14. Hang On In There Baby
Under usual circumstances, the only way to send a care package to an incarcerated person is via an approved company. When that person is awaiting a retrial, or a new trial, or whatever the technical term for what's about to happen for George O'Malley is, the governor can decide. I have to submit a list of the items I'm planning to bring in advance, and the box is subjected to sniffer dogs and unpacked and repacked twice before I reach the nice desk clerk I remember from before, but these aren't usual circumstances, and I get to wrap it in bright paper, which makes her smile.
Her lipstick is coral today, and though she's still sturdy, she looks a little less sturdy than she did the last time I was here. I tell her so.
"Aren't you sweet." She beams, sorting the contents of the package by function – soap, shampoo, deodorant, hand sanitiser; the first three Harry Potters, this week's TV Guide; several pairs of white socks; the better part of my candy stash, sacrificed for the greater good. "Has all this been cleared?"
Officer Ross, whom I recognise by his perfect posture and poster boy handsomeness, nods, and she slides the orange tray on through the metal detector.
"It didn't seem like you thought there was anyone here worth you bringing packages to, Ms Kepner," Ross remarks, then immediately looks ashamed of himself for daring to question a lady. His mother raised him right, and some girl's going to count herself lucky to have met him one day.
Not me, though.
I'll count myself lucky if I don't have to put that soap somewhere unmentionable in order to get it to the interview room.
"Is Ms Altman here?"
He shakes his head. "The warden is teaching a class today, so I'll be overseeing your interview with the prisoner. I'm sure she'd be here if she could."
"Don't worry about it. It'll be nice to have a friendly face in there with me."
The skin across his cheekbones, which are high and proud, darkens, and I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm hitting on him. I'm pretty sure the clerk thinks so too, as she purses her pink-orange lips in a silent 'oooh' and beams across the desk at us like a benevolent Buddha. "Let me just pack this all up for you, honey."
Officer Ross chivalrously carries my care package through the soulless cinderblock hallways, but is too embarrassed by my come-hithering (even though I've never come-hithered in my life; I'm not even sure I know how to come-hither) to speak. I fiddle with my visitor's badge, all the better not to floor him with my wit and charm. My heels ring on the concrete, and all I can see is grey, and all I can focus on is the fact that I have condoms in my purse, which I had to leave behind me at the desk. What if Ms whatever-her-name-is (I have to learn her name, it's rude not to at this point) decides to compare our lipstick choices and finds I have condoms in there? And they're not plain old vanilla condoms, no sir.
I, April Kepner, am the proud owner of a variety pack.
(Admittedly, I sweated through my shirt on my way up to the counter, convinced the cashier was going to tell on me to my mother, but he seemed engrossed by Men's Health, and I'm pretty it wasn't the workout plans he was checking out. I can relate. I buy condoms now. I understand the call of the wild).
My Ross-in-shining-armour nearly has an aneurysm punching in the door code while balancing a box in his arms, but good manners win out, and he ushers me inside once the light turns green and he's ensured George isn't waiting three feet away from the door with shank, which he isn't. He's sitting down already, his soft face made softer by fatigue.
"Ms Kepner," he says formally, but he's smiling.
"Doctor O'Malley." That's the name he'll get back if Grey, Shepherd, Yang and I do our jobs right, and using it is a courtesy I definitely owe him. "I brought you some things, some toiletries, some clothes…I hope you don't mind."
The package, which has a sticker on top confirming it's been cleared, is placed carefully on the table between us. I glance up to thank Officer Ross, but he's back with his back to the wall again, spine straight, eyes front.
No more come-hithering for him.
"May I…"
"Of course."
George worms one finger inside the top flap and starts work on his gift. He lines the contents up in rows, methodical, precise, but when he gets to the gummy bears, he closes his eyes and stays that way for a long time. His fingers clench around the brightly coloured packet. A lump forms in my throat.
"George –"
"You have no idea." His voice is choked. "No idea."
I don't, so I give him those a minute, and then another, and when he opens his eyes again, they're wet. I have no idea what it's like to live inside these walls, to have access to so little basic kindness that candy makes you cry. My life may not have exactly been sunshine and rainbows over the past few years, but my family, my friends, my favourite Chinese takeout place have never been more than a phone call or a car ride away. It doesn't make me feel good to be so lucky. It makes me feel about as awful as a person can feel.
"I'm sorry about the soap. It's the brand I use, I didn't even think –"
"Hey, I love the soap. I'm all about the soap." He waggles the bar at me. "And I love the socks, do you know how chilly regulation socks can get? And as for the candy, well…I'm really grateful, April. For the socks. For the soap. For everything you've done."
For everything I'm still doing, against my better judgement.
I take a breath. "I mean it, though. I'm so sorry, George." It comes out in a rush, like a rush of water breaking down a dam. There's no dam left between me and him, and I don't hate it because there's nothing left to hate. "I'm so sorry for everything. I'm sorry for everything I've done to make you feel like a criminal, for everything I've said to hurt you. It goes against everything I am to have treated you that way, and I'm sorry."
And then I feel it: a warm touch at the base of my spine, and a – not quite a voice exactly, but a sense – a sense of something in my head, tickling my brain.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
And just like that, Jesus is back on board.
"I hope you like gummy bears."
Ross sounds like he's choking on something when George reaches for my hand, but he's no Teddy Altman, and this time around, I let it happen. I squeeze. He squeezes. I smile. He smiles.
"We're going to get you out of here," I tell him. God is not down with unlawful imprisonment, and neither am I, and I'm batting for His team. I'm letting Him take the wheel. I'm using several clichés in my head that I would never repeat out loud, because I'm full of hope, and hope comes from Him, and so does love, and I'm overflowing with that recently, more like a burst pipe or a faulty fountain than a P.I. George O'Malley is a guy who should be loved by someone (and he will, since he'll be a nice, steady doctor with a tragic back story someday soon).
"We're going to get you out of here," I tell him again, and I'm glad I told a lie and stuck with this case, with him, because it's what Jesus would freaking do.
~#~
Two hours and a meatball sub later (spiritual awakenings are exhausting, and I needed the calories), I'm being cruised by a police cruiser. I've moved from the oh-my-God-it's-a-serial-killer-in-disguise stage to the oh-my-God-this-is-seriously-cheesy-but-cute stage, and I've slowed down, but I'm refusing to stop.
"Don't you have evildoers to catch?"
"I'm not Batman."
"Aren't you wasting taxpayer's gas money?"
"Probably."
"Are you're aware this is creepy?"
"April."
"Mmmm?"
"Get in the car."
My stomach does little flips when I do glance in his direction, because his uniform is all crisp, and I'm riding a high made from forgiveness and processed meat products, and the angle of the sun as it tries (and fails) to break through the cloud cover highlights the freckles on his nose, and the way his lashes are thicker at the corners, and I know eyelashes aren't supposed to be what attracts you to a man, but honestly, I'm running out of things not to be attracted to.
Did I mention the uniform?
"Kerb crawling is an offence," I announce sanctimoniously as I slide into the passenger seat, Stephanie's seat.
"Only if I'm soliciting a prostitute for sexual activity," Jackson counters, and parks up next to a hardware store with crooked blinds and a closed sign (hanging crookedly) on the door. He turns his head, and I see my friend, the sharp slice of his smirk. "So unless you've had a career change you haven't –"
Except he isn't just my friend. The way I lean towards him proves it, the way I cup his jaw between my hands, the way I move my lips against his in patterns that have become familiar but which still increase the tempo of my heart, jumping from beat, beat, beat to beat beat beat beat beat. The way he responds to me, no pause, no surprise, no rejection. The way he frees my hair from its band and tugs lightly on the ends, a reminder of all those times he pulled my ponytail. The way we tussle, more me, more him, more me again. I'm a firm believer in science, in the biology and chemistry of how and why we get physical, but I can't help but believe in magic too, because this? This is magic.
"My mom called."
His breath is warm against my jaw. It takes a moment or two for me to even remember he has a mother.
"What did she say?"
"She wanted to know if I was bringing a plus one to the gala."
"So what did you say?"
"I told her I was." He's moving gradually down my neck, lifting the collar of my shirt, covering me in goosebumps. I will not have sex in a cop car. I will not have sex in a cop car.
"I will not have sex in a cop car," I blurt out. "And don't go all, 'who said anything about sex?' because every time you do that, we end up having sex after I've explained how the conversation between your body and my body would've inevitably led to sex."
So Jackson pulls back, grinning, tucks a strand of newly loosened hair behind my ear. "Yeah, you probably shouldn't mention that to my mother."
"You'll be lucky if I can get a word out around your mother. She's so…"
How can I describe Catherine Avery? Gorgeous, for one. Strong-willed, enough to raise a child single-handedly while running a successful charitable foundation. Opinionated. Overpowering? Overpowering pretty much sums her up, as this is a woman who wears Chanel perfume, so everything from her scent to her views on social policy is overwhelming. I've met Jackson's mother before, but I've never really met Jackson's mother before.
I've never been a plus one to anything either.
"Your mother is terrifying," I decide. "Awe-inspiring."
"She's just my mom."
"Catherine Avery is not a 'mom'. My mom bakes enough cobbler to feed the entire neighbourhood, while your mother has met the president, and the First Lady, and I've actually seen FLOTUS wearing that scarf your mother gave her, which, like, never happens. They've never even used the elephant he got for his inauguration." If you're wondering whether cruisers have makeup mirrors, they do. I flip it down, start work on the mess he's made of my hair. "She sent me a birthday card that sang 'Sexual Healing' last year. When she finds out that you and I…that me and you…"
"Stop," Jackson orders, and wipes smeared lip gloss firmly off my mouth with his thumb. "You'll be fine, and she'll be…inappropriate, but fine. I'm happy, she's happy."
"But you never even introduced her to Lexie, and the two of you were together for – forever! You were together practically forever!"
"Because I wasn't –" He cuts himself off, finishes up with my Raspberry Razzle Dazzle. His eyes go sharp and somehow soft at the same time when I bite down gently on his fingertip. "What was that about not having sex in a cop car?"
I sigh. "You're very handsome, and it's very annoying."
"I get that a lot."
"You're very annoying."
"Which is why it's lucky I'm very handsome, else you wouldn't be dating me."
"That is a reason." Whether accidental or on purpose, his top button never seems to be done up. I do it for him, holding his gaze, feeling his throat contract as he swallows. "But that's not the reason."
But that reason is still my secret to keep, until the gala, anyway. I'll be brave, in my pretty green dress, with my hair up, once I've met Jackson's mother as her son's plus one. I'll wait for abreak in the speeches, and then I'll make my speech, say it like it's the most normal thing in the world. Like, you know, it's not the three most important words in the English language, the three words which make or break relationships every day. Like, you know, I'm not scared to death he won't say it back, that he doesn't feel it, that this is great for him but like Diet Coke, healthy and easy and without the commitment to rotting your teeth and changing your life that comes with regular soda. My teeth have been rotting away (so to speak) for a while now, and he deserves to know, but when and only when I'm wearing a pretty green dress and my hair is up.
I'll tell him, but when and only when I can be sure there are fancy bathrooms I can hide in and he'll be too restrained by good manners and crowds of possible donors to chase after me.
When we reach the street with the building where I work, where Meredith and Cristina and Derek Shepherd work, I lean back in through the window once I'm standing on the sidewalk. "I still owe you dinner for the night your marinara went up in smoke."
"Yeah, you do."
He grins, and tries to decapitate me by winding up the window before I'm ready.
Okay, his manners aren't that good.
~#~
Finished ur pity food. U want dishes back?
No, keep them. They'll be a nice new home for your mould collection.
LOL. Did u blow Avery over lunch?
NO! WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SAY THAT?
Hes practically skipping. Ur making Edwards miserable.
I'm sorry to hear that.
R not.
Was there something you wanted, or are you trying to bad grammar me to death?
U hav time later?
For?
Drinks eight Callies. Dont bring ur wife.
WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP CALLING HIM THAT?
Alex drinks beer, tap or bottle. I take a seat on the stool beside his and steal the glass from his hand, managing a sip before he snatches it back and growls, "Get your own."
"How's married life treating you?"
He snorts. "Me and Wilson, we're great, but we're not married. Not like some people."
Brooks (Heather, I remind myself, her name is Heather), slides a beer down the bar to me and winks. She smells like bubble gum. Her t-shirt is the same colour. "Some people," I say carefully. "Whom you claim were practically skipping this afternoon?"
"Don't act like you're not dying to hear every tiny detail of every way Avery showed us he's gone on you." Alex gives me a can't-eff-an-effer look, then begins to tick them off on his fingers. "First, he pranced in with this big shit-eating grin on his face; second, when Edwards asked where he went for lunch, he said he skipped because he was seeing 'someone', but wasn't hungry anyhow." He waggles his eyebrows at me. "Third, he went on about how great it is about me and Jo, except it was obvious he wasn't talking about me and Jo, because he used the word 'compatible', and we yell at each other at least an hour a day." He smirks. "It's hot when she yells, whatever. That enough unnecessary information for you?
"Yep."
"Good, because you're not going to like the next part." He takes a pull of beer, then stares into his glass like he's trying to see the future in the liquid's surface. When he raises his head, my stomach goes in the opposite direction and takes the elevator down to my shoes.
"You know…but how? How do you know?"
"Yang." To Alex's credit, he's as uncomfortable with our sharing a secret as I am. "She called me for details of the murders Heron witnessed, and I owed her a favour." He rubs the back of his neck. "Apes, I'm not going to tell anyone, but I think you should. I also know you promised Avery you'd quit the case, and you haven't. What's going to happen when he finds out?"
"He's not going to find out!"
"I found out." That's reasonable, I guess. "And with your friends? Yang works with Grey. Grey's sister is with Sloan. Sloan loves Avery. That's one way it could come out. You're living with Torres. Torres has a baby with Sloan. Sloan loves Avery. There's another way. You do this zen crap with Hunt, who's married to Yang, and all one of you has to do is let something slip, and he could say something to Sloan or Avery. And then what?" He actually picks up one of my hands and holds it, startling me, startling us both. Alex and I don't do meaningful conversations, and we definitely don't do physical contact (except for that one time, for that one oceangoing disaster). "One, how's he going to react when he finds out you lied, and two, how's he going to react when he finds out you lied from somebody else?"
I swallow. "But you won't tell him?"
"No, I won't tell him."
"Then what he doesn't know can't hurt him." Which is quickly becoming my mantra, my philosophy, my everything. "I'm going to tell him, Alex, I'm going to tell him everything, but after. When it's done. When the shooter is behind bars, when my apartment's not a crime scene, when I'm done."
"He thinks you're already done. He thinks you're over it."
"Alex." His eyes are brown like coffee, bitter, like chocolate, sweet. I remember what it was like to want him, and how that want feels stupid compared to the way I want Jackson. "Drop it."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." He transfers his grip from my hand to his glass. "I'm an ass to you, and you still brought me food when I was in the hospital. You're a good person."
"Jackson saved you from being shot in the chest."
"Which is why if you don't 'fess up soon, I will." Alex finishes up his drink and shrugs. "But you will. See, you and Avery get the same look on your face, which means you're serious – like you could ever be anything but serious with a guy you're screwing, no offence – so you get him, and how much he trusts you – not to take care of yourself, you're kind of a basket case, but how much he trusts you to be honest and good to him and not to break his face or his heart – and you get that lying to him is going to blow a hole in you two so wide, you'll never be able to fill it in." He shrugs again. "But hey, it's none of my business. I'm just the guy whose life your boyfriend saved."
I'm just the guy whose life your boyfriend saved.
If you don't fess up soon, I will.
My mouth is dry, tacky. "How's your shoulder?"
"Barely even hurts anymore."
"That's good."
"And you really are making Edwards miserable." He smirks at Heather Brooks, who points two fingers at him and mouths 'bang' before swirling off to change a barrel or astral project or something. "As far as she's concerned, she got dumped. She doesn't get the only reason Avery asked her for drinks in the first place was because he was all 'will no one rid me of this turbulent priest' over you."
"Alex?" I cock my head on one side. "Did you just reference the murder of Thomas Becket, twelfth century English martyr?"
"I saw a movie about it when I was sick," he informs me. "I had soup and crackers, and it wasn't a bad movie either."
No, Alex, the Burton-O'Toole production Becket is anything but bad, except my opinion is anything but impartial when Richard Burton is at the table, because my mom misguidedly let me watch Elizabeth Taylor movies when I was too young to appreciate them, so as far back as I can remember, I've had a thing for dead actors, especially dead actors with voices like Richard Burton's.
We'd never work, though, me and dead Richard Burton. Dead Elizabeth Taylor would eat me alive.
April Kepner is a sucker for the past, and sometimes, April Kepner uses it to avoid the present (and sometimes, she uses both alcohol and the third person to avoid both).
"I think you should tell her."
Our tiny apartment is full of people, noises (pounding bass, loud voices, someone playing that screeching sound on their phone which supposedly only dogs can hear but which actually, everyone can hear), smells. I made lasagne, but Reed bought Cheetos, and really, who eats lasagne at a party?
Besides me, I mean.
Besides me and Charles, I mean.
"I think you should mind your own business."
"You don't have to eat that, it's okay."
"Are you kidding?" His eyes are bulging a little, his mouth is so full. "It's food! At a party!"
"Yeah, but it's a party." I flip over a square with my fork. It makes a squishy sound as it hits the plate. "You're not supposed to sit in a corner and eat lasagne at your own party. You're supposed to stand in the middle and drink beer and mingle." Reed told me to mingle. She said it'd be lame if I didn't.
"What are you losers doing?" She flops down on the bean bag chair between us, nods at Charles. "Percy." Nods at me. "Trigger."
"Don't call me that."
"Why? Because Avery's panties are in a twist about it?" He actually is standing in the middle of the room, in the middle of a group of girls, our downstairs neighbours. Reed's laughter draws his gaze, but it switches to me as soon as he realises I'm there.
It's hot.
I feel scorched.
Charles whistles through his teeth. "Make that his panties and his bra."
"Most guys like a girl on top," Reed remarks, and Charles chokes and catapults his mouthful of lasagne straight into her lap.
"Ewww! What the hell, Percy?!"
"Make that I don't think you should tell her."
"Shut up, Trigger!"
"Don't call me Trigger!"
Being with Alex isn't the same as being with my friends, but it helps (and all the empty glasses on the bar help too).
"You love Jo." I drive a peanut shell around my own elbow, leaving a tiny trail of peanut shell dust. It's been a good day. Jesus and I are connecting again, Arizona's home early and is clearing tables with Sofia on her hip, Lexie waved at us before tucking herself into a corner with a couple of friends…it's been a good day, and drinking tonight will make tomorrow sour.
"Yeah. You love Jackson."
"Yeah."
And that is why I'm drinking, even though it'll make tomorrow sour.
"Dude."
"I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I'm not reasonable, I'm not rational, I'm not even an adult about it. I wouldn't let her say it –" I flap my arm at Arizona, who's now swaying in time to the music, dancing with her daughter. "And God knows I can't say it! And it's screwing with my work, and it's screwing with my head, and…oh, boy." I put my head down on my folded arms, my peanut shell race car abandoned. "It's meant to be all sunshine and roses and sex with your legs in the air, but it's not. I have to think about someone else now, about this whole other adult person. I can't just live my life for me and hope he fits in with it…except that's kind of sort of what I'm doing right now with the lying, and it's super-duper awful, and I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."
"Jo can get her legs over her head," Alex adds helpfully.
"I wish I didn't know that."
"You wish you could get your legs over your head."
Ugh, he's so smug (and also so accurate – it can't be that hard, can it?)
"And you don't hate it." Two hours and multiple rounds later, it's not surprising his comforting words are slightly slurred and his comforting pat is slightly slappy. "If you hated it, lying wouldn't bother you. What you hate is not being able to play the innocent, so you act like you're in this against you're will, and you're so not." Alex tries for a conspiratorial nudge and ends up almost pitching me off my stool and onto the floor.
He looks me in the eye. His are liquor-coloured and liquour cloudy.
"And you know who the shooter is."
"And I know who the shooter is."