Disclaimer: Still don't own Grey's. Or, for that matter, the lovely "There's A Girl" by the Ditty Bops.
A/N: Inspired by the clips I saw recently of Sarah Drew singing at the benefit concert that Grey's Anatomy held last year. Does she have a pretty voice or what?! She should've sung more in the musical episode! On another note, I think I'm spotting an ending, maybe two chapters later. We'll see. Please do review, but as I'm behind on season 9, no spoilers, please! Thank you!
April was a morning person. Jackson knew that, and yet, in his groggy state in the morning, stumbling out of the shower, he simply couldn't fathom how she could be so perky.
"Is that Kepner singing?" Alex groaned, scrubbing at his eyes as he shoved past Jackson, who was now brushing his teeth with a towel wrapped around his waist, to get to the empty shower.
Jackson shrugged in reply.
"Make her shut up, I can hear her from my room. She's your crazy chick. It's too early," Alex complained, and Jackson's hand with the toothbrush paused.
It doesn't sound so bad, he thought, Alex talking like I'm with April. In fact, it sounds – good.
He had been having too many thoughts like this recently, he decided, as he shook his head at his reflection and resumed brushing his teeth.
Did he really want to be in a relationship with April?
Living in the same house with her was starting to make him wonder why he'd ever had any issues with falling for April in the first place.
"There's a girl that you might know, she's a friend, at least I tell you so, but it might surprise you to find, there's something going on behind the door," April sang happily, emptying the dirty contents of the laundry basket into the washing machine and closing the door with a pat.
She tipped some detergent into the machine and pressed the start button with a flourish. The boys really should learn to do their own laundry, she thought ruefully, but she didn't really mind. It made her feel a bit important in a way, that they relied on her to get by. She had always liked helping people, however small the gesture was. In fact, she thought small, everyday gestures proved to be kinder than large, once-in-a-blue-moon gestures.
"When I'm asleep, it gives me time to think, thoughts that I wouldn't dare speak aloud, I couldn't bare myself before a crowd," she resumed singing, plucking a dry shirt of hers from the washing line strung out across the small room. She had always liked singing. It had made her chores go faster when she was younger, and it had become a habit by now.
April glanced at her watch, and decided she could still spare some time before going down to have some breakfast before work. Humming to herself, she picked up the laundry basket and got to work.
Leaving his room after getting dressed, Jackson tracked April's singing to the laundry room out of curiosity. When he got to the open doorway, the sight that greeted him made him grin.
April seemed to be taking all the dry clothes off the washing line, running her hand lightly over the item in question to check if it was indeed dry before dropping them in the half-full laundry basket that she had perched on her hip.
Something made him hang back a little. She hadn't noticed his presence yet, and there was a confidence in the way she held herself that rarely came to the fore around the others.
A confident April was, without question, hot.
She hummed under her breath as she checked a printed T-shirt draped over the washing line that he recognized as his. He could just imagine her hand dancing over his shirt like that while he was wearing it, pushing up the hem so that she could slide her hands up over his abdomen to explore his chest…
He blinked as if coming out of a hypnotic trance when she tugged the shirt off the line and let it fall into her basket.
Well, he was never going to look at that T-shirt the same way again.
Her humming grew louder.
"I bide my time while biting my tongue, hold closed my mouth so song is unsung," April suddenly started singing in a clear, sweet voice. He had to bite back a chuckle when she abandoned the chore and spun in a circle on the spot, the hand that wasn't holding the basket tapping out the beat against her side, before she started bopping her head to the song. He couldn't find it in himself to interrupt the adorable scene.
Was she doing a shoulder shimmy?
"Get to the meat of things already, with buried secrets the ground is heavyyyy," she closed her eyes and dragged out the last note, swaying her hips slightly from side to side, and Jackson raised an eyebrow, impressed. She was a good singer.
His eyes lingered on her hips.
"That's just the way things used to be, that's just the waaaay," she threw her head back dramatically when she finished the note, her glossy hair swishing behind her, and Jackson swallowed at the sight of the graceful curve of her neck, "things used to be."
He thought he spotted a flicker of intensity in her eyes beneath the comical exaggeration for just one second before it slipped away again.
"There's a girl who's close to me, closer than you'd like to think, dig up all the dirt you see, there's always more just underneath," she sang, and there was a note of wistfulness in her voice.
Jackson was just debating whether he should go into the room or not; it wasn't as if he had anything in particular to say to April. Feeling it would be awkward if he just barged in now, he was turning around to leave when his watch beeped the hour. Loudly.
Shit.
April froze.
Jackson poked a sheepish head around the frame of the door.
"Sorry, I was just coming to get you. It's 7, if you want to grab breakfast, you'd better hurry," he said, coming up quickly with an excuse. It was a weak one if she asked him what he had been doing loitering outside the door, but he thought she might overlook it in her lateness.
Sure enough, April instantly looked flustered.
"Oh, darn it, I didn't realize it was already 7! I'll just go put these in my room and then head down," she said hurriedly, hoisting the laundry basket higher and zipping towards the door.
"Thanks!" she said, pausing for a moment to meet his eyes.
"You're welcome," he replied automatically.
"I got some of your dry stuff too, so I'll get them to you later," she promised over her shoulder as she dashed past Jackson.
She turned around at the end of the hallway.
"You should sing with me next time, you know. It's only polite," she called to him, tilting her head to the side with an impish glint in her eyes, before ducking into her room. He stared after her, astonished.
He had no idea how, but even after all these years of knowing her, April still managed to surprise him every day.
"There's always more just underneath."
And so there was.
He wanted a relationship with April.