JACKSON

It had been a torturous week of not knowing if April was ever going to wake up.

If she didn't, it was my fault. Montana hadn't requested me there. I had volunteered to go. The patient and her family just as easily could have been brought to Grey Sloan but I had gone. Even if it was supposed to be Meredith in that plane with me and not April in the first place, there was going to be a degree of something that rested on my shoulders because I had been such a stubborn dick about going out there and confronting my father.

Then I had backed off, and she had been the only reason that I was able to follow through with saying all of those things that I had always wanted to say. She had pushed me to be a better man and to do the right thing, both for myself and for Harriet. Robert walking out on me and my mom had affected me in more ways than I had ever wanted to admit and I think she realized that, because some of those things had been inevitably taken out on her over the years – when she'd gone running off to Jordan, most prominently. The past few weeks, somewhat more subtly, though perhaps now explained to her. If she woke up.

If.

That word had been haunting me, between the real nightmares. Between holding her and waking for her to wake up, waiting to see those eyes flutter open. She never had, no matter how I had held onto her. I wondered if I would end up just like Mark.

Now, perhaps more than ever, I wished that Mark was here. I wasn't worried about recovering from my own injuries just yet, that was something that maybe I could think about once she was up and walking around again. But if he had been here, he would have had the right words to help me get through this. He would have been able to come up with the best treatment plan for her arm and healing the burns there, making sure that was minimal to no nerve damage that would have affected her longterm. He would know what to do.

April was always the one who had brought me comfort and reassurance when I didn't know how to go forward. Whether it was personal matters or a case, she always knew what to say when it came to giving me the confidence that I needed again. Now more than ever, without the two of them, I felt like I was truly lost.

Many hours had been spent sitting at her bedside once I had been cleared to do so by Shepherd. It hadn't been that bad of a recovery – headaches, mostly, but that was taken care of with some pain medication.

There was the matter of my hearing, or my lack of hearing, really. That was on the back-burner.

Feeling her warm touch and opening my eyes to see her in a wheelchair next to my bed felt like a miracle. April may have been the one to have faith and to believe in God, but this was perhaps the closest I had been in my entire life to feel his presence again with the absolute warmth that filled me seeing her there with me again. I hadn't wanted to give up, I hadn't given up. But every day had gotten a little bit harder to deal with as it passed by.

"Hey." A simple word, just barely something.

Her lips moved but it was hard to figure out exactly what she was saying as she spoke. I'd been average at best at lipreading, but it was much harder now to actually understanding what she was saying.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

I couldn't understand exactly what she said before she finally slumped over. I was already missing out on important things. I lurched upward and Amelia responded to her before I could, leaning her back so that she didn't fall out of the wheelchair. With baited breath, I watched as she assessed her quickly, both pupils still reactive to the flashlight that she shone in there. Her problems were different than my own, but she had enough that it was hard to pinpoint on the spot which would be her current one.

"What's going on?" I asked, looking up to Amelia. Bailey appeared in the room moments later.

Both of them were speaking in quick, hushed whispers that I wasn't able to understand. I couldn't tell if it was intentional to keep me from overhearing them, but just the thought is enough to send a fresh wave of rage coursing through me.

Soon enough, April was wheeled out of the room on a gurney, and I was left alone again. The silence was something that I wasn't sure I was going to get used to. ENT was one of my certifications. Hearing aids didn't work the exact same as glasses, fixing the issue. Hearing aids amplify sounds, but it only made them louder, not necessarily crisper or clearer. It took re-training the brain to interpret and prioritize sounds. All of it was difficult.

Patients had told me exactly how isolating it could be to lose the sound of the world around you. Never hearing the voice of loved ones, children, missing out on the sound of music, never getting the punch line of a joke. I also knew that sometimes, cochlear implants and hearing aids really were the best thing. But every case was different.

This damage was unilateral. I could hear out of my left ear normally, in theory. The brain bleed had only been on the left side of my auditory cortex. But using dichotic listening was an important part of everyday life, being able to filter out which sounds were important and which ones weren't, knowing which to focus on. I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't filter out the beeping of the monitors, the sound of the air conditioner running. It was overwhelming to hear everything at once.

Worrying about my own hearing felt impossibly selfish when I didn't know what the hell was going on with April. I couldn't stand the idea of her falling back into that coma again. It had been hard enough once.

Despite being well aware that it was perhaps one of the last things I should do, I pushed myself out of bed. Her wheelchair had been left in my room by mere oversight. Collapsing right back down into it is easy, and more exhausting than what I wanted to admit. I could find my way to her room easily and get answers for what I wanted to know on my own terms. Waiting around to see which one of our coworkers was going to be the first to take some mercy on me didn't seem like it was going to be a fulfilling option.

"–Avery, what the hell–" Enough of my mother's voice made it through.

I stopped where I was going, looking over my shoulder. I shouldn't have been surprised to see my mother standing there with her hands on her hips, glaring at me like I was fourteen again.

"Mom, listen." I tried to start with her as she moved to stand in front of me.

Her lips are moving, and I get a portion of what she was saying. "Get back to dead before I…" No, bed. She was definitely saying bed. The disagreement between what made sense and what was heard was going to be a lot to get used to. Her voice was loud, not too high-pitched, a little more ideal for me to be hearing. For better or for worse.

"I need to see April, Mom. She was awake. She came by my room earlier and she was awake and then she passed out. I don't know what happened. I couldn't hear Shepherd and Bailey talking about her," I explained, hoping that would have some mercy at the moment.

Mom stared down at me with furrowed brows, the glare on her expression softening slightly. I knew that she had a soft spot for April. She had made that very clear when she had decided to call her to replace Meredith going with me to Montana. I wasn't sure how exactly she had known that I was going to need her by my side, but that was a conversation for another time. A time when I knew exactly how April was recovering from the crash.

"Well, you couldn't be pushing yourself." I think that's what she said. Couldn't or shouldn't, I'm not sure. Mom moved behind me, grabbing onto my wheelchair and beginning to push me toward the elevator.

"Thank you, Mom." I breathed out in relief. One less fight for today.

The elevator ride seemed impossibly long even if it was only a few floors. I could feel the eyes on my co-workers staring at me, trying to figure out what was going on, but none of the nurses or orderlies wanted to ask or say a word. I was sure that they had already heard enough. No one stayed quiet about gossip in the hospital, especially something like this.

When she finally pushed me off, I let out a sigh when I saw Bailey standing outside of her room and talking with Webber. The both of them there couldn't be a good sign.

Bracing myself, I took a deep breath as my mom rolled me up and stopped, stepping around to give her husband a hug. I glanced inside of April's room briefly. She was… sleeping? Unconscious? It was hard to tell which one was right at the moment. My mouth ran dry as I tried to figure out what to say. It seemed like the doctor inside of me had somehow shut off, that the panic and the worry as her husband – no, her ex-husband had decided to take control of my brain instead. It was beyond frustrating.

"Can I go in?" I asked finally, glancing up at Bailey till she nodded in approval.

All of the monitors that she was attached to seemed loud, but looking at them, things seemed mostly normal. As normal as it could be. I pushed myself right up against her bed, positioned with my left ear toward her in case she woke up so it would be easier to hear. I wrapped my hand around her much smaller one, squeezing it.

"Jackson." Bailey addressed me. I wasn't sure the last time she used my first name like that.

"What's going on now?" I turned my head toward her, looking up and taking a deep breath.

She stepped forward, handing me a chart so I could see. It was lab results. "We just got these back from the lab." She was speaking loud and clear for my benefit. "Look at the urinalysis and the blood tests. The levels of urea and creatinine. It looks like her remaining kidney is going into acute kidney failure."

"Give her mine," I replied without pausing to think about it. I knew that we had the same blood type. We'd barely talked about it, once, the fact that we were a match and we would have both been willing to give a kidney to each other. It had been back when we were residents, actually, working the same transplant case together. I had been willing to do it then – when I hadn't even recognized that I loved her. Now, it was far from a decision that I would have to think about.

"You just had brain surgery, Avery." Her voice was more serious now, switching back to my last name.

"I don't care. Give mine to her. I'll be fine." Fuck the logic, the facts.

"A transplant isn't the best course of treatment right now." Bailey looked directly at me, placing her hand on my shoulder. "We're giving her medication. We'll balance her fluids and we'll do dialysis. Her remaining kidney just needs a chance to adjust and recover. You know that."

Maybe somewhere in the back of my head, Bailey was right and I did know that. There was no reason to jump to a kidney transplant for acute failure. This wasn't end-stage kidney disease, she didn't have diabetes or high blood pressure or congenital problems. April was healthy as could be up until now. There was nothing to say that she couldn't recover fully and live a normal life.

The facts didn't have room for doubt. Only my worried brain did.

"Can I have a moment with her?" I requested, looking back to April.

When the movement in my peripheral gaze indicated that I was alone in the room, my other hand wrapped around hers so that both of mine were holding onto hers. I dropped my head down onto the bed. It probably could have looked like I was praying. I don't know if I should, if He would even listen to me if somehow He really was out there. It didn't seem like he was, not right now. April was a good woman. She was a woman of faith. To have something so cruel happening to her didn't seem right. She always did the right thing by everyone around her even if they didn't always see it, like I hadn't always been able to see it.

What kind of loving God would put her through so much?

None that I could think of. She deserved better than this. Better by her God, better by me, better by everyone else around her. We'd all been dicks to her before. I wondered now if people had even bothered to come by and see her, to apologize for everything that had been said both to her face and behind her back. She deserved better than all of us.

"Please," I whispered out, voice raw and barely able to hear myself. "Please, I need you. I need you to wake up and be fine. Harriet needs you to wake up and be fine. Just wake up. For her, for me. We both need you, April."

I squeezed her hand just a little tighter, hoping that some kind of stimulation would hope to arouse her again. Acute kidney failure had a long list of symptoms. Nausea was one of them. Fatigue, too, could keep her down and under. In the worst of cases, a coma. I couldn't have her go back to that state of being.

Then, of course, there was the long list of other complications that could come because of acute kidney failure. A fluid buildup in the lungs could cause some complications and respiratory issues. If her pericardium became inflamed, then there would be chest pains when she was conscious. Her body being out of chemistry could have muscular problems. In the worst of cases, there could be permanent damage, it could lead to end-stage renal disease and then she really would need a kidney transplant to survive. Or death. But I couldn't focus on that.

After what seemed like an impossibly long time of sitting and waiting, she finally stirred just enough that it drew my attention. I lifted my head up, focusing on her face.

Finally, I can see those beautiful hazel eyes again.

A small smile softened my lips and I straightened up my back slightly, but I don't let go of her hand, squeezing it just once more so she knows that I'm really here. She blinked a few times to adjust to the bright lights of the hospital, but it doesn't take long for her gaze to rest on me, and she returned the tiny smile I had offered.

"Hey." It was a little easier to hear her voice in here with the doors shut than it had been in my room. I was grateful for that much. I wanted to hear her voice more than anything.

"Hi," I answered back slowly.

"What happened? I was in your room, and…" She made it clear she didn't remember much.

I took a deep breath, bracing myself to explain. "You fainted. They ran some labs and it looks like your remaining kidney isn't doing so well. You're probably going to have to undergo some dialysis to give it a chance to recover while you're here." It looked like neither of us were going to be going home any time soon. Amelia was keeping me around for observation and more information about my hearing loss. Her arm still needed treatment, and now there was this.

"Oh." April seemed unsure what to say for a moment. I couldn't blame her. "What about you? Shepherd was talking about you… your ears, right?" She questioned, blinking a few times.

"Yeah," I nodded. "I can't hear out of my right ear. That's why I'm sitting on this side of you, so it's easier to hear." Having my ear facing her and not the hallway also helped to block out some of the extra sounds that my brain was having a hard time being able to filter out.

"I'm so sorry, Jackson." She murmured, frowning at me.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, April. This isn't your fault." I reminded her. "It was a freak accident. There was nothing that either of us could have done to stop it."

That didn't mean the nightmares would believe me quite so easily. I had them since waking up from surgery, every time I shut my eyes. I could see her pale body, the burnt flesh of her arm. Her breathing had gotten more shallow at the end of it, shortly before we had been found by the first responders that had been sent out to check for survivors. She had been lucky. She might not have known it now or felt that way, but she would not have survived out in the woods for much longer than the time we had been stuck out there. I wasn't sure that I would have survived to lose her, either.

"What about my arm?" April asked. My gaze fell down to the bandages.

"It's pretty bad," I admitted honestly, unable to look up at her. "It's going to be a long road to recovery. I talked some with the specialist from Seattle Pres when he visited and we went over his plan. There's going to be some skin grafts. It's hard to say exactly what's going to happen until those are done." I explained, chewing at my lower lip. "We'll have him come by again."

"Am I going to be able to operate again?" I knew why that was her focus. I would have wanted t to know the exact same thing if our situations were reversed. I still had questions how the single-sided deafness was going to affect me as a doctor.

"I think so." The injuries were bad. I couldn't ignore that. But if there was anyone who was going to be able to overcome all of that, it was her. I didn't doubt her abilities.

April blinked a few times before giving a small nod of her head, and I barely forced a sympathetic smile on my lips. This was going to be a long road for the both of us. But now, more than ever, I wanted to be by her side on that road. I didn't want to leave her behind or take her for granted again. I didn't want to have regrets and constantly think about how she deserved better. I wanted to be the better. I needed to be the better. For her and for Harriet.

"We'll be okay." I murmured gently.

Normally she was the optimistic one, but this time, I could take that off of her plate. She had faired worse from the crash than I had when it came to physical injuries. Maybe it was a good thing that she hadn't been conscious, that she wouldn't be haunted in quite the same ways that I was. But I could do this much for her.

Keeping one hand wrapped around hers, my other rubbed up and down along the skin of her arm, grateful that my good hearing side happened to line up with which one of her arms that wasn't damaged. I traced back and forth along her freckles.

We both fell quiet for a moment, and I could only assume that she was just as lost inside of her head as I was. There was too much to think about. This would affect us as parents. I'd never wanted Harriet to live a sheltered life even if April had always disagreed about her needing to stay humble, but now, I don't think I could ever put her in a plane in my right mind. I don't care if the odds of getting in a car crash are hugely more likely. It seemed like a stupid, impossible risk to ever be willing to take with her. Maybe I could be happy with humble after all.

Movement in my peripheral caught my attention and I sat up straight again, looking over to see Arizona hovering in the doorway of her room. I gave her a slight smile, unsurprised to see her here.

"Hi, you two." She looked like she was on the verge of tears, even with a smile.

"Hey, Arizona," April said. Arizona walked over to the opposite side of April's bed and sat down on the edge of it. I watched as she nearly went to grab her hand and retracted immediately.

"Hey," I greeted her with a slight smile of my own.

"How's Harriet?" April asked.

I zoned out for a moment as I let the two of them talk back and forth, not trying to focus on the words leaving either of them. My thumb rubbed circles across the back of her hand, staring at two of the little freckles there – snakebite freckles, she'd affectionately called them once, just because of how close they were to each other and that they were fairly identical in size and shape. I brought her hand up to my mouth, kissing the space between them.

"Oh–" I caught Arizona's gasp. "Are you guys?"

I'm not sure if she finished the question. But it was still easy to tell exactly where it was supposed to be going. I glanced up at April, her eyes already on me. She didn't have any more of a set answer than I did at the moment.

"Kind of," she settled on, wetting her lips. I nodded my head in slight agreement. We would have to talk about it. All of this would definitely push back some of that conversation.

"Is Harriet in daycare?" I asked her, shifting the subject slightly.

"Yeah, she's down there," Arizona answered.

"I'll be back in a few minutes, give you two a little time alone." I kissed the back of April's knuckles once more and gave her a slight smile before rolling myself out of the room. I was sure they wanted time to catch up. I wanted to see our daughter. Arizona and my mom had both brought her up to see me a few times, but now, it was time to bring her up to see her mother. I'd been hesitant to do so while she was asleep. She wasn't even a year old but I was worried about it scaring her, seeing April unresponsive like that. It was hard to predict what kind of effect it would have.

My mom and Webber were both still waiting in the hallway outside of her room, unsurprisingly. Whether they were talking about me or April at the moment, I couldn't hear from a distance. I rolled up to them both, Richard turning and noticing me rather quickly.

"Is there something that you're not telling me?" I asked, jumping to conclusions.

They shared a look for a brief moment before shaking their head. "No. Your mother was just talking about the hearing specialist from Boston that she was going to have come out to see you." At least her interference was typical.

"Where are you heading off to now?" Mom asked. I could tell that she was intentionally speaking loudly.

"I was going to get Harriet down from daycare and bring her up to see April. I thought that she could use it." Truthfully, so could I. It'd be nice for her to see me without bandages around my head.

"I'll take you down there," Webber offered. I accepted with a slight nod.

He pushed me back down the hallway to the elevator. I know that he's going to say something. His voice is deeper than anyone else who had spoken with me today – which made it a little easier to pick up and distinguish from other people's. A good thing, certainly.

We reached the elevator and waited for a bit, and I could feel myself growing impatient. It was difficult to be in the hospital and not go home with my daughter every night. I had taken it for granted, the fact that April had stayed with me long after she had recovered from her own surgery and Arizona told her that she could move out. We both got Harriet and didn't have to worry about the back and forth of some kind of custody agreement, or missing out on big moments in her life. Now, well, we were missing out. There was no way to deny or ignore that.

"How are you feeling, son?" Webber asked when the elevator doors shut.

"I'm okay." It wasn't a complete lie. I was feeling better after the surgery, the pain was manageable even though was still some headaches, and April was awake, at least. No longer comatose. "I'm just worried about April."

"We all are," he answered back empathetically. "But she's a strong woman. We were worried after she gave birth to Harriet, and she recovered better than anyone could have predicted." He reminded me.

"I know that she's strong." There was no doubt about it. "It's still a lot for anyone to go through."

"It is," he agreed. "But the two of you can get through anything if you put your head's together. I know that you may not be together anymore, but you've always been good at working together. You've pulled it off for Harriet and I'm sure that you can do it for this, too. You're good, hard-working people. I don't think either of you will be stuck in the hospital for too much longer, either."

I knew he had always been rooting for us, one way or another. "Do you think that about me, or the both of us?" I knew Shepherd would clear me soon, but I wasn't so sure about April.

"Dialysis won't require her to stay here. It takes about four hours, we'll do it three times this week and run some labs after that to see how long she's going to need it for. It might just be a couple of weeks." He explained. That was good to hear. "As for her arm, well, I'm sure you know more about that than I do."

"I'm worried about her arm," I admitted. "It blistered pretty badly and I know that she's going to need some skin grafts to treat it. I'm sure that's where she got the infection from. Some fibrinous exudate may end up developing. I know she had her tetanus shot, so there's that, but I'm worried that we're not getting a full picture of the extent of the nerve damage. I know how important her job is to her. She can't lose her ability to operate.

"We'll have the specialist come over tomorrow and get her scheduled for that skin graft surgery. It's a partial dermis graft, right? Not a full-thickness. That should help with the recovery time and minimize the scarring significantly." I knew everything that he was saying, but it does help to hear it from someone else instead of being the one to try and convince myself.

"Alright." The elevator doors dinged open a moment after I spoke and he pushed me out. I could already hear the loud laughter and noises the daycare. I'd never been such a softie for kids until having Harriet.

It only took a moment to reach the daycare room. Webber left me outside and went in to get Harriet himself. I knew I could have gotten up to get her myself and there wouldn't have been a problem with that, that he was just being extra cautious and reasonably I should have been able to appreciate that, but I find myself irritated with it regardless. If I was going to be released in a few days, then I could get out of this wheelchair and go get my daughter out of daycare without anyone else assisting me.

But all of that goes away the second that Richard brought her out.

"Hey there, ladybug." I greeted her. Harriet reached out for me immediately and I took her from her grandfather. "Hey there," I cooed. "Did you miss me? Daddy missed you so much."

Speaking wasn't quite there yet with her but she babbled enough to make it clear that she was close. I stood her up on my thighs, bouncing them slightly and holding onto her sides as Webber began to roll us both back toward the elevator. She reached out toward me, placing one of her tiny hands on my face and covering up my nose.

"Look how big you're getting, ladybug. You're getting so big."

High-pitched noises were the easiest to lose track of with being able to hear out of only one ear. That meant the squeals and laughter and giggles that she made were the first thing to disappear with a noisy background.

That was going to be infuriating to deal with.

I pushed down the thoughts as quickly as I could, taking a deep breath. It would be good for her to see April after all of this time – I was sure that she had missed her mother, and that April was already antsy about having not seen her. Montana had been the longest that we had gone without seeing her, and that had been before. Neither of us had planned on being away from her for that long. Neither of us wanted to. Every moment with her was precious and working so much made sure that the both of us knew that well.

When we finally reached her room, Arizona and April were still talking. But they stopped immediately and the blonde stood up as we entered the room, exiting alongside Webber to give the three of us some much-needed family time.

"Hi, ladybug!" April's voice was barely heard – she was talking in that high-pitched voice, must have been. "Oh, hi there, nugget. Mommy missed you so, so much. Oh, yes Mommy did. Come here and give Mommy some snuggles." She reached out for her.

Slowly I stood up, setting Harriet down on the bed. Harriet sat up on her own easily and I stayed there, just in case she tried to go anywhere.

"She missed you too," I told her with a small smile.

"Mommy missed you so much, Harriet. Mommy loves you so much." Again, her words were soft. But I could see that Harriet was absolutely thrilled to see her mother again, falling forward into hugging her and wrapping her little arms around April's neck the best that she could.

"We're going to be just fine, April. All three of us."

Hopefully, I could learn to believe that.