They don't know (I've waited all my life)

chapter 10

Jack didn't know what he expected when he was transporting a patient to Grey-Sloan but it wasn't seeing his Battalion Chief in civilian clothes standing outside the hospital. It was obvious from her posture that the blonde woman was nervous about something, which by the looks of it was also preventing her from going inside, and Jack couldn't help but be confused.

He knew that Maya had taken a personal day today, she was sure to inform them of her unavailability for the day but not saying anything further. Jack had been curious at first, knowing that the Maya Bishop he knew would never cash in one of her saved up personal days, but had later decided to let the idea go, chalking it up to the fact that he hadn't known the woman in 5 years and it was possible that she had changed.

Although seeing her stood outside the hospital entrance, debating if she should step inside, made his stomach churn. What if Maya had taken a personal day to visit someone in the hospital. He knew the woman was no longer close to her father or brother, but he remembered that right before she left she had been trying to mend her relationship with Katherine. What if something had happened to Maya's mom and they had pushed her so far away that she didn't have anyone to lean on, that she felt like she couldn't tell any of them.

The lieutenant knew that Maya and Vic had grown closer over the past month, especially after the night he had invited Maya out to Joe's, which had now been almost a week ago. But if Vic knew anything about this, she hadn't shown any signs of it, and they all knew what a terrible liar Hughes could be.

He stood there debating going up to Maya when he saw her look up from her phone and in the direction of the hospital doors, possibly waiting for someone. A tall woman with brown eyes had stepped out in pin scrubs, and Jack had concluded that she must have been a doctor at the hospital.

Her and Maya seemed to have been conversing while Maya was fidgeting with her hands and looking anywhere but straight ahead, and he quickly knew Maya was nervous about something, he remembered how she would often do the same thing even years ago, how her eyes never seemed to focus on anything.

He had the sudden urge to comfort her knowing that no matter how long it had been she was still once his closest friend, but the woman in front of Maya had beaten him to it, grasping Maya's face in her hands so she could look directly at the brunette.

That's when it hit Jack, he knew this woman from somewhere. She had looked so familiar even before but it was when she looked straight at Maya he recognized her as the woman who'd left with Maya from Joe's a week ago, and it hit him again that she was comforting Maya as if she knew exactly what the blonde needed in the moment, there was a sense of familiarity between the two.

He could see Maya slowly nod to whatever the woman was saying before she took the blonde's hand and led her inside the hospital.

Jack did the only thing he could and made his way down the ambulance bay and into the hospital ER to check in on the patient he had brought in and leave whatever it was he'd just seen behind him.

...

He'd been standing at the nurse's station for about an hour waiting for Ben to get back from the 10 minutes he'd said he would spend with Bailey when he saw the brunette enter the ER with a smile on her face obviously looking for someone when she started walking in his direction, but having her eyes set towards the lieutenants right, towards a man Jack recognized as Andrew DeLuca.

She'd tapped his shoulder and he'd turned around a mirroring smile lighting his face upon seeing her. "How did it go?" he said, pausing but cutting the woman off before she could really say anything "By your smile I want to say good?" and she'd enthusiastically noted before asking him to follow her.