The Deployment Notice

5.

"Daddy! Buck! Wake up!" A voice called, and he felt little hands shaking him awake.

He opened his eyes groggily to see Christopher standing in front of him in his pajamas.

Eddie groaned and shifted under him. Buck didn't remember falling asleep on the couch last night, but that must've been what happened.  His head was on Eddie's chest and Eddie's arm was thrown around his shoulder. The laptop was still open on the coffee table in front of them, screen black.

"Good morning, buddy." Buck yawned straitening up, or at least trying to.

"Five more minutes." Eddie grumbled pulling Buck back down, clearly not quite awake yet.

Buck laughed at that, "c'mon Chris, I think someone needs a bit more help waking up."

Chris just giggled at that and let himself fall into Eddie's lap. Then he started tickling him, clearly understanding the assignment.

Eddie thrashed at that, smacking Buck in the back of the head, "hey!" He exclaimed rubbing at the spot, and Chris let up on the tickling.

"Whats goin' on?" Eddie asked.

Buck tried not to be too disappointed when Eddie removed the arm from around his shoulders now that he was awake so he could rub his eyes.

"It's time to get up." Buck replied straightening up and stretching out his back, "go take a shower and Chris and I will make breakfast."

"Pancakes!" Chris cheered as he got up and started making his way to the kitchen, and Buck got up to follow.

"Wait Buck no!" Eddie called grabbing his wrist to hold him back, "I'm not making you cook on your last day here!"

"You're not making me do anything, I offered." Buck replied, but seeing that Eddie wasn't letting it go softened, "pleases Eddie, I want to, it might be the last time I get to for a while."

Eddie seemed to accept that and let go of Buck's arm letting him follow Chris into the kitchen and got up to go take a quick shower.

"Alright Superman, you wanna handle the mixing!" Buck said picking him up and sitting him on the counter so he could reach easily.

..............................................................

They'd ended up going to the beach, per Christopher's request. Buck had until 6 pm to leave for the airport, so they'd asked him what he wanted to do. Buck had been surprised at his request, but Eddie hadn't.

'He only wants to go with you.' Eddie had shrugged, 'plus I think he associates the beach with saying goodbye.'

And hadn't that just broken his heart for the kid, he knew the beach had been the last place Shannon, Eddie, and Chris had been together. Plus there'd been the whole tsunami debacle. He just wanted to scoop Chris up in his arms and promise him that he wouldn't die, wouldn't leave him forever, but he knew he couldn't do that on a normal day given his line of work, much less right before a deployment.

So they laughed, and played in the surf for a while, taking turns ganging up on each other for splash wars. It was a fun day, and now Eddie and Buck were relaxing on the sand while Christopher built a sandcastle a few feet away.

He was really lucky, he supposed flashing back to the other day. No one had ended up truly angry with him, despite the years of lies and omissions. There had been a lot of curiosity and questions sure, but no one had been angry, or even seemed to think all that differently of him. Somehow, he was still Buck to them.

He's pretty sure some of that might just be willful ignorance as to what exactly the true nature of a SEAL is, but for now he'd take it. Hopefully they'd never have to know any different. Eddie was not nearly as disillusioned as the rest though, he'd been in the military himself after all. He'd seen SEALs at work before.