Work Text:
five times bobby keeps the truth from buck, plus the one time that buck finds out
One.
As soon as Evan Buckley steps into his firehouse, a bumbling fresh recruit with a killer smile and enthusiasm for days, Bobby knows. He knows before he even shakes his hand that this young man is his son. The one that he gave up all those years ago, and it doesn’t take the light hair, mouth, and curled up eyes to tell him as such. It’s the way that he thinks of others first, always first on the ball to do something, anything. The way he gets so easily distracted, and the way that he can cook, with a little help from himself of course.
“What are you looking at?” Buck asks him, because that’s what he goes by. Buck.
“Nothing.” Is Bobby’s quick reply. “Just… It was a good call. For your first time out.”
He preens at the praise and smiles, cheeks wide and dusted pink. A smile like a child’s, and Bobby wonders briefly what kind of child Buck was. He was never there, couldn’t be. He was twenty five, old enough to take care of a child, sure. If he wasn’t so drunk most of the time that he barely knew his name. The drugs moving him to a place that he could never take a child in with him. Sandra was just nineteen, younger, but no less lost in the whirlwind of drugs, but she was strong. Strong enough for the both of them and she got help. Help from her parents who got her clean and took her baby in. All they asked was that she give up her rights, and then they asked himself, and Bobby, lost in debt and the horrors of alcoholism, he had no choice.
He remembers the cash handed over, the last glance at a bundle so small, eyes so blue. The guilt gnawing and twisting up within him. He asked what his name was, his son, and Bobby doesn’t know why they told him, but they did. “Evan.” They whispered and with a curl of their lips and one last signature, they were gone.
“Bobby? Are you okay?” Evan asks- Buck asks. Because this is a young man who knows only one name and it’s not Nash. It’s Buckley. It’s Buck.
“Yeah.” Bobby tries to say but he knows that must look pale, almost sickly. “I just remembered that I had to make a call later.”
Buck nods, accepting the answer and they go back to the dinner he’s cooked for them. When he gets home he looks through his old address book, the one that survived the fire stashed in a metal box with his family’s passports. His other kids. His wife. Buck’s siblings. He finds their number easily enough and calls, and when it goes dead he opens up his computer and searches for the Buckley’s he knew. The ones who left him ten grand and a hole in his heart so big that even drugs couldn’t fill it. Alcohol couldn’t touch it.
“Hello?” The voice is cold, emotionless. Empty. Just as he remembers Mr. Buckley to be, Phillip to his friends.
“Uh- Um, this is Bobby. Robert. Robert Nash.” His heart beats faster than he can breathe. He feels light headed and afraid, and a sinking feeling of, oh God, what if it really is him?
There’s a beat, a long pause, then, “What do you want?” Voice icy and cold.
“I- I- I’m a Captain at a fire station in Los Angeles and I just got a new recruit by the name of Evan Buckley… He has a birthmark above his eyebrow…” He remembers it now, and he wonders how he could ever forget. That small mark just above the eye, tinier before on that small face. Smile wonderful. A love and pride in his chest so deep. “It’s him, isn’t it? …My son.”
It’s not a question anymore. He knows. It’s him.
“Evan is our child, remember? You signed the papers, and he cannot know about this.”
That makes Bobby’s head spin. They raised him as their own, not as a grandchild, but as their own, and they never told him. Bobby somehow knew that was the case, but hearing it still leaves the breath knocked out of him. “He doesn’t know.”
“No, and we would like to keep it that way… Evan is a very testable child. Excitable if you will, and he- he’s had problems in the past. If you tell him this… It could upset him.”
“What do you mean?” A sinking feeling begins to form in his stomach, and suddenly he needs to sit down.
Another long pause before, “When he was fifteen he tried to kill himself. We’re so fortunate that his sister came home in time. That was after he found out that we were talking of divorce, you can imagine what his newfound paternity will do to him.”
Bobby’s left floored and horrified. S- Suicide? “But he’s okay, right? He’s fine.” He read Buck’s evaluations for the job, he passed with flying colours. He was noted as a bit impulsive, but in his job that’s not always a bad thing, except when it really is of course.
“He is now. But we’d prefer to keep it that way, don’t you?”
Bobby has to think about it for a long time. The last thing he wants to do is make things worse for Buck. Upset his mental health, he knows how slippery of a slope that is, but he can’t just ignore this, can he? Buck’s his son, his- his family. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?
“He’s my kid.” He tells Phillip.
“I understand, but you said you’re his Captain right? You can be around him without saying anything…” He hears a sigh over the line, then, “All I’m asking is for you to think about it. To think about what is best for Evan, not for yourself.”
Bobby nods as he rubs a hand over his face, the image of his son, just a baby in Margaret Buckley arms to Evan Buckley, his son at twenty five, young and impulsive, and kind. Filled with empathy and caring, and a need to help. Excited about life, about his new one. About this job. And then he thinks of Buck laying dying with wrists slit because his ‘parents’ were talking about divorce. And in a way, Phillip is right. Because he’s not Buck’s dad, not himself. He’s just a guy who had some drunken and intoxicated sex with their daughter. A woman by the name of Cassandra Buckley. Bobby wonders where she is. If she even knows Buck. If Buck knows her, and he wonders if Buck would even want to? Even want to know himself?
The father who signed away his rights for 10K and freedom. A mother who did much the same. Maybe Buck’s better off not knowing. Maybe they all are.
He calls them back and says to Phillip Buckley, “I won’t say anything.” And that terrible guilt twists and turns, and he’s thinking about going to a bar, but he doesn’t. Instead he thinks of his new recruit, of the son that he never got to have. Maybe he can do something now. He needs a teacher, a mentor. He can be that if nothing else, can’t he?
Two.
Bobby tells Marcy two years after they’re together about his son. The one he hasn’t heard about or from since the last time he saw him. Blue eyes and a smile that will be a heartbreaker one day. A mark above his eye, so distinct and yet Bobby has no doubt that he’s going to be a handsome devil. She’s angry at first, after all they’re already married and he kept this from her. She goes to her sister’s for a few days and when she comes back, it’s to find him on their couch curled up and not having showered for a few days.
“Oh, honey.” She whispers softly before kneeling down beside him, hand on his head, on his shoulder, gentle and kind.
There’s already tears in his eyes as he leans into her and apologizes profusely, but somewhere along the way he realizes he’s not just apologizing to her, he’s apologizing to his son. To Evan. Wherever he is. All of twelve now. He might be a soccer player or maybe he joined a science club. He’d have lots of friends, of that Bobby’s sure. A smile on his lips as he laughs and jokes around, a girl catching his eye. The first feeling of butterflies in his stomach. But Bobby can’t ever know for sure, because he’s not there. He’s here.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He sobs into her shirt and she holds him close, and forgives. Tries to forgive for his son too, but that’s not possible.
“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have left. You just surprised me.” There’s a catch in her voice, a smile playing and tugging on her lips when he pulls away. She wipes his tears and says gently, “We could hire someone to find him. You could see if he’s okay.”
He holds her close and loves her dearly. The next day he takes a road trip and watches from afar as Evan Buckley scores goal after goal into a soccer net. He can’t really see him too well and when he gets the courage up to try, he’s trapped behind a brick wall, listening to the kid say, “Did you see dad? Did you see?”
Bobby presses a hand to his mouth and chokes up at the realization that his son already has a father. A life. He leaves without looking back. Without getting a good look at all.
“How did it go?” Marcy asks when he gets home, eyebrows furrowed together and hands on her hips, concern tinging every part of her. Her love for his son, already there. No questions needed, no hesitation. Bobby has no doubt that if he brought Evan home, she’d love him like mother would, like a mother ought to.
“He has a dad, and he plays soccer. And he’s- he’s really good.” His smile is tinged in sadness and what-if’s that will never be. “And a mom, too, and a life. I can’t take that away from him, Marc.”
She kisses him gentle and lays her head on his shoulder. A couple of months later, they find out she’s pregnant, and Bobby becomes a dad all over again. Like riding a bike except it’s not. Except that it’s far more terrifying because now he has to be a dad, not just a… A father.
“Hey there, RJ.” He whispers into his son’s barely there hair, a soft blonde that matches his own, matches Evan’s. “You are so loved, and I want you to know, that you have a big brother out there named Evan. He’s a soccer player and he smiles a lot. I think that you’d get on great, I think that you’d really like him.”
Marcy holds his hand, and they hold their son, and a family they become. But Bobby’s heart will forever hold a piece of Evan there, right here with them. He exhales softly and pulls them all the more closer for it.
He wonders if Evan will ever know how much he’s loved, by so many people.
Three.
Bobby finds that as much as Buck is impulsive, he can also be still. Lost in his head, thinking too much, just like he does. He has a great sense of humour and jokes with them all constantly, and Bobby doesn’t expect it one day when Buck comes over, hand with his phone in excitement as he says, “Can you believe it!? Bruce Springsteen is coming here!? Here!?”
“It is LA, Buck.” Chimney says with a small smile. “Lots of stars come here.”
“Chimney’s right, just last month Cher was here, too.”
“Yeah, but this is Bruce Springsteen.” Buck says as he smiles wide, almost jumping up and down as he shows his phone with the webpage. Bobby never thought that Buck would be a fan, never even guessed. “I mean- Born in the USOFA!” He sings it and Bobby laughs as Chimney snickers.
“Nice voice, Buck.” Hen’s smiling wide and humorous.
Buck’s is carefree as he looks from person to person, moving around in excitement as he tries to explain that, “I used to sing along to his songs all the time! Maddie got me a cassette for Christmas for this old player we found and- and it was my favourite.”
“A cassette?” Hen raises one eyebrow.
Chimney looks confused. “Wait, I thought you were younger than me.”
“You guys, leave him alone.” Bobby feels like he has to step in as he moves closer and looks to the phone, taking it from Buck’s hands easily. He is coming here, playing in a big show, and if Buck is this excited about it… But before he can ask or try, the bell is ringing and an emergency is happening. “Gear up!” Work mode on they clear out.
The call is simple and easy, but when they get back, Buck is pouting. “What’s wrong, Buckaroo?” Hen asks, concern in her voice.
Bobby feels the much the same as he looks to the younger man who frowns impossibly at his phone. “The concert sold out while we were gone. Crap. I really wanted to go.”
Bobby watches him and frowns at his disheartened look. He remembers his own father taking him to a baseball game, but something tells Bobby that maybe baseball isn’t Buck’s game. Still, when he gets home he searches around online for the tickets, for someone who is reselling them, and he does find some. Cheap ones, and then impossibly expensive ones because they’re close to the front row. Bobby doesn’t have that kind of money, at least not really, but then he remembers Buck’s excitement. His smile.
“I scored the goal!”
His own chest rumbling with pride at how well he’s been doing lately with his whole impulsivity. At being a better firefighter. He even went to that therapist, even if it didn’t last. He tried. Determined and hard headed, stubborn, he tried.
Bobby buys the tickets, and Buck’s big smile and, “No way! Really!?” Is all the more worth it. Buck drives them to the concert and Buck screams wild for Bruce. The way he is for the singer, Bobby can’t help but wonder if Bruce Springsteen was Buck’s teenage crush or something. Maybe he was. Maybe Bobby’s okay with it either way.
“Isn’t this amazing!?” Buck yells to him through the screaming and flashing lights, and it’s not the usual way Bobby likes to spend his evenings, but he’s spending time with Buck, with Evan, his son, and his heart beats better for it. As though something in his life is clicking into place.
“It’s amazing, Buck.” He echoes and then Buck screams, and he screams right along with him. Clapping and cheering, he feels like he’s gained something worth far more than the money he spent on these tickets, and because of that, for the briefest moments, he wants to confess. To bare his soul and tell the truth to his kid, but Buck is so happy. So okay with his life right now. With Abby, with all of it. Bobby doesn’t want to screw that up for him. (When he was fifteen he tried to kill himself.) So he stays quiet, and he screams for Bruce right along with his son. For now that’s enough.
Four.
Bobby tells Athena before they marry, he says it to her with tears in his eyes and a plea on his lips. She stares at him carefully, cold and calculated, but as he unsheds the story that has built up in his chest, she crumbles, too. Right along with him, and they hold each other and she rocks him close, because this hurts. Being so close to his son and yet having him not know him. Not being what they are. Most days he can pretend and ignore, but with life and death situations, it’s not so easy.
“You need to tell him, he deserves to know the truth.” She says.
“I- I can’t.” He shakes his head and she stares at him long and hard.
“I won’t say anything. I’ll respect your decision, if you respect my opinion that I think you’re wrong. I think you don’t give that kid enough credit.”
He nods and brings their lips together, whispering between them, “It’s not that I don’t give him enough credit, it’s just that I don’t think I have enough.”
When the firetruck blows up soon after, he runs into the throes of a teenage bomber, unsteady and trigger happy. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t, because his son, his kid is trapped under a firetruck. Pinned and dying, and he can’t breathe. Because THAT’S HIS KID! He sees Buck’s blue eyes, tiny and wide-eyed, only a few days old, to this impulsive, humorous twenty six year old. Full of life and kindness, of empathy and a need to help. His amazing kid who loves Bruce Springsteen, who just wants love, and who plays video games constantly. Who’s always willing to help him the kitchen, to learn something new all the time. Who can never hold a grudge, not for long anyway.
His kid who has his smile and his hair, and his hands. His humour. His willingness to forgive everyone but himself. His kid who is irrevocably a part of him forever. Who he loves more than anyone. More than he will love anyone aside from RJ and Brook, from May and Harry. His son.
“I’m the Captain! I’m the Captain!”
He’s there with Buck through the rehabs, through the late night calls. He’s by his side at the hospital and Athena never tries to pull him away, she’s there, too. Taking in Buck like her own, just as Bobby as taken in May and Harry like his own. They’re family, there’s nothing more to be said. They were before, but something about this revelation cements it permanently.
“What if I can’t be a firefighter, again?” Buck whispers it softly, dangerously. A brokenness in his voice that hurts Bobby to hear. The instinct to say, ‘you’ll always be my son,’ comes but he never acts on it. The last thing Buck needs is that, too. So instead he touches Buck’s arm gently and tells him, “You’ll be whatever you need to be. There’s always a plan, a reason.”
“Look, I know you believe in something else, Bobby, but I-”
“You’re what, Buck? There’s more than one way to help people. You know that. Look at Maddie, you’re sister for one. We’ll figure this out.”
Buck nods and says, “Thanks, Bobby.”
But that guilt gnaws and twists as Buck lays back into his hospital bed and drifts, because in a way, Bobby is drifting, too.
“Get some rest, Buck.”
Five.
It takes a lot to get Buck into a hospital bed after the tsunami, but after seeing that Christopher is indeed okay, he goes. Bobby right by his side, heart hammering in his chest as all the thoughts run through his brain harrowing and horrible. He makes sure they give Buck the right blood and stich him up fast. He tells them about the blood thinners and he uses all his authority as a Captain. Watches as Buck’s eyes attempt to flutter shut, exhausted and in shock.
“B- Bobby.” He says, a thickness in his voice that has nothing to do with the drugs, tears leaking out, striking through the dirt and grime on his face.
“I’m here, Buck. I’m here.” He takes the hand Buck is trying to reach out with and holds on firmly, eyes on Buck’s. Blue on brown. “You’re okay now. You’re safe. It’s over.”
Buck smiles softly, eyes clouded and lost, he says, “Thanks dad.” And then he’s gone from the world of consciousness and Bobby is left shattered. Heart breaking in his chest as he feels everything come back to him in waves.
All he can do is say softly in turn, “I’ll be here when you wake up… Evan.”
Neither Chimney nor Hen mention his use of Buck’s name, but perhaps they think it’s from concern or worry. Maybe they’re thinking something else, but Bobby’s sure they’re too worried to really be thinking about any of it.
“How is he?” Eddie asks from somewhere, Christopher in his own bed, big wide eyes looking to Buck, as though if he didn’t see him he wouldn’t be there. As though he could just disappear is he looks away. Like those weeping angels from that show Buck for some reason loves so much. And Bobby wonders what really happened out there. If they’re going to be okay, but he knows Buck, knows his son. How strong he is, how he’s been through more than he realizes. So his answer to Eddie and Christopher and the other’s is true. Honest as a new day.
“He’s going to be fine.” Bobby tells him truthfully, because he knows that he will be, but there’s a smile on his lips that’s strained, because he is strained. By Buck being hurt all the time, by, ‘dad’ whispered in pain, not meant to be expect that it is. So he’s strained, pulled and tightened in all directions. Unbelievably so.
Plus One.
Bobby’s not there to hear the truth coming from the Buckley’s. He never expected that it would, but as soon as Chimney mentions in passing that Maddie and Buck’s parents have stopped by for a, ‘quick visit,’ Bobby knows that it will be anything but. He’s not particularly fond of Phillip and Margaret Buckley, although he has no reason not to be. They’ve been nothing but good to himself, to Buck. The pay off and money is probably what sets him on edge about them, but if he thinks about it, and he was in their shoes, he’d probably do the same thing. If only to ensure the well-being of a baby, just days old.
Still, he hesitates with it all.
“Finally giving the bags a break?” He says too casually as he walks into the locker room and watches as Buck untapes his hands. Eddie already having left, a nod sent his way because he tried talking to him, but Buck wouldn’t listen. Didn’t want to talk.
“Yeah, well… Gotta stay in shape, right?” Buck’s eyebrows are up high and it’s a lie, they both know it.
Bobby nods as though he’s agreeing anyway and says, “I heard about your parents.”
“Look, Bobby, I don’t want to-”
“Talk about it, yeah I know.” Bobby holds up his hand as he steps closer, a curling in his chest at the way Buck isn’t really his. Not in the way that counts because he never got to sing him lullaby’s or show him how to throw ball around. He wasn’t there for the first days or the first shave, or for the homework. The, I love you’s, and the see you later’s. But he still loves Buck. He’s a part of himself, always. There isn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think of him. Of Evan, his little bundle, so tiny and unable to sit still. Precious. A boy of twelve, kicking a soccer ball with all the might in the world. A man of twenty five, new and ready to save lives. “But they’re your parents, no matter how bad it-” Buck scoffs, and Bobby pauses.
“Look, no offense, Bobby, but you don’t get it.” Buck stands up then, eyes angry and hurt, but more sad than Bobby’s ever seen them it hurts him to see him hurt. “They were never parents, not where it counted. Maddie raised me, not them, and I- I was never good enough. Never. I wish that they had never came here.”
Bobby sees the tears, the pain, and the anger, and it’s so fresh and raw as though the wrongs they’ve committed just happened, but maybe they have. Maybe they’re always happening. A lump forms in Bobby’s throat as an idea, a picture of his son’s life starts to form in his mind. One filled with passive aggressive insults, of noses turned up. A crying child uncomforted, and feeling like a failure. And suddenly Buck makes sense. All the pieces fit together and before he knows it, he’s stepping forward and telling Buck around the lump, around his own guilt that burns, “I’m sorry.”
Buck looks confused. He tilts his head and says with a shake of it, “Why? It’s not your fault.” Then, “I’ll see you later, and thanks… Thanks for listening, Cap.”
And then he’s gone and Bobby has to sit down, suddenly tears unexpected and unhelped welling up as the picture grows a frame and hangs on a wall in his mind. ‘Cap.’ He leans into his hands, the warm salty tears slipping by as he wonders what Buck’s life would have been like if he really did scoop him up at twelve and brought him home with him. With Marcy. Would it have been better? Or would it still have been worse? It’s not as though the Buckley’s… Hurt him… Right?
-
The next day, before Bobby can decide what to do, Buck comes racing in, tears in his eyes and frustration on his lips, and just a faint glimmer of hope as he says almost proudly, “I was adopted.”
“Adopted?” Eddie’s eyebrows scrunch together as the others come closer, as Bobby remains frozen in fear, cold and white hot all at once.
“Wait, really?” Hen questions.
Buck nods his head. “My parents came clean, and- and Maddie knew, too.” He bites on the word, angry and bitter but pushes it away just as suddenly, and it’s a good thing Chimney isn’t here right now.
“Are you… Happy about this?” Eddie tries.
Buck shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. I mean, they never really felt like my parents, you know? But I- I have my original birth certificate. I got it from them, from my adoptive- from my parents.” He holds up an envelope, the end and the beginning, and Bobby feels sick. Shivers rack up his spine as he stares wide-eyed, unbelieving, lost. And so, so, not ready. But was he ever? Will he ever be? Will Buck?
He rips it open just as Hen asks, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe you should take some time to think about it first.”
“No, I- I want to know. I need to know.”
“Only if you’re sure, Buck.”
“I am.”
“Buck wait.” Bobby tries, but it’s too late, Buck is staring down at his original birth certificate in varying degrees of shock and horror, and betrayal. So cold, it burns.
Eddie and Hen both crowd around to get a good look just as Chimney walks up and asks, “What are we looking at?” His eyes drifting to the birth certificate, too.
“Holy cow.” Chimney whispers.
“Is this real?” Hen questions, eyes turning to Bobby’s just as Buck’s does.
“Bobby…” Buck says, pained, eyes filling up, about to spill over. “Are you- Are you my father?”
Bobby swallows it all down, the fear and regret, the guilt, the pain, and the overwhelming love as he nods. Heart beating so fast that it almost drowns out the words, “Y- Yes.” And he could almost laugh, because it’s like some sick soap opera or reality television show, expect there’s no script here to tell him, or anyone else what to do next. They’re just left here, with the truth, and a chasm, broadening and widening as it moves through them all.
The birth certificate reads clearly for them all to see; ‘Evan Buckley Nash.’
Suffice it so say, nothing will ever be the same again.
"I'm sorry." But it's not enough, and Bobby somehow knows that it never will be.