Title: Not Immune to Gossip
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Fandom: 9-1-1
Relationships: Gen
Tags: Canon Divergent AU
Summary: There was one place Eddie belonged, and he needed to get himself back there, standing beside Buck no matter what.
Word Count:
Beta: Grammarly



Eddie dropped his hose into the spot where it belonged and thought about how Buck used to love to do it. Before everything, before the bombing and then the embolism.

"He brought it on himself," Hen said.

Eddie looked to the side to see it was Bobby, Hen, and Chim talking. Instead of joining in, Eddie just listened to what they were saying. It was strange that it was happening down where only Eddie was. He wasn't even sure that they knew he was there.

"Maddie says yes. He's pushing himself to get better faster and do more than the doctors think he can do."

Eddie paused, and he thought about it. Carla had even gone over everything with Buck before Buck had followed the plan his doctors and physical therapists had put forth for him on getting back to work. It wasn't even the fastest, but that one had more issues with muscle strain.

"We need to talk to him about slowing down and listening to his doctors," Bobby said.

"Actually, you need to talk to him about the therapy he's been doing, Eddie said before he shut the compartment on the engine and looked at the trio of them."

"What do you mean?" Hen asked.

"I've been there every single step. When Bobby wasn't taking him to therapy, I was. Chris and I were helping him do his at-home stuff by having Chris do it with him. I have the list of things that are from his actual doctors on what he's supposed to do. Maddie became hands-off when Buck refused to even entertain quitting being a firefighter to make her happy."

"Hey," Chims said.

"Has she gone to a single appointment since just before my pinning ceremony? Has she been there to talk him through the nights when his leg pain from healing was keeping him awake despite the pills he was taking, and that was before he started the intense therapy? The line he's walking is one that has been approved by his doctor, Chim. Maddie stated her opinion on it all, but her opinion is not bigger than what he wants and what his doctor thinks is safe. She was an ER nurse and knows some things, but she doesn't know the details of therapy like that."

"Maddie knows her brother," Hen said.

"Does she? Does she really?" Eddie looked at the trio and realized he had been letting himself be led by his nose about Buck. He knew Buck well and knew what the man was like. He was needy and wanted affection, but he wasn't stupid.

"She's his sister," Bobby pointed out.

"And? I mean, when she came back into his life, he admitted that she hadn't been around him all that much after she had left and got together with Doug. Even less when he had left Hershey and headed off to trek across the country; before this, you three had seen him more as an adult than she had. You knew him better than she did, and even now, when I'm with them, she tries to mother him more than anything."

"I think she had to," Chim said.

"When he was a child, maybe. I am not sure about that family stuff there. He sidesteps all of the talk about his parents as much as he could. That's not normal for someone who is close to their parents. He's alone in the world, and this was the first close family he's ever been close to. He's grown a lot even over the year I've known him, and now all of you are talking behind his back about something you hear secondhand."

"Hey," Chim said.

"I'm sorry, but have you actually heard a doctor tell Buck that he did too much?" Eddie asked.

"You said he overdid it as well," Chim defended.

"I'm well aware of the great indignity of that. I'm kicking myself right now about all of this. So, we can figure out what we are going to do about it."

"I trust Maddie," Chim said.

"I guess we are both biased on the person we know the best, but I'm going to support Buck in everything he does before I Allow that to hurt the friendship I've been growing over the last year with him."

Bobby at least looked a little upset about Eddie's words, and in the end, it was Bobby who had to be the one to change here.

---

Eddie knocked on the door to Buck's but didn't hear anything. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. He found the place looking spotless. He wasn't sure what was going on with Buck, but he knew they needed something else to pull him out of the funk he had been in since the embolism.

Chris shushed Eddie when he made too much noise. It was louder than Eddie had been, so Eddie just rolled his eyes at his son.

"Where is he?" Chris asked in a whisper that wasn't much lower than his shush."

"Probably in the living room. Let's go and see."

Chris was quiet as he made his way across the floor, his crutches making little noise, something that Eddie only noticed when Chris was trying to be loud or soft.

Eddie stayed back because if Buck wasn't in the living room, he was in the bedroom. So he waited here to ascend the stairs if needed. Chris shook his head. He looked up.

Eddie sighed, and he headed up the stairs. Being stuck in bed was something that Eddie knew Buck would be doing only if it was a bad day. He kicked himself for not being there. Buck had been there as much as he could in the aftermath of Shanno's death, and Eddie had allowed himself to be swayed by the gossip of the firehouse when he knew better.

"Buck?" Eddie asked, but Buck wasn't in his bed. The flush of a toilet had Eddie looking at the bathroom; then he averted his eyes just in case Buck came out of the re naked.

"Eddie?" Buck asked as he stopped walking.

Eddie looked down to see that he was dressed.

"Thought you might want to hang out. I know you have a doctor's appointment for another scan to check the progress of the blood thinners you are taking on Monday, and I hoped that maybe a little distraction was a good thing."

"I'm always okay with a Diaz distraction, but you didn't have to. I'm fine."

"You are anything but fine, and that's okay. You don't have to be okay, and you don't have to put on a front with us. You are allowed to be yourself, even if you are upset."

"I know that in my head, but it's just...hard."

"Because you weren't allowed to be sad growing up?"

Buck's eyes widened, and he looked away from Eddie for a few seconds but looked back and huffed when Eddie didn't look away.

"Is my favorite Diaz downstairs?"

"He is. He's looking forward to this as much as I am."

"You have plans for me already?" Buck asked. He reached out and grabbed the shirt that was lying on the bed and put it on over the tank top he was wearing.

"Cold?" Eddie asked, sidestepping the talk of plans.

Bcuk gave Eddie a glare, but he headed down the stairs. He went right to the living room. Eddie followed him down, checking on where Chris was before he went to the kitchen. Grabbing drinks as he heard Buck and Chris talking about the plans Chris had made for them made Eddie calm down inside. Buck would forgive him for not being round like he should have been. There were a lot of things going on in lives right now, but after Buck had helped him with Shannon's death so much, Eddie felt like he owed Buck something. Buck would be the first to tell him that he didn't do it for Eddie to pay him back. Of course, there was also just the fact that things were kind of shitty for both of them.

"Dad, can we have a sleepover here tonight?"

"We have breakfast at Abuela's in the morning, mijo," Eddie called out.

"But Buck can come to that."

"Chris, it's okay."

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't angling for Buck to cook breakfast, and Buck, you were invited. It was another reason I was coming over today. Because when I invite you over the phone, you always squirm out of things. So, do not even try and tell me that you don't want to have some of her food."

Buck made a noise that Eddie knew meant Buck would be flipping him off if he was in the room with Buck right now.

Eddie finished grabbing drinks before he headed to the living room. Buck had his leg on the coffee table, hunched over, rubbing it lightly.

"How is your leg feeling?"

"Good. Just as good as it did before. I really didn't have issues beyond the pain I had that was from my muscles as they got used to the level of activity I would need to get ready for going back to work. It's why I didn't know about the blood clots. In the end, it was just a comedy of errors that led to this. I know what the difference in pain is, but it's hard to make sure that someone understands that. I was taken off my blood clot medication too early."

"Why were you taken off it?"

"I was across the normal time for them to have started to form, but the tests I've had make them think it's a body reaction to the screws in my leg. So I'll be on the blood thinners until those are taken out of my body. It will take a while to figure that out, but in the end, it'll be good when the screws come out."

"You have the worst luck, Buck," Chris said.

"I agree that I do. Don't worry; I'm going to try not to do anything that would stress my luck for a while. How are you doing?" Buck pulled Chris into him and held onto him a little longer than he normally did.

Eddie knew that being isolated like he had been had hurt Chris and Buck. He was happy that he had gotten over the isolation part of things. He wasn't used to having someone around that actually cared. He had tried his hardest to keep himself away from people who would hurt him. It was hard to let people in after his parents had tried to talk him into giving up his kid.

Buck had proven over and over again that he didn't care about what Eddie did in the past and that Eddie was who he was when he was with him now. Buck had shown that he would support Eddie in anything and help him when he needed it Buck would give everything if Eddie let him.

"What movie did you decide on?" Eddie asked.

"Atlantis," Buck said with a smile.

Eddie laughed a little bit because he knew that it was a favorite of Buck's, and Chris had fallen in love when he had seen it as well. Eddie would enjoy the way they were while watching it more than enjoying watching it himself. He didn't hate it, and at least it wasn't one of the other movies that Chris loved to watch over and over again.

"Then we are going to watch a pair of movies that Buck said were really popular when he was a kid. Or not popular when he was a kid, but he really liked them."

"What were they?"

"Escape to and Return from Witch Mountain."

"I've not thought about those in years." Eddie draped his arm on the back of the couch, and he let his fingers brush over Buck's shoulder. Buck smiled at him, and for the first time that day, the smile went to Buck's eyes.

---

Eddie rubbed his hands on his thighs and looked at the closed door, waiting for Buck to come out along with Bobby. He had arrived after they had gone into the room. The rest of the 118 was spread around the waiting area, looking really confused about a lot of things. Eddie wasn't confused then again; he was the reason they were there after Bobby had decided that he was allowed to bench Buck for no reason. Even Eddie knew it had something to do with Bobby's guilt about Buck being hurt. There was a lot of misplaced guilt there, so Eddie wasn't sure that Bobby would be able to see what he was doing without someone else stepping in.

There had been a tense conversation in the 118 one day after the shift had ended where Eddie knew that Bobby needed more than him, but he had left it up to Buck who and what was going to help him change that, as long as he didn't go after that stupid ambulance chaser. The union had been an interesting pick since they had dragged their feet with Bobby before this, but in the end, it was who Buck had gone with.

It wasn't going to be good for Bobby with back-to-back issues with the union and HR. Hell, there was going to be a little bit of hell to pay on this, as Bobby had all but admitted that he was making the decision for Buck because he was worried. Eddie knew the hoops Buck had gone through in the wake of everything. Especially after the tsunami and the therapy that he and Chris were in to help them deal with that as a whole.

The city was still recovering from the tsunami, and so weren't the trio of them. Eddie was fending off his parents; his mother had been livid about the whole thing, acting like Buck had taken Chris there on purpose, knowing that the tsunami was going to happen. No one knew it was going to happen. Eddie hoped that his mother didn't go through with the threat to come up and try and take Chris back down where he was going to be safe. Eddie wasn't going to have it, and he had already set in motion things on Buck and Carla's urging to make sure he had a case in front of the local people in control of that if his parents went that direction.

Eddie jumped up when the door opened, and Buck came out. He glanced around the room before looking at Eddie with a wan smile on his face. He headed toward the far side of the room and into another room.

"Diaz, come with me, please. Have a seat inside in the chair that's turned out. Everyone else, do not go into the room that Firefighter Buckley went into. You are not to talk to him at all before you are debriefed in this situation. We have a trio of lawyers inside for either side in this case, but if you think that you want a personal lawyer here, please get them here as soon as possible. If you leave today without talking to us, you are not allowed to contact parties that have talked to us before you are talked to."

Eddie stepped inside the room, and he saw the chair that he was being directed to. It was interesting to see the way that the room was set up, with Bobby and his own lawyer sitting beside him and the other six lawyers spread on either side of the table.

"What name do you prefer to be called?" the woman asked.

"Eddie is fine with me."

The introductions happened, and Eddie didn't even try and keep the names in his head. He really didn't need to, as he knew he wasn't in trouble.

"Buck tells us that you pushed him to talk to us before doing anything else; why?"

"Optics. I was in the military. I knew how that thing went. Even if I knew that going through JAG or another branch of the side that's supposed to be protecting the soldiers wasn't going to help anything, it was the best method to start with. Once that was done and nothing good came of it, going outside was the best way. Why?"

"We will get to that part later. Tell us about the death of your wife, please."

Eddie knew that Shannon was going to be brought up, along with how quickly Eddie went back to work in the aftermath. It wasn't good that he had gone back too quickly, but in the end, it had worked out as Eddie had gotten closer to Buck and learned to lean on him. He wasn't sure he would give that up. He did see how it all changed when it came to Buck.

"I know that I came back too early. The therapy I'm in now at the insistence of my son's home health nurse, and Buck lets me see what is going on with that and how I was allowed back long before I should have been."

Eddie went through everything that had gone on in the months since Shannon died and also what he had seen in allowing Chim back without therapy after nearly being killed by his date's abusive husband, to him not having a single issue with much of anything that was going on with Buck and Bobby and Buck being held back from coming back.

"There are expectations for certain blood thinners and being allowed back on the job, certain things that he would not be able to do. Do you feel safe with him coming back to work?"

"After sending him out for a day with my son to lighten his spirits after he was crushed about being held back from work and having a tsunami happen, I think that it's best to keep him where I can watch him because he has the worst fucking luck, excuse my language."

"No, the expletive is well used there. He has the report from his doctor about how well he had recovered from the cuts and scrapes he obtained that day without needing medical treatment."

"Look, in the end, he's going to get hurt on the job, but if he's getting cut enough that we are afraid of blood loss, he's going to the hospital anyway as it's too deep for us to just clean up and slap a wrap on. From what I have heard on the job, Buck has never gotten an injury that needed stitches. He's been blown up, he's had other injuries, but most of them have to bones or joints. Sprained things. The normal stuff. Injuries that need treatment of the scale of stitches had happened off shift. He's just as likely to get hurt outside of work and die than he is on the job."

"What do you see the issue as?" the woman asked.

Eddie looked at the lawyers and other people in the room as he thought about what he wanted to say. "Buck's going to be on blood thinners until the screws in his leg come out. From the last thing that his team of doctors over his leg and other injuries from the bombing have said, it's the screws that are causing it. He's not going to be on them for the rest of his life. If coming to work and being on light duty is what he can do, he'll do it. He understands his limits, but when LAFD medical and his doctors clear him to come back to work, and then it's found that he's still being stopped and given no answer, it's a slap in the face."

"He's reckless and going to get himself killed," Bobby said.

"Why do you think that?" the woman asked.

"Because Bobby feels guilt about why Buck was under that truck, and he feels like he needs to protect Buck from himself in and is putting all of that guilt on Buck when Buck hasn't earned it. Also, he's letting Buck's sister lead him around by the nose, and she's using Chim as a mouthpiece to do it. Maddie is freaked out about her brother's injury, and I know from listening to Buck that she feels like he should give up the job he loves because he might die.

"In the field, Bobby's got the biggest chance of dying over all of us. It's not the safest job, but he nearly choked to death eating in a restaurant. He was blown up by a homegrown terrorist who had a chip on his shoulder. That's not normal. My wife died crossing the street. Chim was nearly killed when he was driving. Of injuries that have happened on the job to the people that Know, there are more off the job or just living a life. Accidents are accidents, and giving them a bigger role in life is just asking to stop living."

"You seem to be very upset about this," the lawyer beside Bobby said.

"I'm worried about what it means when the captain can't give a good reason why he's stopping someone from doing the job he was meant to do, the job he was cleared to do, for no other reason than he wants to coddle him. Buck's been cleared by two different therapists and the one that's been assigned by the LAFD to make sure he's ready to return to work. At what point is the captain looked at as the reason for the fault and not the staff member?"

"That's why we are here. Buck brought all of the files from his therapy sessions around his return to work as well as the files from his doctor and the notes about the weird reaction his body is having to the screws."

"He's got the worst luck," Eddie said.

The woman laughed, and she nodded her head. "In your opinion, is Buck being held back when he should be working?

"Yes."

"Thank you. You can go out and join Buck in the room and send in Henrietta Wilson, please."

Eddie got up, and he did as he was asked. Hen was not looking happy at all about being there, but at least they hadn't been pulled off a shift to get this going.

"How are you?" Eddie asked as he sat down beside Buck at the small table in the room. It looked like the kind of place to have a meal or a very small meeting.

"I am not sure, honestly. I have no idea what I want to do right now other than pace, and I was wearing myself out. I didn't sleep well last night at all. Because of all of this." Buck rubbed his finger over a blemish on the table, his eyes not meetings Eddie's.

"I know. Why don't you come with me home?"

"I took an Uber here and hoped you would offer that. I think that I need to not be alone after this is all said and done. I just want to go home to my family."

"And if Bobby puts his foot down?"

"Then the LAFD will move you to a new house. It's okay. The LAFD doesn't want a huge thing about this. Between the bombing and then the tsunami and the people from it that know you saved them, a PR nightmare is waiting to happen. If you were not able to do your job, then things would be very, very different. You are able, and the cuts you got during the tsunami when you were in and out of the water for hours show that bleeding is not the kind of issue that it's being made to be. The kind of cut that you would need medical attention for on blood thinners, you would still need if you were not on them."

Buck looked lost still, but Eddie knew that once he got his head wrapped around everything, things would be different. The door to the room opened up while Eddie was still just sitting beside Buck at the table. Hen stepped inside. She looked at Buck before looking at Eddie; then she stepped out like she had made a different choice after seeing them.

"It's not your fault," Eddie said.

"Everyone is going to be pissed at me."

"It's your job. It's your life. Anyone who is not on board with you living your life the way that you want is not worth keeping in your life. You don't do things that hurt people, so I don't have to worry about that. You living your life doesn't hurt anyone, and if I was being sidelined for no medical or psychological reason, then I would be doing the same. I wouldn't have had a leg to stand on if Bobby did try and keep me from coming back until I passed a psych evaluation. You passed yours. You passed the medical stuff. You are supposed to be working again."

Buck nodded before he relaxed back on the chair and looked up at the ceiling. It was interesting to watch the way he processed things. The door opened again, and Eddie looked up to see it was Hen again. She had three bottles of water in her hands.

"Thank," Eddie said before cracking his bottle open.

"It's not going well in the other room. After you laid into us at work, Eddie, I went home and talked to Karen about everything. There is a lot to be said about how I acted about all of this. I said as much in there. I know medical things, and I know that you are right about a lot of things, and also, it's not my place to decide that you aren't allowed to do what you need to get back to your life. If that had been me, I would have been pissed off."

"It's okay," Buck said.

"No, it's really not. I know you have grown up and changed with everything that has gone on, and I should have just known that you weren't looking for something just because you are white."

"Is that what you thought?"

"It was part of it, but outside of when you use your whiteness to bypass things that help us with victims in the end, you have never really expected anything because you are white."

"What do you think is going to happen?" Eddie asked, trying to get them away from that conversation. He knew full well who and what Buck was, and a racist wasn't one of them.

"I have no idea, but I am not sure that Bobby's going to come out of this unscathed. It's too much too soon, and while I love him, he was allowing his feelings to push you into something you didn't want. He had no right, and I'm upset for you. The whole thing is crazy. He's full of guilt, and while that man loves you like a son, he has no right to think he can keep you from the job. Maddie's got her own issues in this, and Chim's going to get a wake-up call. Talk to someone bout places where you can go. There are a lot of stations that could take you and Eddie."

"Me?" Eddie asked.

"You two are partners, and there is no reason to split you two up for anything. It's not good to rip you away from him as well as the 118 if we don't have to. You two will land on your feet; I know it."

Eddie looked at Buck. He didn't want to leave the 118, but he also didn't want Buck going anywhere without him. There was a lot of discussion to be had over the next while, but in the end, Eddie was with Buck, behind him and beside him as needed. There was nowhere else he wanted to be.

The End