A/N: This is just a little interpretation of how things could potentially unfold over the next few weeks and it's just a one shot. I loved 9x12! It was awesome to see April kick butt at teaching and I kind of really enjoyed Stephanie being on her service, it was an interesting dynamic. Our April has really matured! Matt the paramedic is super cute and I can't wait to see where this new story line goes!
Enjoy! And the story description is taken from a Jesse Williams interview about Japril that was done earlier in the season :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's, obviously.
Stephanie Edwards excitedly bounded through the halls of Seattle Grace Mercy West. Today had been a fantastic day, definitely one of the best that she had ever had as an intern so far, and she had never expected it to come on Kepner's service. She had certainly misjudged the red-headed attending and she couldn't wait until the next time that she got to run the ER.
Her already jovial mood lifted when she spotted Jackson. "Hey!" She greeted him excitedly. He turned towards her and she saw that he looked flustered, angry, and distracted. "Something wrong?" She asked in concern.
"No, nothing," he responded a little too quickly. "I just gotta change. I'll meet you in the lobby?"
She nodded with a smile and so he spun on his heel and headed towards the attendings' locker room.
He stepped into the room and silently observed its lone occupant. April was sitting on the bench in front of her locker with her head in her hands, her fingers rubbing her temples. He felt an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach and he swallowed harshly. She was clearly upset and all that he wanted to do was comfort her. But he couldn't because they weren't friends right now. She couldn't be his friend right now, she wanted space. But he had never been very good at restraining himself when it came to her.
"Are you okay?" He finally inquired.
She tried to discreetly wipe her eyes but he caught the motion. "I'm fine," she told him unconvincingly. She hopped to her feet and grabbed her clothes from her locker.
She tried to rush to the adjoining bathroom but he caught her by the hand and pulled her back towards him. "April, if you wanna talk, we can talk," he told her softly.
"I told you, I'm fine," she retorted defensively as she tried to free herself from his grasp. He shot her a look of exasperation and she groaned. "How do you think I'm feeling right now?" She asked rhetorically. "They're not threatening to cut your department. If there's no ER then there's no need for a trauma fellow. I doubt they'll keep me on as a general surgeon," she stated frantically.
"April—" he began but she cut him off.
"I just wanna go, Jackson," she whispered tearfully.
He reluctantly let her go and she ran into the bathroom. He sighed as he longingly looked at the closed bathroom door. He missed her too, probably more than she realized.
Jackson's mood didn't improve after he changed out of his scrubs and met Stephanie in the lobby. On the drive to his place, all that she could talk about was April. She was practically gushing. There was something distinctly unsettling about his girlfriend…or whatever, he supposed that Stephanie was his girlfriend…talking about how amazing his…April…was. It was definitely a turn-off. Just like earlier today in the on-call room when Stephanie had uttered April's name, he all of a sudden didn't feel like having sex. It was the furthest thing from his mind.
"Like Shane was totally right," Stephanie rambled as they walked through the front door of his apartment. "She's definitely not the dud; in fact, she's kind of a badass. She's quick and smart, and freakishly organized and efficient. She never runs out of energy, and running the pit is exciting. No offence," she laughed, "but I think that I want to spend more time in trauma. I'm gonna request to be on Kepner's service for the next few weeks."
Jackson walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. "Really? What about cardio?"
Stephanie simply shrugged. "Yang doesn't let me fly solo like Kepner does, and I kinda kicked ass today," she declared with a triumphant grin.
Jackson awkwardly scratched his chin as Stephanie enthusiastically recited her day to him. So Stephanie wanted to spend more time with April, he wasn't sure what to think or feel about that. He didn't want them to hate each other but he wasn't sure if he wanted them to get close either. It was slightly reminiscent of when he had been dating Lexie and had taken an interest in plastics.
So karma was a bitch.
For what had to be the millionth time, he wished that Mark Sloan was still alive. Mark would know exactly what to say to him. Well, he would probably poke some fun at the situation but then he would give genuine, intelligent advice. He would tell him to man up, to stop screwing around and figure out what he wanted. But what did he want? He thought that he had known the answer to that question. He had wanted April and a life with her, but he had spent the last two months trying to forget about that so he wasn't sure what he wanted now. Stephanie was great but she wasn't…
"I guess I should tell you," he began tentatively, "they're talking about closing the ER."
Stephanie's mouth dropped open in shock and her initial response was exactly what Jackson's had been when Dr. Cahill had told them the news. "What does that mean for Dr. Kepner?"
April dabbed her eyes with a wet washcloth before she reapplied her makeup. She wasn't sure if she could salvage her appearance but she supposed that she should try. She had convinced herself that this coffee date was a good idea but she wasn't so sure anymore. Matthew seemed nice and sweet, and he was very cute and very tall. And it's not like she got a lot of offers. She had been completely caught off guard when he had asked her out and she had certainly felt flattered. But after that horrendous staff meeting and running into Jackson, she just felt drained. Honestly, she wanted to go home and cry herself to sleep.
She grabbed her purse out of her locker before she walked to the lobby and found Matthew waiting for her.
He hopped to his feet with a bright smile. "Hi!" She smiled back weakly and he frowned. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Well, not really," she quickly corrected herself. "We just had a pretty terrible staff meeting and I probably won't be the best company right now."
"Oh," he answered sympathetically. "I'm sorry. We could talk, if you want," he started to ramble nervously. "Or you could talk and I could listen, or if you don't feel like talking then I could just talk, or we could both not talk and just drink coffee."
April couldn't help but laugh, he was just as dorky as she was. It was comforting, he made her feel at ease and he sounded sincere. "Do you think we could get something to eat instead? I'm kind of hungry."
"Sure," he grinned. "Dinner sounds great."
Two weeks later…
"I can cook!" Matt exclaimed stubbornly. He turned to the beautiful woman sitting beside him and smiled as he watched her laugh. "I can," he repeated firmly. "You should come over tonight and I'll show you. I will cook the most delicious meal you've ever had."
April stopped laughing as her mind turned in a very dangerous direction. She loved spending time with Matt. He was wonderful and the past two weeks had been fun and carefree. He made her feel like it was okay to be herself, something that Jackson had never really done when they had been together. However, she was still apprehensive about the idea of a serious physical relationship with another man. She was very attracted to Matt, and she definitely felt…tempted…but she still hadn't figured out what she wanted to do in regards to sex.
She chewed on her bottom lip as she mindlessly pushed her fork through the salad sitting in her lap. "You want me to come over to your place?"
He could sense that she had tensed up so he gently nudged her shoulder with his own and joked, "Get your mind out of the gutter."
He smiled again when she started to giggle and he leaned forward with the intention of kissing her. He pressed his forehead against hers and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She paused for a second before she closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his. One of her hands tugged on his jacket to pull him even closer while the other threaded through the hair on the back of his neck.
"What time do you want me to come over?" She asked against his lips as she felt her face flush.
He hummed satisfyingly. "Whenever you get off work. The sooner the better."
"Okay," she murmured before she kissed him one more time before returning to her lunch.
Jackson stepped outside the emergency room and onto the pavement and he was surprised to see April sitting on the nearby bench next to a burly paramedic. Jackson instantly recognized the guy as Matt Taylor, they had spoken on a handful of occasions and they were in a fantasy football league together. But what was he doing with April? And what the hell was his hand doing on her leg?
Matt saw him first and greeted him pleasantly. "Hey Dr. Avery, how's it going?"
"Uh, good," he stammered. "I was just looking for April," he said as he gestured towards his former best friend.
"What's up?" She smiled up at him.
Jackson was slightly taken aback by how happy she appeared. He hadn't seen her like that since…
He cleared his throat before he spoke, "I need a consult after lunch and I was just wondering if you're busy or not." Truthfully, he wanted to know if she was ready to be friends again, if she was ready to work together again. "If you're busy I can get Bailey or Meredith."
"No, I'm not busy. I'll meet you in like twenty minutes?"
Jackson simply nodded before he turned around and headed back inside the emergency room. He was in a little bit of a daze when Stephanie ran up to him.
"Have you seen Dr. Kepner?"
"Yeah, she's uh, she's outside," he replied awkwardly.
"Oh," Stephanie grinned, "with Matthew?" She continued when she saw Jackson's brow furrow in confusion. "They eat lunch out there every day. So cute."
"So, they're like a couple, or what?" He asked as nonchalantly as he could.
"Yup," Stephanie chirped before she returned to her work.
Jackson blinked a few times before he turned around and faced the emergency entrance with his hands on his hips. Unfortunately, his view was absolutely nauseating. Matt was getting aboard his ambulance, but he couldn't leave before he gave April a long kiss in parting. Jackson felt an inexplicable rage boil inside of him at the sight. He had never felt like this before, not even when Lexie had thrown a softball at Mark's girlfriend. This was April kissing another guy, dating another guy, and she hadn't even told him! Was she doing it to get back at him? Or even worse, was she moving on? He got even angrier when he realized that Stephanie knew everything about April and the paramedic, and she thought that they were so cute.
Nauseating.
When April finally joined him at the nurses' station to prepare for their consult, he was so worked up that he had no control over what came out of his mouth.
"So you and the paramedic, huh?" He blurted out.
"Yeah," she replied timidly as she took the patient's chart from him.
Jackson ran a hand over his closely shaven head in frustration. That's all she had to say? Yeah? "Were you gonna tell me?" He asked through gritted teeth.
She glanced up at him and sighed. She didn't understand why he was so upset. He had moved on, she was just trying to do the same. "Yeah," she answered quietly. "I was going to tell you, it's just a different situation than when you told me about Stephanie."
He narrowed his eyes. "How so?" He questioned incredulously.
She didn't have to explain herself. It was different and he knew it. He had taken her virginity. He had broken her heart. He had a girlfriend now, who she actually liked, and Jackson didn't have to see Matt every day. Clearly, two very different situations! And he was fine so it shouldn't matter that she was dating a guy that she really liked.
She remained silent so he fired another question at her. "Are you sleeping with him?"
She turned to face him so quickly that she was surprised that she didn't crick her neck. "Excuse me?" She retorted with wide, disbelieving eyes. "That's not any of your business."
"I disagree," he replied automatically. "I think that it definitely is my business."
Since sex and April's feelings of guilt surrounding sex because of her relationship with God had been the biggest hurdle…well, more like a brick wall…in their relationship, he felt that he had the right to know if she was suddenly sleeping with someone else.
April forcefully pushed the patient's chart into his chest. "Get Meredith to do your consult," she told him before storming away.
Jackson huffed angrily and tried to regain his composure by taking long, deep breaths. He saw Jo Wilson out of the corner of his eye and he had absolutely no idea how long she had been standing there. "Wilson!" He barked. "What are you doing?"
"I'm on your service," she reminded him.
"Right," he breathed. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath before he spoke again. "Can you page Dr. Grey for a consult, please?"
After a very long day, Stephanie and Jo changed into their street clothes in the interns' locker room side by side.
"What are you doing tonight?" Stephanie asked conversationally as she lifted her tired arms above her head to pull off her scrub top.
"Drinking at Joe's with Alex. Wanna come?"
"Maybe," she replied unsurely. She thought for a moment before she decided to quietly add, "Jackson's been acting really weird lately."
Jo halted shimming into her jeans at her friend's words. What were the chances that Avery acting strange and the conversation that she had overheard today were unrelated?
Stephanie must have noticed her troubled expression because she inquired, "What is it? Do you know something? Has Alex said anything?"
Jo slowly shook her head as she pulled up her zipper. "I just overheard a really weird conversation today."
"Between who?" Stephanie asked nosily.
"Avery and Kepner." Stephanie tilted her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "I was bringing him some charts," she started to explain, "and I guess they were talking about her new boyfriend and he asked if she was sleeping with him. She told him that it wasn't any of his business and he said that it was."
"That's not weird," Stephanie replied after Jo finished talking.
"Come on," the other intern scoffed. "It is weird, and you didn't see the way that he was looking at her."
Stephanie finished changing her clothes and slammed her locker door shut. "He's probably just worried about her. They've known each other since they were interns, they're probably really close." She had heard hospital rumors about their relationship but she wasn't sure what was true and what was false. However, she did know that they had come over from Mercy West together and that they had both lost friends in the hospital shooting a few years ago.
Stephanie grabbed her bag and left the room and Jo frowned to herself. She was of the opinion that her friend had a serious case of denial.
The next day Stephanie was back on Jackson's service and was excited by the prospect of scrubbing in on a reconstructive surgery on a burn patient. Hopefully, after today, the function and appearance of his left arm would be totally normal. She became even happier when she met the patient and saw that he was in great spirits. He was cracking jokes, pleasantly chatting, and just as eager for the surgery as she was.
"Any questions Jeff?" Jackson asked once they had finished talking through the procedure.
"I need to know what to do about Amanda," Jeff grinned.
Jackson smiled to himself at the mention of the familiar name. This was his second operation with Jeff so he knew all about Amanda.
However, Stephanie did not. "Who's Amanda?" She asked with a smile.
"My best friend. We were a thing but I was an idiot and now we're not anymore." Jeff turned to Jackson and filled him in. "But she's got a new guy now and she's happy, and it's killing me. I wanna knock him out every time I see him."
Jackson laughed to himself. He could relate. He had not been happy this morning when he'd had the unfortunate pleasure of witnessing Matt bring April her morning coffee.
"Maybe I need a female opinion," Jeff smiled. "What do you think Dr. Edwards?"
"Well," Stephanie began. "You love her and you just want her to be happy, right?" He nodded so she continued, "Then I think that you have to let her be happy with him."
"Wait, what?" Jackson intervened. Both sets of eyes turned to him so he explained, "I mean, what if he can make her happier than this other guy? He knows her better than anyone else, they've been through everything together, that means a lot. Sometimes it means everything."
Stephanie looked down at her feet awkwardly and Jackson cleared his throat.
"I'll be back to walk you down to pre-op, Jeff," he stated before he fled the room.
He ducked into an empty on-call room and kicked over an empty trash can in frustration. What the hell was he doing? He hadn't even meant to say any of that in there; it had all just unwillingly rushed out. He was so messed up.
He had been so sure that ending things with April had been the right thing to do for the both of them. He had just wanted them to stop hurting each other. But he had hurt her when he had told her about Stephanie, it had been written all over her face. And he was hurting now. It was killing him that she seemed so happy with someone else…someone who didn't know her half as well as he did. The guy was essentially a stranger.
He had done a lot of things wrong along the way, they both had, but he still blamed San Francisco. San Francisco was the root of all of their problems. If he had handled things differently back then maybe…well maybe things would be different now. A part of him wished that she had never kissed him outside of her hotel room but it was a very small part. When it came down to it, he didn't really regret anything.
Yeah, he blamed San Francisco for how messed up he was.
…And the fact that he had no idea where to go from here. What was he supposed to do now? Let her be happy? Go after her? If he did go after her, he had no idea what he was going to say. They never seemed to say the right things to each other.
He sat down on the edge of the bottom bunk and repetitively ran his hands over his upper legs. He needed to think and he was in no condition to operate.
He needed his best friend so he sent April a quick text and hoped that she would come to him.
A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this little ficlet and I'm hoping to have the last chapter of Comes and Goes out on Tuesday!
Please leave a review! :)