Hi everyone ! First of all, I just want to say thank you so much for your support for my one-shots. I really appreciate it. :)

This fanfic is an AU about what would happen with japril had they decided to move in together, without Alex, like Jackson always wanted to (during the latter part of season 8). It's going to follow some canon storylines, but the timelines will not be perfect (like, I'll take canon interactions from say early season8/7 sometimes). It's mostly pure fluff and will be a rather slow burn relationship, because I love japril and their sexual tension haha (also, I miss their friendship so much).

Anyway, please let me know if you would like me to continue it. This chapter is quite small, but the others will be longer. I would really love to hear your thoughts. :)

Disclaimer : I do not own the characters. They are property of Shonda Rhimes and Grey's Anatomy.


"Jackson. Jackson. Hey ! Are you listening?" I opened my eyes to find April waving her hands in front of my face, trying to get my attention.

"Yeah yep. Every word." Not true. I'd dozed off a good 15 minutes or so ago so I had no idea what April had said for that duration of time. Although, knowing April's tendency to ramble, she was probably still trying to sell me on the 3 bedroom apartment with hardwood floors and a washer/dryer.

"No you weren't. You dozed off like 15 minutes ago." I chuckled. I knew that she was catching on to my 'pretend to be listening' face, which I had perfected, courtesy of my mom. What ? It's not like she'd tell me anything she hasn't already told me every single time she takes me to lunch. Plastics, bad. Cardio, good. Get a girlfriend, get married, give her grand babies. Do not ignore his grandfather's calls. Do not ignore her calls. Move back to Boston, you have a place at Mass Gen. I had heard it all and had no reason to get a by-annual reminder. Therefore, I figured perfecting my ability to power nap during a conversation would come in handy. Mom hadn't caught on yet, but April apparently had. There was no point denying my lack of attention at this point.

"Fine. Okay, yes… I dozed off. Buuuut I have a good feeling that you're still on your hardwood floor fetish." I said, stretching my hands and adjusting my sitting position on the gurney. We had both got out of surgeries, and were waiting to check on post-ops before we could go home.

"It's not a fetish." She said, rolling her eyes at me. "It just looks so pretty. Especially if we get white furniture." She had this dreamy look on her face, which meant that she was already planning out their entire apartment. I was totally cool with that. April had good taste and I couldn't care less about the colour coordination of my furniture and my floor. As long as she doesn't go with a princess theme, I was fine with whatever.

"You're serious about this moving out thing aren't you?" I asked, turning to face her. She had her legs stretched out across my lap and was propped up on her elbows. We actually fought each other for this position and it usually went to the person who'd been standing on their feet the longest. Considering how today, April had scrubbed in on a 10 hour surgery as opposed to my 6 hour one, she won fair and square. I wasn't too upset about it because knowing April, if I complained enough about my feet for the rest of the night, I'd score a foot rub. Such were the benefits of having April be your best friend. She was too considerate for her own good sometimes. It's not like I'm an asshole, though. I would obviously return the favour.

"Yes Jackson. Look, like I said, Meredith and Derek have Zola, they need the extra space and you're living with your ex-girlfriend who has feelings for your current mentor who you dumped for said mentor. You'd make good reality TV." She said, laughing.

"Is it really necessary for you to give me daily reminders of past bad choices?" I said giving her a withered look. She shrugged, smirking. As much as it sucked for me to admit it, she was right. I knew probably should've listened to her when she told me that getting involved with Lexie wasn't going to end well for either one of us. She'd pointed out, yet again, how Lexie was in love with Sloan and that she was just too scared to admit it and that I would be a footnote in their love story or something sappy like that. When she'd first said it, I was furious. I was so mad at her for not supporting my relationship. She was my best friend; she was supposed to have my back no matter what. We even had a fallout that had fortunately only lasted about a 3 days before I gave in. Truth be told, April and I were incredibly close. I didn't realize how, even with Lexie as my girlfriend, she was the first person I looked for when something awesome or terrible happened in a surgery or when I just needed someone to share in my happiness and listen to me rant about something, like, the way Sloan was treating me after he'd found out about me and Lexie. Sometime during those 3 days, it had occurred to me that she was .. what did Meredith call it ? … My person. Yep. April Kepner is my person. I finally understood what that meant. Needless to say, I was pretty grateful that all it had taken for her to forgive me was a banana float and the promise to watch lifetime movies with her for a week. The pain of sitting through a week's worth of those awful movies was worth it though. I didn't realize how much I missed her during those 3 days until we made up. I realized too late that I probably should have listened to her. She was looking out for me and even Lexie (they were becoming pretty tight these days) because she'd been right. Lexie would never love him, she couldn't. She loved Sloan, she had for an incredibly long time and they had both been stupid enough to think different.

April was right. I couldn't live with his ex-girlfriend. It wasn't that it was too awkward or anything. Strangely enough we got along quite well for ex's. Maybe she wasn't the only one kidding herself about them. I really did love Lexie, but I do doubt if I'd actually been in love with her as I'd initially suspected. Regardless, I needed a change. And this would be just that.

"Okay, so it'll be just the two of us, right?" I was actually excited about this. I've always wanted to live alone with April. We got along great and I wasn't really a fan of living with a lot of people. After my dad left pretty early in my life, I'd grown up in a house of two, and even then, mom had barely been around, so most of my days were spent with me and my nanny (yes, yes I had a nanny. Insert rich kid joke) and eventually when I was old enough, it was just me.

"That would be great, but I don't think we can afford the nice apartment just the two of us. I think we might have to ask Alex to move in with us." She said, pouting.

"Isn't Alex one of the reasons you wanted to move out?" I was certain Alex's "night activities" (as April called them) was definitely a major reason why April wanted a new place. Not only were some of the women he brought over extremely invasive of her personal belongings but the walls of the house were paper thin, and having that combined with a room right next to Alex, was not something anyone would want to go through.

"Yes. He is. He's the main reason I want out. He's stinky, and mean and leaves his dirty boy socks everywhere. I also do not want to clean his dirty underwear, it probably carries diseases I've never even heard of. Plus, you thought borrowing my deodorant was bad, last week this girl used my toothbrush. MY TOOTHBRUSH." She visibly shuddered. Okay, that was disgusting. Although, if he remembered correctly, there was this day when he'd lost his toothbrush at the hospital and there hadn't been any extra ones at home, so he had no option but to borrow April's. It probably should have been really disgusting for the both of them, but April had only looked apprehensive for a couple of second before shrugging her shoulders and relenting. Another perk of having a best friend. Although this one might not be as hygienic as the others.

"You're willing to put up with all that for … hardwood floors?" I laughed, completely confused. I really didn't get the sacrifice.

"And a washer/dryer." She said, jumping off the gurney, adjusting her lab coat, motioning me to get off so we could go and check on our post ops. "What can I say … I want what I want." With that I watched her walk off. I shook my head, laughing quietly to myself. She never stopped confusing me. I had to admit it was part of the appeal.

WAIT. HOLD UP.

Did i just admit to finding April appealing? Sure, she was beautiful, feisty, and smart and arguably the nicest person I've ever met, but … No no, I meant it as a friend … her appeal as my best friend. Of course. She was the only woman in my life right now, not counting my mother, so it made sense that I was projecting my feelings of loneliness on to her. Yes, that's what it was. I was reading into this way too much. I just … needed to get laid that's all.


I looked around the room, sipping a drink, and smiled to myself. Zola had looked adorable in her cute little dress. I never really wanted children growing up, and it's not like I'm really sold on the idea even now, but Zola was one cute baby.

"Hey ... Jackson, right ?" I looked to my right and saw the voice belonged to Jane, this really pretty nurse I used to flirt with to get surgeries. Yes, I wasn't proud of it but everyone did it back then, even April. She used to bat those long lashes of hers and flash those cute dimples. She had even beaten me to surgeries like that. I paused the drink mid air before taking a sip. Had I just ... NOPE. No I had not. Okay I had. I had mentioned April's dimples and her eye lashes … adoringly, but come on, everyone noticed those. I could completely platonically appreciate my friend's attributes that made her cute. Yep. Still ... to be on the safe side, I needed to get laid … right now. That would be the answer. I turned my attention back to Jane, allowing myself to engage in a conversation with her. But before I could even begin to turn on the charm, my attention was once again broken by the same red head.

I looked around and saw April taking to Alex. I figured she was telling him about the apartment, although it seemed that she had managed to get off track. I really doubt a conversation about apartments required April predicting Alex's, what appeared to be a very bleak, future.

"... roaming the streets with some ancient form of syphilis."

Yep. Definitely off track. I quickly excused myself from the nurse, who I was actually making good progress with. (looks like it was going to be yet another night of sleeping alone) But I figured if Alex was going to be our roommate, I would need to do some damage control. I had this feeling that insulting him wasn't exactly the most enticing way to present a proposal he'd actually want to accept.

I walked over, put my arm around her shoulder and interrupted her insult fest (although, she was on a roll !)

"I think what April is trying to say is ..."

Well. What she was trying to say is that she would like it if Alex became their roommate. Maybe like is too strong of a word. She had no other choice, at all, but to have Alex become our roommate. That was more accurate. But I couldn't bring myself to say those words. It occurred to me that I didn't want Alex to be our roommate. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like Alex, we were good friends (I mean, April, coming from Ohio deemed football to the be all and end all of sports, so I needed someone to discuss basketball with. Thank you, Alex !) and personally I could deal with all the women. I mean Alex put up with me before I got in a relationship with Lexie. So on hindsight, I really didn't really have any real reason to not want Alex to be our roommate. Which is why, what I did next came as a surprise.

"Um ... She's trying to say ... You know. Just .. Excuse us for a minute ?" I said, pulling a very confused looking April away from an even more confused looking Alex.

"Jackson ... What ?" She said, twisting her face, the way she did when she thought I was been weird.

"I can pay." I said, not been able to control the words that came out of my mouth. (WHAT?!) "I can pay the part of the rent Alex would pay if he lived with us. So that, you know, he wouldn't have to live with us." (WHAT ! ARE ! YOU ! DOING ?!)

I appeared really calm about this statement on the outside but inside alarm bells were going off. What was I doing? This made no sense. Why was it that no matter how much I didn't dislike living with Alex, this part of me kept insisting I wanted to live with April … alone … just the two of us. I really didn't want to answer these questions right now.

"What?! No. No way. I'm not letting you pay more than half of the rent Jackson! That's ridiculous." She said, shaking her head, sending her red curls flying.

"But I can afford it. It's not that hard. I mean it. Plus, Alex is good friends with Mer and that could mean that Mer would hang around at our house more and you know she'd bring Lexie with her so ..." Brilliant. Impeccable reasoning. She was looking at me, eyebrows raised. That made no sense and we both knew it. Lexie and April were becoming good friends lately and there was more of a chance that she'd personally invite her over. But I remained insistent. Although, I still wasn't quite sure why.

"I mean ... Look, you're my best friend, we get along great, you like living with me, I like living with you and I can afford it." She started to protest, but I quickly interrupted her before she could start. "You can make up for it by cooking awesome food and washing my dirty boy socks?"

She laughed at that. I could see her contemplating. It surprised me just how much I wanted her to agree to this. I saw her scrunching up her face in displeasure while looking at Alex who was now eating chocolate pudding with his fingers directly from the bowl. Yep. I had won.

"Okay." She sighed. "Fine. But when we're fellows and I can afford it, I'm paying you back okay ?" She said, in a threatening tone. I was fine with that. She could do whatever would ease her conscience later as long as right now they could live together.

"Okay. Deal ... Roomie" I said, smirking, holding out my hand.

"We were already roomies." She said, laughing while shaking my hand.

"Yeah but this is more official somehow." It was true. It would be just the two of us. They would jointly "own an apartment." It felt strange, but also really nice.

"Hm. True. Okay then I'll book a viewing with the agent for this week. We'll take a day off." She said, sending a text on her phone. Probably to the agent. April tended to be nothing if not efficient. She sent the text and stuffed the phone in her back pocket. "I'm gonna go help Zozo put up the Barbie dream house. I always wanted one as a kid but it was so expensive my parents refused to buy it. Is it weird that I'm more excited about this than she is?" She said, laughing.

"Knock yourself out." I said, laughing along with her. I always found her innocence to be adorable. I turned back and topped my glass all the way. I hadn't felt like this in a while … almost ... giddy. What the hell was happening to me ?! This was April, my best FRIEND. Nothing more. I was just moving in with my best friend. That's it.

But here I was, grinning like an idiot. No. I was been ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous. April was a great cook, she did laundry (which he loathed doing) and she was his best friend. That's it. That's what the excitement was about. I wasn't going to question this beyond that. Although, there was this one tiny voice in my head that just might already know the answer.


THANK YOU FOR READING !

If you have some specific scenes between them that you'd like to see, I'm very open to incorporating those scenes into the story. You can find me on my tumblr blog "astoldbyacertifiedunicorn" :)