Lindsey Buckingham has been speaking in a particular register lately. Not angry, not bitter, not even especially nostalgic. He has been speaking in the language of possibility, which is new and a little disorienting for anyone who has followed the long, tangled history of his relationship with Stevie Nicks and, by extension, with Fleetwood Mac.

In a recent Instagram address to his followers, Buckingham described a “resurgence of connection” between himself and Nicks, and said that whatever this translates to, he believes “with all my heart it will translate to something good, and something wonderful, and something needed.” That is not the language of a man who thinks the chapter is closed. That is the language of someone who thinks the chapter might just be starting again.

The timeline here matters. Buckingham was effectively fired from Fleetwood Mac in 2018 after a confrontation with Nicks at a MusiCares tribute show. Nicks told the band she would not go on a planned tour with him involved. The band sided with her, brought in Mike Campbell and Neil Finn as replacements, and Buckingham sued for wrongful termination. The lawsuit settled out of court, and the two did not speak for years.

Then, in July 2025, something shifted. Buckingham and Nicks collaborated on a social media campaign to tease the reissue of their 1973 “Buckingham Nicks” album, the record they made together before joining Fleetwood Mac. To coordinate that campaign, they had to actually talk to each other. By October 2025, Nicks was on the Song Exploder podcast mentioning that she and Buckingham had spoken the previous night about the story of how they met in 1966. The tone was warm. The tone was different.

What does any of this actually mean? Probably not a full Fleetwood Mac reunion, at least not in the conventional sense. Christine McVie died in 2022, and Nicks has been clear that Fleetwood Mac without Christine is not something she can imagine. John McVie has been largely absent from the public sphere. The institutional band as it existed may genuinely be finished.

A Buckingham Nicks project is more plausible and, honestly, more interesting. The original “Buckingham Nicks” album is a fascinating artifact, a record made before either of them knew what they were capable of, with a rawness that their Fleetwood Mac work does not always have. A follow-up, fifty-plus years later, by two people with everything they have experienced between them, would be the kind of record the music world does not see coming until it arrives.

There is also the question of what a reconciliation means to them personally. Buckingham and Nicks were a couple for years before becoming bandmates. The creative and emotional history between them is dense in ways that most artistic partnerships simply are not. When he talks about a resurgence of connection, it is impossible to hear that as purely professional. These are people whose relationship is the throughline of their entire adult lives.

The music world has been waiting for this story to resolve for years. What is becoming clear is that Buckingham and Nicks may be waiting too, seeing what the reconnection actually produces before announcing it as anything more specific than a feeling. That might be the most honest approach either of them has ever taken to their own mythology. The worst thing they could do is manufacture a reunion for commercial purposes. The best thing they could do is let whatever is genuinely happening between them find its own form.

Whatever comes next, the conversation has opened. That alone is more than anyone expected when the decade started.