Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, settings, etc.

I rap my knuckles twice against April's bedroom door, leaning against the wall as I wait for her to answer. I hear her mattress creak and her feet padding across the hard wood floor before the door flies open. She glances in the other direction before inhaling sharply and jumping backwards when she catches sight of me.

"Jackson," she breathes, pressing her hand to her chest as she catches her breath. "You scared me."

"Sorry," I offer, holding up the plastic grocery bag in an attempt to regain her attention. "I brought you something." I tell her. She eyes me suspiciously, hoping that I'll reveal more but I simply smirk and ask, "Can I come in?"

She moves aside, allowing me access which I graciously accept by stepping inside her unusually messy room. As I take in the mismatched stacks of clothes in the corner and the medical journals and books that litter the floor, I shoot her a look of bewilderment. This is not the side of April Kepner I am used to.

Closing the door behind her, she catches my look of surprise, and announces shyly, "I'm in the process of rearranging things." A soft blush creeps over her face and she tucks a stray piece of auburn hair behind her ear before she makes her way across the room and falls back on to the bed.

"What's in the bag?" she asks.

All thoughts of the mess that surrounds me disappear as I remember the real reason I stopped by. Closing the gap between us, I walk across the room and fall beside her on the mattress. Our shoulders brush against one another as I reach in to the bag and I have to mentally ignore the way my arm hairs stick up at the contact. Shoving these thoughts to the back of my mind, I victoriously pull out a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

I hear April take an excited intake of breath at the sight of her favorite dessert and I can't help but grin. I pull out a spoon from inside the bag and hand both the ice cream and the utensil over to her.

"I thought it would make a good peace offering." I mutter, scratching behind my ear. It wasn't often that the two of us fought so I never really knew what the protocol to handling things afterwards was. Usually, an unspoken apology would occur and we'd continue on with our daily lives. But today's fight was different. It had been a big day for April and I couldn't see past my own annoyance to notice that April had really been struggling today. Letting April down always left me feeling like crap.

"It also works as a "Good job on your first day as Chief Resident" gift too." I inform her, my voice trailing off as I watch her dig into the ice cream.

She laughs bitterly and shakes her head. Before speaking again, she stops to push herself backwards on the bed so that she is supported by the head rest and without thinking I move to join her. She doesn't seem to mind though so I stay where I am.

"There's not much to celebrate," she finally says, swallowing her next bite of ice cream. "I sucked."

"You did fine, April." I tell her. And she had. Back in that OR this afternoon, she had been great. It might have taken us some time to pull ourselves together and get started, but once we did April and I had everything under control. We really make a great team, April and I. We always had.

"I shouldn't even be Chief Resident," she murmurs miserably before scooping out another large bite of ice cream and shoving it her mouth. "It should be you."

"April," I sigh, rubbing roughly at my closed eyelids. I had told April earlier that I wasn't jealous of her because she was Chief Resident, and it was true. Ever since dropping Webber's trial, I had decided the job really wasn't for me.

Yeah, sure, I had been deemed the Gunther, the definition of which I still wasn't quite clear on. But everyone kept treating it like it was this big thing. I am a surgeon. I was just doing my job. Just because I didn't kill my patient doesn't mean that I would have been the right person to be Chief Resident. Glancing over at April, despite the fact that she is practically face deep in ice cream right now, I can still tell that Dr. Hunt made a good decision.

"No!" she argues through a mouth full of the banana flavored treat. "It's true. It was supposed to go to Karev. Did you know that?" she asks me and I raise my eyebrows in surprise, shaking my head from side to side. Her whole body sags as she lets out a defeated sigh. She keeps her eyes downcast as she picks at her ice cream and reveals, "I heard him complaining about it at Joe's one night. Hunt told him that he was going to originally be chosen but then he threw Meredith under the bus so they both missed out."

I stare at her wide eyed and remain silent. "I didn't know that," is all I can manage to sputter out. She shrugs her shoulders weakly and replies, "I wasn't all that surprised. Chief Resident is supposed to go to someone people will actually listen to…not someone like…well, me."

"Look, April," I breathe out. "Maybe it wasn't supposed to be you at first, but it is you now." She bites her bottom lip skeptically but I ignore it and continue on by saying, "Hunt clearly saw something in you that you just don't see in yourself quite yet. Just give it some time and I'm sure you'll find it."

"And as far as your first day sucking goes, did you forget that we saved a woman's life today? We did that! Me and you!" I say, nudging her shoulder, successfully eliciting a smile from the red head for the first time that night. "Shouldn't that count for something?"

She nods in agreement and even admits, "We were pretty awesome in that OR today."

"Oh, we kicked some serious ass!" I cheer, holding up my hand for a high five. April giggles and has to position her ice cream between her legs before she hits her hand with my own. I squirm uncomfortably at the fluttering sensation I feel in my stomach at the sound of April's childish laugh. What the hell is wrong with me?

Suddenly feeling way too close to my best friend, I roll out of the bed and tell her that I'm heading back to my room when her voice calls out to me. "Jackson?" she asks, my hand reaching for the door knob.

"Yeah?"

"I am sorry," she breathes out."About today…about everything. I just…I put too much pressure on you and that wasn't right and…"

"It's alright, April." I promise, offering a soft smile.

She shakes her head and says, "It's really not. But thanks for saying that."

I tilt my head to the side and stare at April as a small smiles graces her features. I allow my hand to fall from the door knob as I cross the room, making my way back over to the red head still resting on her bed. As I lower myself on to the edge of the mattress again, she sits up straight and confesses, "I think I only did it because you're the only one I can really trust here."

"Are you sure it's not because I'm the only one who will listen to you?" I smirk at her, even as I receive a smack on the arm with the back of her hand.

"Very funny," she glares, falling back against the head rest.

I chuckle lowly as I push myself in to a standing position. I am poised to leave when I feel an overwhelming need to touch her one last time before heading off to bed. Before my mind can tell my body otherwise, I am leaning forward and pressing my lips to her temple. "It's okay," I whisper against her skin, and reel backwards to look at her as I say, "And for the record: I trust you, too."

I walk away and check over my shoulder as I open the door to leave. I find April still smiling at me warmly and I can't help but mirror her tender grin. "Goodnight, Jackson."

"Goodnight, April," I mutter, stepping in to the hallway and closing the door completely behind me.

I look around in all directions and it is only when I know the coast is clear that I lift my arm up closer to my face for an examination. As my eyes rove over the dark skin I shake my head in disbelief. Why in the hell do I have goose bumps? I am not fifteen years old. I have been in girl's bedrooms before. I should not be having this reaction. Besides, this is April Kepner were talking about here.

I shake my head at the thought and cross the remainder of the hallway. "It must have just been…too cold in there, or something." I decide, once in the safety of my own room. "Yeah," I scoff to myself, running my fingers over the still bumpy skin. "Or something."

A/N: Well, hello again, everyone! As you all can see, I have decided to make a sequel for each season of moments. I guess I decided to do it this way because, as many of you pointed out in your reviews, the Jackson and April relationship starts to shift a bit from here on out. That's kind of what I tried to show here in this first chapter. But since these two crazy kids don't get together until season's end, most of these will still be just friendship moments but there will be hints spread throughout of their underlying feelings, don't worry. The plan is the same as last time, most of these will be around drabble length and I will try and update as frequently as possibly. That's about it! I hope you guys enjoyed this first chapter and I can't wait to hear what you think! Thanks for reading and please review!