Post-divorce, Jackson and April slowly learn how to co-parent a child, while simultaneously dealing with unspoken feelings of love and regret.
The first few months are the hardest to get through.
It's probably due to some resentment, from him, towards her.
He's not entirely healed, over the fact that she'd kept her pregnancy hidden from him at the start.
Love had already been lost between them, feelings shared and shed throughout the course of their relationship.
Their history is much like a superhero's rise to fame, their story a bittersweet one that ended in flames.
The early days were filled with uncertainty, doubt and nerves being their catalyst.
The constant sexual tension and raging wild thoughts were their glory days. This includes their first downfall, when they'd been apart and had searched for others' companionship. This includes their marriage.
But the bad days, their failure to make their romance work, their uneven mutual decision to end their vows was their downfall.
Divorce didn't mean that all love had faded, that all feelings of adoration and joy had evaporated like leaves in a cool spring's breeze. It simply confirmed a separation, one they'd already been trudging through without ever truly realizing it.
The feeling of hurt had left her almost as soon as she'd signed the papers, stared him down for a good moment to confirm his wish to cut off all ties with her.
If he didn't love her anymore, she'd quit trying to keep him at her he didn't want her anymore, in any way, she'd stop showing her desire for him.
If he wanted their simple split, she'd tear them to pieces the way he had done her heart.
But she'd keep a part of him. Not the money or the apartment or the plain memories she'd hold. She'd refrain from telling him about her secret, about their miracle.
Bargaining their child would keep him, unwillingly, unhappily, married to her because he was never the kind of man who would abandon a woman pregnant with his child.
But staying would have been done for the wrong reasons, so she keeps quiet.
She doesn't tell him until she's deep into the first trimester, doesn't feel the need to divulge the information with her former spouse. He despises her for a week, and she expects nothing less.
It's his child, and she knows it's harsh to keep the news from him when he'd clearly been so bruised after the demise of their first child.
This child was hers to raise, his to protect. This child would be theirs, half a soldier and half a name. Their child would be stronger than the first could have ever been, because it'd know of the love they once shared, and not of their failures.
When it's born around the month of September, April makes a point of having him in the delivery room. Neither know the sex, they only know of the infant's seemingly perfect health. He deserves to be there. He deserves to witness the culmination, the fabrication of their past love.
He smiles in the way he looks on the brink of tears, and he keeps his hands clasped behind his back until she lets him hold his newborn daughter.
She is theirs, but April isn't his anymore.
And he knows his mistake when he brushes a strand of dark red hair behind her ear, fingertips brushing against her flushed skin.
Her face doesn't show much, safe for the smile directed at their daughter. But she shivers, and he feels it.
And he almost wants to regret asking her to give up on him.
When their daughter is six months old, they're testing the waters.
April has her most days, for nurturing and mothering.
Jackson sees her often, gets to spoil her and love her the way he could only ever ask for.
She's small, and moderately darker than her mother with sharp green eyes. She's a replica Jackson, and April loves that about her.
"So, uh-" He takes a pause to scratch the back of his neck, hitching the diaper bag up his shoulder, "How are you?"
She blinks, "I'm good." She nods once, folds her arms over her chest, absentmindedly shielding herself. "I have a date, actually."
"Oh."
"Tonight."
"Right." He swallows, flicks a look down at the baby carrier on the wooden floor, loosely paying attention as their daughter softly snores away. "Right. That…that's good." Jackson tries a smile, looking backup at the redhead.
Her dyed hair is turning back to its more natural deeper shade, and her hazel eyes pop.
"Do I know him?"
"No." She frowns, shrugs her shoulders. Would it change things if he did? "I met him at the bar. I was playing darts and he came over and we got to talki-"
"Yeah. I get it." Jackson speaks, perhaps a little bit too abruptly. But he notices his lapse in their agreement and sighs.
They're decided to support each other's future decisions, because it was in the best interest of their child to get along and play happy exes.
"Sorry, I-"
"Can you just pretend to be happy for me, please?" She fakes a smile, letting her grip fall and her arms hang free.
The man stares down at her, watching as she bites her lip, does that nervous thing she does whenever she gets uncomfortable. "I am happy for you." His voice is low, groggier than it should be. "Really."
He's happy she can move on, can find potential happiness. But he's a primal man, and the possibility of her being with anybody else in that way consumes him every day.
But she isn't his to hold anymore.
April nods, gritting her teeth behind closed lips. "Thank you."
She leans down to pick up the handle of the baby carrier and smooths a finger over the child's forehead with a smile.
"I'll bring her back Sunday." Her ex-husband informs her, wrapping a hand around the handle, skin brushing against her own as she lets go.
The redhead nods again, gaze focusing back up on his face as he slips the thick handle over his forearm and brings it into the crease of his elbow.
"Yeah."
By the time their daughter is four years older, they've found themselves a steady pattern.
It's her birthday, and April had planned a princess themed party down at the local park.
"Did you pick up the cake?"
"I've got it somewhere."
He'd suggested catering for the event, but she'd almost ripped his head off at the idea. Children didn't need fancy catering and waiters and all that jazz, she'd told him.
They wanted fun games, and inflatable castles, and cheap junk food to give them stomach ache in the afternoon.
Jackson places three giant paper bags on the picnic table. The first one seems to be full of presents, all wrapped in striped pink and yellow decorative paper with bows on the front.
The second bag is filled to the brim with packets of candy and paper plates and spilling-over-the-top goodie bags.
But the cake is in the third bag, and he pulls it out delicately.
She'd trusted him with its delivery, charged him with keeping the rainbow-chip yellow buttercream gâteau from harm or bumps on the car ride.
"Perfect." April declares, having watched him place the box on the rocky table and lift open the cover. It hadn't smudged, hadn't been plucked at or taken a finger-licking swipe out of.
She closes the lid, accepts the pack of candles he passes her and places them on the side.
"You're proud of me, aren't you?"
April rolls her eyes, ignoring the hint of a smirk playing on his smug lips. She does miss their playfulness, sometimes. "It's not as if you made the thing, Jackson. Don't flatter yourself." She chews the inside of her bottom lip, straightens her body when he places a hand on the curve of her back.
They're friendly, touchy-feely, the way they were before they knew what lying in each other's arms felt like.
She lets him keep his touch on her for a moment, as she continues to pull the treats from his shopping bags.
His fingers linger over the softness of her blouse, remembering the way he'd once been unable to even approach her, until a shout from beside them knocks his attention away from his dreaded memory.
"Daddy!"
Pulling his hand away from his the redhead's back, he crouches down to his daughter's height as she runs over, leaping into his arms.
Smaller arms wrapped around his neck, she presses her head in the crook of his neck. "You're here!"
"What, you think I'd miss your party?" He runs long fingers around the back of her neck, smile on his face as she grins in return.
Placing her back on the ground after a moment, he feels the birthday girl latch onto his hand as he turns back to April.
"She's grown."
"You were gone for two weeks, Jackson. They grow up fast." She reminds him of his trip to Switzerland, where he'd had to assist Cristina Yang on a case.
With a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, April shoves her hands into her pockets, feeling two arms wrap themselves around her waist.
"Avery!"
Jackson perms up to face the man, having somehow forgotten about his ex-wife's new boyfriend.
They were serious, dangerously so even.
"Hey, man." They shake hands, exchange words the same way they always do.
She's been with him for a little over a year now, and he's been seeing women, too.
They date, experiment with potential partners.
The love they'd once shared for each other hadn't disappeared into the dark abyss, it had only faded into the background, to been occasionally seen but never spoken of.
She was still the love of his life, always had been and probably always would be, and vice-versa.
A love lost didn't mean it wasn't still there, it had just been blurred out for the sake of a happier ending.