So, I had really fun writing this, it's a bit different but I hope you like it anyway. All faults and grammatical erros are mine. Enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned. All the rights to them and Grey's Anatomy belong to shondaland and ABC. The lyrics to the song 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' aren't from me either. The title comes from The Naked And Famous' "Girls like you".
She and her sisters used to play this game they have come up with all by themselves (something they are very proud of). It isn't really a game. They were sitting together building up scenarios for their futures.
They're is something all of her sisters have in common. No matter which adventurous job they come up with, they have always a husband somewhere in the picture.
April never does.
They are total opposites when they meet. They are both looking forward to a new life in Seattle; it's time for them to prove themselves (she wants to show them all that she can be the doctor she always said she would become and his family is keeping a close eye on him.).
She is 'Duckie' depending on the future and he is the grandson ruining from the past.
She is loud and perky and socially awkward and he is laid-back and charming when he speaks.
They are an odd pair even when they're just friends but they fit despite, or maybe because of that.
Soul mate, noun, a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner. (According to the Oxford Dictionary.)
Does not exist. (According to Jackson.)
She loses her first patient on her first day. Their resident, Vincent Calhun, is on trauma rotation that day. They treat a biker that was basically dead when he came into the ER but it still sucks. Jackson takes her out for a drink after he notices how much it affects her.
She writes trauma off after that day (something that will change four years later when she hijacks an ambulance and has to take control of a makeshift OR) and he realizes for the first, but definitely not the last time that she will become a great doctor because she has the humane part of it already down.
They become friends on their first day.
She loves the speed but not in the way of driving fast. Back on the farm in Moline she used to take one of the horses to get away from her sisters' constant bickering so she could study in peace. And when she didn't had the time to saddle a horse she would run.
She always loved the way the wind would blow through her auburn locks (which she dyed later because of the teasing).
She was hot and cold when they were together. She either wanted him badly or she regretted being with him altogether. He never knew what to expect, she always surprised him and not in the god way (that would come later when she figured out that she wanted him all the time, forever.).
Her heart is heavy when he stands up at her wedding. She feels too much and nothing at all at the same time. She is baffled by the whole situation and surprised by the stupid question (it's not really stupid, she knows, but in that moment it just all feels so, so stupid; the fact that Jackson Avery interrupts a wedding and somehow even more that there is this wedding in the first place).
She's surprised that she doesn't faint or drops dead because it feels as though all of her blood is needed to keep her heavy heart beating.
"I love you and I think that you love me too. Do you?"
He smiles, tells her that this isn't funny, that she's ruining an important and romantic moment of their relationship to end a stupid fight and kisses her.
She's a clean freak and she lives for rules which is why she never in her wildest dreams considered chaotic trauma as her specialty.
That is until Hunt takes her under his wing and she realizes that while it is messy, it's a controlled chaos.
Her view on her future plans shifts and she dyes her hair back.
He only knows his father (he refuses to call him 'dad') from distant memories and old photos. His mother usually broke things off with her boyfriends before they get to a point where she would introduce them to her son.
So his only male role-model growing up is his grandfather who shows love by criticizing him less than normal.
She runs when she comes back to her senses. She bails through the open door at the back and begins to run, not into the direction of Seattle but the beautiful land side behind the barn. She kicks of her heels somewhere along the way and loses her veil somewhere else.
A few auburn locks fall out of her up-do and the wind blows through them while she continues running.
It feels like home.
While her sisters always made up something else when they played, she had her mind set on becoming a doctor since she knew what they did. The only difference she made in her descriptions was that she became more detailed over the years.
("You're no fun, April!", her sisters would whine at her.)
He only sees the world in black and white and she's the one who shows him all the beautiful grays out there.
He's the one who never denies being her friend from the first day of intern year to way later when he is so much more than a friend.
She barely tells him but it means the world to her (because there were too many friends to count who wouldn't admit that if it came down to it).
"I do."
"I do, too."
"It's not your turn yet, April."
"I know."
He leans down and kisses her.
("We're not to that part either, Jackson.")
She always ran. She ran to get away from her sisters, to have a little bit of peace. When she went back to Moline she ran. She ran away from the sudden overwhelming feelings for her best friend and broken dreams.
But when she is running from her crushed wedding she decides that it has to stop. She realizes that she needs to stay and fight.
Later as Arizona picks her up (with a car that was definitely not built for the open country) she tells her that and when her new best friend asks her for what she'll fight her answer is simple and immediate; "I'm going to fight for myself."
She's just not sure yet how she's going to do that and what that entails.
It takes him really long to trust himself and his abilities to be a better role-model than his father and grandfather were. April tries to convince him a lot and in a variety of ways but in the end it's the first smile of his son that makes him start to believe in himself.
She's aware that his eyes are what catches most peoples' attention and she has to admit that she was attracted to this feature of his appearance first but she fell in love with his frown.
They are both doctors, surgeons even, and she thinks that's why they work so good. They understand each other and each others' lives.
Surgeons tend to have a lot pet peeves and crazy schedules and it's hard for people who aren't part of their surgical world to accept and understand that.
(Even Matthew who works in medicine himself didn't.)
His mother is sure of the fact that he has commitment issues because the marriage of his parents didn't last. And until he decides that April Kepner is the one for him he hasn't really proven her wrong.
Most of his relationships didn't make it past a month, the one with Lexie being one of the few exceptions.
But once he sets his mind on the redhead he's definitely ready to commit himself for a lifetime.
When she returns to the barn most of the guests have luckily left. The ones who continue lurking around are family, both by blood and by other bonds.
She talks to Matthew, tells him what he knew for a long time already, longer than he likes to admit, and they part, break something they put together because they thought it was the real deal.
He wasn't the one for her, she knows that now (knew it before) but her heart breaks a little bit when he leaves the barn because no matter what she did love him, just differently.
(She leaves after that, too and takes some time off to figure out how she's going to fight for herself.)
He's met a lot of pretty girls, kissed some and dated others but it isn't until he sees her that night in San Francisco still flustered from the barroom brawl and so,so confident that he learns what true beauty is.
She has a crush on him after they first meet but he is her first friend in Seattle and also heavily flirting with that blonde nurse so she decides to wait and promises herself that one day she'll tell him about her feelings.
(That day comes years later when she reappears after two weeks and tells him that she does love him in front of his apartment building in the pouring Seattle rain.)
It's on her first baby shower that her sisters bring up their game again. They tease her about the fact that she never planned on getting married and having kids and they're right, it was never one of her priorities but she grew up and goals change and they no longer kids having fun by making up scenarios for their future because they're already living it.
(Besides,her actual life is so much better than everything she could have imagined.)
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