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Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
And look what it's done so far
—Paul Williams, Rainbow Connection
Two Hours Ago
Entering the hospital lobby, gift bag in tow, Buck pulled out his phone to find Connor’s text that included an update on Kameron and her room number. Just then his phone buzzed with a notification from Eddie.
Eddie 🐍🏙️: Hey! Are you coming over later before you have to get Chris?
Buck 🚒💨: Yes. Figured we could hang out until I pick him up.
Buck 🚒💨: 🤔 u sound like u need me to do something. Spill.
Eddie 🐍🏙️: 🤪 Not really do anything. But I’d rather not to take a shower unless someone is home.
Buck 🚒💨: Gotcha. Yeah I can play spotter. Want me to bring lunch? We should make a grocery list before u turn into a take-out meal though.
Eddie 🐍🏙️: Sounds good. And yeah. Plus you’re abandoning me on Thursday to go back to work so I probably ought to have food in the house. And we need lunch stuff for Chris for the week.
Buck 🚒💨: 👍 ok running some errands, but I’ll cya in a bit
Putting his phone away, Buck briefly considered why he hadn’t just told Eddie where he was. But he knew. He was just waiting for Eddie to feel well enough and to dig himself out of his own mental meanderings before he remembered Buck’s sorry state of affairs. He’d been lucky that Eddie had wanted to talk about Marisol yesterday, despite how that conversation ended up going.
Buck had been blessed with a day of medical leave. He had no specific issues, but he was sore and pretty banged up. Plus, he needed to get clearance from Dr. Copeland before returning to work. So, he had today and then his regular four-off to get that done and to stop feeling like one big bruise.
They were supposed to be on shift today, and the original plan had been for Carla to get Chris up and dressed and off to an all-day robotics meet. Then Eddie’s cousin Rafael was supposed to pick him up and take him home for the night. Chris, however, had decided that, with Eddie at home, he’d rather come home, too—apparently, he liked his cousins, but they were just enough younger that a night with his broken-down dad watching TV on the sofa and Chris holed up playing computer games in his room seemed like a better option.
(Buck also suspected that Chris didn’t want to let Eddie out of his sight for too long either—and that was something they were going to have to get his therapist on top of.)
So, Carla had gone to the Diazes this morning and wrangled both father and son. And Buck was on the hook to fetch his favorite Diaz later this afternoon. Which left Buck with time on his hands and Connor’s text message poking at his brain.
Buck didn’t really know what Connor and Kameron wanted out of this relationship. It was confusing. It was all so casual, and he really wished he’d been less wrapped up in the knight-in-shining-armor fantasy of helping them have a baby and more his usual internet-spiraling self. Because other than some tests and medical history collected by the fertility clinic, there’d been no real paperwork or formal agreement. He hadn’t really noticed it until much later, when he was at home and bored after his misadventure. And what an internet spiral that had resulted in.
And then a little over a week ago, Kameron had shown up at his loft. He guessed he was lucky that he didn’t have a date (or something a little more R-rated) planned on the first Friday he’d had off in a month.
(And that he was home spending the evening prepping meals for the next week since he’d already agreed to go over and help Christopher with his mission project on Saturday, and figured, based on the intricacy of the junior architect’s plans, that he’d be camping out on Eddie’s couch and continuing their building efforts into Sunday. Not that there was much of any of those meals left by the time he got home on Sunday night—Kameron had worked her way through just about everything he’d made.)
But, yeah. That made things even more confusing. He and Connor had been friends at one time, and Connor and Kameron had kept him updated on the progress of her pregnancy. But, really, he hadn’t seen much of Connor since he’d moved out of the house share and into Abby’s place. They’d met up for drinks a couple of times that summer (at Buck’s invitation), after Abby left on her long explore, but then that trickled off when Buck realized that he was the only one pursuing the friendship. He hadn’t even known that Connor had gotten married. So, while Buck prided himself on maintaining friendships and had many friends from all over the country who had made the effort to keep in touch with him, Connor hadn’t even made that effort in the same city.
Huh.
Anyway, he figured he’d pay them a visit at the hospital and then, pun happily intended, cut the cord. He really didn’t want to be in the middle of their marital squabbles anymore. It wasn’t healthy for him, and it seemed intrusive of them. They must have friends and relatives of their own because they certainly hadn’t been hanging out with Buck for the past five years.
Buck pushed the elevator button. He wondered if it was possible to set up some kind of agreement after-the-fact. He hadn’t really imagined a situation where the donees were wanting more contact than the donor wanted. It was really just kind of strange.
A rather good-looking blonde woman stepped up next to him to wait for the elevator. They both got in and, when Buck punched “3” and glanced over at her, she smiled and said, “Nope, that’s me, too.” He noted that she was also carrying a baby-themed gift bag.
Buck pulled out his phone and opened his grocery list app. He needed to shop for Eddie, but he also needed some stuff for his own apartment after the devastation left in Kameron’s wake. He liked staying over at Eddie’s and planned to spend some time there over the next few days, but the huge bruise that he’d been left with in place of his body was better off sleeping in his own bed now that there wasn’t a pregnant woman camped out in it.
He supposed he was lucky that he lost his mother’s ugly couch instead of his two-thousand-dollar memory foam mattress.
The elevator doors opened on the third floor, and he followed the signs to Labor and Delivery, the blonde woman trailing behind him. Entering the ward, he nodded to the nurse at the desk and continued following the signs to Kameron’s room.
When he reached the room, he knocked softly on the partially-open door. Connor, who was sprawled on a small sofa near the window, looked up and smiled.
“Hey,” Buck said, keeping his voice down. “Is this a good time?”
Connor jumped up. “Buck! Yes! Come in. They just took Carter down to the nursery for a few tests, but you can keep Kameron from fretting while we wait for him to come back.”
Urgh. Buck wondered why Connor had been lounging on the sofa half asleep if Kameron was upset. Or why he’d phrased it that way if she wasn’t. But into the room he went. Give the gift, chat a few minutes, cut the cord.
And it was a bonus that the baby wasn’t actually in the room. He’d have to think later about why that decreased his anxiety over the visit.
“Buck!” Kameron smiled at him widely from her bed. She was dressed in a pale pink tracksuit, looked like she’d recently showered, and had been poking at her phone. So, not fretting. Good grief.
“Hi!” Buck approached the bed. He passed over the gift bag. “I got you a little something.”
Kameron smiled at him. Really, he liked Kameron when she wasn’t sleeping in his bed and eating all of the food in his apartment. They’d gotten along well during the week she’d stayed with him. She was a little flighty, but then, some people thought that Buck was, too. He was happy to have helped her. Like Ali, she was an interior designer, and she’d gushed over his loft—everything except the couch, which they’d had a laugh about. She’d promised to send him some links to a few that would match the aesthetic of his apartment but were also comfortable to sit on. Which made Buck realize that if Kameron didn’t follow through—she had a lot on her plate right now—he probably could just ask Ali for a few recommendations. She’d picked the original one for him, and he’d loved it. If he ever moved in with someone again, he was going to rent a storage so that he could keep his stuff.
Which was probably a bad attitude to have about moving in with someone, but once burned.
“Oh, Buck. You didn’t have to. You’ve done so much for us already.” Kameron was still smiling warmly at him.
Buck looked down and shuffled his feet nervously. He’d experienced a little post-purchase anxiety but had decided to just give it to them anyway. “Eh. I saw it and thought it was cute.”
Kameron opened the bag and giggled. She pulled out the firetruck romper and the three pairs of firetruck socks. “This is adorable.”
Buck smiled. “I included lots of socks because my sister was constantly complaining about losing one or the other when my niece was a baby. Apparently keeping socks on a baby’s feet is a thankless task.”
“Knock knock!” A chipper voice called out. Buck looked over his shoulder to find the blonde woman from the elevator at the door. She gave him a grin. “Well, I guess I should have just followed you. I stopped to check the room number on my phone and then got all turned around.”
Buck smiled. “Yeah, these hallways go round and round. I’d luckily been up here a couple of times before.” Just the other night, in fact. Plus, he’d visited Maddie when she had Jee—or at least waved at them through a window since COVID regulations were still going strong at that point. They’d only let him up because he’d gone to Maddie and Chim’s apartment and collected their go-bags since they’d both gone to the hospital straight from work.
“Kamila!” Kameron cried out. “You’re back!”
“Just last night,” the woman—Kamila—said. “As usual, I missed all of the excitement.”
Kameron turned to Buck. “This is my sister Kamila. She’s the reason I crashed with you for a few days. She was out of town at a conference.” She turned back Kamila. “This is Buck. Who probably needs maid service and a grocery order after I invaded his apartment last week.”
Kamila groaned. “You’re a menace. The last time you stayed with me, you ate all of the Oreos that I’d hidden in the back of the freezer and used every towel in my linen cupboard.”
Kameron snorted. “If you don’t want me to find the Oreos, then you should find a new place to keep them. And I like clean towels.”
Buck was torn between wanting to make a quick exit now that the pleasantries were over and watching the show.
“Kamila. Nice to see you.” Connor stepped up to join them at Kameron’s bedside.
“Connor,” Kamila said, turning to examine Connor like a bug under a microscope.
Oooo. Burn. Buck could feel the frost in Kamila’s greeting.
“Kamila. Be nice.” Kameron’s smile had been replaced by a scowl.
Kamila gave her a wicked grin. “I was deprived last week. I have to make up for it.”
Kameron snorted. “Trust me. I said it all in your place.”
Okay, now Buck was getting uncomfortable, floorshow or not. “Hey! I’m gonna skedaddle. It’s great to see you doing so well.”
Kameron smiled at him. “Okay, Buck. You’ve dealt with the Kameron and Connor show enough this past week. And I’ll send along those couch listings. I guess you’re going to need to use them sooner rather than later.”
Buck snorted back a laugh. “Oh yeah. That monstrosity is sitting by the dumpsters waiting for pickup.”
Kamila looked back and forth between them, her nose wrinkling in confusion. “Couch?”
Kameron laughed. “I’d already promised Buck to forward him some suggestions—his couch kind of sucked compared to the rest of his place. But then I had a baby on it, so I guess that solved his hideous couch dilemma—aside from now needing to replace it.”
Kamila looked back and forth between them. “You had the baby on his couch? You didn’t tell me that.” Now Kamila was looking at her in a very familiar way—Buck had seen that look coming from Maddie on more than one occasion.
Kameron squirmed a bit. “I didn’t want to worry you. And it was fine. We’re fine. And Buck is a firefighter. He did great. Carter just wasn’t going to wait.” She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. “All those months of birthing classes and reading about labor and planning the whole birth experience and all of that shit, and the whole thing was over in about ten minutes.”
Kamila shook her head, mouth twitching and obviously trying not to laugh and ruin her stern expression. “Only you, baby sister. Only you.”
Connor stepped forward, holding out his hand for Buck to shake. “Thanks for everything, Buck. We’ll see you around, I guess.”
And that was Buck’s cue to go. “Yep, see you around.”
Buck kind of figured at this point that if he didn’t call Connor, he wouldn’t hear from him. He now kind of suspected that Connor had sent the update and room number at Kameron’s insistence, rather than thought to do it on his own.
Buck headed for the door just as a nurse wheeled in baby Carter in a little plexiglas bassinet. He looked at the baby, waved good-bye, and then headed for the hills.
He was a little ways down the hall when he heard rapid footsteps behind him. “Buck!”
He stopped and turned to find Kamila hurrying to catch up with him. He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow at her.
She stopped in front of him. “Walk me down to the coffee shop. I’m going to get those bozos some drinks and snacks.”
They set off down the hall. “You didn’t want to stay and see the baby now that he’s back?”
Kamila shrugged. “I’m going back up after I procure sustenance for my garbage scow of a sister. Plus, the nurse said that the doctor would be up in a few minutes to go over the test results.”
Buck wondered what that was about. “He’s fine, right? The baby? I didn’t ask what they were testing him for—I figured it was none of my business.”
She reached over and patted him on the shoulder. “Oh no. It’s fine. There’s a bunch of standard tests that they do on newborns—blood, heart, hearing, that kind of thing—before they discharge. Kameron texted me yesterday that he was healthy as a horse and eating well, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
As they strolled along towards the entrance to Labor and Delivery, she looked over at him. “I wanted to thank you.”
Buck looked at her. He realized that he’d probably furrowed his brow in confusion when a dull pain radiated through his head. “Thank me?”
Her brow furrowed as she examined him. “Are you okay? That’s quite the contusion you’ve got going on there.”
Buck shrugged. “I’m good. We were the fire station involved in that bridge collapse on Thursday. I got up close and personal with the windshield of an ambulance—from the outside. Nothing broken, though. Just bruised from head to toe.”
She stopped and examined him. “You fell onto an ambulance from a bridge and then went home and delivered my nephew on your couch?” She gave a gruff laugh. “Good grief. I go out of town for a week, and it’s like a soap opera takes place during my absence.”
Buck laughed. “That’s pretty much what my friend Eddie said. Thursday was one medical emergency after another.”
She tilted her head and put her hand on his arm. “Are your friends okay? You seem to have gotten off lightly, but I saw that whole mess on the news.”
Buck nodded. “Yeah. Eddie has broken ribs. And a couple of the others had a variety of fairly major things going on, but they’re doing fine now. My sister’s boyfriend, who works with me, was the last to get discharged, and he went home last night. We were really lucky overall. It all could have been much worse.”
She nodded and then started walking again. He held the door for her at the Labor and Delivery exit, and they made their way to the elevator.
“So, my thank you. First of all, I think it’s only fair that I say that I know who you are. Kameron has told me everything about her and Connor’s shenanigans with this pregnancy.”
“Ah. Well.” Buck pushed the button to call the elevator. “You don’t have to thank me for that. I chose to do it, and I’m happy with the decision.”
Kamila smiled warmly at him. “Oh, I figured. And they should be thanking you for that themselves. Hopefully, they already have. But no. I want to thank you for helping my sister last week. She put you into a tough spot, and you had every right to turn her away. I mean, I know you were friends with Connor”—Her nose scrunched up like she’d smelled something off. Yegads.—“at one point. But I’ve never met you before, so I can only assume that you’re one of the many people that have been replaced by his shiny new business associates.”
Good grief. “Um, yeah.” Buck stopped in front of the elevator and pushed the Down button. “I really hadn’t seen Connor since a couple of months after I moved out of the house we both lived in. Which was in 2018, so, yeah. It had been a while.”
“Hmmmm.” Kamila, arms crossed over her chest and tapping her toe as they waited for the elevator, looked mildly displeased. Then she smiled. “Well, it’s nice to see he has some good taste. Want to join me for a cup of coffee before you make your escape and I return to, as my sister put it, the Connor and Kameron Show?”
The doors opened. Buck stepped to the side and ushered her in first, then stepped into the car. Cup of coffee with a beautiful blonde, who might give him some insight into what to do about the whole Connor and Kameron mess, before an afternoon with his Diazes? It sound like a plan.
“Sure. I’m in.”
Now
Buck turned his key in the lock and opened the front door of Casa Diaz. “Lucy! I’m home!”
Eddie waved at him from where he lounged on the couch. “Ha ha ha. If anything, I’m Ricky, and you’re Lucy.”
Buck snorted. “So you’re the exasperated Cuban husband, and I’m the crazy wife getting up to madcap shenanigans?”
Eddie smirked and gave a little huffing laugh. “Sounds about right to me. Just don’t ask me to carry a tune.”
Buck wandered over and joined him on the couch, squooshing himself into the space between Eddie’s feet and the armrest. He sighed as he sat down. He was definitely ready to relax for a bit before he needed to go pick up Christopher.
“That good, eh?” Eddie’s head tilted, and he looked Buck up and down. “Still feeling okay? I know you said you were fine, but you did fall off a bridge.”
Buck laid his head back on the cushions and groaned. “Not too bad. Getting up this morning was extremely difficult. But I’ve been out and about today, and everything loosened right back up. I’m just moving a little more slowly than usual. I’m extremely glad for the day off, that’s for sure.”
Eddie grinned at him and gave him a little shove with his foot. “Well, now I know you have to feel like shit if you’d admit to that.”
Buck shook his head. “I’m fine. And I still have four more days off before I have to be more than fine. Now go take your shower so that I can stand to sit here next to you.”
“Asshole. I had a shower Thursday night while Carla was still here, since I was still covered with bridge fragments. It’s not like it’s been days.” Giving him one more poke with his big toe, Eddie moved his legs to the floor and started to sit up. He groaned and flopped back against the sofa cushions. “Um, I need help. I think I’m stuck.”
“Stuck? Sounds like a you problem to me.” Buck rolled his head sideways and grinned. Then he hauled his black and blue ass back off of the couch and turned, offering Eddie his hand. “Come on, let’s get you in the shower. We’re both suffering from two-days-after syndrome, I think, on top of the injuries.”
Eddie grabbed his hand, and Buck eased him forward and then helped him stand from the cushy, ass-sucking couch. “Did you take your meds this morning?”
Glaring as he straightened, and then groaning, Eddie nodded. “Yeah. But I sat down there right after Carla and Christopher left and haven’t moved since. So, I think I turned into concrete.”
Buck nodded. “Sounds about right. It’s why I’m trying to keep moving around a bit today. Every time I sit for too long, it all seizes back up. If you feel up for it, we can take a little stroll later. You’ll feel better if the rest of you doesn’t hurt as much as your ribs already do.”
Eddie huffed. “Right now, that doesn’t sound so great. But let me take a nice, long, hot shower, and we’ll see. It’s probably a good idea.”
Buck smiled. “I’m full of good ideas, Eds.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Eddie started moving slowly towards the hallway. “I’m going to go get both the shower and myself ready. It should be fine, but I’ll call you when I’m about to get in. The best thing I ever did was get that walk-in shower and folding shower chair installed last year.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking of doing the chair at my place. The downstairs shower is already walk-in, but the chair would be nice to have for injuries.” Buck lounged back on the couch.
Eddie cocked his head. “Can you do that? It’s an apartment.”
Buck laughed. Here we go. Over four years and Eddie won the prize for being the first person to question him about his apartment. “It’s technically a condo, Eds. I own it. I can do whatever the fuck I want as long as I go through an approval process. And, for stuff like installing a shower chair? I can just do that whenever. It’s not load-bearing and doesn’t affect the plumbing or electrical in adjacent units.”
*-*-*-*
(Middle of story; Buck reveals that he met a cool woman when he’s sitting there texting with Kamila when Eddie comes out of the shower. He confesses where he met her and fills him in on the hospital visit. Eddie has CONCERNS.)
Eddie looked over at him, his face doing that weird frowny thing that it did when he was thinking really hard. “You know, you say that I don’t believe in signs. But, if I were going to believe in them, I’d say that that whole sperm donation thing was one big sign.”
Buck stifled a laugh because no—Eddie certainly did not believe in signs. Then he realized that Eddie was still frowning. “What do you mean?”
Scootching a bit into the couch and groaning a bit as he relaxed back against the cushions, Eddie sighed. Turning his head towards Buck, he asked, “How many times did you attempt to donate? And what happened to stop you?”
[List of things]
“Okay. And after all of that, Connor and Kameron showed up angry at the station.” Eddie reached over—again a groan—and poked Buck in the leg. “At your workplace, to air your private business. Did it even occur to you at that point to tell those ungrateful jerks to pack sand?”
Buck swallowed. That wasn’t the most embarrassing thing that had happened to him at work, but it was right up there. “Um, no. I felt bad because I’d told them that I would do it.”
Eddie gave Buck another poke. “And you did! Or tried to at least. Multiple times, none of which were your fault. Did they even know about those times, or did the fertility clinic simply tell them that you hadn’t donated yet? Because that seems very unprofessional, too.”
“They apologized later.” Buck didn’t know why he was defending them. They’d embarrassed him at work, and he’d had a overall miserable month trying again and again to fulfill his promise. And now, after today—after the whole last week—he was pretty much done with their antics altogether.
Eddie sighed. “And then. Then you tried again, and your car broke down. You told me that you had to sprint to the clinic. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.” He paused and looked down, playing with the pattern on what Buck had come to think of as Eddie’s Emotional Support Pillow. “Buck, I’m going to say something that’s probably going to piss you off. But I want you to think about it. You said that you agreed because you wanted to help them. And that you’d read that book about saying yes. And I accept that Hen was probably the best person to talk to out of all of us, since she and Karen had both fostered and went through IVF with a sperm donor. But Buck?”
Buck looked up to find Eddie’s brown eyes full of compassion.
Eddie reachedover and laid his hand on Buck’s knee. “How much of your decision was because you felt that you had spare parts to give out and wanted to offset your brother’s death?”