What's The Distance Where You Are?

The silence crept in slowly, like smoke through the gap of a door you thought led to safety.

Not the kind that falls in the hush of dawn, when the baby’s breathing is still even and Buck curls into Eddie’s side like he used to, warm and instinctive.

No, this silence stretches.

It clings to corners, weighing down blankets and laundry baskets and half-drunk mugs of tea that Buck forgets on the counter until they’re cold. It lingers in Buck’s eyes when Eddie kisses his temple and he doesn’t lean into it. It hums underneath the soft lullabies they play for the baby, behind Christopher’s hopeful chatter about his new sister.

It’s in the way Buck hasn’t sung to their daughter in days.

It’s in the way he looks at her like she’s a question he doesn’t know the answer to.

Her name is Lucía—though they call her Lulu most of the time, and Eddie whispers “Lucita” when he thinks no one is listening—and she’s the softest thing in the world. Small, red-cheeked, with Buck’s impossibly long eyelashes and Eddie’s crooked fingers. She’s six weeks old now. A perfect, squalling little miracle who has Eddie’s heart completely wrapped around her tiny fist.

Eddie still remembers cuddling Buck and biting back a laugh at the immediate “no” when he’d suggested Lucy as a nickname during the pregnancy, the way Buck’s face had turned red for just a moment was funny at the time. They were so far past Buck 1.0; It wasn’t until much later that Eddie remembered Lucy Donato, and felt chagrined. Some names carry too much history.

A trip to the hardware store secured some wooden letters to spell Lulu over her crib. On a sunny afternoon Buck sat in the rocking chair, rubbing his belly and critiquing the spacing of the letters, all laughter and hope while Eddie twirled a hammer and did his best Magic Mike impression.

And eight weeks later... Buck is here, but he isn’t. Not really. Not the way he used to be.

Eddie had always been good at reading Buck. It was a skill honed over years of partnership at the 118, perfected through late-night conversations and quiet moments stolen between emergencies. He could tell when Buck was overthinking a call, when he was hiding an injury, when he was spiraling into that place where his own worth became questionable.

But this... this was different. Buck’s scent, usually warm vanilla and ocean breeze, had turned muted and gray. The bond between them, once vibrant and alive, felt like trying to hold onto mist.

Eddie wakes up to Lucía’s fussing again just after 3 a.m., and Buck’s side of the bed is cold. That used to mean he’d already be rocking her in the nursery, whispering nonsense songs about fire trucks and moonlight, hands gentle on her back as he swayed in the darkness. But lately, it just means he’s somewhere else, lost in whatever storm is raging inside his head.

Eddie finds him in the hallway, sitting against the wall across from the nursery door, knees drawn up, hair messy from sleep, wearing that same oversized LAFD sweatshirt he never seems to take off anymore.

He’s not crying. Buck doesn’t cry, at least not where anyone can see.

He just looks... blank. Empty. Like someone has carefully scooped out everything that made him Buck and left only the shell behind.

“Hey babe,” Eddie says softly, crouching down beside him, his alpha instincts screaming to comfort, to fix, to make everything right.

Buck doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t smile. Just looks up at Eddie like he’s not sure if he’s supposed to be here, like he’s apologizing for taking up space in his own home.

“She wouldn’t stop,” Buck murmurs, voice thin as tissue paper, barely audible over Lucía’s continued crying from behind the closed door. “I picked her up and... she kept crying. I think she knows.”

Eddie wants to ask knows what, but he already knows. That’s the thing about loving someone this long, about being bonded so deeply that their pain becomes your pain. You start hearing what they don’t say louder than what they do.

Buck thinks he’s broken. Buck thinks Lucía can sense that her omega parent is drowning, that she’s rejecting him because he can’t be what she needs.

“She doesn’t know anything except that she’s safe,” Eddie says, reaching out slowly to brush his thumb along the side of Buck’s face, feeling the slight stubble there. “That you love her. That we both love her.”

Buck shakes his head, the movement sharp and self-deprecating. “She settles for you. Always settles for you. The minute you touch her, she stops crying.”

“She settles for both of us,” Eddie whispers, his heart breaking at the defeat in his mate’s voice. “Come here.”

Buck lets him pull him in. Lets Eddie fold him against his chest the way he used to curl into him after long shifts, after nightmares, after the hospital, after every time life tried to knock him down. Eddie holds him like that in the hallway, their daughter’s cries echoing softly behind the door, and he whispers all the things he wishes he could pour into Buck like medicine.

I miss your laugh.

I miss your voice.

I miss the way you used to talk to her before she was born, making promises to your belly about everything you couldn’t wait to teach her.

I miss you, and you’re right here, and I don’t know how to bring you back.

“Do you want me to get her?” Eddie asks, pressing his lips to the crown of Buck’s head, breathing in his mate’s scent and trying not to notice how faded it’s become.

Buck nods once. Then twice, a little too fast, like he’s relieved to be given permission to step back, to let Eddie handle what he thinks he can’t.

Eddie presses another kiss to Buck’s hair before he stands, his knees protesting after crouching on the hardwood floor.

Inside the nursery, Lucía’s face is scrunched in protest, tiny fists waving like she’s arguing with the air itself. Eddie scoops her up, her warm weight settling against his chest as he murmurs softly in Spanish—the same words his abuela used to whisper to him when he was scared, when the world felt too big and uncertain.

“Está bien, Lucita,” he croons, pacing in slow circles around the room decorated with clouds and stars that Buck had painted during his nesting phase. “Papá’s here. We’re all here.”

Lulu’s hiccupping cries slow, her body relaxing as Eddie’s alpha pheromones wash over her, soothing and familiar. She roots against his chest, seeking comfort, and Eddie’s heart clenches with love so fierce it takes his breath away.

When he steps out into the hallway again, Buck is gone.

Eddie finds him back in bed, curled around Eddie’s pillow like he’s bracing for impact, like he’s trying to disappear into the mattress. The sight makes Eddie’s chest tighten until he can barely breathe, his alpha instincts raging against his omega’s pain and his own helplessness to fix it.

He eases down beside Buck carefully, placing Lulu between them, swaddled and finally calm. Her eyelids flutter as she settles, tiny mouth working in her sleep. Buck doesn’t look at her. He looks at Eddie instead, blue eyes wide and lost.

“What if it doesn’t come back?” Buck asks hoarsely, the words scraping out of his throat like broken glass. “The part of me that used to feel... like me. What if this is just who I am now? What if I can’t be what she needs? What any of you need?”

The vulnerability in Buck’s voice, the raw fear and self-doubt, makes Eddie want to gather him up and hold him until the world makes sense again. Instead, he reaches out slowly, letting his fingers trace the line of Buck’s jaw.

“It will,” Eddie promises, putting every ounce of certainty he possesses into those two words. “And even if it doesn’t all at once—I’ll wait. However long it takes.”

Buck’s throat works, and Eddie swears something flickers behind his eyes for the first time in days. But just as quickly, it’s gone, and Eddie schools his features so as not to betray his disappointment.

Lulu lets out a tiny sound—half sigh, half whimper—and Buck instinctively reaches out to touch her cheek with one finger, the movement automatic and gentle.

Eddie reaches out to grasp his wrist, scenting him where their hands meet over their baby, until all three of them sink into sleep, keeping their daughter safe even while her dads are being tossed in the waves.