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The thing is, Buck never liked his name.
As a child, the name Evan was spoken by his parents, Phillip and Margaret, as if it were an insult as if it were a curse spoken through closed lips and eyes flooded with judgment. Buck can't remember a time when his name left his parents' lips with any connotation of love or affection. And for a five-year-old who can't understand what's so wrong with wanting a hug from his mother, well, hearing his name spoken with such contempt can be a very difficult trauma to overcome.
A short time later, the contempt and offense present in the pronouncement of his name began to give way to other feelings.
Because Buck now gets involved in all sorts of messes at school, fights in the cafeteria at lunchtime, fights during ice hockey practice or soccer practice, low grades in every class, radicals -and extremely dangerous- maneuvers with his bicycle and skateboard. Everything a teenager can do to tiptoe his parents, Buck has them all covered. And now his name is uttered with anger, exasperation, impatience, and deep down a faint touch of concern.
At first, Buck just focuses on that barely perceptible concern his parents show for his safety, and with that, he gets into more and more trouble.
The problem is that while his parents show almost non-existent concern, his adorable sister Maddie seems about to tear her own hair out in worry.
So Buck slows down a little. For her. Obviously, after that, all the worries that once existed disappear every time his parents say his name.
Now he's just a kid who got tired of pretending to be dumb and gets excellent grades in every class, he's one of the best athletes in both school sports, doesn't pick fights anymore, and even stopped smacking his face on the concrete with his skateboard or bicycle tricks.
Evan Buckley is now a role model son, and as much as his parents love showing off their kids on the Country Club for their friends, or on countless afternoon tea among Hershey's socialite, within the walls of their home, his name is spoken as if his presence in that family didn't make any difference.
But Buck ignores, he just ignores any pretense of ever hearing his name spoken with affection and love by his parents, Buck just stays out of their way and focuses on his studies, gets some girlfriends around school, learns how to drive, goes to parties and makes friends with everyone. But he never gets in trouble again, staying off Phillip and Margaret's radar is the best idea. At the end of the day, it's better to hear his name spoken with indifference than with hate.
Because he was Evan. And Evan was never good enough.
Maddie is a whole different story because as long as Buck can remember, Maddie has always said his name with all the love in the world. Evan, on his sister's lips, was a sweet, soft melody that lulled Buck as she told him bedtime stories, or when they played in the bedroom and she said his name between laughs as he tied the pillowcase around his neck and ran across the room pretending to be a superhero, on her lips, Buck heard the worry when he got sick for the first time and Maddie spent the entire night beside him in bed or on the bathroom floor stroking his back when the little boy threw up and cried by the aching stomach. Even the disguised fear of irritation in her voice when he came home with a fresh bruise warmed Buck's heart.
So Buck doesn't really care when Maddie calls him Evan - even if he rolls his eyes and says he does - because that name, when it's said by his sister, doesn't make Buck's entire insides freeze and writhe in anger. On the contrary, when Maddie says his name, Buck can clearly feel his heart warming up.
But then Maddie says she's leaving, and at that moment when she says the name Evan, it has such a bitter taste that Buck never tasted it before. The only person who loved him is walking away, is abandoning him. And then, hearing his name from his sister's lips loses all warmth and tenderness. And Buck hates it.
For a while, after Maddie leaves, he becomes reckless again. He goes back to doing all the crazy things he used to do to get his parents' attention. It's ridiculous and useless, and Buck knows it. But maybe, if he was lucky, that little - and almost non-existent - worry would reappear in his parents' tone of voice when they said his name. Of course, that never happens, however, Buck goes on with all the craziness and recklessness. When he's old enough he buys a motorcycle and things get worse, traffic violations, accidents, dangerous maneuvers.
All of this, never posing any legal problems for him. Because he was a Buckley.
And when it came to the families that held power in that city, The Buckley's came first.
Then Country Club friends would smile and say it was a phase.
His parents agreed with a pretense of concern, but at home, they simply went back to ignoring him.
Because he was a Buckley, and the high society families in Hershey had expectations that Buck would never fulfill, nor did he want to fulfill them.
And his parents… well, his parents had no expectations for him at all.
Because he was a Buckley, and while it meant something to other people in that city, it meant nothing to him.
Because he was a Buckley, and Buckley was never good enough.
When he finally flees far away from Hershey, Evan Buckley becomes simply - and officially - Buck.
That's how he introduces himself to everyone. Not Evan, not Buckley.
Just Buck.
And for the first time, it's liberating.
The east coast is the first place he goes.
He learns mixology, how to surf and how to love the ocean. He works in construction and works on a ranch.
He makes friends. He has fun and dates several girls.
Buck....always Buck. Never Evan.
No expectations and no disapproving looks hovering over him.
When he tries for the Navy Seal, he goes back to being Buckley.
He doesn't like it. And he decides that he doesn't like the idea of becoming a SEAL either. He could never turn off emotions like they wanted him to.
Peru is what comes next. And that's where he, in a very bizarre way, finds his place in the world.
Which is pretty ironic, if you ask Buck. Because this place is 4.169 miles - an 8-hour, 50-minute flight - from where he was.
Los Angeles, California.
It's been almost five years on the road, lost, but trying to find himself. Almost five years of feeling like he would never fit in anywhere.
And for the first time in his life, Buck finally feels like he's found where he belongs.
The problem is, when he joins the fire department, he once again becomes Buckley.
Firefighter Buckley.
He still doesn't really like hearing that name, even if it's only when they're on a call, but Buck ignores the bitter aftertaste he gets every time he hears that name, and he tries to associate it with just the meaning he has chosen to give for that.
Buckley now means he is a firefighter, a person who will -literally- walk through fire to save someone's life.
It means he's found three people who treat him like he's family, who trust him every day even when he does stupid things - like stealing the fire truck to have sex with a girl -. It means he has a place to call his own and a family that accepts and loves him the way he is.
Bobby is the father Buck always dreamed of having. He gives him all the scolding he thinks Buck deserves, but he also encourages him to overcome any bumps that get in the younger boy's path and smiles proudly whenever Buck manages to face all the obstacles. Hen is the big sister who will give Buck all the love and anger she has in her, depending on what Buck deserves at the time. She will give him pieces of advice and roll her eyes at the nonsense he says or does. They'll play video games together and she'll laugh every time he hits a pedestrian in the game. Chimney is the funny, insufferable brother Buck loves. They talk about women, work out together, and Buck even tries to share Chimney's weird taste in peanut butter with asparagus.
Being Firefighter Buckley is amazing.
Except it isn't. Because Buck is no longer just a name, suddenly Buck becomes an adjective...or is it a verb? Buck was never good at grammar. But anyway, Buck becomes something he sometimes doesn't quite understand.
Buck's gonna Buck. You went all Buck. You were just being Buck.
And he doesn't understand what that means, sometimes it feels like a compliment, but most of the time it feels like being Buck is not a good thing. Which is fine, he's spent his whole life believing that being Buck or Evan was never a particularly good thing anyway.
"Well, I'm sure whoever you saved is just glad you were being Buck."
It's Athena who finally makes him understand what "being Buck" can imply. Of all the people it's her, who he really didn't get along with at first and who now holds a place in Buck's heart that should belong to his mother, who makes Buck realize -finally- that being Buck can actually be a compliment.
"You never give up. That's what being Buck means to me."
But that voice in the back of his mind still screams at the top of his lungs that being Buck is not a good thing. Because he remembers Hen's eye rolls and Bobby's expression of disappointment.
So even if he tries to focus only on what Athena said, and believes that being Buck is a compliment and something positive, he can't.
He's being Buck, and apparently, Buck wasn't good enough either.
When Maddie returns, it also returns the name, Evan.
She doesn't say as much as she used to, a somewhat confusing mix between Buck and Evan.
In the beginning, in the early days, when she says the name Evan, he squirms inside because he still can't forgive her for leaving him.
The first time when he was still a kid, so she could go to Boston with Doug. And the second time when she kept him waiting after they'd agreed to run away from Hershey together.
So the bitter taste is there every time he hears her saying, Evan. Then he realizes what really happened to his sister, what Doug did to her. The pain Doug caused his sister.
And Evan loses the bitter taste and gains a taste of guilt.
Because for five years he held that grudge and that hurt for her abandoned him. Especially considering the last three years she'd simply cut off any contact with him.
Then she screams for Buck. As he runs through the snow towards her, as she bleeds after fighting and outliving Doug, it's the name Buck that she screams and cries telling him that she never gave up.
So Evan is back to having the same sweet, loving taste as when he was a kid and she patiently taught him math. He likes it, even though he keeps saying he doesn't, but he likes it when she uses the name Evan to talk to him. Still, he can't shake the feeling that resurfaces every time she does, that old painful feeling of not feeling enough. Because Evan was the son of Phillip and Margaret Buckley. The boy who was never good for anything and was just a disappointment.
And Buck hated that kid. He hated Evan.
Then he finds out about Daniel, he finds out the real reason he was born.
For parts. He was born just for parts.
Just to save Daniel. And he had failed.
No wonder he never managed to fulfill all the expectations his parents had about him. Damn, Buck had already failed since the moment he was born. Phillip and Margaret looked at Buck and saw only the sweet child they loved and who had died. Dead, because Buck hadn't been good enough to save him.
He wonders if he was ever good enough for anything.
He wasn't good enough to save Devon, wasn't good enough to make Abby or Ali stay, wasn't good enough to go back to 118 after months of physical therapy, wasn't good enough to save Chris during the Tsunami, he was just never good enough. Neither Evan nor Buckley or Buck.
Suddenly he hates Buck as much as he hates Evan or Buckley.
None of the three are good enough.
Eddie is different.
Eddie never calls him Evan, just Buck.
Eddie teaches Buck a kind of friendship he never thought existed. He has Buck's back and they work in incredible sync. They talk with just one look and become so inseparable that it's impossible to talk about one without putting the other in the same sentence. Eddie introduces him to Chris - who is the most amazing creature on the entire face of the Earth - and trusts Buck's judgment when he introduces Carla to him. Eddie is there every day during his physical therapy and cheers him up whenever fatigue and pain seem to be all on Buck's mind.
Buck learns a whole new meaning of the word family. He learns when he is taken to Sunday lunches at Abuela's house and the woman welcomes him with a huge smile and kisses him on both sides of the face, he learns when she calls him "nieto" and teaches him some Diaz family recipes, he learns when Pepa smiles waving her hand in the air joking about the flowery apron tied around Buck's waist and when she introduces him to her next-door neighbor as her nephew. Buck learns the true meaning of family when Eddie says there is no one in the world he trusts Chris more than Buck, when he hands over a key to the Diaz home or when he doesn't even think to say yes when Buck asks if he can spend the day with Chris when Eddie takes an extra shift.
Buck understands what it's like to belong to a family when Chris hugs him and says Buck is his best friend, he understands when the boy crawls on Buck's lap during movie night and sleeps peacefully in Buck's arms while Buck carries him to the bed. With Eddie and Chris, he feels like he belongs, he feels grounded. He believes when Eddie says he's enough. Little by little, thanks to Eddie and Chris, every hole in his heart heals and is filled with words and memories of those two people who have become the most important in his life.
He's Buck, the badass firefighter who could have Eddie's back any day. He is Buck, the friend who accompanies him to take Chris to see Santa Claus. He's Buck, who spends several nights on the couch drinking beer and talking about everything after Chris has gone to bed. He sleeps on the couch and makes pancakes in the morning. He takes Chris to school or picks him up when Eddie can't. He goes with them on trips to the Zoo, Aquarium, or Observatory.
But he's also Bucky -to Chris- the best friend who plays video games with the kid and always puts more chocolate chips in the pancake mix than he should. He's Bucky, who does all the funny voices in the bedtime stories and the best grimaces when he mimics the characters in the books. He's Bucky, whom Chris runs to when he gets mad that Eddie is dating again.
Buck doesn't understand exactly what all the feelings he has for the Diaz boys mean. It's not something he's ever experienced before in his life. But it's good, so Buck just accepts it as it is and enjoys every minute with them.
Then Eddie gets shot, he falls on the concrete in a pool of his own blood right in front of Buck's eyes. It's days in the hospital unconscious. Days when Buck feels like he's going to lose his mind because he misses his best friend, he misses hearing Eddie's voice and seeing him roll his eyes and smile warmly every time Buck says some random fact. He misses being Buck, because he finds out that without Eddie he doesn't feel like Buck at all.
Still, he moves on, even with a huge part of him missing, because Chris needs him. So he stays at Eddie's house and sleeps on the couch, he makes sure Chris attends classes, eats properly, showers, and sleeps on time. He exercises every morning with the boy and listens to him talk about his day when Buck puts him to bed at night. Carla helps, like an angel who always seems to know what everyone needs. She helps when he needs to go to work. Because he's still a firefighter and there are people out there who need his help.
Buck's angry, he wants to scream and punch anything or anyone that appears in front of him. He wants to find out who is the son of a bitch who shot Eddie, and he wants to kill him with his bare hands. He wants to make this person suffer for hurting Eddie, for making Buck lose the best part of him, the part that makes him…Buck.
But he can't, because Chris needs him and Buck would die before he let that kid down.
When Eddie wakes up, Buck feels whole again. It's as if the Earth went back to the axis and everything made sense again. Because Eddie is back and Buck is Buck again. He's still angry and still wants to make the shooter pay, he still feels guilty for making himself a target because he knows it hurts and disappointed Bobby, he's still confused why Taylor kissed him and it wasn't what he expected, it didn't feel what he thought he would feel. A million thoughts and feelings are running through every cell in his brain and body, but none of that matters because Eddie has woken up. Eddie came back to him.
The day Eddie calls him Evan for the first time catches Buck completely off guard for a thousand reasons.
First, because he claims - reaffirms actually - how much he trusts Buck to take care of Chris. The most important person in the world to Eddie, the most precious person he had, and for some reason he trusted Buck to take care of his son.
"It's in my will, if I die, you become Christopher's legal guardian."
Buck can't understand. Because Eddie has a family. In Texas and here in Los Angeles, people who know and who took care of Christopher long before Buck appeared in their lives. And Eddie has Ana now, the perfect, beautiful girlfriend who spent every second with him at the hospital. The woman who was the perfect choice as a wife for Eddie and a mother for Christopher. So Buck can't even for a second understand why Eddie would choose him to take care of Christopher.
"But no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you."
Eddie states this with the same certainty with which he said he knew Buck would not refuse to be Christopher's guardian. And that scares Buck because until that moment he hadn't realized and understood how much he was willing to fight for that little boy. Even after everything he'd gone through in the Tsunami, even when he spent days taking care of him while Eddie was in the hospital, because as much as Buck wanted to be with Eddie, Buck knew he'd prefer that Buck was taking care of his son. Because Christopher always comes first. And Buck had always known it was like that for Eddie, but it wasn't until that moment that he had finally realized it, that it was like that for him too.
And it's scary, and it's amazing and thrilling and he feels like his head is spinning and going in all directions.
Buck never had anyone, not really, no one ever stayed very long. And now there in front of him, Eddie was claiming that Buck had a family.
He had a child who needed him.
Then Eddie says his name.
And it's so stupid how much it twists everything inside him in a good way. It's ridiculous.
It's just a name.
Evan.
Four letters. Two consonants, two vowels, two syllables.
"Because, Evan."
Evan.
It all clicks together, so clearly and so simply that it takes all the air out of Buck's lungs. It was always there, right in front of him, and he was never able to see, but he can see it now, he sees clearly. And it's so obvious and tangible that he feels he can reach out and touch it with his fingers. All this time, that feeling he couldn't name let alone understand, it was love.
Pure, simple, and immeasurable love. Love for Eddie and those brown eyes that said everything the man couldn't say with words, love for Eddie and that way he rolled his eyes at the silly jokes people said during shifts, love for Eddie and the affectionate smile he kept especially for Christopher, love for Eddie because he listened to all the random facts Buck told and really paid attention to him. Love for Eddie, who gave Buck a family and a place in the world where he truly felt he belonged. Love for Eddie, just because he exists.
"You act like you're expendable. But you're wrong."
And for the first time he believed.
For the first time he understood that Buck, Buckley, Evan were all one person.
And all of them, every single one of them, was good enough.
.