Title: Figuring It Out
Series: The Smile in Your Eyes
Series Order: 4
Fandom: 9-1-1
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Family, Fix-it
Pairing: Evan Buckley/Tommy Kinard, background Eddie Diaz/Lucy Donato
Rating: R
Warnings: Canon-level situations, Violence
Author Note: This starts a little more seriously than the rest of the series thus far, but it lightens up eventually. I’m planning one more part in this miniseries to tie up some loose ends. If there’s any confusion about referenced canon events, please see the notes tab on the series page.
Timeline: Season 8
Challenge: Big Moxie, Q1-2026, Fix-it; Just Write Create Your Own Bingo – Bad Things Happen, Prompt: Attacked
Word Count: ~5600
Summary: Tommy gets a visit from Eddie at the airfield because things have gone wrong. Again. Of course they have. Clearly, they need a new cleansing ritual.

Figuring It Out

Tommy tossed a coil of rope aside to be double-checked. He’d seen some fraying, so it wasn’t suitable for the helicopter kit, but based on where the fraying was, the damage was likely related to equipment connections. If the rest of the rope was sound, they could remove the damaged section and cut it to a shorter spec for one of the other apparatuses.

Equipment checks were a pain, but he always insisted on doing his own. Every inspection, every shift.

A familiar voice caught his attention, but it was far enough away that he wondered if he was imagining it.

Then Eddie Diaz walked into view, escorted by his captain, who was pointing to Tommy.

Tommy blinked a few times. “Hey, Eddie. It’s been a minute since you dropped by.”

“Yeah. Life’s been a little crazy.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “I understand.”

Eddie raised a brow at the tone. “You probably think you understand, but it wasn’t about you and Buck breaking up.”

“It’d be fine if it were, man. I get it.”

Eddie shook his head. “He never asked me or anyone else to avoid you or whatever else you might be thinking.”

“I figured, since I hear from Howie and Hen as much as ever. Well, more than usual in Hen’s case, since she and I weren’t in touch before the hurricane. But you’re his best friend, so I get it if you—”

“It wasn’t taking sides,” Eddie snapped, then dragged his hands through his hair. “I hadn’t been seeing Buck all that much either for a while.” His shoulders seemed to rise up closer to his ears, as if tension were mounting, and then he blew out a breath, and all the tension seemed to bleed away. “I wasn’t doing well… Chris being gone, another failed relationship. Buck always tries to help, and maybe he knows me too well. He’s gotten too good at not letting me off the hook, and I just wasn’t ready for it. He eventually just went around me and got all up in Christopher’s face about stuff, which ultimately forced us to work things out.”

Eddie shook his head. “He’s a good friend who fixed everything for me when I thought it couldn’t be fixed. But at the time, we saw each other at work, and hung out sometimes, but it hadn’t been that much, and I even sometimes misled him… Or rather let him mislead himself into thinking I was seeing you.” Eddie gave a mirthless laugh. “He was weirdly happy about that, you know? He wanted you and me to keep being friends.”

Tommy had no idea where any of this was going. “But you didn’t want that…?”

“No, I did. I do.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Buck has weird ways of handling stress; did you know that?”

“I assumed his research spirals were part of his stress system.”

“Maybe? Sort of? I think of it more as actual curiosity, ADHD, and his anxiety system. It helps him feel in control when everything is out of control. But his research spirals for other people certainly can be about stress or worry. But if he’s just stressed, he sometimes acts weird. And sometimes the weird takes us by surprise.”

Tommy crossed his arms and leaned against the frame of his helicopter. “Oh?”

“I’ve seen him at the end of quite a few relationships, and sometimes the stress of that has him cleaning his house and my house and the fire station. Sometimes it has him organizing Chris’ schoolwork within an inch of its life.”

“Are you here because your house is clean and your son’s schoolwork has been micromanaged?”

Eddie shook his head, staring down at his shoes. “Turns out that exerting control over dirt and paperwork is how Buck handles what he perceives to be failure. When he’s brokenhearted, which I guess I’d never seen before, he bakes. And he bakes, and he bakes.”

“Bakes?” Tommy echoed

“Yep. I’m surprised there’s any flour left in all of Los Angeles. If he were a bad baker, it wouldn’t be so bad, but he’s damn good at it, and he was getting better too. We were all putting in extra workout time, and Bobby was considering banning Buck’s baked goods from the station lest he have to order us all new uniforms.”

It was Tommy’s turn to rub his hand over his face. “Eddie…”

“I don’t know what happened between you two,” Eddie said, finally looking up, and Tommy realized how upset Eddie looked. “He never said, and anytime anyone asked, he wouldn’t give a real answer. Weirdly, I think Josh knows, but Josh is like Fort Knox with a secret if he knows it’s a secret. He’s like the anti-Chimney.”

“I’m not going to talk to you about this if Ev- If Buck isn’t.”

Eddie shook his head. “I’m not asking you to.”

“Then what are you asking? For me to save you from tasty pastries? Because it doesn’t seem like such a hardship.”

“I wasn’t avoiding you, all right? We got Chris back, though there was this damn tornado, and then we barely started getting settled back into life here when Buck and Chris got stuck in a stupid elevator during that little quake a few weeks back.” Eddie huffed. “Then there was the mudslide.”

“Are you freaking serious right now?”

“Believe me, I know. We’ve actually performed rituals around the house. I don’t actually believe in curses, but if I did…” He trailed off and winced. “Maybe we are cursed.”

“Eddie—”

“I just need to know… Do you care about him at all? Or was this just fun for you and easy to walk away when you were done? Because months down the road, and my best friend was still refusing to date, still baking like his heart could be fixed by cream puffs, and staring moodily at your picture on his phone.

“I need to know if it mattered to you a fraction as much as it mattered to him.”

Tommy sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets, not wanting to have this conversation, resenting that Eddie had brought this to his job. “Why now, Eddie? Why bring this up at work, man?”

“Just answer the damn question, Tommy!” Eddie snapped.

“Of course it mattered,” Tommy bit back. “It still matters. But I had to do what I thought was the right thing.”

“Right thing for who?”

“For both of us.”

“I think you mean for you, because you did not do the right thing for Buck, I can promise you that.” Eddie looked away, his expression tight.

“Eddie,” Tommy said, feeling like he’d aged ten years. “I’m not going to do this with you, man. Not here, not now. Maybe not at all. It’s good to see you and everything, but if you want to be friends, this isn’t the way to reconnect.”

Eddie shook his head, staring toward the bay doors leading into the station. “We worked the worst accident scene yesterday. It seemed like there were cars on top of cars. In reality, there was only one car on top of another car, but there were at least a dozen cars involved, and the work seemed to go on forever. Traffic was backed up, and people were so impatient to get on with their day, not caring about the injured and the dying in the face of their inconvenience.” Eddie’s breath hitched. “So impatient.”

“Eddie…?”

“This one guy wouldn’t listen that he had to wait, that he couldn’t just leave. I mean, there wasn’t any way for him to leave. The road wasn’t clear, he’d have had to drive on the sidewalk, assuming his car was drivable, which it wasn’t. But he kept saying he had to go, that he had to get back to work. He wasn’t hurt; he just was impatient.

“And the police told him to sit on the curb and be quiet, that he couldn’t just call an Uber because they needed to get his information for the accident report, and he wasn’t a high priority. Buck was trying to be nice to the guy and help get his rear car door unstuck so he could get some paperwork out. I wasn’t even over there at the time.”

“Eddie?” he asked again, feeling more alarmed, pushing away from the helicopter.

“We didn’t even know there was a problem until Buck was on the ground and the police were tackling the guy, and there was blood everywhere.”

Then he had Eddie by the upper arms. “Eddie, what happened to Evan?”

“He stabbed him with a fucking screwdriver. He got mad because he couldn’t get back to work for his stupid meeting, and he stabbed Buck three times.” Eddie gave a mirthless laugh that resolved into a choked-back sob. “I’m so tired of my best friend trying to die in the street, Tommy.”

Tommy felt like he couldn’t breathe. Like the world had narrowed down to that moment. “Evan…” He couldn’t even get the words out.

“So much blood,” Eddie whispered, looking through Tommy. “And he asked for you,” his gaze sharpened. “While we were trying to keep him conscious, he kept saying ‘where’s Tommy,’ and ‘Tommy, let me explain,’ and it just went on and on. He was somewhere else; we were barely keeping him alive, and he just kept calling for you.

“And I was torn, man, I was wondering if we should call you right away because we didn’t know what was going to happen, but then Hen said conscious Buck’s wishes were what mattered, not a Buck who didn’t even know who he was speaking to.”

Tommy felt like his world was hanging in the balance of the answer to his next question. “Is he okay?”

Eddie shrugged. “Long surgery, lost too much blood. They had to remove a section of small bowel that was too damaged to repair. He’s in the ICU. He’s only woken up once, and that was only briefly. I happened to be the one sitting with him. He was in a lot of pain, but more lucid than I would have expected. I asked him if he wanted me to contact you, and he said, ‘Why would you do that?’ He spiked a high fever a little while ago, and they’re worried about sepsis, not a surprise considering the jerkoff tried to turn Buck’s small bowel into Swiss cheese.

“Ultimately, it was my choice whether or not to tell you because I still hold Buck’s medical proxy.”

Tommy squeezed his eyes shut and let Eddie go, stumbling back a step. “And he doesn’t want to see me.”

“I didn’t say that,” Eddie snapped. “You were practically the only thing on his mind when he was bleeding out in the damn street and sliding into hypovolemic shock. But when he was tired but lucid, he was confused why we would call the guy who broke up with him months ago. He doesn’t think you’d care.”

“Of course I care!” Tommy nearly snarled.

“Then show it! Get your ass down there and fight for the relationship the way you should have been fighting all along! Stop this dumbass routine you’ve got going. I don’t know what the fuck happened, Tommy, but if it comes down to shitty communication, you two need to fucking fix it.”

“Eddie.” Tommy rubbed his hand over his mouth. “You don’t know. I messed up.”

“I already knew that!”

“I thought you said you didn’t know what happened.”

“I don’t, but I know Buck, and sorry, man, but he’s the most loyal, loving person I’ve ever met. He goes all in, all the time on people. And if that was too much for you, then that’s fine. You didn’t feel the same, I can’t fault you for that. But if you felt the same and just got fucking scared, then yeah, you messed up.”

“He’s got me on this fucking pedestal, man.”

Eddie frowned. “What?”

“He sees me as some idealized gay man who has it all figured out.”

“I’m sorry, but what now? Because Buck doesn’t have you on a pedestal. He’s fully aware of your faults. I mean, he does tend to think most of them are cute, but he recognizes them as faults. If he had you on a pedestal, he wouldn’t see the faults at all. Also, did he actually say he sees you that way, or that what you inferred from what he said?”

“Maybe a little bit of both?”

“Tell me what the fuck he said, then.”

Tommy repeated as close to verbatim as he could remember.

Eddie sighed and rubbed his hand over his eyes. “You two are a couple of dumbasses. If he’d stumbled with his communication over anything but you, you’d have either seen right through it or bothered to get clarification, but because it was about you, you sprinted for the door. At least now I know why he thinks you’re biphobic.”

“I’m not biphobic!”

“Aren’t you? You think he needs to sleep around with other people to figure out what he wants because he’s bisexual?”

“No! I just meant that I’m the only man he’s ever been with, and he might—”

“Oh, stop it. No one ever told a straight man they needed to try it with another woman to be sure heterosexuality was the right fit.”

Tommy blinked.

Eddie shook his head. “Not even the point. Buck may actually idealize you, and he may have said everything the wrong way, but when he talks about what he likes about you, it’s because you’ve been through the wars and figured out who you were on the other side of it. That’s one thing Buck has always struggled with; he says he always feels on the outside of everything, never quite settled in his own skin or his own circumstances. It’s why he clings too hard to people and relationships. Because he gets tired of being left behind. He told me once he admires people who have managed to make themselves the center of their own universe. I told him everyone should be the center of their own universe. He shot back that it was aspirational.

“I don’t know, Tommy, maybe he does see you as an idealized gay man; I’m not in his head, so I can’t say. Pretty sure his idealized gay man is Josh, not you, but whatever. But he’s never given me those vibes. When he talks about the things he admires about you, it’s the same way he talks about Bobby or me, for that matter. And when I tell him I’m still figuring myself out, he just says, ‘That’s okay, Eds. At least you know your journey.’ And if you think Buck isn’t aware of my faults, you’re smoking something that’s forbidden by our employment contract.”

Tommy took a shaky breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I need to see Evan.”

“I hear you, but don’t do it if you’re not at least committed to talking to him. I can call you if you just want to know if he’s okay. With everything…” Eddie looked away and shook his head. “When I add it all up—the stuff he’s been through, the near-death experiences, the family bullshit, nearly losing Bobby and Athena more than once, the issues with me and Chris, the ongoing stress with his sister, and then you—I’m not sure how he’s not coming apart at the seams. He doesn’t need you to walk in and walk back out again. You have to at least try.”

“I feel like there’s a lot in there I don’t know about.”

Eddie shrugged. “I guess you’ll find out, or you’ll observe things like the rest of us have to.”

Tommy considered whether he could put it all out there with Evan again. “I left because I was worried he’d break my heart. I could bare my soul, and he could rightfully tell me to fuck off.”

“And then your fears will have been realized, yeah. And…?”

“Let me tell my captain I’m leaving.”

“I’ll meet you at my truck.”

Tommy took a moment to change into his civilian clothes, and he found Eddie standing near his truck talking to Lucy. The two were close, heads tipped together. Their body language spoke to intimacy Tommy certainly hadn’t been aware of.

As soon as Tommy neared, Lucy peeled away and clapped him on the arm. “I’ll see you later at the hospital, Kinard. Hope your boy is okay.” She was gone before he could say anything.

Once they were on the road, he looked to Eddie. “You and Lucy?”

“We’re friends.”

Tommy’s brows shot up. “That wasn’t friend body language.”

“Neither of us is interested in anything…significant. We enjoy each other’s company, and there are other benefits.”

He turned that over in his mind for a moment. He knew Lucy was aro—she’d come out to him about that a few months back. Now, with various pieces of information slotting into place, he wondered about Eddie, but figured it wasn’t the best time to talk about it.

“She never mentioned it.”

Eddie shook his head, attention on the road. “She wouldn’t. We don’t talk about you or Buck much. She’s met Chris, and he likes her and everything, but she’s not part of our family unit, and she’s happy with the way things are. I am too. She and I… We enjoy our time together. Right now, it’s uncomplicated, but I don’t doubt she cares about me, and Buck, for that matter. She just likes to keep the boundaries clear. She’s not part of the Buckley-Diaz family, but she’s one of our friends.”

“Buckley-Diaz family,” Tommy repeated, trying to wade his way through that.

“Yeah. We’re figuring it out.”

“Figuring what it out?”

“What our whole platonic life partner thing looks like and how it’s going to work.”

Tommy took a moment to take that on board. “For sure platonic?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re not in love with him…?”

“Never been in love with anyone and doubt I ever will be. I think if it were possible for me, it would have been Buck—physical attraction aside, which isn’t really there.”

“Ah.” Tommy wasn’t sure where to go next. “You’re encouraging me to see him and fix things, so you must see a path forward for me in this family dynamic.”

Eddie nodded, making the turn that would take them towards Cedars. “It’s not his relationship that’s at issue; it’s whether or not his romantic partner would have an issue with his family dynamic. We decided to stop denying what’s going on with our family; it’s not fair to Chris or us, and Christopher wants both his parents around. So, the question is what does this feel like for you?”

“Well, I always knew you two were pretty enmeshed.”

“Nicer way of putting it than ‘codependent,’” Eddie replied.

“I didn’t see that so much as very involved, and Buck made sure I knew Christopher was a higher priority than almost anything. Just so I was aware.” Tommy smiled fondly at the memory. He realized Eddie had almost the same expression on his face.

“One of the best things about Buck from the beginning is how much he loves Chris, without reservation or hesitation. He goes all in.” He gave Tommy a quick look. “He does that with the people he loves.”

“Hmm.” Tommy looked out the window. “He never told me that.”

“What?”

“That he loved me. I recognized after the fact that I was taken aback by the speed at which he’d jumped forward in our relationship. The evidence of his, uh, regard was there, but he never said the words.”

Eddie sighed. “So, he’s a dumbass—just like you—but you need to be prepared for that, because that’s Buck all over. He gets going sometimes and forgets he hasn’t communicated something important because he thought it was obvious.”

“How do you handle it?”

“Just tell him to slow down and start from the beginning. I know it’s hard when your feelings are on the line, but he doesn’t want to hurt you—he never wants to hurt anyone. He’s like the emotional equivalent of a marshmallow peep.”

Tommy frowned. “Immune to everything and likely to survive a nuclear holocaust?”

Eddie gave him an incredulous look. “What is wrong with you? I was thinking along the lines of innocuous, sweet, and cute.”

“We clearly can’t trust you with Easter candy choices.”

~*~

The reality of the situation landed like a ton of bricks when they arrived at the ICU waiting room, which was filled with Buck’s family and friends.

Most of the reactions were neutral—a head nod, or whispered hello—but Maddie was the least pleased that he was there.

“Why are you here?” She glared at Eddie. “We agreed not to contact him.”

“No,” Eddie said firmly, “you said not to contact him, but it isn’t your call. I have Buck’s medical proxy and full medical power of attorney. He reaffirms every year, and it was my decision, not yours.”

“We should have decided together.”

Eddie sighed. “There are three people listed in his advance directive. The three of us met, discussed the matter, and agreed Tommy should be informed.”

Maddie flushed and looked away.

Tommy wondered what he was missing, and apparently never knew, that there were three people who were not blood relatives on Evan’s advance directive, and that his own sister was explicitly excluded. That was something older than their breakup and not something he had particular insight into.

“I’m not trying to make anyone uncomfortable,” Tommy began. “I just want to see him when it’s possible.”

Athena got to her feet and squeezed his arm. “And you will. This isn’t the time for squabbling. Eddie has the right to say you have to leave, but other than that, it’s up to Buck. Now, how about we go get a cup of terrible coffee?”

“I’ve got this,” a voice from behind Tommy said, and he turned to find Christopher Diaz standing there, leaning on just one crutch, staring at Tommy. “I’ll walk with you to get something to drink, so that we can talk.”

Everyone literally either backed off a step or sat down.

Eddie clapped him on the arm and whispered, “Good luck,” as he passed by and took the chair next to Bobby.

Christopher had sprouted up since the last time Tommy saw him several months ago; he’d definitely hit a growth spurt. There was also a new air of maturity about him. He fully radiated a teenager-slash-young man now, rather than a kid.

When Tommy apparently took too long, Christopher backed up a step and gestured with his free hand. “Well?”

Feeling like he was marching to his doom, Tommy headed in the direction Christopher had indicated. He matched his pace to Christopher’s, and the kid was going slower than was necessary, obviously so they could talk.

Once they were far enough away to have some privacy, Christopher said, “Did Dad explain about our family thing?”

“You mean them both being your parents?”

“Anyone with a spare brain cell should have noticed that. But yeah. And how they’re going to be living together?”

Tommy nodded.

“I’ve always wanted us all living together, so we’ve started looking for a bigger house. In my perfect world, you and Buck would get yourselves together, and you’ll be part of the family too. I mean, I don’t need another dad, so don’t start feeling the pressure, but I figure you’ve got Uncle Tommy written all over you.”

Tommy’s eyebrows didn’t know what to do with themselves.

Christopher halted, forcing Tommy to stop as well. “The thing is,” Christopher said pointedly, with careful enunciation, “more than my ideal family living all together, I want Buck to be happy. I want his smile to go all the way to his eyes again. I think you’re his person, and I’m not sure he’s going to just get over it the way people keep telling him to. Not that the lemon bars weren’t great, but he perfects a new recipe every time he’s sad about you, and that’s a lot of sadness.”

Chris huffed. “My point is that if you want to try to fix, you have my blessing. But if you’re just here to assuage your guilt because he’s injured, you should let him alone so he can keep working on getting over you through everyone else’s weight gain.”

Tommy took a deep breath and carefully considered before replying. “First, good vocabulary.”

“Thanks, Buck says it’s important.”

Tommy couldn’t help but smile. “Second, I think Evan is my person too. And I’ve missed him a lot.”

“So, you’re going to try to fix it?”

“I’m going to try. And in theory, I’m not put off by the family thing. I may struggle sometimes, but I’ll try to talk it out with Evan or Eddie rather than going quiet and getting stuck in my own head.”

Chris nodded sharply. “Good.” He started walking again towards the vending machines.

Tommy got his feet into motion. “Was this a shovel talk?”

“Shovel talk?”

“Uh.” He chose his words carefully. “Where you threaten to beat me with a shovel if I hurt Evan…?”

Chris gave him a brief, incredulous look. “What do I need a shovel for?” After a beat, he added. “I have two crutches.”

Tommy opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. “You know, you’re more intimidating than Eddie or Evan. I’m trying to figure out where you got it from.”

“My grandmother.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Athena.”

“Ah. That tracks.”

~*~

Tommy stopped at the door to Evan’s ICU room and stared at his love, looking more pale than he’d ever seen him, hooked up to more equipment than Tommy cared to try to catalog. He was just grateful there was no respirator.

Eddie squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll give you as much time with him as I can.”

“His sister really doesn’t want me here.”

“Maddie doesn’t get a say in this, but it’s more about fielding the medical staff and persuading Bobby that he doesn’t need to be sitting here full-time, staring at Buck with sad cow eyes.”

Tommy managed a faint smile at that. “I’ll fight him for Evan’s hand.”

Eddie raised a brow. “That sounds promising.”

He felt himself flush because that came out in a way he hadn’t intended.

Eddie gave him a little shove. “Go. He’s sleeping more than he’s awake, but we try to talk to him; let him know he’s not alone. He hates to be alone.”

“I know,” Tommy whispered.

As soon as the door slid closed, Tommy crossed to the opposite side of the bed and sat, taking Evan’s hand, the texture of smooth skin and calluses familiar from hours spent running his fingertips over Evan’s palm.

“I just said something odd,” he murmured, sliding the chair closer. “I told Eddie I’d fight Bobby for your hand, and it sounded like something I didn’t intend, but I don’t know… Part of me wishes we were back in November and that we were at the point now where I could intend it.” He blew out a shaky breath. “I’ve missed you so much, Evan, and I know it’s my mistake that’s kept us apart. I thought so many times about calling and asking to meet and explain—to try to talk it through and maybe fix things. But the fear that messed me up kept me from moving forward.”

He rubbed his thumb over Evan’s knuckles, noticing that a few of them had some bruising, so he kept his touch light. “It’s so easy to point the finger at the circumstances and say that everything was too much, too fast. To say that you were rushing to live together, that we’d never even said that we were in love. But the truth is that I was scared.

“If that circumstance had been happening between two other people, it’d be so much easier to see clearly, but since it was me, all I could do was be stuck in my own head and my own fears. Stuck in wondering…how much is it going to hurt when he leaves me?” Tommy sighed and let his head rest on the back of Evan’s hand.

“Why did you think I would leave you?” came a soft reply as Evan’s fingers tightened fractionally around Tommy’s.

Tommy looked up sharply, meeting Evan’s gaze, the blue eyes hazy with exhaustion and fever. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Evan licked his lips, looking around.

“I don’t think you’re allowed any liquids yet, but I can call—”

“I’m not,” Evan whispered. “There’s some lip balm somewhere.”

It was in the cupholder of Tommy’s chair. Evan’s hands were too shaky, so Tommy sat on the edge of his bed and carefully applied the balm to Evan’s chapped lips.

Evan watched him closely the whole time, eyes both oddly distant and unfocused due to his state, yet sharp on Tommy’s every move at the same time. “Why did you think I’d leave?” he repeated, voice a little weaker as Tommy retook his seat.

“I guess because that’s just what I expect. And that’s more about me than you. Eddie challenged me about being biphobic, and I’ll work on my own assumptions, but that was more about my own neurotic issue that it’d be harder if you decided you couldn’t be with me because you weren’t really into men.”

Evan frowned. “Strange that you didn’t notice after all that time that I was into it.”

Tommy couldn’t help but snort a small laugh. “I didn’t say it was rational. And if I’d said it out loud, I’d have probably been able to catch how idiotic I was being. But in my head, it all made perfect sense.”

Evan blinked slowly, like he was fighting sleep. “Your head is a strange place.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t want you to be afraid.”

“Oh, Evan.”

Evan’s eyes slid shut as he began to lose his battle with his body’s need to rest. “Love you, Tommy. Just wish you wanted to stay.” His hand went lax in Tommy’s grip.

He kissed the back of Evan’s hand, eyes teary and breath shaky. “I do want to stay. But I really think we need to talk when you’re a little more here.”

 ~*~

Tommy was in the waiting room with the others, talking idly with Karen while Eddie and Bobby were back in the ICU. Eddie was talking to the doctor, and Bobby was taking a turn with Evan, who hadn’t woken again since his brief conversation with Tommy. Christopher had been picked up by one of his cousins, but he’d been kicking Tommy’s ass at backgammon until he’d had to leave.

Suddenly, Bobby was in front of him, holding out a piece of paper. “Buck woke up. Asked if you’d really been there, then said he only had the energy for grade school style. I have no idea what that even means. But he said you’re only allowed to make one mark on this piece of paper.”

Blinking in confusion, Tommy accepted the piece of paper, which was folded in half.

There were two lines in Evan’s blocky print, though the letters were shaky.

I love you. Any chance you love me too?

__Yes __No

Tommy couldn’t help the laugh that was as shaky as Evan’s lettering.

He gratefully took the pen Karen handed him and checked off YES, handing the re-folded page back to Bobby, who disappeared with it.

A few minutes later, Bobby returned, looking mildly exasperated but also delighted to be running around on Evan’s behalf.

Under the first question, a new one had been added.

Want to try again?

__Yes __No

Tommy’s laugh was more jubilant this time as he checked off YES and practically shoved it at Bobby.

A very brief time later, Bobby was back, looking pleased. “Buck said since you two are back together, he’d really appreciate it if you could come kiss him before he can’t help but sleep again.”

Tommy was up like a shot, ignoring Maddie’s protest and Athena telling her it was none of her business.

Then he was back in Evan’s room, and Eddie was laughing as he got out of the way so Tommy could get to the head of Evan’s bed, which was only accessible from the far side due to the equipment on the other.

Evan gave him a tired smile. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“I know we still have a lot to figure out, but I thought we should start with the important bits this time. I love you.”

Tommy’s laugh was more teary than amused. “God, Evan, I love you so much. I’m so—”

A finger was pressed to his lips. “Nope. We’ll talk later. We love each other, and we’re going to try again. That’s what matters in this moment. We’ll sort out the rest. You be patient with me, and I’ll be patient with you. Assume love and good intentions, okay?”

“Love and good intentions,” Tommy repeated softly. “I can do that.”

“Now you owe something before I sleep.”

Tommy pressed his mouth softly to Evan’s, relishing the contact he’d missed for so long. “Love you,” he murmured against Evan’s full lips.

“My love,” Evan whispered, fingertips grazing Tommy’s cheek just before he fell asleep.

The End