a/n: i feel like it's super important to disclaim that i am 100% here for jaggie! despite this story being told from april's perspective almost exclusively. there is nothing but mentions of maggie in here but this is sort of a revenge piece for me. i absolutely despised how stefanie was treated by the show and i figured i'd give april a taste of what it feels like to be embarrassed at a wedding. and i'm giving jackson a chance to right a wrong and make the right choice for a change. so if you're a japril fan this clearly isn't the fic for you! it's purely april having to deal with heartbreak and jackson gushing over his love for maggie, again, despite being in april's pov. i just felt that this would best be told from her perspective for the full effect. i also wrote this in one go and published it as soon as i was done so if it's clunky and or there's mistakes please forgive me. anyway enjoy~
her palms were slick with a thin layer of sweat as she approached the dressing room that was designated for the groom. she hadn't rehearsed what she planned to say in her mind she was moving on pure adrenaline and impulse. she stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind her with the gentle press of her weight into the sturdy wood and her vision clouded at the sight of him. jackson stood before the full length mirror tugging at the lapels of his suit jacket and examining himself with critical blue eyes and she wondered if he'd even heard her enter the room at all. he brought her wondering to a halt when he spoke and made eye contact with her through the mirror. there was a question brewing in his eyes and for a second she regretted slipping into the room–––oh, god, what was she even doing here-––but then a smile blossomed and his gaze went from intense to warm and she felt her lungs expand and fill with the air they seemed to be missing before.
"kepner, what're you doing back here?" his smile fades for a second and she can see worry etch into his face. he was likely reading the apprehension on her own face, could see how blanched she was, and thought something serious was going on. "is it––"
"harriet's fine!" she almost squeaks out before he can finish the question. her nerves leak into everything and she brings her hands together in front of her, ringing them nervously as her eyes jump from jackson's probing ones to the beautiful laminated floors. "i've always wanted laminated floors. matthew and i, we're thinking about renovating the kitchen tile into laminated flooring."
she can feel jackson's slow approach because she tries not to see it in her peripheral vision. "you came in here to... talk to me about the floors you and matthew plan to have installed?" there's laughter in his voice, a playfulness that she misses and she can feel her eyes burn with hot tears that threaten to spill at any moment. her gaze snaps up to meet his again and he stops short of her seemingly transfixed by the tears he finds swimming in her eyes.
"april..." her name comes out as a whisper and he shakes his head. he's concerned, he's confused. this is his wedding day and she's snuck into his makeshift dressing room, it was really the pastor's office, to bombard him with what? tears? for a second all she can think is how she would've given anything, anything to have gotten to say their i do's in a church. he was so different now––maggie was getting the jackson she deserved to have, the jackson she had prayed for. she laughed softly at the thought and his eyes widened in the way they do when he's trying to figure something out but can't quite get a handle on it. "april, what's going on?"
"maggie agreed to a church wedding?" as far as she knew maggie had never been one for religion, she'd never even so much as heard the woman mention religion. "she said she didn't care where we got married just as long as she got to marry me." the secret smile that ghosts jackson's lips, a smile that reaches his expressive eyes, when he speaks about her makes april's heart ache. she's expels a puff of air that sounds like a semblance of a laugh, "i wish it'd been that easy for us."
she knows jackson still doesn't understand where any of this is going because he nods his head and snorts, "yeah, i didn't make it easy on you. and, april, for that i am so sorry... we've never been on the same page or in the same place at the same time. i wish things had been different––"
"they could be..." she whispers the words and she's proud of herself for holding his gaze as the they escape her. it finally hits him and she takes a step forward only for her heart to sink when he takes a reluctant one back. jackson cants his head to the side and narrows his eyes as if confused though he understands perfectly what's happening. "what do you mean they could be?"
he gives the floor back to her and she sucks in a deep breath before she opens her mouth to speak again. "jackson, right now you and i are on the same page. right now... you and i–we.. this is the best our relationship has ever been this is the most in tune with one another we've ever been." april reaches out and with the distance between them she's still able to grasp the tips of his fingers and for a second jackson lets her––she thinks he might be considering it even but he snatches his fingers away as if the auburn of april's hair has engulfed her in flames that have licked at his hand. "do you even understand how hard it is for me to watch you be the man i've always wanted you to be with someone else? maggie gets the you that i should've gotten jackson... how is that fair? how is that fair to me? to you? to harriet? what's stopping us from being the family we've always wanted to be? i love you, jackson. i love you and i know we're infamous for not loving each other at the same time but don't we owe it to ourselves and harriet to give it another try when everything else is lining up for us?"
"what's stopping us?" he laughs and that's it. she thinks she can hear her heart shatter like a mirror, the shards hitting the nonexistent floor within her. her eyes widen as his the sound of his sardonic laughter takes what's left of her shredded heart and squeezes. "everything is lining up for... april, do you even hear yourself? it's my wedding day! matthew is stopping us, the ring on your finger is stopping us––"april rolls the band around her finger and shakes her head. "it's not. it doesn't have to."
"my love for maggie is stopping us. the fact that she's down the hall getting ready to walk down the aisle and become my wife is stopping us. the fact that i want... i want that. i want her to be my wife, april." she's almost sure she forgets how to breathe as she listens to him speak about maggie and she wants to look anywhere but the eyes that paint a picture of his devotion to the cardiothoracic surgeon but she can't. it's punishment and she thinks maybe she deserves it for being a fool. "i've done this before. i've done the impulsivity, the act now and think later, but i was a boy back then, april. and i am so sorry for that... that i wasn't that man i am today for you, but the man i am today would never do to maggie what i did to stefanie. the man i am today is mortified by the actions of the boy i was. i have too much love and respect for maggie to do that to her. too much respect for myself, and for you, too."
her knees give out before she can wrap her head around what's going on but she feels jackson's strong arms embrace her before she hits the ground and it only hurts her more––to know that two years later they still feel like home. she tries not to but she can't help sobbing like a child into the material of his suit jacket and he holds her without complaint, simply smooths his hand over her hair in what she knows he hopes is a comforting gesture. april clings to him like she can't bear to part ways and she isn't sure how long he allows her to remain attached to him but she comes up for air after what feels like hours. "i'm sorry.. i just. i don't know what it is about you... about us.. that just calls out to me. i love matthew––" jackson nods, brows furrowed. "i know you do."
"but, i guess, i'll always love you more and i just thought. i just thought that deep down maybe you'd always felt the same way." he began to stand slowly and he brought april up with him, she let herself be guided to her feet but she leaned her weight into him not wanting to part ways just yet. "i used to think that, too, even when i fought against it i thought you would always be my north star. the one i always come back to, you know?" april cracked a smile at his words purposely choosing to disregard the use of past tense and the foreboding the usage of the tense promised. jackson smiled softly as well, but by now april understood what that smile meant. more specifically she knew who that smile was for. it used to be for her, her smile, but now that smile belonged to one margaret pierce. "but then i met maggie." jackson ran his hands up her forearms to her shoulders and made sure their eyes were locked intently as he spoke.
"april, i need you to hear me when i say this, it's going to hurt but you need to hear it. i may be the one to you. you love matthew, but you love me more." she nods furiously letting foolish hope seep back in. "but it's different for me. i have loved you, but the love i feel for you isn't romantic any longer. i love maggie and there is no one i love more than her, i need you to hear that and understand it. maggie is my north star, and by the end of the day she's going to be my wife." jackson sighed heavily but she couldn't even react to his words. she felt as if he'd injected a paralytic into her bloodstream. the only part of her that seemed to move were the tears that finally slipped pass the rim of her eyes and rolled down the plains of her pallid cheeks. still, he continued thinking it was what she needed to hear to successfully stop her in her tracks. "even at our best you and i have never had what maggie and i have. things are different with her, it's an easy and effortless love. i feel like i've finally met my match. our relationship is so good right now, april, because you and i... maybe we were always meant to be friends."
he pushes her away from him gently creating space between them and april feels whatever she thought they still had severe as well. "i... o-okay." she slaps on a textbook kepner smile even with the odd tear still sliding down her face, though now she wipes at them furiously with her hands. "let's just forget that this ever happened, okay?" there's artificial pep in her voice and an even faker smile plastered on her face but if she pretends she's okay maybe she won't feel like she's dying inside.
"yeah, let's do that, kepner." her smile falters at how quick he is to agree. he pats the side of her shoulder reassuringly and she realizes he's going along with her charade to help her save face. what little there is left to save.
"okay, well, i'll see you out there, avery." and with that she leaves as quietly as she'd came.
april can't keep tears from brewing in her eyes as she watches jackson stare down at a beautiful maggie dressed in her stunning wedding gown from her spot on the pew beside her loving husband. maggie is a vision in white and jackson looks at her as if she is one, maggie is all jackson sees and jackson is all april sees. when he slides the ring on her finger and they say their i do's and share a sweet kiss before friends and family, the church erupting into loud applause and whistles celebrating their union, april feels the same tears from before kiss the apples of her cheeks. except instead of jackson's gaze it's matthew's on her and she knows he isn't stupid that has to know what the redness of her eyes and the wetness of her cheeks means, but she still bothers to lie.
she turns to her husband and smiles warmly though it's robotic and lacking all the warmth it tries to emulate, "i'm just so happy for them."