"Do you need help in there?" Eddie asked as he heard a noise come from Buck's bathroom. It sounded like a loud bump, followed by a pained grunt or groan.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Buck replied, his voice muffled from going through the door.

"Alright then," Eddie said as he sat down on one of Buck's bar stools, waiting for Buck to come out. He turned around to get a look around the loft apartment. He had been here a couple times before, but this was the first time he realized he was here semi-alone.

Eddie couldn't help but have his eyes be drawn to the long staircase going up the side of the wall to the bedroom area of the loft. Had Buck really been climbing that each time he went to bed? Eddie looked back down to the living room area and noticed how a throw pillow had a certain indent on it at the end of the couch.

No, Buck hadn't been going up to his bed each night, he was sleeping downstairs on the couch.

And that… something about that just pushed Eddie in the wrong way.

A couple minutes later, Buck opened the bathroom door and came maneuvering through the opening.

Eddie winced when he heard a loud bump sound out when Buck's casted leg bumped against the door jam, while Buck tried to hold in a pained groan.

"You alright?" Eddie asked, jumping up from his seat. He knew that had to have hurt, he could feel it.

"Yeah, fine," Buck said as he hobbled along from the bathroom to the kitchen.

"You sure?" Eddie pressed, he could still feel some semblance of pain resounding in his leg. "I can feel when you're in pain, you know?"

"Yeah, I always forget that," Buck said under his breath.

"You can always… come to our place, you know?" Eddie said as he watched Buck struggle to move around his apartment. Even without the bond Eddie could see how frustrated the whole whole leg cast was making Buck, let alone how much pain each and every accidental bump to his leg caused him.

"C- Come to your place?" Buck asked, totally caught off guard by Eddie's offer.

"Yeah," Eddie nodded. When he looked at Buck's wide eyes, he continued. "What? It's not like you've never been to our place before. Only thing you haven't done so far is sleep over."

"Yeah, but… You're basically asking me to come and move in with you," Buck said.

Okay… maybe Eddie was asking Buck that. And he knew that if Buck wasn't injured, he probably wouldn't be asking. But if Buck wasn't injured, then Buck's co-workers and friends probably wouldn't know about them, Chris also wouldn't know the exact nature of their relationship. Actually come to think of it, Eddie wasn't sure if Chris exactly knew about the nature of their relationship.

"But what about Chris?" Buck asked. "Have you even told him yet-"

"He kind of guessed it after I started screaming in pain when your leg got crushed," Eddie shrugged. "He was kind of upset about it at first. But after a couple days, well… I guess he doesn't mind if it's you I'm bonded to."

"And how did he take it?" Buck asked.

"Better than I expected for the most part," Eddie shrugged. "You've seen him."

And yeah, now that Buck thought of it, Chris had been looking at him slightly differently those couple days he saw the boy while he was in the hospital.

"And he was just… alright with everything?" Buck asked.

Eddie thought that question over. The last time, the only time really, Eddie talked to Chris about the whole bond thing, the boy had been upset, but was still worried about Buck, so he forced Eddie to go to the hospital to find the man and make sure Buck would be alright.

Eddie had meant to talk to Chris about it, fully and in depth, after that, but that conversation hadn't really taken place.

And now, it had been over a week since that night.

"If Chris is alright with it, I'll move in with you two," Buck said. "But only if he's okay with it."

"Fine," Eddie said, nodding. "I'll talk to him about it later today."

"Really?" Buck asked, raising an eyebrow.

Eddie raised an eyebrow in return, why was Buck questioning him about this?

"It's just that you have a sort of habit about… avoiding hard conversations…" Buck added.

"I do not," Eddie said, affronted. What could Buck be talking about now?

"Really? You mean you didn't avoid talking to me for two months? And avoid telling Chris about us for another two months?" Buck asked.

Eddie let out a huff of breath, looking away and out of the kitchen window. He was just now noticing it, but Buck did have a pretty good view up here. It overlooked a small park, surrounded by a plaza he saw that hosted a pop-up farmer's market on the weekend. "Maybe you have a point there," Eddie acquisessed. "But I will talk to Chris about this… I will."

"Of course you will," Buck repeated, nodding. But Eddie could feel that Buck was really saying 'I'll see it when I believe it.'

Xx?xXx?xXx?xX

"Can we go visit Buck?" Was the first thing Chris asked, after greeting his father, when Eddie picked him up from school later that day.

"What?" Eddie asked. "Do you not even care about me anymore?"

"You aren't the one with a broken leg, Dad," Chris said.

"I guess you have a point there," Eddie said as they started walking to his truck.

"So…" Chris asked again. "Can we go visit Buck today?"

Eddie took a breath as he thought of how he was going to bring up this conversation to Chris. It would be best to do this now, before they got over to Buck's place. And Eddie really had to stop avoiding all of these hard conversations, it was getting to be a bad habit for him. Buck maybe did have a point when he said that earlier.

"About Buck," Eddie started as they approached his truck. "We never really did finish our talk about him earlier."

"What talk?" Chris asked as he looked up at Eddie.

"About Buck," Eddie said as he lifted Chris up and sat him in the booster seat in the back row of his truck. At Chris's confused look, he added "and the whole bond thing."

"Oh," Chris said as he looked down at his shoes. "What do we have to talk about with that?" he asked.

Eddie let out a breath. "We never finished talking about what my bond with him means. And I know you have feelings about that."

Chris's face screwed up into a frown. "You kept it a secret," he said. "You didn't tell me about it."

"Yeah, look I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I should have told you about it a long time ago, and it's completely my fault that it took so long to tell you," Eddie started. "But you have to know that this doesn't change anything between us."

Chris was silent for a moment, his face still scrunched up. "Did you choose to bond with him?" he asked.

"No," Eddie answered. "I didn't. It's one of those… Spontaneous Bond things."

"Like Mom had?" Chris asked.

"Yeah," Eddie released a long breath. "Like Mom had. But you know I'm not going to leave like she did, right?"

Chris nodded. "Ms. Roberts said that when you apologize that means you're not going to do it again," Chris said. "So that means you can't keep secrets from me anymore."

"That's fair," Eddie said. And Eddie resolved not to do that, at least regarding this. "So are we good then?" Eddie asked.

"I guess so," Chris said, shrugging. "Does that mean we can go see Buck now?"

"Yeah, we can," Eddie said as he moved to close the door and get in the driver's seat of the truck.

"Are you gonna get married to Buck?" Chris asked as soon as Eddie thought the conversation was over.

Eddie froze, right as he was about to shut the door of the truck. Were they going to get married? He and Buck had never even brought the topic up. It certainly was far too soon to even talk about all of that given the path their relationship had taken so far.

"We haven't talked about that yet," Eddie said, somewhat dazed.

"Well you should," Chris said. "Talk about it and stuff."

Yeah, another hard conversation Eddie was probably going to end up avoiding.

To be fair though, it was probably way too soon to be talking to Buck about that.

Xx?xXx?xXx?xX

When Eddie moved Buck into his house, he full-on expected some of Buck's friends to drop by from time to time. Buck was a friendly person, so it would make sense that those friends would want to check on him. And he was fine with that.

Maddie, Buck's sister, was one of the obvious first people to come by. Quite frankly, Eddie was surprised it took her a whole three days to come. He thought, from how overprotective Buck had told her she became in the hospital, that she would show up as soon as her shift was done that day. But it had taken her three days, enough for Buck to settle into his house, so by the time she did come by, she had no complaints or concerns as to Buck's new living conditions. Maddie continued to come by once or twice a week, just to make sure Eddie wasn't doing any weird things to her brother.

Then there were Buck's teammates, Chimney, Hen and a few others. They all came by the day after Maddie did, just to check up on Buck, but hadn't spent nearly as much time at his place as Maddie did. Buck was obviously happy to see them all, and to see them all when they would visit in small groups once or twice every week for the next few months.

And last was Bobby, Buck's Captain and the man Buck looked up to the most.

Eddie expected Bobby to show up once or twice, maybe once a week or so after the first week like the rest of Buck's team. He figured that was normal. It's what he would expect his Captain to do if he got hurt. But then Bobby showed up the day after Buck moved into Eddie's house, bringing dinner for the three of them, and the next day, bringing a new puzzle for Chris. He didn't show up the day after that, as he was on shift, but he then resumed again the day after that, bringing another meal for all of them. Going into the second week of Bobby visits, Eddie didn't want to say anything, but he felt it was beginning to grow… excessive.

Buck liked it because he loved when people came to visit, Chris liked it because Bobby usually came with small gifts or yummy food, and Eddie did like it in the beginning. Eddie could obviously see that Buck and his Captain had a close relationship, Eddie would bet that what they claimed was a friend-bond was actually a parental-bond. So Eddie wasn't going to try and stop Bobby from coming.

But Eddie couldn't help but notice the looks Bobby would give Buck whenever Buck talked about coming back to being an active duty firefighter. It was the same look Maddie gave him, only much more discreet and hidden. Eddie could understand why Maddie gave her brother that look. But Bobby?

He was sure Buck had to have told Bobby that his doctor's expected him to make a full recovery. Maybe it was just that Bobby was still nervous for Buck with how close their relationship was. He wouldn't say anything about it, for now. It wasn't like Bobby had done anything to hinder Buck's recovery yet.

Still, even though Eddie felt slightly off about it, it wasn't like he could say anything. He had only known Bobby for what? Two weeks at this point? Certainly not enough time to understand the complexities of the man.

Xx?xXx?xXx?xX

"So why aren't you picking Chris up until five?" Buck asked as Eddie joined him on one of the patio chairs outside. It was a nice June afternoon, not too hot, especially considering the nice breeze that went through Eddie's yard.

"He's at some kid's birthday party," Eddie said, holding a bowl of blueberries in his hand. He picked one up and put it in his mouth.

"Oh?" Buck said. "Which kid?" If there was one thing Buck had done in the month he had been living with the Diazes, it was to absorb all of the stories of events and drama of Chris's school classroom. Eddie wasn't sure how Buck did it exactly, but somehow he had remembered and kept track of what each kid did in Chris's tales and their connection to the boy. Buck hadn't even met any of them yet.

"I think it was Kyle," Eddie answered.

"Oh Kyle!" Buck recalled. "Chris was telling me how over Spring Break his family went down to the San Diego Zoo and now Chris really wants to go see it. You think we can take him when I get this cast off?"

Oh, so that explained why Chris had been asking to go for the last couple of weeks. "And here I thought you were the one that put that idea in his head," Eddie said as Buck took another berry from his bowl. "I thought you said you didn't want any of these?"

"That was earlier," Buck said as he grabbed hold of Eddie's arm and pulled his chair closer to him. He took another blueberry. "Now I do."

"Are we really going to do this right now?" Eddie asked.

"I mean we have all this free time now," Buck said as he pulled Eddie even closer to him.

"A whole two hours," Eddie said. He would have rolled his eyes if Buck hadn't pulled him into a kiss. A fire lit through their bond whenever they did this. Leaving them both feeling pure bliss and euphoria.

Before they had gotten to this stage, Eddie had always wondered just why exactly people had made such a big deal about love making within a Spontaneous Soul Bond. Now though-

"We should tell everyone," Buck suddenly said, cutting off the kiss..

"Tell everyone what?" Eddie asked, leaning back a little.

"You know… tell everyone we're bonded and in a relationship and everyone," Buck answered, his thoughts running ahead of himself.

Eddie paused. Hadn't they already done that?

They told Eddie's aunt, abuela, and sisters. He was sure one of them told his parents by now, but he hadn't called them in a couple weeks now. Chris was also made aware of their bond, and he was basically watching the evolution of their relationship everyday by living in the same house.

They told Buck's sister, and his boss, and his close co-workers. Eddie wasn't sure if Buck told his parents yet, come to think of it, Buck never mentioned them. But Eddie hadn't done so either yet, so he hadn't asked.

So then, who was there left to tell?

"Is there someone we haven't told yet?" Eddie asked, confusion showing on his face and throughout their bond.

He watched as Buck thought it over, mentally counting over which of their friends they have told so far. "No but… we have to do it more… official like."

Eddie was confused, not exactly sure what Buck was talking about, actually no… he had no idea what Buck was talking about. But he could feel through the bond that Buck felt they hadn't done something they were supposed to yet, and he could see on Buck's face that Buck was serious. "What do you have in mind then?" Eddie asked.

He could see the gears turning in Buck's head, trying to bring his mind in some direction. "I don't know," was all Buck could say.