#and it would be a way of reconnecting Eddie and Chris - through grief - and having a conversation about Shannon and moving forward

[qwordavoider]

Parting Waves

The final chapter will hopefully be up by tomorrow, but for now, here is a snippet to get you through until then!

Eddie was about to start his fifth rep of punch combinations when Tommy put a hand on his shoulder to get him to rest. Eddie shook off his touch and all but snarled at him, “I don’t want to talk, Tommy.”

Fine, Tommy could be a jerk right back. So in a snarky tone, he spat, “Who said anything about talking. You just need to drink water, idiot.”

Eddie glared at Tommy, but underneath, he could see a deep grief eating away at Eddie. So Tommy was happy to keep taking the hits and returning them when he could. Lord knows there were times when Nan did the same for him. He braced behind the bag once he and Eddie had drunk enough water to keep going. But instead of going back to throwing punches, Eddie began pacing. Tommy stepped back from the bag and let Eddie collect his thoughts. 

“Buck told you about Shanon, my wife, right?” Eddie asks. 

Masking his shock at the way this conversation was starting, Tommy replied, “Only the basics, that she passed away earlier this year.”

“Yeah, well, what Buck doesn’t know is that Shannon left us. I mean she left me and Chris in El Paso, but she was going to leave us again right before she died,” Eddie's voice cracked on the last half of that sentence, and he looked at Tommy, just long enough to see the devastation and the anger. 

“She’s gone, and I know that’s not her fault, but there is a part of me that is still mad. Mad at her for wanting to leave before that. Isn’t that crazy? I’m mad at a dead person,” Eddie scoffed and let out a hollow laugh. 

“Is there something in particular that is bringing this back up?” Tommy dared to ask, hoping it would help prompt Eddie to keep talking. 

Eddie heaved a deep sigh and went over to the bench where they had left their stuff and collapsed onto it. Tommy followed, but stayed standing a few feet away. 

“As you probably know, the 118 has to work Christmas this year. And when I told Christopher that, he was so disappointed and... mad. I mean, last year, our Christmas was perfect. Shannon and I had just started reconnecting, and I agreed to let her see Chris. So on Christmas morning, he woke up to a giant Christmas tree in our front yard with her standing under it as his gift. How am I supposed to top that?” Eddie answered. 

“Maybe it’s not about topping it,” Tommy started, which seemed to get Eddie’s attention.

“My first Christmas without my mom was about two months after she died. And my dad didn’t even give a shit. I think he was so drunk he didn’t even know it was Christmas. So I tried to make it festive on my own, and failed miserably.”

Tommy got lost in that memory for a second before he shook it off to make his point. 

“What I am trying to say is, it doesn’t have to be perfect, or better than last Christmas. How can it be when his mom is gone? Nothing you can do will make up for that. But what you can do is show up, and make it special for him in other ways. He doesn’t need perfection, he just needs you,” Tommy finished. 

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[inawickedlittletown]

3x16 - my thoughts on Buck

Evan Buckley, why do you give me all the feels? 

Tonight’s episode had Buck connecting with a retired firefighter, Red, and really bonding over their profession and their similarities as firefighters. Buck only happens upon Red because everyone else at the 118 already has plans for the evening and can’t celebrate how well their last call went. Eddie has Chris’ first time hosting a sleepover to take care of, and everyone else has dates. But Buck cannot be deterred, so he decides to go out to a bar anyway. There he runs into Red who calls him a moron for his rescue of a deaf woman by crashing through a window in a high rise like the most badass firefighter that he is. 

The the rest of the night Red tells him stories about his own time as a firefighter and they bond over how alike they are and how much they love the job. The night culminates in Buck finding out that Red is all alone and that he doesn’t see much of anyone that he used to work with and that to top it all off the woman he loved left him and he ended up completely and utterly alone. And immediately after hearing all of this, Buck is suddenly hit with how he could easily become Red. 

Buck after all makes the job and the job alone his life. He has no one outside of work. And to top it off the same night that he met Red in the first place he was left all on his own because the rest of his team have lives outside of work and they couldn’t go out with him. I appreciate it so much that the writers brought it up in this way, making Buck question what the future will hold and suddenly having to face his fears of being abandoned and left behind because he has been abandoned multiple times and it’s trauma that we’ve never seen directly addressed. This is the trauma from Abby ghosting him and the way that he felt after the blot clots and the lawsuit earlier in the season. We also learn that he feels like Maddie abandoned him too multiple times and we even get to see Buck call her out on it. 

Because Buck is Buck, he tells everyone at the 118 about Red and everyone is very quick to reassure Buck that they will of course all still talk no matter what. They’re family. Hen does point out that people get busy with their own lives and when Buck asks about the firefighters that used to work with Hen and Chim neither has spoken to them recently and Buck’s point is made. There is no guarantee that they won’t all drift apart and it is a real concern for him. It hits Buck harder because for Buck, people leaving him behind is the norm. 

Despite feeling that way, Buck goes out of his way to find Red’s old girlfriend and of course he finds her and finds that her husband passed away. He’s so happy to be helpful and I think in some ways this is Buck trying to show himself that there is always hope and that reconnecting with someone is possible. Things are going well until it turns out that Red’s old girlfriend has alzheimers. The wrecked way that Buck looked in that moment as he and Red realized what was happening hit hard. 

One of the most heartbreaking moments in the episode happens after Red told Buck to stay away and he’s talking to Maddie about everything and we finally get to see Buck say that he’s been the person being left over and over again. For him to vocalize that pain and his abandonment issues outloud was amazing and especially so because he gets to tell Maddie that she in particular left him. Twice. This goes so well with a later scene where Maddie tells him that he won’t be like Red because he has her and the emotion in that scene not just due to the grief over Red, but because Buck so desperately needs to believe her killed me. His “You promise?”. Their pinky promise. I love the Buckley siblings so much. 

The interesting thing about Buck’s abandonment issues is that he does have people even when he thinks he doesn’t. For one, Maddie, and for another Eddie and Christopher. Maddie promises to stick around and she’s literally his closest blood relation, but Eddie is quick to include him in his night with Christopher when Buck can’t get anyone to go out to celebrate. Eddie is also the one to reassure Buck that they won’t stop talking. “That won’t happen to us,” Eddie says and he’s so sure. Bobby says “we are family” and it is so understandable that Buck can’t just take that and just believe it. So while he may fear ending up alone, it is actually likely that he won’t. Buck just has a hard time accepting that because of everything he’s been through. 

This gives us so much insight into Buck as a character from even as far back as S1 (and before that too...can we have a Buck Begins?) and how he jumped from one person to the next without much care because getting attached would just mean being left. And then when he finally does open up to someone, she goes and leaves him too. It explains how long he waited and how long he remained attached to the idea of Abby returning until he couldn’t hold on to that anymore. The episode doesn’t speak about Ali, other than Maddie mentioning how little Buck dated after Abby. Ali is the only other real romantic relationship that we’ve seen Buck in and she left him too. We also know that Buck sent Maddie Christmas cards every year even when he heard nothing from her for at least three years and that says so much about how unwilling he is to let go even after someone’s left him behind. 

This episode was also set up for Buck’s confrontation with Abby. Maddie asks Buck if he thinks about Abby still and even though we haven’t seen any indication of that before this episode, Buck says that he does. And I think what he needs is closure to finally be able to move past what happened between him and Abby. Who else thinks that Buck needs closure, why Oliver Stark does. So all of that makes me think that we’ll get it and that Buck will finally be able to put that behind him. 

In this episode we also got to see Buck just being Buck — selfless and big hearted and wanting to do anything in his power to help someone. People often talk about how much Buck gives and gives and gives but it’s all just a part of him — he needs to help others and he gets a lot of joy out of helping people. It’s what makes him feel good. And still, even after doing all he could for Red in the end, Buck feels like he made everything about himself. He isn’t cognizant of the impact that he has or how kind he is and how much he puts into helping anyone and everyone that comes into his life. This is different from the Buck that we see while he is in his uniform and saving people — where he wants to celebrate himself and a job well done because he has pride and he wants the recognition for his work. The Buck we see outside of the job is someone that doubts his actions and that doesn’t realize that most other people wouldn’t go out of their way to bring just that tiny little bit of joy to someone. And what he did for Red required a lot of work and yet Buck does it just because he can. 

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