A/N: Thanks for the support! Happy holidays :)

Disclaimer: The usual.

Chapter 14 – Old Wounds

The shock of any trauma, I think changes your life. It's more acute in the beginning and after a little time you settle back to what you were. However it leaves an indelible mark on your psyche.

Alex Lifeson

Jackson knew that her last words had not been good for him, for their future together, but all that he was able to focus on were those three little words that made his heart beat a tad bit faster. "You love me too?" He repeatedly hoarsely.

"Yeah, I do," she whispered, "I always have. You're my best friend."

She figured that she had to be madly in love with a man that could infuriate her at the drop of a dime and then turn around and make her smile. She loved everything about him too. She loved his sense of humor, his fleeting moments of sensitivity, his passion for his specialty, and she even loved the large chip on his shoulders. Mostly, she loved the way that he made her feel when it was just the two of them. No man had ever looked at her the way that Jackson did. No man challenged her the way that Jackson did. No man knew her as well as Jackson did, and they had an amazing physical connection. She had always told herself that she would only ever sleep with one man and so far she had been true to that. She had always thought that it would be her husband but God had had other plans.

However, she and Jackson certainly weren't perfect. There was a lot of bad history between them. They were too similar in a lot of ways and too different in others. They both worked too much and didn't have a lot of time and energy for a relationship. One thing that kept eating away at April was that unlike Matthew, Jackson didn't understand her faith and her beliefs. When they had been together he had never had time for her religion. Despite how much she loved him, she just didn't see it working out in the long run.

Except for a moment when she had believed that she was pregnant, she had never seen a future with Jackson. She had just been another notch on his belt. That's what she had truly believed. He hadn't shown her that he wanted her until very recently…and then he had gone and ruined what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. She couldn't help but resent him a little bit for that.

And she had a hard time truly believing what he said. All of her old insecurities were resurfacing and she hated it.

Jackson could see the confusion and conflict written all over her face so he moved to sit next to her on the couch. "What is it?" He asked quietly. "April? What do you need me to say?"

"I dunno," she answered in frustration. "You don't have to say anything I guess." He leaned in to kiss her and she abruptly turned her cheek and firmly placed her hand on his chest. "That's not what I meant. I don't even want to think about kissing you."

She knew what kissing would lead to and that's not what she needed right now.

"Yeah," he winced, "I deserve that." She defensively crossed her arms over her chest and he shifted away from her to give her a little space. "I just needed to see you, and to show you that I really meant what I said."

"I'm really tired, Jackson," she breathed.

He nodded in understanding. "Yeah, of course, it's been a really long day."

She slowly got to her feet and walked towards her bedroom door, she wasn't sure if she found it annoying or endearing that Jackson followed her. She pressed her back against her closed bedroom door and looked up at him tentatively. "I just have to clean up my room; it's a little bit of a mess."

"Well I can help," he smiled. "It'd be no trouble."

She vehemently shook her head. "Um, no, that's fine."

He laughed softly as he reached for the doorknob. "I know I'm not the tidiest guy and for you everything has its place, but I'll be good, I promise."

She desperately grasped his wrist and looked up at him pleadingly. "No, Jackson, don't."

He furrowed his brow in confusion. "April, I'm not gonna like jump you as soon as we get into your bedroom. Come on, I wouldn't, I—"

She quickly interrupted him. "I know you wouldn't." She didn't want to let him into her bedroom for a very different reason, one that showed just how much she cared about him. She reached upward and tenderly touched his face. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me?" He repeated. "What's going on? What can't I see?"

She sighed loudly before finally telling him the truth. "My apartment is bigger than Matthew's, so his groomsmen came by today and they…"

She trailed off but that had been all that Jackson needed to hear. He screwed up his face in displeasure. "Yeah, I get it," he gritted out. Her bedroom had been prepared for a wedding night. He could imagine the flowers and candles, the rose petals spread out across her mattress. There was probably even lingerie, and she was right, he really didn't want to see that.

All of this was supposed to be for them, not for her and some other guy. The butterflies, the mints, the wedding night. He had proposed first after all. Now he wasn't even sure if they were going to be together at all. Because he was an idiot.

He looked so upset and deflated by the thought of what was behind her bedroom door that she couldn't help but feel incredibly bad for him. Clearly, the thought of her marrying someone else, and everything that went along with it, had been terribly difficult for him. Otherwise he wouldn't have interrupted her wedding today.

She placed her hands on his abdomen and began to push him backwards. "Let's just go back to the living room." Truthfully, she didn't have the energy to clean up her bedroom anyway.

"I can go if you want," he offered kindly.

She shook her head. "No, you can stay." She knew that he needed to stay much more than she needed him to go.

They returned to her sofa and she lay back against the armrest. He gently collapsed on top of her, resting his head on her stomach.

"Thank you for letting me stay," he whispered. "I love you."

She rubbed his scalp as she listened to his breathing even out. He had appeared exhausted so she wasn't surprised that he had fallen asleep so quickly, it didn't even matter that he was still wearing his suit.

Even though she had been thinking of kicking him out, she was glad that he was here. But she couldn't stop thinking about the fact that she was supposed to be a married woman now. She looked down at her bare left hand and choked back a sob. Although she loved Matthew, it wasn't so much that she was mourning the loss of him; she was mourning the loss of what could have been. She was mourning the loss of the life that they could have had together. A life that she knew would have been wonderful and fulfilling, even if it also would have been boring and predictable.

Whereas with Jackson, everything was so much more up in the air and it made letting go of her life with Matthew just a bit harder. Even though he had professed his love for her, and was adamant about proving it to her, he was still a wild card in her mind.

And she had never been much of a risk taker.

Jackson awoke the next morning in the same exact position that he had fallen asleep in. He was lying on April's stomach with his hands wrapped around her waist and he could feel her fingers rubbing soothing circles into the top of his head.

"Good morning," he murmured gruffly as his grip around her tightened. He definitely wanted to get used to this.

April sighed in relief; thank God he was finally awake. "Hey, um, can you get up?" She asked as she started to push on his shoulders. "You're kinda pressing on my bladder."

"Right, sorry," he chuckled as he got to his feet.

April ran to the bathroom and he took a moment to stretch. Although his feet had been hanging over the edge of the couch, he felt incredibly rested and content. He wanted to spend every night with her, whether it was on a couch or in a bed. He removed his suit jacket and loosened his tie as it occurred to him that he really needed to change his clothes. A shower probably wouldn't go astray either.

She left her bathroom and headed into the kitchen without giving the man in her apartment a second glance. "Do you want some coffee?" She asked as she turned on her coffee pot.

"No thanks, I'll get some on my way to work. Do you want to ride in together?"

She shook her head and quietly replied, "I'm not going into work. I kinda have the next week booked off."

He swallowed harshly. She had taken time off for her honeymoon. "Right." He moved to stand next to her but her gaze remained fixed on her countertop. "April, you can't even look at me," he stated sadly.

She sighed loudly before she finally met his gaze. "I thought a lot last night," she told him slowly. "After you fell asleep, and I don't want this to be about you, I want it to be about me."

"I'm c-confused," he stuttered.

"The night of the storm you said that me picking you wasn't about you, it was about me," she explained. "You were totally wrong but the point is that this time," she paused, "This time I do want this decision to be about me."

He gulped harshly. He really wished that night would stop coming back to bite him in the ass. "What does that mean?"

"It means," she tried to smile, "that I will call you. And I'm not doing this to punish you, or get back at you for hurting me; I just need time to think about what I want and what's best for me. I know that's selfish but it's what I need right now, so I'll call you."

Four days passed and she still hadn't called. Jackson was going out of his mind; he checked his phone for new text messages or missed calls every five minutes. He was a wreck and everyone at the hospital noticed. All of a sudden he was the guy that had ruined a wedding and hadn't even gotten the girl. The worst part was that nobody would tell him anything. He knew that Robbins, Hunt, and Grey had all talked to April since the almost wedding and they refused to tell him what she had said. The pediatric surgeon assured him that she just needed more time, the Chief of Surgery just glared at him when he inquired, and Meredith just told him that he had the worst timing ever. Karev kept cracking jokes at his expense and Stephanie looked at him like she couldn't figure out why she had wasted so much time on a guy like him.

He kept fighting himself on his way home from work every night so that he wouldn't drive to her apartment. He desperately needed to see her when he knew that he had to be patient. Pressuring her would not do him any good.

"She still hasn't called?" Callie asked as she caught him checking his phone yet again at the end of a board meeting when all the other members had dispersed.

"Nope," he answered dejectedly as he laid his phone down on the table in front of him.

Callie paused on her way to the door before she sat down in the seat she had just vacated. She had seen him like this before, waiting for some form of communication from Kepner like a teenage girl. "She just needs some time to heal," she said in a soothing voice.

Jackson groaned loudly before he spoke. "I should have just let her get married! I'm a complete idiot! If she had married him then she would be happy, right now she's miserable and it's my fault. I made the woman I love miserable!"

"Don't say that," Callie responded firmly. "You followed your heart, don't ever apologize for that." She paused before she added, "Do you know who would have loved what you did in that barn?"

"Who?" He questioned automatically.

She grinned widely, "Mark."

Jackson smiled at the mention of his late mentor's name. He knew that she was right, he had followed Mark's advice and the man would have been proud.

"I can just hear him now," Callie continued happily. "Way to go Avery! That's my boy!" She laughed before she frowned, "God, I miss him."

"Me too," Jackson agreed. "I could really use his advice right now."

That comment made Callie release a bark of a laugh. "He would have given you terrible advice about this!"

Jackson laughed as well. "Yeah, probably, but someone needs to give me advice."

Callie sat up a little straighter in her seat. "I can give you advice. I can be your stand in Mark Sloan." The orthopedic surgeon pressed her fingers together excitedly as various ideas raced through her mind. "Now, what exactly do you need advice on?"

"I just…uh…I just want to show her how much I love her, how much she means to me, and that I know her better than anybody else," he divulged shyly.

"So, a grand gesture?"

Jackson opened his mouth to reply but both of their pagers went off at the same time. He pulled it off of his waistband and read the message in confusion. "Lockdown?" He spoke shakily.

April was surprised that her sisters had stuck around Seattle for so long after the wedding, but she was surprisingly grateful for their presence. They had cleaned up her romantic mess of a bedroom and stuffed her wedding dress into the back of her closet, they stopped by to visit her every day, and they did not make one mean-spirited comment. It seemed as if they weren't going anywhere until they knew that she was okay.

"So," Kimmie began after taking a sip from a cup of Irish coffee that April had offered. "Are we going to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" April answered obviously as she made herself busy in the kitchen. She was making brunch for herself and her sisters, and it gave her an excuse not to be as involved in the conversation going on around her.

"Um…Jackson Avery," Alice supplied after a pause.

April's shoulders tensed reflexively. "What about him?"

Libby exchanged a look with her younger sisters before she spoke. "About how he stood up in front of everyone that cares about you, at your wedding to another man, and told you that he loves you and that he wants you. Can we talk about that?"

"Oh yeah, that," April mumbled to herself.

"Have you talked to him?" Kimmie probed.

April nodded slowly. "Yeah, we talked. I told him that I need some time to think."

"About what?" Alice squeaked. "He clearly adores you."

"April, the way he looks at you," Libby added with a dramatic sigh.

"And he was brave enough to confess his love for you at your wedding!" Kimmie jumped in.

"What is there to think about?" The three Kepner sisters chirped in unison.

April spun around to face her three sisters sitting in the living room in frustration. "How about when I told him that I wanted him he humiliated me, but when I'm practically saying 'I do' to another man he says that he's always loved me? What the hell is that about?" She screeched in agony.

His words the night of the storm had been haunting her for days now and she just couldn't seem to get them out of her head. They seemed very representative of the current situation that they were in.

He had said, completely mockingly: "When he was into me I couldn't handle it, but suddenly when he almost dies I can't live without him."

If he had felt that way then than what was to stop her from turning his own words back on him now. Maybe he just wanted her when he couldn't have her. What happened when the chase was over?

She knew exactly what would happen then and she was afraid to think about it.

"But honey, you love him," Kimmie stated soothingly. "That's all that matters."

April angrily waved the spatula in her hand at them. "No, it's not," she argued. "There's much more to a relationship than that!" She groaned before she spoke again. "I'd be lying if I said that the fact that it took him so long to figure it out doesn't bother me. Its bothers me a lot. Matthew knew very quickly that he loved me. He was the first guy I've ever met that was instantly attracted to me. Like he saw me for me, and loved that. That never happens to me," she sighed.

"And Jackson doesn't? He fell in love with you once he really got to know you. To me, that shows that he sees you for you," Libby pointed out.

Alice nodded in agreement. "Duckie," she spoke the previously hated nickname endearingly. "Just give him a chance."

April groaned again and rolled her eyes. "You guys really aren't helping me." She knew all of the reasons why she should give into Jackson and allow them to be together, she just really wanted to hear all of the reasons why she shouldn't. She had even crafted a pros and cons list but that hadn't worked either.

Her heart and her head were fighting and it was very difficult for her.

April returned her attention to the food on the stove and her sisters recognized the end of the conversation. Kimmie sipped from her mug while Alice and Libby frowned in disappointment.

To break the silence, Libby reached for the remote and flicked on the television. The sound of a news report filled the apartment.

"In a scene reminiscent of one of the city's more recent tragedies, Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital, formerly known as Seattle Grace Mercy West, is in lockdown. The reason for the lockdown remains unclear but we will update you as soon as we receive a statement."

The three Kepner girls sitting in the living room whipped their heads around when they heard a crash come from the kitchen. Upon hearing the news, April had dropped the spatula and frying pan in her hands.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?" Libby gasped as she jumped to her feet.

Her younger sister remained frozen in shock as she stared at the television screen. "Lockdown?" She whispered fearfully.

Jackson pulled out his phone to charge as soon as he walked into his apartment. He had been too distracted by the mess today to remember that his battery had been running low. Although his heart had jumped up into his throat when he had received the page to signal lockdown, it had turned out to be more of an inconvenience than anything else. It hadn't been a shooter, or an armed intruder, or anything of that nature. A patient from the psych ward had managed to escape their room and had hidden themselves somewhere in the hospital. Security found the troubled patient after a few hours and he had needed to stay back to complete a mountain of paperwork.

It had been incredibly annoying, but he was thankful that it hadn't been anything more serious. Just receiving that page had made Goosebumps erupt on his skin and a sense of unbelievable fear take over his body, and he knew that every hospital employee that had gone through the shooting from a few years ago had felt the same exact way.

It had been an incredibly long day.

His phone sprang to life as soon as he plugged it into an outlet and it immediately began to display the text messages and emails that he had received when he had let it die at work. However, before he got a chance to look at any of them, there was a knock on his front door.

He opened the door and was pleasantly surprised by his visitor. "April," he smiled. She looked haggard and stressed, but incredibly relieved to see him.

"Jackson?" She breathed rather angrily. "I've been calling you and you haven't been answering."

"Sorry…uh…my phone died and I—"

Before he could finish his sentence, she lunged at him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and began to sob into his chest. He slowly backed into his apartment and closed the front door so that they didn't have to stand on his doorstep in the cold. Although he was incredibly taken aback, he wrapped his arms around her in return and kissed the top of her head.

"Hey, hey," he whispered. "What's wrong?"

She managed to stop her stream of tears after a few minutes and backed out of his grasp. "I'm sorry," she apologized as she wiped her eyes. "I just…I heard on the news that the hospital went into lockdown and I just had to know that you were okay." She reached forward and touched his face and then his chest. She had to touch him, to feel his heart beating, to prove to herself that he was indeed alive and well.

"I'm fine," he assured her. "Everyone's fine. We had to go into lockdown because a psych patient got loose."

"Oh." She chuckled awkwardly to herself as she looked down at the floor.

Well…now she felt incredibly stupid. They hadn't gotten that far on the news. But still, the word 'lockdown' had sent a shiver down her spine, the memories and feelings of the last lockdown where still very vivid for her. She had lost two close friends that day and she wasn't sure what she would do if she had lost him today.

Since the wedding, she had let feelings of anger and doubt overwhelm her and she had never stopped to think that she couldn't live without Jackson. Even while she had been with Matthew, she had needed Jackson to be an important part of her life. She needed him. She loved him.

Jackson covered both of her hands with his and smiled. "I'm glad that you came to check on me. I was thinking about you today. Well," he laughed, "I think about you every day. Are you okay?"

She nodded stubbornly as she pulled her hands out of his and wiped the last of her tears from her eyes. "Yeah, I'm just glad that you're safe," she sighed. She gently placed her hands on his chest again, evenly spaced on his muscled pectorals. "I love you and I'm glad that you're safe."

He smiled happily and his eyes sparkled. "I love you too, April."

She tried not to let his reply make her whole body buzz in pleasure, but it did. "Um, I should go now," she told him awkwardly as she looked back towards the door. "Let you get some rest. You obviously had a rough day."

"Wait," he called after a brief moment of thought. It was clear to him that she had had a rough day as well. He had worried her without even realizing. "Do you want to stay?"

She bit down on her bottom lip to contain another wave of tears. "Yeah," she nodded shakily. "I do." She knew she didn't want him out of her sight ever again.

Jackson pulled her into his arms again and held her tightly. She looked up at him tentatively and his eyes immediately zeroed in on her lips. Her soft, beautiful lips. He raised one of his hands to cup her face and he slowly ran his thumb along her bottom lip. "Let me kiss you," he spoke huskily. "Please. Just one kiss."

She nodded and tilted her head upwards so that her lips could meet his. He kissed her tenderly and she could feel every ounce of want that he had for her. She knew that he wanted more from her, physically and emotionally, but she just wasn't ready yet. She hummed when the kiss ended and licked her lips.

"That was nice," she told him quietly.

"Yeah," he smiled. "It was." It hadn't been that long since they had been together in the hotel room, but it felt like a year since he had last kissed her. Perhaps it was because he had wanted to do it for so long. He had wanted to kiss her since he stood up at her wedding. "Come on," he smiled again as he took one of her hands in his. "Let's go to bed."

A/N: They're not going to live happily ever after just yet! There are still some things to work through.

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