Chapter Text
Christopher had a bad day. Correction. He had several bad days. It started when his father didn't go to the movies with him and Marisol on Sunday because he supposedly had some business. The movie was funny, but most of the theater was occupied by kids under 10. Christopher and his 13-year-old butt stuck out like a thumb. He wished his dad had gone with them because then they could have gone to an action movie, but Marisol thought he was too young for that. He'd be 14 in a few months and had survived a tsunami at age 8. It's not like they'd go to an 18+ movie (Buck is still embarrassed when he accidentally put one on. Chris and his dad still think it's the funniest thing in the world how quickly Buck's face turned red when he realized what kind of movie he'd put on. That night, they watched 'Finding Nemo' to cheer Buck up and reminisce about old times.)
So Sunday didn't start out badly. But as soon as they got home, everything went wrong. At first, Christopher wasn't sure what he was looking at. His father was hugging a strange woman. But then she turned around. And Chris was sure he was seeing a ghost. His mom stood shocked next to his dad, who had tears in his eyes. Chris snapped out of his stupor when Marisol started yelling at his father, but he ignored her, trying to tell Chris that it wasn't what it looked like. And then he knew. That she wasn't his mother. His mother had been dead for years, and this woman must have been some kind of clone of hers. Buck had once told him that there were many people in the world who looked the same even though they didn't share the same DNA, and the chance of meeting his own doppelganger was 1 in 8,000,000,000. Chris was seeing his mother's doppelganger.
The moment the door slammed behind a furious Marisol, Christopher stormed to his room and locked himself in, ignoring his father trying to talk to him. Naturally, the pipe had to burst again that day, and his desk was flooded and the ceiling stained. This house was falling apart, despite Dad, Buck, and even Bobby's attempts to fix it. Nothing beats the look on his dad's face as the three of them calmly ate dinner when the kitchen sink suddenly exploded, couple months ago.
Chris simply sat on the bed and called his grandparents as soon as he heard his father leave the door. Grandma immediately said they'd be there the next day, before he could even finish explaining what had happened. His grandparents hung up shortly after, and Christopher was left alone crying. At that moment, he wanted to call Buck, but he remembered his dad saying that he was on a date with ugly Tommy. Buck seriously needs to change the type of people he dates because each one is worse. At least Taylor was funny, but Tommy was cool for the first two meetings , until they realized how old-fashioned his view of the world was. Even Bobby wasn't that conservative, and he was literally an old, white, catholic, straight man. Although Chris should never compare Bobby to anyone again. Right after Buck and his dad, Bobby was the coolest guy in the world. Although his father had now fallen in the rankings. Chris sobbed again. It wasn't fair. Can't he rest? There was enough going on in his life already.
As he learned the next morning, he clearly couldn't rest, as his grandparents arrived early in the morning with a lawyer, suing his father for custody. Chris will probably never know how they obtained such documents so quickly, especially since a court date was already scheduled for Wednesday at 8 a.m. His father stood in the doorway, shocked, clutching a file. He looked like he hadn't slept all night, with black bags under his bloodshot eyes, and disheveled hair as if he'd been running his fingers through them too often. Chris then became even more mad, wondering how his father could make it look like his world had collapsed when he'd brought this on himself by bringing this woman home. Although Christopher was angry at his grandparents for thinking they could just take him to El Paso forever, he was even more mad at his father, and made the mistake of agreeing to stay with them in a hotel until the hearing. He absolutely didn't want to live with them until his 18th birthday, because his whole life had been there—his school, his friends, his family, and Buck. But he was still so angry that he went with them.
When he tried to text Denny and Harry in the car asking if they could talk, because he simply needed friends, Grandma suddenly snatched the phone from his hands, saying that he was staying with them now and that children that age shouldn't use phones at all because it was bad for them. When he tried to be reasonable with her and explain that he simply needed to talk to friends, she told him he'd find new friends in El Paso.
Chris flew into a rage and started crying and screaming for them to take him back home because his dad had never taken away his support system. Then his grandfather told him to calm down because he was almost an adult now and Diaz men didn't act like that. Chris was tired. He hadn't slept most of the night just crying, and now he was stuck with his grandparents, who were supposed to help him, and now they were already bringing him down. If they were like this when his dad was growing up, he wasn't surprised he'd fled two states away. But Christopher breathed a sigh of relief that he'd only be back with his dad on Wednesday after this damn court hearing, even if he still didn't want to see him. Maybe Buck would be able to help him. Oh, how Chris wished he'd called him the day before.
Wednesday couldn't come soon enough. He spent the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday without his phone. All he could do was read some boring history book and play chess with his grandfather. History was so boring without Buck sharing interesting facts about almost every historical moment. And his grandparents were already talking about the chess club in El Paso they'd sign him up for and what school he'd attend. They also tried to tell him that his dad had never tried to be a father and that they would take better care of him in Texas. Chris couldn't wait to see their faces when he got home with his dad on Wednesday. From what he remembered, Denny had told him about his foster siblings, that the courts would always side with parents unless the situation was extreme. This wasn't extreme. But Chris intending to stay with Buck as soon as his dad won was another matter.
What Chris didn't expect on Wednesday, sitting behind his grandparents in court (because he's apparently too young for phone, too old to cry, and old enough to sit in a courtroom), was that his dad wouldn't show up. His lawyer tried to stall, saying his dad would be there, that maybe something urgent had happened. But Chris saw his dad's lawyer getting nervous, trying to call and text, but no one answered on the other side. His dad didn't show up to fight for him. Christopher suddenly realized that maybe his grandparents were right. His dad never wanted to be a dad. The judge gave his father a chance and changed the date of the trial to Friday at 9 a.m.
Christopher was numb the whole way back to the hotel. Terror began to scratch his throat. He began to realize that days without contact with the outside world and only playing chess and changing practically everything in his life would suddenly be his everyday life. No more BBQs at Bobby and Athens, no more playing with Denny, Harry and school friends, no more conversations in the children's group of the fire station 118, no more going to the zoo or the planetarium with Buck or movie nights with just the three of them.
The chance for freedom came with the grandparents going out to meet their lawyer, 'nothing for the children's ears'. Chris searched his grandparents' belongings as quickly as he could and almost cried with joy when he found his phone. Only one person could save him now. That one person who never let him down.
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Buck had a good day. He'd just finished a 48-hour shift and wasn't even tired after the recent quiet hours (he immediately apologized in mind to Shift B for thinking the q-word). It was only 9 a.m. and he already finished his shopping and didn't even spend long time in traffic on the way home. And at 11 a.m., he was supposed to meet his boyfriend, Tommy, for coffee, so life was truly good.
He was only worried about Eddie. Eddie, who was meeting a woman who looked like his dead wife. Eddie, who admitted to being worried about himself. Eddie, who didn't show up for work on Monday and hadn't spoken since. The only thing that calmed Buck was Bobby, who said Eddie had taken the week off for family matters. Although that wasn't entirely reassuring, since Eddie usually told Buck what was going on in his life. Or at least, he did until the woman, who looked like his dead wife, showed up.
Buck picked up his phone again, intending to send another text to Eddie, when he remembered Maddie's words after he'd spoken to her, that he was worried about his best friend. That Eddie was a grown man who had his own life and could take care of himself. He had nothing to worry about, right?
With a sigh, he put down his phone to try and get ready for their date when the Star Wars theme rang. Christopher had set it up a while back, when he was in a movie craze, on Buck and Eddie's phones so they'd always know when he was calling. For example, when the Darth Vader theme music started playing, Buck knew it was Eddie calling. This is also Christopher's case.
He answered the phone immediately. He hadn't heard Christopher since their Friday movie night. He just hoped it was nothing serious and everyone was okay.