April Kepner groaned as she fell on her bed in despair.
"You're an idiot, Kepner. A total idiot," she muttered to herself. She'd known better than to go to that party in that kind of emotional state. She should've known better than to fool around with Alex Karev at all – really, she should've known better than to ever start crushing on him on the first place.
"Ugh," she sighed, closing her eyes as she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. Not crying – just – wallowing, for a moment.
And then she sat up quickly as she heard the front door open and close and then footsteps on the stairs. A tread too heavy to be Meredith or Lexie.
Feeling suddenly panicky, she glanced at the bedroom door which – AGAIN, stupidly – she hadn't closed behind her. Knowing it was too late to jump up and close it without being totally obvious, she resorted to simply thinking, "please don't be Alex, please don't be Alex," over and over again until Jackson appeared in the doorway and she breathed a sigh of relief. She knew she would have to deal with Alex at some point – she just really didn't want that point to be before at least the next morning.
"Oh my God, Jackson!" she cried, scrambling off the bed and hurrying over to him. "Are you okay?" she asked, hugging him and then stepping back to get a better look at his face.
Jackson sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "Yeah, I'm alright. Are you okay?"
April considered the question as she went back to sit cross-legged at the head of the bed and then worked to affect a casual tone.
"Nothing hurt but my pride, right?" she replied and he rolled his eyes.
"Looked to me like that pride got smashed up pretty good," he said pointedly as he sat down at the foot of the bed.
April shrugged. "Okay, fine, it sucked, but whatever, I don't want to talk about it anymore, okay?"
"Okay, fine," Jackson replied, throwing his hands up in mock surrender and they sat quietly for a minute or two until finally April broke the silence with a torrent of words.
"I mean, I'm not stupid," she snapped.
"So, you do want to talk about it," Jackson muttered, with a knowing grin, and April smiled in spite of herself.
"Shut up," she said, leaning forward to punch his arm. "I mean, I wasn't expecting roses and candles or anything like that. I didn't expect him to, as he put it, "hold [my] hand' or whatever. But I didn't expect what did happen. I don't know, am I being too naïve?"
Jackson considered the question for a moment and then shook his head. "Nah, not entirely" he said. "No matter how quick and dirty the hook-up is, there should be some mutual respect, I think. There's no reason for him to act like that. Even if he'd had a bad day, he shouldn't take it out on you." He sighed and then added ruefully, "Although, I guess that means I really shouldn't have taken my bad day out on him either. Not that he didn't have it coming to him, but it was nice to have an excuse to beat the shit out of something."
April smiled, shaking her head. "I still can't believe you punched him like that. I know it's probably not a very mature reaction, but I really kinda appreciated that." She laughed, a little self-consciously, before continuing, "No one's ever defended me like that before. Thank you."
Jackson shifted uncomfortably on the bed, wondering if he was really seeing what he thought he saw in her eyes – that is, that she was looking at him the way she'd been looking at Karev up until a few hours ago.
"April –"he said slowly, warily and she saw the look in his eyes and quickly interrupted him.
"Jackson – don't say it," she said firmly. "I know I'm not very good with guys and, well, hell, not very good at reading people in general, but I'm smart enough to know that you think I'm gonna get all lovesick and paint you as my hero and it's not about to happen. You are the best friend I've got right now and I am not about to screw that up by having some stupid crush on you. Got it?"
Jackson blinked a few times in surprise and then nodded. "Got it," he replied and April smiled, suddenly feeling a thousand times better than she had just a half hour ago.
"Okay," she said. "Now go to bed," she instructed him as she leaned forward to kiss his cheek.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied sarcastically as he got up and headed down the hall to his own room, where, for once, it wasn't the fear of nightmares that kept him awake, but thoughts of the girl down the hall.