Stay, For Me

two

Eddie just remained quiet trying to figure everything out. Athena looked at Eddie, searching for his answer.

"I wasn't thinking," Eddie explained, "telling everybody was hard enough for me to do, but telling Buck was harder. You warned me that it could end badly Bobby. I should've listened to you and just waited until we were at least somewhere more private. I let things escalate instead of trying to reason with Buck, I simply got defensive and angry. I have no excuse for hitting Buck and I hate that I did."

"Well you've both been through enough shit today and I'm not going to add to that right now," Athena said calmly, "but this better not happen again. The important thing is that you two finally managed to grow up and tell each other how you really feel. It only took you two, three years to admit it. They say Rome wasn't built in a day but you two sure as hell took your sweet bloody time. You know if you two took any longer I would've locked you two in the interrogation room until you told each other. I've never seen two people so hopelessly in love with each other, take so damn long to act on those feelings."

I couldn't help but chuckle at the thought, I knew Athena wasn't joking and she actually would've done that; which only made it funnier. I felt happier now and safer now that my feelings were out in the open. I looked at Eddie out of the corner of my eye and I could see a smile on his face. Seemingly satisfied with the results of their interrogation they turned around and Athena drove us back to her house. I leaned against Eddie in the back seat of the car as Athena drove. By the time we got back to Athena's everybody else was already there and talking amongst themselves. We walked in and everybody looked up at us and conversations briefly stopped.

"Y'all can stop staring now," Athena said clearing her throat, "it's over and dealt with now. So let's just enjoy our little get together and move on."

That seemed to break most of the tension in the room and everybody resumed their conversations.

"Dad, Bucky," Christopher exclaimed as he made his way over to us, "what happened earlier?"

"Well you see Chris," Eddie said gently, "Buck and I didn't agree on something and things got out of control."

"It seemed like more than that," Christopher countered, "Bucky looked really hurt and angry with you dad. It feels like there's more to this."

Eddie sighed and then said, "You're right Chris, there is more to it. You see I told Buck that I was leaving the 118 and he got upset because I didn't talk to him about it. I hurt his feelings really bad and things got out of hand."

"So you ended up yelling at each other in front of everybody? You punched Buck dad, we're not supposed to hit people when we're angry. You taught me that hitting people is wrong, especially when you care about that person."

"I got upset with your dad," I chimed in, "he hurt my feelings a lot and I pushed his buttons to make him angry. I wanted him to hit me and I pushed your dad pretty hard. Sometimes things don't always make sense Chris and sometimes grown ups get into fights even though we know better."

"You do crazy things for love," Chris said after a second, "even if those things don't seem very kind."

I looked at Eddie and then back at Chris, it was obvious that the kid knew a lot more than we thought he did. So we decided to tell him the truth.

"You're right love does make people do stuff they don't normally do." Eddie explained, "Buck and I do love each other a lot and that's why things got so heated. When I said I was leaving, Buck took it really hard because his feelings took over. Athena and Bobby helped us sort our issues out and now things are how they're supposed to be."

Chris paused for a moment, thinking about what Eddie said.

"Does this mean Buck is finally going to move in with us?" Chris asked with a smile, "or are we going to move into Buck's apartment?"