Author's note:
Hey everyone!
Thank you so much for coming back, reading and reviewing.
This chapter takes place just at the end of season 2 episode 8 and the second part near the end of episode 9.
I have a new multi chapter fic, and I hope the first episode will be published on Monday. I will super appreciate your support on it as well, and I hope I will be able to publish one chapter of the new fic and one of Alive each week.
I am not going to spoil anything, but the title of the new fic is Daughter, so you can try and guess what it is about.
I will love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, and I hope you enjoy!
"Hey, stranger." Robert greets as Andy walks into the rehabilitation center. His eyes sparkle when he sees her moving toward him, and there is a genuine smile across his face.
"Hey." She smirks back.
They don't hug, they don't kiss, she just lands ungracefully into the couch next to the one he is sitting in and throws her purse somewhere on the floor. His walking cane is set behind him, as if he wishes to hide its existence as much as possible.
She notices he is the one always waiting at the visiting area whenever he expects her, always sits there with a smile on his face when she arrives. She knows he doesn't want her to view him like that. Weak, not at the top of his game, unable to walk without some kind of assistance. He wants her to see him as her captain who can pull her out of a collapsing apartment. As a lover who can carry her all the way to his bed like she weighs no more than a bag of flour.
Andy goes through the clatter in her bag, pulls her medal of valor out and hands it for him to see. He glances at the medal for a second, then lifts his gaze back up to her. He doesn't need to say anything for her to know he understands. They have been in that aid car together, after all.
"How do you feel?"
She huffs the air in her lungs out loudly. "I know how I don't feel. I don't feel like a hero. Amelia… Dr. Shepherd called me a hero after we arrived at Grey Sloan Memorial, and I have heard that so many times ever since. No one knows I fell apart in that aid car. We lost the patient, and I couldn't bring myself to help you when you needed me to keep you alive. Sometimes it feels like it was just sheer luck that got us out of there. We were just fortunate enough to have the team find us at the right time. I don't want to think about what could have happened if they arrived just five minutes too late."
"I strongly disagree." He argues. "I know you don't want to hear me say that, but I am going to say it anyway. The only reason I am here today is you. You went up all the way to the road and made sure to light up that flare so there will be even the slightest chance someone will find us. In my eyes, it makes you a hero."
She glares at him, and he knows well enough that it's his signal to stir the conversation in a different direction. "So, what's new at the station?"
She wonders if he uses her as a distraction. Distraction from his pain, from the fact he has so much free time on his hands to relive over and over again those horrible moments, in which he was hanging on a thread between life and death. Distraction from the fact that other than her, no one came to visit him in the last four long months.
She can't blame him if he does, since she is doing the exact same thing. She uses her visits here as a distraction from the fact that she can't sleep, that the nightmares are haunting her, that she wakes up covered in cold sweat more often than not. She uses him as a distraction from the fact that the one, single kiss they shared four months ago ignited something in her that was dormant for a long time, and she doesn't know how to put it back to sleep.
Maybe this is the reason she keeps coming back to visit him as much as she possibly can.
They stay on the safe side of things. They don't talk about their feelings, their fears, and they avoid mentioning that night at Grey Sloan Memorial with every drop of denial they both have in them.
He is still her superior, that hasn't changed, and he is about to be reassigned to their station soon enough.
Nonetheless, a few things did change since the day of the storm. She can understand him better now, knowing his story. She doesn't hate him, and they speak to each other in a soft tone that was once reserved only for the bedroom.
One might even say they are slowly but surely becoming friends.
"Everything is as usual. Jack is still in therapy, and chief Ripley comes by the station more often than not these days. I think he came to a conclusion that 19 is the epicenter of every major disaster bound to happen inside the fire department, and frankly, I can't blame him. Some days I believe it myself. Like we are sitting on a powder keg waiting to explode and throw the next disaster in our faces. Every member of this team keeps coming out of deadly situations by the skin of their teeth."
She goes silent, then adds as if she forgot the most important piece of information of them all. "Oh, and everyone adores my dad, as usual. I keep doing his paperwork and get into fights with him on a daily basis. Which leads me to the question I have been meaning to ask you, how soon can you be back?"
"So let me get this straight." He says, tapping a finger on the armrest as if he is trying to figure something out. "You believe that the station is a bomb waiting to explode, still you can't wait for me to come back to a place where everyday my life can be in danger, only for you to avoid spending too much time with your father, who is one of Seattle Fire Department's most appreciated captains of all times?" He raises his brow in question. The smile that welcomed her never faded off his face, and makes his whole expression look somehow mischievous.
"Exactly." She nods her head in approval. "I love him, I really do, but sometimes he makes me boil inside. He notices everything. Nothing slips past him. I don't think anyone else feels it, but since he is my dad… It is like I am under the supervision of the Big Brother's watching eye all day long. If he were at the station during the months we have been fooling around every chance we got, chances are we wouldn't have gotten very far."
"Well, if you think this little of my life, and you are willing to sacrifice me for the sake of having a human shield between you and your father; why did you bother to save me that night?" Robert ignores her comment about the time they have been sleeping together deliberately.
Stay on the safe side of the conversation, he tells himself. Don't let anything ruin the delicate friendship forming between them.
She punches his arms playfully. "I know it might be an unpopular opinion among the rest of the team, but I really do want you to be back. And you can't fool me. I know you miss the rush, that adrenaline coursing through your veins when you enter a burning building. I was on desk duty for two weeks when I sprained my ankle and I thought I was going crazy."
"True that." He admits. "You know, after all, he is still your father. I know you two don't see eye to eye when it comes to most things, but believe me when I say the universe could have handled you a much worse hand than a father whose main concern is your well being."
"I know that all he wants is for me to be happy. I am fully aware of the sacrifices he had to make, and I will never take it for granted. I just feel sometimes that the way he sees my happiness and the way I see it are two totally different ways."
Andy glances at her phone. When she notices the time and half a dozen unread text messages from Maya, she jumps up on her feet and mutters a quiet "Shit. I am so sorry, I have to go. Maya pressured me into having a party tonight at our place in order to celebrate me getting the medal, and I ran out the door saying I will buy the snacks and the drinks and come back in time to help her get everything ready."
"That sounds nice." He makes a mental note to try and do whatever he can to make it to her party, at least for a little while. She deserves it. The attention, the appreciation, she deserves it all and way more, even if she can't see it yet.
"I guess I just don't feel like celebrating it."
"So humble." He teases.
"Always." She winks at him and starts to make her way back to her car.
"Welcome back." Chief Ripley greets Sullivan as he enters the captain's office.
Sullivan puts down the four months of paperwork that has piled up on his desk and looks up at his former best friend.
Lucas touches his lower lip, and it seems like he hesitates to say what's on his mind. "I know you make it a habit not to eat with the members of the station, but I brought you those burgers from the place you used to like. Extra fries and onion rings and everything. I thought we could talk." He lifts up the brown paper bag Sullivan didn't notice he was holding.
"Well, for your knowledge I have tried to start sharing my meals with the team before the aid car crush put a hold on my career." Sullivan confesses. He pushes the clutter on his desk to one side, making enough room so Luke will be able to place their meal in front of them.
"Really, what changed your mind after all this time?" The chief asks as he carefully pulls out the amazing smelling items out of the beg, one by one, and opens the wrappers. They haven't done it in a long while, friendly talk over dinner. But Robert will never say no to greasy junk food that's being offered to him.
"Herrera." He says, and the smile that creeps up his lips when he speaks her name is unavoidable. "I mean, Captain Herrera." He corrects quickly. "He told me that in order to really bond with the team, I have to eat with them."
"And did it work?" Ripley asks as he takes the first bite out of the juicy burger.
"To some extent." Robert admits as he drops a hot french fry into his mouth. "I think that they still view me as a stranger, as an outsider who came and invaded their family, their personal space. I still need to earn their trust. I am sure being out for four months and them having their legendary captain back didn't really help that relationship, but I will get there one day. Slow and steady. It just sometimes feels like this station has some kind of a mythological captain, and whatever I do I won't be good enough for them, because I will never be him."
They eat silently then, the only sound in the room is the one of their crunchy bites and rapid chewing.
"Why did you come here, Luke?" Robert asks as he eats the last of his meal. He crumples up the packaging and throws it to the trash can across the room, as if he were a famous NBA player. The trash lands exactly where it belongs, and he leans back, satisfied.
"You know why. They are doing that thing for Captain Herrera's last day, and I wanted to be here as a thank you for taking this station on himself. If it weren't for him, I am afraid this station would have fallen apart, with you and Gibson being away."
"No, I mean... Don't take it the wrong way, but we don't do this anymore, sitting and eating together. So what is it?" Sullivan asks again. Luke looks anywhere but into his eyes, and he knows by now that this visit has some kind of a secret purpose.
"I am still your contact in case of emergency." Luke notes. "Which I didn't know, so imagine how I felt when someone from Grey Sloan Memorial calls and tells me you are in surgery."
"Even fifteen years later, you are the closest thing to a friend I have in this city." Sullivan admits. "And I know that if it comes down to it, you won't let me live as a vegetable and you won't second guess before pulling the plug if it is necessary." He smiles.
"You know, when you are chief, there aren't many people you can confide in. I don't have many friends, and there is something I need to say to a friend. So can we agree for a moment to put the past aside and go back to the way we were fifteen years ago."
Sullivan nods. "So is this about a woman?" He guesses.
"Two, actually."
Sullivan furrows a brow in confusion. "Luke, what did you get yourself into, and do I really want to hear the details of that particular story?"
"No, it is nothing of this sort." The chief laughs. "Is this really what you think of me?"
"Well, I definitely wouldn't put it past you. So who are they?"
"One of them is my woman… Well, I want her to be my woman, but it is kind of new and very much complicated. And the other one is yours."
A silence falls on the room, before Robert tries to lie. "I don't know what you think you saw.."
"So you are saying I imagined Herrera sleeping beside you in your hospital bed?" Ripley asks. "I didn't know it is common for a captain to sleep in the arms of one of his subordinates. I didn't see Miller there. Or Warren."
They both laugh nervously, before Ripley says what both of them know is unavoidable. "You know that if the two of you have any kind of personal relationship, I will have to report it. But…"
"But the woman you are seeing is someone from the department as well." Sullivan finishes his sentence for him. When Luke doesn't answer he continues. "Someone from this station?" It can't be Herrera, and he knows his former best friend's particular taste in women well enough to know it isn't Bishop. "It's Hughes." He doesn't ask, but determines.
Ripley puts his head in between his hands. "Sully, how did we get ourselves in this trouble?"
Roberts pulls his shoulders up. "I met Andy before I knew who she was." He says, as if it is enough to protect him from the consequences of his own actions. "When I found out who she is, I tried to stop myself, I tried to stay away and keep our relationship professional, but the attraction I feel toward her is… It's overwhelming sometimes. And in the beginning it was just that, just the sex. But I think that somewhere along the way…"
"You fell in love with her, didn't you?" Ripley finishes the sentence for him. In the moment, it feels like nothing has changed at all, no time has passed. They understand each other on a level that only men who have been through hell and back together can.
He can't confess it, not even to himself, but what other explanation can the fact that he feels whole only when she is around have?
"All I know is that I haven't felt this way ever since Claire died, and I truly and honestly believed that no woman will ever make me feel this way again. Over the last four months, every time she came to visit me, I got the chance to see a different side of her, one of the many things that make her Andrea and not just lieutenant Herrera. But nothing happened between us for the longest time, we kept everything completely friendly. I am afraid she doesn't feel the same way."
"I have to say, the way she slept in your arms did not seem friendly to me. If it is real for you, don't waste your time talking to me. Find her and tell her how you feel. Worst case scenario, she doesn't feel the same way. At least then you know, and you can move on."
"You should follow the same advice." Robert suggests as Ripley rises up from his seat and makes his way towards the door. "Luke, one more thing." The chief stops by the door and turns his head back. "If it comes down to choosing between the two of you, have no doubt, I will protect Hughes."
"I will do the same for Herrera. And for the record, this conversation never happened. We know nothing, and there is nothing to report." Ripley swings the door open murmuring under his breath "The women of this station."
After he closes the door, Robert rests his elbows on the desk and cradles his head in his palms. He releases a loud exhale and whispers in the direction of the closed door "You have no idea, Luke. You have absolutely no idea."