Disclaimer: Same as always.

Chapter 14 – Be Honest

Jackson rolled over with a loud groan when sunlight streamed into his bedroom. He begrudgingly opened his eyes and saw that Brooks had opened his blinds. "Get the fuck outta my room," he muttered angrily.

"What are you even doing in here?" Brooks asked curiously. It was a lucky coincidence that he had spent the night elsewhere; otherwise he would have had to sleep on the couch.

"April asked me to sleep here because I said some completely stupid, not even true things," he explained with his face still in the pillow. He had been overly vulgar, and forceful, and unlike himself. He definitely didn't think that she was a prude and he had picked on her most fragile character flaw. "And it's your fault."

"Because of what I said last night?"

Jackson quickly sat up and looked at him in disbelief. "Of course because of what you said last night, asshole!"

Brooks held up his hands defensively. "Hey! I told you that I'm not trying to make waves, I was just being honest. I'm looking out for you."

"Make waves? Make waves?" Jackson shouted as he hopped out of bed. "That's all you've done! My relationship has gone steadily downhill since the moment you arrived!" He pushed Brooks hard on the chest and he stumbled out into the hallway.

"Settle down Avery!" Brooks yelled as he regained his footing before slamming into the hallway wall. "We've been best friends since we were five and you're going to fight me over some girl," he stated incredulously.

"Not just some girl," Jackson corrected angrily. "The girl!"

Before Jackson had the opportunity to throw a punch, Karev stepped out of his bedroom and immediately tried to defuse the situation. "What's going on?"

"I think Avery was just about to hit me," Brooks stated slowly.

"Why?" Karev asked curiously as he took another step towards a furious Avery and a hostile looking Brooks. The latter was still wearing his clothes from the night before whereas Avery was in just a pair of boxer briefs.

"Because I told him the truth! He can do way better than April Kepner!"

Jackson lunged towards Brooks but Karev held him back by the arms. "Easy Avery."

"Thank you for having some sense," Brooks sighed in relief. "She's nothing special."

Karev turned back to Brooks with a hard glare. "I didn't do it for you. I did it so that he can operate today and watch how you talk about my friend." He started to push Avery towards the bathroom as he said, "Just get ready for work. Kepner already left."

"She did?" Jackson asked with a frown.

Karev nodded. "Yeah, she did. She said she had to go in early."

Jackson sighed as he padded into the bathroom. It was obvious to him that she didn't need to go in early, she was simply avoiding him. And she had every right to.

April grabbed her lab coat out of her locker and quickly left the room. It was way too early for an attending to be at work, she was beating the interns to pre-rounds, but she didn't care. She hadn't been able to lie in her bed and think anymore. She needed to work. She wanted a distraction from all of the thinking.

She walked towards the interns' locker room but stopped short when she heard loud chatter coming from inside.

"I have no idea what he sees in her," a voice stated. "She's not even that pretty."

"She's a really good doctor and she is really pretty," a second voice argued. It sounded like her eager intern, Dr. Coles.

A third person laughed, "You have such a crush on her."

"I do not," he muttered timidly.

April was just about to step into the room when the first voice spoke again. "The only reason that a guy like Jackson Avery would be with her is out of pity."

April sucked in a deep breath and took a step backwards. She knew that it was just petty interns but overhearing something like that was the last thing that her self-esteem needed today. She turned around and headed straight for the ER.

She knew that she was insecure, it wasn't exactly breaking news. It was hard for her not to feel insecure around Jackson on the best of days. She knew what people who didn't know them thought when they saw them together. He was just so perfect and she was average in every possible way. And now their levels of experience were finally getting to her, actually she was a little surprised that it had never been a problem before. She had only ever been with him and he had been with so many women. She had been called a prude before, it wasn't a new insult for her, but it had never stung so much.

She was terrified that he was finally being honest with her. She was too insecure to be around and she was too inexperienced to have any fun with. The problem was that she had no idea how to fix either problem.

She sat behind the nurses' station in the pit and logged onto a computer. She wasn't there very long before a cup of coffee was placed in front of her. She looked up expecting to see Jackson, but instead she found Alex.

"Thanks," she said softly as she grabbed the coffee.

"You left in a bit of a hurry this morning so I figured you could use it," he explained. He paused for a moment before he bluntly asked, "What did you do to Avery?"

"I didn't do anything to him," she answered defensively.

"I had to break up a fight between him and Brooks this morning." Her eyes widened in surprise. "It was over you."

"Me?" She asked in shock. "Why?"

"Maybe you should ask him," Alex told her cryptically before he walked away.

Morning passed slowly in the pit. No serious traumas came in so most of the cases were handed over to residents or other departments for consults. She had gone up to peds to discharge Logan and then took a break to get another coffee and a bit of lunch before returning to ER.

When something eventful finally came into the ER, April wished that it hadn't. Two very drunk men were arguing with each other from their neighbouring beds. They weren't much older than college students.

"It's not even two o'clock," she said to herself as she wondered how they were this intoxicated this early in the day. She pointed to Holmes, a brawny third year resident who reminded her of Charles in build and stature, and told him to try to get the situation under control.

He managed to get one of the men to quiet down but the other one continued to cause a racket. She sighed before she walked towards the beds. "Sir," she began evenly, "you need to calm down or I'm going to have to call security."

The man grinned salaciously. "You are fine."

April refrained from rolling her eyes. A drunken creep was the last thing that she needed. "Can you lie back in your bed please?"

He surprisingly did what he was told and laid back. She reached forward and removed the gauze from his forehead. He had a rather nasty gash and the fact that his blood was thin thanks to alcohol wasn't helping.

"Do I need to be taken to a private room?" He slurred.

She shook her head. "No, you'll just need some stitches."

"You sure? Cuz we should totally go somewhere alone." He reached around her and roughly pinched her backside.

She jumped in surprise and took a step backwards. "Sir," she began with the intention of reprimanding him but Holmes had managed to get himself into a scuffle with his rowdy patient. Holmes ducked on reflex and she didn't even see the fist moving towards her. The next thing that she knew she was laying on the ER floor.

The pit instantly became much more hectic as attendings and residents rushed to help restrain the two troublesome patients while Mark Sloan carefully picked up the small red-head. "You really just got decked, Kepner."

"No kidding," she mumbled miserably. She cradled her right hand as Sloan led her towards a trauma room. She had used the hand to break her fall and she thought she might have sprained it.

She sat on the end of the examining table as Sloan gather some bandages and a suture kit before leaving to get an icepack.

She reached up to inspect her face and she found that her bottom lip was swollen and she was bleeding above her eye. "Ah shoot," she groaned. "Could this day get any worse?" She asked aloud to herself.

Sloan returned and handed her the icepack. "You don't have a broken nose or jaw so that's good. Take care of that lip first and then we'll look at the wrist." He put on a set of gloves and pulled a tray towards them. He dabbed at the cut above her eye. She winced as his hands neared her face with a needle and he laughed. "I'm offended Kepner," he commented. "You have the best plastic surgeon in the country at your disposal. Would you rather I page Avery?"

She quickly shook her head. "No, don't page Jackson. I'm pretty sure he's in surgery and we're not really talking anyway," she revealed in a murmur.

"You're fighting?" He asked in concern. Avery hadn't mentioned anything to him and they had been together almost all morning. He had seemed moodier than usual though. "What about?"

April repositioned the icepack on her lip. She wasn't sure if she was comfortable talking about this with Mark Sloan but she wasn't necessarily comfortable talking to Alex, Meredith, or Cristina either, and Sloan probably knew the most about their relationship out of anyone at the hospital. He was probably the reason that they were still together. She had cried into his chest for God's sake.

"Sex," she finally answered and she blushed involuntarily.

Sloan crinkled his brow in confusion. "Sex?" Avery certainly never complained about Kepner in the bedroom.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I think our vastly different levels of experience are finally becoming a problem."

Sloan placed his hand firmly on the side of her head to hold her still so that he could concentrate on stitching her up.

"I just don't think he's being honest," she continued quietly. "About what he wants and even, how attractive he finds me."

"Don't be ridiculous Kepner. He's crazy about you."

She sighed again. She knew that he was crazy about her. She knew that he was in love with her, that they were best friends, and that he wanted to have a family with her, which made last night so scary for her. Sex wasn't a big deal to her but she didn't want the man that was soon going to be her husband to be with her because he felt obligated, or worst case scenario, out of pity. She wanted to be wanted, and it wasn't wrong to want that.

"We haven't…umm…been together in a while," she confessed as she blushed, "for a few different reasons, and there are…certain things that I'm just not comfortable with and I think that he's just fed up. I can't really say that I blame him, and what if we're trying too hard to make this work," she ranted. "What if we're not compatible in that way and we're just forcing it? What if it was supposed to be a onetime thing? What if we're just supposed to be friends who have really strong feelings for each other?"

That logic seemed more and more plausible to her as time passed and maybe returning to being just friends wouldn't be so bad. They would part on amicable terms at least. She wouldn't blame him for anything. They had tried and it just hadn't worked out. There was nothing wrong with that either.

"Do you really feel that way?" Sloan inquired.

"I don't know," she sighed. "I mean, how long can you fake physical attraction?" She had always been attracted to him, it was impossible not to be, but he being attracted to her was just too good to be true. She had always known that.

"Men don't fake anything," Sloan chuckled. "If he wasn't attracted to you he never would have slept with you in the first place. Besides, he once told me that you're the best he's ever had."

"Really?" She asked as she felt her cheeks flush. She couldn't believe that she was talking about this with Mark Sloan, of all people.

"Yup," he nodded. "And you're hot and cute, best of both worlds."

"Thank you Dr. Sloan," she muttered in embarrassment.

"Yeah, you are very—"

"Dr. Sloan, sexual harassment," she teased in a much perkier voice.

"Right," he laughed. "Sorry."

She smiled, "Its okay. Thank you for doing this." She gently touched the skin above her eyebrow when he finished.

"Keeping pretty faces pretty, its what I do," he grinned. He pulled off his gloves and tossed them on the nearby tray. "Are you dizzy or anything? Have a headache?"

"A little but that's to be expected."

"I should probably take you down for a CT scan just to be safe."

Before April had a chance to protest, Jackson frantically stormed into the trauma room and began speaking breathlessly. He had obviously run from wherever he was previously. "What the hell happened?"

"A little drunk and disorderly in the pit," Sloan responded.

"Why didn't you page me?" He questioned as he glared at his mentor.

April spoke up, "I asked him not to."

Jackson stepped towards her and frowned. He gently held her face as he examined her injuries. "Are you okay? Have you been down to CT yet?"

"I was just about to take her," Sloan told him.

"That's okay. I'll do it."

"I don't need a CT scan," April stated stubbornly.

Sloan uneasily headed towards the door. "Well, I'm gonna go if you don't need me anymore."

"Thank you again, Dr. Sloan," April smiled.

He nodded before he slipped out of the room.

"How come you didn't page me?" Jackson asked as he gently pushed her hair out of her face.

"You were in surgery and Sloan was already here, and I didn't wanna make a big fuss about it," she stated in exasperation.

"Well you should have paged me. I had to hear from a nurse that some idiot hit my fiancé. Scared me to death. Don't do that again." He had gone from panicked to furious in a matter of seconds and he was pretty sure that he had never ran faster in his life. It was a good thing that he hadn't been in the pit at the time; he would have torn that guy apart.

"I'm sorry," she apologized sincerely. No matter how awkward things were between them, she really should have paged him to save him the worry.

He noticed that she was uneasily holding her wrist. "Is your hand okay?"

"It's just a sprain," she assured him. "It's nothing." It would still probably keep her from operating for a few days though.

He wrapped her wrist with a bandage Sloan had left before he said, "Come on, I'm going to bring you down to CT, get you some pain meds, and then bring you home."

"Jackson, you don't have to. I can go home on my own."

"I already cleared my schedule for the day." He rubbed her upper arms and willed her to look at him. "I know that I've been a jerk but please stop pushing me away," he whispered. "Just let me explain. Please."

She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. "I don't wanna talk about this here, okay?"

"Okay," he nodded begrudgingly.

April walked into their apartment with Jackson trailing behind her. She had decided to save herself some agony by not changing into her clothes so she was still wearing her scrubs. Her headache had gotten substantially worse and she was glad that Jackson had insisted on medication.

She walked into her bedroom and stopped in her tracks when she spotted dozens of flowers on her dresser.

"I ordered them this morning, before I left for work," Jackson said quietly from behind her.

She didn't say anything as she proceeded to lie down on her bed. She turned on her side with her head pillowed on her left arm. "Thank you for bringing me home."

"You're welcome," he replied as he lay on her bed as well. "Can I stay here with you?" He asked softly.

She nodded weakly with closed eyes but after a moment she spoke. "We can't keep doing this, its exhausting."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Fighting is exhausting."

"No, not the fighting," she corrected. "This. Us. We tried but it's too hard."

He crinkled his brow in confusion. "Tried what?"

"Being more than friends," she answered. "Its too hard, we're too different."

"So what if we're different," he argued passionately. She couldn't be saying what he thought she was saying. He knew that she would end things between them in a heartbeat if she thought that it was in his best interest but he wasn't about to let her this time. "We have the same job. We want the same things. We feel the same way about each other."

She finally opened her eyes to look at him. "Do we?" She challenged. "Because I know that I'm not exactly the most…stimulating person in the bedroom, and I just can't suddenly get over confidence issues I've had since I was thirteen."

"I sincerely didn't mean any of the shit I said last night and I'm sorry. You were right, I was upset about something and I took it out on you. I will never do anything like that again and that's not how I feel," he reiterated. "But I do think that you should be a little more comfortable with who you are because I don't want you to change a thing. I think that you're perfect just the way you are."

She smiled and felt herself start to get emotional because she knew that he was being one hundred percent honest with her. "Thank you."

He reached forward and gently wiped the tears from her eyes. "You don't have to thank me. I love you. I want to tell you things like that everyday."

She took a deep, shuddering breath before she asked a very crucial question. "But what if the spark's gone? What if I'm not enough?"

He moved closer to her on the bed and wrapped an arm around her waist. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," she began shakily; "do you still enjoy making love to me? And be honest!"

He guffawed at the absurdity of her question. "You do not even need to ask me that!"

She couldn't help but giggle a little at the smirk on his face. "I have to! I'm a neurotic wreck and I've never done this before and you lost your virginity in a freakin' threesome! And we're getting married so I need to know if you genuinely want me in that way!"

Jackson smiled as he pressed his forehead against hers and rubbed their noses together. "Let me show you."

"Show me what?"

His hand slid up her body to cup her jaw. "How much I love making love to you and how much I want you all the time." He started to slowly push her scrub top upwards and she rolled onto her back and raised her arms above her head.

A/N: We really need some Japril next episode. Please leave a review! :)