First off: thank you to all who reviewed for all your kind words, it means a lot to me that you would take the time to review! I hope you like this chapter, and please do tell me if whether you do or not!

The storm had abated and now the clouds were drifting off, revealing a deep blue sky fading to pink at the horizon.

Jackson was about to be discharged, and was trying to get a sweatshirt on, carefully manouvering his injured arm. Suddenly, a pair of hands were there helping him, lifting the shirt so he could put his good arm through it. Gratefully, he looked up to find Stephanie looking at him, her dark eyes full of concern.

'Hey,' he said.

'Hi! I heard all about your superhero move, are you alright?'

'Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. How did you get through the storm?'

'I'm fine, the babies all made it, but did you hear about Webber?' Stephanie asked, quite excitedly. Jackson nodded and winced slightly.

'Dr Torres told me. Do you know anything? Is he out of the woods?'

'I saw him being wheeled into the ICU when I was on my way down here. He did not look good, I can hardly believe he made it out alive. Electrocuted through the right arm, and the current in those generators can't be weak, either.'

Jackson closed his eyes in an attempt to not imagine it. Stephanie seemed to catch up on it and hurriedly tried to put it right.

'Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you are all kind of close, aren't you?' She took his hand to comfort him.

'It's fine,' he said, 'did the ER docs take care of it or was it someone else?'

'Hunt and Bailey, I think, actually,' she said and then hesitated for a moment.

'Not Dr Kepner?' He hated himself for asking but he couldn't help it. He wanted to know if that's what she'd rushed off to without a word. Not that he'd said anything either.

'Oh, yes, that's right, her too. I guess they needed all trauma expertise that they could get', she replied.

'Then he's in good hands,' he said simply.

Stephanie put her hand around his waist. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and they sat there for a little while, not saying anything.

This was so simple, no back-and-forth, at least not from Stephanie's side, and no question about whether she wanted to be with him or not. No shame, no weird metaphors. She was strong and independent, yet not completely wrapped up in her own little bubble. And itt was easy to ignore that he didn't know her worst nightmare, or what the best day of her life had been like.

'I need to call my mother,' he said, suddenly realizing.

'Oh, what for? To tell her about the exploding bus?'

'Uh, yeah, that's right.' The lie came easily. 'She's probably worried sick, she needs to know I survived the storm.'

'Okay, I'll give you some privacy then. Say hi from me!' she said, jumping up. Then she realized what she'd said. *Or, you know, don't. Whatever.' She hurried off, making Jackson chuckle a bit.

He pulled out his phone and looked at it, contemplating for a moment. As much as he didn't want to be the one to bring the bad news to her, he knew it had to come from him. And then he had April to think about as well. What was he going to say to her? He honestly didn't know right then. Being with Stephanie was so much easier, yet he couldn't ignore what he felt towards April. But the initial sheer joy of what he heard had been quickly stifled when he had repeated her words in his mind. I want you. Unless you can give me a reason not to.

He sighed, pushed away the thoughts of his best friend and dialed his mother's number.

'Hey, mom. Did I wake you? No, I'm fine, totally fine. Now, don't freak out but Webber's had an accident.'

-

His discharge completed, Jackson texted April before he went up to his office to finish some paperwork. He'd have time to check on Dr Webber before he could catch a cab home.

Almost an hour later Jackson stepped out of Richard's room. The sight of the older surgeon would not be helping him sleep later, of that he was sure. Although all the burned skin had been covered in bandages, he was attached to a ventilator and it did not look good at all. Jackson stretched his neck, absentmindedly trying to flex it, wanting to rid himself of the rather unreasonable guilt he felt tbecausehe wouldn't be able to attend to Richard's burns himself. And despite seeing patients like this all the time, it never got better and without the aid of personal distance it was even worse. Images of Mark in his last days of life flashed before his eyes and he closed them, trying to will the memories away.

Looking for a distraction, he pulled out his phone. No reply from April. As a last measure he checked if she was still on-call, but the schedule told him she'd gone home. So she'd left and wasn't even answering his texts. He sighed and decided to head home himself.

-

The sun was set high in the sky when April woke up from her troubled sleep. She rolled over in her bed and feared the prospect of getting back to that hospital, the Chief attached to ventilator and Jackson continuing to scowl. Although she couldn't know that for sure, perhaps he'd changed his mind, perhaps she'd only imagined his expression.

Sighing, she checked her phone. A new message from Jackson, sent in the early morning hours. With trembling hands, she pushed 'read': Are you still at the hospital? We need to talk.

Back at the hospital, April considered not looking for Jackson at first, not wanting to hear his disdain at what she'd said. But as she walked round a corner on her way up to round on patients, she saw Jackson and Stephanie the intern chatting, Jackson leaning over the disc and Stephanie sitting at a computer. She stopped and watched them for a minute. It didn't look like an intimate moment, but Jackson was smiling. Then, Stephanie stood up from her chair, gave Jackson a light peck on the lips and swept away. April felt a prickling behind her eyes and abruptly turned to go back the other way. She was not ready to hear it from him just yet.

Again, she collided with someone, Alex Karev this time.

'Why are you in such a hurry, Kepner? The ER's the other way if you wanted to go make googly eyes at that paramedic of yours!' He laughed at the apparent confusion on April's face.

'What? No, I... Actually, we broke up last night so I'll probably try to avoid the ER for the next couple of...hours, I guess,' she said unthinkingly.

'You broke up? Why?' Alex looked surprised, and April could well understand why. The paramedic had been just as dorky as she was, a perfect fit, she'd heard throughout the hospital that day.

'It's hard to explain,' she began, surprised that his reaction was something other than total indifference. She stopped herself when she saw his raised eyebrows and relented. 'I'm in love with someone else, okay? Just don't tell anyone!'

'You know I don't really care anyway. Are you going to tell him?' He nodded at someone behind April's back, causing her to whirl around. It was Jackson, walking towards them at a brisk pace.

'Dude, I think you and April here need to talk,' Alex said in a bored voice and swerved around them as Jackson came to a stop in front of April.

'As much as I hate to admit it, the guy is right,' he said.

She nodded and followed him as he went into an empty exam room.

He closed the door with a thud and put his hand behind his back, as if he'd clasp them together if he could move both arms. April retreated farther into the room before she turned to face him. His face lay in shadow and without seeing his eyes on his face she could breathe calmly.

'You left before I could say anything last night.'

'Yeah, it was a 911, the Chief, as you've probably heard.'

He nodded and swallowed, his eyes unreadable.

'So we need to talk.'

April steeled herself, looked down and fought to hold the tears back, chiding herself silently. He hadn't even said anything yet!

'Look, I don't know how much you meant of what you said last night, but...' His voice trailed off and he came a few steps closer. She forced herself to look up at him. His eyes were positively burning, but his good hand was still firmly behind his back.

'But if you really needed a reason not to get married, you should be able to find one yourself, that can't be my decision.' The undercurrent of his voice was clearly one of anger now, and she could have kicked herself again.

There was a pause, in which April looked anywhere but at Jackson, knowing how absolutely right he was.

'And I think you should take a step back,' he continued in a much less heated tone, as though his anger had dissipated all of a sudden. 'You and Matthew are good together, and you shouldn't throw that away for me.'

April stood still as a statue, suppressing her sobs. If she hadn't seen him with Stephanie, she thought she would have said something. Told him that she'd broken up with Matthew anyway, that she wasn't going to string him along if Jackson didn't respond the way she wanted. But it was all piling up on her. The break-up, the Chief, the intern and the attending and now this. She couldn't bring herself to say it again, not when he'd made it clear he was staying with the intern, not when he turned from angry to considerate in a heartbeat.

'And, I don't know, but I think we have to face it that we never worked together anyway. We're much better off as friends.'

A tear had trickled down her cheek and she hastily wiped it off before composing herself enough to answer.

'I guess you're right. It might have been the shock talking.' It sounded false, far too shrill.

His eyes were forever on her, his expression almost stony. April couldn't stop the flow of tears now and if she spoke again her voice would be thick from the sobs that threatened to break through any second. Jackson's face softened and he brought one hand up as if to caress her face.

'April...,' he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

'We're fine,' she had to speak, make him go away. 'And I'm sorry for putting you through all this.'

Jackson dropped his arm to his side but then he stood there, looking at her for what seemed like an eternity. At last she couldn't take it anymore, and headed for the door, giving him a wide berth as possible when she walked past him.

'Okay, I'll see you around, then,' he said when she was at the door.

'Yeah, and I am really glad you're safe, Jackson,' April managed to get out as she grabbed the door handle, talking to his back.

He merely nodded and with a soft slam of the door, she was gone.