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Buck had been told he'd never be a guide. His sister was dormant and had been since before he could remember. His parents, both guides, had slowly gone dormant as he aged, and by the time he left at 16, his mother had been a shell of a woman and his father absent. Maddie had been long gone by then, and he had no hopes that her partner of choice would help her overcome her dormancy.
No one who knew that his entire family was entirely made up of dormant guides was surprised to learn that he had never come online. He hadn't sought out a specialist in nearly a decade, but he was comfortable with the classification of Permanently Offline, aka never-coming-online-no-matter-what. Offline guides usually had a chance, given the right circumstances, but everyone had told Buck those circumstances didn't exist for him, and he was willing to live with that.
The first time he saw Eddie, through the glass wall of their locker room, something in his chest had pinged. There was a pull there, but it felt like running into a brick wall. For the first time in his life, Buck felt the grief others usually expected him to show when he told them he was permanently offline.
That grief was what made him brush Eddie off at first. And while he will never actually be grateful that someone doing something stupid got hurt bad enough to need them, he is grateful for the history teacher who brought Eddie and him together as partners.
Over the next few months, Buck learns a lot about his partner. He learns about Chris, and about Shannon, and about his overbearing parents. He learns that Eddie doesn't ever like to talk about having been in the military, and that he's got a dry wit that pops up at the most unhelpful times.
They don't talk about their statuses as guides or sentinels. Buck has never once brought it up to anyone at the firehouse, and his offline status means that even an online sentinel or guide wouldn't know, let alone a trauma dormant sentinel like Bobby. The 118 has two online sentinels on B shift, and their guides are the paramedics on that shift. Buck's not 100% sure how that works, but they seem happy with the arrangement.
When Eddie cuts his line down the well to save a kid's life, Buck isn't shocked that he did it. He is shocked, however, about the way something inside of him snaps wide open when he looks around and realizes everyone else has switched from rescue to recovery mode in less than a minute. No one else thinks there's even a chance that Eddie is alive, and something inside Buck finds that intolerable.
Buck has never put a lot of thought into what it means to be a guide. His parents used every chance they had to tell him how broken he was, so while he didn't find anything upsetting with it, he believed them that they knew and understood the reason he was classified permanently offline, and that, somehow, that did mean he was broken, just a little.
But here, and now, in the field, in the mud and the rain and surrounded by people who are convinced Eddie is dead, he proves them all absolutely wrong.
He falls to his knees when the wave hits him. It's mostly sadness and grief, if even on a superficial level from people who don't know them. It's sharper from their coworkers, and muffled from Bobby. Something in him wants to fix what's wrong with Bobby, but he can't even think about it, can't focus on anything but the overwhelming fear and determination he can feel from Eddie.
"He's alive," Buck gasps out.
Hen tuts at him, clearly trying to manage his expectations on top of her own grief, but a few of the SAR guys push through their group.
"Guide," one says, giving him a good bit of space so as not to accidentally touch him. "Tell us what you know."
"Guide?" he hears Chimney question behind them, but tunes it out.
"He's alive, I don't know how. He's cold, but alive."
Another guide comes up behind him. She wraps him in a warming blanket and hands him a second one. "For your sentinel," she tells him.
Buck starts at that, but doesn't deny it. He's not sure of anything at this moment, and if thinking that Eddie is his sentinel will make them believe Eddie is alive and make them do something instead of standing around and acting like they're never going to even find a body, he'll take it.
They help Buck up, and he lets them. They sit him on the back of the ambo, and he shuts his eyes, tipping his head back and reaching out through this weird connection to Eddie. He doesn't know if this means he's a guide for real, or if this will continue past this event, but he can figure it out after.
He's not 100% sure Eddie can feel him, but he keeps reaching on the off chance he can. When something changes, and Eddie seems sure about something, Buck opens his eyes and waves over the guide from before. "He's moving that way," Buck says, pointing towards the pond. "I don't know what he's found, but he seems a lot more sure all of a sudden."
The guide nods, helping him up. She talks into her radio, and within a minute, a group of SAR are surrounding them. Buck tells them what he felt, what he knows, and they head off at a jog, leaving Buck and the guide to follow. The rest of the 118 come up behind them, clearly not sure what is happening, but not willing to call it, either.
Later, Buck will only remember Eddie coming up out of the water in flashes. In the moment, he bolts away from the guide, and the SAR group parts for him, letting him be the first one to Eddie.
Eddie nearly collapses into his arms, and Buck can hear the two sentinels from the SAR group keeping the 118 back. When Eddie buries his face in Buck's neck, Buck feels something in him relax.
"This isn't good," Buck hears one of the sentinels say behind him.
"I didn't realize they weren't bonded before," the guide says.
"I don't think they were online, even," the second sentinel says.
Buck only vaguely cares about what they're saying. After a few minutes, Eddie pulls himself back, but keeps one arm around Buck. Buck is mostly supporting him, but can feel how on edge and alert Eddie is about the crowd.
"Sentinel," the other guide says, nodding to Eddie. "Let's get you checked out, and back into town. We can get you to the center—"
Eddie shakes his head. "Check me out, then take me home."
"Sentinel," the guide sighs. "We need to take you to the center."
Eddie stares her down, though, and Buck has to turn into Eddie to hide his smile.
"I need to be home, with my kid. I'll let a bonded pair from the center come to my house tomorrow, but not tonight."
The guide sighs again, but she backs off so that they can get Eddie to the ambulance.
Eddie is fine, if a little cold. The 118 hovers, and Hen insists on Eddie being wrapped into a warming blanket for the ride back, but she lets him ride in the truck with everyone else.
When they get back to the station, they already have a relief crew ready to take over. Buck sends Eddie to the locker room to get their stuff, and while Eddie clearly doesn't want to leave his side, he takes one look at Bobby's face and then goes anyway.
"I'll call after the pair from the center comes tom–later today," Buck tells Bobby. He can see Bobby has a lot he wants to say, but Buck doesn't really want to hear it, and he's clearly putting that out there because Bobby opens and shuts his mouth a few times before deciding against saying anything.
It's very early morning now, the wrap up from the scene and checking Eddie out taking them through the night. Buck drives them home in Eddie's truck. His Jeep is fine at the station for a day or two, and Eddie relaxes into the passenger seat as they go.
A few minutes out, Buck calls Carla.
"Something happened at work today," he tells her. "We're okay, but it was rough. You might want to be ready to head out in a few."
"Buckaroo…" she starts. "Are you sure? I can stay, even if it's uncomfortable."
"We can see," he tells her. "But I'm not sure—Eddie came online tonight, and brought me with him. I'm not sure–"
"Oh, baby, I understand. The good news is I'm null, and I won't push against you guys at all, but I can clear out if Eddie's instincts go haywire."
Buck relaxes and feels Eddie relax even more beside him. "You're a godsend."
"And don't you forget it, baby," she tells him, laughing, and then hangs up.
When they get to the house, Buck can feel Christopher's warmth, but that's it. He hasn't done a lot of research into nulls, but when Carla opens the door and he feels nothing but a faint sense of love from her, he's fascinated. The entire 118 was a whirl of emotions the entire time they were there, and Christopher is a small hurricane of worry and happiness and love all wrapped up in a tiny bundle, but Carla is calm nothingness.
Eddie is relaxed in front of her, too. "You can definitely stay, if you want to," Eddie tells her, his voice rough.
Carla runs a hand down his cheek. "You know it. Chris and I will hold down the fort, you two shower. I'll have food for you, then you can settle into bed and bond as much as you can with a kiddo in the house until I take him to school."
Her voice is laughing, and Buck knows she's amused, but he can't feel it, and even after just a few hours, that seems wonderful.
"We already bonded," Eddie tells her. "We bonded at a distance the second we came online."
"What?" she asks, and Buck can tell she wants to ask so much more.
Buck shrugs. "We don't know what happened, but it's true. It might settle in better, after some, uh"—he glances at Chris—"more traditional bonding time, but I don't think anything could break our bond."
"Well, aren't you two perfect, then," Carla says with a smirk before shooing them off toward the shower.
Eddie's shower is small, so they take turns, even though they want to be touching each other. This is the part that Buck hopes will settle once they do some more bonding, but the psionic link seems firm and steady.
Carla has soup for them when they get out, and Chris is just starting his own breakfast. They showed up home before he normally even woke up, but Carla clearly understood that they'd need to see him up and alive when they first got home.
They hug Chris, then Eddie herds Buck into his bedroom. Carla told them she'd pick Chris up from school, even though she'd been scheduled to be off once he got dropped off. Eddie tried to decline, but Carla patted him on the cheek and waved him off.
Buck lets Eddie settle himself half on top of him. Eddie is clearly listening as Carla gets Chris ready for school. Buck can hear the occasional noise, but figures Eddie can hear everything.
"Do you want to see if you can pull your hearing in, or is it better to listen?" Buck asks.
Eddie shrugs as much as he can. "I think I need it right now, but we should probably figure that out before we go back to work."
Buck huffs a laugh. "I honestly don't know anything about being a guide. I was told I was permanently offline when I was a kid, and never had a reason to think that wasn't true."
"Yeah," Eddie sighs. "When I didn't come online after two tours, and the helicopter… we all just assumed that I was never coming online."
Buck runs a hand down Eddie's back. "I wonder how much of it was about us not having met."
Eddie tilts his head, so he can look up at Buck. "You hear stories about online pairs going years without meeting. Do you think this really could be about that?"
"I honestly have no idea. But maybe neither of us would have come online in this situation if we didn't have our pair waiting. Or I never would have come online if you didn't, and you never would have if you didn't have me with you so you could survive with it."
Eddie sighs. "Maybe. I don't know enough about any of this to know."
They sleep then, curled up around each other. Just after noon, Eddie jerks awake and Buck comes awake instantly, with him.
"There's a pair here."
Buck yawns. "Okay, then."
They get up and grab water. Buck notices immediately that Eddie won't keep his hands off him. When Eddie points to the couch, Buck sits, waiting while Eddie gets the door.
The couple is well put together in business casual. They're bonded, and have been for a long time, Buck thinks. He's not sure how he knows that, just that he does.
"Cameron and Denise Harris," the guide introduces them. He's tall, but not very broad. Denise is so tiny Buck is pretty sure he could lift her with one hand.
"This is Eddie Diaz, and I'm Evan Buckley. You can call me Buck."
None of them reach out to shake hands, and that's basically the extent of Buck's knowledge of the dos and don'ts of meeting a sentinel-guide pair.
"We're sorry about the trauma you went through yesterday, but we're interested in hearing the story, if you're willing," Denise tells them.
Eddie goes through the rescue, talks about making the decision to cut the rope, about Chimney coming and getting Hayden, and then finally, about the ground coming down around him.
"I was stuck down there, and the water table was rising, and I couldn't do anything about it. And then something just snapped, and I could feel Buck, and I knew I had to get back to him, that I couldn't leave him," Eddie says. "From there, I can't really remember anything until I got my hands on Buck again."
Cameron's eyebrows have met his hairline. "You mean you could feel Buck before you touched or even saw each other again?"
They both nod. "It was seconds after the tunnel collapsed that I could feel him," Buck says. "One of the SAR sentinels clocked me as a guide immediately after."
"We did some basic background research on you two, just so we didn't have to take up too much of your time. You two have been partners for almost two years, correct?" Denise asks.
"Not quite," Buck tells her. "But yeah, a while."
"And neither of you were online or close to coming online before this?"
Eddie shakes his head, and Buck sighs. "I was documented as permanently offline," Buck says. "He earned a silver star and a purple heart, so he figured the trauma was enough to have triggered it, if it was going to happen."
Denise nods, but Cameron frowns. "When were you documented as permanently offline?"
Buck shrugs. "Before I can remember. Four or five? I can call my sister and ask."
Denise and Cameron are staring at him in horror. "Do you know what caused them to declare it? Was it trauma?"
Buck raises an eyebrow. "No? I mean, my sister and my parents are dormant, but they have been since I can remember."
"Where are you from? What are their names?" Cameron asks, leaning forward.
"Hershey, Pennsylvania. And the Buckleys, Phillip and Margret. Maddie's my sister."
Cameron stands up and leaves the house. Eddie cocks his head in surprise after a second, and Denise laughs. "Yeah, the first few times I experienced a personal white noise generator was awful. And then the first time Cam used it, when I couldn't see him, I nearly went feral. We worked at it so that I could tolerate it in instances like this."
Eddie nods. Buck slides his hand into Eddie's and squeezes. "I honestly don't know much about this, because it seemed weird to learn any of it if I was never going to be a guide, but could I be the reason Eddie didn't come online in Afghanistan? Since we hadn't met yet?"
Denise considers it. "I suppose, though we've plenty of instances where sentinels came online in horrific situations and didn't meet their guides till much later."
They discuss the theory some more, not really coming to any conclusions, but keeping both sentinels occupied while Cam is outside.
After nearly half an hour, he comes back in. He flips off the generator, and both sentinels recoil a bit, which leaves enough of a crack in Cam's shield to make Buck recoil, too.
"That bad, huh?" Buck asks, because if it involves his parents, he's willing to believe it.
"You weren't permanently offline," Cam tells them. "Your gifts were suppressed when you were born. It was discovered when you were a year old, when your brother died, and your mother spiraled. She was the one who suppressed your gifts, and the binding of your gifts caused your sister to come online, and immediately go dormant.
"When what had happened was discovered, your parents were forced dormant by the local pride leaders. They tried to heal you, but while they had some success, they didn't think you'd ever be able to come online."
Buck can feel the rage from everyone in the room. He supposes he should feel angry, too, but there's something more pressing in the speech than the fact that his parents were awful. He already knew that.
He sends out a wave of calm. "I don't have a brother."
Cam flinches. "His name was Daniel Buckley. He was six years older than you, and died just after your first birthday."
He's hesitating, and Buck raises an eyebrow.
"You were a savior sibling. Your brother needed a bone marrow transplant, and none of your family was a match."
Buck flinches at that. "They made me? For spare parts?"
"No," Eddie grinds out. "Absolutely not."
"Eds…"
Eddie glares at him, and Buck can't help but smile. He looks back over at Cam. "So my sister has kept this secret my whole life?"
Cam sighs. "As far as the pride leader then could tell, she was so traumatized by the whole ordeal that she may not really remember any of it. She was nine when he died, and apparently, your parents were not great to her. It compounded on the trauma of going dormant."
Buck winces, and Eddie lets go of his hand to wrap his arm around him.
Denise looks furious, but Buck is impressed by how little is leaking out. "I think," she says carefully, "that we can say you wouldn't have ever come online except in an instance where your sentinel did, and it was trauma-induced. I can't say if that kept you offline, Eddie, or not, but I will say I don't think it matters either way."
Buck nods. "Can you sign off on us returning to work?"
Denise tilts her head. "One week. With at least one 24 hour period kid free so you can bond traditionally. While your psionic bond is solid, Eddie's senses will calm down a lot more after that."
Eddie rolls his eyes, but Buck can tell he believes him. Buck sighs. "Thank you, and thank you for looking into my parents. Can we set up a meeting later this week with my sister? I want her to have help available after we talk about what you found."
"Absolutely. Maybe Monday?"
Denise and Cam don't stay long after that. Once Eddie has locked the door behind them, he turns and faces Buck. "You on board with the idea of some traditional bonding?"
Buck's cheeks heat up at the look Eddie is giving him. "With you, Sentinel? Always."
That was apparently the right thing to say, because Eddie is pulling him up and pushing him towards the bedroom. He's plastered along Buck's back, mouthing at the back of his neck, and Buck can't help but push his feelings out at Eddie.
The collapse onto the bed, and later, Buck won't be able to remember much more than the feelings of right and home and love. He comes away with an imprint of Eddie's teeth on his neck and an even greater awareness of Eddie, psionically.
They don't leave the bed until Eddie murmurs, "Carla and Chris are two streets away."
They get up then and head to the bathroom to rinse off. Carla has Chris at the table in the kitchen when they come out, and she smiles brightly at them. "You look thoroughly bonded," she tells them.
Eddie blushes, but Buck laughs.
Chris looks over at them, pausing in eating his snack. "Is bonding like getting married?"
Buck raises an eyebrow at Eddie. Eddie sighs. "Kinda, yeah. Not everyone can bond, but it creates a pair, just like getting married does."
Chris nods. "Doe this mean Buck is really my dad now, too, not just kinda?"
"What do you mean?" Eddie asks, and Buck stays relaxed because he can feel Eddie's amusement being his most prominent response to the question.
"Well, he does dad things. He takes me to school, and picks me up, and sometimes when you're working and he's not, the school calls him, and he puts me to bed and he put me in time out once, and he takes me to the zoo. Like you. Because he's like my dad," Chris explains, practically all in one breath.
"Don't think we're not gonna come back to what you did that made Buck put you in time out," Eddie says, raising an eyebrow, "but yeah, he's going to do those things still. And he's bonded to me, so if you want to say he's your dad, and he's okay with it, you can."
Buck kneels down next to Chris. "We can find something else to call me that won't be confusing for us, Superman. You want to tell your dad or let me tell him what you did last month?"
Chris sighs, and it's extremely put upon. "Last month when Buck stayed here because you were working, I lied about my homework because I wanted to play games. But Bucky had the email you get from the teacher, so he knew I had homework. So I had to do my homework, and I wasn't allowed to play any games, and I had to go to bed early."
Buck can tell Eddie wants to smirk but is doing his best not to. It's a decent summary of events, in any case. "Did I send the email to you?" he asks.
Buck laughs, standing up. "Yeah, right. I'm pretty sure you've never opened the emails, either. I asked if I could get put on it the first time we had to swing by the school and sign that field trip permission slip mid shift because Chris forgot to give it to us. We haven't missed a project or a permission slip since."
Eddie rolls his eyes. It's not like everyone doesn't know how much he hates email.
Carla puts something in the oven and sets a timer. "Pull it out when it's done, and you'll have dinner. I'll be by to pick up Chris for school tomorrow," she tells them.
She kisses Chris on the head, then pauses in front of Buck and Eddie. Buck hugs her, and Eddie does the same when he's done. She smiles softly at them, putting her hand on Eddie's cheek. "Thank you for trusting me."
"Always, Carla," Eddie says. "I trust you with my heart on a daily basis, so this was an easy call."
Carla looks like she's going to cry, but waves Buck off when he makes a concerned noise. "Thank your boy in ways I can't for saying that," she tells him, grabbing her purse and bustling out of there.
Buck raises an eyebrow at Eddie, and he blushes. Chris makes a face at them, so Buck laughs, sits down next to Chris, and pulls open Chris's backpack.
—-
The conversation with Maddie is traumatic. Buck sincerely hopes he never sees his parents again, if only because he's pretty sure Eddie will kill them if they do see them. Eddie refuses to let Maddie leave their house after Cam and Denise leave, making up the couch for her.
"I need to be able to hear your heartbeat tonight," he tells her, and she nods. Cam didn't think she'd ever come back online, but he'd done what he could to heal her. Maddie seemed content being dormant, but the sudden reminder of the brother she'd repressed from her memory had upset her greatly.
The one good thing to come from it, is that when she left the next morning, she took Chris to school with the promise to pick him up for an auntie-nephew bonding evening. She let him pick the takeout they were going to get and promised him a night filled with Lego movies.
Eddie and Buck spend the entire day bonding. And some of the night. On Thursday, they'll return to shift, but Buck is prepared to spend the time before that on his back, in bed, surrounded by his sentinel.
Thursday morning, they take Chris to school, then head into the station. They're a little early, but Bobby is already there, waving them into his office.
"The S&G center has already sent over your return to work," Bobby explains "It has a single stipulation listed on it, but it's only listed as 'to ask you if you followed it', not what it was…?"
Buck burst out laughing, and Eddie blushes, hanging his head. "Yeah," Eddie sighs. "We followed it. To the letter."
Buck finally gets himself under control. "That has Denise all over it," Buck nudges Eddie.
Eddie nods. "Cam would have just put it on there point blank."
Buck can't help but laugh again. When he looks up, Bobby looks much more relaxed, smiling at them. He seems wistful, and Buck can't help but wonder about his first family, and if his wife was his guide.
He assumes not, given how well Bobby functions now, and how badly he seemed to be functioning before her death. He feels horrible wondering if that had been part of the issue that Bobby was having.
Bobby looks at them. "I want you two to take it as easy as you can. No death-defying stunts until we find out how well you two can handle the other being in danger, okay?"
They nod, and Bobby waves them off. When they leave the office, the rest of A shift is waiting for them.
They answer questions, though not as many as they expected, which they learn is because O'Riley, who is a latent guide, spent the last week schooling the crew on what they can and can't ask, with a whole lot of emphasis on the can't side.
"You met my sister," O'Riley tells them later. "Denise was pretty upset by what Cam found out, not that she would tell me what it was."
Buck sighs. "Yeah, tell her she can tell you. I'm sure you'll find out eventually, but I don't really want to talk about it yet."
O'Riley nods, and when they come back for their next shift, he has murder in his eyes. He walks up to Eddie in front of every person on A shift. "When you kill them, I'm your first call. My brothers and I are already planning what to do with their bodies."
Eddie nods seriously. Buck knows he should feel pissed off that O'Riley assumes he needs his sentinel to protect him like that, but he mostly only feels content and cared for, and a little hurt that O'Riley doesn't think they'd be able to take care of the bodies themselves.
The rest of the shift clearly want to know what happened, but when Buck waves them off, Hen and Cosmo exchange looks and then shrug. "Honestly, call us, and we'll help. We don't really need details."
That makes Buck feel even more cared for, and it only takes him a second to realize it's because the entire shift is radiating their determination to protect them. He thinks about it, then sends out a pulse of thanks and warmth in return, and watches a few of them jolt, but most of them just smile.
They find out quickly that having a sentinel on their shift is useful. Their shift seems to accept their soundness as a bonded pair at first glance, even though multiple people at the center have contacted them for classes out of concern for Eddie zoning and Buck overreaching.
Two months in, they haven't had a single snag. They work together to hone their ability to work as a pair, so Eddie can search for life signs even over the din of an active fire scene.
Nearly six months after bonding, they show up to a five-alarm fire with dozens of people trapped in it. Eddie and Buck find a group of sentinels from the other houses, and the six sentinels are quick to start pointing out sections they don't need to clear and sending people in to get those that are trapped.
The incident commander is Chief Jones, who knows and trusts two of the sentinels enough to trust them all. But one of the captains doesn't, and starts to send men into a section that is clear.
"Belay that command, Ladder 34," Eddie snaps into his radio. They're on the second floor, pulling a young girl out of a closet where she passed out. "That section is clear, and fully engulfed. It's a death trap."
There's a lot of noise through the radio, but the chief backs Eddie. When they get out and hand their victim off to an ambo, Eddie leads Buck over to the chief. "All clear, sir. No more live victims."
Another sentinel jogs over, and repeats what Eddie said. The captain who tried to send his men in, regardless of what that meant, follows.
"How dare you–" he starts, glaring at Eddie. How he knew it was Eddie, Buck doesn't know, but Eddie isn't denying it.
Eddie steps up to him, radiating pissed off sentinel. "My job is to save lives, and so is yours. Risking the lives of your men for nothing is not acceptable."
"We can't know it was for nothing, because no one searched!"
"There was no one alive in that section from the second we got on scene. If there is a victim there, they died before any sentinel arrived," the other sentinel says.
"Says you!" the captain yells. "Says a piece of throwback trash who is more instinct than human!"
The sentinels recoil, and to a one, their guides put a hand on their sentinel. Buck crowds up behind Eddie, helping him reign in his fury.
"Intolerable," Eddie snarls out. And the other sentinels repeat it. It's the second time Buck's heard this word used like it meant something more, and he knows he should figure it out, because he vaguely remembers thinking it at one point, but at the moment, he's more concerned about keeping Eddie from murder.
The chief steps in then. "Captain Baker, you are relieved of duty until an investigation can be completed. Do not return to station 34 to collect any personal belongings—that will be done for you."
The captain is clearly livid, but he backs down. The chief keeps the sentinels from stalking him away from the scene by the grace of their respect for him, but Buck has zero doubts that at least one sentinel from the crowd of civilians around them will be tracking him wherever he goes and reporting him to the S&G center.
"Sentinel Diaz, I apologize on behalf of the LAFD. There will be a formal investigation. Be rest assured that I, and the rest of the brass, believe in your senses and trust you to make the best calls you can while on duty in regards to the life of victims and the safety of other firefighters." The chief lets his eyes bounce from sentinel to sentinel, making sure they know it applies to them.
Days later, when the investigation into the fire is done, they find zero victims. The captain is relieved of duty permanently. Six houses send Eddie inquiries on if they'd like to transfer, and all six sentinels from the fire are sent inquiries from LA County SAR. Buck and Eddie take the SAR course, because it sounds fun, but Eddie refuses to discuss any transfers.
"We're home," he tells Buck, and Buck can't help but agree.