Mathew
"Matthew!" Jackson opens his eyes, his mind on Matthew. He had a dream about him and can't but what it was.
He sits up feeling cold from sleeping on the floor and stretches his neck and back.
His phone screen lights up from the floor, and he picks it up to look at it and finds 20 missed calls from April alone. He calls her, worried something is wrong.
"Why haven't you been answering my calls?" She immediately answers, her voice sounding angry and panicked. His mind goes to Harriet, and his breath halts, not daring to put a name to his fear.
"Jackson! Are you... Are you there? Jackson!" She yells in his ear.
Jackson snaps out of his head and answers her. "Yes, I'm here, and I was sleeping. Listen, is everything okay. Are you and Harriet?..."
"You didn't get my messages? Jackson, it's Matthew. There was an accident. He was saving these kids and got himself trapped in a burning building because men don't think you have to be a trained fireman to walk into a burning building! He's severely burned, Jackson. Please come to the hospital to operate on him, they..."
From here, she starts speaking fast. Jackson hearing, the desperation in her voice, scrambles to get up and trips on his own feet, nearly falling in his haste. He rights himself, managing, to not drop his phone.
"They won't let me anywhere near him, even though I can help! I'm going insane because no one will listen to me, and you are the only one I trust with this, and that's why I brought him here, only you're not here! Where are you, Jackson? Your shift started hours ago..."
Jackson looks at his phone screen again and realizes she's right, feeling guilty he had overslept, something he never does. Jackson wonders how he missed the time the first time he had picked up his phone.
He holds it to his ear again in time to catch her voice break at the end, making him feel even more guilty for not being there. "Please, we're in Grey-Sloan," she says.
"Okay, okay, I'm- on my way," he says and asks worriedly. "Uhm, are you, are you, okay? Where are the kids?"
"I'm, I'm fine, they are with your mother. Just get here soon... Please." April adds, switching off her phone.
Jackson scolds himself for over-sleeping and dreaming. "For a night, I had pretended the existence of Matthew was not a factor, but the truth is Matthew is always a factor. How does one go against a man who puts his life at risk to save children he probably doesn't even know and gets himself in critical care in the process, forcing me to attend to him every day?"
Jackson drops his phone on the couch and carries on getting ready quickly.
Putting aside his dreams of getting his family back, and April's voice a fuel to get him faster to the hospital because for her sake and for Harriets' sake, who is fond of Matthew. Jackson hopes he is not too late and reminds himself that Matthew and his good nature will always be a factor that he can't afford to forget again.