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Andy has no idea how long she stands outside the firehouse for, staring at the last place she saw the tail-lights of Jack's car as he raced out of the car park like a bat out of hell, but her skin has been kissed by the cool night air enough that the goosebumps burn, and the sticky note with that two-word goodbye has been reduced to a crumpled mass in her clenched fist.
She isn't sure how she's supposed to feel. Elated, that she has her job back, at the station she loves? Concerned, that Jack left the way that he did? Angry, that he left without saying goodbye? Grateful, that he gave up the Luitenant position so she could fill it? Sick, that she hadn't seen it coming?
It's cold. She should go inside, but she can't find it within herself to move. She's rooted to the spot as if the longer she stands there the higher the chance of Jack coming to his senses and turning the car around and returning to the station. But she knows better, she knows him better. She knows that he has probably driven to the closest freeway and will drive until he runs out of petrol or until he can no longer hold his eyes open and his fingers ache on the wheel and he needs to pull over to compose himself.
Eventually, she wraps her arms around herself and forces herself to move. She's not doing anybody any good by staying out here and hoping against hope that Jack will come back, so she turns on her heel and walks back into the firehouse, back into the suddenly stifling atmosphere, joyous in the wake of Pru's birthday party and the rejection of her trial and she is struck for the first time by a horrible thought.
Nobody even knows that Jack has gone, she thinks, nobody else knows that he isn't coming back.
She stands in the doorway for a few moments, just trying to catch her breath, to organise her thoughts. Vic is leaning against Theo, Carina and Maya are sitting so close together that they have practically become conjoined, Travis is saying something entertaining as he often does, Sullivan and Ross are making coffee for everyone, and Ben is getting Pru ready for bed, and all she can think about is how Jack is missing from their perfect little equation, an empty space that fits his dimensions exactly. It makes her sick, but she feels even sicker when she realizes that nobody has even noticed his absence.
"Andy?" Vic catches her staring from the doorway. "Is everything alright?"
No, she wants to scream. Jack is gone because we didn't love him enough and he had a family who didn't want him and he was hurt in ways he can never recover from and nobody protected him when he needed it and now he's gone and he's probably never coming back because even in a room full of people he has always felt so alone.
Instead, she clears her throat and forces herself to calm down. Everybody stops what they are doing to look at her. "A lieutenant position has opened up, here, at Station 19," her voice sounds too brittle, too soft, for the announcement she is making. She should be excited, but she can't be. Not when the person she really wants to celebrate with isn't here, not when he's the reason she's got any right to celebrate in the first place. "I've got my old job back."
Everybody erupts into congratulatory joy. Vic and Travis are the first to hug her, wrapping her up so tightly that she feels her ribs might break, and pulling away before they can see the forlorn look on her face. It's Theo, who hugs her a little more gently, a little more tentative, and pulls away to offer her a smile, who notices. "What's wrong?" He asks, and immediately, the cheers grow silent. "You look too sad for somebody who just got their job back."
She takes a deep breath and meets Maya's eyes. Because Maya, of all people, should understand what this means. "I'm coming back because a lieutenant position has opened up," she says slowly. She hopes that somebody will understand where she's going with this before she has to finish the explanation, before she has to finally say the words out loud, but they all just look confused, so she forces herself to continue. "Which means, for me to fill the empty spot, a lieutenant would have to leave and vacate the position."
Everybody turns sharply to look at Maya as if she's the guilty party. Maya, finally, understands, and her eyes go big and sad. "Oh," she manages, voice brittle. "Oh, god."
Wordlessly, Andy holds out the sticky note; an apology and a goodbye and an admission and a love letter all at once, encompassed by the two words written in Jack's neat scrawl. Vic takes it from her, and her brow furrows in concentration. "You're welcome?" she reads aloud. Sullivan makes a heartbroken, strangled sound from the corner. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't know," Travis stares at the little crinkled sticky note as if it holds all the secrets of the universe. "Who's it from? Andy?'
"Guys," Andy hates the way her voice sounds, too similar to the way she sounded that night, the night that everything changed and her reality shited, but it's not far off because her world has been altered all the same. She gestured around the room, and at their missing piece. Is Jack really so missable that nobody has even noticed that he's gone? "Look around. Who's missing?"
After a pause, in which everyone did indeed look around the room at all parties present, their peaceful group erupted in a disbelieving uproar. "No," Vic shook her head adamantly. "No. No way. He wouldn't. He wouldn't."
"He just left?" Travis demands, trying to be angry and failing miserably. "Without saying goodbye?"
Sullivan has turned to Ross, who has her arms crossed over her chest and wears a face as if she is sucking on a lemon. "That's what you were trying to tell me earlier. The lieutenant position that opened up- it was Jack's."
Maya detangles herself from Carina's side and takes the sticky note from Travis, who is clutching it much like Andy was doing outside. "This is definitely his handwriting," she says quietly. She glances up at Andy. "And it makes sense. He's been by your side the most throughout your trial, he more than the rest of us knows how important it means to you to return to Station 19."
"But why?" Theo frowns. He rubs his hand up and down Vic's arm to comfort her as she flounders. "Why would he just leave like that. I understand giving you back your job, Andy, but I'm sure we could have found another way. And after everything you've been through, I'm sure the department would be understanding."
There is an ever-growing part of Andy that wants to scream, scream as she did with Jack on the way to visit his bother. But the others, they wouldn't understand it, not in the way that Jack understands her. "Look, this isn't really my place to say, and I don't know what he told you about his visit to his brother, but we learned that he has other brothers and sisters, and out of all of them, Jack was the only one put up for adoption. They all grew up together in one big happy family with their parents, and Jack was abandoned and forgotten about. And I think that really screwed with his head and his already faulty sense of self-worth, and he's been kind of messed up about that since, and maybe I should have seen it, but I think him leaving was his way of making sure that never happened to him again."
"Leaving first so he wasn't the one left behind," Maya says as if it makes all the sense in the world. To her, it probably does.
"How come he didn't say anything about it to us?" Travis sounds so betrayed. A small, tiny part of Andy flares at irritation with him, but she quickly smothers it and buries it deep down and clamps her lips shut before she can say anything unsavoury. "I thought that we were a family. And then he just quits? Leaves without saying goodbye?"
"I didn't think you had that kind of relationship with Jack," Theo frowns. "I know that I'm new here and everything, but I always thought that he was a bit of an outsider. I mean, he seems to be more of a coworker than a family member like everyone else here is."
"That's not true," Vic shakes her head vehmously, but she doesn't look too convinced. "Is it?"
"It doesn't matter," Andy says even though it matters quite a bit. "All that matters is that Jack is gone, and I don't know if or when he's coming back. But I've got my old job back, so at least there's a silver lining."
It feels like a betrayal to say, but if she doesn't hold onto that tiny spark of goodness in a sea of bad like a lighthouse calling her to land, she might fall apart all over again, and she can't do that, not when she has finally managed to put herself back together using sticky-tape and super-glue and Jack's love. The thought of going home tonight to an empty apartment, devoid of Jack's cooking and his belly-deep laughter and his banter that fills all the silent spaces in her mind, makes her physically unwell, so she pushes it far from her thoughts for the moment. She'll deal with it when it comes to it. When she walks through the front door and sees Jack gone, that's when she'll deal with it. Maybe she'll stay in the bunk room at the station for a little while so she never has to deal with it.
Maya places a hand on Andy's arm and pulls her from her thoughts. She offers her a sympathetic smile. "He'll be alright. He's an adult, and he's capable, and he knows what he's doing, and he can take care of himself."
"It's just..." Andy bites her lip. She can't believe she's sharing this out loud: it feels like a secret, something shared in the darkness of their apartment over too many beers and greasy food, a little tipsy and a little sleep-deprived and comfortable in a way neither of them has ever let themselves be before. "He doesn't like to be alone. It scares him. It reminds him of a time he'd rather forget, and he hates change."
"I know," Maya says simply. "But what can you do about it, go after him? There's nothing you can do. We've just got to hope that he can figure out what he's looking for before he comes back."
"Let's celebrate," Sullivan says, though his smile is fake, and doesn't quite reach his eyes, and Andy would know. He's thinking of Jack, she knows, and the significance of what he's given up for Andy, so Andy can return to the job she loves without having to fight for it, the way she has fought for so much lately. "To Andy coming back to Station 19."
Theo, Travis and Vic are huddled together in a corner. Carina is reaching out and pulling Maya back towards her to envelop her in a comforting hug. Sullivan looks lost, Ben hugs Pru to his chest as if that'll protect them, and Ross seems unphased at the goings-on. She can't possibly understand. She can't understand what they've lost, what they've given up, not when she's an outsider looking in and someone who desont' understand the significance of this unthinkable change. Despite that, everyone raises their glasses in cheers, but Andy can't find it within herself to celebrate.
Without Jack here to celebrate with her, it doesn't feel like a win, it feels like just another loss in a long line of losses.