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Buck has never seen his girlfriend faint.
He’s seen her fall to her knees in exhaustion after a brutal call, seen her collapse after being shot.
But in the eight years Buck had known Eddie Diaz, she had never fainted.
Until, of course, she did.
As a matter of fact, Eddie had felt like shit for the past two weeks.
At first it had just been some light-headedness and nausea, something that Eddie had chalked up to being dehydrated and overtired. But then it became that she could barely get through a shift at work without finding herself retching and gagging.
Which was strange because no one could pin-point a reason why.
Food poisoning would have come and gone by now. She didn’t have any other side effects to narrow it down. No fever, no rash, no runny nose.
Part of Buck had been a little concerned that it might have had something to do with a call from a few months ago.
And, sure, it may have made Buck seem a little paranoid in any other situation – worrying about something from months ago.
But the call was at a lab.
And it was pretty much an unspoken rule at this point that the 118 would not be attending any more lab related emergencies.
Multiple near-death experiences and a city-wide heist in order to obtain a cure — culminating in Bobby having to inject himself with rat blood in order to create a second cure — had kind of set that in stone.
However, when a call came through for a chemical fire in a university science building and all other units were occupied, they didn’t really have much choice.
And, over all, it had been pretty painless.
They had been reassured that there were no deadly toxins or diseases anywhere near the school. The room on fire was the lab they ran the biology classes out of.
Nothing fatal.
Nothing crazy or out of the ordinary. For the 118 at least.
But now Eddie was certainly feeling out of the ordinary.
The only unplanned thing that had happened during the call had happened to both Buck and Eddie.
They had been heading back to the truck – helmets off and and turnout coats undone – when a student who was waiting outside with the rest of her class following the evacuation had tripped over her own feet and collided into them.
And then Buck had felt the disgustingly warm splat of something landing against his face.
Hen would later recount that the young woman had been holding a large tray of various beakers and containers that meant she had been unable to balance herself, and one of the beakers had flown from the tray, spilling a viscous purple goo over them both.
Onto their faces. And their mouths, which had been open, mid-conversation.
The two had stood, frozen, for a moment before Eddie had let out a groan of disgust.
It wasn’t uncommon for either to be covered in weird substances while on the job, but they typically knew what the hell the stuff was. Bodily fluids and unspecified, unnaturally colored slime were two very different things.
“If you tell me that we just got doused in some kind of slow-acting acid or life-threatening-” Eddie starts, her voice tense in warning.
The girl shook her head rapidly. “No, no! It’s, uh, basically just…moray eel DNA.”
Which really wasn’t the placating statement she thought it was.
“Eel DNA? I just got sprayed with eel juice?” Eddie said with a grimace, attempting to wipe a glob of the purple goo from the strand of hair that always fell out from her ponytail and across her forehead.
The girl hugged the tray close to her chest, seemingly trying to shrink into herself. “Well, more eel DNA concentrate. Moray eels have the ability to change their biological sex. I’ve been trying to study how–”
Buck held out a gloved hand, cutting the girl off. “So we’re not gonna grow gills or anything?”
She blinked, clearly unprepared for the question. “Oh, uh. No. No, you will not.”
“And it’s not gonna kill us?” Eddie added, still unmoving as if she was hoping staying still would stop any potential death-inducing side effects.
The girl shook her head, eyes wide. “No ma’am. Moray eels aren’t poisonous.”
Eddie exhaled deeply, her shoulders dropping. “Then I don’t care,” She turned to Buck, face twisted into a grimace. “I just want to get back to the station, have a shower and forget this ever happened.”
“Well, two outta three ain’t bad, Diaz,” Chimney called out from the truck, and as Buck turned around he was greeted by a sea of phones held up by Ravi, Hen, Harry and Chimney himself. “Because we’re not letting you forget this.”
All this to say, Buck’s only current running theory is that Eddie may be allergic to eel. He hadn’t had any side effects himself, only Eddie.
And now she was fainting on the job.
A run-of-the-mill call of a man who’d taken a BB gun pellet to the crotch. She had gotten out of the ambulance at the hospital, helping get the patient out to the doctors.
As she went to turn towards Hen and answer a question, Eddie had stumbled for a moment, reaching a hand out to the side of the ambulance to steady herself. Then she went pale, her eyes rolled back and she hit the floor.
Ravi had joked that later, of all the places to faint, the ambulance drop-off at Seders-Sinai was probably the best. Not that joking did any good to calm Buck’s nerves as he currently paced the perimeter of the waiting room.
“Hey, man, how about I go get you some coffee or a Monster Energy or something?,” Ravi asks, “You’re fresh off a twenty-four. You’re gonna crash, and I don’t really want to have to pick a second person off the ground today.”
Buck shakes his head, but he still finds himself stopping his pacing and contradictorily saying; “Yeah, that’d be good. Maybe a mocha and, I dunno, a sandwich or something? I’ll pay you back.”
Buck is notoriously bad at accepting help - he’s well aware of it. But it’s for Eddie. Buck needs to stay awake and energized and alert so when the doctor comes out and calls for ‘family of Eddie Diaz’, Buck is ready to see her.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ravi says, gathering his phone and wallet as he stands from the waiting room's plastic chairs, “I’ll try and be quick. Message the group chat if you hear anything.”
As Ravi disappears into the elevator, exhaustion crashes over Buck in a way that makes his knees feel weak, sitting down onto the chair Ravi has just vacated with a deep sigh.
In a weird way, it was less stress-inducing when Eddie got shot – any of the times Eddie had been shot. At least then Buck had a why. He had a what-happened. A reason to be stressed.
Eddie being sick and getting sicker and going pale and hitting the ground with no identifiable cause? Insanely stressful to say the least.
There’s also an additional layer of stress added by the fact Buck’s meant to do his T-shot tonight. He also has two hours until Theo is meant to be picked up from pre-school. And, shit, he has to text Chris as well…
He digs in his pocket for his phone, opening the group chat text thread and sending through a quick; ‘hey guys. was wondering if someone could pick theo up from preschool at 4? and if someone could call/text chris and let him know what’s going on with his mom? thanks love u all <3’
Just as he sends the message off, the double doors by the nurse’s station swing open and Buck’s head shoots up.
The nurse looks down at a clipboard, and then looks around the room. “Family of Ms. Diaz?”
Buck all but jumps up from his seat, nodding rapidly. “Yes, yeah, that’s me. Buck. Evan Buckley. For Eddie Diaz. Ms. Diaz.” Smooth. He really played that off cool, calm and collected.
The nurse seems unbothered by Buck’s awkwardness, and just smiles. “Wonderful. So, we’ve checked Ms. Diaz over, done a few scans and run some bloods, but it’s looking like it’s all good. Just the expected hormonal shifts messing with heart rate and blood pressure that’s par for the course.”
Buck nods, then stills and cocks an eyebrow. “Par for the course? What, uh, what course? HRT?” Eddie had been on hormones for a good while now, and she’d never experienced any fainting spells of blood pressure issues before. It most certainly wasn’t par for the course.
Unphased, the nurse glances back down at her clipboard. There’s a small collection of brightly colored flyers alongside the more official medical documents. “Ah, yes. I know there isn’t much information readily available for these things. Basically, with Ms. Diaz’s hormone levels from her estrogen and progesterone therapies along with these additional hormone surges, there can be some issues in the first trimester with blood pressure levels as the body begins to adjust to the changes.”
The nurse - Leah, Buck makes a mental note of once he’s able to see her name tag - looks back to Buck and smiles warmly, gesturing with the handful of pamphlets when she continues. “I’m more than happy to give you some resources and point you in the right direction to get some support. I know that being intersex can be difficult to navigate just in day-to-day life, let alone in a healthcare setting and we want to make this process as comfortable as possible for her.”
Buck catches a glimpse at the bold, orange text on one of the flyers as they’re waved around.
YOUR BABY, YOUR BODY, AND YOU! a gender-inclusive guide to the first trimester.
“We all just want to make sure Ms. Diaz is as healthy and as safe as possible, so I’m also able to get one of our specialists in to discuss her options and the plan moving forward,” Leah says in the almost mollifying way nurses do, but Buck doesn’t really hear that part. There’s something else that he’s more focused on.
“Intersex?” Buck asks, brow furrowed and just so deeply confused, “No, no, Eddie’s not intersex. She’s trans. A trans woman.” It had been a while since Buck had needed to confirm to people that Eddie was a woman. Not since the very early days of her transition before she had started hormones or gotten any of her legal documents fixed up.
And, even then, Eddie had never been mistaken as being intersex ever.
Leah blinks, then lets out a small noise of confusion herself. “Mr. Buckley, I’m not sure if Ms. Diaz has decided not to disclose something with you, and if that’s the case then-”
“I’ve known Eddie since before she transitioned. She’s not intersex,” Buck interrupts. He doesn’t know where this is coming from, or where the hell it could possibly be leading. Eddie had been sick for weeks, and it was affecting her because of it and these doctors couldn’t even read her file properly?
“Mr. Buckley,” the nurse starts again, tone more stern this time, “I’m just going off of the results of the tests we’ve done - results that we have double checked. Regardless of what she may have told you, all of our scans show that Ms. Diaz has the internal reproductive system needed for pregnancy. And that she’s currently pregnant.”
Buck knows that there’s no way that’s possible. Not in any concept of reality or real-life. Even if it were true that Eddie was intersex in any kind of way, within any kind of sex characteristic variation, Eddie still couldn’t be pregnant.
Because who the hell was the one doing the…well, the impregnating?
Eddie has never been with a cis man before. Buck was the only man she’d been with full stop.
And, as jealous and paranoid as Buck could get, he knew damn fucking well that Eddie wouldn’t cheat on him.
In all honesty, they hadn’t even had sex for a while. Not due to any slump or dip in sex drive – the two had just been too busy.
Theo was four and always wanted people to play with him. Chris always wanted to have friends over, they had to navigate Buck’s therapy appointments and Eddie’s psychologist appointment, Eddie’s new friends from the LGBT+ book club she had joined with Karen, Hen and Lena wanted to hang out, Buck had Stitch ‘n Bitch on Saturdays.
It was hard to find a moment to breathe, and those rare moments usually had them too exhausted to even get in the mood.
But Theo had been having more play-dates with Jee at Maddie and Chim’s, and Chris had been spending the night at Matthew J’s house more often lately - because Matthew J’s mom had apparently gotten a huge promotion at work and how his house had a cinema room, a hot tub way bigger than Buck’s, and had every streaming service a teenage boy with a Letterboxd account could ask for.
And, well, if Buck and Eddie had used that extra time alone to their advantage, then so be it!
“How pregnant?” Buck asks, trying to keep his voice steady. “I-I mean, I know there’s really only one degree of pregnancy, but I mean how many weeks?”
Leah gives her polite smile again and scans her clipboard for the relevant information. “It looks like Ms. Diaz is around six to seven weeks along. And it also looks like Baby is healthy and happy.”
Buck thinks back six weeks.
Matthew J’s 16th birthday party. The same Saturday that Maddie and Chim had taken Jee-Yun, Nash and Theo to see a movie together. The same Saturday that Buck had received a parcel in discreet packaging, containing a new strap-on, lube and a maroon colored lingerie set that fit Eddie like a glove.
Yeah. That would have been it.
It would have made sense if, biologically, what the two had done together could have possibly, by any concept of science and logic, led to conception. Which it couldn't have. Shouldn’t have.
But did, apparently.
Buck was gonna have to remind himself to leave that store a review.
5 Stars. Highly recommend for T4T couples looking to expand their family!
“Did you talk to Eddie? About the, uh…her pregnancy?” Buck asks, a state of shock still buzzing through him.
“Yes, we had a member of Maternity Services talk things through with her, along with someone from the LGBTQI+ Patient Liaison Office.”
Good. At least Buck wouldn’t have to be the one to try and explain all of this to her. He did have to wonder how the fuck she would have reacted. Eddie wasn’t exactly known for her relaxed and reasonable demeanor in the face of insane bullshit.
“Cool. Awesome. Great. Uh, yeah. That’s great. Am I able to see her now? If she’s feeling better?”
And the baby. Eddie and the clump of cells growing into a human person inside her stomach. Inside her ‘internal reproductive system needed for pregnancy’.
“Yes, of course!” Leah says brightly, “I’ll bring you back now. She should be all clear for discharge as well.”
Buck nods and smiles and tries to ignore how pale he must look as he’s led down the corridor. When he’s shown into the room they’ve got Eddie in, the first thing Buck notices are her eyes. Wide and big and red and puffy from crying. Shit.
The second thing he notices, however, is the scrunch of her mouth. Not the mouth-scrunch that means she’s trying to hold back sobs, but the scrunch that means she’s holding back a smile.
She’s happy. Overjoyed even.
She has one hand holding a series of brochures and pamphlets, and the other gently pressed against her stomach.
“Hey, Eddie,” Buck greets dumbly, feeling wholly unprepared. He hadn’t thought of this as an option. Hadn’t thought of Eddie not harassing the nurses with questions because she just didn’t care. She was too happy to want to make sense of it all.
She looks up at Buck and her mouth-scrunch falls away into the smile it was hiding. She looks beautiful. Radiant. And so fucking happy.
“Hey Buck,” she greets back, teary eyed and voice shaky. “We’re gonna have a baby.”
They give it two weeks before telling anyone. Just in case.
Just in case it’s a false alarm.
Which it might be, Eddie’s well aware. It could easily be all explained away by some crazy, wacky misunderstanding. It’s not possible for her to have a fetus inside of her.
But Buck had mentioned how, when she started feeling unwell, he had spared a thought towards the call with the eel goo.
Moray eels have the ability to change their biological sex. The girl had said that. It was a seemingly a throwaway fun fact that Buck had just happened to have remembered, but it suddenly seemed a lot of relevant and important.
Because even though Eddie was the one directly affected currently, it did take two people to make a baby.
The scans the hospital did on Eddie had revealed a uterus and ovaries and, with a little help from the shady ‘wellness’ centre that Hen had turned to before she got her dermatomyositis diagnosis, - because they needed someone who wasn't gonna ask questions - the same scans on Buck revealed testes.
So, the current running theory was ‘eel DNA performed extreme gender-affirming care’. That was also going to be as much as they shared with anyone, because the additional details of ‘Buck fucked himself on a strap that he then fucked Eddie with and, well, Buck had sperm now and Eddie had fertile eggs - Voila. Pregnancy.’ wasn’t something the 118, let alone Chris or Theo, needed to know.
But two weeks had passed and a second appointment with the obstetrician had confirmed it. Little Baby Buckley-Diaz was growing.
And people were gonna need to know. Eddie was gonna have to go on light-duty pretty soon.
And Eddie had told Buck she wanted to tell Chris as soon as the two weeks were up.
He deserved to be the first to know.
They wait until after dinner, and after dessert and until after Theo’s been tucked in and his bedtime story read.
Eddie, Buck and Chris are sat on the couch, an episode of Bob’s Burgers playing, when Buck gives Eddie the look. The ‘is now the time?’ look.
Before she can even consider the idea of getting cold feet, she clears her throat and asks, “Hey kiddo, can I talk to you about something?”
Chris is silent for a beat, and Eddie can’t blame him. She reserves ‘kiddo’ for real discussions. Things like puberty and drugs and drinking and online safety and peer pressure.
Eventually, Chris looks up from his phone, staring up at Eddie from over his glasses. “Sure.” He drags out the word the way he does most words nowadays, in his teenage, forced-apathetic fashion.
Buck himself takes a deep breath, looking more nervous about it all that Chris does.
“Okay,” Eddie starts, feeling her mouth start to go dry. She pushes through. “So, you might have noticed that I’ve been kind of sick the past few weeks? And then the other week when I fainted?”
Chris gives a slow nod.
“Well, I’m fine - I want to make sure you know that. I’m physically totally healthy,” she’s quick to reassure, and she sees Chris’ shoulders relax ever-so slightly.
“But the doctors did tell me why I’ve been sick, and why I passed out. And that’s because…” Eddie hesitates, glancing over to Buck who nods encouragingly. When another second passes without Eddie speaking, Buck steps in.
“Because your mom is pregnant.”
The silence that falls after the words leave Buck’s is heavy. Chris squints slightly, gaze shifting from Buck to Eddie and back again, like he’s trying to work out if he’s being pranked.
“Okay,” he says slowly, before lapsing back into quiet again. A few seconds pass. “Okay, so I’m really not trying to sound transphobic, because you guys know that I’m not and that I’m all for trans rights and all that,” Chris prefaces before he pauses again to seemingly collect his thoughts.
The time stretches long as he takes his glasses off, wipes the already clean lenses off on his shirt and puts them back on. “But basically what you’re telling me is fucking biologically impossible.”
“Chris!,” Eddie all but hisses, “watch your language!”
Chris throws up his hands in exasperation. “Oh, c’mon! Theo’s not here, who cares if I swear?”
“Me, your mother, that’s who,” Eddie replies in a tone that seems to be enough for Chris to know there’s no use fighting.
Chris looks to Buck instead with an expression that looks less like he’s talking to someone in their mid-thirties and more like he’s trying to explain a TikTok brainrot trend to his grandparents. “Buck, you have to know this sounds crazy. And impossible. Like, I’ve seen a lot of crazy sh–stuff in my life, but Mom defying the laws of biology is beyond crazy.”
Eddie can’t really fault Chris there. It is crazy.
Buck gives Chris an understanding nod. “I-I know it’s a lot, we know it’s a lot,” he says as grabs the TV remote and hits mute, “And we know it sounds impossible. But to make a long, complicated, and really scientifically confused story short, a view weeks ago your mom and I had a run-in on a call at a university biology lab. There was an incident involving the two of us and some biochemically engineered eel DNA concentrate, and as a result of that –”
“– The DNA entered your blood streams and caused you two to change your internal reproductive organs like eels can,” Chris finishes, which stuns Buck into silence and causes Eddie’s jaw to drop.
After a few moments, Buck spares a quick glance to Eddie. At a loss for words, all she can reply with is, “Well, yeah. Yeah, exactly that.”
Huh. Well. That had been easier than she had anticipated.
Clearly Buck has the same thought. “Is that just a thing people know? Like, is that common knowledge or…?”
Chris half-shrugs, seeming to be a lot more at peace with it all now that he knows his mom and his Buck haven’t just fully lost their minds. “Saw it on Tiktok. I follow a lot of zoologists and marine biologists. I just think that stuff’s cool.”
“Of course you do,” Eddie says, tone nothing but fondness. The concept of having a baby is a lot less scary when she looks at Chris, at his endless kindness and empathy and intelligence – both academic and emotional – and his unwavering ability to want to understand & know more.
For all of her mistakes and failings as a person, she’s always been so grateful that the kid she ended up with seemed to have taken all of the best parts of herself and Shannon.
“Okay, so…you’re pregnant,” Chris says. It’s not really phrased like a question, more just Chris circling the conversation back to where it had left off.
Hearing Chris say the words does, however, strike an emotional chord within Eddie and her voice is all choked up when she confirms; “I’m pregnant.”
Chris nods as he lets the statement settle. His mom is gonna have a baby. He’s gonna be a big brother - big by sixteen years by the time the birth rolls around. “So, how is that gonna…work for you? Like, is it safe? For you? And the fetus?”
And God, Eddie’s heart aches. His endless empathy.
“Yeah, we’re pretty sure. None of the doctors have raised any alarm bells so far. I’ve had scans done and I have, uh, I have a uterus and ovaries. So, yeah. It should just carry on like a typical pregnancy, and then, when the time comes, I’ll get a C-Section,” Eddie explains. She’s unable to say, with complete certainty, that nothing will go wrong. There’s no handbook or guide for the situation she’s in, the best she has are the anecdotes in the pamphlets about intersex pregnancy - and even those aren’t accurate to her. Eddie wasn't born with intersex characteristics, she just has an external reproductive system that no longer matches the inner one. But the doctors, even the ones who do take a second to wrap their head around it all, have just given her a list of foods to avoid, tell her to cut back on caffeine, and recommended some prenatal vitamins.
“And the dad is Buck, right?” Chris continues, his voice low and a little awkward which makes both Eddie and Buck laugh.
“Yes. It’s Buck’s. Definitely Buck’s. The eel stuff affected him too.”
Chris all but heaves a sigh of relief at that. His face then takes on a more pensive expression, and he’s clearly a little hesitant to ask his next question.
“What about your surgery? Weren’t you saving up to get FFS?”
Eddie had gone in for a facial feminization surgery consultation about two months back. She’d gotten a quote and met a few potential surgeons and had started putting some money aside.
There is a layer of sadness to her voice as she goes to answer. Not so much sadness toward the inability to get the surgery as soon as planned, but instead directed at the thought of Chris being worried for his mom’s dysphoria. “I was. But I’m just gonna have to wait until sometime next year for that. Which, yeah, wasn’t the original plan, but it’s okay. I mean, if anything this is just as affirming, if not more so, as a brow lift and getting my jaw-line shaved down would be.”
All of a sudden, Chris springs himself forward to pull Eddie into a hug. His hand pats her back in the same way it’s done since he was a kid. “I’m really happy for you Mom. I am.”
He pulls back, and both he and Eddie ignore the matching shininess of their eyes. He then scoots himself over to face Buck. “And you too Buck, but, ya’know, mainly Mom because she’s the one who’s gonna have to experience the nine circles of hell.”
Buck leans in, ruffling Chris’ hair which has Chris scoffing and batting at his hand. “Thanks kiddo.”
They all settle themselves back down on the couch, and Chris unmutes the TV. Buck wraps an arm around Eddie’s shoulder and kisses her temple, content, and Eddie brings her legs up onto the couch so she can curl up against him. “Also,” Chris says, clearly noticing the comfort the two have sunken into and using it as his opportunity to swoop in, “I think this would be a great time for me to bring up the fact I need some new headphones, especially some noise cancelling ones. Because the ones I have now can barely drown out Theo, let alone a newborn.”
Smiling, Eddie opens her mouth to retort but she freezes midway as a thought enters her head.
“Fuck. We still have to tell Theo. And everyone else.”
“Watch your language, Mom.”
Eddie remembers how small Chris was when he was born. So small but so loud.
Pressed to Shannon’s chest, his face all scrunched up as he just cried and fussed. Shannon had looked up at Eddie, sighed and said, “Surely he’s not gonna be this loud forever.”
Violeta seems even smaller. And, Christ, does she seem louder.
She screamed the second the midwife got her out, and didn’t stop until everyone in the hospital room had given her enough attention.
Kisses and cuddles and coos from Mom and Dad and then crying for a feed, and then wanting more kisses and cuddles from Big Brother #1 and Big Brother #2 and Pepa and Abuela and Tia Adri and Tia Sophia.
Only then, once she was back in Eddie’s arms with the skin of her tiny shoulders and chest pressed against Eddie’s own bare skin, did she fall asleep.
Violeta’s right arm ends abruptly at the wrist. It’s mainly just smooth skin, but there’s a tiny bump of what would have probably been a thumb near one side and what probably would have been an index finger next to it. They have a little movement to them, twitching slightly as she sleeps the same way the fully developed fingers of her left hand do.
Limb differences happen, the nurse had said when it had become clear on Eddie’s ultrasounds that only one hand was developing. They happen, and it’s no one’s fault and Violeta will live no less of a life.
Which Eddie knows will be true. Chris has lived no less of a life. So Eddie knows it’ll be the same for Violeta. Her little flower. Her little ‘Leta.
All this to say - Eddie is grateful for the quiet that currently fills the room. Pepa had ushered everyone out under the guise of getting something to eat, leaving Eddie with Buck.
And Violeta.
Eddie keeps forgetting Violeta is real, that the little girl tucked against her is actually here. And Eddie has a cool scar on her stomach to show for it.
Violeta’s hair is dark like Eddie’s, but curly and wild like her father’s. She’s the living, breathing proof that it wasn’t all just a dream. That, thanks to eel DNA of all things, there’s a human on this planet who’s the biological combination of Eddie Isabel Diaz and Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley.
Vi lets out a big puff of breath against Eddie’s chest followed by a tiny grunt. She’s only a few hours old and yet she had her father’s restlessness.
“Okay mi gusanita, Daddy’s turn now,” Buck says as he leans in slightly to scoop Violeta up into his arms.
Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Your little worm? You learned one new thing in Spanish and it’s ‘worm’?”
Buck smiles wide, staring down at Violeta in adoration. “Yeah, why not? You were the one always complaining that she wouldn’t stop moving around when you were pregnant. And now that she’s up and kicking and she’s still -” Buck pauses as Violeta lets out a big sigh and begins to wriggle against the confines of the blanket around her bottom half, trying to free her little legs “-squirmy. She’s very squirmy. My little worm.”
“You are not calling your daughter - our daughter - a worm, Buck,” Eddie says, although she’s teasing more than anything else. Eddie grew up being called all kinds of things by Pepa and Abuela. She was ratoncito and pulguito and osito.
They were the first Spanish words Eddie knew growing up. And if Violeta’s first Spanish word is worm, then so be it. She would learn it to be a synonym for you are loved more than you know the same way Eddie did with little mouse.
For a split second, Eddie lends a thought to the fact her daughter most likely won’t know much about either of her grandparents.
The Buckley parents – well Buckley parent and…whatever Buck’s mom’s maiden name was now that they were divorced – would come to visit on occasion for holidays, and they had been excited when they’d found out they were having another grandchild, but Buck had made it clear he wasn’t too interested in creating a meaningly bond his parents and Leta.
Eddie’s parents had tried. She’ll give them that. They’ve been trying. Helena calls once a month, asks for updates on Chris and the pregnancy that Eddie dances around. She’s even been using Eddie’s pronouns correctly, according to Sophia.
Ramon doesn’t really get it at all, but he’s understood that Eddie doesn’t answer to ‘Edmundo’ anymore, and that he has three daughters now, and he seems genuinely apologetic when he does use the wrong word or name.
But, despite all their trying, Eddie can’t do it again. She can’t put her daughter through it. Through seeing her mother be so beaten down and made to feel so small the way Chris had seen growing up.
Helena and Ramon had accepted Eddie as a woman, and she was grateful for that. But they didn’t accept her. As a person. They never had. So, she’s made the choice not to tell them the exact due date. She’d have Adriana or Pepa call and let them know once Eddie was out of the hospital, so that she could be in the comfort of her own home when they inevitably came to visit.
The thought of his, however, doesn’t spark any grief or sadness. Because one day Maddie and Buck will take Vi up to Hersey to see snow, and one day Abuela, Pepa, Sophia and Adriana will take her to El Paso and Eddie will show her the lake and tell her about Shannon.
She’s excited to get to share these parts of her and Buck’s life with her baby, with the family who loves her without exception.
Eddie feels the fond smile creep onto her face as Violeta settles in Buck’s arms, the blanket being tucked up around her back and shoulders.
Buck pulls a few faces – sticking out his tongue, puffing up his cheeks, pulling Leta in close to pretend to take a bite of her chubby, blush-pink cheek – and Violeta just responses by, lifting up her stump and unceremoniously bonking Buck square in the centre of his forehead.
The laugh Eddie lets out causes a deep ache to run through the freshly bandaged-up stitches from the cesarean, and quickly devolves into a hiss and a groan. Following a deep inhale, hold, exhale, Eddie looks over to Buck and Violeta and shakes her head. “Damnit, Baby Girl, you can’t make me laugh like that yet. But that was very funny, and I’m very excited to tell Chris and Theo about that.”
With a chuckle, Buck makes his way over to the bassinet. Eddie watches as he lays her down, puts on the little frog-themed beanie that Abuela had crocheted, then swaddles her up fully in her blankets but not before pressing a tender kiss to the little thumb on her wrist that had just swung at him earlier.
It still seemed so unreal. It hadn’t been that long ago that Eddie had been a newly widowed father, convinced that life would always just be Chris and themself and a lonely house. But then there was Buck. And then there was coming out. And then there was Theo. And now there was Violeta.
The last thing Eddie’s house was nowadays was lonely. It was so, so alive. It was stepping on Legos and soothing meltdowns and organizing playdates. It was teenage eye-rolls and slammed bedroom doors and high school drama over girls and grades. It was friends coming over and wine nights with the girls and basketball games with Chim and home-cooked meals with Abuela and Pepa and your sisters. And it was doing your boyfriend’s T-shots and slow dancing in the kitchen and knowing someone so well it all came second nature.
It was a tiny, little girl who had no clue what kind of insanity she was being born into. And how much love she was being born into.
As Buck sits himself down in the stiff, plastic chair by the head of the bed, Eddie feels the exhaustion of the day finally catch up with her. The exhaustion that hits is less akin to a wave and more similar to falling back into a swimming pool of syrup. It’s warm and gooey-feeling. It’s certainly not unpleasant, she just hadn’t had the time to be this tired until right now this second.
“Bobby’ll be here soon with the 118, he texted just before,” Buck softly says, one hand on his phone and the other reaching over to softly stroke Eddie’s hair. She’s aware that her hair is sweaty and knotted up and a far-cry from the nice little bob she currently has it styled in to.
She loves that she’s found someone who she doesn’t mind being gross around.
Eddie just hums in response, closing her eyes.
“But you try and sleep, I’ll let ‘em know they have to be quiet,” Buck adds on, “Both of you try and sleep. Please. I need this baby to be a good sleeper or else, between her and Theo, we may never experience a full eight-hours rest again.”
Eddie exhales a laugh through her nose.
She knows damn well it’ll be a good couple of years before she gets a good night's sleep. She’ll definitely be taking Maddie & Chim up on that offer for sleepovers with Theo, Jee and Nash the second she’s discharged.
Two kids under the age of six under one roof? It’s gonna be hell. She’s never been happier.
“Hey, how about, if she’s so squirmy, we call her anguilita?” Eddie playfully offers up, opening an eye to gauge Buck’s reaction. He raises a curious eyebrow in response.
“Eel. Our little eel.”
Buck throws his head back as he laughs “That's gonna be such an insane story to tell her when she's older." He leans over to kiss her forehead. I love you so much,” he mutters against her skin.
He’s been telling her almost twice daily for the past nine months, and mind you was already telling her pretty regularly beforehand. But Buck had spent so much of the pregnancy letting Eddie know how much he loved her, and then always following it up by doing the same to her stomach so Vi could know she was loved too.
Eddie does feel loved. She’s surrounded by it. Every element of her life right now is lit by the sunset-golden glow of love.
It feels impossible to contain so much of the feeling, but she knows it’s possible because she’s carried it two-fold for nine months.
In Violeta’s bassinet there’s a soft toy– it’s a bunny with its ears and tummy patterned with florals. It has a customized patch on one foot that reads; Violeta.
It also has one paw that has, clearly in a home-done, last minute sewing effort, been removed. One of the bunny’s paws stops at the wrist and is stitched up with purple thread.
Karen had dug her old sewing kit out of her drawer and given the bunny a limb difference to match its owner’s.
The love that Eddie is surrounded by is immeasurable, only able to be counted in the smallest acts and tiniest things.
Hand-me-downs and pre-made meals in the freezer and time alone and time together.
Violeta will grow up enveloped in so much love that it’ll be all she ever knows.
What a lucky girl.
Eddie closes her eyes again as she feels herself creep up on the edge of sleep.
“We need to get that girl's phone number. The one from the college,” Eddie mumbles, voice sleep-thick as she fights off a yawn unsuccessfully, “I need to thank her for everything.”