While Jack was at the cafeteria, Andy contemplated what Jack had said about Maya. Her and Maya didn't have the best relationship before she left. Andy felt like each time she took one step forward, something came up where she would take several large steps back to the weird place they were in. Part of her didn't care to talk to the person who took the least amount of interest in her struggles, but the other part of her wanted to hear Maya out. "If Jack says she wants to apologize then it must be true", Andy assured herself as she pulled up Maya's contact and unblocked her. Andy's fingers shook as she slowly pressed the green button, dialing Maya's number. She was fully prepared to be bombarded with hate and reasons why running away was selfish and wrong, and inconvenienced Maya as battalion chief. Andy sighed as she listened to the phone ring, "Maybe she won't even pick up"
Maya had been busy kissing Carina in front of their fireplace as the phone rang. She groaned as she picked up at the final two rings. "What the hell Gibson? I'm kind of in the middle of something", she scolded impatiently. She had told him that this was her and Carina's night together; he should have remembered.
Andy couldn't help but chuckle as she pictured Maya all upset with Jack like it was something new. Andy pictured her standing there with her hands on her hips and the vein popping out on her forehead. Andy could make out the sound of Carina telling Maya something in Italian and laughed yet again. "Hi Maya, long time no see", Andy greeted. She then heard Maya do what she assumed to be a spit take after hearing her voice for the first time in two months. "Maya Bishop, relax. It's me. It's Andy.", Andy added now on the verge of tears. She listened as Maya drew out a long, shaky breath.
"Thank God, I missed you. Now that you're here I have something to ask you", Maya questioned uneasily. Andy waited for her to say something and Maya wasted no time at all. "What the hell were you thinking? And where the hell have you been the past two months, you've had us worried sick", Maya yelled, her voice shaking, much like Andy's.
Andy was taken aback, not expecting Maya to be this angry. She exhaled slowly, "I know. And I'm sorry. I just couldn't be there with the fake smiles and the "I'm sorries" and the turning around every five seconds to be reminded of the place where I fell in love with him". She drummed her fingers on her table as she continued what she was saying to Maya, "So please, if you could have it in your heart to not hate me too much, that would be really great. Anyways, that's assuming you had a heart to begin with and that you're not going to gaslight me this time"
Maya cleared her throat, "Yeah, about that, I'm sorry Andy. I'm sorry for literally everything. I'm sorry for being a shitty friend. I'm sorry for the gaslighting, you didn't deserve that. I'm sorry for the captain's race, and your father, and yelling at Gibson when he went in for you. I'm very sorry I went out with Jack after you two broke up. I'm sorry for making your problems seem less than my own and I'm sorry for not being the friend you needed. And I'm sorry for...". Andy cut Maya off at the last "I'm sorry", chuckling at her. "What's so funny?", Maya asked angrily, expecting a different, more serious reaction from Andy. After all, she was taking the initiative to apologize and anyone who knew Maya, knew that she rarely ever said it to anyone. As much as she was trying to take responsibility for her actions and words affecting others' feelings, it was still hard for her to do so.
"Maya, please, if you apologized for everything you did wrong we'd be here forever. Why are you apologizing anyways?" , Andy asked to clarify. Maya had done a ton of shit and said a ton of awful things of the past years; why she was picking now to say that she was sorry, Andy wondered.
"I've been seeing someone for a good amount of my issues, for a long time now. Two months to be exact", she admitted, thinking back to the night Robert died. "Anyways, we talked about the people I hurt and it starts with me and that "I'm sorry" is the best place to start. You get the gist", she added, still emotionally shaken.
Andy chewed on her bottom lip, still unsure of whether or not she wanted to accept. In the months before she left, Andy had found it very difficult to trust that apologies and gestures of goodwill from Maya would stick. Maya was the person after all that acted like everything was okay before gaslighting and berating Andy to the point where Andy thought she was actually going crazy. The trust could get back there and it wasn't back yet, but Andy had a gut feeling that forgiving Maya was the right thing to do. "I'm proud of you. I really am, but are you sure about being sorry for everything?", Andy asked as Maya nodded.
"Yeah, I am. I'm not losing our friendship like that again. If anything you've shown me how valuable it is", Maya explained, having the first real, heart to heart conversation with Andy in the past few months. "I've learned to accept that my actions have consequences and admit when I'm wrong, and believe me when I say that I was wrong. I was wrong on so many levels and I'm surprised you stuck around as long as you did", she added. Andy couldn't believe how much Maya was actually trying.
Andy sighed, and talked to Maya probably more honestly than she's ever talked to her, "I accept your apology and I forgive you. It might be a long way back for us but I'm ready to start again if you are. Clean slate?"
"Clean slate. Andy, I was really hoping you'd say that", Maya answered, trying hard not to let Andy know she was crying. "Well, I better let you get rest and I better get back to my girlfriend. I'll call tomorrow okay? Bye Andy"
"Later Maya", Andy smirked as she hung up the phone, taking a deep breath as she put it down on her side table. Jack couldn't have picked a better moment to walk back into the room. He didn't even have to ask Andy how the phone call went. He could tell by the way she looked at him that Maya had done something remarkable. Andy looked confused as she explained the phone call to him. "Maya Bishop just told me she was sorry and that she was in therapy", Andy told him, still finding it hard to believe what she heard. "How hard did I hit my head?", she wondered. There were so many things about this situation that felt surreal to her; Jack flying there, Maya apologizing, being clinically dead for two minutes, and seeing Robert. It was making her dizzy, either that or it was the meds.
Jack muttered, "It worked then", under his breath, hoping that Andy wouldn't hear him.
Andy narrowed her eyes at him, "What worked?". She watched, not convinced, as Jack chuckled nervously, and checked his phone as a distraction. "Jack Gibson, what did you say to her?" Andy asked again, this time more firmly. Maya was his captain, she figured that whatever he said couldn't have been that bad.
"Nothing, nothing bad" he lied as she shot him an unconvinced, you better tell me the truth, look. It scared him how close they were that she could tell when he was lying. He had no choice but to admit the conversation him and Maya had at the hospital back in Seattle, "Fine. I told her that she was hurting those around her. I may have thrown in the words "manipulative" and "heartless bitch", you know run of the mill things that you call your captain. I compared her to her dad…", he admitted much to Andy's delight.
Andy had to stop herself from laughing at Jack tearing into Maya. She gave him a quick pat on the back, "And she didn't kill you? Wow, I'm impressed and a little concerned but mostly impressed"
"With you so upset about Robert and her acting like she didn't care, I had to do something", he explained. "At the end of it all I told her to get therapy and I was shocked when I found out that she did"
Andy smiled as she quickly unblocked all the rest of her Seattle friends on her phone. "Of all people to listen to about that, she listened to you. How did she take the "heartless bitch" bit?", Andy questioned, envisioning the argument in her mind. Now that she thought back to it, she could have sworn she heard yelling outside her hospital room at Grey Sloan but was in such a daze that she didn't think anything of it. She chuckled lightly thinking that now she would have given anything to watch that. "I assume she was pissed", she added.
"I would say so. She screamed in my face alot, I screamed in hers alot and then she benched me for a week. Then we walked around the station all passive aggressive with each other", Jack summarized matter of factly, leaving out the mandatory bonding. That would be a story to tell her when the whole team was present. He had no doubt that Vic would be the first one to bring that up.
Andy smirked and chuckled, "Maya benched you for telling the truth? Why am I not surprised?". Andy took a sip of her coffee on the side table and made a face after putting it down and pouring herself a cup of water from the pitcher on her side table. "Ugh, this has to be the worst coffee I've ever had", she complained as Jack took a sip, making the same face.
"That's what you get for telling me to get bagged coffee. I would have run to Starbucks for you", he told her as he took another sip before putting the cup next to hers. He poured himself a cup of water too and chugged it down, hoping that there wouldn't be an aftertaste, "Ugh, that's even worse than the Grey Sloan coffee. Why did you have me get that?", Jack agreed as he resumed his place next to her.
"Because the nearest Starbucks is in Windsor Locks and I don't want you to leave", she answered as she rested her head on his shoulder. They talked until the sun rose about what had happened in Seattle after she left. Jack updated her on how everyone at work was and how Dixon was now at a federal prison in Colorado. Andy didn't seem surprised at all and was actually pretty excited that the guy who dangled her father's funeral in front of her face, like a carrot, finally got what was coming to him. Jack contemplated telling Andy about the lawsuit that the city started but he and Maya agreed to. The suit was against the Nielsen Trash Co.; the people responsible for the fire that killed Robert. He didn't want to worry her with the details about that yet, not knowing if she was even going to agree to go home. She asked him about the team and he was more than excited to tell her about the progress they made. "You know, the whole team is better. I made some changes while you were gone. I talked to everyone and reminded them that we need to start acting like a family. We're not there yet but we'll get there soon. I'm so proud of them and I'm starting to see the team that your father handpicked for the first time in a very long time", he told her excitedly.
Andy smiled, staring into his eyes. He smiled back as he locked his own eyes with hers. She yawned and answered him tiredly, "I always knew you would make a good captain. You think outside the box and get things done in a way that I couldn't"
"Thinking outside the box isn't everything. Sometimes we need someone by the books", Jack answered, yawning himself. Andy gave him a quizzical look, wondering what he meant by 'by the books'. "We need someone like you. Which is why, I'm planning on stepping down if you come home. You deserve the position more than I do. You've earned it"
Andy shook her head in disbelief, "I'm sorry, what?"
"Andy, come home", Jack pleaded. "Come home to everyone who knows you, please"
"What are you talking about? These people know me. Brian, Nolan, Morgan...", Andy started, rattling off names of the people she worked with in Shaw Creek. It was partly true, they knew small things like what she liked to eat or that her favorite sport was rock climbing. Wasn't that enough?
Jack was taken aback, and chuckled, much to Andy's dismay, "Oh yeah? If they know you, do they know that you were a state champion salsa dancer or that you love throw pillows with weird sayings or that you obsessively clean whenever you're really pissed off about something, or that you also break into Spanglish when you're pissed?". Andy didn't answer him; she couldn't because he was right. Jack, not feeling satisfied with his argument, pressed even further, "We all miss you. Everyone. Especially me. You're my best friend there. Dean keeps kicking Vic out of the houseboat, Teddy and Owen won't stop fighting, and Maya drives me nuts. You're the only one there, besides Travis who doesn't make me want to bang my head against a wall. I'm asking you, no I'm begging you to come home because we all need you home. And if you won't come home for anyone else, then come home for me. I need you home. I really need you home Andy". One last push, he thought, hopefully it was enough for her.