Stepping out of the terminal at LAX, Jack lets his eyes wander around. His friend and foster brother, Jim Street, had agreed to pick him up. Sure, enough, there he is, leaning against a beat-up pickup truck, his sunglasses covering his eyes, but his grin shows he spotted Jack walking up.
After a one-armed hug, they throw Jack's duffle in the back and start driving.
"So, what brings you to LA?" Street starts cautiously. Jack hadn't mentioned why he was in town. He had just called yesterday to ask if he could crash with them for a bit.
"I needed to get out of Seattle to think,"
"Think about what?"
"I might've done something stupid and needed to get away."
"And you decided to come to LA? The city where no one ever does anything stupid?" Street laughs while navigating traffic.
Jack rolls his eyes and fires back, "Ah, you live here. So, someone is bound to do something stupid every once in a while,"
"You want to sleep on the street?"
"Been there, done that. At least LA is warmer than Seattle" Gibson references his time as a homeless kid. Something Street never had to experience.
"Not by much, though."
The rest of the drive, after Jack changed the topic, they just talk about nonsensical stuff, but when they sit out in the yard, both with a cold beer in hand. Street tries again. He couldn't get rid of that feeling that his friend wasn't just here just because he had a few days' leave.
"For real, what did you do to make you flee Seattle? Spit it out, so I can help," Street decides on the direct approach.
Jack takes another sip of his beer to stall for time and think. He tilts his head up and stares at the sky for a moment before mumbling, "I screwed up. I guess you could say I broke the code again,"
He had been whispering, barely audible and very close to his bottle, but Street heard him and understood each word.
"What code? And again? I thought you were the one of us who learned from his mistakes," the second part is said with a laugh, but as soon as Jim sees the sad expression on his friend's face, he gets serious.
"I kissed someone I shouldn't have kissed." Jack is still thinking feverishly about whether he should really tell his buddy everything. After the disaster with Andy and Maya, he had actually sworn to stay away from his colleagues. And that's what he told Jim. He would like to hit his fist against a wall right now, but that wouldn't really help either. Just hurt more.
Since Jack stays silent, Street has no choice but to guess; And he starts with the familiar choices.
"Andy?" but Jack shakes his head. "She got married." after a pause and shortly before Street forms his lips into an M, he presses out "Maya too. And Carina would kill me ..."
Street chokes on his beer for a moment, but then asks puzzled and amused "Who is Carina? New girlfriend?"
"Maya's wife," Jack replies dryly, taking a sip of beer.
Street who had just had a sip too chokes again and starts coughing. "Did you say, wife?"
After Jack nods he starts to grin.
"Oh buddy, just your luck, right? Two of your exes married ... one to a woman. And Inara ran away ..."
Street is now laughing out loud, and Jack is about to lose his cool when his friend calms down a bit and clears his throat.
"Sorry, you're not here for them. So finally spit it out ... What's the real problem and what code? "
"Stay away from firefighters' wives," Jack mumbles, somewhat embarrassed, raising an eyebrow to accentuate the seriousness.
"Hey, I thought we'd settled that last time ... But there is a simple solution: you avoid her. Nowhere alone with her. "Street looks very convinced of his idea until Jack shakes his head.
"That wouldn't work."
Street tilts his head and studies Jack again. "Another colleague? Seriously, you should think about adding some rules about that in Seattle. "
The next moment, Street turns quiet as a mouse, silently cursing himself for saying that sentence out loud.
"Oh, are you a fan of rules now? Who are you and where is Jim Street? "Jack lets out an audible gasp and after a breath adds slightly snappy "And besides, we have rules. Nothing with subordinates… well Maya broke that one with me, but if nobody knows…"
"Wow, don't get snappy with me now." Street raises his hands and hopes to put this topic to bed as quickly as possible by summing up the situation one more time and coaxing Jack to continue "So again a teammate. But she's with another firefighter?"
After seeing Jack nod wistfully Street continues before taking another sip from the bottle.
"Don't you want to tell me what happened in the first place? Did you know that she has a boyfriend?"
Emotions race over Jack's face. That stupid day is replaying again and again in his head.
"Vic called. Travis forced her so we could be each other's buddy and not be alone in our sorrow," Jack starts before he takes a sip of beer to pause and think for a moment.
"Do you need something stronger than beer? I'm sure I can find a bottle of Luca's whiskey around here ... "Street starts and Jack interrupts him. "God, no. No whiskey. Just not a good idea. "
Street frowns in confusion.
"Vic and I drank whiskey. We talked about Miller, "
"The colleague who died," nods Street. He'd heard the story before when Jack tried to explain to him why he was living with Marsha now. "Were they together?"
Somehow the story Jack tells doesn't really make sense to him yet.
"No, but Miller had feelings for Vic. She found out after he was dead. They were just friends, but they lived together for a while. She's with Ruiz." Jack explains wistfully and stares into the darkness.
"I don't see the context, buddy. Where is the moment now when things escalated? How could you…"
"We were drunk and emotional, I ... I remember Vic wanted to get a new bottle of whiskey and I, I took the hammer and hit the tiles and the wall and then I sat there and I, we, there was that moment. She sat in front of me, and it just happened " Jack lets out dejectedly
Street unconsciously nods and puts his beer next to him. Something very similar had happened to him.
But now is not the time to dwell on the past. He got through the mess his friend still seems to be in.
"Did you talk to her about it? What is she thinking about all this?" he gently probes Jack, who looks more and more crestfallen by the minute.
Jack replays the day they both were on shift and saw each other again in his head. That morning seeing Vic with Ruiz and the stabbing pain in his heart at seeing them talk at the desk. The eerie feeling that something was off on their call and the way he reacted after.
"I don't care if you sabotage your own life…" Jack cringes at the replay.
"Didn't go too well I take it?" Street comments from the sidelines and Jack sighs.
"We didn't really talk about it. We worked a call, Crisis 1, and Vic freaked out, her heart monitor went crazy and after that call, I benched her. I sent her home and well we argued."
"You pulled rank on her?" Street raises an eyebrow and almost imperceptibly shakes his head.
"No," Jack starts to defend himself, "No I don't think so. Vic just wasn't ready, and I can't let her be the reason Crisis 1 fails. It's Miller's legacy. She wasn't ready to be back. She still needs time." He finishes his sentence and accentuates that finality with a swig of beer, emptying the bottle and then setting it down hard.
"If you say so," Street musters his friend and tries to figure out what is on Jack's mind.
After a little while, he gets back to his initial question. "Are you going to talk to her about it?"
"I don't really think Vic will talk to me again, anytime soon. I accused her of sabotaging her life when she accused me of benching her because of what happened between us…" Jack explains in a low voice and hangs his head in shame.
"Why did you do that? You do realize you have to talk to her, or your team is going to figure out something is wrong…" Street tries to reason with his friend.
"Vic is professional. We can work together," Jack states defiantly and confidently. "But…" Street coaxes him.
"What are you trying to say? That I can't be professional?" Jack turns to glare at Street who in turn gets up to face his angry friend from a slight distance.
"No, that's not what I meant. But you should talk. You work together and there is nothing more uncomfortable than working with someone every day when there is tension because of unresolved feelings and things."
"I'm not completely inept and stupid. I worked with Andy for a long time, we were co-captains immediately after we broke up and I still work with Maya. So please, just because you didn't quite get it right... "Jack stops and looks apologetically when he sees his buddy flinch.
"Sorry, that's not what I wanted to say,"
"Yes, that's exactly what you meant. And that's the point. You have to figure it out. Did she tell her boyfriend anything? Is she planning to? And what about your friendship? If you want to save that at least, you have to talk to her." Street starts listing off and walks back to sit down again next to Jack.
Gibson looks almost desperately at the sky.
"I don't think Vic told anyone anything. I would be dead if that were the case ..." he mumbles to himself. "What am I supposed to do? After what I said to her the last time, we were alone, she will never talk to me again. "
Street pats his buddy on the shoulder and then says, "As difficult as it is, you have to talk to her at the station. Find a quiet corner where you can at least briefly be undisturbed. It's the only way, believe me, I know."
Jack's head turns in disbelief towards his friend.
"Yes, I am serious. Try to talk to her, apologize at least, and yes, she may then need more time and some distance, but it is an important step if you do not want to lose her completely. "
Jack is impressed by his friend's words, but he has no idea what he really wants right now.
"And what if it's only getting worse afterward?" he asks quietly.
"Then it's worse for a while. But you can work through that and survive. And believe me, it's worth it to be patient and wait if she is the one. "
