I don't own Grey's anatomy
She felt like she'd fallen two years into the past. Only this time it was so much worse. This time Lexie was dead, Mark was on life support and Arizona was going to lose her leg. Derek's hand was shredded and Cristina couldn't even look at anyone. Yes everything was so much worse. April stood at the grave site of Lexie Grey. Tears gathered in her eyes. As she looked at the lowering casket. Her eyes pulled away from the shiny wood and landed on Jackson. Jackson who was going to Tulane. Everyone was scattering across the country. She felt so alone she had failed her boards and she had no offers. The only thing she could do was go home. Home to her parents as a failure. She was always the good daughter the one who stayed on the straight and narrow. The daughter who became a surgeon the daughter who her parents bragged about and now she was coming home after failing her boards and no longer a virgin. This wasn't what she ever imagined her home coming to be.
Jackson looked across the graveyard his eyes landing on her red hair. She was leaving this evening going to Ohio going home to his family and he should be going to New Orleans but he couldn't not with Sloan in the condition he was in. He wasn't going to leave now and he wished he could tell her that he was staying and beg her to stay to but he couldn't. Something inside of him stopped him. Maybe it was the crushed look in her eyes every time they landed on him. Maybe it was the guilt that he was still feeling over taking her virginity he had been the experienced one he'd known April he should have stopped her but he couldn't. and he didn't regret it because she was April and he'd always had a soft spot for her. And Lexie was dead and he didn't know what to think. His world was falling in on it's self.
She stood at the terminal and looked at him wanting to say so much but staying quite wanting to say that she loved him but stopping herself. So all she was goodbye.
He watched her go and his heart felt like it was going to explode from the pain she was walking away and he wanted to grab her and tell her to stay to help him rebuild the fractured family at Seattle Grace- Mercy West but he couldn't he had to let her leave to fix her own shattered heart.
She watched the clouds drift past her plane window and she thought that soon she'd be back in Ohio embraced in the warmth of her family at least until she told them the truth of what had happened and what had sent her running home.
He looked out his window at the Seattle skyline and pictured her above the clouds he closed his eyes and tried to conjure up a picture of her. He felt like it had been years instead of hours since he'd seen her face.
Both of them were struggling for perfection turning in to separate directions both desperately wanting to be together but not knowing how to tell each other the truth. Not willing to hurt again or anymore. Perfection might shatter them even more if they weren't careful.
A/N this is just the prologue the other chapters will be longer but I wanted you to see where both of the characters where coming from as we go into the story.