The background was mostly black, but shapes of all sizes and colors fled throughout her vision, though she couldn't really focus on a specific one. There was also an underlying noise, a distant buzzing of some short. It didn't really bother her, but the truth was it just felt foreign. She dreamed every night, for as long as she could remember. And for the first time in years, every time she has drifted to sleep today, she could see nothing but shapes. It felt a bit unsettling.
And so she was only relieved when the door of the hospital room slid closed a bit too loudly, barely enough to jolt her awake. Her eyelids flattered open, and even though the lights were very dim, she had to take a moment for her eyes to adjust. When they did and she was able to see her visitor, she couldn't help but crack a smile.
His expression was apologetic, yet his lips mimicked hers as they curved upwards. "Damn it. I didn't wanna wake you." he all but whispered, soft that his voice was.
"You didn't." her voice was too raspy. Too weak. His smile faltered.
He knew she was lying but he didn't bother calling her out on it. He walked straight to her bedside, sitting at the chair that was placed there. The chair he had been occupying the entire day, and wasn't really planning to give up any time soon.
Nighttime had come, the darkness sliding in through the window blinds, signaling the end of another day. But this was a day he never wanted to relive. A day he knew would hunt him, awake and asleep. A day pulled right out of his worst nightmares.
He took her hand in both his own, leaning close until his elbows were on the mattress to support his weight. He pulled the unison of their hands close so that he could place his lips on the outer side of her palm.
It wasn't much of a kiss. Kisses, romantic or not, were acts that expressed fondness in a tingling, sort of exciting way. They could light your brain on fire or drive your senses numb. They could shock you with an electric current, or soothe you with their feather-like caress. But no matter how long they lasted, they were too quick. They could never be sufficient enough for what he needed right now.
Because Jackson Avery had never needed anything in his entire life like he needed April Kepner right now. He needed all of her, her scent, her touch, her voice, her smile and dimples, her warm eyes and her little fingers, and everything of hers that could move or had a pulse because God knew he had been holding her lifeless body hours prior and it had almost slayed him.
And so with her skin against his lips, the most sensitive to the touch parts of him, he closed his eyes and let his senses take him over. He could feel her vessels pulsating, in the most soft and unrushed, yet steady and strong way. He could feel the blood circling throughout her body, providing her tissues with oxygen, filling her with life. The amount of relief that caused him was so great that for a moment he debated staying like this forever. Maybe if he never moved, she wouldn't either. Maybe nothing bad would happen to her then. Or if it did, he would know at once. He would catch it. Maybe he would never have to see her pale again. Pale and freezing, with her lips turned blue and her eyes glazing over, tubes forced down her throat and cuts sliding her upper chest open.
He took an almost violent whiff, inhaling her scent with force in an attempt to shove the thought away. Like a drug addict taking his dose, that familiar flowery scent clouded his mind and soothed him in an instant, just like he knew it would. Always reminding him of freesias, apples and autumn, her scent which he could tell apart from billions of others, was now mixed with a strong dose of antiseptic and the smell of hospitals… but it was still vividly there, and that was more than enough for him.
Time flew by and he simply remained there, holding onto her hand for dear life, smelling her and feeling her. Trying to convince himself that she was truly alive.
"Where is Harriet?"
Her voice broke through his little bubble of April, but he couldn't hold a grudge. Weak as it was, her voice was yet another proof she was okay. Maybe he could even come to believe it one day.
"My mom has her." He simply answered, not bothering to remove his lips from her skin. It was a very intimate gesture, yet he had been holding nothing back today. If she asked him to stop he would, but unless that was the case he didn't think he could.
"No, hey… Don't do that. She needs at least one of us there with her."
"She will be fine away for a night." He replied. "I won't."
She almost rolled her eyes at that and called him a crybaby, or perhaps a drama king. And he kind of was. But she knew that he was also sincere. It wouldn't kill him physically to stay away from her right now, they both knew that. But they also knew that both of them couldn't afford to be apart right now.
It was how things were. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and Jackson and April couldn't live in a world where the other didn't exist. And every time they got close to proving that, they both needed a very strong dose of each other to make up for it.
She thought it was funny, in the most cruel and morbid way, how many times they'd had to go through this. Other people never had a near death experience in their life until they actually died, and here they were fighting with death every couple of years. She didn't think someone could ever get used to it, but she herself hadn't gotten as shaken as one should probably have –not this time at least. Jackson on the other hand… she could see how bad this had hit him.
With her free hand, she reached to gently stroke the back of his head. She watched with patience as he slowly and reluctantly let out a sigh and un-buried his face from her hand, eventually opening his eyes as well. Her arm wasn't long enough to keep stroking his skull now that his head was up straight, so she let her fingers slide down his cheek and let them stay there.
They locked eyes. Worn-out emerald and tired hazel.
"I'll be okay." She murmured.
"Damn right you will." He agreed. "Or I'll kill you myself."
And for the first time in the day, April laughed. And the room got a little brighter.
"I mean for the night." She rephrased. "Go home. Rest. I'm okay."
He buried his face back in her hand.
"Okay, what are you even doing?"
"Please." He completely ignored her question -his voice coming out serious, with an intensity she didn't expect. His eyes burned when they met hers. "Let me."
And she didn't know what exactly his request was. To let him stay the night? Let him hold her hand? Let him be there for her, let him care, let him…
With her hand still on his cheek, she pulled his head upwards so that he would look at her.
"At least bring another bed in here. You're not sleeping on that chair."
He gave her a thankful look. Then smiled a sad smile. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep at all to be honest."
She glared at him. He knew very well what that meant.
"Fine, but later."
"Good." She nodded her agreement. Then she glanced towards the door. The entire wing seemed quiet, a few occasional white lights lighting the corridor and the few half-asleep nurses being the only signed of life in the ICU. A white clock on the opposite wall revealed the time, almost an hour passed midnight. Its loud ticking was the only sound in the room apart from the steady beating of the heart monitor, and the soft rhythm of their breaths.
Her eyes returned to him. He looked more awake and alert than she had seen him in a while, but at the same time he seemed drained. Scared, lost.
She thought back to earlier that day, to the moments she first began gaining consciousness. She recalled his hands, holding hers in them just like he was doing right now, just like he had been doing ever since. She remembered his voice breaking with sobs, begging God not to take her. The warm, wet drops that were his tears as they dripped on her skin. The bed slightly shaking along with his wrenching body.
Jackson. Who else would be there when she woke up? Who else would be next to her ever since? Always there, always first and last, always. The gratitude she felt could hardly be expressed, but the warm, blissful feeling inside her chest was something she had a word for.
The wetness in her eyes increased and she smiled through it.
"I love you." she mumbled, her voice barely above a whisper in her fear that it would break.
And it wasn't the kind of declaration that might make things awkward between them. It wasn't strictly the romantic love she was talking about. They had worded that kind a million times before, and they might one day again.
But April was referring to the other kind of love at that point. The kind you get when you've spent almost half your life with someone, when you've made memories with them that you will carry with you for the rest of it. You've spent holidays and birthdays together, you've been their person, their partner, their home. When you've been through so much together, known loss, grieve and pain, when you've helped each other change and grow, helped each other become the person you now are. When they become a part of you. When you can't go on if they don't exist.
And Jackson knew exactly what she meant. He felt it too, building inside him, taking over every other thought.
Jackson loved April. He always had and always would. She was his safe port, his best friend, his family. The mother of his child. The great love of his life, and maybe one day he would get to love her like that again, but that didn't nearly mean he didn't love her enough as it was.
He loved her more than his life. And she had almost died today without knowing it. Without hearing it.
And so he gave her hand a real kiss this time, and let his own tears drip down his cheek. "I love you." he echoed her words, by why didn't they seem enough?
She could have died.
"I love you." he said again, with another kiss on her palm, and a sob emerged from deep inside his throat.
She almost died.
"I love you. I love you."
His poised calmness disappeared, his composure broke. His face crumbled up once again, and he let out his fear, his terror. He was holding onto a thin shred, and he let her see it.
"I love y-y-" he stuttered, losing his words. "Oh God. I'm s-so sorry…"
And he didn't know what he was apologizing for. All he knew was that this person in front of him was the only one he knew he couldn't live without and that she had almost left him today. April had almost died, and he loved her more than he could say.
And he hoped she could see it, because he was in no state of producing fancy speeches anytime now.
Luckily she did. And it was so hard on her to see him break like this. Her own tears broke free as she shook her head, both her hands now on his cheeks to hold his face close. She pulled him to her, foreheads touching and husking breaths melding, and she cried with him. His sobs became hers. His fear her own. Souls mingled under the dim light of the single lamp.
It was a rough day. But they were coming through it, together.
The loud clock continued ticking the seconds away, seconds which soon turned to hours. And as they embraced on the cold, white sheets, they exchanged soothing murmurs in the now darkness, comforting each other after their ordeal the way no one else could.
Later the next day, Maggie would kindly offer to give Jackson some space to figure things out, seeing how much April's ordeal had upset him. Later that week Jackson would offer April a room in his new, much more modest yet warm apartment so that he could take up her post-op care. And April would agree, on the term that she could bring her beloved throw pillows along with her. Later that month, things would finally begin to settle in their lives. Sundays with Church and waffles, long nights with Chinese takeout and extra fortune cookies, Harriet's first words and then endless ramblings, four-dollar lattes, key hooks and Mint-to-be mints. An entire life of boring little miracles and romantic 'I-love-you's awaited, and they had no idea what was coming for them yet.
But for now, the next morning finally came, they both awoke by an all-too-familiar, loud voice.
"Oh my Lord, April baby!"
Jackson jolted awake, sitting up so fast he felt the room spin. He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep at all, completely forgetting to go fetch himself another bed. But tiny as April was, they had managed to somehow both fit in the hospital bed without knocking out the multiple tubes attached to her body… and while also managing to somehow tangle together in a not-so-appropriate way.
April blinked rapidly, a second passing by before she recognized the perky voice.
"Mom?" she grumbled sleepily. "You guys came!"
And here we go again…