Chapter Eight

AN: There is a little bit of nonconsensual drug use, but it ends as well as possible in that situation. But here's a warning for you, just in case that might be triggering for you!

Friday night came quickly enough, and with it, the promise of Buck making baked ziti. It was a recipe from Tommy's nonna, and he was very nervous about it; he wanted to perfect it before taking it to a Kinard family gathering, his first since he and Tommy started dating. Eddie and I were eager test subjects for him, so we made plans to get together to try it. And Tommy and Eddie were just as quick to tease me and Buck about not trusting the two of us together with wine. "Fine, I'll just bring some limoncello," I decided, and Buck was happy to agree. The other two just shook their heads and exchanged amused looks.

So, right after work, I showed up at Tommy's house with two bottles of limoncello, just as Eddie pulled up, too. "He's been cooking all day," Tommy said as soon as he opened the door. "Please save us all."

"Just think, there'll be leftovers to take to work," I grinned.

"For all of us," Eddie added with a grin of his own.

"For weeks," Tommy sighed. "He's really stressed about this recipe, which is ridiculous, because he's a great cook, and he doesn't have to take this to the party, but-"

"It's Buck," Eddie and I knowingly finished in sync.

Between the three of us, we managed to talk Buck down from his hypothetical ledge, especially once we actually tried his food and smothered him in compliments. "Even my nonna couldn't make it better," Tommy assured him with a kiss. Which, of course, made him blush adorably.

And once Buck actually believed us, he was able to relax and enjoy the evening with us. "Oh, Car, I've been meaning to talk to you! Are you still looking for a new apartment?"

I groaned. "Yes, when I have time to even look. Do you know how hard it is to find something that fits all the criteria the parental parliament require?"

"The what now?" Tommy asked, very confused, but Buck and Eddie both looked sympathetic. And entertained, the jerks.

"Athena's got to make sure it's in a safe neighborhood," Eddie guessed accurately.

"And Bobby's got to make sure it's up to the fire code," Buck added with a smile.

"And Michael's got to make sure it's structurally sound," I finished off. With another drink of my limoncello. I'd kinda forgotten how much I liked it; I might have to get it more often.

"Wait, who's Michael?"

I forgot that Tommy hadn't known Mom as well, or for as long, as Buck and Eddie did. "Michael is Mom's ex, though they're still really good friends, and he's still- He's still a parental figure for me," I explained. "And he's a structural engineer, so he knows what to look for in building plans."

"Isn't he still in Florida?" Eddie asked, gesturing with his fork like he knew which direction Florida was in, while being inside.

I sighed, and Buck laughed as he stood to bring the dessert over for us. "He's still got plenty of friends here in LA, I'm guessing."

"Too many who owe him favors," I sighed again. "So, trying to find an apartment that fits into every one off their criteria is exhausting."

"I'd say that you're a grown adult who doesn't need her parents' approval, but not only do I know some of your parents, I also have a very… involved family," Tommy commiserated, though his still-amused look belied the sympathy just a bit. "Which is why I live in LA and they live in San Diego. But, that just makes Buck's offer even better."

I looked between the two of them very confusedly. "Thanks, babe," Buck said, pressing a kiss to Tommy's hair. It was disgustingly adorable. "Car, I've been meaning to- I'm moving in here with Tommy-"

"Oh, congrats!" I gushed, and Eddie clapped a hand to Tommy's shoulder.

"I'm so happy for you two!" he said.

Both beamed, looking ridiculously in love. "Thanks, we're really happy," Tommy said. He took Buck's hand in his and kissed the back of it. I maybe swooned, just a bit. But that might have also been the limoncello hitting. It had been a long week, okay?

"Yeah, it's time to take that next step," Buck agreed happily. He was blushing again. "But that means we have my loft to deal with. My parents bought- I own it, now, and we've been talking about whether we should sell it or rent it, and I think for now, we want to rent it. So, if you're interested, we were thinking of offering it to you first, Car."

"Are you serious? Yes! Absolutely! I really like your loft, and it's in a neighborhood Mom deemed safe enough." I quickly began to plan as I continued talking. "And Bobby can't possibly have any complaints if you've lived there for so long; he'd have figured some way to get you out of there if he had any. When can I move in?"

Buck just laughed. "You didn't even hear how much I was thinking of charging!"

I just shook my head. "I don't even care. I know you're not a jerk, and I'm desperate to move out. You don't even know how many times I've walked in on Mom and Bobby making out, or worse, and I can't take it much longer."

Buck grimaced, while Tommy and Eddie laughed. "Yeah, I don't want to think about Mom and Dad having sex, that's gross."

We quickly agreed on the details, and all three of the boys promised they would help me unload my storage pod when it came time to move me in. "We'll drag Chim and Ravi along, Hen, too, have it done in no time," Buck promised me.

"I'm so glad Mom married a firefighter," I teased, even as I was very touched by their offer. "It's brought so many strong men into my life who are willing to help a girl out."

"That's just the 118," Tommy assured. He stood to start clearing the table, and Eddie and I jumped up to help him. I may have also pushed Buck back into his seat when he started to help, but it was only fair that we cleaned up, after he did all the cooking. "Not all firehouses are like that, believe me. Even the 118 didn't use to be like that."

"Babe, I'm glad you're not at the 118," Buck said, then crinkled his nose and hurried to continue. "Not that I wouldn't love to have you there, but if you hadn't left, there wouldn't have been a space for me, and it wouldn't be what it is now, the family that we've made. This is coming out all wrong, isn't it?"

Tommy just laughed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I'm glad you've got your fire family, baby, and besides, regs say we can't work together if we're dating, so I would have had to leave, anyway. But I'm happy where I'm at, and you're happy where you're at, and we're happy together."

"And absolutely disgusting," Eddie muttered to me as we loaded the dishwasher. My snorting laughter made him grin. Which made the butterflies I was steadfastly ignoring flutter again.

After we'd cleaned up the kitchen, we started a game of Ticket to Ride, which is how I learned how competitive all of the boys could be. I mean, they're all very alpha male types, so it makes sense, but it was also eye-opening. And throw in my own… determination, it sort of devolved into less of strategizing on how to fulfill our own tickets and more of how to block each other in the most inconvenient ways possible. It was a blast!

But just as I'd successfully blocked Eddie from building his train to Boston, my phone started ringing. I glanced at it, not really planning on answering, but May making a fishy face at me had me changing my mind. I knew she'd been planning on going out with friends that night, so if she was calling me… I answered and put it on speaker without much thought, just concern. "May, what's wrong?"

Nothing but silence met me at first, making my apprehension dial up. I looked up at the boys, and they were all looking at me with the same worry written across their faces. "May, baby, what's wrong?"

And then a sob. "Car? Car, I think- I think my drink had s-something," she cried.

I was on my feet in an instant and heading toward the door. "Baby, where are you? I'll come get you, but I need you to tell me where you are."

She named a club downtown. "We're in the bathroom, Car."

"All of you?" I knew she'd made plans with three or four of her friends. "Are all of you in the bathroom?"

"Yeah, we're here. We're all- We all feel funny."

"Okay, stay there. I'm coming, just hang tight, okay?"

"Okay," she said, voice tiny and teary.

I'd never wanted to punch someone as badly as I did at that point, though I didn't know who, or been more panicky at the thought of what could happen to my baby sister in the half-hour or so it would take me to get to her. "I gotta go," I told the boys as I hurried to shove my feet into shoes.

"Yeah, we're coming, too," Buck told me. "It's May."

"Absolutely, I'll drive," Eddie added, pushing my hand away from my keys to pick up his, instead.

"She's got friends with her? We'll need more than one car," Tommy reasoned and took Buck's keys from the hanger.

All three of them had their shoes on with a speed that reminded me I was with three firefighters, and my heart warmed at their instant offer of help. The warmth started spilling out of my eyes just a bit, though that might have been mingled a bit with the anger and fearful concern. "Thank you, guys, so, so much," I began wetly, but Buck just kissed my head and pulled the door open.

"It's May," he said again. "She's family."

"We do anything for family," Eddie added, with a soft smile for me. "Now, let's go get our girl and her friends."

With Eddie driving his truck and Tommy driving Buck's jeep, I didn't have much to do on the way over, other than vacillate between angry and worried. Eddie's hand on my knee pulled me out of my thoughts and back to the present. "Hey, we'll get her, and she'll be okay," he told me softly. "We'll be there in no time, and she's going to be okay."

I nodded shakily. "I know, it's just-"

His hand moved to mine and squeezed. "We're going to get to her in time. I mean, yeah, tonight's probably not going to be very fun for her, but she's going to be fine."

Somehow, I found my fingers tangled in his. "I just wish- Why are men such scumbags? And I know not all men, you three are kinda proving that, but why are there so many gross men? It's disgusting! And it happens all the time! I have so many friends, I mean, I've had my drink spiked before! Why are men so gross?"

Eddie let me rant the rest of the drive, just let me keep a hold of his hand as much as he could so I didn't freak myself out further. But the moment he pulled into the parking lot of the club May had told me she was at, I flew out of the truck and toward the door. I marched straight to the bouncer, ignoring the many complaints I heard on the way. "Sorry, honey, you might be hot, but you've got to wait in line just like everyone else," he said, crossing his arms and stepping more fully into the doorway to block me.

"I'm not here to dance," I spat, anger definitely winning at this point. "My sister is in there, and she's been roofied, along with her friends."

The moment I said roofied, the bouncer's entire demeanor changed. "Go on in," he said as he moved out of my way.

"I'm with her," I heard Eddie say, but I was already charging inside.

At first, it was hard to see in the darkened interior, but before I made it even five feet in, the lights all came flooding on and the music shut off. The bouncer must have told someone, I thought distantly, but most of my focus was on getting May and getting back out again. "Where's the bathroom?" I demanded of the first person who looked like they worked there. She pointed me toward the back left, and I plowed through people to head in that direction, heedless of those I may have pushed out of the way.

"Sorry for the interruption," came over the loudspeakers, "but we've been informed that someone has slipped something into one or more drinks. Please stay calm, and we'll get back to the fun as soon as possible, but we want all our patrons to be safe. The police are on their way, and we ask that you cooperate with their questions."

The polite voice continued, but I'd made it to the ladies' room by that point and banged on the door. "May, baby, it's Carmen," I hollered, a frantic buzzing in my fingertips to both get to my sister and beat the absolute crap out of whoever had done this to her.

The door opened, and May came tumbling into my arms. "Car," she sobbed.

I stumbled under her weight, especially since two of her friends threw themselves on top, but Eddie was suddenly behind me, holding all of us up. "Hey, baby, I'm here, it's okay, it'll all be okay," I whispered. I smoothed back her hair, tucked her more firmly into my neck, and reached out to her friends. Sasha was also crying, and Mariah looked absolutely zoned out, just hanging onto May's hand without thought. "I'm here, we're here, we got you."

"Hey, May May, we'll get you home alright," Buck said with a pet to her hair.

Apparently, that was all that was needed for Sasha to throw herself at him, and he found himself with an armful of sobbing girl. I could hear someone throwing up, so I figured that's where Zoe and Bex were. And then Mariah was wandering off, still completely blank-faced.

"Mariah, come back- Tommy, will you grab her?"

A tiny woman wearing the deep purple button-up shirt of the club's uniform came over to us. "I'm so sorry this happened to all of you," she began. "The police are on their way, and we will do everything we can to find who did this to you all. While we wait, I've got a table for all of you over here, and we'll keep everyone else away from you. I'm the manager, and I'm here to do everything I can to help."

I may have sagged, for just a moment, with relief. "Thank you. May, baby, can you go with Eddie? I'll go grab Bex and Zoe, and then I'll be right with you."

May allowed the handoff, and I squeezed Eddie's hand in gratitude before heading into the bathroom. "Bex, Zoe, it's Carmen," I said, with as many soothing big sister vibes as I could shove into the words. "May's big sister? I'm here with some friends to take care of you."

The first response I got was more vomiting, then Bex called out, "We're over here."

I followed her voice to the last stall. Bex was standing, but Zoe was kneeling on the ground and all but hugging the toilet. "She won't stop throwing up," Bex told me tearfully. "And she doesn't even drink! She was just with us to dance!"

"Okay, I'm here to help," I assured, though mildly panicked to try to figure out how to help her to the rest of the group and also stay with Zoe in the bathroom.

Thankfully, Eddie is a miracle worker. "Car, can I help?" he called from the doorway.

I sighed in relief. "Yeah, I'm going to bring Bex to you. Can you take her to everyone else?"

He assured me he would, so I maneuvered Bex out of the stall around Zoe's legs, which seemed to be even longer than normal. "Zoe, honey, I'll be right back, okay?" I promised. I just got a thumbs up, even as she vomited again.

I took Bex to Eddie, and I promised he was safe. "That doesn't sound good," he said, referring to Zoe's vomiting. "I'll take Bex to the others, and then I'll be right back."

He's a paramedic, I remembered with relief. "Thank you," I breathed.

He just smiled softly. "Family, remember?"

The next ten minutes or so dragged on, since there was only so much Eddie could do without an ambulance and the supplies it carried, but then we were kindly shoved out of the way as a flood of on-duty paramedics came into the bathroom. "Good job, Diaz, but we'll take it from here," one of them said, once he'd filled her in with what had happened.

"I'll walk her out to the ambulance," he told me lowly. "Go be with May."

"Zoe, you're in good hands now, sweetheart. It's going to be okay now, you got it? We'll see you at the hospital," I told the girl they were loading onto a gurney. She just gave me another weak thumbs up, but I figured that was a good sign. Probably, right?

I made my way through the crowd outside back to May and the others. One of the uniforms tried to stop me, until May shoved out of Buck's arms to get to me. "You're okay," I whispered, over and over, into her hair.

"Sorry to interrupt, officers, but I think I found the person who did this."

I turned to see the manager coming toward us again, this time with her hand clamped over the arm of a guy who was nearly as tall as Buck, though nowhere near as broad. It would have been funny to see the petite woman all but dragging the much taller guy, had it been in any other situation. "I think Brian here was the one who slipped… whatever into these girls' drinks. I caught him trying to dump this down the drain."

I saw red. I wanted nothing more than to strangle that man with my bare hands, to make him pay for what he'd done to my girls, and for what he'd planned on doing to them afterwards. And who knew how many other girls he'd done this to?

I wasn't aware of letting go of May, not even aware of taking a step or two, but suddenly arms around me were pulling me back. "Carmen, you cannot attack him," Eddie's voice in my ear told me. "He's going to get what he deserves, but you cannot attack him."

"Let me go, Eddie," I hissed, but his arms stayed as steel bands around me, keeping me tightly against his body. "I'm going to kill him for what he did!"

"Baby, you can't. That will only see you in the same trouble he's going to be in, and you don't want that."

"Don't try to tell me what I want!"

At this point, my feet weren't even on the ground; Eddie had leaned back enough that he held me fully in the air. "I know how you feel, at least a little," he said lowly, still completely even and without sounding like he was straining at all, or feeling my feet kicking at his legs. "You want to kill him for hurting May, for daring to put her in danger. But you can't, baby, you can't do that, or you're bringing yourself down to his level. And you can't help others from prison, not like how you can out here. Even if you didn't go to prison, you'd probably be disbarred, and I know how important your work is to you. May is safe, she'll be fine, and that guy will be spending the night in jail, and then a good while in prison. And his night's not going to go well, not when I just heard someone mention Athena's name. As soon as word spreads that he tried to hurt Athena's daughter, his night in jail's going to be very uncomfortable. You gotta let this go."

May's wide eyes caught mine. "I'm okay, Car, I'll be okay," she whispered to me.

And that took all the fight out of me. I went limp, sucking in a shuddery breath as I came back to myself. "I'm good, Eddie, you can let me go."

He lowered me down, though kept his arms around me. "You sure?"

I nodded, suddenly noticing all the eyes on me. "Yeah, I'm good."

He let go, and May moved right on in again. I kept my arms around her the entire time Brian was being Mirandized and cuffed. "It's a good thing it was her big sister here and not her mom," I heard Officer Martineau laugh as he took Brian away. "Because there isn't a firefighter in the world who could have kept her mom off you."

"Even Bobby wouldn't be able to stop Athena," Buck said with a little grin.

"If only because he probably wouldn't have tried all that hard, either, with his girl involved," Eddie replied.

I smiled a bit, because it was true. But I sighed and turned to the guys. "Let's get these girls checked out, and then home if we can. It's gonna be a long night."

It was a long night in the hospital with the girls, but we were able to take them all home by morning, so we counted it as a win. And I may have fallen asleep on Buck at one point or another in the waiting room, but that's what step-stepbrothers are for, right? And Zoe, once she recovered, said it was almost worth throwing up her guts to be rescued by a guardian big sister and three smoking hot firefighters. All three guys blushed hard. It was adorable.

Bonus Scene from May's POV:

Me: I know I was drugged last night

Me: But I can't have been that out of it, right

Me: I wasn't hallucinating when Eddie called our sister baby?

Buckaroo: J nope!

Buckaroo: He totally did

Buckaroo: And neither of them even realized it

BIL: Best part of it was that it's not the first time that's happened

Me: …

Me: When was the first time?!

Buckaroo: And where was I?!

Buckaroo: And why didn't you tell me?!

BIL: Baby, you were there for the first time, you were just incredibly drunk. It was when you and Car got super drunk watching Channing Tatum, and Eddie and I had to take care of our babies.

BIL: But when did she become my sister?

Me: When you started dating Buck, duh

Me: I mean there's a in-law implied

Buckaroo: But sister still the same J

BIL: Oh

BIL: I love this family

Me: We love you too!

Me: But I'll still beat you up if you break Bucks heart

Buckaroo: He won't May May

BIL: I won't, but if I ever do, I fully expect a complete 118 beat down.

BIL: I would deserve it, after all.

Buckaroo: Ah I love you baby!

Me: Gross. Do that in your own chat.

Buckaroo: Oh we do!

Buckaroo: Now, how do we get Car and Eddie together?

BIL: Let them get themselves together. They're both crushing, it won't take long.

Buckaroo: Please?

BIL: No. No one likes meddlers, babe.

Buckaroo: Fine no meddling

Buckaroo: How about nudges?

BIL: No nudges.

Buckaroo: Meanie

AN: Carmen and Eddie are both a little dumb when it comes to feelings, but we're getting there! Thanks for reading, and a big thanks to Riordanlover16 and Angel JJK for your lovely reviews!