JACKSON

It's a damn miracle that I get April to agree to go to brunch with me. A quick text conversation, suggesting it between the three of us on a Sunday morning. Maybe it's a little too reminiscent of some of the things that we'd talked about doing when we were married, but if it gets her to agree, that's all that mattered to me. And everything between us was always easier with Harriet there.

I'd kept up with my research into ways to effectively help her and spiraled into all kinds of Internet forums after dealing so personally with Samantha. Even if I didn't think that April was in the same place that young woman had been in, she was still spiraling to somewhere dark, somewhere that she didn't need to be. Especially not alone. And I didn't even want to think about the possibility of her reaching a place like that. No matter what our divorce might have said to her about the relationship between us, I never wanted to live my life without her in it. I couldn't imagine a world without her. I didn't want to. Losing Samuel, it had been hard enough to try and piece my life back together after. I couldn't go through anything remotely near that again.

We plan to meet at a cafe close to her house, and I get up earlier than usual for my days off to make sure that I'm on time. It gave me time to wake up and go over everything I'd been sifting through in regards to her.

Normally she goes to church at the 9:30 service so I'd suggested we meet at 11, but I arrive a few minutes early to get us a decent table and a high chair set up for Harriet, as well as beat the crowd of people that normally came in once the church service let out. Much to my surprise, though, when I gave a habitual look around the place after entering, April and Harriet are already situated at a table by the window and she's sipping at a cup of coffee. Huh. Maybe she'd gone to the earlier service this morning.

"Hey," I greeted the both of them as I bent down to kiss my daughter on top of her curls, then sat down across from April. "You're here early," I remarked.

"Yeah, early worm gets the bird and all." She shrugged off.

I examined her for a brief moment, unable to get rid of the distinct feeling that there was something missing. It clicks when I realize that she's not wearing a necklace, and the earrings she had on were some plain studs. I'd never seen her go to church without a cross on some piece of jewelry and I glance down at her wrists – just her normal watch, no rings, no nothing. That was weird. I know there's no way she'd go for something like an anklet or body jewelry, but it's uncharacteristic of her to not have on a cross necklace or earrings on a Sunday morning. I hadn't even gotten so much as a glass of water yet and I was already analyzing her decisions.

"How was church this morning?" I keep the question an innocent one, not wanting to suggest right off the bat that she hadn't gone to it in the first place.

"I didn't go," she shrugged it off as if it was no big deal.

I pause for a moment as the waitress brought over a cup of water for me and ordered a coffee, then give her my full attention once again. "Why not?"

"Why do you care?" Her answer is sharp. "It's not like you're suddenly praising Jesus."

"I care because it's something that you've always cared about." Patience is something we both needed, and I make a conscious effort to be exactly that with her. "We used to talk about doing this, you know. Brunch after church." I reminded her softly.

"Yeah, well, God hasn't exactly been sticking around for me these days," she remarked dryly, picking up her cup of coffee and taking a long sip from it. "So why should I try and be there for him?"

Harriet momentarily distracts the both of us from the sudden heavy turn of conversation, throwing the cup of juice from her tray and onto the floor. Me too, kiddo… I think and hold back the sigh as I get up to pick it up, wiping it down with a napkin before placing it back in front of her.

"Well, I'm not the person to talk you into any of that kind of stuff…" I gave a one-shoulder shrug. "But can I ask what brought this off? It doesn't make me worry about you any less, hearing that kind of thing. You used to always think that he was there for you. I mean, even after Samuel, you kept soldiering through, praying…"

April sighed loudly. "Am I incapable of change?" She suggested.

"No, it's not that at all," I shook my head quickly. "It's just after thirty-five years of being into it, seems kind of like a sudden change. With that and all of the going out that you've been doing lately, I hate to see you not acting like yourself." I implored her gently, trying not to overstep but wanting to make sure that my concern for her was clear.

"After thirty-five years, I finally realized that God couldn't give less of a crap about all of us. He's just another absentee father." She rolled her eyes, hands idly toying with her napkin.

"Do you really believe that's true?" I questioned, leaning forward so my elbows rested on the table.

She chuckled her tongue, shrugging at me. "Seems a lot more reasonable than anything else does at this point."

The conversation stayed there for a moment when the waitress came over to take both of our orders. It's hard for me to argue anything religious with her when I'd never thought that it was any more than something people turned to for comfort, not a lot of validity actually behind it. But I feel like with her, I have to. Because she won't do it for herself anymore, and that was something that she needed to have with her.

"Is there something that brought all of this on?" I prompted her gently, eyebrows raised.

"Uh…" her fingers pattered against the table restlessly, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation even if she hadn't shot it down yet. "Cumulation of events, I guess. I wouldn't pin it on anything specific other than me finally opening up my eyes," April gave me a vague answer. I knew that she had been through a lot. We both had. Yet I'd never expected it to weigh on her and have this kind of effect, either. She'd always been so strong, so gracious despite the face of adversity coming for her time and time again.

"Well, you've been through a lot," I offered up. "Honestly, after Harriet's birth, I'm surprised you didn't completely lose it." Mostly because I had lost in the moment. I thought I'd lost her – even if it meant getting my daughter, that was the kind of wound that I would have never been able to recover through.

"Yeah…" She trailed off dismissively, looking away.

I lean back in my chair for a moment and eye her as if there was something there that would give away everything that she was going through. Doubting her faith was one thing, but I felt like the root of the cause had to be the bigger thing at play here. Except she wouldn't actually open up about whatever that was. Maybe I was looking into it too deep, but that didn't feel right. Trust your gut. The words through my head once more and I decide that I need to go with it. I'd been right the first time with Arizona, and there was a good chance that I was right again.

"Maybe I did." April scoffed, leaning forward with her elbows on the table, a hand running over her face.

"You're still the strongest person that I know," I empathized with her quickly, unable to help myself as I leaned forward and placed my hand on one of her forearms. "And if there's anything that you need, anything at all…" I trailed off. She knew where that statement was going.

"The only thing I need is to figure this out on my own," she retorted quickly. "Not with people who are going to come and go as they please, hang me out to dry whenever it bests suits them."

There's the sting that I had been waiting for, the brutal honesty that I honestly don't want to hear. But this wasn't about me. I needed to take a step back, detach myself from the way that she could hurt myself, and just listen and accept what she was saying. Whether or not it was the actual truth, it was her version of it. And she deserved to have that listened to, even if it wasn't going to make me particularly happy. This was for her, about her. I could do this much after everything she'd done for me.

"April, I uh…" Apologize, you idiot. "I'm sorry that I haven't always been there for you in the way that you deserve. I've made mistakes. But I don't want to keep making those mistakes for you. Even if we can never go back to being those best friends that we were before all of this, I want to be here for you. In whatever way you need me. We have a kid together. Kids. That means everything to me. You have given me everything. And I want to be able to give you something too, April. I want to be able to help you with what you're going through."

There's a heavy silence as she processed the words that I said. It's easy to see on her face that it hadn't been what she'd expected me to say, but I feel like I'd hit it on the head. She'd been making it clearer and clearer some of the issues that she had with me, the constant references to me leaving her behind. That had to be apart of it. But she hadn't pulled away from me yet. Maybe that meant something.

She finally let out another sigh and broke the silence.

"Thanks." She started, and there's a long pause before she continued where I'm not sure if my words had really been received. "It's kind of hard to bet on you after everything, though, you realize that, right? Even if I can forgive you, it's not like all of that stuff between us just disappears."

"I know," I answered quickly with a nod. My hand slipped from her arm to her hand, giving it a squeeze. "I'm not trying to erase that, either. I just want you to know that from here on out, I'm going to do better at it."

April pulled her hand out of mine, but I can just barely catch the hints of a smile on her face even if it's nothing near the full blown ones that I'd managed to get out of her in the past. That's something. That's better than a lot of the things that she'd given me lately. I can't complain.

When our food arrives, it puts the conversation at bay for a few minutes. I'm starving and eager to scarf down my plate of waffles, and the two of us alternate between making sure that Harriet gets a fair share of food actually in her mouth instead of just on her face or smeared against the table. She's a little bit of a messy eater, but she's not picky. She'll eat most things, just never a lot of anything actually ended up in the right place. Guess she managed to get that much from me.

There's plenty of talk about when it came to our daughter, and work is usually the second most frequent topic on our list. The two things that we still share no matter what else happened between the two of us. Her cases were a little more interesting to listen to by most standards because of the chaotic nature of trauma surgery, and I had a hell of a lot more scheduled and elective ones than she did. But when she turned the question of interesting cases back around on me, all I can think about to answer is dealing with Samantha the other night.

"Uh, I guess…" I sighed, bracing myself. "I don't know. Interesting probably isn't the right word. Hunt had me take care of a girl who attempted suicide this week."

"Oh." It's an awkward thing to discuss, clearly, even if she had probably seen much more of that in the emergency room than I had. Even though we both knew stuff like that happened, it was something that we'd never really talked about. It'd never come up, not in any real detail. But some of the things that Samantha had said, the way that she had prompted me to think more about what was going on in April and get more involved in a meaningful way of helping her, I can't leave her forgotten.

"She just said some stuff, it kind of made me think of you, to be honest." Before I can explain what I meant, she's already begun to interrupt me.

"What? You think just because I'm not acting like myself lately, I'm going to try and kill myself? Seriously? We have a daughter, Jackson. I'm not going to just leave her behind like that. That's– wow, that's selfish. I can't believe you'd even–"

"April, stop." The sudden firmness in my tone cut her off before she could take it any further. "That's not what I'm getting at. No, I don't think you'd do that. I know that you wouldn't leave behind Harriet under any circumstances," I clarified. "Also, it's not selfish. Not at all. But that's not the point that I'm trying to get at here. She talked about feeling alone, April, like no one cared about her. And… if you were to feel that way, I could understand why."

I watched her lips twist into something nearly resembling a frown, and she focused away from me as a moment to dab at Harriet's chin. It's hard to tell which part of my comment is getting under her skin but it seemed like it was still some form of progress.

"At least now I know who apparently got your head screwed on straight," April finally commented. "It's nice, that you're acting like this again… but I really can't take another 180 on your part. If you're going to start being there and being my friend again, great. But I'm going to need something a little more than just your word this time."

That was fair. I probably would have wanted the same thing out of her too if the tables had been turned. I was trying hard to listen but all I could think about was how I was supposed to act, what I could do for her – I wanted to take it the next step instinctively. But this wasn't something that could be rushed even if that would have made my own life that much easier to deal with, fixing things between us and snapping back to where we use to be. But she really had built up a wall against that this time, she wasn't going to let it come back down without a substantial reason for why it should have. I could respect that. I would have to if I wanted any chance of this thing actually working out.

"I mean it, April. And I'll work on proving it to you." I said sincerely, a small smile just managing to make its way across my features. This was the most honest that either of us had been with each other for weeks and it felt nice, having something there again. It felt like some kind of middle distance was finally closing between the two of us.

When she looked up to meet my gaze, April offered a smile of her own. It's nice to see it on her face again, even if there's something tired mixed in the curve of her lips that doesn't fully light up her eyes. But before I can comment aloud about it, Harriet's making noise to draw attention. She's squealing in delight, pointing and laughing at something, and we both light up in a much more genuine way than what the serious nature of our conversation had allowed us too. Someone had walked in, a kid of their own with a balloon tied around their wrist. Tiny hand waves around and slammed against the table with her giggles.

"There's my girl," I murmured. April still had a bit of omelet left on her plate so I slide closer to our daughter, picking her up from the highchair and holding her on my lap, her back against my chest so that she could get a better look at both the stranger with the balloon and her own mother. "Maybe we need to go get you a balloon of your own, huh? Is that what you want, sweetheart?" I kissed the top of her head after speaking.

"Ma–ma. Ma–ma. Da–da." She babbled loudly.

"Atta girl," I encouraged her, bouncing my knee lightly to make sure that she stayed entertained and somewhat on the quiet side for the duration of April eating. Taking kids out in public could always be a challenge but she was good about a lack of screaming fits, for the most part. She usually just yelled single syllables. I glanced up from my daughter to her mother, unsurprised by the beaming look of joy that was written across her face as she eyed her. If there was anything that would ensure that she would pull through it, it really was Harriet. I'd help in whatever way that I could, but she was the real source of April's joy and meaning.

I take the check and pay when the waitress dropped it off no matter the habitual comment that she gives about paying for her own meal, brushing it off without a lot of thought and dismissing it on the bit that we had ordered for Harriet. It's a load of crap, of course, and she knows it. I pay for her and her frugality only made me enjoy it more.

"I'll walk you out to your car," I suggested when everything was wrapped up, standing up and putting Harriet on my hip. Another minute with my daughter was an excuse, but I did want to see her off, make sure that everything really was okay with her. Even if walking her out to her vehicle wasn't going to make a lick of difference with that, I just don't want to take my gaze off of her in the first place. I knew that she had the day off and she wasn't going to do anything reckless with Harriet around, but the feeling of concern lingering inside of my apparently didn't have access to that same knowledge. I can't help but look at her like she's about to lung off the deep end.

It's not worth the argument apparently but she doesn't say another word about it. We stroll to the parking lot across the street at a leisure pace, with me carrying Harriet and letting her walk ahead slightly. I'm watching her, mostly, even if there's nothing really to watch at the moment. I'm just worried that the moment I take my eyes off her, something's going to happen, something would come flying out of the blue and ruin all of the progress that we had made today. If I hadn't done it yet, then surely something else that would come around. We'd had a long trail of bad luck and it was a little hard to trust it to turn around now.

I lingered around to help get Harriet strapped securely into her car seat and when we both straighten up with the completed task, I can tell she's expecting me to say something further. This time, though, there's no preplanned statement lingering on the tip of my tongue. When I don't say anything after a few seconds, she instead breaks the silence.

"Thanks for today," April said.

There's something genuine there, something more than just a casual brunch between two friends, two co-parents. We both know it. There's so much more that I want to say and do for her. At the moment, really, all I want to do is pull her into my arms and hug her, hold her so securely and squeeze the doubt out of her system. To stroke her hair and tell her that everything was going to be alright, that she was going to be okay and we would figure out whatever she was going through together. But I don't. That's a boundary, a crossed line. I know it, one matter that my brain and gut would just have to disagree on.

Instead, I offer her a smile and clap her shoulder in the same way that I would have done with Karev or anyone else. "Anytime, kid." Little nickname slips out, affectionate but not in the way that could be mistaken for the ideas of our past relationship.

She smiled back at me gently before getting into her car and I get out of her way, lingering by the Honda that she had parked next to and watched her drive away. I stand there for a few minutes before letting out the breath that I'd been holding onto for a few long moments, relieved that this morning hadn't turned into a complete disaster like I had been worried about. It really felt like some kind of difference had been made there. I could only hope that from here it would actually keep up. My hand reached into my pocket, pulling out my own keys before heading across the floor of the garage to my own car and getting in.