A/N: I think someone should give chapter three a little love. It's looking a little lonely with no reviews. Just kidding. You don't have to if you don't want to, but it would be nice :) As always, thanks for the wonderful reviews! They make my day when I see them!

April watched him leave, her mouth open in shock, fear, surprise, confusion...She wasn't sure what was going through her mind, or that she had heard him correctly. Had he said what she thought he had said? Strangely, she felt like the other woman; here she was, in his apartment, in nothing but lingerie and after a tryst (possible, in their case) he had left her after professing his love. Did he even believe what he had said, or had he just said it? For a moment April thought she was going to be sick, but not because he had said it, but because she didn't know if she felt the same way. And if she told him that...God, she thought he would walk away from her. That scared her, made her want to curl up on the couch with a bottle of wine, drinking herself silly until he returned from whatever emergency he was called in to handle.

He had said he loved her, like it was as natural as breathing. And then he had fled.

She wasn't sure what to do; the last time this had happened to her, when a guy had left her half-naked, he hadn't returned, he had made her feel terrible. She knew that wasn't Stark's intention. After all, he had told her that he loved her. There was no way that could have been construed as an attempt to make her feel inadequate in some way.

April sighed and stared around the apartment, really unsure of what she should expect next, perhaps even a little afraid to find out.

"Dr. Stark, is something the matter?"

"No, Dr. Robbins, nothing is the matter." He was quickly scrubbing out, lathering his arms roughly as though there were bugs crawling over his skin, threatening to bite him.

His tone indicated to her that he was lying and that something was bothering him. Instead of calling him out on it, she commented softly, "You're getting out of here pretty quickly."

"I just...It's been a rough night, that's all."

Arizona began to scrub out as well, tearing off her cap as she threw it into the garbage. "Dr. Stark? You're flustered, and it's not because that patient almost died on us three times. What's wrong?"

He stopped scrubbing out and turned to face her, sighing. "I don't want to talk about it."

Arizona eyed him carefully before she sighed heavily, understanding that there was only one thing capable of causing of him discomfort because he never let himself close enough to a patient to get emotionally involved, one of the things she didn't like about him professionally. "Something happened with Kepner, didn't it?"

He shot her a hot glare; he didn't say a word to her until the nurses and other surgeons had scrubbed out and left the room. With a sigh of his own, he turned to dry his hands off before he tore off his cap. After a few moments, he turned to face her and watched her do the same thing. With his arms crossed, Stark told her, "I did something that I probably shouldn't have."

"My God, you didn't do what Karev did, did you?" She had learned from other residents what he had done to Kepner, and to have that repeated...That girl did not deserve that, and Arizona would personally berate Stark if that was the case.

Stark scowled with a scoff. "That's actually offensive, you know."

Arizona sighed in relief. "So what happened then?"

"I...Um..." He sighed and laughed uncomfortably, looking down at the floor to find some courage to spit this out. "I told her that I loved her."

"You did what?"

"I know!"

"You...You-"

"I know!"

Arizona shook her head, hoping that it would wipe away some of the surprise. When it didn't work, she stammered, "I...I don't know what to say. What-What did she say when you told her that?"

"See, that's the other thing-"

"Oh God, what did you do?"

"I kinda...Well, I kind of bailed on her. I walked out and left her in my apartment."

"If it wasn't assault, I would slap you." She shook her head and sighed, almost in disgust. "I mean, that's almost as bad as me leaving for Africa from Callie after breaking up with her in the airport. I...How could you do that to her? Jesus, she's probably back there panicking and freaking out and so worried and-"

"I know!" He knew he had caught her off guard when he slammed his fist down on the table, more angry at himself than at her. "Okay, I know! I shouldn't have done it and now...Now I don't know what to do."

"You have to go back."

"What if..."

"And what if you don't go back? Because I gaurantee you it's going to cause more a problem if you just abandon her in your apartment than if you go back and face what you said to her. At least then you two can hash this thing out. By ignoring her and not going back...That's just like a slap in the face."

"But, it gives her time to process, to think about what I said and decide if she is really freaked out about it."

"You left her in your apartment!"

Stark groaned in frustration, running his fingers through his hair because it was the only thing he could do besides hitting the table again. How could he have been so stupid to admit that in the first place? He should have just lied to her and said he was flustered about the surgery-because, after all, it was a four year old boy who had come into the hospital because his father had shoved him down a flight of stairs-and he should have left. But he hadn't lied to her; he had told her the truth, and for a moment it felt like the truth was the most painful thing he would ever experience. Maybe it was not knowing, he decided, that hurt him the most. Not knowing and the fear that she would never look at him again. God, why hadn't he lied to her? It would have been so simple. But no, he had told her the truth, and now he wanted more than anything to take it back. The only positive light he could find in any of this was that he hadn't said it during sex. He regained his composure. "That's not the worst part."

"It gets worse! What did you do? Insult her, too?"

"No..." He scowled. "God I hope I didn't."

"What could possibly make it worse?"

He didn't want to admit this part, but her cold stare was forcing the words to come up from his throat. "She was wearing...you know."

Arizona scowled. "What? Nothing? Half-naked? Lingerie?" When he looked away from her at the last one, her mouth fell open in surprise. "You left her in your apartment wearing nothing but lingerie! She has never had sex before and she goes out on a limb and wears that something revealing like that and you do that?"

"You don't have to yell at me."

"Oh, no, I think I kind of do. Because she isn't going to do it and someone needs to bitch at you for that." Arizona shook her head, slightly disgusted. "I cannot believe you did that."

"Hey, I thought we were friends. Friends aren't supposed to look at their friends like they're scum on the bottom of a shoe."

"They do when the friend was being a total jackass and was wrong," Arizona returned. "I can't believe you did that to her. You don't do that to people you love!"

Stark groaned and slid against the wall until he was sitting against it. His face in his hands, he sighed heavily. "I don't know what to do. I'm a great surgeon, chief of pediatrics-"

"Thank you for rubbing that last one in.

He continued as if she had not interrupted him, "-And I have no idea what to do now."

"You've never told a woman that you loved her before?"

"I've done that. I just..." He rocked back and forth slightly, sighing heavily in exasperation. "April's different. She's so..."

"Innocent?"

Stark scoffed. "She was anything but that earlier."

"Thanks for that disturbing picture," Arizona responded with her own dark scowl at the image. She shook her head when he smirked and told him, "You need to go back, Dr. Stark."

"I can't face her. I mean, what if she...What if I scared the hell out of her?"

"Like it said, it probably scares the hell out of her more to have you here than there, explaining yourself. You need to go to her, for her own sanity, no matter how much it scares the hell out of you. Because... Because when you love someone, sometimes it's more about them than it is about you."

Stark looked up at her. "You're right."

Arizona laughed. "I think that's the first time I've ever heard you say that."

"There's a first time for everything." Stark stopped, scowling at the pun he had made accidentally. Finally, he got the courage and strength to stand. "I do have to go back, don't I?"

"Yes. She deserves better than a man who is going to run away from her."

"I can't believe I did that. I just..." He sighed. "I don't know."

"You'll figure it out, Dr. Stark. You will. Just follow your heart. Oh wait...That's what got you here in the first place." She smiled when he glared at her attempt to be funny; he was not amused, clearly, and left the room before she could say anything more about the subject.

Stark had changed from his scrubs back into his normal around the hospital wear, and was about to head home-back to her-when he stopped suddenly. She stood at the nurse's station, dressed in her own set of scrubs and doctor's coat. Like a reflex, his mind travelled back to a few hours ago; he forced the memory out of his head. It wasn't appropriate at work, to look at her like he had seen her naked. Stark felt his breath catch at the sight of her-or was that his heart?-and felt his body freeze, unable to move. Moments passed, and she must have known someone was staring at her, for she turned and gazed over at him. He couldn't move, couldn't even breathe. All he could do was attempt to analyze her stare, see what she was thinking. When he came up blank, the knot in his stomach grew.

He didn't want to approach her; all he wanted to do was walk away, perhaps ignore her the same way he had after her rejection. The thought worried him. Would she reject him again? His stomach twisted tighter, worse than any stressful night as his first few years as a doctor. She closed the chart and looked like she was going to advance toward him when she was intercepted by Dr. Altman, who swooped her up and swept her away, down the hall, out of his sight.

He was torn, his memory shifting from that look in her eyes when she saw him from afar-he wished he could define it-and surprise in her eyes when he had told her he loved her. The two looks were unmistakably different, and Stark wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse. Part of him didn't ever want to find out.

Hours passed and he still hadn't seen her since the nurse's station. Now, all he could do was drown himself in his mixed emotions, the food on his plate offering no help except to shovel the pain down-he knew it wouldn't help completely. A band-aid wasn't enough to fix a bloody, hideous gash. Stark didn't mind sitting alone; in fact, he was used to it, considering his only real friends at this hospital were Arizona and April-maybe his assistant, but he was certain that she hated him, too, considering he didn't need her quite as frequently. He wasn't sure what had gotten him here, but he knew the emotions, had recognized their paths instantly. It had gown from...contempt to surprise to attraction to even more attraction to pain, then from pain to longing, from longing to attraction again, from attraction to a dark lust, from lust to love, and finally from love to...to now he was kicking himself and wishing he had better check of emotions.

Maybe if he could control his emotions he would have been able to control his emotions and wouldn't be sitting here, trying to figure out what the hell he would say to April when he had the courage to face her.

The slam of a tray on his table startled him so much that he looked up. There she stood-well, now sat-with a look of fury in her eyes. He didn't say anything, only stared at her, hoping she would make the first move, maybe call him out for what he did to her. Instead, she furiously sipped her soda before she slammed that down, too. "People are so...infuriating. Don't you think so, Dr. Stark?"

"What..." Was she talking about him? "What happened, Dr. Kepner?"

"It's like a natural reflex for people to think, 'Oh, I'm not going to do that even though she told me to. No, I don't have to listen to her. She's just a chief resident, what could she possibly know?'"

Stark kept himself from breathing a sigh of relief. "What'd you do?"

"Put him in his place, is what I did." She wouldn't look at him, like he wouldn't look at her unless he was certain she was staring somewhere else.

"That must have been frustrating."

"It was, especially since I wasn't having that bad of a morning."

That comment sparked his attention so much that he couldn't take his eyes off her-at least, that was until it looked like she was going to stare at him, too. Stark looked down at his tray and sipped his soda quietly, the knot in stomach growing tighter and tighter as each second passed. "You were having a good morning?"

"My boyfriend told me he loved me." Their eyes met. "So, I guess that was a plus."

"Did that bother you, that he told you that?"

"Bothered me more that he left me in his apartment having no idea what to do because I didn't have a key to lock his apartment when I left. Luckily, I found key and was able to shut off all the lights and lock the place up before I left."

"That was a real dick move of him to do that."

"Yeah, it was."

"He's probably kicking himself right now because of it."

"You know what bothered me even more than that, though? Like infuriating."

"What's that?"

"Is that I'm not at all sure that he meant it. Because he could have been just saying it-maybe not even aware of what he was saying-or maybe he thought that's what I wanted to hear or maybe it was because I was wearing something that was more...revealing. I don't even know if he meant it when he said it."

"He meant it."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. People-at least some people that I know-don't say those three little words if they don't mean it. It's just not right. Kind of like it's not right to make someone do something they're uncomfortable with."

"He didn't pressure me, either, when I told him that I wasn't comfortable with things moving at such a fast past physically."

"Sounds like a good man."

"He is," April responded. They hadn't looked away from each other, and neither of their faces had changed. It was just a blank face with blank stares, as if this conversation was like one they would have while staring at an x-ray. "But I have to admit, Dr. Stark, that I'm a little worried."

"About what?"

"How he would feel if I didn't say it back, if I wasn't ready to say that back. I'm afraid that he'd bail on me, you know, maybe not talk to me anymore because of it."

"If he's a good man he'll accept that, just like he accepted your desire not to have sex."

His stare was so honest, so firm, that she was forced to look away because she couldn't take it anymore, because it warmed her heart and brought tears to her eyes, because God he was so perfect that she couldn't believe how lucky she was that she had found him, that he loved her. April didn't look up at him for a long while, and when she finally did, he was still staring at her, his gaze gentle, maybe a little fearful of her reaction. She furiously blinked away the tears, feeling her entire body tense when he reached across the table and took her hand in his, tender, sweet, and emitting so much love and compassion that she thought she would never feel her heart beat again. And like that, she couldn't stop the tears. His grip only tightening when his other hand reached across and took her other one, forcing her to look at him. His gaze was so steady, so strong, so honest and unwavering that April couldn't take her eyes off him.

"I hope those aren't sad tears, Dr. Kepner." He paused before he added, "Because I think your boyfriend would feel terrible to think that he had made you cry sad tears. Like, I don't think he would ever forgive himself."

"I'm thinking about stopping over at his place later tonight, to talk to him about this morning."

"Ever think that maybe he'd like to see your place?"

April didn't scowl; the hopeful yet blunt stare on his face prevented her from feeling anything besides the heat of his hand, like that was his heart's way of reaching out to her and attempting to comfort her soul. "I never thought about it, really. You think he'd like that?"

"I think he would. It's always nice to invite someone into your world every once in a while."

"I don't even feel like I'm a part of his world, not really. I mean, he doesn't really tell me anything about himself. I wish he'd do that more often."

"I'm positive he wouldn't mind doing that for you, either."

"Maybe I'll have him meet me at my place tonight," April offered, her face finally breaking out in a smile. "Maybe...Maybe he and I could make out on the couch in shared space a little bit to give my roommates a taste of their own medicine."

"I think he would like that very much." After a moment of silence-and the fact that they had not stopped looking at each other, nor had their hands separated-Stark told her, "I think your boyfriend is very lucky to have you."

"I'm the lucky one."