Buck's Baby (By Accident)

Buzzed

Going back to work was both a relief and a test of Buck's strength. As much as he knew Aidan's illness was of no fault of the daycare, he was still extremely hesitant to bring the baby back there and it had taken almost an hour of talking with Eddie and the director of the daycare to convince him that everything would be okay. They'd agreed that Buck would receive 2 hourly updates on Aidan (he'd initially suggested half hourly but a look from Eddie had shut that down very quickly) and Buck would be allowed to call to check in whenever he needed to. Carla had very kindly offered to look after the baby while Buck went back to work for the first week but had then firmly told Buck that he needed to resume his regular schedule of childcare, stating that she had other work to do and as much as she loved Buck and Aidan, she needed to get back to her own job.

Bobby had been remarkably lenient with Buck and all the time he spent glued to his phone, waiting for an update to come through. Hen was significantly less lenient and had told Buck in no uncertain terms that if he asked her one more time if she thought Aidan's stools looked normal then she would throw him off the nearest building. Chimney, initially finding Buck's fussing amusing, had eventually taken pity on the rest of the crew and had roped Maddie in, much to Buck's annoyance when he got off a 2-hour long phone call with his sister during which she told him about the time she'd nearly drowned Jee-Yun in the bathtub and how long it took her to get over the fear that something like that would happen again. As much as he pretended to dislike Maddie's lecture, Buck had to admit that it had talked a bit of sense into him and he'd stopped projecting his stress onto everyone else, much to the relief of the whole station.

The only person who'd stayed unnaturally quiet on the topic of Buck's son was Eddie. Hen and Chimney couldn't help but notice that while they teased Buck, Eddie, who was usually very keen to join in on anything at Buck's expense, would be the first to scold them, stating they needed to have more empathy towards the man. Considering it was usually Eddie who started any sort of teasing, this was deeply unsettling for Hen and Chimney. Hen had had her suspicions of Buck and Eddie's relationship ever since Buck confided in her about the kiss and this behaviour only strengthened them as she'd catch the way Eddie's hand would linger on the small of Buck's back if they walked together, or the way Buck would blush delightfully whenever Eddie said something that remotely resembled a complement.

Neither Buck nor Eddie had actually discussed when they might tell the team that they were together. They'd been officially dating for 2 weeks now and although they'd not been making a conscious effort to hide their relationship, they'd also not decided when might be the right time to "come out", as it were. Eddie had thought that the celebration they'd had the day Aidan turned 6 months (this was the excuse Buck had used to invite everyone over but in reality he'd just wanted to have his whole family around him now that Aidan was home from hospital) was the perfect opportunity to spill the beans but Buck had disagreed, stating that an announcement like that would take the limelight off Aidan and considering that it was his half-birthday party, it wouldn't be fair on the baby. Eddie had argued that Aidan was barely old enough to recognise anyone that wasn't him, Buck or Christopher, and wouldn't remember the event but this had fallen on deaf ears. So, another week went by and no formal announcement had been made. Behind the scenes, however, Hen had started a sweepstake on how long it would take for them to come out with it. The current favourite was that they'd have said something by the end of the week, the only person betting against that being Bobby, who firmly believed that neither of them would actually come out and say it, more that it would be extracted from them under extremely uncomfortable circumstances. And that is almost exactly what happened.

They were out on a call when it happened. A scaffolder had slipped and fallen off the edge of the scaffolding and was now hanging on for dear life, 12 floors above the ground. Bobby had immediately instructed for the rescue cushion to be brought out and inflated and had placed Eddie and Chimney in charge of this while Buck was told to harness up and go up the ladder to see if he could reach the man from there.