All of that next week, Eddie ran through his mind countless ways he could tell Christopher just exactly the nature of his and Buck's relationship. And received an infinite number of possibilities of what Christopher's reaction would be to each of them.
In the end though, Eddie needn't have bothered.
It had started as a normal night, when all of a sudden it wasn't. It was a Friday night, Eddie wasn't on shift or anything, so that meant that he and Christopher were spending it doing their Friday night ritual of pizza and videogames.
Everything was going as normal, the empty pizza boxes sat discarded on the coffee table, Chris has already beat Eddie in four Mariokart races - Eddie had high suspicions that Buck had given him some cheats last time they were together - and Eddie was about to suggest another game, like that one sports one, he was better at that.
That was when a blinding pain spread all throughout his body, consuming him. He had just stood up to get another drink from the kitchen, when he found himself quickly falling to the ground.
"Dad!" he heard Chris call out as he writhed on the floor. What was this? His leg was screaming in pain, almost like a giant weight was sitting on and crushing it. What the fuck was this?
Did Buck do something again? This felt exactly like the night his head exploded in pain, only this time it was his leg. Just what could be causing this?
"Dad?" he heard Chris say again. He blinked his eyes open as the pain lessened for a second and saw his son leaning over the arm of the couch to look down at him. Then, as another wave of pain shot up his leg, he scrunched his eyes closed again as he tried to stop screaming out. "What's wrong?" Chris asked, his voice one full of fear and confusion.
Eddie stayed on the ground, for how long… he didn't know, but finally the pain lifted off his leg. Buck must have finally been given a round of painkillers. But what happened to him to begin with? Eddie knew he was working a shift today, but that could mean any number of things happened to him.
He slowly pushed himself up and let his back fall against the wall. Blinking his eyes open, he saw Christopher leaning down looking at him in a mix of concern and confusion.
This is not how he wanted this night to go.
Eddie slowly stood up, trying to keep his weight off of the leg that was screaming pain as he stumbled back to his seat on the couch. He didn't know exactly how bond-pain worked, but he knew enough that stepping on his physically-fine leg would cause more pain. He didn't know if Buck would be able to feel that added pain, but if he did, Eddie didn't want to cause him more.
As Christopher sat on the couch across from his dad, his face scrunched up, Eddie could tell he was thinking about something. Something confusing or challenging enough for him that he didn't know what to make sense of.
"Hey, Chris," Eddie said as he tried not to let another gasp of pain slip out of his lips. "What's wrong?"
"I'm supposed to be asking you that," Chris said, a frown on his face. "You're the one that fell down screaming."
Shit, Eddie closed his eyes. Did he really do that?
"You're bonded, aren't you?" Chris then asked.
Eddie paused, an uncomfortable feeling suddenly making his gut sink. His head dropped as he asked. "What makes you think that?"
Chris rubbed his nose before speaking. "When Marco broke his arm at recess, Emma screamed just like you did."
Well, there was no more hiding it from Chris then.
"Yeah, Chris," Eddie said as he let his head fall on the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. "I am."
Chris was silent for a minute, thinking. "Is it Buck?" he asked.
"Yeah," Eddie sighed, letting out a breath as another wave of pain rolled up his leg.
Chris's eyebrows scrunched up. "When did… when did this happen?"
"When I first met him," Eddie replied. "About five months ago."
Eddie watched as the emotions and thoughts ran through Chris's mind. "Oh," he said, and Eddie could see some type of hurt on Chris's face. "Did he get hurt?" Chris asked.
"Yeah," Eddie, there was no doubt about that, Eddie just hoped he could hide how badly he thought the man got hurt. Because there was no way this was a minor injury.
Eddie watched as a now worried expression came upon Chris's face. "Did he get hurt badly?"
Eddie wanted to reassure the boy and say that it probably wasn't that bad, but with the pain he could feel coming from his leg, he knew he probably shouldn't say that. He also couldn't continue lying to Christopher, not when he just dropped this bombshell on him.
"I don't know," Eddie said, scrunching his face up to stop another grunt of pain from coming out of him.
"Well, you have to find out," Chris said, lifting his head up, a line of determination settling across his forehead. "You need to find out what happened to him."
"Are you saying that I need to go find where Buck is right now?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah," Chris said, nodding and looking at him straight on. "Of course you have to."
"And what about you?" Eddie asked. "I can't just leave you here alone right now."
Chris looked affronted at that. "Take me with you," he said as if it was the obvious choice.
Eddie knew he couldn't do that especially. He needed to know what happened to Buck first. Then he had to make sure Buck was able to see visitors, if he could handle the storm of energy that usually accompanied his son.
"I can't do that, Chris," Eddie said. And expectantly, Chris did not like that answer. Before the boy tried to object, Eddie continued. "How about I take you to abuela's. You can spend the night there while I go and figure out what happened to Buck. I can take you to see him sometime tomorrow or Sunday."
Chris didn't look too happy at that idea. In fact, he didn't look happy at all as he crossed his arms across his chest and a deep frown appeared on his face. "Fine," he eventually agreed. "But you have to tell me what happened to him."
"Right, I will," Eddie said as he maneuvered to stand up. "Now how about you go get some things to spend the night at abuela's."
Xx?xXx?xXx?xX
It was as Eddie was driving from his abuela's to the hospital, and thank God the one was willing to look after Chris at her place at the literal last second, and also thank God that for once, the bond was telling Eddie where exactly to go to find Buck. Eddie still wasn't exactly sure how it worked, but he wasn't going to question it tonight.
Anyway, it was as he was driving to where Buck was that the radio station Eddie had on turned to a traffic update.
"We remind drivers that due to the recent bomb blasts, the area surrounding the intersection of 49th Street and Fieldview Ave is shut down and police are highly urging citizens to stay away-" the radio voice said.
Wait, what? Bomb blast? Was Buck involved in that?
That threw Eddie for a loop.
The radio station voices continued talking, now changing to a short conversation bit about the bombing in question. "You should have seen the video of that scene," one voice said. "That bomb blasts flipped the fire truck on that one firefighter, it's a miracle he wasn't dead on the scene."
God, Buck. A sinking feeling went down Eddie's gut. It made him want to throw up. Just what had Buck gotten into?
Eddie felt all sorts of weird walking into the hospital's entrance and finding himself in the waiting room. He shouldn't be here. It wasn't like he and Buck were dating or anything. Or were they? They had never really talked about any of this.
Hell, Eddie was the one who put Buck through the emotional ringer for more than two months. Sure the past couple months between them have been great, but that didn't get rid of what Eddie had done beforehand.
There was also the fact that Eddie hadn't really met any of the people Buck worked with, outside of working a scene or two here and there with them. But in a social sense, he had met Buck's sister a couple times, she was pretty nice, but he only knew the guys on Buck's crew from the various stories Buck would tell him.
All of this to say, he felt really awkward as he walked into the hospital.
Had Buck even told them about him? Eddie remembered Buck mentioned once about telling his Captain about Eddie, but was that before they started to get on more friendly terms? Had Buck updated them on their relationship since then?
Eddie supposed Buck might have, if the amount of stories he told Eddie about his teammates was one thing, Eddie could only imagine he would tell them at least one or two stories of hanging out with him and Chris.
He shouldn't be here, Eddie couldn't help but think, if anything, he should have waited a couple days, waited until Buck called him or something, before he came by. That's what happened when people were in new relationships right? Hell, Eddie didn't even know if he would consider whether they had a relationship or not. Definitely a friendship, but a relationship? Sure, they shared a couple hugs here or there, and kissed once, and each time it lit a fire in Eddie's chest that he was quickly becoming addicted to, but what did Eddie know? The last time he was in a new budding relationship, he was in high school, and look where that got him now.
Eddie shook his head to rid himself of the noisy thoughts that would only make him freeze where he stood. He shouldn't be here, but he was, so he might as well figure out what happened to Buck.
Entering the doors to the waiting room, Eddie was surprised to see the amount of people in there. Too many to count.
It made sense that there were a large number of people in the waiting room. It's what usually happened when a first responder got seriously hurt, and what happened to Buck was shown live on the prime time news channels, even the car radio. So maybe Eddie wouldn't feel as awkward as he thought he would feel walking up here. Maybe no one would even notice him.
And no one did, at first. Eddie remained leaning against a wall near the back of the crowd. It wasn't until Maddie walked out, probably to go to the bathroom or get some fresh air or something, and on her way back inside, she caught sight of Eddie standing silently next to one of the hallway water fountains, his shoulders hunched over, trying to hide.
"Eddie?" she said softly.
Eddie jerked his head up and looked over at her. He could only imagine what he looked like to her. His leg was still screaming at him in pain as he stood on it, his mouth was holding in a scream from it, his eyes were probably bloodshot by now, and it was currently 2 a.m. while he had been awake since 5 a.m. the day before.
She calmly walked over to him. "I imagine your legs hurt," she said once she was standing next to him.
"Yeah," Eddie nodded. His legs were still killing him. How he had driven here, how he was still standing, he had no clue. Probably because this was 'bond pain' which was a mess of false nerve signals firing, physical pain, and mental imaginings that Eddie had never bothered studying enough to actually understand. He knew that, as a paramedic, if a patient was experiencing bond pain intense enough, he was supposed to bring them to a hospital so they could see a bond specialist, and that was good enough for him.
"Let's sit down," Maddie said softly as she guided him with her hand on his shoulders over to an empty group of chairs nearby. His legs were still shaking slightly as he sat down and tried to rest them.
"What happened to him?" Eddie asked.
"I'm sure you've seen the news reports," she started. "You've probably heard the story by now."
"Parts of it," Eddie said. "Something about a bomb and a firetruck landing on him… Not exactly sure how this is all connected."
"Yeah," Maddie sighed. "I was briefly told the guys' breakdown of events, but I'm pretty sure everyone is still confused about what happened. From what I understand, the guy that's been planting bombs all over the city put one on their fire engine. It was set off as they were responding to a scene, and afterwards, the truck ended up pinning Buck to the ground by his leg. He was rushed into surgery as soon as they got him here. And the doctors just finished about an hour ago."
Eddie was silent as he thought over what she was saying. He was still confused about the whole story, but he probably would be until he could ask Buck himself.
"What's the damage?" Eddie asked.
"Nothing good," Maddie said. "They had to put a rod and some pins in his leg. And they said he might need one or two more surgeries to repair everything. But the doctors said he should eventually make a full recovery."
Eddie let out a breath as he looked down at his leg. At least the pain had significantly lessened by now. He didn't know if it was because the doctor's were able to do anything or if they just gave Buck pain meds, but Eddie hoped that on Buck's side, the man wasn't in as much pain anymore.
"I can take you to see him, you know," Maddie said when Eddie's leg stopped shaking. "He's out of surgery now."
"Are you sure?" Eddie asked. He knew Buck told him a lot of stories about his co-workers, who Eddie was sure he was surrounded by right now. But had he told his co-workers about Eddie?
"Come on," Maddie said, a small smile appearing on her tired face as she motioned for him to stand up and follow her. "I'm sure he will love to see you."
Xx?xXx?xXx?xX
"Can I draw on your cast?" Chris said, smiling as he eagerly looked upon the blank white canvas sitting before him right at the same height as his eyes.
Buck had been in the hospital for four days now, and after begging Eddie to bring Chris in for a visit, along with Chris begging to see Buck (claiming the entire time that Eddie had "promised" he would see Buck by that Sunday), Eddie relented and brought the boy in for a visit.
"Sure you can, buddy!" Buck said as he passed Chris a sharpie someone had left on his bedside table. "But I only have black."
"That's okay, Buck," Chris said as he took the marker, smiling wide and getting started on what would become his newest masterpiece.
"Just be careful, Chris," Eddie warned him. "He just got surgery on it yesterday."
"Okay, Dad," Chris said as he got to work. He was going to start with a dog, only an outline though, he could add color later once he had his colored markers.
"You spoil him too much," Eddie said lightly as he sat down in the chair next to Buck's bed and took Buck's hand.
"Oh relax," Buck said. "He's making it look better, anyway."
A couple minutes later, they hear a knock on the door to Buck's room. Eddie was expecting it to be another doctor doing their rounds, so he was surprised to see a man wearing jeans and a gray polo shirt, standing there with a food container. He was obviously not a doctor.
"Oh, Bobby!" Buck greeted the man with a smile stretching across his face.
Oh, that's Bobby, Eddie thought. Now that he thought about it, the man did look familiar from the couple of scenes his station worked with Buck's. For some reason though, he had never connected the man's face to all of the stories Buck told him about his team.
Bobby cut off what he was going to say as he saw Eddie sitting in the chair next to Buck's bedside. He blinked, thoughts processing in his head, then asked. "Did you make some friends while we were gone?"
"Oh, Eddie, meet my Captain, Bobby," Buck said, eagerly. "Bobby, meet Eddie."
"Eddie," Bobby repeated, nodding to himself, recognizing the man's name. Buck's soulmate's name was Eddie. Bobby's mind flashed back to a couple months ago, having a conversation with Buck in the station's locker rooms where Buck was nearly falling apart telling him how his soulmate was rejecting him. That day he was thrown for a doozy, and he constantly worried over Buck for the next few weeks as he saw the man slowly falling more apart.
Then one day Buck came in for his shift, his mood and energy a complete 180 from the direction it had been heading towards. And Buck's stereotypical Golden retriever energy had only multiplied. Bobby figured that something must have changed on the soulmate front, he didn't know what, but it must have been something that made them grow closer together. It didn't stop Bobby from worrying though. If things could go from bad to good that quickly, there was no saying it couldn't go in the opposite direction just as fast.
And now Buck's apparent soulmate was sitting in front of him, right next to Buck's hospital bed. That explained why he found Maddie talking to him in the hospital's waiting room while Buck was in his first surgery. She must have already known the man and his relationship with her brother.
"Nice to meet you," Eddie said. "Buck's told me a lot about you."
Oh, that was interesting, Bobby thought. Except for that one night Buck told him about how his soulmate was ignoring and rejecting him, Bobby hadn't heard Buck mention him once. Which was all very un-Bucklike, seeing as how Buck told them about everything in his life.
"I'm sure," Bobby replied.
"And that's Christopher, Eddie's son," Buck introduced the child currently drawing all over his leg.
"Hi," Chris greeted Bobby shyly as he looked up from Buck's leg.
"Whatcha doing there?" Bobby asked the boy, noticing him drawing something on Buck's casted leg.
"I'm drawing a dog," Chris said as he pointed at Buck's cast. Bobby looked down at the boy's drawing. It looked good, Bobby had to admit… for a child.
"That's looking good there," Bobby said, smiling.
"Thanks," Chris nodded as he turned back to continue his drawing. He just needed to add the back legs and tail, then he would be finished.
"Oh, wait," Buck said, coming to a realization. "I never told you guys about Eddie, did I?"