Eclipsed

Chapter 1

***Present Day****

Jackson sat uncomfortably despite the soft vinyl of the diner booth. His omelet was mostly untouched, and he had already distractedly lost track of the conversation twice. His mother, far too observant to miss his demeanor, was now looking at him over the rim of her coffee cup. And those eyes could pierce when they wanted to.

"Jackson, what is going on with you?" The question caused him to raise his eyes from his meal. "You're distracted; you can barely participate in the conversation. I could have gone to breakfast by myself with all the company you are being. Now, Baby, what is going on?" Her tone hit notes of care and exasperation equally.

"Nothing," he said, "Mom, I just have something on my mind." He sighed and scanned the restaurant. Richard was supposed to join them, but some resident upset had called him in early, and it wasn't likely that he would join them suddenly. Frustrated with his own over-occupied mind, he shoved the plate back. "It's nothing I want to talk about."

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "Jackson, if you are so distracted that you can't even get through breakfast with your mother, how are you going to go into work today?" She said sternly, "Now just say it, clear your mind."

Jackson made quick eye contact but shook it to glance around the diner. "Mom, it's my business –"He agitatedly tore a sugar packet and poured it into his lukewarm coffee "I'm fine –"He jerked the cup up to drink, but in his rush, it sloshed over the side. "Dammit!"

Katherine threw some napkins over the spill before him as he wiped at the liquid over his hand and forearm. "Oh yes, you seem just fine." She said dryly.

Jackson glared at her for a moment before, again, casting his eyes around the crowded room. Tossing the coffee sodden napkin to his mostly untouched plate, Jackson's mouth flexed into a tight frown.

"April is pregnant."

*** 3 months earlier ***

"The Annual Avery/Fox Gala," Maggie said cautiously, testing the words.

Jackson gave her a small smile and responded, "Yeah, we drink, we eat, we bring out some of our star talent from the Avery hospitals, people write big checks."

Maggie looked up from her tablet. "And this is in Boston?'

Jackson closed the patient chart and shifted away from the nurses' station. "Yep." He leaned in a bit closer. "And we could finally compare notes on our favorite places. Picollas is still the best in the north end."

Maggie cracked a smile and turned her attention fully on two piercing blue eyes. "Lies! Salvatore's for the truffle mushroom ravioli," She retorted firmly, seemingly caving. Jackson's initial invitation of a weekend to the East coast for an Avery foundation event had not enticed her as much as he had hoped, but the location couldn't be beat. This was the Avery event, besides the Harper Avery Award, now renamed, of course.

"So that's a yes?" He continued casually, "It will be fun. I'm bringing Harriet for the first time this year. My mom and Webber. The whole family.

Maggie brought her tablet into her chest and seemed to inhale. "Yes," she answered. She smiled at her boyfriend.

"Great," He snapped shut the file and began taking steps down the hall, still turned in her direction. "I'll e-mail you the itinerary." His smile had turned boyish in his pleasure at her answer, for he had harbored some doubts about her response.

Their foray into the woods last month had some lasting reverberations in their relationship. The fight through the woods, the fog, the accident. Maggie had seemed intent on identifying their differences in upbringing, worldview, and spirituality. Her words came from a stressed Maggie, but these thoughts were clearly hers. It was the beginning tremors of what Jackson feared was the end. Their sniping had eventually subsided when, after he had fled their car to trek out into the fog, he had found himself at an accident scene hidden in the veil. His matter of faith had brought him to a single-car accident, a couple, much like he and Maggie, out driving in the mountains. The husband had been thrown from the vehicle, but it was the wife who would have died, and her life was owed solely to Maggie choosing to venture out after him into the fog, to have a little faith.

It had reset them. The high, the save. A little bit of faith is what they had needed. They'd made love that night with more passion than they'd had in some time. Still, as they lay side by side, in the security of his home, freshly showered, back in her comfort zone, she was unapologetic for the things she had said. Jackson could feel the shaky ground beneath, the rumbling resentment towards her attitude and words.

But, despite the trepidation, Jackson was determined to get back to a good place. After his mother's diagnosis, Webber, Karev and Meredith's firing, April's near-death accident then sudden marriage, all while the foundation scandal still rocked the ship that was his mother's life's work and his legacy to return to its former glory, and, finally, he and Maggie fighting, Jackson had felt like he was standing precariously on a razor's edge. It was time to return to normalcy. His mother was living with cancer, Webber had battled his demons, and they were in a better place, as far as Jackson knew. Matthew's permanent place in April's life had been an adjustment, but they were working on it. In fact, it seemed that April had endeavored that the two men rarely saw each other, which was a welcomed yet bitter sort of relief.

Jackson's relationship with April could be measured in its ebbs and flows. Their tentative friendship, united under the banner of Mercy West, had brought them closer than they had been their whole internship year. She was annoying, too cheerful at times, stubborn, competitive, and insecure, hardly traits that Jackson had been enamored with his first year in scrubs. His interests had been in his craft, his name, separate from that of his legacy, and more –cultured - women, mostly from outside the hospital, who understood what casual was.

But, after tragedy, they had clung to each other as the last familiar faces of their intern group. His dating life dried up, a mix of lack of time with a healthy dose of lack of interest. Near-death experiences could do that to a person.

Of course, this clinginess didn't last. As with all tragedies, eventually, everyone had to move on and get about the business of day-to-day living. His dating life materialized again. April was now a close friend, but the magnitude by which he was drawn to her had waned.

The tide had begun to come in again as they prepared for their boards. There had been study-sessions, cozy, comfortable. Her feet tucked under her on the couch as she read from a text in her lap and held a beer bottle aloft. It had been easy and, looking back, intimate. He had told himself that he was doing her a favor. Her crazed, anxiety-ridden rants about her fears had caused him to offer to study together. He had played cool, confident, if not a little condescending. She had made dinner several times during their study sessions. At the time, he hadn't named the warm, languid feeling.

The hotel had been a surprise, a crashing in of the high tide. She had existed in a little box, a virginal friendship box. Then she kissed him.

The lows were numerous, most corresponding with an ebb in the tide. Losing touch after she failed the boards, feeling rejected, and choosing to reject, the conflicts that shook their new marriage, Samuel, the divorce, withholding that she was pregnant. More recently, his relationship with Maggie, and then hers with Matthew had caused a quiet withdrawal from the friendship. He had watched her spiral into darkness for a time, and when she came back to the light, Jackson had felt some guilt for not being the one who pulled her out of it. He had just started seeing Maggie, and April and he had been establishing new boundaries.

This most recent ebb had come on the heels of her marriage and the fight Maggie and he had over his relationships with other women. He talked about things with April that he did not discuss with his girlfriend. Emotional cheating. Was that what it was? It probably was.

But there was always a turn of the tide. There needed to be because raising a daughter together meant that they needed a good relationship. They needed the occasional Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad. Harriet needed two parents who were friends. Well, perhaps need was an exaggeration. Divorced parents barely communicated and only saw each other at drop off all the time.

This, however, did not work for Jackson, so he would await the next tide. It should be coming soon, some shift in their dynamic, back to a more companionable existence. He hoped.

As he moved through the hallway, his thoughts drifted back to work. The rhinoplasty would be no easy feat. The patient had injured her nose so severely in a snowmobiling accident that no cartilage was left to work with. His options were tantalizing. Cadaver tissue, cartilage taken from her rib or ear, synthetic options. The task was both daunting and exhilarating for a surgeon of his caliber.

Jackson stopped short as he spied a head of familiar red hair at the nurses' station, chatting with Erin, one of the nursing staff's vets.

"April?" Her bright eyes were suddenly on him.

"Jackson, hey," she said it warmly, but she cast her eyes nervously just over his shoulder as she did.

"Why are you here? Is Harriet okay?" Jackson questioned as he took the final strides to arrive before her. Erin, sensing the shift, made promises of catching up later and moved on to her patients. As the tall brunette maneuvered past them, Jackson leaned in closer to his former lover.

"Are you okay?" Sensing that she had hesitated a few seconds too long, April hurried to reassure him.

"No, nothings wrong, I'm just here for a –"She had trailed off as it was clear she was searching for a word.

"An appointment?" Jackson supplied as he shifted to cross his arms and stand a bit straighter. "Who are you here to see?" The obvious underlying question being, what's really wrong? Is it general surgery woes, neuro, surely not plastics, gyno was a possibility, but she saw someone in private practice, dermatology? He scanned her face as he quickly sorted through the possibilities.

April, for her part, had recovered from her floundering. "Jackson, I just came in to talk to Bailey. No big deal." She adjusted the purse on her shoulder, a designer label his mother had bought her for Christmas. The soft grey leather strap on her shoulder and light green top made her look more like a visitor in the hallowed halls of Grey Sloan Memorial, rather than the seasoned surgeon who knew the ins and outs of this place like the back of her hand.

"What do you need to see Bailey about?" Again she seemed to be looking just past him. She suddenly half-rolled her eyes.

"Stop being so nosy, Jackson." She shifted as if she was preparing to leave. He grabbed at the crook of her arm.

"April, why are you meeting with Bailey?" She rotated her arm, gently shaking him off.

"I need to go pick-up Harriet. We can talk later." But Jackson was not deterred. After his mother's diagnosis, he had felt like he was waiting for the next time the rug would be pulled out from under him.

"Hey, April," he started, eyebrows drawing tight as she started to move off.

"Jackson," she interrupted, "I promise if it's something I should share with you, I will." She gave him a half exasperated look. "I really do need to grab Harriet. She has her dentist appointment, okay? I'll see you tomorrow."

Jackson was still preoccupied, trying to discern her reason for a meeting with the chief of surgery. "Tomorrow?" He asked.

She opened her mouth to reply, but he beat her to it. "The recital," he gestured, "right, I will see you guys there". He recovered quickly. One forgotten activity, and he was never going to live it down. "Is Matthew going?" He added as an afterthought.

April readjusted the purse once more, "No," she gave him a strange look," not this time."

Jackson took another step toward her, closing the distance again, now that she had begun to move off down the hall. "Why don't I pick you guys up then?"

She glanced down, mouth slightly parting as she seemed to pause just briefly. "Thanks, but we need to be there two hours early. There is a last-minute dress rehearsal." His raised eyebrows encouraged her to go on, so she shrugged and continued. "Something about the ladybugs not having the last piece down because there were a few three-year-old meltdowns last time, and the butterflies need another rehearsal in costume." She paused to smile a little to herself and finished, "Their wings are apparently so big that they need to space them out a bit more or," she paused, glancing up to look him directly in the eye, "even more eye injuries." Humor filled her eyes as she said it, and Jackson bit back a smile. Three-year-old dance classes were really more like herding cats.

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow then." He shifted to put his hands in his lab coat pockets. She had effectively dodged his questions, but he tamped down on his desire to press her further.

"Yes, I will save some seats." She smiled at him briefly and turned to leave, presumably to take their daughter to the dentist.

He needed to get up to the burn unit to evaluate a firefighter who'd come in last night. A surgical plan wasn't going to materialize for the rhinoplasty, so, really, he needed to go about his day.

He had already shifted his weight to turn and walk away, but, instead, he ran a hand over his face quickly and called out, "April," and seeing her glance backward at him, he continued, "Maggie is doing a sisters' thing. It's just me." He could see her give a small nod but continued before she could respond. "Lets get dinner after. We haven't done something just the three of us in a while." Jackson had actually been avoiding been being alone with his ex-wife out of respect for his girlfriend and, to some degree, April's husband, who still was not his biggest fan for obvious reasons.

She hesitated a moment and then, "Sure, that would be nice." She smiled at him in the genuine way she did, giving him the sense that this was a welcome suggestion. She was terrible at faking anything. Everything she felt was on display if you knew how to look, and her easy agreement with his suggestion felt good. As she walked away, Jackson turned to head for the elevator. He wasn't sure why he asked her to go out to dinner after. Maggie would still be bothered by this, so why rock that boat? Was breathing some life into his friendship with his ex-wife worth the damage it could do to his current relationship? He didn't have an answer for himself, so he jammed a finger at the up button and set his mind towards work.