“Ready to blow out the candles, Chris?” Eddie asks his son, who’s practically bouncing with excitement.
“Yes!” Chris practically shouts, and Eddie wastes no time picking him up and holding Chris close to the candles to do just that.
Chris takes a deep breath, with Buck holding his phone to sna the picture, and when Chris blows, he snaps the photo.
“Be sure to take enough pics for the whole family tree, okay, Buck? Nobody should have to miss this.”
With that, the dinner party has begun. Everyone wants to hug the guest of honor, and he hugs them all back just as hard.
At one point, Eddie pulls Buck aside to tell him,
“Abuela, Tia and Pepa love all the pictures you took for them. They really with they could be here.”
“Visiting family in El Paso is a perfectly good reason for them to miss it. Unlike Athena...”
Eddie asks, “It’s her house. You’d think she’d be here. Did you text her?”
Buck nods, “Yeah, but she never texted back. My hope here is she shows up before we have to take Superman home right as he’s crashing from the sugar high.”
Eddie directs the next question at Bobby, “I guess Athena had some work to take care of?”
Bobby nods, “Yeah, there’s a lot riding on her shoulders.”
Buck and Eddie take that as their cue to move towards the other guests, and find themselves talking to Lena.
“Is it just going to be tradition for someone in the firefam to be late for a big event?” Buck asks jokingly.
Lena, however, doesn’t get it, “Do you think there’s something else going on?”
Eddie notes, “Too bad Abuela’s not here to smooth everything over.”, then kisses Buck on the cheek.
The next morning, Eddie let's Buck wake Chris up in his own bed, for the first time since this whole fiasco started, while Eddie works to put away all of last night’s welcome home gifts everyone gave Chris.
When he hears Buck’s footsteps, Eddie says, “I have to say, everyone really went all out to welcome Chris back home.”
Buck jokes, “Imagine what they’ll do for a going away party.”
Eddie’s eyes widen, “Jesus, I think I just found something scarier than a tsunami.”
They share a laugh, then Eddie wraps his arms around Buck’s waist, while Buck messes with Eddie’s shirt, “It’s so nice to be able to focus on family, isn’t it? Not having to focus on…”
Here, Buck’s hands stop, finishing the thought for Eddie, “Mackey’s murder?”, then grabbing him in a hug.
They stay like that for several minutes, then Eddie’s phone rings, so Eddie pulls away to pick it up.
There’s no way to hide his confusion when he sees the caller ID, or when he answers, “Papa?”
“Hola, Edmundo. I have something I want to discuss with you.”
YOU ARE READING
I Need Them
FanfictionChase Mackey is hell bent on making the 118 pay for cheating him out of the money from Buck's lawsuit, and will do whatever it takes to get Buck to reopen it. So when he turns up dead, and the entire team are suspects, Buck has to ask himself: how f...
