"Babe, you need to stop crying. Everything is going to be okay..." Buck rubs Eddie's shoulders, trying to hold back tears himself. Someone had to be the stable one.
"How am I supposed to stop crying? I'm packing our son's stuff up for college. How are you not crying?"
"Because I know if he comes in here and sees us both crying, he'll feel bad and offer to stay home for the first semester."
"Good!" Eddie laughs through his tears. He doesn't mean it, not entirely. He knew Chris would thrive at college. He just wanted to hold onto him a little longer.
"Eddie..." Buck laughs and shakes his head. "He's not even going to be 30 minutes away."
"I know, so why can't he stay here instead?"
"Because he wants to stay on campus, and he's already made friends with the guys he's going to be rooming with. You know he'll be coming home every weekend for a nice meal and to have us do his laundry."
"I know..." Eddie tries to wipe away his tears, but they're just replaced by more.
"Awe baby..." Buck stands behind him and wraps his arms around him. He sways a little bit to try and calm him. "It's going to be okay." He leans down and presses his lips to his shoulder and takes a deep breath. The warms of his breath on his skin manages to calm Eddie a bit. Buck lifts his head again to talk. "I know what'll make you feel better." He says quietly in a calming voice.
"Really?" Eddie looks down at him.
"Yeah." He lets go of Eddie, then moves next to him. "Jayda, sweetheart, can you come here?"
"Coming, Daddy!" They hear a yell from down the hall, then her wheels rolling towards them. She appears in the doorway with a sweet smile, and it immediately calms Eddie.
Buck and Eddie had wanted to wait till Chris moved to college to adopt, but that all changed. About three years ago, Hen and Karen got this adorable three-year-old little girl to foster. She had been taken from her family when CPS was made aware that she was being abused by her parents. So much so that they paralyzed her from the waist down. Both of them ended up getting jail time, and Jayda went into the system.
A few months in, it was made clear that she would be eligible for adoption. Hen and Karen didn't think they could adopt another kid, especially one with a wheelchair, but Buck and Eddie jumped at the chance. They already somewhat knew how to take care of a kid with mobility issues, and they just couldn't let her go back to the foster system. They quickly went to get approved, and then moved her in soon after that. After three months, she was officially Jayda Buckley-Diaz. Now they had an adorable six-year-old daughter rolling around their hallway.
"Dad, are you crying again?" She asks with a bit of disappointment in her voice.
Buck looks at Eddie and smiles. Then he kneels down next to Jayda. "Sweetheart, can you please tell your dad that your brother will be back every weekend to see us."
"Dad, Chris will be back every weekend to see us."
"Come on, she'll repeat anything you say, Evan." Jayda was a daddy's girl when it came to Buck. Watching Buck be a father, and be so loved by his kid, was the best thing Eddie could have asked for. Buck was always pushing her around the house, just talking to her most of the time. They were both big talkers, so they would just spend hours talking about nothing. Eddie would sit in the room and listen. It was like he had a little girl version of Buck, and he couldn't have asked for a better daughter... or family.
"We both know that Christopher can't stay away from his little sister for more than a week at a time. He'll at least have to come back to see her." Everything Eddie was worried about with Chris all of a sudden not being an only child immediately went out the window when they got Jayda. Chris welcomed her with open arms, and he loved his little sister more than anything in the world. They found out after a couple weeks that she was all he was talking about at school. He got in a yelling match with a kid when he kept making fun of Chris for loving his baby sister so much. They got a call from a teacher about it, and that's how they found out. If Jayda did something funny or adorable, he was telling everyone about it the next day, and he would talk about it at home for at least a week. There were some things he would still bring up at least once a week.
"Yeah... you're right. That doesn't make any of this less hard though."
"I know, baby..." Buck stands up. "But at least we get to hold on to this one for at least ten more years." He ruffles Jayda's hair.
"Daddy!" She giggles and it breaks Eddie out of his sadness spell. "Don't mess up my hair!"
"Yeah, Evan, don't mess up her hair." Eddie mocks him as he walks over and kisses the top over her head.
"Dad! Buck! Are you almost done?" Chris yells from the front door.
"We'll be out in a minute! Just need to grab the boxes!" Eddie yells out the bedroom door, and when Buck looks at him again, he's got tears in his eyes.
"Hey, you go out and wait with your brother. Dad and I will be out there soon." Buck looks down at Jayda.
"Okay." She turns her chair around, then heads to the front door. They did renovation when they took her in. Ramps where they needed it, and an extra room added so she had her own room.
"It's going to be okay, baby." Buck grabs the sides of Eddie's open button up shirt. He was wearing a black tank top under it. "Come here." He lets go, then wraps one arm across the back of his shoulders and his other hand goes to the back of his head, holding him to his shoulder. Eddie wraps his arms around his torso, his hands up on the back of his shoulders, gripping tight. "I love you, baby... I love you."
"I love you too, Evan." He sniffles as Buck pulls away. He grabs Eddie's face and wipes his tears away with his thumbs.
"It's okay, baby... it's okay." He pulls Eddie's forehead to his lips. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna be." He wipes away the last few tears.
"Good." Buck smiles, placing his hands on Eddie's back under his button up. He pulls him in close, then leans down to give him a soft kiss. "Now let's go take our boy to college."
"Yeah... okay. Let's do it." He nods as he heads over to grab one of the last two boxes they had just packed. Buck picks up the other one, and they head out to the car. They put the boxes in the back of the car. Then Eddie picks up Jayda out of her chair and puts her in her seat in the car while Buck puts her chair in the back.
Buck decides to drive because there was no guarantee that Eddie could go a whole 25 minutes drive without crying again. And if Eddie started crying, he would cry to the point where he could see the road.
About five minutes into the drive, Buck glances over and sees Eddie crying again. He grabs his hand from the center console and brings it to his lips. He keeps a hold of his hand the entire rest of the drive. He lightly rubs his thumb on his hand to comfort him. It must work because when they get to the parking lot, Eddie's tears were dry. Buck gets Jayda's chair and puts her in it, then meets Eddie at the back of the car where they both grab two boxes. It was a fairly accessible campus, so they knew Jayda could get around by herself, and someone had to carry the boxes.
They get up to Chris' room and they are the first to arrive, so Chris picks his bed and they put the boxes on it. They walk back into the common room of the dorm. There are two rooms, with two beds each, and a common area between them. They watch another kid walk in the room they just came out of. His parents follow him, but their faces are covered by boxes.
Buck turns around, looking confused.
"Is something wrong, babe?" Eddie reaches down to grab Buck's hand.
"That kid just looked... so familiar. I can't figure out why." Buck had no reason to know some random 18-year-old kid, but for some reason, he felt like he really did.
