i loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove eddie diaz ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
There's a little trend of firefighters getting absolutely humbled doing pilates so of course I want a scene of the 118 getting their shit rocked during a pilates class.
May sets it up for them because she's tired of them all bragging about being Big Strong Firefighters with absolutely no range of motion.
The team thinks this is going to be light work, easy stretching. No big. Wrong. Worst day of their lives (which is saying something). Legs shaking. Muscles cramping. Sweat pouring. Buck has a to take a break to foam roll his bad leg. Eddie needs an extra towel. Hen might quit the station. Everyone's a hot mess.
Except for Chimney, who's been taking barre and pilates with Maddie for years now because he's getting a little older, and maybe he can't bench as much as the younger kids but he is not about to throw his back out on a call. He's the lone survivor of the Great 118 Pilates Disaster of 2026. May gets him a trophy for the captain's office.
having really specific visions of eddie getting out of the shower and walking into their bedroom in a towel while buck lays down with one of his fuckass books. buck immediately starts wolf whistling and cat calling him to goad him into dropping the towel and coming over there. and he does 🙂↕️
When eddie left for el paso there was definitely a hen and chim conversation where they both HEAVILY considered the merits of telling Eddie buck had died
he literally admitted to his sister that he used his ex boyfriend in an effort to feel better about missing his best friend. and sex is literally the only thing that made him feel better about missing eddie and be able to sleep in the house btw.
he tries to use ravi the entire episode to help tend to the wound of missing eddie because having a friend should help him with missing eddie right. but what helps him literally sleep at night is a bunch of alcohol and then sex. and he nearly gets back together with tommy. because ultimately what he’s trying to replace with eddie’s departure is not a best friendship but a romantic partnership. just without the sex. and then when he’s called out about his feelings he freaks the fuck out about it and gives a verbal admission without realizing it and says “i dont have to sleep with everyone i have feelings for” and then makes such severe denying claims to his own sister.
I wish all Black girls a clear shot at this world. I wish all Black girls a full belly. I wish all Black girls a respite from their many troubles. I wish all Black girls nothing but grace, prosperity, and ease. Black girls I am hoping for your continued safety and success every single day.
hen tilts her head at him, putting down the child-sized slide in his backyard. "a bit late for that, buckaroo," she says. "you can't return a kid the same way you can return backyard toys."
buck looks at her with a kind of wild look in his eyes, a sort of how the hell did i get myself into this that makes hen's heart twinge, just a little.
"no, i--" he hesitates, looking around. the backyard, with the weights taken off to the side, replaced with an inflatable pool and a swing set and all manner of children's toys. "i mean, i just-- it feels unfair, that it's me."
hen leans her hip on the fence, watching him. there's a sort of frantic energy to him that has clung to the edges of his eyes ever since the hospital, the elevator, his pants soaked in eddie's blood as he held his hand. or maybe before that, when hen had shaken her head at eddie over a set of crumpled bodies and then followed his gaze to buck's hands wrapped around a small figure, holding him like he doesn't know what else to do.
"it's unfair that it's not them," hen acknowledges. "but they mentioned you in their will, didn't they? they trusted you."
buck snorts. "yeah," he says, then, in a lower voice-- "if i had a nickel for every time..." hen, wisely, decides not to pursue that. "but they weren't actually gonna let me-- if it weren't for the fact that there was nobody else--"
"but there was nobody else," hen interrupts him, because she can see the spiral beginning in his throat. "so it's you."
"how did you and karen know?" buck asks her. "that you could-- that you were ready?"
hen thinks about her baby, her babies, both the ones that are with her now and the ones that aren't. the long nights, the research, the talks that ended in tears or furious whispers or distances that felt too far to breach, sometimes. sometimes she looks at denny and thinks about what a miracle it is that he's here. sometimes she looks at mara and wonders at her own selfishness, for being so glad to have her, even though it meant so much suffering had to happen.
she looks at buck, and says: "we didn't. we decided that we wanted to build this life, that's all. the ready part comes afterwards."
buck absorbs that, and she can see the little furrow of his brows that means that he's carving her words onto his heart. he comes over next to her, leaning on the fence close, shoes knocking together. he leans his curls on her shoulder, shuffling down to fit. she lets him, because he was once this lanky kid who watched her put an iv in like she was pure magic, and the awe has never quite left his eyes when he looks at her.
"i feel like-- i was ready to let go, you know?" he murmurs, voice soft between them. "like you said: donor, not dad."
hen nods, cheek brushing against his curls. she remembers that conversation, the satisfaction of being able to focus on his problems, to provide a solution that she didn't have in her life, back then. she should've known that life would turn out far stranger and more complicated than her pithy phrase.
"and now you might be both," she finishes his thought.
a long exhale. "and now i might be both."
when harry had called buck theo's dad, hen had been the only one to correct him-- his biological father. she had remembered that conversation, then. how hesitant buck had been. her own reservations.
"do you want to be both?" she asks, because that part is important, too.
"yes-- no--" buck shakes his head. "i don't know."
hen thinks about buck bringing theo down from the electrical tower. he'd been charmed by theo, but only in the same way all of them were, only in the easy way buck connected to any kid on a call. it wasn't an instant connection or a biological imperative, just buck being buck, empathizing with a kid a little too hard, loving a little too easily.
love, for hen, has always been series of choices. sometimes easy, sometimes difficult. it's the nature of existing the way she does, in the world that she has to navigate. she's had years to come to terms with it. buck doesn't quite have that kind of time.
"that's okay," she says, still. "you don't have to know right now. this isn't-- it doesn't have to be permanent."
"i don't want to make the wrong choice," buck says, quietly. "i don't want him to ever-- feel like i did. unchosen."
hen nudges him with her elbow, making him wiggle a little. "you won't," she says, confident. "you know why?"
buck raises his head a little to look at her, all little-kid curiosity. she smiles.
"because there's only one thing you have to do to not mess this up," she says. "and you're there already."
buck blinks at her. "doing all the paperwork properly?"
hen laughs. shoves him a little, looks over all the things that buck has prepared for a little boy he'd been ready to let go of, if that's what he needed.