WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSE

elisela:

YES OKAY. SO.

1. Eddie still moves to LA and does the fire academy, but Bobby isn’t able to talk him into joining the 118 and he joins station 6 instead. He first hears about Buck during a shift, when his crew abandons their dinner to stare, horrified, at the television broadcasting the firefighter trapped under the ladder truck. Unfortunately, the damage done to Buck’s leg when they had to pull him out was so severe that he’ll never be able to be a firefighter. He spends a lot of his hospitalization ignoring the therapist that comes to talk to him every other day, and it’s only until Maddie’s allowed to start pushing him around in a wheelchair for an hour or so each day that he starts to feel better. More often than not, they end up in pediatrics, which is fine with the nurses because having a real life firefighter come talk to the kids always cheers them up, and Buck’s been doing better too; after his sixth day in a row building an elaborate castle out of legos with one of the little boys who is in waiting for a heart transplant, Buck finally starts talking to the therapist.

2. Bobby’s the first one to bring up teaching as an option for Buck, and despite dismissing it at first, he can’t stop thinking about how good it felt when the kids at the hospital would ask him to read to them, when he’d help some of them sound out words and write letters to the friends they missed, and how much he liked giving fire safety talks to the little kids back when he was still working. He tells Bobby he’s been thinking about it, and the next time they have a team dinner, Hen and Chim have prepared a spreadsheet with options towards certification for him, and he starts looking into different programs the next day. After a few months he manages to get a student teaching internship at a very prestigious private school that caters to students with disabilities, which he knows is because of his experience with his leg, but considering how jealous all his classmates are, he’s not turning it down.

3. Eddie meets the 118 during the tsunami. He’s surprised that he works so well with Hen and Chim, and eventually recognizes Bobby from the ladder truck bombing. When Bobby asks if he’d be interested in a transfer because they’d never filled Buck’s spot permanently, he takes it. He’s aware that they have team dinners weekly with Buck, and that Buck drops by the station from time to time, but the two never meet. Buck hears about Eddie, of course, and drops by the station to make sure he’s good enough for his old team, but Eddie’s usually running late or has switched shifts because he has issues with childcare. After Hen fills Buck in on what’s going on with Christopher, Buck gives her Carla’s number and tells her to have Eddie call.

4. Buck gets hired on full-time at the school and ends up informally co-teaching with Ana Flores, who is an absolute lifesaver, because what was he thinking. Christopher is one of the students who gets put in his small groups and Buck adores him. He loves all his students, but all throughout the first month of school, he never heard Chris say a single negative thing. Buck likes to eat lunch with his class once or twice a week because it’s great for getting to know them without having to redirect them back to academics, and Chris is one of the handful of kids who always saves a seat for him. He also brings Buck tamales from his Abuela, along with mexican wedding cookies, and sure Buck isn’t supposed to have favorites but, well. 

5. Eddie’s mostly certain that the papers he’s been getting from school are all from Ms. Flores, but for weeks now, all Christopher can talk about is Mr. Buck. Mr. Buck pushed him on the swings at recess. Mr. Buck let Chris pick the new chapter book they’re reading. Mr. Buck skipped lunch and sat with Chris in the nurses’ office when his stomach hurt and Eddie couldn’t pick him up right away. So when meet the teacher night rolls around, Eddie’s pretty curious as to who this teacher is. He does not expect to see the guys from the picture on Bobby’s desk standing in front of him, but that’s exactly who Christopher throws himself at when they walk through the door.

send me a buddie au & i’ll write 5+ head canons