Hey There Stranger

3

Quite a few scenarios ran through Maya's head when she saw her best friend fall apart at work, each more tragic than the last. It was a good thing the call they'd been sent on just before...whatever it was that happened, was meant to be their last one before handing off to B-Shift. Otherwise Maya would've had to spend a whole 24hrs worrying.

It was just poor luck that the last call of the day happened to run so long it was close to 2 hours before she made it home. Two hours is better than 24, but by definition any amount of overthinking is still way too much.

She just couldn't get the way Andy looked out of her head. Maya had never seen her that way, never. In their years of friendship she'd seen Andy upset plenty of times. She'd seen Andy sad plenty of times. But she'd never once seen her friend look so...devastated. It was like... like something had broken inside.

Honestly, Maya expected to come home and find out somebody had died.

But of all the things Maya had imagined, meeting a long-lost family member for the first time had not been on her radar. She'd been so surprised all she could say at first was "Holy shit..."

It's an underwhelming response, considering. But really she thinks it encapsulates the situation pretty well.

If things were different Maya would've been a lot more blindsided by the news— she certainly would've had a lot more questions. The thing is, it wasn't as big a surprise for her as it would've been for the others on the team.

She didn't know a lot, truth be told. But in the grand scheme of things there wasn't much to know. She knew Andy had had a baby in high school and that she'd given up said baby because, well she was still in high school. She also knew that that baby had been called Elena, after Andy's mother. The very same mother who died before Andy had a chance to hit double digits.

These were cold hard facts Maya had never asked questions about. Mostly because the facts themselves told the whole story. But also because she knew asking would only cause Andy pain. She knew this, because the only reason she was aware of these cold hard facts in the first place, was because Andy had been in pain when she'd told her. Weepy, drunk, half way through way too much booze sad-pain.

It was the last thing Maya expected when they'd tied on to celebrate their graduating from the fire academy.

Achieving a life's dream makes you think. About how far you've come, about everyone who's never gonna get to see how far you've come, about all the sacrifices you had to make along the way. You throw alcohol, with its penchant for loosening lips into the mix and, well...

It was like a perfect storm. One minute they're having a good time, then Maya jokingly brings up how Andy's dad is gonna have to make-up big time for missing her graduation. Andy's smile falters. She tries to bring it back, but slowly but surely it falls again.

Maya can't see into Andy's mind, but with the benefit of that 20/20 hindsight its easy to imagine what'd been going on inside her friend's head in that moment.

Bringing up her dad naturally made Andy think about her mom. And thinking about her mom made her think about the not one but two Elena's who were no longer in her life. Elena's who, in another life, would've been there in the crowd to clap and cheer for her where her dad couldn't.

What followed Maya's unfortunate joke were tears and slurred words. The Maya of Today can't remember exactly what went down, what words were exchanged between the two of them then. They'd had enough to drink that the Maya of the Morning After couldn't remember exactly either. But she remembers the important stuff.

Stuff like the hug she'd pulled Andy into as she mourned and talked about her "Mami" and how she can't even remember what her voice sounded like anymore.