A/N: Hello again everybody! Thank you so so much for your response to the first chapter of this story. I really appreciate it, since I know it's a weird concept. As of publication, most of this actually seems to still fit in with canon season 10, though starting at the end of this chapter things are probably going to branch off. Usual disclaimers: I am not a doctor nor am I a scientist. Anything in this story is based off of what I found on googleBonus points to any readers who can identify the reference made to an amazing fic in this chapter. Thank you all so much for reading and please let me know what you think! April's first perspective chapter is coming soon. Enjoy!


All Brawn and No Brain

Jackson Avery fell asleep during his first Harper Avery Foundation Board meeting.

Unintentionally, of course.

But then again, he'd only been 15 years old and it was kind of boring and he'd spent most of the previous night cramming for a chemistry final that he had to take as soon as he got back to his boarding school from Boston. A test he could have bene taking right at that very moment, if not for the fact that his family (mostly his mother) had insisted that Jackson start sitting in on stupid board meetings of his Grandpa's organization. As a result, Jackson had had to get special permission to reschedule a private final from the headmaster.

On top of all of that, Jackson had to go directly from his test to basketball tryouts. So, not only was Jackson losing study time by going to this stupid meeting, but he was missing warm up time too.

And yet, his Mom expected him to excel in his studies and his sports activities. How was he supposed to do that if he had to come to boring ass meetings?

Why did Jackson have to start sitting in now when he was still in high school? If he was going to get stuck inheriting the role eventually (and he'd known for most of his life that he had no choice about that), why couldn't Catherine have allowed him to have just a few more years of freedom?

It's not like his mom and grandpa really thought he could make much of a difference anyway.

To them, Jackson was just a boy. Interested in sports, and girls, and Nike shoes. (That's not to say that he wasn't interested in those things as a teenager, but he'd always resented the way much of his family saw him.)

They thought he couldn't hack it in the field of medicine like they did. (How wrong that assumption would turn out to be) Their lack of faith in him was probably why they insisted Jackson come to the dumb meetings in the first place. Because they thought it would be hard for him and wanted to get him learning early. Because they thought that working at the Harper Avery Foundation was as close to a surgical OR as Jackson could ever get.

And why? Was it all because he'd had a hard time in biology for a few years in middle school? He'd managed to get a passing grade in the end. Was it because he'd accidentally slept through football tryouts? Jackson didn't know. He didn't even like football all that much anyway.

In time, Jackson suspected that maybe they'd been worried he would end up like his father. Julian hadn't been able to hack it as a doctor. Or as anything else, as far as Jackson had heard. Julian didn't make an effort to keep in touch.

And what did Julian's failure have to do with him? Jackson barely remembered his father.

He didn't think they were at all alike. To be honest, Jackson preferred not to think of Julian at all. In fact he made a point not to. No matter what anyone else thought about him, even at age 15, Jackson knew he was stronger than his father.

It just seemed like someone always had something to say about him. No matter what Jackson did. No matter how hard he tried or didn't try. If he succeeded people acted like he hadn't really earned it because of his famous family, and if he failed people said it was because he was a lazy rich pretty boy. It really almost wasn't worth making an effort in the first place. Jackson's actions were always the actions of an Avery before anything else.

He could never win. It wasn't fair.

And it always felt like his family was trying to be simultaneously hard and easy on him. Not pressuring him in one sense and pressuring him in another. His grandfather didn't seem to expect him to amount too much, while his mother seemed to expect him to become president of the United States.

It seemed everyone and anyone had an opinion of what Jackson was like. What the grandson of Harper Avery should be like. What the son of Catherine Avery should become.

But no one ever asked him. That got on Jackson's nerves. No on ever asked him what he wanted. And no one ever seemed willing to get close enough to him to find out.

Another thing people assumed about Avery's? That they were all as distant, aloof, and stuck up as his grandfather.

At least his ailing grandmother always liked Jackson just the way he was. Not that she saw him much when he was in high school. Elizabeth was sick with cancer and Jackson was all the way in Connecticut most of the time for school.

He'd just nodded off, thinking about the indignity and pointlessness of others expectations of him, and letting his head hang forward over the files in front of him. Jackson's mother Catherine, only rolled her eyes fondly as she nudged the teenager awake with a snort. His grandfather, however, did not overlook Jackson's drowsiness so easily.

"Are you with us, Jackie?" he'd asked incredulously from the other side of the table.

Embarrassed, Jackson had sat up straight and nodded, "Yeah, I am."

"Hmmm..."

Harper pursed his lips and swiveled his chair and regarded the rest of the room seriously, "As we've all just learned, the Roslin institute has cloned a sheep! It'll be news out to the broader public in a number of weeks, and given the stem cell technique used, and the fact that they were able to create a successful clone of a higher order complex mammal, I think we as a Foundation need to start considering the longer term implications of such procedures on the medical field."

Jackson's eyes widened and he scrambled to look through the files in front of him. Cloning? Whoa! He must have missed that in the briefs. Clearly he should have read them more thoroughly. This was cool stuff. The kind of stuff his classmates weren't privy to. The kind of stuff you read about in books or saw in movies.

Only, according to Jackson's grandfather, it was real.

"Cloned?" he said in awe. "Cloned cloned? But how did they do it? Why did they do it? There's a real clone?"

Harper gave his grandson a withering look. Clearly the old man was not interested in being interrupted. Or in explaining the background of all of this to someone he'd known had been half asleep for most of the meeting. Jackson gulped and ducked his head. Sometimes as a teenager he'd found his grandfather to be incredibly intimidating.

Scratch that.

Most of the time Jackson found Harper Avery to be incredibly intimidating.

Catherine nudged her son gently, never dropping her cool expression for the rest of the board, and whispered, "Page 36, Jackson, honey."

Grateful to be rescued, the teenager had quickly flipped through the mass of papers in front of him. There is was. A picture of a fluffy little white lamb named Dolly. A clone of her mother, apparently. A cute and adorable little animal.

An adorable animal's who's DNA was the stuff of science fiction.

"Cool," Jackson breathed, with a faint smile.

For the first time, he'd thought that maybe these meetings weren't going to be so lame after all.

(Unfortunately, even as a grown man, this first meeting was pretty much the high point of Jackson's experience. The Harper Avery Foundation was powerful and well connected and cutting edge, but even they didn't get to work with clones everyday.)

Jackson stared, transfixed by Dolly's image as his grandfather continued to drone on.

"It doesn't take much stretching of the imagination to understand the ramifications of this successful cloning on the medical field. If the clone continues to be healthy, and does not suffer any adverse effects from being a clone, then that opens up a whole host of opportunities for medical and surgical application."

An affirmative murmur filled the room and out of the corner of his eye, Jackson had caught sight of his mother nodding vigorously. Everyone in the boardroom was getting really excited.

One of the other board members shook his head in disbelief, "If physicians can access stem cells and successfully copy them?"

"We could someday be able to give people copies of their own genetic organs in lieu of waiting for transplant matches!" Catherine replied enthusiastically.

"We could rejuvenate any dying or unhealthy cells with perfect copies of new ones!" A female board member added.

A glint of something youthful appeared in Harper's eye. He always seemed less severe when he was contemplating the frontiers of medicine.

"This breakthrough likely opens possibilities for us to develop procedures we can't ever even dream of! If the Harper Avery Foundation invests in the Roslin Institute and their work with this clone, we can obtain intellectual property rights to the fruits of that research, and use it for future medical endeavors."

Jackson's eyes widened. His mind started to run wild with the possibilities. What if doctors could someday clone humans? Like if you got old and rickety and then they could just transfer your brain into a new and young body?

That was one of the first times Jackson could remember being truly and fundamentally awed by the possibilities of science.

"Some medical organizations are going to shy away from this kind of development, Harper," his mother added with a sigh. "I mean, we invest in this and the religious right will, no doubt accuse us of trying to play God. You remember what happened with the reproductive rights grant initiative a few years back...we lost some donors."

Harper huffed, and rolled his eyes, "Ah, yes. They'll fight tooth and nail to ensure that people are born, but don't give a rat's behind about what happens to you once you get here. Yes, we lost donors. Investing in Roslin will probably lose us some donors...but the things we could develop as a result of adding them to our portfolio? That's worth it. Any donor or member who wouldn't support that? Well, they don't support our mission."

It seemed that Harper was gearing up to another one of his speeches, extolling the virtues of medical and surgical progress. Jackson had learned the signs long ago, on the holidays and at family gatherings of his childhood. "Jackie," his grandfather would say over and over again. "There is no nobler calling than that which pushes back against the mysteries of the universe with the express and singular purpose of helping others."

Jackson knew the words by heart.

At that particular meeting Jackson had tuned out, and let his cheek rest on his fist as his gaze drifted back down to the files in front of him. His gaze had been inexplicably drawn to the photo of Dolly. His mood became pensive.

"We believe in research," Harper continued passionately. "We believe in science. We believe in helping people. Donors who do not share those values are frankly not worth our time."

He didn't know much about sheep, but something about Dolly spoke to Jackson. Which, even at the time, he'd realized was a little weird.

"I agree with you," Catherine interjected her father in law calmly. "But we also must consider the publicity impact as well. We're still getting some backlash about the women's health clinics in certain parts of the country...it might be better to go in as a silent backer for Roslin until some of of that dies down. We still get access to the intellectual property but-"

"While normally I would bend to your wisdom, Catherine," Harper interrupted, pointing his finger decisively on the table in front of him. "I don't want to be silent and smoke and mirrors with this investment. I want the record to show where the Foundation stood on this issue, and that we put our money were our mouth is. This sheep and the technology used to create her, and the technology she will help to spawn is something I want the public and posterity to know we care about! My legacy, this foundation's legacy, is always going to focus on innovation."

Looking at the picture of the small white lamb, Jackson considered that Dolly had no idea what she was. She was only farm animal after all. He didn't know much about livestock, but he was pretty certain that they had no concept of cloning. He wondered if she knew she wasn't a normal sheep. Maybe it was better not to know.

Dolly was special. The way she came into being had been scientifically impossible a matter of years previous. Dolly was going to be watched and monitored and studied her whole life. Whether she liked it or not. Everyone had plans for her. Human beings across the world had a million ideas for what her legacy would be.

She had no choice. She'd probably just keep on living her sheep life, regardless. It's not like Dolly could change her fate.

"Jackie? Are you paying attention? You will have to deal with these matters someday, you know? You might at least pay attention to how we resolve issues like this. This foundation will be yours to guide someday my boy..."

Strangely, Jackson had realized that he had quite a lot in common with certain sheep in Scotland. And he supposed they only way to cope would be to think more simply. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Take care of yourself. Deal with what is in front of you, screw what happened behind you and don't worry about what is ahead.

Jackson's head snapped up, flushing with embarrassment once more, "Uh, yes Grandpa. I'm listening...I am..."


The more things change, the more they stayed the same.

Even over 15 years later, his grandfather still punctuated any silence in a board meeting with the glaringly condescending, "Are you with us, Jackie?", recalling Jackson's youthful behavior. As though he hadn't grown or changed or accomplished anything as a man in the intervening years. As though he hadn't become a certified ENT and plastics fellow. As though he hadn't taken on the role of being Harper Avery representative on the board at Grey Sloan. None of that seemed to matter much to his grandfather.

To Harper, he was still sleepy, mediocre Jackie.

And it wasn't like Jackson's coworkers really respected him either. Not even his fellow board members. Especially his fellow board members. If Meredith wasn't giving him the silent treatment over Yang not winning the Harper Avery Award, Bailey was staring him down for trying to alter the level of funding for her research.

And Webber was chewing him out and cutting him out at every turn. Acting as though the partnership between the hospital and the foundation was a doomed marriage. Never mind the fact that there would be no Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital at all, if it wasn't for the Harper Avery Foundation.

They didn't get it. Jackson had nothing to do with this years award selection. He wasn't trying to cancel all their projects. He was trying to save them. You'd think his fellow board members would be grateful.

But no.

They blamed him for it and badgered him for it, and it wasn't even as though Jackson had asked for the position on the board in the first place. He never wanted to be chair of the board. As much as Jackson thought he'd learned to handle the responsibility of the position, that was all his mother's idea.

Jackson had to admit that while he'd long chaffed at on the leash of his name and family, lately it had had it's perks. He really did enjoy being on the Grey Sloan board, representing the Harper Avery Foundation. Though he'd never have picked the position for himself, but Jackson thought he was decent at it. And not every doctor could save a kid's life by ordering a private plane.

For all he'd tried to downplay his Avery background at the hospital, in the end, it was his background that had saved the place. Catherine, (and subsequently the Harper Avery's Foundation) wouldn't have been half as interested in saving the hospital and it's surgeons in the first place (from a mess that was basically self created, no less), if not for the fact that Jackson had a history and a connection to the place. Without him, Grey Sloan Memorial wouldn't even exist. But no one seemed to notice that.

The Harper Avery Foundation, for their part, was not unaware of how unhappy the board members of Grey Sloan seemed to be. His mother had called him just that evening as a matter of fact. Bugging him to get things in order on his end. It was bad publicity to have a staff at a member hospital being so outspoken in their opposition to the Harper Avery Foundation. Grey Sloan was dangerously close to becoming a liability, and Harper Avery Foundation was never loathe to let go of liabilities.

A lot of the time as an adult Jackson still felt like he couldn't win.

Except for the times he did.

Jackson smiled as he looked to his right at the woman who was snuggled against him in the chapel pew. April. His wife.

Big win.

The concept was still new and hard to believe. He was so lucky. Jackson had literally almost let April slip away. He'd been stuck in a well of pride and denial, and he'd very nearly allowed April to marry someone else. She'd gotten down the aisle before he'd grown the balls to ask for what he wanted. Before he told her that he loved her. Which, Jackson admitted, was terribly terribly timed.

But hey, April had run out of the barn with him. She'd gone to Lake Tahoe to get married to him. She was having a baby with him.

A baby. (He definitely wasn't used to saying that)

For so long Jackson had been used to being set apart from everyone else. To having his own back. To protecting himself, and the few people he cared about. Today, April had reminded him that he wasn't a lone ranger anymore. Webber had laid into him, again in the gallery outside the conjoined twin surgery, in front of both attendings and residents alike, but April had shut the old man down. She had Jackson's back (even in the midst of a bit of a tense transition in their own married life). It was a great reminder for Jackson. Old habits die hard, he supposed, but he now could (and needed to learn how to) lean on April.

Because she'd be there for Jackson when he needed.

Beside him, April nestled closer against his shoulder and let out a small but content sigh, making Jackson's smile broaden. It was the happiest he'd seen her in a while. It was the happiest he'd felt in a while. What a crazy month.

Beyond his ongoing work woes, the past several days had brought Jackson and April to the first real fight of their marriage.

It all started with the deaf kid, and spiraled out of control from there. One minute they were talking about cochlear implants, the next about their own hypothetical deaf child, and the next the fact that April thought he didn't respect her religious beliefs. Jackson loved April, but sometimes he didn't always understand her intuitive leaps. At the time, it had totally thrown him for a loop.

Why did it have to be so difficult? Why couldn't they just enjoy being newly married? They finally were together after so long. Why couldn't she just let things be until they actually had to worry about what religion they raised their children in?

Of course, it turned out she was pregnant and they did have to worry about it. And so some of April's urgency and anxiety made sense. Some of it.

Jackson had to admit to himself that he didn't really understand religion. The Avery's weren't exactly religious, and he'd always been taught to put faith in the mind, man, and medicine. Often it seemed that religion could be an obstacle for things the Avery foundation wanted to do. And it wasn't as though faith or any concept close to it had ever actually gotten Jackson anywhere.

Jackson was certain that God and religion were just societal constructs.

In his life, there was little room for believe in magic of faith in the unknown. It didn't do any good. Evidence and past experiences ruled paramount. Wishing for his father to come home never worked. Wishing his grandfather could find a cure for his grandmother had failed. Wishing that people would see and get to know Jackson for who he really was, beyond his last name didn't make the occurrence any less rare.

Somethings about the universe were immutable and unchanging. And it could all be measured by observation and explained by science. That's what Jackson believed. That's what life had taught him to believe.

But April pitied him for that. Which was hard to take.

Almost as hard as her initial reveal about her religion to Jackson in San Francisco. That had floored him as well. Of all the things Jackson had expected April to say to him out side their board exams, essentially 'I was a virgin for Jesus and now Jesus hates me' was absolute dead least on his list. This was a person he'd known for years, someone he cared about, and the fact that April was a deeply devout Christian never came up in conversation. And how important could her vow of abstinence have been if she was able to give it up so many times?

That was still hard for Jackson to wrap his head around. On some level Jackson kind of chalked up April's religion as another quirk in an already quirky personality. It was easier to rationalize that way. Easier to ignore. Less of a problem. Jackson didn't know why it bothered him so much.

Part of it was because it seemed to Jackson like April's religion had caused the two of them a lot more trouble that it appeared to be worth. That's where her guilt and regret had come from in their initial relationship, after all. Jackson felt like April's beliefs only ever came up when it related to something that would make him feel miserable and threw a wrench in their life.

Jackson slipped his copy of the sonogram picture out of his pocket and held it out in front of them. April glanced tearfully at the paper, and ran her fingers along the outline of their baby. A whole new being created (quite vigorously) by the two of them. Part Jackson and part April, but also completely new. Completely his or her little self.

Blueberry sized.

When he really thought about it, the church thing probably wouldn't be so terrible. April obviously felt much stronger about her belief in the existence of God than he did in his views against the idea. While he was still skeptical about it all, Jackson figured he didn't have to change what he believed. He just had to push it all down and away from the fore. The same way he did with a lot of unpleasant feelings.

Jackson didn't have to try to change who he was. He just had to bend.

This didn't have to make Jackson feel miserable or throw a wrench in his life. Work might suck at the moment, but Jackson ought to be happy about his life at home.

So, Jackson had slowly come to the realization that church was going to have to be a part of his life, whether he believed in it's teachings or not. (He didn't) His children would be exposed to it as well, whether they grew to believe in it all or not. (If he was perfectly honest with himself, Jackson kind of hoped that they wouldn't) He would expose them to his own belief system as now, Jackson was okay with that.

And the seats weren't that bad. And a Sunday waffles tradition might be fun. A fun thing to do with the not so hypothetical child. The kind of fun thing he'd rarely ever gotten to do with his own mother and father growing up.

Jackson wanted them to be happy about this.

He shook his head and chuckled, recalling April at lunch talking about baby names. Looking down at the sonogram, Jackson stretched his feet forward, "What about Jordan, if it's a boy?"

April peered up at him with a scowl and then followed Jackson's gaze down past the photograph to his sneakers, "As long as I am conscious, I will not let you name our child after a pair of shoes."

It seemed they had as different of taste in baby names as they did belief systems. He smirked, "A pair of shoes named after a great basketball player."

She shook her head, "No."

"Great name, boy or girl..."

"Jackson!"

"Alright," Jackson laughed. "Just saying."

April laughed too, gazing at the sonogram once more, with a look of wonder that she hadn't displayed in the appointment that morning. Jackson pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

"Also...um, thanks," he added quietly. "For today...with Webber. That was pretty awesome."

She shook her head, "Of course. He was wrong. He shouldn't talk to you that way...it's not right. "

"It's just...I get that he's mad about Yang. I get that they all are."

"You didn't have anything to do with that, Jackson."

"I know! And my mom's calling me all the time and the board doesn't exactly appreciate the fact that Grey Sloan is making it look like the Foundation is stifling their doctors. She's not happy about this appeal. Webber and the rest, I get where they are coming from. But...this could get bad. This hospital needs the Harper Avery Foundation a lot more than the foundation needs the hospital."

April frowned and looked up at him again, "What does that mean?"

Jackson shrugged, "I am hoping it doesn't come to that. I am gonna try and make sure it doesn't."

"Anything I can do?"

Where once Jackson would have said no right away, outright (because none of this was her problem really), he paused, tiling his head to once side. The thing was, Jackson was used to dealing with all things Avery, all on his own. It was his family, and therefore his problem. Except now, he had another family. This little family. Him, April, and this baby. They were Avery's too. Jackson took a deep breath.

Being together was infinitely better than being alone.

"Actually, if it gets down to the wire with the board...I might need your help."

April wrapped an arm around Jackson, and grinned, "Anytime."

Big win.

Too bad wins never seemed to last that long. If only life were that easy.

There were sonograms to come and check up appointments to come in the ensuing weeks and each seemed to be more joyful than the last. Jackson always made a point to come and delighted in watching as their blueberry turned into a grape. It was an amazing thing. He and April had this wonderful secret all to themselves, having chosen to hold off on telling people (though Jackson was sure a few could guess) about the pregnancy until they'd safely reached the second trimester. They dared to daydream, bickered over names, and tried to imagine what their baby would look like.

Jackson watched and touched as his wife's once flat abdomen began to grow, forming a small and distinct curve in her belly where their grape baby progressed to it's next stage of fruit. Noticeable if you knew to look (or knew the curves of April's body as intimately as Jackson did), but still small enough to leave most unaware.

Once again they were back in a little bubble of happiness, not unlike their rather short lived honeymoon period, and in it Jackson found bliss.

Especially given the fact that he still got grief from both the hospital board and his mother about Cristina Yang, researched funding, staff retention and anything else the two groups found to get angry at each other about. Grey Sloan Memorial was threatening mutiny. The Harper Avery Foundation was threatening to withdraw funding.

Jackson was caught in the middle. His mother wanted him to pull rank on the board and make the rest of the members all into line.

"This is how you lead, son," Catherine advised many times on the phone. "This is what I raised you to do. Get your legacy on. Lead them from their own insanity. Or cut them loose. There's no choice."

Sometimes it felt like he almost never had a choice.

In life, people liked to think that they had control over things. Like you had the power over whatever happened to the people you loved. No one liked feeling powerless.

None the less, Jackson had worked at this hospital long enough to learn that powerlessness is almost a default human state. So many things are out of your control. Gunmen barge into hospitals, planes fall from the sky, and terrorists decide to blow up a truck outside a busy shopping center.

At least, that's what they'd thought at the time. It had been all over the news as the patients started to pour in and Jackson had suddenly found himself inundated with cases. Burns and skin lacerations and amputations. All gruesome. And even though the terror attack wasn't actually a terror attack it was still wreaking havoc on Seattle.

Jackson had spent most of that day in emergency surgeries, trying to salvage what he could of victims skin for future grafting. The last time he'd caught sight of his wife was as he took a patient out of triage on his way to an OR. April had been in her element, running the Emergency Room like a factory assembly line, with her arms in the air as she spoke with the residents. Half like she was a traffic cop directing chaotic traffic, and half like she was a conductor directing a glorious symphony.

Safe and in control. In the ER. Her space. Just another day at the office, right?

And maybe it was the rush of patients, or the relief of finding out that this explosion was terrible accident and not a malicious attack, or the fact that he was ignoring the 11th message left on his phone from his mother (which he knew was probably about the foundation and not terrorism), or perhaps the small but confident nod his wife had given him when he saw her in the ER, but Jackson had let his guard down that day. He'd zoned in on his work and his patients and it had never occurred to him that anything could go wrong. He should have been paying better attention.

That an accident could still be just as bad and just as dangerous as an act of terror, even long after the explosions were finished.

Jackson hadn't even been fully able to process the situation when it was initially explained to him. He just couldn't hear the words over the suddenly thundering sound of his pulse, and the rising panic in his chest.

He gaped at Richard Webber and blinked, "I'm sorry, what?"

Board related animosity aside, Webber watched Jackson kindly. He was accompanied by a couple of official looking individuals with jackets that indicated they were from the CDC.

Richard sighed , slipping his hands to his hips as he repeated, "The truck that exploded...It was a chemical waste transport."

One of the CDC officials jumped in, "One of the patients, the driver, who came into the hospital and subsequently passed away, exposed high levels of chemical radiation to the physicians that worked on him or near him. We believe that the source was localized to that single patient so there doesn't seem to be too high of a risk for the hospital at large, though we are monitoring that very closely and treating those who were exposed."

Jackson flinched as Webber reached out to squeeze his shoulder, "Most of the ER staff are under quarantine. Including Dr. Kepner."

He wasn't usually one to invoke a higher power. But...

Oh God.

His wife. His child. A whole hot of possibilities ran through his mind. Chemicals and radiation. None of that was good. It wasn't good for a normal healthy person, and it wasn't good for a pregnant woman. And it sure as hell wasn't good for a grape sized, still developing, fetus.

The sheer Jackson's face must have been clear and he fumbled, "But they were following protocols. Masks and gowns and gloves and-"

"With levels that high, most precautions don't prevent exposure completely. They certainly protected the individuals involved. We don't expect many casualties from this, and that's down to your hospital's effective and proper use of safety standards."

Jackson was already staggering down the hall, using his feet and what was left of his rational mind to guide himself to Grey Sloan's designated quarantine space.

"Many casualties?" he demanded aggressively. "You don't expect many?"

Maddeningly indifferent (at least to Jackson's eyes) the other official explained, "The quarantine is more of a precaution than anything else. Only a few of them are exhibiting symptoms. Fatigue, itching. That sort of thing. Some have rashes. A few have respiratory distress. One presenting with extreme nausea-"

And that was the last Jackson heard because he was running. He didn't even care about whatever it was Webber was calling out after him, or about anything else the CDC had to say. Because he was running. He was running down one hall and the next. He was flying down the stairs and dashing through more halls.

Jackson was running to his family.

At some point a pair of gruff arms blocked his way, "Sir! Sir! You can't go past this point. This is a quarantine zone."

"I don't give a damn!" Jackson shouted, straining to break free. Because even though he understood the importance and necessity of not breaking quarantines in dangerous situations, all he could think about was April. Was she alright? He didn't even want to let himself think too much about what radiation exposure could mean for the baby.

Suddenly it was hard to breathe.

A pair of gentler hands guided him in a different direction, away from the disgruntled CDC official.

"Avery..." Arizona spoke quietly, leading him down a different hallway. "They're not gonna let you in. The CDC hasn't let any of us in. They've got their own people handling this. Come with me. You have to go the back way, to the windows..."

She led Jackson quickly through the growing plethora of CDC doctors who seemed to be arriving and descending upon the hospital like locusts. Through hallways that once had seemed familiar and welcoming to him, but which now only held terror and fear, finally stopping in front of the long floor to ceiling window of what was once a Grey's Sloan waiting room.

Through the glass Jackson could see the rows of hospital beds lined up in the small space they'd converted for quarantine. Beds that were supposed to be for patients, now filled with faces Jackson knew. Dr. Conrad and Dr. Myers. A few others. Most looked fine. They were sitting up and on the edges of beds, looking bored and frustrated as they anxiously typed on their phones.

Bokhee had wore an oxygen mask. Nurse Tyler looked uncomfortable and lay curled up in a ball on his bed, scratching furiously against his his upper arms. Murphy appeared to be worse off then him. Angry red rashes covered the parts of exposed skin that Jackson could see as the young woman moaned pitifully, sweating and laying in a fetal position in her bed. A CDC nurse, decked out in protective clothing that looked like it was designed for outer space, was carefully applying a cream to the back of Leah's neck.

But Jackson's gaze froze when he saw who occupied the bed in the corner, set apart among the rest with a small curtain, and nearest to the window. It was April, looking pale and uncomfortable, and holding a red biohazard bag in her lap as a different CDC nurse appeared to be taking her vitals.

The need for the bag (and the curtain) became immediately apparent, when April leaned forward and wretched into the bag violently. Jackson and Arizona both winced.

This was torture. Jackson felt powerless. He could see April, but he couldn't touch her.

Jackson placed his hand on the quarantine glass just as April looked up and met his wide eyed gaze. It seemed as though she was about to say something to him, because she pulled a brief weak smile, but the moment was quickly lost when she doubled over and vomited into the bio bag once again.

Bubbles pop so easily. And as ever, it just seemed like Jackson couldn't win.