knew the next few words would matter so heavily that she was scared of the words that would come off her mouth. For the first time, she was actually scared of what to say. She used to have no filter especially in getting the truth out because she had the full story, but right now she was lacking in evidence to support this accusation and story. And now? She didn't know shit aside from a subjective feeling that Buck was innocent.

"I'm treating this like any other assignment you gave me. Plus, isn't the main motto of this company to be 'truthful to the masses?' And so putting out slander towards a firefighter would mean defaming the entire LAFD and…"

"Slander? That's a big word Taylor. You didn't care before wherever we stepped on the shoes of the authority, so why is it a big deal now?"

"That's because we always had the full story! We knew who was in the wrong and right. We had arbitrary answers, concrete ones! But this?"

"Let me stop you there, Taylor. You have two choices. One, you do the report like the job you are paid for or Two, I fire your ass and make it impossible for you to work in this town again." he states his hands hitting the desk.

She stands there looking at her boss, she knows how people would see it if she did the report especially at the 118 as they knew, but if someone else did the story they would make it bigger and worse for Buck. Back against the wall she thought of one way to do this and lessen the damage.

"Fine, I'll do it, but I get to say what is reported." She states

"As long as it goes on the news live I don't care."

Taylor leaves his office and sits at her desk looking at the phone still no replies but at least she knows why now. Her mind races with how Buck is coping and how pissed she is at the tipster but in the same way that's what they paid them for. She spends the next few hours getting the report ready and states to the editing guys that it's just to say firefighter no names, and if she had flirted a little to get them to do it she wouldn't admit to it.

As the news report finished she could see the editor standing on the other side of the window and he looked pissed. She sighs and walks out the sound room and awaits the shouting.

"Why didn't you mention a name?" He questions, his calm facade starting to break.

"Look, I took the story and you agreed I could do it my way. This way the report is out and more people will tune in to find out more information, if we gave it to them all at once they wouldn't turn in later at least now you get more views and listeners." She explains and she knew she was right.

"You're… ugh you are right, good work." he says trying not to look her in the eyes as he walks out.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Taylor hisses and she picks her things up and rushes to the 118 station to do yet another damage control.

The drive to the station was filled with many questions, will Buck be there? Will he be at the station? Or was he even there at all because last she heard he was at the police station.

As she pulls up to the station and walks in she is greeted by some woman firefighter giving her shit and not letting her give her side, but she had to praise her loyalty to Buck.

Soon Hen calls them up and the woman shoots off and Taylor follows, as she walks up the stairs she sees a few familiar faces huddled round Hen who is holding a phone and as she gets closer what she sees brings a smile to her face just like the rest.

Athena's POV

Later much into the night she was still up and contemplating something.

"Can't sleep?" She hears her husband's voice from behind her then his arms wrapping around her waist followed by his head preening at her neck.

"Welcome back… And yeah, was just thinkin-"

"Of Buck?" Bobby says and Athena exhales.

"There's something there Bobby, we're just not seeing the whole picture."

"I know this might be a stupid question to ask, but how do you know?"

"Think about it, A six foot male harassing a shorter female. It seems like a common thing to happen, but uncommonly to happen." Athena turns around and looks at Bobby. She could see that he too was having a hard time with this.

"It's happened before, which I'm not saying that Buck did, and people listened in to the woman more than the man…"

"Depending on who they told it to." Athena interjects and Bobby nods.

"But yeah, I don't think we're seeing the whole picture here."

"Mhhmm, especially after today. Buck didn't press any charges and both were set free aside from Buck who was still pending upon further investigation. But the media getting a hold of this? Goddamn tippers, if I found out who tipped the news station I will have them fired." Athena hisses and she feels Bobby hold her shoulders.

"Don't worry, everything will be alright 'Thena." Bobby smiles broadly.

"You seem oddly optimistic. Something good happened at work today?"

"Even better."