JACKSON

My hands rub across the back of my eyes in a feeble attempt to try and get rid of the blur of exhaustion that plagued them. I haven't had a lot of late nights lately. Harriet had been getting better and better about making her way through them without fussing or interruption, and my sleep schedule had been thanking her for it. But not every night was perfect, and I can't blame her for that. Even if the past few days have been considerably worse.

A part of me wonders if she knows that there's something wrong with April. It wouldn't have surprised me if she had her mother's same empathetic intuition even as a one-year-old. We always complimented her for how smart she was, the same way that anyway a parent would with their child. But there feels something genuine about it with our little girl.

All of the women in my life are equally important to me. Harriet, Catherine, April. All of them played vastly different roles, and April's was perhaps the one that had changed over the course of the years that we had known each other. We'd been friends, lovers, and everything in between. Some things more negative on the spectrum, too, even if I felt uncomfortable admitting that. I'd hurt her, she'd hurt me. It'd been a two-way street and we both had our faults. Since she moved out, things had been more tense – there's more space than ever between the two of us, less room for me to step in and try to help her. But now, I know it's what she needs. She could try and hide it, but she wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Hey, Jackson, do you have a minute?" Arizona's perky voice draws me out of my thoughts, grabbing my attention.

"Sure," I have a quick nod of my head. "What's up?"

"Do you remember that conversation that we had about April yesterday?" She asked.

As if there was any chance that I'd be able to forget something like that. I nodded my head as I spoke. "Yeah, of course. Leave it alone, you made your message nice and clear. Why?"

"Well, I may have been wrong about that," she admitted with a frown pulling down at the corners of her lips. My brow furrowed in confusion as she offered a little further of an explanation. "I'm starting to think that you were right and maybe there is something more going on. I went to Joe's last night and she was… wow. I mean, she was up on the bar and pouring shots for the interns. I knew that she was going out and having fun but I thought that it was a regular kind of fun, you know? Mostly harmless, reliving her teenage and college years kind of fun." She rambled on.

I knew that April had plans that night and I figured they probably weren't the most respectable ones. Roy had made it pretty obvious that the two of them were now sleeping together, and I'd done my best to try and bury any kind of reaction to that. She had a right to sleep with whoever she wanted. We both did, even if I hadn't been branching out much in that department.

"And what exactly are you thinking now?" I prompted her, not wanting to jump to any conclusions yet.

"There's something wrong. I don't know if it has something to do with the way that she was blaming herself for Karin Taylor's death or if it's something completely unrelated, but there's something deeper going on there and I can't figure it out. Maybe you should talk to her," Arizona suggested lightly. It was something that I'd tried to do, sure, and she didn't know that.

And honestly, the epic failure that had been my attempt to talk with her. Not particularly respectable with the way that she had shot me down without any kind of hesitation. She could blame it on me having Harriet, even if it's a bullshit excuse and the both of us know it. Any time that she was turning down an opportunity to be spent with her daughter was something to be concerned about. She loved Harriet more than anything else on the planet. Anyone with a brain could see that. I was an idiot for not pushing it any further.

"I'll try and talk with her," I agreed with a nod of my head. "But I don't know if she's going to listen to me much. Did you say anything to her last night?" I asked.

"Yeah, but she was too drunk tor really pick up on any of it, I think. I made sure that she got home safe but she wasn't listening to a word that I said." There's a little bit of selfish joy to be found in the words, that Arizona had made sure she was in one piece instead of letting her run home with Roy. Not much, though.

"Thanks for the heads up," I offered, withholding the sigh that wanted to escape. I nearly opened up my mouth to say something further on the topic but her pager went off, and I let her go with another forced smile.

It seemed like things were a lot worse than what I'd done with. Sleeping with an intern, well, it's an excusable thought even if Roy had made it clear that apparently he wasn't the best pick for the matter. Most of the people in this hospital fell for the trap of sleeping with a subordinate at one point or another – hell, I'd done it with both Lexie and Stephanie. Meredith and Derek had built a marriage off it. It's a bad comparison to make, especially with the state of mind that she's in. But at least that's not the most outlandish thing there. The drinking, the banana bags… that had a lot more potential to due more longterm damage than sex. Well, not entirely true, either. But that's not a train of thought that I can stand to go down.

The rest of my day flew by with minimal eventfulness, answering page where necessary and performing the scheduled cleft palette that I'd had with Karev already on the schedule. I do my job, but my mind isn't entirely there, either. I can't stop thinking about her wellbeing.

But April was scheduled to have Harriet tonight, which at least meant that she'd be sobered this evening. It didn't mean that she'd want to see me necessarily, but it set up the same trap for her that she'd had for me yesterday. I knew that I'd be able to catch her outside of daycare this evening when she went to pick our little girl up, and that was the perfect chance to try and get some kind of information or conversation out of her. Maybe then I'd at least get a chance of getting her to sit down for some coffee with me. Or at least enough conversation to walk with her to her car. At the moment, even that seemed like a long shot.

I take the time to check with Hunt for her schedule about the day, taking note of when she'd likely be done. HIs prediction is more or less accurate, and I don't have to wait for her long. I'd already gotten Harriet all checked out for the day, sitting on an empty bed across the hallway from the room with her on her lap. For a few minutes, she was fascinated with my stethoscope.

"Hi, my little boo bear!" April's voice could be heard down the hallway calling out for her daughter, and Harriet's head turns to the sound with recognition of her mother's voice.

She comes up to me in a jog and scooped Harriet up and off of my lap without any hesitation, stretching her high into the air and giving a twirl of motion before settling with the little girl on her hip. She cooed over her in the high voice that she'd always used around her, and for a moment, my worries disappear as I watch her. Even if it's clear that she's got some crap going on inside, her abilities as the mother to my daughter haven't failed in the slightest. She might have said that was reason to step back, but that wasn't going to be enough to convince me.

"Did you miss me?" She questioned, peppering little chubby cheeks with kisses. "Momma missed you, baby bear. So very much."

"Hey," I finally speak up, not wanting to interrupt the moment between mother and daughter but not wanting to give her the chance to run away without getting a word in, either. "Hope you don't mind I checked her out, I got off a little early and just wanted to see her before you took her for the night." It's not a lie, but it's nowhere near the entire truth, either. I wanted to see her just as much. "I was thinking since neither of us have plans, maybe we could go get that coffee I mentioned last night." I don't want to beat around the bush too much, knowing that she was going to see through it one way or another.

"Really?" Incredulously raised brows meet my gaze and I can't find myself with enough energy to be surprised by her negative reaction. "I can't just, I don't know, have a night to myself with my daughter?" It's a fair point, and if I'd been asking because I was bored, I probably would have gone with it.

"I know that I'm not your father," I started before she could go down that train of thought again. "But we're still a part of each other's lives, April. Harriet's going to know the both of us, and we're going to know each other. I can't just pretend that you're… I don't know, like some babysitter for her. I don't want to treat you like that, either." It's a poor comparison, but all of the speeches that I'd ran through as trial and error in my head earlier in the day weren't coming to fruition. They hadn't been much better in my head, either.

She sighed at me, adjusting Harriet's position on her hip and started walking in the direction of the exit. I don't hesitate to follow and the moment that she sees me coming after, she started up.

"You don't need to be looking out for me, okay? I'm a big girl. I know how to look after myself."

I don't doubt that, normally. But nothing about this particular circumstance was normal.

"I know, you're an adult, you can do what you choose. I got it. But we all have problems, we all go through some tough crap from time to time. And I don't want you to think that just because we're divorced that you need to go through this alone, April." I countered, the beginnings of my own frown beginning to dig into the corners of my mouth. I didn't want to berate her or turn this into too negative of a conversation, but there's no way that I can hide what I'm really feeling. I care about her far too much for that.

"Why do you think I'm going through anything?" She snapped back at me quickly.

"You're not acting like yourself. And I'm not the only person who's noticed it, alright? It's kind of hard to when you come into work and go straight for the banana bag. You've been shorter with people than usual, too." I'm careful with my words, not wanting to insult her and give her a real reason to storm off. But it's hard to know with how volatile she's been lately, both to me and in reputation floating around the hospital. I've always known that there's a bit of a spitfire resting inside of her, but it'd never been much of public knowledge until now. She deserved to stand up for herself, but this was more than that.

"I'm letting loose. Don't I deserve to have some fun in my life? I mean, c'mon, Jackson. Everyone knows that you're not exactly innocent from partying," she observed with a raised eyebrow as she glanced over at me with a pointed stare. The gentle adjustment of Harriet's shirt is a sharp juxtaposition to the glare that she was now giving me.

"Of course you deserve to have fun, that's not what I'm getting at," I answered quickly. "Your version of fun has just never been going out and getting crazy drunk, or sleeping with interns."

"You're not really about to slut shame me, are you?" She interrupted.

I groaned loudly, not bothering to hide my frustration with that particular comment. "Of course not, April, that's not the point. Stop trying to get away from it." I pleaded with her.

"So what is your point? To bore me? Or to annoy me?" There was that attitude that she'd been crazy about in the past few days. No surprise there.

"Neither." What I would have given for even a momentary break in the fortress that she had built up around herself. I understood why she didn't want to let me in as a general rule, but I'd really thought that I'd been picking up on some kind of cry for help for her. I didn't doubt anymore now than I did earlier in the day that there was something wrong, but just how to go about it the right way. "I'm worried about you, that's my point, and just because you tell me that I shouldn't be Yeah, that's not going to stop me. Or anyone else, for that matter, April. You need help that doesn't come in the form of an empty bottle."

I'm not worried that she's about to go home and get drunk with our daughter in the house. That's not really something that I would have even thought about with how great of a mother she was – I don't think that she would have consciously done anything that would have put Harriet's safety or well-being at risk. She was a bit paranoid about her wellbeing from time to time. That would have been just about the opposite of what I expected from her. I can see that she's really, genuinely happy when she's with Harriet. It's pretty much the only time that I see that part of her lately.

"What do you think that you could possibly do to help me, Jackson?"

It's a fair question and it's probably one that I should have seen coming. With all of the pleadings that I'd gone through in my head, all of the different ways that I could word it and try to convince her, I hadn't actually gone far enough down the road to try to piece together a game plan for how to help her. I knew that step one was going to be to get her to admit it regardless of what else was going on, but I wasn't sure that she was ever going to get there. Let alone in one conversation. But before I have the chance to try and pull some kind of answer out of thin air, or some kind of suggestion that doesn't sound like it's a load of crap, she's already coming back at me with the witty retorts that make me want to rip my nearly completely shaved hair out.

"Are you going to just try to sleep with me again, give me something to hold onto for a few weeks and let it go? 'Cause you know, if that's your plan, then you might want to use a condom this time."

The words are a lot harsher than anything than I would have expected from her. I know it's not intended to be an insult to Harriet from the mere fact that she was the best part of both of our lives, no matter how complicated it had been at the time when she had gotten pregnant with her. That hadn't been my plan in the slightest, hadn't even been so much as a thought. Sure, I didn't want her running around with a bunch of other men for sex, and… well, as much as I loved having sex with her in the past, I knew right now the only thing that it was going to do was cause both of more trouble. And I didn't want that, either. It just seemed like there was an endless list of what not to do, and no options for how to go forward. Not true, but my mind isn't running as quickly as I wish it would at the moment.

"That's not even close to what I would have considered getting at, April," I let out a sigh. We were getting closer to her cars and I held the door out from her as we exited outside, cool air hitting the both of us and I watched for a moment as she gave a little shiver and help Harriet closer.

"It really doesn't seem like you're getting at much other than the fact that you've got your panties twisted in a bunch and seem insistent on taking it out on me instead of dealing with it yourself." She glared at me once more before her head turned forward and she briskly walked in the direction of her car. Even if mine was in the opposite direction, I continued to follow her, not wanting to drop the conversation on that note.

"I'm just saying that I'm still looking out for you, alright? Whenever you're ready to talk about what's going on… I'm going to be there for you. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one, either." For a moment I consider whether or not to tell her that Arizona was worried about her too. I don't want her to feel ganged up on but I want her to know that this wasn't just my imagination making things up, that what she was going through was both real and recognized by the people who cared about her most. "Just think about it, okay? You're going to have to face this forever. I know that being around Harriet, it's easy to forget about all the crap. Trust me, I do it too. But there's only so much that you can really do to cover it up."

I knew that her having Harriet for the night too meant that this was pretty much all that I was going to be able to think about for the remainder of the evening, too, without my own distraction from the complications that life outside of work always had to offer up. There's the urge to go back inside, talk to Hunt, see if he'd noticed anything with all of the time that the two of them spent together. But I still remember vividly how pissed off she had been at me when I went behind her back to talk to him about getting her out of the O.R. with Samuel. Repeating that right now seemed like a poor idea.

"Do you feel better now that you've gotten that off of your chest?" She responded, stopping as she reached her car and turning around so that she could look at me. I resist the urge to roll my eyes, hand instead coming up to scratch the back of my neck.

"Just please, don't brush off what I'm saying, okay?" I don't want to have to beg with her, especially this early on since it seemed like this was going to be far from the last time that it was brought up between the two of us. But I had to wonder for a moment if I was already running out of other options with her.

April doesn't respond to the words directly, hitching up Harriet on her hip once more and using her free hand to open up the car door, clearer than any words that she really was completely done with this conversation and me for the night. "Say goodnight to Daddy, sweetheart. Say night-night," she encouraged our daughter. My features soften into a smile for our precious girl for only a brief moment, bending down so that I could press two kisses against Harriet, one against the side of her temple and another part of the curls that were clearly all mine.

"Night night, baby girl," I cooed warmly in her eyes.

"Ni, da-da!" The closest to the words that she could manage at the moment, but hearing her so clearly say my name is more than enough to bring me plenty of joy to get me through the rest of the night. There was no doubt about it that Harriet was growing up far too fast. It was both hard and amazing to watch all at the same time, and I didn't want to miss a single moment of any of it. That was a part of what made trading her off each week hard for the both of us.

"Goodnight, April," I offer up to her sincerely, taking a step back to give her a little distance and show her that I wasn't going to continue to harass her about the matter for the night.

"Night, Jackson."

I do pause for a moment to watch her as she gets Harriet into the car seat and buckled up securely. Sighing to myself, I begin to head back across the hospital parking lot to my own car, fishing my keys out of my pocket as I do so. Something like this wasn't going to come with an easy solution. It didn't take a lot to figure that out, but I think that even I'd manage to overestimate this situation and how hard it would be to handle. I just wanted her to be alright, to be comfortable with who she was and not have to get through her weeks with Harriet by drinking her way through them.

Even though it was hard for me too, and I missed her like crazy on those nights, I'd never tried to drink away that pain. Sure, I cracked open a beer here and there while I watched a football or basketball game, but that wasn't near the same kind of hardcore drinking that she was doing.

Getting into my car, the engine started up with a glorious purr. I don't hesitate to pull out of the parking lot and get driving home, more drained from the attempted conversation with her than I had anticipated going into it. It's a short drive home as my thoughts cyclically go through the conversation that we'd have tonight, the one that we'd had the night before, even as short as that had been. All I wanted to do was think about all of the conversations that we'd had over the past few days, try and pick apart every little detail of them. Even if she wasn't acting like herself with the sassy attitude that she'd been putting on display for everyone, it's hard to find a particular word or saying that she'd grown out that was particularly concerning or indicative of what she'd been through. And not knowing the why of her current problem was only going to make trying to figure out what it actually was that much harder.

Maybe there was some kind of information that I'd be able to pull out of Arizona on the matter, something that she hadn't thought to mention. Something as simple as the stress of the contest was far from likely to be the core of it with this kind of issue, though it crossed my mind. Hunt would be another good source to ask, even if I'd have to figure out how to ask him without him going to April about it. He was a good guy, a good friend to April, but he was about as subtle as a brick.

But that was a challenge for tomorrow.