JACKSON
It had been a full week since Sloan had fallen into a coma.
Mark had cardiac tamponade. The fluid collecting in the sac surrounding the heart had no doubt been exacerbated by the days that they had been out in the wounds. But he had been talking. He had been happy. I'd left the room to go get Sofia for him and then when I finally came back… I don't know what had happened. Webber had called it the surge, equating it to what can happen when a terminal patient has a period of lucidity right before the end of their life.
Twenty-three days remained before he would be unplugged. Twenty-three days of waiting anxiously, but there would be no relief to come at the end. I already knew that. The closest thing that I had ever had to a father was gone.
Partially, I was avoiding the reality of what was happening. I visited his room every day thus far, always choosing to go whenever Derek or Callie wasn't there. They had known him for longer and in a different way – intruding on their time with him didn't feel right, and they had certainly made it known to me that I couldn't grieve for him in the same way. I was an outsider.
But every day, I still found myself in his room, talking to him. Not about his condition, but talking at him about cases as if at any given moment, he was going to wake up and disagree about my particular choice of treatment, tell me I was a moron and needed to deal with it some other way. There were one or two cases where I had opted to change what we had originally discussed, decided to go down a different route, and I waited for some kind of sign. I didn't believe in God or anything like that. It wouldn't have made a difference. But he had been awake and conscious before, functioning. It seemed possible for him to go back to that state. The one he was in now made less sense than before.
All of the cases that I was currently taking care of had already been listed. I don't get up to leave, choosing to sit with him just a minute. In a literal context, there was time left to be with him. It just didn't feel that way.
The machines beeped softly to give the false illusion that there was some kind of life. I knew there wasn't. All of the tests and assessments possible had been run to see if there was some kind of loophole, some kind of chance to bring him back. The machines were the only thing keeping him alive, a breathing tube giving oxygen to his lungs and blood. His body was still performing the most basic functions, but he was already gone.
Nurses had been keeping him washed and even shaved the facial hair that had begun to grown both during the accident and since he had gone through the hospital. It's to give the illusion that he's still him. It's done for the family. I doubt it really made a difference to Callie or Derek. We all knew the reality of the situation.
Leaning back in the chair, I slouched down further and shut my eyes. I don't intend on falling asleep. I just want to sit in his presence for at least a few more minutes.
"Jackson?" A quiet voice startled me.
I opened my eyes, looking up at April standing outside the room. I gave a tired smile.
"I thought that I might find you here," she murmured gently. I knew why she was here. She was checking up on me, not Mark. I was trying to hide how hard this was hitting me, but it was harder in front of her.
"Yeah," I nodded slightly and sat up straighter. "Just updating him on some of our patients." I still say our patients. They're mine now, technically. He would never treat them again. He would never operate again. I would have to be his legacy. That was a large weight to carry on my shoulders.
"He'd be really proud of you, Jackson." April murmured.
I barely gave her a smile, my gaze dragging back over to my mentor's comatose body. I wanted to think that he would be. He had prepped me for everything. I had gone through, I had passed my boards despite the bit of a mess that I had been. I feel guilty thinking about it in front of her, knowing that she hadn't, that she blamed me for it after the two of us had slept together. We hadn't talked about it, not really. She hadn't wanted to. And now things were different.
She stepped toward me and slightly wrapped her arm around my shoulders from her standing position. I barely leaned into her, taking a deep breath. I appreciated what she was doing, even if I couldn't find the best words for it.
"Thanks," was all that I managed to say about it.
"Have you gotten anything to eat yet?" April asked. Lunch, dinner – I'm not sure which she was talking about. Everyone who hadn't been involved in the crash was overworked now to make sure that the hospital was still staying afloat even with all of the holes currently in the surgical staff. The two of us were no exceptions, even if we were fresh from our residences.
"Not yet," I answered honestly. "I'm not really hungry." A rarity for me. It only happened when something was really wrong. I hadn't eaten much since that dinner with Webber.
"Well, what about some coffee?" She's trying to get me up and around like a normal person. Or she wanted to talk. I'm not sure which.
"Sure," I agreed, without the energy to try and put up any resistance.
Standing up from the chair, I gave one last glance at Mark's body before taking a deep breath and stepping out of his room to join her. She looked tired too. I knew that she wasn't mourning in the same way that I was, but the two of us did share something else in common from this experience.
The plane crash had pushed us on the outskirts of everyone else around us. We hadn't been there, we hadn't lived through it in the same way that everyone else has. And by their standards, neither of us were close enough to anyone involved to be able to grieve and mourn in the same way that they had. It was an unfair battle over who had it worse, a misunderstanding. Pain and grief were still valid. Even knowing that someone you worked with closely, under conditions that any of us could have been through, had gone through such a trauma… it made you reevaluate. That was a normal reaction.
I was a short walk outside to the coffee cart. It was midday and cloudy, not raining for a moment, which put a decent line outside of the cart. Everyone always needed coffee here.
"Have you been busy today?" April asked, looking up at me.
"Just a bit," I nodded.
"Me too," she said, a bit quickly. "Hunt's been out of the E.R., for the most part. Mostly with Cristina and everyone else, I think. It's hard to say. I don't think it's going to change any time soon, though. I feel like I really shouldn't be running anything though given that I'm not even board certified but I guess it doesn't matter anyway. He's too busy to care, I think." She rambled on.
"All of them are pretty occupied." I agreed. "I don't expect that to change any time soon either. Can't blame them, after everything that they've been through. We would probably be the same way."
Admittedly, it wasn't necessarily the first time something like this had happened. I'd had nightmares after the shooting. I hadn't been shot, I had barely seen Gary Clarke and when I had, his gun had been trained on Cristina, not me. After that, I had felt like I was on the outside of everyone else. Now, we were both there. The effect of this was more direct than anyone was willing to give. I would know that, I would feel that, even if it went ignored.
"How are you holding up?" Her next question broached the topic more bluntly than what I would have expected from her. I thought she'd continue avoiding personal matters with me.
"I'm fine," I lied without looking at her, stepping up as the line moved.
"You've been in his room a lot lately." She commented. I wondered if she'd been keeping an eye on me, or if it was just something that everyone knew about at this point. Both seemed likely.
"Yeah." There was no point in trying to deny that. "Makes me feel good, talking to him, I guess."
Grief didn't feel like the normal thing to discuss. After the shooting, everyone had to go to therapy. I'd opened up a bit about the nightmares and that had been enough to get clearance to operate again. Here, that wasn't going to be necessary – not for me or her, at least. I was still supposed to be going to Tulane once the plug was officially pulled on Mark. I hadn't given much thought to that, though, admittedly. Leaving behind no longer felt right. Someone had to stay here, do his work, continue his legacy. I couldn't leave all of it behind, even if I didn't have a choice in saying goodbye to him.
"I guess it's kind of like your own version of praying." A bit of a weird comment to make, coming from most people, but it fits coming from her. It doesn't insult me. "Which is a good thing. You should have something that brings you some comfort, in a time like this." She added.
My shoulders lift and fell in a shrug as I stepped forward, ordering my own coffee. I motioned for her to order as well and paid for both of our drinks.
"Come on, I want to go somewhere," April said once we'd each received our coffee.
Without questioning it, I followed her through the hospital corridor and down the hallway, just a step behind her heels. I knew pretty much every part of the hospital like the back of my hand, but it still took me a bit to figure out exactly what she had on her mind. We ended up in one of the hallways in the basement, empty aside from a few beds. We'd sat down here with the others back when we were third years and hiding from everything else going on in the hospital.
She plopped down onto one of the beds, looking over at me expectantly. When I don't immediately move, April patted the empty space next to her. I gave a slight smile before climbing next to her, stretching out my legs.
"What's on your mind?" She asked.
"A lot," I admitted, deciding to go with a vague but honest answer. At least it was the truth.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She continued.
I paused for a moment, considering her offer. In the past, I'd kept my issues bottled up. Even though she had known about the nightmares, it hadn't been because I told her about it. She had found out on her own. She had been good at that then, and I was sure that she would be now, especially given that it seemed like she wanted to be.
"I'm not sure." Honesty, again. "It feels like there's not much to talk about. Lexie is dead. Mark is going to die. Derek may never operate again." The words are listed off like facts, plain and simple, detached.
"Life used to be a lot easier, huh? Before this. Before the shooting, too." She quipped. I could see April looking at me with her peripherals.
"Yeah, it did." I agreed.
"But we didn't fit in before any of that. I mean, they all hated us Mercy Westers when we first came here. At least that's changed for the better." She meant well, trying to find the bright side of things. I knew that she meant well.
Yet I glanced over at her, scowling slightly. "Not anymore. Not really. This is another reason for them to push us away, sure, and I can't argue with that. They went through something traumatic. But no one seems to realize that Mark was important to me too. He was my mentor. We were friends. Good friends." I took a deep breath, sighing it out immediately. "He's the closest thing I ever had to a father."
"I know," April stated the words simply and yet the recognition weighed with me heavily. "I know. You spoke of him so highly. And I could tell that he was proud of you, you know? It was obvious." Her elbow hooked around mine as she leaned closer to me.
"Thank you." Maybe I couldn't verbally explain why I was thanking her, but I felt like she knew.
"It's like I said before the boards. Just me and you." April stated simply.
"Me and you." I echoed.
Though they were the same words, there was a different quality in the way that they came out this time. That had been before everything. Before I had taken her virginity, before the two of us had gone at it again in the bathroom, before she'd failed the boards and I had agreed to go to Tulane, before the plane crash. So many before and yet… now, I don't know what was coming ahead anymore. It's hard to see down the road, a bit of a cloudy blur. That was the pain talking, the little bit of numbness that had taken a protective seat inside of me.
"Until you go to Tulane," April added as a sad afterthought.
The corners of my mouth tighten, but I don't quite smile. I don't say anything to her words, either. It's still hard to imagine how I'm going to go forward. It was different to leave everything behind of my own free will then this was.
"You are still going to Tulane, aren't you?" She questioned when I didn't respond.
"Yeah," I answered thoughtlessly.
"I'll miss you." She said. Her voice was so quiet if I hadn't been paying close attention, I might have missed the fact that she had spoken, to begin with. It was barely anything aside from a whisper in an empty hallway.
"I'll miss you too." I echoed the sentiment, corners of my mouth just slightly softening.
April leaned into me a little further and her head fell on her shoulder. We had been in the position before even if not in the same or even similar circumstances. I knew her sadness wasn't the same as mine. She hadn't been close with Mark or Lexie – but she was too empathic of a person to not feel the loss in her own way. She was kind and loving with everyone around her. Myself included. I knew that she didn't need to be here. The emergency room was probably busy.
Detaching the elbow that she had hooked around mine, I instead wrapped my arm around her shoulders completely and made it a little easier for her to lean into me. I didn't know what she needed, if she needed anything. But I was glad that she was here for me.
"And I'm going to miss him, too." I finally voiced after a quiet moment. I guess that was the hard part, seeing life after the loss. The permanent part of it, at least. I knew what would happen in twenty-three days but I didn't know what would happen in twenty-four or twenty-five. Sure, I was supposed to go to Tulane… but I couldn't guarantee it, despite what I had said. I wasn't ready to talk about that yet.
"You'll be popular down in New Orleans. It's impossible for you not to be." April stated like it was a simple fact. To her, it probably was. I knew she'd never been popular on her own. I'd always had better luck.
"Maybe," I just barely brushed it off, shrugging the shoulder of my opposite arm.
"And if you're ever feeling lonely, you know that you can always call me. I mean, I'm not exactly going anywhere. I guess I'll have to find some roommates since you're going to be gone and Alex… well, I don't know what he's doing anymore, if he's going to a different hospital or not…" April's words rambled on slightly, but I don't mind. It's nice to just hear her talk and not get lost inside of my own head. There had been a lot of quiet lately, certain things that couldn't or shouldn't have been said. It was driving me crazy.
"Thanks." This time, the smile that I could feel growing on my face was more genuine than some of the others. "And I'm sure that I will, regardless of whether I'm lonely or not. You know that we're always going to be friends, right? One way or another." I didn't know how I would manage to keep that promise halfway across the country, but I wanted to.
"Okay." I can't tell if she believed me or not with the way that the syllable came out of her mouth.
My hand rubbed up and down along her arm. "I mean it. I do." I promised.
The both of us fell quiet for a moment and I let it wash over me. Even though quiet had been irksome lately, this time, it felt peaceful. She had a way of calming me down that I often neglected to notice or give her any credit for. I could feel it much more present now. She was soothing.
"I still don't want to leave, you know." I had told her that night before we had gone to dinner with Webber, expecting the others to show up when they never did. I wondered if she still remembered.
"But you're going to do great in Tulane, Jackson." April insisted. I gave her shoulder a small squeeze.
"I guess so," I muttered. "But things won't be the same without you as my person."
"I'll always be your person, Jackson." She didn't hesitate to speak again, and I could feel her head turn to look at me. I barely pulled away, just enough that I could turn my head to look down upon her. Big hazel eyes looked up at me, wide and vulnerable. I wanted to kiss her, this close again, able to smell the coffee on her breath at such a short distance. But I don't. Instead, I lock away the memories inside of my mind, something to keep and to reflect on. "And you're always going to be mine." She continued with absolute certainty in her voice. It just made me want to kiss her more.
Before either of us had the chance to do something, though, her pager buzzed. I withheld a sigh as I leaned back and withdrew my arm, watching as she pulled out her pager and sighed at whatever message popped up on the screen.
"I've got to go." There was a little whine in her voice as she looked up at me. "9-1-1. Sorry."
"Don't be," I shook my head. "I'll catch you later."
April gave me a little smile as she hopped off of the bed, beginning down the hallway. I got off the bed at my own pace after her, looking at her figure for a moment. I didn't want to let her go – but I would have to. In the same way that I was going to have to let Mark go, too.
"April?" I called out, grabbing her attention for just one more moment.
"Yeah?" She paused for a moment, turning around to face me.
"You're right. You'll always be my person too."