Archive of Our Own

Sides pressed together, Chimney and Maddie watch Jee-Yun giggle as she chases the bubbles, hands outstretched. Between the renovation, packing, and unpacking of an impressive amount of boxes for two people in a tiny apartment with a toddler, and their respective shifts, it’s been difficult to find moments like this. Moments where it’s just them as a family. Besides their morning trip to the library, there are no plans or shifts listed on the calendar hanging on their shiny, new fridge. There will be no contending with LA traffic to reach some appointments, and no need for texts throughout the day to check in while the other works. Nor will there be leftovers stashed away in the fridge for when the other gets home.

Chim leans back with a grin - it’s just him and his girls today.

His phone vibrates in his pocket and Chim is resolute to ignore it. Anything that needs him can wait till tomorrow. It’s easy to push from his mind - Jee stumbles, too excited in her chase. He feels Maddie tense beside him. They both do, parental instinct taking over. They share a look before refocusing on Jee, who picks herself up without a tear.

“You’re okay!” They both cheer. Jee continues on her pursuit for a second longer then toddles back over them. Maddie scoops her up in an exaggerated hug. Chim sits back, laughing with them, but lets Maddie comfort Jee on her own. “Are you having fun,” Maddie asks. Jee gives an enthusiastic if a bit wet “yeah!” in response. “Pancakes from Al’s,” she then asks in a sing-song voice that makes Jee clap her hands.

It’s impossible to ignore the two sets of wide eyes on him, nor does he ever want to. Chim grins, “Anything for my girls.”

Getting to the car is a twenty-minute ordeal. That’s another thing he’s still adjusting to. Everything takes so much longer. Jee’s independence is growing bit by bit every day, but so are the meltdowns. Car rides, in particular, have become a struggle. It’s hard to get to point B when Jee-Yun never wants to leave point A. Fortunately, traffic isn’t awful and Al’s is without the typical weekend crowd so they don’t have to wait to get a table. One of the few benefits to their days off often occurring during the week is that sometimes their errands and fun adventures are less congested. It’s certainly not a guarantee given they live in LA, but Chim’s long since learned to take the wins, as small as this one might be, when he can get them. And he’s definitely not gonna complain when a swing shift leaves him with three days off in the middle of the week.

In between sitting and ordering their brunch, his phone goes off again and again. He fishes his phone out of his pocket long enough to enable do not disturb. It’s just texts from Albert. If it were a true emergency, his little brother would know to call. He’s likely just excited about some new crush or whatever show he’s decided to binge. Sometimes, Chim regrets letting him in on all the streaming accounts. It’s seriously messing with the curated list of suggested titles he and Maddie have managed. At least, he has - Maddie’s generally content to let him pick the movie or sticks to mind-numbingly gooey reality tv that’s perfect to wind down with.

“Work,” Maddie asks, curious.

He shakes his head. “Albert.” Maddie laughs. No further explanation is needed; she’s also been victim to Albert’s stream of conscious texting.

They order quickly and fall into an easy, unhurried rhythm of conversation. Head propped up on his chin, he’s content to watch Maddie make funny faces at Jee and puppet her stuffed rabbit around the high chair. But it leaves him idle and curious and Chim’s resolve is only so strong.

He pulls out his phone again.

“Chimney?”

It takes him a minute to answer, a minute to pull his eyes away from the screen and meet Maddie’s concerned gaze.

“What is it,” she asks.

He licks his lip. “It’s, uh, it’s my father. His assistant at least.” Maddie frowns and he continues. “He’s coming to LA. Apparently, that means sending a four-page email via his executive assistant. Not a phone call.”

“So, Albert’s texts…”

“Yeah,” he blows out a breath. “CC’d us in the same email. Guess he didn’t get a heads up either.” It’s not quiet bitterness in his tone, but it’s something acrid all the same. He’s not jealous of his brother, he isn’t. It’s just - complicated. His brother receiving some of the same coldness their father has treated Chimney with for years makes an odd bit of satisfaction surge through him. Instantly, he feels guilty - he knows Albert isn’t happy with how things are.

And he’s confused. His father’s assistant claimed he was simply taking advantage of a business trip, but that doesn’t settle the questions of why now or what was different. Why Chim is suddenly worth seeing.

His phone lights up with another panicked text from Albert and he pushes his phone away to the middle of the table.

“What do ya think, Jee,” He asks, grinning at his daughter. “ Should we go to the park after this?
***

Maddie starts clearing away the takeout containers in a way that’s just a little too pointed. Chim sighs.

“You’ve been avoiding this all day,” she starts, voice soft and her eyes kind. There’s no accusation lurking in her words, but Chim wants to hide from it all the same. Because Maddie’s right - he has been avoiding it. He’s been avoiding the inky sense of dread and acidic anxiety. Despite wanting to say that he hasn’t, to hide behind the technicality that he only learned of his father’s upcoming visit mid-morning so it’s only been three-fourths of a day, he won’t. They both made promises to each other, more important than any wedding vows. No more running, no more hiding.

Being together means being honest. He won’t disguise his feelings with snark and sarcasm. Even if there’s plenty of it where his father is concerned.

He helps clear away the unused sauce packets so he has something to do with his hands. “I just wanted to enjoy the day.” Maddie makes a soft noise of agreement; it’s an obvious statement but also an easy place to start. He runs a hand through his hair, blowing out another breath.

“You know, I can’t really remember the last time I saw him. I mean really, truly saw him. I know logically it’s when he left. I know how old I was, that it was during the summer. But the actual goodbye?” Chim presses his lips together, blinking hard suddenly. “It just blurred together with all the times he’d go to work. Short and simple. Like any other day - like there was nothing special about leaving behind his kid.”

Or, maybe, like he was so sure he was going to see his kid again, but his mom’s mind had been made up and Chim was always going to choose her.

Maddie frowns, stepping closer to rub a soothing hand up and down his back. “He didn’t visit after your mom died?”

Chim answers with half a shrug. Maddie doesn’t rush him to elaborate; they move toward the master bathroom, flipping off lights as they go. At Jee’s door, he peaks in on her sleeping. The rhythm of her chest rising and falling under the blanket calms his heart, making it easier to breathe.

At the sink in their bathroom, Chim brushes his teeth as Maddie distracts him with a funny call from work. He’s already heard it before, but he doesn’t mind.

Finally, settled against the headboard with his arms around Maddie, Chim’s ready to talk.

“He did, technically, come to LA a week after my mom passed.” The bitterness in his voice is impossible to mistake for anything else.

In his mom’s final days, Chimney had sat by her bedside. He had refused to move or be moved. He ate only what Mrs. Lee and Kevin coaxed him into eating. He held his Mom’s hand, wet her lips with ice cubes. He sang the same lullabies she had when he was younger, and repeated the few prayers he knew she favored, they were the only ones he knew by heart, wrapping her rosary in her hands each time. There was a circle of visitors he made room for. Mostly those from church, friends from the tiny circle his mom made.

Not one of them had been his father. No phone call. No Skype request.

Silence.

In the following sluggish week as Chim adjusted to a world that would forever be emptier without his mom, his father had only called once. In anger, he had refused to answer it. He had refused to even hear whatever the Lees might say about it. Whether it’d be in favor or critique of his father, Chim hadn’t wanted to know. He closed himself up in the room he shared with Albert and dragged the covers over himself. Every attempt at conversation that hinted at his father was shut down.

It took another two weeks for Chim to start adjusting to his new world properly.

And then, when he returned home from school trailing behind Kevin, who decided animatedly talking about his day and every silly thought in his head would pull Chim from his stupor, he was greeted by the sight of his father sitting at the Lee’s kitchen table, back impossibly straight as Mrs. Lee served him tea.

If Chim was generous, which he rarely was in matters concerning his father, he at least earned some credit for thinking moving a kid back to Korea was better done in person.

Chim threatened to scream if he even got close to the airport terminal. He threatened to run away. He threatened every ridiculous thing, any alternative that meant he wouldn’t return to Korea with his father.

Then he and Kevin had been sent away, stuck in their room as the adults decided his fate. Most of the details were kept from him. And he’d been too relieved that he’d be staying in LA with the Lees, too young really, to ask for them. He was still too bitter, angry, and hurt to see his father off when he returned to Korea alone. His father didn’t deserve a proper goodbye. Neither he nor his mom had ever gotten one. Years later he learned that the money his father had sent the Lees each month had gone untouched. They had set it aside and gifted it to him when he turned 21. It’s how he’d been able to afford his apartment - all his hustling alone would have never been enough in a city like LA.

By the time he finishes explaining this to Maddie, he can taste tears and snot on his lip. At some point, she had shifted to sit up, to take some of his weight. He turns, wiping his snotty nose on the sleeve of her pajama top. Maddie flicks his ear and Chim peers up at her with a watery grin. He’d apologize, but honestly, with a toddler, a little snot from him is nothing.

“You don’t have to see him,” Maddie reminds him gently.

Logically, Chim knows this. He’s an adult. He’s a dad himself now. He’s in charge of his own actions. He picks and chooses whose in his life. It’s as simple as yes and no. Except it’s not that simple at all and if the look in Maddie’s eyes is anything to go by, she knows that cutting off parents is rarely so linear.

“I think I want to. I think I need to. For myself, ” he says slowly, voice still rough from crying. “But,” Chim emphasizes. “I don’t want him seeing Jee-Yun.”

Maddie nods. “Okay, so we do dinner? Pick one of the times he gave you.”

His father expected his presence but gave little consideration to the job he worked or the unpredictable nature of parenthood. At the end of the email from his assistant was a neat table that broke down his available times and existing reservations, denoting which could be modified to accommodate their attendance. As if to rub in the properness of his job, most of the times were in the evening. Something that might be more possible to fit into Chim’s schedule if he too worked a 9 to 5 job with deadlines and deliverables instead of traffic accidents and fires.

“I’ll pick one of the nights you’re off work.” He chews his lip. “So you can be with Jee.”

“We can get Bu-”

Chim shakes his head, reaching out to pull Maddie’s hand to his chest. “It’s not an issue of a babysitter. I just think that I need to see my father on my own. First. I can’t…”

“Decide on anything else till after,” Maddie finishes for him. Chim nods, thankful and relieved Maddie understands. “Okay,” she declares, a spark of something fun in her eyes. “We need something.” At his furrowed brow, she continues. “Buck and I have pinky promises. So, we need something like that too. Something that’s just for us.”

Chim laughs. “Can I sleep on it?” He’s not really sure if anything beats the sureness and whimsy of the Buckley siblings’ famed pinky promises. And he’s too drained to think of an alternative.

Maddie kisses his cheek. “You can have all the time you need.” She drops another kiss to his shoulder. “Whatever you decide, whatever you want to do - I’m right here with you.”

She pulls away to fluff her pillow, as she does nightly to his amusement, before turning to shut off her bedside lamp. Chim does the same and curls around her.

“Love you,” he whispers.
***
The bed dips beside him and a moment later Chim feels a hand card through his hair. He hums at the touch but refuses to open his eyes.

“Hen said you were quiet all shift.”

His hum turns into a groan. “You gossip about me,” he grumbles into the bed.

“I can’t understand you when you speak mattress.”

Chim turns over, blinking Maddie’s face into focus. Concern creases her eyes and pulls her mouth into a frown.

“We gossip when we’re worried about you,” she points out.

“I’m fine,” he sighs. “Just.” Chimney shrugs. “Tired.” It’s not a lie. Yesterday’s shift had been long and dragging. The headache he had gone to bed with had lingered around to this morning and coming home to Jee’s bright squeals, while wonderful in their own right, had only amplified the pain. He’s thankful that Jee went down for a nap easily.

“Did you eat?”

“Lunch - PB and Js, apple slices, cheese cubes, crackers.” A toddler’s charcuterie board. It’s all he had the energy for.

“You slept through dinner,” she says softly.

He starts to sit up, panicked and shocked that his intended one-hour nap lasted six, but Maddie eases him back down. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Jee?”

“Was still asleep when I got home around one.” Guilt lingers still, but the information eases it. It means she didn’t nap for longer than she normally does nor had the chance to play with something she shouldn’t have. “I’m currently rotting her brain with microwave popcorn and a Disney movie.” Maddie grins and then pauses, her voice turning serious. “Come on, Howie. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m just tired,” he hedges. “Bad headache.”

“Okay.” She runs a hand through his hair again before standing up again. Maddie returns with a water bottle and painkillers. She sets them on the table beside him. “I got Jee-Yun. Feel better.” With a kiss, she pads out of their bedroom.

He takes the painkillers and rolls back onto his stomach.

Chim wakes to a quiet house and a few texts; most importantly, two from Maddie saying she’s taken Jee-Yun to the park with Mrs. Lee to burn out some of the never-ending toddler energy while the weather’s nice. Between the sleep and the painkillers, he feels better even if his joints are achy and sore when he pushes himself out of bed. Briefly, Chim considers showering and joining them at the park, but decides against it. He doesn’t want his fluctuating mood to drag down their fun. Instead, once he’s dressed, he sets about tidying up the house and throwing in some laundry.

Two hours later, he’s slid halfway down the couch, feet on the coffee table, and half-folded laundry forgotten beside him as a random cooking show plays on the TV. At the sound of the front door, he looks up to see Maddie walk in.

“Hey,” Maddie steps into the living room, taking in the sight of its semi-cleaned state. “I brought lunch. Mrs. Lee insisted on keeping Jee for a few hours. I didn’t think she was gonna let me say no. So,” hands on her hips, she pokes at his extended legs with her foot. “Scoot over.”

Chim obliges and happily accepts the tacos she hands over. After eating in relative silence, Maddie mutes the TV.

“It wasn’t a headache, was it?”

“Maddie.”

“No,” she holds up a hand. “No, this isn’t how we’re doing this. No hiding. Hen said you had a headache halfway through shift?” He nods. Maddie continues to list a few symptoms and he confirms the ones that fit. “Howie,” she stresses. “That’s a migraine. Why didn’t you say something?”

He doesn’t have a good answer for her. Or he does - it’s just not one that she’ll like. But they promised each other honesty. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

Understanding flashes across her face. “When did they start, Howie,” she asks, the gentleness of her voice betrayed by hesitation.

Chim rolls his bottom lip between his teeth. “Just before Boston.” Silence hangs heavy between them for a long moment. “I thought they’d go away.” He thought they’d go away after he got Maddie back in his life, after he returned to LA with his family. After, after, after - he found a million ways to diminish their seriousness. He found any bit of stress to pin on as the cause of the migraines. He found ways to cope and limp through the pain. “I thought my luck would hold out, y’know? All the doctors said I was so fortunate to walk away from that accident with nothing but a scar. I needed that to be true.”

Maddie pulls him against her and he sinks into her touch. “You need to take care of yourself too,” she whispers. “We’ll call you’re PCP. They’ll probably want you to see the same doctors from the accident.”

“I can schedule my own appointments,” he points out, more amused than protesting her help.

“Yeah, but let me do this for you anyway.”

“You’re bossy.” Chim presses a kiss to her cheek then presses another behind her ear.

“Oh, yeah?” It sounds like a challenge. One he’ll very happily meet.
***
He stares, openmouthed, watching as Eddie juggles coffees, fresh croissants, and two baguettes as he walks past the crowded line in front of the food truck.

“Did you - You just bypassed the entire line! Of Lorenzo’s!” The bakery’s food truck was legendary and as such, getting anything from it at the farmer’s market required a forty-five-minute wait. Not for Eddie apparently.

Eddie shrugs in response and Chim accepts his share of the goods. “Lorenzo likes me.”

“So weird,” he grumbles after a sip of delicious coffee. “You’re supposed to be the strong and silent type.” It’s true to a degree, he knows that it’s what Eddie prefers to project, but while he might be a little more choosey about what he shares with the 118, Eddie’s no less unfeeling or quiet. And he’s almost a worst instigator and gossip-lover than Hen and Chim combined.

“I usually come here when Abuela and Chris are at church,” Eddie explains, tucking his baguette in a reusable tote bag that Chim recognizes from another stall. “Lorenzo is easily bribed with work drama.”

Chim continues his grumbling, an act of his own, as he gets Jee situated with a croissant and sippy cup. Eddie, ever the gentleman, offers to push the stroller and Chim lets him.

After a few stalls, where they both stock up on fresh produce and new gossip, Eddie buys Jee one of those obnoxiously large lollipops.

“You monster,” Chim exaggerates but hands it over to Jee anyway. It’s a little extra sugar, sure, but what the hell. A little spontaneity never hurt anyone - or at least, it rarely does. They’re both paramedics, well acquainted with how spontaneity could turn for the worst.

“So,” Eddie starts, about as subtle as the call-out tone, and Chim realizes the candy had been strategic. “Your father's coming to town?”

He glances over at Eddie with a slight frown. “Buck?”

“Nope,” Eddie pops the word. “Maddie. And Hen. You were weird the last shift. And not keeping a secret weird. Weirdly quiet.”

He supposes that’s an accurate description. Even before the headache had set in he’d been withdrawn.

“I’m surprised Buck didn’t blab first.” At Eddie’s raised brow, Chim shrugs. “Come on. It’s Buck.”
“Buck didn’t tell us about, ah, making a donation.” Eddie counters. There’s something lurking in Eddie’s tone that Chim isn’t used to. Not quite betrayal, not quite mistrust either.

There used to be a time when Chim thought there might be something more between the two, when he and Hen had gleefully made bets on whether they were gonna fuck or fight, but then Eddie had a wife, and then a dead wife, and then there was a tsunami. So on and so forth. There was no fun in those bets now.

“Touche,” Chim says. Buck hasn’t kept him in the loop about much of anything lately. “He’s been weird,” he adds, not minding that he sounds a bit childish.

“He doesn’t even have a couch.”

That makes him laugh. And then frown. “I kinda miss when he was putting his nose in my business.”

It isn’t like he and Buck don’t talk now or that they don’t see each other regularly, but the times they do, and a lot of their conversations, surround Maddie and Jee. Throw in the new house, Albert, and work - everything they typically discuss fits into a neat, tiny box.

“I don’t think he’s been in anyone’s business much,” Eddie sighs, sounding tired. “I told Buck you might not trust him again.”

That’s a pivot; a very unsubtle one.

“You mean after I decked him?” Eddie nods and it’s Chimney’s turn to sigh. “We forgave each other; hashed it out over beers. There were tears and everything.”

Eddie parks the stroller in front of a bench away from the hustle and bustle of the farmer’s market. Chim settles in the seat in front of Jee, watching the sticky mess she’s creating with the lollipop.

“I’m not saying you guys didn’t. But you and I know both know there’s a difference between Buck lying for Maddie and him lying about Jee.”

Eddie, Chim’s finding, is a straight shooter. There’s no hiding from his words. And they’re true. Because Chim can understand Buck putting Maddie first. Ultimately, it’s what they both want. But he can’t understand Buck keeping Jee’s ER visit from him.

“You’re a dad, Chim.” Eddie continues. “I don’t think Buck gets that angle yet. And I don’t think he knows what his relationship looks like with you yet. You used to be the guy he worked with, the one he saw as a brother. Now, you’re Maddie’s partner and the father to his niece. That was always gonna be an adjustment. Something you both have to navigate.”

Chim blinks, turning to look at Eddie. “Did you - you just therapized me!”

Eddie looks a bit sheepish. “I’m just calling it like it is.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Chim finishes the last of his coffee. Maybe their neat box of subjects he and Buck can choose from is that way because he hasn’t tried to widen it either. “You trusted him after the tsunami - you didn’t have a reason to,” he says slowly, rolling the empty cup between his hands.

“Chim.” He recognizes Eddie’s tone better than the one before; he senses the warning in it.

Closing his eyes for a second, he takes a steadying breath. “I know it’s not the same thing. I know Buck walked through half of LA trying to find Chris but he lied to me about Jee-Yun and the thing is - I don’t think he would have told me if I hadn’t put it together first.”

Because Eddie has tangible proof of the lengths Buck will go and Chim’s only left to wonder, to play out a variety of torturous what-ifs. They’re easy to get lost in.

Eddie’s hand closes around his wrist, gentle, stopping Chim’s anxious fiddling with the coffee cup. “He knew Jee was safe,” he tells Chim softly, letting go of his wrist. “For better or worse, he thought he was doing the right thing. And in doing that, he hurt you. I don’t know what you want your relationship to look like; hell, it doesn’t even matter what I think, but if you want your brother back, then whatever you two have now isn’t going to work.”

Chim leans forward, elbows on his knees. Sniffling, he takes the offered napkin with a mumbled thanks. Eddie doesn’t attempt to break the silence or smooth over the tears; he gives Chimney the space to cry and for that, he’s thankful.

After a minute, Chim straightens and pulls Eddie into a hug. “You're my brother too,” he says soft but shaky.

Feeling left out, Jee fusses till she’s pulled from the stroller and settled in his lap. Eddie hands over a wet wipe and Chim does his best to wipe away the sticky mess the lollipop left behind.

“Can I ask you something,” Chim asks, smiling down at the squirming toddler in his lap; voice and action at odds with each other.

“Shoot away.”

“Are you - are you happy you reconnected with your dad?” Chim knows he’s been avoiding the subject; he knows that’s probably why Eddie took the first step, even if they got sidetracked.

Despite telling Maddie he’d pick a date, he hasn’t. He doesn’t know if he should pick a date early on in the trip, optimistic that it’ll go well and Maddie will be able to meet his father; or if he should pick something near the end, so they can hide behind the looming return date when things inevitably don’t work out.

Eddie blows out a long breath. “Big picture? Yeah. It feels like he’s on my side again. Or, maybe - I think he’s on my side for the first time.”

“But?”

“It’s not easy work. We squabble and a lot of his questions still raise my hackles. It’s hard to not think the worst of his intentions.”

“You’re not really painting a convincing picture here,” Chim says with half a smile, an attempt at normality after crying earlier.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “The point is - everything isn’t magically fixed because my old man and I are talking again. Dick,” he adds.

“Hey, watch your language,” he chides, covering Jee’s ears with a small laugh. “There’s a baby here.”

“Mhm,” Eddie sounds unimpressed. “We’re both firefighters. Maddie was a nurse. I bet she’s heard worse, isn’t that right Jee-Yun?” He tickles her stomach, which earns Chimney a tiny toddler-sized elbow to the stomach and makes Jee laugh.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Chim says dryly, shifting Jee so she won’t nail any of his internal organs. Parenting classes glossed over the fact that kids have deadly aim for bladders and kidneys.

“Come on,” Eddie says, standing. “Chris is on a gardening kick, I promised him I’d at least look at the succulents.”
***
Stepping out of the shower, Chim towels off his hair, luxuriating in the moment of peace. It’s well-earned after the onslaught of back-to-back calls they’ve had. Guiltily, he’s thankful the business has kept him too distracted to dwell on his father’s arrival. Some calls were, fortunately, minor enough, but too many were not.

Knowing the calm won’t last, he forces himself to dress quickly and return his caddy of bathroom supplies to his locker. He pulls out his phone, praying their luck will hold long enough to call Maddie and get some hot food in his belly. His knees crack as he lowers himself to the bench, only making him feel old and too worn.

He’s exhausted.

Thumbing across the screen, his stomach drops, his heart thumping painfully in his chest.

Missed calls from Albert, even more from Maddie, and a barrage of texts greet him. Between the burning anxiety and the overwhelming notifications, Chim isn’t sure who to call back or where to look first. He’s frozen, phone in hand. And then his phone rings, the noise and vibration jolting him. He presses accept.

“Howie?”

Maddie’s voice. He knows her voice, knows the tone. He can hear the slight quiver; Chim knows she’s close to tears or has just cried.

“What’s wrong - Is it Jee?” His voice is desperate, terrified.

“No, no. Howie -”

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“Howie,” she interrupts his rapid questioning without raising her voice, just firm insistence. He quiets but is no less scared. “Howie, you’re father died.”
***
Bobby makes him take a week off. A better man might have insisted that it wasn’t necessary, but Howie doesn’t argue. He takes the time off.

Albert goes back to Korea; it’s a painful reminder that his father has a whole life there. A wife and a son, a business, friends, presumably. His father had a life here too, in LA. A wife and a son, abandoned and left to fend for themselves. People will miss his father. Chimney isn’t sure if he’ll be one of them.

He’s confused. He’s hurt. And he’s fucking bored.

Shutting off the engine, he leans back in the seat with a weary sigh. After running out of errands and easy projects he feels comfortable tackling at the house, he’d gone on a drive with the hopes of clearing his head. He’s not completely surprised he’s ended up here, the church his mom brought him to. The one the Lees still attend.

Chim hasn’t been here since Kevin. He never thought he’d have a reason to return and he’s not thrilled that his father’s death pulled him back here. It feels wrong; it feels like a disservice, but he pushes those feelings away and gets out of the car.

Chimney finds a seat in the back. It’s quiet, old.

It’s comforting too, oddly. As he glances around the hall, it’s so easy to imagine his mom sitting beside him. He swears he can hear her laughter and the awful jokes he and Kevin used to tell each other while bored.

The hall holds memories, more than he realizes. Maybe he doesn’t completely believe in the message, in God, but he believes in the community - the sense of belonging it brought his mom, the Lees, and all the others that looked out for him however they could. The community here is no different than the 118, the family you choose. It’s a piece of him, a piece he thinks he should share with Jee someday in some form.

Pushing himself back up, knees cracking again - he’s so much older than he thought he’d ever be, older than Kevin will ever have the chance to - Chimney walks to the front of the alter. He lights a candle for his mom, lights another for Kevin, and after a moment’s hesitation, lights one for his father.

The anger, he thinks as he returns to his seat in the back, is easy to spot. And it’s the easiest to justify. His father left them long before he returned to Korea; he chose his career over his family. For so long, he felt like a roommate rather than a father; accepting that, accepting they’d never be close, was a relief for Chimney.

It’s the sadness, it’s the deep ache in his chest, that he doesn’t know what to do with.

He’s sad for his mom, that she sacrificed years she could’ve been truly happy taking care of meals and a house for someone who didn’t see her. He’s sad that, despite it all, she still loved his father. In the end, she chose herself, but Chimney knows she sometimes doubted her decision to stay.

He’s sad, too, for Kevin. He’ll always miss his brother, he’ll always wish he had more life to live. It’s an ache that will sit with him for the rest of his life; it sits right there with the ache he carries for his mother. They are aches he’s learned to live with, pain that has numbed over the years. Maybe not numbed, not really, but it’s the kind of thing you learn to live with.

The sadness for his father is new, strange, and unfamiliar. It sits in his chest in an uncomfortable flare of pain he doesn’t know how to soothe. Chim accepted his father’s distant position in his life but this is final. Now he will always be defined as someone without a father - there are no hypothetical what-if’s, there are no late-night wonderings if things will ever change.

It’s the finality, he thinks, that hurts the worst. The sadness aches because he has yet to adjust to it. It’s an ache he can grow past, one he’s sure won’t linger the way it does for his mom and for Kevin, because the finality is almost comforting. Or at least, it will be.

He and his father won’t ever become close and that’s okay. Nor will he ever worry about his father’s judgment over Maddier or Jee again. His father is dead and he will mourn him, but it doesn’t tip his life on its axis; he’s not looking back on things with rose-colored glasses or anything resembling regret.

His father chose to be distant and that’s on him.

Sometimes, death is a kindness. It was a natural end for them, no grande finale or great big hurt neither could recover from.

He returns to the altar and blows out the candle. “Goodbye, dad.”
***
Elbows on the counter, Chim shovels another huge spoonful of chocolate chip ice cream into his mouth. “What,” he says through the mouthful of food, feeling Hen staring at him.

“For someone whose dad just died, you seem to be handling it well is all.”

Chim gestures with his spoon, “I’m not sure this is classified as handling it well.”

“I thought this was being practical,” she laughs, tugging the container towards herself for another spoonful.

“Why not both,” he shrugs. It is practical and Chim can admit he’s also eating his feelings. Bobby had baked him four different lasagnas, which he’s immensely grateful for, but his fridge has only so much room.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah - I mean my father dying objectively sucks and I think I’m going to be sad about it for a little while, but life goes on and all that shit.”

“You’re allowed to mourn him,” Hen adds in that soft voice of hers.

“And I am,” Chim says, setting down the spoon. He’s glad he went to the church. “It’s just easier when there isn’t much of a person to mourn.”

Hen nods, silent for a minute. Chim glances over at Jee, who is sitting in her booster seat, happily using her fingers to feed herself. He should at least encourage her to use the spoon, but he can’t find it in himself to do so. Grief ice cream should be eaten with your hands, he thinks.

“Y’know, when my dad died, learning he kept up with my career was hard.”

Chim nods, thinking back to a few years. “I know, but this isn’t that, Hen. There were no big revelations or any shocking deathbed confessions He’s just dead.”

Short and simple. Maybe it’s his time as a paramedic that makes the bluntness easier. Neither of them are strangers to death. Some calls hit hard, this is no different.

“Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah. I’m serious, Hen,” he adds. Chim can read Hen, he knows she’s not being malicious in her questioning. Her concern is genuine. She’s just looking out for him. “He left me money.”

“Like life-changing money or fun vacation money?”

“Hm, somewhere in the middle? It’s enough for a college fund for Jee.”

He still needs to talk it out with Maddie. She knows, of course, but he hasn’t delved deep into the details and specifics sent over by his father’s lawyer. It’s migraine-inducing, honestly, and he’s happy to let Maddie sort out most of it.

“So, life-changing amount,” Hen concludes.

“Yeah, I guess.” Chimney steals the container back. “I’d tell you if things weren’t okay.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
***
“What’s all this,” Chim asks, padding into the living room and taking in the sight of wine, their favorite taco take-out, and Top Gun queued up on the tv.

Maddie turns on the couch to grin at him. “I thought you could use a pick-me-up before going back to work.”

“I am so lucky to have you.” He drops a kiss on the top of Maddie’s head and joins her on the couch. Maddie hits play as they get settled but Chim pauses it a second later. “You know how you told me to think of something like a handshake for us?”

Maddie nods.

“I don’t need one. I don’t want one. You, by my side - that’s the only thing I’m ever gonna need.”

Maddie puts their plates on the coffee table, her full attention on him. “Maybe we should get married.”

“Is that something you really want,” Chim asks.

They’ve discussed it before in the abstract, before Boston and before Jee, but, whether too scared or too doubtful, they haven’t touched the subject since.

Maddie frowns.

“It’s okay, Maddie,” he reassures her. “If getting married makes things easier for us, sure. Maybe.” With joint-checking accounts, insurance, wills, and beneficiaries all sorted out between them, there isn’t much that’s not covered. Nothing worth worrying about, anyway. “But a ring? A piece of paper?” Chimney shrugs. “We choose each other every time. I think that’s better than any I do’s.”

Maddie surges forward to kiss him and Chim laughs against her mouth at the suddenness of it.

“I love you, but I don’t want to get married,” she tells him. “I love our life with Jee-Yun. I don’t want to change anything.”

“Neither do I.” He knows there’s a deeper conversation they could have about this; the lasting trauma from Doug, Chim’s own doubts after watching his parent’s one-sided marriage play out, but he doesn’t want to over-contemplate things tonight.

“I do kind of like the idea of rings. Something simple,” Maddie adds, leaning against him. “No diamonds, just a plain band.”

“Yeah?”

Maddie nods. “Something to show the world, I guess.”
He likes it. He knows what they symbolize technically, but screw the rules. If this one thing makes Maddie happy, he’ll buy her a million rings. They certainly have the budget for it.

“I know we talked about setting up Jee’s college account and paying off the house, but I was thinking about something else we could with the money.”

“What is it?” Maddie hands him back his plate.

Chim chews through a bite of food before speaking. Sometimes he has manners. “A trip to Korea. I think Jee’s a little young for it now but in a few years? Us, the Lees, Buck.”

“Buck and whoever he’s dating,” Maddie suggests laughing.

“So, Eddie and Chris.”

Maddie thumps his shoulder. “I thought that was an old joke.”

“Says Mrs. Buck-You-Have-A-Boy-Crush!”

“I wasn’t wrong at the time.”

“I still don’t think you are,” he admits.

“Well, I think it’s a good idea regardless.”

Chim leans into the couch, satisfied. Whether or not it was his father’s intention, whether or not his father left him money because he felt it was deserved or out of some twisted sense of duty, he’s decided it’s a gift. They have a house they won’t worry about making payments on, Jee has more options for her future, and they have the chance to make memories for their entire family.

The topic changes after that, moving on to more dispatch gossip and everything Chim’s missed while off work. He’s excited to go back, honestly. He likes getting to be a stay-at-home dad and soaking up all these moments with Jee-Yun while she’s so little, but boredom sets in fast and Chimney doesn’t do well with it. Even so, the idea of spending more time at home than at work doesn’t sound half-bad. He’s just not there yet. They’ve both got a good thing going with their careers.

Maddie presses play again and they cuddle up together to watch and eat their takeout.

“Hey, Maddie?”

“Hm?”

“What’s Buck doing this weekend?”

She shrugs, her face mashed against his chest. He runs a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s working.”

“You think he’d be up for a Buckley-Han movie marathon?”

“Not if it’s Top Gun.”

Chim rolls his eyes.

“Just text him,” Maddie adds.

He glances over at his phone abandoned on the coffee table. Not tonight, but tomorrow he decides. Tomorrow, he’ll extend another olive branch and make sure Buck takes it. “Okay.”