SEATTLE PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL || POST 6x24
"You can go home now."
Those words themselves were another stab to his body. Jackson stared blankly at the nurse who told him and eventually summoned the energy to nod at her words. She gave him a sympathetic look, the same one he'd been receiving non-stop since he arrived at Seattle Presbyterian, and walked briskly away. He'd been in her position before. She could sympathize with him, but she couldn't empathize and as she walked away he knew she was silently grateful that she couldn't.
He slid from the bed he'd been sitting on and turned to grab his jacket which he'd thrown carelessly over a chair. He hadn't really needed to be here but they'd been making all the staff who had been in 'crisis situations' get a check over. And he'd frankly been too tired to fight them.
As he slowly shrugged into his jacket he contemplated her words. Home. He hadn't even thought that far ahead but now he had to. He had nowhere else to go. Any time he'd ever wanted to escape 'home' he'd gone to the hospital, they all had, but that was now a murder scene, a multiple murder scene, and even if he'd been allowed he couldn't have faced it.
He ran a hand over his head. His home right now was an apartment that until several months ago he'd shared with his best friend and one other Mercy West resident. Lewis had lost his job in the merger and moved back to Texas and Jackson and Charles had taken on a stranger, a guy called Finn who was an English teacher and never washed his coffee cups. He was friendly, but they'd never become friends really because Jackson and Charles simply didn't have the time.
And now Jackson only shared with Finn because Charles, his best friend for five years, was dead.
Jackson knew he couldn't go back to that apartment.
He began to walk out of the make shift ER at Seattle Presbyterian and spotted her, her back to him, perched on another bed. He almost lost it just seeing here there but he swallowed town the fresh wave of tears and forced himself to move. He didn't realize until he walked up behind her that she was crying, but he could tell by the way her shoulders were shaking even if she wasn't making a sound.
"April?" He spoke as he placed a hand on her back but he should have realized it was a mistake. She jumped, almost falling off the bed, and turned to him with terrified eyes. There was only a second of relief that flickered across her expression before the terror resumed as her eyes darted over his face.
"J-Jackson?"
He moved around in front her, keeping one hand reassuringly on her arm. She was still crying, blinking at him through the tears. Vaguely he wondered if she even realized she was crying.
"Are you okay?" he asked then winced. People had been asking him that, people from the hospital that came through the make shift ER and recognized him. Every time he'd thought, 'what a stupid question'. Now he realized it was just reflex. April flinched at the question too. "Are you hurt?" he amended, glancing around and realizing there were no doctors nearby.
She shook her head. "No. They said just a mild concussion f-from when I f-fell." He watched her remember that moment, watched it play across her face. He'd been told by one of the nurses that had worked in the Peads ward that Reed was dead, that she'd been the first victim, that April had found her. His grip on her arm tightened slightly and it seemed to work. She pulled herself back from the dark place and quickly lifted a hand to wipe at her eyes. "Um and just s-shock. T-They said I can go h-home."
It hadn't occurred to him that she'd be in the same position as him. Both their homes were gone, even if they still stood. April shared a poky flat with Reed, and they had for the last 6 years. The four of them had had movie nights in their flat most Tuesdays during their first year as residents at Mercy West.
Jackson pushed back the memory.
"Let's get out of here," was all he said, stepping back to give her room to get off the bed. She slid off and stood next to him. 'Was she always this tiny?" he thought as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. They guided each other out of the chaos of the hospital and found themselves standing in the street lit parking lot outside. The sky was black but seemed to be tinged yellow by the eerie lights, and it had rained while they were in the hospital. Puddles splashed under their feet and the car lights reflected in the black sheen of the asphalt. Things had calmed down, marginally. Police had been doing a fairly good job of keeping the media away, and all of the victims and injured had been found by now and transferred either to the hospital or the morgue.
He shuddered at the thought. They'd both stopped by the curb because he realized they didn't know where to go. He ran through the possibilities in his head. His apartment was out of the question, he couldn't face telling Finn what happened. None of his family lived in Seattle and he wasn't sure he could have faced his mother's caring even if they did. All his friends worked at the hospital and the one's that weren't lying in a hospital bed at Seattle Presbyterian probably didn't feel like company. He suddenly realized how alone they'd all been. Him and Charles and Reed and April. None of them had had family in Seattle and none had really had time to form friendships outside the hospital. Perhaps that was why at some point in the last six years they'd become each other's family.
"Um…a-are you gonna go back to your place?" April pushed her hair out of her face as she turned to him. Her eyes kept darting around the parking lot, into the shadows, as if she expected to be attacked right there. At her nervousness Jackson felt his own insecurity rise and he couldn't help but glance once around them, even though logically he knew they were safe now.
He forced himself to focus back on her and shook his head. "I don't think I can go back there without…" he stopped, Charles' name hanging in the air between them. April looked up at him.
"I heard. I'm so sorry, Jackson."
He swallowed but it was getting harder to keep the tears down. He cried when they'd first told him but he'd never been one to cry in front of people much and so he'd stopped pretty quickly.
"Are you going…?" he asked hesitantly, reluctant to use the 'H word'.
April shook her head quickly. "No."
They fell into silence, broken by the sound of an ambulance siren. They both flinched and looked towards the hospital where the screaming vehicle was pulling up.
"More pain…more death," April murmured sadly, her eyes fixed to the ambulance. Jackson pulled his gaze away and looked at her, studying her expression.
"You can't let this make you hate the hospital, April. We can't let this change us." He wasn't sure he even believed what he was saying. Well, he did, but he just knew it wasn't that simple. He sure as hell didn't feel like he could take his own advice. April seemed to agree.
"How…how is this not supposed to change us, Jackson?" she demanded, looking back at him angrily. "People died today! Our best friends died today! Charles died today, Reed-" she stopped, her voice catching on the tears that were gathering, and she looked down, shaking her head as she tried to will the tears away.
He didn't say anything, partly because he wasn't sure there was anything to say and partly because he was having trouble stopping his own tears which had suddenly made it hard to even swallow. He cleared his throat gruffly and shook his head a little, staring into a streetlight so the bright light burnt away the tears in his eyes.
"I-I'm sorry, I'm...I didn't," April said, hiding her face with her hand and shaking her head. Jackson blinked away the spots in his vision before looking back at her.
Gently he placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's been a…long day-" April gave a short, bitter laugh and he couldn't help but match it with a bitter smile at the ridiculous weakness of the statement. "-we should try and get some sleep…or rest…or something," he finished.
"I don't have anywhere to go," April replied desolately, shrugging.
He frowned in thought for a moment, knowing she was right, and he was in exactly the same position. "Let's just go to a hotel or something," he sighed eventually. He was too tired to think of anything else.
"Wait, Jackson." She stopped, tugging on his hand. "I need to get some clothes." She stared at him nervously, biting her lip.
He ran a tired hand over his eyes. "Ugh you're right, I do to. I feel like I've been in these scrubs for days."
"Can we go together?" she asked in a small voice. He met her eyes somberly and nodded, no explanation needed on either of their parts. He thought he could manage a brief trip into his apartment but only if he had April by his side.
He got all the way to his front door before he stopped. He stared at it blankly for what felt like hours before he felt the warmth and comfort of April's hand slipping into his. That seemed to be enough to flood him with a momentary surge of courage to unlock the door and walk boldly through his apartment and straight to his bedroom. Finn was either out or asleep. He didn't allow himself to look around, he knew he'd only see things that hurt- Charles' sweater draped over the back of a chair, a half finished glass of orange juice on the counter, the spy film they'd been planning on watching together that night on the coffee table.
Even in his room he somehow managed to stop himself from thinking. April hovered awkwardly in the doorway, eyes darting over his bed and around his room, as he walked mechanically around, grabbing a mismatched set of clothes and stuffing his toothbrush into a bag with them. When he was done he paused and looked up and met her eyes briefly. He nodded and she gave him the smallest, saddest of smiles.
He thought her apartment would he harder. She'd always been the most emotionally fragile of their group, always the one who cried. Reed used to threaten to castrate them whenever anything they said made her cry.
But she walked into her apartment without hesitating, without flinching at the silence and the emptiness. It must be worse, he thought. At least he still had Finn in his. There was still that sense of life. But a cold shiver went down his spine as he walked through her front door. The place felt…dead, like the grave. He knew better than to follow her to her room, so he made it three steps into the living room and couldn't go any further. His gaze fell on Reed's laptop sitting on the table. It was still open, but off. There were half a dozen colourful post-it notes stuck to the screen. They were reminders; to return her mother's call; to check a case in a medical journal; to replace the milk. He knew Reed had a thing for post-it notes. They were for her what the little red journal was for April.
They were so normal, such a simple, basic thing and yet the sight of them nearly made him lose the composure he'd managed to regain. It was the same as the sweater, and the juice, and the film. It was the same as their coats still hanging in their lockers at the hospital, their lunches still sitting in the fridge of the lounge. It was the complete and utter suddenness of it, the realization that they had woken up this morning, like every other morning. Charles had left his glass on the counter thinking he could wash it when he returned. Reed had left her note thinking she could call her mother that evening. They'd all woken up this morning with no idea of what was going to happen. His friends hadn't known they weren't coming home.
The thought made his head hurt. He felt like it was going to explode with the horrific realization that any one of them could be dead, at any moment, on any day. Every single morning he could get up and go to the hospital and not come home. He could be hit by a car outside the apartment, he could be mugged in the parking lot…he could be gunned down in his own hospital.
He shook his head to try and stop it hurting but it just made it worse. There was a rushing sound that grew louder and louder in his ears.
"Jackson?" The roaring stopped, but the pain didn't, and he lifted his eyes to meet hers. She looked worried; small, pale, frightened and worried.
"They didn't see it coming," was all he could get out. His eyes darted wildly around her apartment, somehow managing to see everything that he knew one person wouldn't be coming home to. "They got up this morning…and…no one could know…they couldn't see it coming…."
April was staring at him, her expression completely unreadable. "I walked into that storage closet today," she said quietly, and it was the absence of noise that somehow managed to clear his head, pull his attention solely back to her, focus in on her voice. "I walked into that storage closet in the ER like I had half a dozen times every day this week. But this morning when I did, instead of gauze and chest tubes, I…I found the body of my best friend, a bullet hole in her head, more blood than I'd ever seen in my life everywhere around her, and her eyes…her eyes were just staring at me."
He didn't say anything. He realized there wasn't a point to what she was saying, she wasn't trying to comfort him or calm his panic, she was feeling it just as much as he was and she didn't have calming or comforting things to say. She was staring numbly ahead and he wondered if she was staring into Reed's blank eyes in her mind.
Earlier he'd desperately wished he had seen Charles, spoken to him one last time, been there so he'd had someone familiar with him when he died. But now, looking at April, he was suddenly glad he hadn't. He hadn't seen Charles' body and he never would and so in his head his friend was only ever alive. He suspected that April would ever be able to remember Reed alive without seeing her dead. That was like losing them twice over, the reality and the memory.
"You ready?" he asked after a long pause. Ready to get out of here? Ready to run away? Ready to hide?
April's eyes fluttered as she focused back on him but she nodded. She had a small satchel in her hand and slung it over her shoulder. He moved aside, letting her go ahead of him as they walked back to the apartment door in silence. Suddenly she stopped dead and he nearly bumped into her.
"Wait," she said, spinning around. She darted around him and marched over to the table. He watched her in confusion, wondering what she was doing. Firmly she slammed the lid of Reed's laptop shut, hiding the post-it notes from view. Jackson felt a shiver of cold air run over him but he shook it off. When she turned back to him April had tears in her eyes again but she looked stronger than before. "Now I'm ready," she said quietly.
As they walked into a hotel lobby, got a room, and walked silently through the hallways, Jackson couldn't help but think how surreal it all felt. No one looked at them strangely. He had to remind himself that for most other people, this was just a normal day in their lives. Most people hadn't spent the last 24 hours surrounded by guns and pain and death and fear.
"None of this feels real." April voiced his thoughts as he tried to open the room door.
When the clerk had asked them how many rooms they'd like he'd glanced at her, silently hoping she wouldn't want two. He didn't think he could handle being on his own with only the darkness and his own thoughts tonight. The relief when she'd answered for him, asked for one room, had almost made him dizzy.
It was basic but he really didn't care. He dumped his bag on a chair and walked straight to the window, looking out at the twinkling lights in the darkness. He heard April shut the door quietly behind her.
"I-I'm glad you're here," he said awkwardly. "April…I'm just glad you're here."
She carefully placed her bag on the chair next to his before she looked at him. When she did his breath caught in his chest. "I wouldn't be anywhere else, Jackson. Now…it's…it's me and you."
He found that he hadn't forgotten how to smile after all. He could smile at that, albeit sadly. He could smile at her. "Me and you."
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first oneshot. I was thrilled at the response!