"Switch shifts with me," Jackson pleaded. It was something he wasn't really used to if he were being honest, pleading. Growing up, the way he did, it was more likely he'd have the thing he wanted before he even asked for it but he was desperate for the opportunity to be on Altman's service again.

He pushed past the double doors that lead away from the operating room and followed Charles down the hall.

"No way," Charles replied smugly in a way that he could never pull off naturally which made Jackson roll his eyes.

"Oh, come on nobody wants to be the on-call resident, nothing ever happens. No good cases, all you do is sleep," Jackson reasoned as convincingly as he could. He had to say he even believed himself. But it was a lie, at least at this hospital when they were working at Mercy West because of it ranking in trauma severity the more challenging cases were sent straight here.

"Nice try, Avery." They walked into the residents' lounge, Charles sat on one of the benches by the wall row of storage lockers while Jackson lingered by the door. "Altman is actually one of the good ones there's no chance I'm passing this one up."

Jackson narrowed his eyes at his friend; he wasn't making this as easy as he thought he would.

Eight months had passed since their group, along with a few others, had merged with another, greater metropolitan hospital, Seattle Grace. For a majority of them, it had been quite the transition but hadn't made much of an impression since his first day and then his grandfather had visited and everyone found out about his lineage. Jackson knew that he meant well but he had the amazing ability to criticize him even from a hospital bed. Ever since he had been coasting by.

He needed to get on another cardio service soon so he decided to for another plan of attack.

"I'm on General with Bailey," Jackson mentioned casually but studied Charles' reaction. He stopped fixing the laces on his old grubby sneakers and stilled. He knew that he was interested in general, set on it as a possible speciality but hadn't been on a general case for some time.

Charles stood up and walked towards him. "Okay, fine! But you owe me."

"I won't have to," Jackson cleared his throat just as Reed walked to towards them, just like he planned.

"Hey," she greeted. "What are you two losers doing?"

Charles laughed a little too hard and Jackson scratched his chin to hide his amusement.

"It's just a nice night for…for surgery," Charles glanced at the stack of charts in her hands. "And charting."

Reed gave him a baffled expression before walking off in another direction. Jackson doubled over laughing then not bothering to dodge the punch in the arm that Charles aimed at him.

"Are you ever going to do something about that?" he asked once he got a hold of himself. Reed wouldn't be able to hear them. Jackson knew that she would be on the same shift the next day. There was no way Charles would back out of this now.

"I am. I will," Charles blurted out. "I'm waiting for the right time."

The corners of April's eyes creased as she held onto the steering wheel with both hands. They had been stuck behind an SUV for ten minutes, the traffic downtown was crazy and factoring that in with the extra twenty minutes they had to even get to Seattle Grace Mercy West they would be cutting it close to get in before morning rounds today.

She honked her horn, it would do nothing but she did it anyway and then rolled down the window to let some air in.

"Would you stop tapping?" Reed demanded from the back seat.

"Hm?" Charles turned his head distractedly to the side.

"That thing with your hands, with your hand, on the dashboard." She reiterated, pushing her foot on the back of his seat. She did it a little too hard which made him brace forward

"Oh this?" his fingers hit against the warm plastic again, this time with a rhythm and April watched them both amused. She noticed the car in front of them was finally making traction and she focussed on the road ahead.

"You're so damn annoying, Charlie," Reed stated but her voice was light. He'd been like this in all the time she had known him.

They pulled into the hospital parking lot and walked towards the front entrance as quickly as they could to avoid being late.

"We need to move," Reed pulled her shirt over her head and stuffed it into her cubby.

April continued changing and sighed. "But I like our place."

"It's all the way across town and we have to carpool with the guys," Reed said and April sat down on one of the benches. "They leave things in the car all the time, you know I found a half-eaten taco wedged in the front seat like two days ago"

"What?" April stopped and they both turned and looked at Charles.

"Hey, don't look at me," Charles said. He had already changed into his scrubs and was fixing the collar of his lab coat.

"Just think about it okay," Reed pleaded tugging on April's sleeve. She suspiciously eyed Charles and then darted out of the room, passing by another resident who entered.

"You two you-" April sung once she knew Reed was gone. "You're like two kids on the playground "You're like two kids on the playground. It's cute."

"Cute is not what I was going for, April," he admitted as April got up from the bench and they made their exit.

"Well, honesty is never a bad idea," April said. Everyone in their little group knew how Charles felt about Reed. She had been rooting for them for a while.

"Kepner!" Chief Shepherd called out, a few brain scans in hand as he approached.

"Oh, um yes Chief I was right on my way to meet you," April stepped around her friend and followed him with her notebook in hand.

April would always be grateful for being given a second chance at being a surgeon. She would have never expected that the Chief would call and offer her job back to her.

It was great to be hired back after her mistake with her patient. She had another chance.

"So, I'm going to be in my office this morning, paperwork well more like awaiting a slow death," he told her with an air of disinterest. If April didn't know any better she would have thought he was bored. While being Chief of a renowned hospital was something that most of their peers sought after it wasn't a job that everyone could handle.

"You check on my post ops. At least one of us will have a good day today, huh?" he joked.

"Okay, right away Chief," April nodded.

Jackson crumpled up his coffee cup and threw it in a nearby waste bin. He'd been in the ER for hours and nothing good had come through yet. He had a feeling that Altman didn't like that he had ended up on her service instead of another resident. He almost thought that switching shifts was a bad idea until he got a heads up on an incoming trauma.

"What do we got?" Jackson asked as he pulled on a trauma gown and the paramedics got out with a man on a stretcher.

"Male, 36, GSW to the upper abdomen." The paramedic stated quickly, pushing the gurney up to the trauma doors. The man was visibly in pain but awake and responsive. "It was crazy apparently the dude got rear-ended and then he gets out and shoots him."

"What?" His head snapped up in disbelief.

"Am I gonna die?" he repeated breathlessly. The ER had picked up a lot of traffic in the last hour or so they had to manoeuvre through a lot of chaos to get him to an empty trauma room.

"Sir, sir," Jackson stopped to speak to him. "You're having trouble breathing because your lung is collapsed so I'm going to put a tube in your chest-"

"I-In my chest?" his face paled even more if that was possible.

"It's to help you breathe." Jackson reassured him before he started giving out instructions as Hunt and Altman breezed into the trauma room assessing him quickly and getting to work as well "Alright, I need gauze and an 18-gauge-needle."

He kept his head down as prepared to make an incision not even as a random woman burst through the door.

"Pete!" She cried as a nurse tried to hold her back. "Oh my God, Pete. What happened?"

Pete's chest heaved as he spoke. "This guy hit me. I stopped the car to give him my insurance card… I get out and he shoots me."

"Call an OR and tell them we're on our way," Teddy said.

"Please, please he's my husband." The woman pleaded hysterically to them the nurse still at her side. He was starting to look annoyed and tried to usher her out of the room.

"Let her say goodbye." Owen tried to stop him.

"Owen there's no time," Teddy argued but the woman took her chance before they could say anything else, approaching her husband cautiously.

"I love you, I love you. Don't die please."

Jackson finally made the cut and inserted the tube into his side and the sudden change in pressure caused blood to spurt out all over his trainers. "Chest tube secured."

Jackson lifted his head once he finished. They needed to get him to an operating room sooner rather than later. Pete started seizing and his wife's gasps were drowned out by the incessant beeping of the machine's.

"What's happening? Oh my God!"

"Get her out of here!" Teddy ordered. The nurse was able to push her out of the room and they didn't waste any time as they gripped the metal bars of the gurney and started on a run out the door.

"Hey, Courtney. How are you feeling today?" April asked with a bright smile when she entered the patient room.

The young woman in the bed was one of the post-ops she had been placed to monitor.

A tumour that had been extracted was small and they caught it early. Chief Shepherd had operated and since April was basically his protégé she had scrubbed in too. She had taken a liking to neurosurgery and was feeling much more confident about being back in the operating room as well. She just needed to be reminded why she wanted to be a doctor, after that everything else would fall into place.

"Like I took an axe to the head," she joked but April looked at her alarmed and proceeded to give her the once-over. "Dr Kepner chill out it was a joke, geez."

"You're sure about that? You know you're supposed to tell us if you're feeling any discomfort." April informed while she assessed.

A parent would not lose another child because of a mistake she could have avoided.

"I'm fine I promise." She said. "You doctors worry too much."

"If we didn't then we'd be of no use." April wrote down a few things her chart before placing it back on the shelf at the foot of the bed. "I'll see you again after rounds"

"You don't have to come back here. I'm fine!"

"After rounds!" she called over her shoulder.

April had finished her rounds and as promised was heading back upstairs to check on Courtney again. She would have to cut through the ER to get to the elevators and get back upstairs. April fished her notebook out of her pocket, scribbling as she walked through a supply area when they arrived at work the ER was bustling but the air was still now.

She lost her balance so quick she didn't even have a chance to brace her hands out in front of her. She caught her foot on something heavy and fell face first onto the floor.

"Ah," April wiped at her upper lip weakly, pulling her hand away from her face to see her fingers covered with blood. She pushed herself up with her other hand but the floor felt wet and sticky under her palm.

Blood. Too much blood. So much that it soaked into her scrubs and caused them to stick to her skin. She was still dazed from hitting her head so hard but she wasn't seeing things, her hands shook as she turned them both over and stared down at them and the floor to be confronted by a lifeless body. Her throat closed up when she saw where the blood had come from. Reed with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead.

April didn't remember getting up from the floor. She didn't even remember walking out of the supply closet all she could see in her head was Reed. She got away as fast she could. Her best friend lying dead on the floor. They had only spoken face to face an hour ago and now she was dead. It wasn't clicking in her mind.

"Dr Kepner?" It was Shepherd. She had made it all the way back to his office. "April? What is it?"

"You know, I grew up on a farm… I grew up on a farm so b-blood doesn't bother me," April mumbled softly. "I slaughtered a pig once that was a lot of blood. Bleeding like a stuck pig. That's a saying, that means something but you don't think of people having that much blood - You learn in med school about how many pints we all have in us but you don't know until you see it. You don't get how much blood – and a skinny person and Reed oh my god she's almost anorexic, she's like five pounds, you wouldn't think she had that much blood but she did she did she did -"

"April, April, April!" He grabbed her face between his hands to stop her from saying anything else. "It's alright. You're in shock. Tell me what happened."

"Reed's dead," her voice broke when she said it out loud. "Someone shot her."

"How do you not know? You're the head of hospital security…" Derek muttered on the phone. They were still in his office because he had to inform the authorities about what was going on. He had handed her some clean scrubs to change into, her own still soaked in Reed's blood and faced away from her.

"Alright lockdown," April overheard as she tugged the shirt of the uniform over her head. He hung up and started toward her.

"Here," Derek took a napkin and wiped gently at the blood still on her face. "The police are almost here. I'm gonna leave you here. Are you gonna be okay by yourself?"

"You're leaving. you said that nobody leaves moves nobody breathes nobody breathes," her voice trembled.

"I'm the Chief. This is my hospital." He said but that didn't settle her fear. What did being Chief mean against a bullet?

"But what if you get shot?"

"I'll be right back. I'm the Chief." He left and shut the door behind him.

Pete had been on the operating table longer than most and it was still not looking good. The bullet had sliced through his heart and there was a lot of internal bleeding.

It was overwhelming but Jackson was keeping his head above water, following the instructions of the attendings to make sure this man would have a fighting chance. He'd been flying under the radar since the transfer so hopefully, now there would be a shift in that.

"I can't get control of this artery," Teddy said.

"He's crashing." Owen's voice is muffled by his face mask.

"I need more light and another clamp," Teddy said and one of the scrub nurses handed her the apparatus.

"How's it going in here?" His back was to him but Jackson recognised Shepherd's voice.

"Touch and go!"

"Avery, you got a second?" he asked. Jackson removed his hands from the patient and covered his gloves with a cloth before he went over to him.

"Has anybody checked their pager?

"No, we've been too busy."

"There's a shooter here in the hospital and I don't want you to say a word." He said and Jackson's eyes widened. "When the patient is stable I want you to tell Hunt and Altman that nobody gets out of here until they are told."

There's a shooter in the hospital?

"Can you handle this?"

"Yes, sir." He blinked.

"What did Shepherd want?" Owen asked. "Dr Avery?"

"Uh, nothing," Jackson lied smoothly. He took his place back next to Dr Altman. "Just wanted to know how long we'd be. He needs the OR next."

"Okay, get in here and suction around where Dr Altman is working."

He picked up the suction but his hands were shaking too much.

"Shaky hands, Dr Avery?" Owen noticed. "You won't make it as a surgeon unless you keep your hands steady."

He needed to hold it together. "Yes, sir."

April hadn't moved from where Derek had left her in his office. The lockdown was in full effect since she didn't see anyone walking around through the clear glass walls.

She felt too exposed standing. What if the shooter was up here? He could notice and shoot her right through the glass and it would be all over. April ducked down to hide underneath the desk, it obscured her from view but the position also meant that she couldn't see out of the back window clearly, a filing cabinet was blocking the way.

Propping her head up on her bent knee she closed her eyes and prayed that she'd make it out of this. That no one else would be hurt. That Derek would come back. She prayed they would make it out of this.

"OK, he's ready for transport."

"Jackson, get him up to ICU," Owen said as he untied his mask. The surgery was complete and Jackson had managed to make it through without saying anything, until now. "Start warming him up."

"I can't, sir."

"Excuse me?" he stopped at the door, brows creased. Jackson could feel everyone's eyes on him but stood his ground.

"We can't leave here. That's what Shepherd told me." He continued. "There's a shooter in the hospital. We're supposed to –

"There's a what?"

"Shepherd said –"

"This patient is hypothermic and I need to get him to an ICU, start warming him up before he starts to circle the drain."

"You didn't bother -"

"Shepherd said-"

"You didn't bother to mention this until now?"

"You already told me what Shepherd said!" Owen scolded. "Okay, I'll take him up myself. Everyone else, stay here."

"I'm coming." Teddy stepped forward.

"No, you stay put."

"I'm a cardiothoracic surgeon. He has a penetrating injury to his chest." She stated, unmoving. "You don't get a vote this time. I'm coming."

"Let's go."

"Please, please, please," April mumbled. She was still under the desk and hadn't moved an inch. She was desperate to check outside the window to see if Shephard had returned but was too scared to move.

It was still deathly quiet on the floor so her head snapped up when she heard voices from outside the office. April looked out from under the desk, her view was still hidden but she could see Derek. His back was to her but she was sure it was him.

She got out from her hiding place and rand out of the office. "Dr Shepherd! Thank God, you're back!"

He turned around and told her run but she didn't move. April stood frozen where she stood. The gunman was two feet in front of them, weapon pointed straight at them. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, the pulling of the trigger, the gunshot, Derek falling to the floor at the impact.

She wasn't ready to die.