AN: don't know if someone is reading, but if you're… so sorry for the lack of updates, life happens sometimes. (Or every day, xD).
I always like to be ready for the worst (shows-wise). So this is kind of an AU of what would happen if Little Not-Hypothetical doesn't make it (which he will. HE. He is a he! [Fangirl moment over]). Ay, Shonda… you had to mess with our babies' baby.
Also, I might or might not have paraphrased a line from Friends. I just love it. Hope you recognize it!
Title: Grief
Word count: 705
Pairing: Japril, please.
It was easier to disarm a rocking chair than arming it, of course. Finding tab A was much easier when it was already connected to slot B. And knowing what an Allen wrench did helped, too.
The task was completed without breaking sweat (or a tear).
He believed that in distressed moments he functioned better when he had something to do. Keeping his mind occupied worked like magic when his father left home and when his grandmother died. It also had done wonders in the aftermath of the shooting.
So when Karen, sweet Karen, shaking, offered through tears to take care of the apartment stuff with the help of Joe, he was quick to refuse the help (in a kind way, he hoped). And when Catherine offered to hire people to do the same, he went on and perorated about how they –he – didn't need help. How he was a well-functioning adult and could see for his family, his wife by himself. It was something he needed to do and no one else, not even April… especially not even April.
If his mother was bothered by his cheek, he didn't notice. Lately, he was being treated by everyone with silk gloves which, honestly, was getting exasperating. He wanted to pick a fight with whoever would bite off his bait. He was mad at the world, at himself. And it also coincided that the only person he wasn't mad at… wasn't utterly talkative.
Calmly he put away the different parts of the chair on its original box and sealed it with duct tape. It was the last piece of furniture standing in a bedroom he could no longer bear to see. The bedroom that had once contained so many expectations, hope and dreams, now was much dreaded by him and his wife, both.
They feared to face the would-be-bedroom of their little boy… his little man; the son that didn't get to be a boy or a man, for that matter. A boy… he was a boy, his son. He found that talking about their baby in past sentence when he didn't get to have a present was completely incongruent.
They had lost him before they actually had him.
April's family was great (so was his mom, unbelievably so). He really liked his in-laws. Karen was lovely. Joe was very welcoming (in spite of the whole interrupting-his-daughter-wedding-and-then-no-being-present-for-the-real-deal thing). And even though his sisters-in-law were crazy, he knew they always meant well. But if he heard them say one more time: "it was God's Will", "God wanted it this way" or his favorite "God called him to His side" he was going to explode.
It was even almost sardonic the way God played a part in his life, especially when he didn't ask for it; nor believed in Him.
Who was this guy that supposedly had the right to decide on someone else's life? Not even they, doctors, in their highest of highs, had the right to decide who lived and who didn't.
If he believed in his wife's God, which he did not, he would tell Him, how he would have understood if this was a punishment for his behavior, for his non-believing. But the thing was… he didn't believe, his wife did; and she didn't deserve any punishment at all. April was the lightest thing in his life.
She wasn't a bad person. She read the bible. She followed every rule she had to follow. The only mishap she had on the road… was him. But still, they mended it as soon as he got his head out of his ass. And in spite of it all, she was a good Christian. He was sure, she wasn't deserving of the ripping pain that parted souls in more ways than one. No one should.
"Jackson, where are you?" he heard his wife's voice ask from the apartment's entrance.
He looked around the empty room for a last revision.
"I'll be right out. I'm in the… spare bedroom." He managed to answer.
He would have learned how to be a father along the way, but April? His wife was already a mother, without a son.
And that, in the science or religious world, wasn't fair... at all.