Chapter 7: these arms of mine

Today was close to Jackson's worst nightmare.

His worst nightmare, the one he experienced on a near-nightly basis, involved a shooter in the hospital, killing his friends. Today, he was forced to spend the day rehashing his worst nightmare, everyone talking about it and asking him questions about it. In addition, everything was being filmed.

For the last couple of months, every time his nightmare got bad, and he started crying out in his sleep, April would come into his room. She'd wake him up, sit with him until his heart wasn't pounding, then go back to bed. It was an arrangement they had. In the same way, he'd sit with her at breakfast, when she was painting her nails, at lunchtime: any time that she used to have Reed to talk to, he would fill in when she needed him.

It was a little harder to be constantly there for each other when they were running around a busy hospital, trying to work, barraged by cameras and interviewers from all angles.

The cameras made him edgy and weird. He'd managed to dodge them most of the day. He wasn't on the big arm transplant case that April was tied up with, so he was just trying to stay clear.

So, of course, the nightmare had to push him into the dark basement anyway.

He'd just been trying to get his normal, boring cardio patient, Sam Davidson, into the surgery wing when the security system freaked out for the nth time—leaving him and the patient trapped in a 30-square-foot block.

It didn't take Jackson long at all to freak out. An alarm was blaring, he was trapped in a small space, and he'd spent the day reliving memories of the worst day of his life.

Then the patient started coding.

For just a moment, the CPR actually relaxed him; it gave him something to do.

But then, he glimpsed Charles's face, not that of Sam Davidson, lying there, coding. His brain was shifting back and forth: Charles, dying with Bailey in a deserted hallway, his hands pounding on the patient's chest, Charles decomposing in the ground, his patient's failure to breathe. His nightmare and reality were bleeding together, and he was helpless in both of them.

He barely registered Teddy's voice, but made clear to her what was clear to him: he needed to get out. Now.

She told him he was going to break Charles's ribs. The patient's ribs. He tried to not press so hard, but he had to keep him alive.

It was several minutes more before the door opened. Jackson was cognizant of the doctors and nurses streaming in, making it even more crowded. Teddy told him someone would take over. Jackson couldn't stop. Charlie was dying over and over in his head.

Suddenly, Teddy's hands were yanking him off the patient, dragging him into the empty hallway. "Breathe, Avery!" she shouted. She left him there and jogged back to Sam Davidson, who they were wheeling into the surgical ward.

Jackson thought he might vomit, for a second. It passed. But he was shaking. Everything felt wrong.

When Charles had died, Jackson had been numb. By the time he got the news, he'd already gone through the shooting—he'd operated on Derek Shepherd, operated with a gun to his head. He had already been broken enough that the reality of Charles's death hadn't sunk in until days later. Even then, it was a fact, not an experience.

Now, he felt like he'd just watched Charles die right in front of him. Even though it wasn't Charles. Even though Sam Davidson wasn't dead, as far as he knew. And it made him want to scream.

Instead, he shoved a contaminated materials cart into some drawers and tried to breathe. He kicked it as hard as he could. Energy was coursing through him like it did at the apex of his nightmares, but no one was waking him up. There was nothing to wake up from, nothing to wake up to.

"Are you okay?" someone asked.

Jackson turned. A woman with a camera mounted on her shoulder. He stepped closer, heart pounding. He felt compelled to say something, to explain himself.

"It's been, uh… Hard. Since the shooting. I, uh… I lost some—some friends that day."

A moment later, he nodded at the woman. He was done. She gave him a sympathetic look, the kind April always complained about, and turned the corner back toward the surgical wing. Jackson waited a few more minutes, then headed through the hallways towards the tunnels. Teddy wouldn't be expecting him back on her service for a while. She probably wouldn't even want him after that manic behavior.

He sat down with a packet of saltines and zoned out, mind going everywhere at once, not settling anywhere long.

When he heard someone walk in, Jackson glanced at the clock—he'd been there for an hour and a half. Whatever.

"Jackson."

He looked up at April's voice.

"Hey."

She sat next to him on his gurney. "I heard what happened."

He nodded and she scooted a little closer, forcing him to sling an arm around her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"Must've been horrible."

"It was." He was quiet for a minute. "Right after they died, I didn't understand your reaction. I was removed from it." That feeling that everything's gone as wrong as you could ever dream in your worst dreams, and it's not ending. "I get it now."

"I figured," she murmured, and reached down to squeeze his hand. "It's over, okay?"

April was good at easing him out of his nightmares, but he could tell this time, it would take longer than a few minutes.