Tommy gets wrongfully accused of killing his father and is sent to prison. At first, everyone is on his side but eventually the evidence kinda piles up and Buck is the only one still convinced it wasn’t him.
The guilty verdict comes back in less than four hours and he’s led away. Buck can only come visit on the weekend because it’s a three hour drive but he adjusts his schedule to make sure he can go every single weekend.
He spends all his free time working on the case. Long after it’s been considered closed, he goes over it with a fine tooth comb looking for anything he can find. He gets little bits and pieces here and there but it’s not enough and he needs help.
This continues for 3 years. Three years of visits where Tommy slowly becomes more withdrawn. Buck says they should get married. They can have conjugal visits and also have more privacy to discuss the case. That’s when Tommy tells him to stop. Stop working the case and please let it go. Buck agrees- for him- but doesn’t stop.
Another two years of visits goes by. Sometimes Tommy comes out, sometimes he doesn’t. Until he asks Buck to stop coming altogether. Please move on and let him go and go live his life.
Buck still comes. Tommy denies every single visit but Buck doesn’t stop.
So Buck quits his job. He moves closer to Tommy. He finds a detective who- finally- agrees that Tommy is innocent. They just have to get definitive proof. This detective (we’ll call him Roy) and his wife ends up letting Buck move in with them after a year, so he doesn’t spend his life savings on his rental. Buck does side jobs, like doordash, to pay them rent for the room. They spend all their time working the case.
Four more years go by before they get the break they need. Tommy had just left from a terrible visit with his dad and was thought to be the last to see him alive. Except one of his dad’s “friends” who he owed money stopped by for a visit afterward. Because Kinard didn’t have the money, in a fit of rage, the man killed him. He knew Tommy had been there and used that to his advantage.
His mistake was becoming an old drunk who couldn’t keep his mouth shut when Buck wore a wire and talked to him one night.
Six months later, when Tommy is officially released, Buck is standing there, waiting for him outside the doors. Roy and his wife are there too, standing back and watching them reconnect.
Tommy stops dead in his tracks at first. Stares at Buck with an unreadable expression. And then practically falls into his arms. They’re both crying, can’t stop, while Tommy just repeats, “Evan, Evan, Evan,” over and over again.
