Author's Note: This is my take on Robert's first day back at Station 19 in two acts. The idea for the first came from the promo for 04x04, and the second is a product of my imagination. I also changed the rating to "T." While there is nothing explicit, this story acknowledges the existence of sex.
"How am I supposed to stay away from you, when I have to watch you rescue kittens every day?" Andy asked as they met in the hallway on his first day back at work. Her voice was quiet, and teasing, and sent Robert's mind back to the beginning of their intimate relationship, when they would spend long leisurely mornings in bed together, exploring each other's bodies and minds, cataloging which touches or turns of phrase heightened the tension or achieved the desired moan or gasp.
"Kittens?" Robert asked with a chuckle, a bit amused that his mere presence had his wife so flustered.
"Yeah, kittens. You know, the heroic firefighter saving the day by rescuing the cat from the tree," Andy explained, realizing as she did that her metaphor was a bit silly.
Early on, Robert had playfully teased Andy about her thing for men in uniform. Andy, of course, denied it, retorting that with her job, it was almost impossible to meet someone who wasn't a first responder, but they both knew it was true. Andy had a type: tall, strong, and heroic. Robert didn't mind; he was just glad he was the one with whom she had fallen in love. Robert's type wasn't as clear, but after a few comments about how good Andy looked when she was dirty and disheveled after fighting a fire, Andy determined that Robert was equally aroused by her valiant side.
"Am I that irresistible?" Robert teased as he leaned toward her. One of his hands grasped the water pipe next to him, and the other, without any conscious choice on his part, slipped from his pocket and moved toward her. He quickly stuck it back in his pocket as he realized he was about to touch her in a way that was definitely not appropriate given their 90-day separation or their location in a very public hallway at the station.
"Don't flatter yourself," Andy retorted playfully. "It's just been over a month since we've been together, and I happen to be living with the queen of orgasms."
"Excuse me?" Robert queried, his eyebrows raised. He knew that Andy was living with Maya and her girlfriend, an OB/GYN at Grey-Sloan, but this particular moniker was news to him.
Andy smiled at her husband's discomfort. While she had gotten used to Carina's openness about her research, and the wonderful curative properties of the female orgasm, like him, she was caught off guard a bit at the beginning.
"Yeah," Andy explained. "Dr. Carina Deluca. In addition to delivering babies, she's also an incredible cook who makes homemade pasta on her days off, and when she's not busy with those two things, she does MRIs on women's brains before, during, and after orgasm. That's how Dr. Shepherd's brain tumor was diagnosed. She had agreed to be a research participant, and it showed up on the scan!"
Andy paused. She knew she was rambling, something she did when she was feeling unnerved, and Robert used the moment to process this new information, both about Andy's roommate, and Dr. Shepherd, his neurosurgeon and one member of his sober support system.
"Ok, then," Robert said, not sure where to take the conversation. "What can I do to make things easier on you at work?"
While both of them struggled with the separation, it was much easier to manage when they were physically apart. Now that they would be working together, they would have a constant reminder of what they were missing. Despite the difficulties, he understood Dr. Shepherd's reasons for recommending it. His Narcotics Anonymous meetings and conversations with Richard had given him insight into addiction from the perspective of loved ones, and he had come to appreciate why he needed to go through this early phase of recovery on his own. Ninety days of sobriety would make both of them more confident he could stay clean, and Andy would not feel pressured to monitor his behavior or look for signs of a relapse.
"You can't look at me," Andy said quickly in response to his question.
"I can't look at you?" Robert asked, a bit bewildered by her request. "We're going to end up on the same call at some point. How can we fight a fire or assist a victim if I can't look at you?"
"No, I mean you can't look at me like that," Andy attempted to clarify, waving her hand in the direction of his face.
"Like what?" Robert asked.
"Like you've seen me naked," Andy clarified.
"But I have," Robert replied in the low, deep voice that always managed to get her stomach churning. "And I quite liked it."
"That's the problem," Andy scolded playfully. "So no."
With that, Andy turned on her heel and went to find something to keep herself busy until they were sent out on a call.
A bit later that day, Andy was grabbing something from the locker room, chatting with Travis and Vic who were attending to the laundry. As she did, her husband emerged from the shower wrapped in a towel that covered the lower half of his body, but nothing else. He greeted the group with a quick, "Hey" and proceeded to his locker to get his uniform.
As he did, Andy's eyes visibly followed him, and Travis and Vic shared a knowing glance and small smile, before resuming their chore, pretending like the sight of their former battalion chief walking around in nothing but a towel was a common occurrence. Andy, distracted for just a moment, quickly returned her focus to her conversation with her friends.
The laundry completed, Vic and Travis left the locker room, and Andy retrieved her belongings before heading toward the door. She was stopped, however, by the sound of her husband's voice.
"Hey Andy," he called from his locker, his tone light and playful.
Andy turned and met her husband's gaze.
"If I'm not allowed to look, neither are you," he teased.
Andy, realizing he had noticed her moment of distraction, felt the heat rising to her cheeks before shaking her head with a chuckle and heading out the door.
With the city still almost completely locked down due to COVID restrictions, the firefighters found themselves spending more time at the station during their shifts. There were fewer car accidents, and most of the fire calls they had were of the small home kitchen variety, usually caused by people who hadn't used their oven or stove in years trying to occupy themselves in quarantine by learning to cook. The aid car, however, was quite busy. They attended to many COVID patients, but also numerous heart attacks, strokes, and other ailments, the patients' conditions made worse by the fact that people were too afraid of catching COVID to go to the doctor or hospital. Often, by the time they called 911, there was little the first responders could do.
The aid car was so busy that Maya divided the day into three 8-hour shifts. Whoever was on aid car from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. was assigned to the ladder truck or engine for the rest of the shift, in an attempt to spread out the workload. This late afternoon, Travis and Ben were on aid car, having relieved Jack and Dean who had covered the earlier portion of the day. Andy and Vic were preparing dinner, and the rest of the crew was relaxing or napping, waiting for dinner, or a call, whichever came first.
On a typical afternoon, the break room television would usually be broadcasting a game of whichever sport was currently in season. With COVID-19 shutting down all sports, however, this afternoon was anything but typical, and Ben, Travis, Jack, and Robert found themselves watching a replay of an old Seattle Mariners baseball game. There was no suspense; anyone with a phone could easily find out the outcome of the game, but it allowed them to pretend, at least for a little while, that things were normal.
After just a few minutes of watching, Travis and Ben were called to a suspected heart attack, leaving Jack and Robert alone in the room. As they watched the meaningless game, they could occasionally hear bits of Andy and Vic's conversation and laughter over the noise of the television. When it first happened, Robert sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Pruitt Herrera. Because he had created a family for Andy at Station 19, she had people to support her even when Robert couldn't.
Since Robert's hearing, Jack had been wondering how to approach him. Once his boss, Robert was now technically his subordinate, although Jack respected him too much as a person and a firefighter to take advantage of that situation. To complicate the relationship further, Jack and Andy had been together, once in a relationship serious enough that Jack had bought an engagement ring, and later as "friends with benefits." The latter relationship was the more troubling of the two, knowing that he had slept with Andy not long before she and Robert got together.
Jack looked over at Robert and decided to address what he perceived as an unspoken tension between the two of them. "Are we okay? You and me…you know, because Andy and I dated, and then we were together before you two were together."
Robert sighed. It was his first day back, and honestly, all he wanted was to keep his head down, do his job, and make things as uncomplicated as possible for his wife. Instead, he was dealing with Miller's somewhat uncharacteristic animosity and now Jack was bringing up his prior relationship with Andy.
While Robert remained silent, Jack continued talking, and Robert simply looked at him, his stare intensifying as Jack attempted to find his point.
"And, you know, because I know her. Not just as a friend, but you know, in the biblical sense…"
As those words came out of his mouth, Jack froze and began to wish he had just kept his focus on the meaningless baseball game. Robert was downright glaring at him at that point, and Jack decided it was time to cut his losses. "You know, I'm sorry I said anything. Let's just watch the game."
As he spoke, he turned to the television, praying for a call, any call, that would get him out of the room and the terribly uncomfortable situation he had just caused.
Robert looked away from Jack and at the television for a moment before speaking.
"Jack," he started, before pausing to make sure he had Jack's attention.
"Yes," Jack answered a bit timidly.
"Can you promise me that you'll never again make any reference to the intimate nature of your prior relationship with my wife?" Robert asked bluntly.
"Yes, sir," Jack answered quickly. Robert, of course, was no longer his supervisor, but he could still be rather intimidating.
"Then we're good," Robert answered, before once again turning his attention to the screen.
Later that evening, after everyone had gone to their bunks in an attempt to get some sleep, Andy was alerted by the chime on her phone to a video call from Robert. After a few minutes of pleasantries, Robert brought up the earlier conversation.
"So, Jack and I talked this afternoon," Robert began.
Andy's stomach turned a little at Robert's words. Robert, of course, knew about the nature of Andy's prior relationship with Jack, but it wasn't a subject either dwelled on. She couldn't imagine Robert bringing the subject up with Jack, but perhaps Jack, now in therapy and trying to build healthy relationships, thought it would be good to clear the air. She inwardly cringed at that thought.
"Really?" Andy asked, attempting to appear nonplussed by this turn in the conversation, but doing a somewhat poor job of it. "What did you and Jack talk about?"
"You," Robert answered succinctly.
Andy grimaced slightly, both because she was afraid that had been the topic of conversation, and because she had experienced this particular conversational style her husband employed before. When properly motivated, Robert could be quite expressive, but he was also a master at one-word answers, requiring his conversational partner to either drop the subject or respond with multiple questions.
Rather than ask for the specifics of the conversation, Andy decided to change her tactics. "Why on earth would you do that?" she asked.
In her mind, there was absolutely nothing good that could come from a conversation between her husband and her ex-boyfriend/almost fiancé who she had hooked up with not too long before she married Robert.
"Jack started the conversation," Robert explained. "He wanted to make sure we were ok."
"He did?" Andy replied, now resorting to Robert's clipped conversational style as she tried to make sense of the story Robert was relaying. Her initial reaction was to question Jack's sanity. Therapy notwithstanding, she thought he had more sense than to bring up their past relationship with her current husband.
"Yeah, he did," Robert responded, before deciding to fill Andy in. "He bumbled through it a bit, but in the end, we came to an understanding."
"An understanding?" Andy repeated. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out where this conversation was going.
"Yep," Robert continued. "He promised to never again mention the intimate nature of your prior relationship, and I agreed to let him live."
"Robert, you didn't!" Andy scolded, almost positive that her husband was not telling her the entire truth. In all of the time they had been together, he had never shown any inclination toward being violent or particularly jealous, although she could imagine that there would be a certain level of awkwardness between her husband and her ex-boyfriend.
"Ok, ok, you're right," Robert conceded. "That wasn't exactly how the conversation went."
Andy decided not to press him further. She and Jack had managed to return to a good working relationship and even some semblance of a friendship. As long as Jack and Robert could work together, and not make things uncomfortable for her or the rest of the team, she didn't care how they resolved things.
"I love you, you know," Andy said, by way of bringing their conversation to a close.
"I love you too, babe," Robert said. "I'll see you in the morning."
"If not sooner," Andy said, knowing that even in COVID times an uninterrupted night of sleep was rare in their busy firehouse.
"If not sooner," Robert repeated, before ending their video chat.
Another author's note: Yes, I blatantly stole a line from the first episode of Grey's, although I prefer to think of it as an homage. :) As always, thank you for the support, and know that your reviews, follows, and favorites are much appreciated!