Hi so here is another chapter. I am giving you warning that another chapter in season 7 will be AU and it's coming up now so fair warning.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine but Hugo.
Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.
Little Lion Man
Chapter 29-7x09-Slow Night, So Long
A car accident strikes an emotional cord in Jackson as he finally comes to terms with the shooting and the loss of his best friend.
They were on the night shift. The idea of the 'Night Shift' was terrifying for all of them. They spent the entire day in bed, Jackson with an uneasy sleep constantly aware of both his nightmare's (that consistently seemed to plague him.) They had developed from the dreams of Hugo being shot time after time and now had changed to Charles being shot over again. Either way, both nightmares ensured that he was waking up in the middle of the night and often screaming.
The ending was that April, Lexie or Hugo woke him up and that he pretended that nothing was wrong even if nobody believed it and everyone could tell that he was lying through his teeth. The ending was that he could still go into work even though Owen was watching him with every surgery and every patient and the rest of the side effects that came from working in the hospital with an increasing concern Jackson was hoping that Cristina would distract him long enough for Jackson to be able to leave the room. Hugo had survived this thing both mentally and physically it seemed and therefore Jackson was able to sleep at night for at least one or two hours even if he woke up still seeing his best friend's brains splattered against the walls.
Therefore the night shift where everything was dark and strange cases were constantly brought into the ER was probably the best distraction for all of them. Meredith was still furious over Cristina's decision to quit, Owen was still furious at Meredith for (Jackson personally suspected) putting both herself and Cristina in the firing line. Alex was becoming louder and louder, April more withdrawn though she seemed to handle living with Karev simply by walking out the room whenever he entered.
This was getting tiring as she sometimes did it in the middle of cooking and Jackson nine times out ten had to step in and save whatever she was doing with no idea how he was doing it.
His knuckles were still bruised but on the plus side he could still operate. He took Alex Karev bitterly as another cross to bear on his way into work still seeing Charles's dark blank eyes and leaving Hugo looking tired and worried in bed watching Harry Potter and clutching a mug of coffee from the pot that April had so thoughtfully prepared before she forced them all to eat a bacon sandwich. Jackson had took the sandwich, warned Hugo he better be asleep before midnight and congratulated Doctor Shepherd on wining the research grant. With the competition on for Chief Resident and Meredith Grey out of the running due to her relationship both with Derek and with her mother there was an unspoken competition in the air to see who he would pick to join him on the project.
He and Lexie were in the ER tonight and Owen was leaving, exhaustion and the fact that It was becoming clear that he didn't know what he was going home too.
"Avery" he said and Jackson knew instantly that this was another speech in which Owen tried to get him to talk to someone and Jackson pretended not to listen. He had done his mandatory counselling he wasn't in the mood for anything more, he wasn't in the mood to be looked at like Lexie and Meredith and Cristina when the nurses had nothing better to do but gossip. He didn't have the time, the patience, the inclination or the temper. He was an Avery, he knew.
"How's the hand?" was all that was asked. Jackson paused. He had a feeling that Owen had known exactly why he'd punched out Alex and had had a hand in the fact that Jackson hadn't been disciplined.
"Bruised, nothing more" was all Jackson said. He didn't want to elaborate on the smarting ache he still felt in his knuckles or the burning sense of satisfaction that came with punching Alex Karev's face in. Owen carefully didn't elaborate.
"Have you spoken to someone?" he asked turning to look at him. Another day perhaps Jackson would come to admire the fact that Owen Hunt looked people in the eye while either giving them bad news or asking them personal questions.
"Don't need to sir" he said finally. God Hunt had very wide blue eyes. They seemed to stare at you with a horrible sense of familiarity.
"Avery speak to someone" he said flatly "Weather it's me, or Kepner or even Sloan just speak to someone, I don't care when or how just speak to someone"
He was gone with a quick grimace that could have passed for a smile before Jackson could form a reply.
The incoming trauma resulted in two boys aged fifteen and seventeen. The seventeen year old had clearly took out his younger brother in their parent's car when something had gone wrong. The younger brother Jackson knew was fucked. If he survived the OR then he would lose both his legs above the knee, his left arm below the elbow and most of the movement in his right arm due to a crushed shoulder injury.
The older brother would probably survive once they got him to the OR and if they worked (and by they he really meant Hunt) their asses off to clear the mess that had occurred.
It reminded Jackson a little bit of Hugo. Two stupid kids that had gone out and thought they were invincible. It reminded him a bit of him and Charles. Either way both scenario's made him shake at little inside.
It was why he sent Lexie to update the parents, It was why he told her what it meant to lose a brother, she had lost a mother and had nearly lost and gained Meredith in equal measure not to mention her own father (if the rumours were true). Lexie took the words he was saying at face measure and never tried to judge him for more. Jackson hoped that he she wouldn't pry and she didn't. It was hard to put into words the loss of Charles, hard to put into words what living without the man that had accepted him and liked him and been fun to be hang out with was like.
The loss of Charles was something that Jackson knew he would never be able to get over so what was the point in talking about it. It hadn't been his fault and yet he still felt guilty. He hadn't been there but Charles had died all alone without knowing whether or not his friends were alive and had become an afterthought at least to Jackson and April who had known that Reed was dead but had been so happy to be alive.
"You should go home to Hugo" Lexie said quietly "Let's get some pizza and have pizza for breakfast"
Jackson grinned, Hugo would love that.
"Your gonna be ok" Lexie said gently her voice gentle but brooking no argument. "Were all gonna be ok"
Jackson didn't know if he believed her. He personally didn't think anything would be ok again but somehow looking at the boy that had lost his best friend and his brother in one swoop without knowing it. He'd been screaming in pain and when he woke up he'd be confronted with the news that his actions had devastated his family for the rest of his life. Charles had not been his fault but Jackson still missed him and he didn't think that empty feeling was never going to go away despite was Lexie was saying about them all going through this.
Somehow this brother was going to live the rest of his life without his best friend.
And somehow Jackson was going to have to find a way to live his life without his.
Next Chapter-7x10-Adrift And At Peace-Derek takes Cristina out on a fishing trip, Jackson, Lexie and April compete to gain a special prize on the surgical floor and Hugo goes back to school only to discover a classmate is acting strange and making him uncomfortable.
