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"Is Buck alright?"
Eddie pauses. Sighs. "You heard."
"Aunt Maddie was talking to Tia Pepa about it," Christopher confirms. His voice is tinny over the phone, a little scared. "She said-- she said something happened to you guys. That...you were hurt. And Buck--"
His baby's breath hitches. Eddie wishes, fiercely, that he was there to hold him, that he could have an arm over Christopher's shoulders for this conversation. He is so sick of talking to his son over the phone.
"Buck is okay, mijo," Eddie tells him, because his son is very much like himself sometimes, and Buck - their Buck - being lost is something out of a nightmare for both of them. "And so am I. We're both fine. We're coming home to you soon."
"Tia Pepa mentioned-- something about a car accident--" and, oh, Christopher's breath is hitching, and Eddie knows what this is. His chest clenches.
"Chris--"
"Like mom." Chris finishes, and Eddie's breath rushes out of him all at once.
"Oh, buddy," he murmurs, something swelling up in his throat. "It's-- it's going to be okay, mijo, baby. Breathe for me, alright? Buck is here. I'm here. We're okay."
The sound of stuttered breathing, slowing as Eddie slows his own inhales and exhales deliberately. After a moment, the rustle of fabric. A sniffle.
"What happened?"
Eddie sighs. "Well..." he says. "There was someone...troubled, in the diner. And Buck reminded her of her son. She-- she thought that if she could take Buck, she could have her son again. So she...she kidnapped him. And she hit our car to do it."
A moment of silence, and Eddie wonders if he's said too much. It's difficult, these days, trying to balance the understanding that Christopher is growing up, and the part of him that will always see Chris as his baby boy. He's always getting it a little bit wrong.
Buck, he thinks, looking at the doors of the gas station, has always been better at this.
Christopher's voice crackles over the phone. "Wow," he says. "And I thought dating your dead wife's doppleganger was bad."
Eddie chokes. "Chris."
"Sorry," Chris says, sounding not at all sorry. Eddie is glad that he's comfortable enough now to make jokes about it, but his kid is terrifying. "But-- what, they kidnapped Buck? And they didn't think anyone was going to go looking for him?"
He sounds insulted, which makes Eddie smile a little. Christopher knows, as well as Eddie does, that there is nothing that their family would not do to keep Buck with them.
"Apparently not," he says.
"But you did," Christopher's voice is absolutely confident. "You found him. You saved him. Just like Buck saved you."
Eddie curls his knuckles. Feels the sting of the scrapes on the back of his hand. "He saved himself, mijo," he says, tender-soft. "I went to save him, and he saved me, instead."
He remembers the barrel of the gun on him. The press of cold metal in his fingers. He had never wanted to shoot a gun again, but he knew he would've. For Buck. What had he shouted, again?
"Is he alive?"
Something clenches in his chest. He had been afraid, for a moment. Hadn't known if he was looking for a man or a body. Had been willing to take a bullet for either. But then, Buck. Always Buck, Buck saving his ass, even when he's barely able to stand. Making Eddie smile, even when he wants to shake out of his body.
"So you just do whatever I tell you?" Buck had asked once, and Eddie had said "It's the path of least resistance" instead of the truth. Instead of "I always want to, if it's you."
"It's Buck," Chris says to him now. "He saves people."
He saved me, Eddie hears.
"He does," Eddie says, more sure of that than anything else. "He saved the both of us, and now we're coming home. To you."
"I miss you, dad. And Buck. Can I talk to him?"
Eddie looks at the gas station again, thinks about the bits and pieces he's gleaned about what Buck went through. "Buck's a bit under the weather right now, bud," he says. "It might be...hard, for him to talk. But he wants to see you more than anything else, I know that."
"Come home soon, then," Chris says, imperious and scared at once. Eddie wishes he were recording this conversation, to show to Buck, later. See? Look at how much this kid loves you. Look at how much we need you. "I can make him feel better."
Eddie smiles at that. "I know you can." Better than I can. He hesitates, thinks over the errant idea that's been percolating in his mind ever since he found Buck. I think I lost him, he'd said, like a prophecy. Unacceptable.
"Hey, Chris," he says. "I was thinking...would you be okay, if I got Buck a St. Christopher of his own?"
For a moment, there's silence on the line, and Eddie wonders if he's made a mistake. But then-- "Yes! I'll ask Pepa to get one, and we can give it to Buck when he gets home."
"Making it look like it was all your idea, huh," Eddie teases gently.
"It's a St. Chris, I should be the one to give it to him."
"Fair enough," Eddie laughs. "You're...really okay with this."
"Duh, dad," Chris intones. "You always say that it's good luck, and Buck needs all the good like he can get. Even though it's kind of weird to have friendship necklaces when you're that old, or whatever."
"Hey," Eddie laughs, something twinging in his chest, a little uncomfortable.
Your "friend," the sheriff whispers in his mind. "Your kind."
It had cut in the diner, drawing blood when Eddie had been too aching and tired to pretend otherwise. It had burned in a different way in the hospital, the implication that Eddie could ever truly want to hurt Buck. That, if he'd had him, he'd ever force him away.
"I counted three minutes and seventeen seconds," he'd wanted to scream. "I watched him die once. Did you think I could ever do it again?"
But he and Buck weren't married, so that was a moot point.
He knows, though, how the St. Christopher might look, how it might play into all the ways that people like these might see Buck and Eddie sitting together, sharing a life. Still. Still.
"You're never too old for friendship necklaces," he says, and listens to the child that another man helped him raise laugh. He catches a glimpse of curls through the window, the easy curve of Buck's smile. Even bruised and broken, Buck finds the time to be kind. "Hey, mijo, we have to get back on the road soon. I have to check in with the rest of the team before we go. I'll talk to you again later, okay?"
"With Buck," Christopher demands, and Eddie is so grateful to the world that has made his child this way, a kid who can demand his parents' attention without any hesitance.
"With Buck," Eddie agrees. "Love you, Chris."
"Love you, dad. Stay safe."
The phone clicks, and Eddie looks at the screen, scrolls through to Chim's contact. Before he hits the call button, he looks towards the storefront again. To Buck, the desert sun golden in his curls, bright against every cut and bruise. He is alive, and he is beautiful, and Eddie is beginning to realize that he doesn't care it means that he thinks this way.
He imagines Buck's smile when he sees Christopher. A chain dangling from his neck that matches Eddie's. Maybe he'll ask if Buck will let him be the one to put it on him. He knows, already, that Buck will say yes.