Hi guys! So there are bits and pieces of Japril history in "The Girls Only" that I just allude to. Because they don't fit in a chapter and/or because I know a part of what happened, but not all the details. When I started the Fluff Project for hiatus, I said I wouldn't mind TGO related prompts...to help me figure out the history or force me to write it. I got a couple, so I decided to upload them separate from TGO because, well, they are different. "TGO: Early Years" felt right because well, I've said before that at this point in time I'm not interested in writing the girls too old. Unless my muse goes are also going to be a little bit different than "The Bellie Stories," even though some of the time overlaps. Because that was me writing this world very early. So forgive mistakes with time ect. Trust these chapters over The Bellie Stories, for now. Once TGO is finished, or maybe before, I'm going to go over everything and type up a history of sorts, just for myself.
This prompt asked for the story of Bellie breaking her arm. It also is probably the night Laidy was conceived...unless it was the next morning...meaning it takes place in mid-late May, I'm pretty sure. That's what I mean by "Please ignore timing in 'The Bellie Stories' for now." Because I need you to ignore "Valentine's Future" for you to believe this.
"Arabella! WAIT!" I screamed at my oldest daughter, as her sister's sippy cup fell to the sidewalk. Tenley immediately started crying, which was unusual for her, but she didn't feel well today. "Alright sweetheart, it's OK…shhh. Shhh!" I let go of Tee's hand, and squatted down with baby Braelyn to pick up the cup. I looked up from my spot on the ground quickly, to make sure Bellie had listened, and saw it happen in my mind before I watched it with my eyes. My rebellious diva was laughing hysterically, headed straight toward a huge crack. "Bellie! SLOW DOWN!" But I was too late. Face first, at a pretty high speed, she flew off the tricycle.
The babies started crying just watching it, before Bellie herself reacted. I took a deep breath, running toward her, throwing the cup behind me.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Bellie was breathing fast, doing her best to hold in the tears. But she had flipped in the air and landed on her side. Her arm was broken in at least two places, I guessed. "Mama, it hurts!" she started to cry as soon as she saw me.
"I know. I know, sweetie. Come on, let's go visit daddy at work. I think you need a cast."
Somehow, I got a tricycle back in the garage and three kids into the van and to my E.R, with juice and diaper bags in tow. I had one month to go before my maternity leave ended. Oh, how I'd missed my E.R. And boy, had it missed me too, I saw, as I walked in, with an infant on my chest and two toddlers crying in agony at my side. I'd found an old sling to put Bellie's arm in until she was seen, but we looked a mess.
The E.R. looked worse. Multiple victims of a crash involving a school bus were unloading just as we pulled up, and when we walked in I saw that the pit was full and the waiting area was more crowded than it had ever been on my watch. I couldn't pull rank or use my name if I wanted to, there was no one around to pull rank with. "OK, beauties…looks like we're gonna have to wait," I sighed and went to sign in at the empty desk.
I had a view of the beds in the pit, and after two hours of trying to soothe both Bellie and Tenley to no avail, I spotted a random physician's tablet abandoned and signed in with my code. As I handed out baggies of emergency Goldfish snacks, I checked the beds in the pit and realized pretty quickly that I could hypothetically discharge three beds right then, just by giving them pain meds, if only I didn't have three babies attached to me and had a pair of scrubs on.
Suddenly, Braelyn started wailing and I remembered it was time for her to eat. So, I added breastfeeding to the long list of circus acts I would perform that day, not that anyone was paying attention. Or they weren't, until my nipple came out, it seemed. Brae wasn't eating two minutes before a woman with dark curly hair that I'd never seen before approached me. "Maim, what do you think you're doing?"
"Seriously? I'm breastfeeding my baby girl. And, my daughter has a broken arm, I mean I gave her meds at home but I've been waiting two hours for…"
"Maim, we'll get your daughter seen as soon as possible. And you can breastfeed here all day long. But I don't think you're authorized to be on that tablet." She gestured at my knee.
"Oh that err…" Technically I wasn't authorized to be on it, and I had never been good at breaking rules. But I was the best at spotting Jackson Avery's eyes across a room. "Jackson! Over here, please!" I hoped my voice was enough, my hands were busy at the moment. It was, thank God.
"April, what are you…" He kissed me hello and the other doctor's eyes widened in surprise.
"Oh Dr. Avery this is your…this is your wife? I assumed your wife was…" He stared at her, blinking as he always did when he was anticipating someone putting their foot in their mouth. There were a million ways to finish that sentence, but any way she chose she'd lose. Thinner? I'd had a baby less than 6 months ago. Cleaner? I had three babies under four; I'd like to see her find time to shower. Less white? He'd almost ended up in jail a couple of times when people stared at us too long.
"Daddy, I broked my arm!" Bellie whined and burst into tears again, suddenly. She loved her daddy's attention.
"April, why didn't you call me? At least when you got here?" he snapped. Only afterward did he pick up his daughter.
"Uh, bus crash happened as soon as we got here. Would you have picked up? Oh, and beds three, eight and eleven really just need pain management, someone should take care of that." I burped the baby and positioned her on my other side.
Dr. Foot-In-Mouth blinked. "Mrs. Avery we'll get your daughter seen right away if…"
"Doctor. Dr. Avery. My wife is the person who's job you're supposed to be doing right now, Dr. Kerrigan," Jackson informed. "Will you please go check and discharge those beds, and then help three other patients that aren't in my family? I've got them. This waiting room should not be this crowded." Even with his three-year-old resting her head on his shoulder, my husband scared the hell out of this woman.
"Y-y-yes-s-s-s Dr. Avery, right away."
"How'd you break your arm diva? Let's go take care of that. We're gonna go get a picture taken of it, and we'll have one of Aunt Callie's interns put a bright pink cast on your arm so daddy can draw funny faces on it, how does that sound?"
"I falled off bike, go flyin'. It hurts, daddy." She was so much like her dad, especially in front of him. She wasn't going to cry from pain. Just for attention.
"Ohhh mommy wasn't watching?" he jabbed at me.
"More like Bellie wasn't listening, but can we just get her cared for, please?"
"Absolutely. How about daddy and Bellie go get this taken care of and then go get some ice cream, does that sound good diva?"
"Babe, please don't reward her…I know I was…but she wasn't…"
"I-ceem? Tene I-ceem?" my two-year old squeaked, quietly.
I shot daggers at my husband and looked at Tenley. "Princess your tummy doesn't feel well, remember? Mommy's gonna make you soup and we have ice pops. Then we'll watch a movie before bed Jackson, I can just take her and get the arm handled. I've been with them here all afternoon. I can handle it."
"Obviously you can't April, or you wouldn't be here in the first place. And you just sat here for two hours when you could've…"
"WHAT? Put the cast on myself? Bus crash, Jackson. There was a bus crash. Victims were unloading when we got here and I didn't expect the pit to be so poorly managed. I didn't hire an utterly incompetent temporary me, YOU did."
All three of the girls burst in to tears, and I felt horrible. I couldn't even think of the reason we were having this fight, besides Jackson's sudden bad mood.
"Whatever April. We've got this. You just take the other two. I got my buddy. Right Bellz?" She nodded and turned her head from me, as he kissed her cheek and turned to leave.
"Jackson Harper, you have two other babies you need to say hi to." I whispered it sharply enough to get his attention. He came back.
"Hi Tenley. Thank you for visiting me. I will see you later." He knelt down and kissed her cheek.
"Bye bye Tee." Arabella said, from her father's arms.
"Book dad?"
"Yeah, Tee. I will read a book with you later. I love you."
He took Brae from me to kiss her and made sure Arabella said bye to me, but he didn't acknowledge me again. I shook my head as I watched them go down the hall. "Alright, let's go angels. Mama's gonna make chicken noodle soup. So yummy." I threw the tablet on to one of the chairs I abandoned. Logging it in wasn't my problem. Neither was Bellie right now, it seemed.
Poor Tenley couldn't get ice cream off of her mind all night, but eventually was content to watch "The Little Mermaid" and eat an ice pop with me after dinner. It was a quiet night. Though we sent out a few texts asking about Bellie, some at Tenley's request, none were answered. But daddy and Bellie came home just before bedtime, so I did prayers quickly and took a glass of wine to bed because the baby would be asleep for hours. It had just been one of those days.
"Babe. I'm sorry." He was apologizing as soon as the door shut. "She told me she wasn't listening. I just…I get mean when I'm nervous. And there was a lot going on today."
"But you believe the three-year-old over your wife."
"I believed you I was just…stressed before you came and…"
"So you take her from me? Even though I had it handled…I just needed your doctors to…"
"I know. I know. You'll be back soon."
"You better not hire that woman."
"She's what we've got, for now."
"You couldn't text me to say 'the ice cream Tee's not here for is delicious?'" I spit.
"I was an asshole, all day." He crawled into bed next to me and tried to kiss my neck.
"Yeah, you were. Get off me, Jackson." I squirmed away.
"I love you." He wrapped his arms around me again, knowing I was always quick to relent.
"I always love you, I just don't like you sometimes."
"I bet you were scared, I should've been there for you."
"It's a broken arm. She'll be fine. Goodnight, Jackson." I tried to turn away but he rolled me over, climbing on top of me.
"Babe. I miss you. Don't you miss me?" Translation: "April, I want to have sex. Don't you want to have sex?"
"You don't deserve sex tonight." I wasn't in the mood to play games.
"You're right, I don't. But you do," he whispered, and my breath caught. I did. And I wanted it. I missed him, and we hadn't seen much of each other these past three days because his work schedule had him sleeping at the hospital.
Three days was a long time for us, even four years into our marriage. We were still best friends. We were so in love even when we drove each other crazy. But every relationship has a different foundation. Ours was founded on friendship and sex, once we realized our mural physical attraction. So sex was important to both of us.
"Let me apologize right, sweetheart. Vous êtes si belle." No, not the French. He always hooked me with the French.
"Oh yeah?" I sighed and let him kiss me.
"Oui. Je ne te mérite pas."
"Merry what?" I gasped, as he pulled my nightgown up over my head and my underwear down my legs pretty quickly.
"I don't deserve you."
"Not today you don't." I wasn't going to lie just because he was inside me.
"Je suis désolé. Demain, je vais vous faire le petit déjeuner au lit."
"Whaaa…Oh my…G-g-g…" It always amazed me that he could speak French and have sex at the same time. I didn't usually like to speak much English when we made love, but I was in the mood to speak my mind tonight. As best I could, of course.
"I'm sorry. And I'm going to make you breakfast in bed tomorrow."
"Oh yeah? What's on the menu?" I asked, leaning up and kissing his chest.
"Gaufres de chocolat et de fraises."
"That sounds sexy. And like you're gonna need my help."
"Chocolate waffles with strawberries. Peut-être nous pouvons faire ensemble."
"No we're not making them together, nice try!" I knew bits of French from trying to teach Arabella a little bit, and well…sex. He definitely said 'together' often in bed, and the rest I kind of just guessed. "You just promised me breakfast in bed. I'm gonna be tired. I'm already tired from taking care of your kids all day. Make frozen ones."
"Shhh! Shhh!"
"Don't tell me to 'shh' you need to take more responsibility, please! Because when I go back to work it's gonna be harder with…"
"Soyez tranquille, April. Permettez-moi de te faire l'amour." Be quiet April. Let me make love to you. I guessed that one. Because he put his finger over my lips and quickened his pace.
I closed my eyes and surrendered."OK, I'll be q…Oh, oh, oh my…Oh my G…Jaaackson!"
If you have TGO related prompts for "The Early Years" SEND THEM VIA TUMBLR. And please don't hold me to updating this super regularly. This history has to feel right. I hope you like these! Let me know! And as always, thanks for showing this world so much love :)!
PS: If the French is wrong I blame Google Translate. I can't help myself. I love the idea that Jackson speaks French...pretty much exclusively to seduce April. Fixed the French, thanks Liann:) I had used "berries" instead of "strawberries" (I think, hehe. I took basic French in college for a year and was bad at/forget it, really. So thanks for the help, really. To continue putting French in TGO I'm gonna need help like that so please don't hesitate to give it!)