After Bobby dies, Buck stops running into fires.

He still shows up at scenes—suit still charred at the seams, soot caked into his skin like penance—but now he comes with a camera. Heavy. Analog. Something about the click of the shutter feels honest in a way nothing else does. Fires don’t lie when you look at them long enough. Neither does grief.

Everyone thinks he’s spiraling. Maybe he is. Maybe they all are.

Hen picks up more shifts, fills silence with action steps up to the job replacing an irreplaceable man. Chimney cooks, or tries (God bless him) even when no one’s hungry. Eddie—Eddie watches him the closest. Doesn’t push, doesn’t preach. Just keeps showing up. Offers him cold water after a fire, a ride home when Buck’s hands shake too much to drive. Offers him silence that doesn’t ask for answers.

But silence doesn’t help him breathe anymore. Not like it used to.

So, in a move that surprised no one more than himself, Buck ended up in the confessional of Father Brian.

It wasn’t religion that pulled him there—wasn’t even faith. Maybe it was Bobby’s voice echoing in memory. Or Eddie’s. Or maybe just the fact that no one else was saying anything that made sense.

“Find a new outlet,” Father Brian told him, calm and certain. “Something that connects you to the world. Something that doesn’t ask for words.”

Photography wasn’t something he chose, exactly. It was just… something he started doing. A camera in hand, lens between him and the wreckage. Fire aftermaths. Burnt stairwells. Charred doorframes. Snapshots of stories already over.

He started shooting post-scene photos for the department unofficially. Just something to do. Something to capture.

That’s where he met her.

Crime scene reporter. Camera always ready. No-nonsense. A sharp eye and a sharper tongue. She reminded him—briefly, jarringly—of someone from what felt like a lifetime ago. Taylor.

But this woman? Wasn’t her.

Different hair. Different fire in her voice. Different soul altogether.

Where Taylor had asked for headlines, this woman asked for truth. She didn’t circle trauma like a vulture—she stepped into it like someone who’d been burned before. Unafraid. Familiar.

They clashed instantly.

She thought he was too guarded. He thought she was too nosy. She called him out on his need to fix things he couldn’t name. He accused her of using crime scenes to validate her own grief.

They kept showing up to the same smoldering remains, the same taped-off houses, the same ghost-haunted aftermaths. Eventually, they started talking.

Then walking.

Then working.

It wasn’t a partnership, not at first. Buck didn’t do partnerships anymore. Not like that.

But it became something. Because she asked the right questions. Because she touched on grief without demanding he hand it over. Because she mirrored him—his fear, his ache, his refusal to heal—and made it all feel… survivable.

Eddie would tease him about her if he wasn’t so deep in his own grief. Chim would nudge him. Hen would raise an eyebrow with that all-knowing look.

They just watched.

And maybe, in time, Buck would admit that he needed her too.

But not yet.

For now, they chase shadows together. She writes. He photographs. They dig through soot and blood and memory. Together, they try to make sense of the wreckage.

He doesn’t say it aloud, but somewhere deep down, Buck thinks this might be the only way back to himself.