A/N: Wow! Thanks you guys. Chapter 3 got a ton of feedback, and I really appreciate it. A lot. This is the first story I have ever written for Grey's and I only started watching the show this past year, so I really appreciate the comments on characterization. I hope that you like chapter 4. For those who want to know, it does take me about a week to get the chapters ready. I will update, so don't worry about that. Again, all medical stuff comes from the show and the internet. Chapter 5 is coming soon. Please let me know your thoughts and as always thank you so much for reading!


Alex let Dr. Webber lead him out of the trauma room and into the hallway. He couldn't concentrate. April's injuries were severe. In the light of day, and on the ambulance ride over, her condition seemed even worse than he'd thought it was. And that was saying something. Alex kept going over everything he'd done to help her when she was trapped. Maybe he'd missed something. Forgotten something, made a mistake. Maybe it was all his fault.

But his memory didn't hold the answers he wanted it to. Alex knew that he had done every possible thing he could have. Recalling his own brush with death during the shooting, now Alex could kind of understand why Lexie went crazy afterward. It's hard to know that even though you did every possible thing to help someone, it still might not be enough. And then, after all you did to help them stay alive, having to turn their care over to someone else. Enough to drive anyone nuts.

Jackson stood next to him, eyes darting around like he couldn't focus any better than Alex could. It made sense he guessed. More sense really. Avery probably knew Kepner better than he did. He didn't pretend to really understand Jackson and April's bond, but he knew that they were close friends. Alex had said it once, when he'd been teasing her. Avery was her one friend. And Jackson was a lot nicer to April that Alex usually was. So, it really made more sense for Avery to be freaked out.

Yet, they were both spooked.

The whole rotten thing was made Alex feel so...useless. Powerless. There was no one was to blame; no one could have acted differently. And that pissed Alex off the most. That stuff could happen just out of the blue like that, with no one really responsible for it. Like your brother suddenly having a psychotic break, or someone getting getting cancer. Or walking into a storage room and having some guy shoot you. Well, there'd been someone to blame then, but it was all still out of Alex's control.

April was hurt. And nothing could have been done to change it, short of preventing a geological phenomena. Because so long as there was an earthquake, and patients needed her help, Kepner would have been out in the field doing her job.

Life was proving to be crap, just like always.

Alex sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Dr. Webber stood in front of them, gingerly twisting the hairs on his chin as he gazed at the two fifth years intently. He sighed and moved his hands to his hips. "Those are some nasty bruises, Karev. Why don't we go get some ice? Come on."

He headed further down the hall, with Alex following reluctantly behind. His shoulders and back did ache. Being crouched in the small space of a collapsed building, and rescuing Tom and April had definitely strained his muscles. Ice actually sounded good.

Jackson lingered behind watching the trauma team wheel April's gurney past them down the hall. "Which OR do you think they are taking her to?"

Webber turned around and guided Jackson along with them. "I don't know. Maybe OR 3. If they need to conduct multiple procedures concurrently. But I don't think it's a good for either one of you to observe."

The older surgeon led Jackson and Alex to the main attendings lounge, stopping to grab an ice pack along the way. Alex sat down on a nearby couch, and took the pack and settled it on his aching shoulder, still stunned by all that had happened in that day. Jackson joined him. The other resident still didn't look anymore calm than Alex felt.

He'd never been super close to Jackson. The one and only fight they'd ever had was over April, and Alex couldn't really blame the other 5th year for punching him out. He deserved it. He'd been an ass to her. Big surprise. He was always an ass to women. Though, April might be one he felt bad about, virgin and all. No amount of family issues could make up for his behavior. Just further proof that almost everything Alex touched turned to crap.

After the fight they'd bonded over being bros in the frat house, but he and Jackson hadn't ever really gone any further than casual hanging out. But right now, Alex felt inexplicably bonded to the other attending. Crazy, he'd admit, but he suspected that if things went badly in OR 3 or wherever, it would be himself and Avery who would be the most affected.

Not because Alex was close to Kepner or anything.

If she died, Jackson would be messed up because he lost his best friend. Alex would be upset because he'd failed her as a doctor. Just another bad outcome in a string of bad outcomes he'd had recently. At least, he told himself that was the only reason he'd care.

If he said it enough, he could make it be true. Yeah, right.

Alex closed his eyes, letting the fatigue of the past few hours wash over him, letting the soothing feeling of the ice pack seep into his shoulders. But it was only relaxing to a point. His mind kept going back to April. She'd gotten progressively worse as time had gone on down there. What if she was too weak to make it through the surgery? Her head injury had gotten bad enough to produce vivid hallucinations. Derek Shepherd was good, but the brain was still one of the trickiest organs to work with. In brain surgery, you never quite knew how things would play out until they actually did. Sometimes a bleed was too severe, even for the best.

Alex didn't know how much time had passed until Webber stood up and said, "Stay here. I'm going to see if I can get an update. I'll be back. Avery, make sure Karev moves that ice pack every 15 minutes. I don't want to catch either one of you trying to observe in that OR, am I clear?"

The older doctor left the room, leaving only silence in his wake. Neither doctor said a word, Alex guessed they were both wrapped up in their own thoughts and memories of a certain red-headed chief resident. After a while though, he could tell that the Avery was getting restless, working up to something. He kept sighing, and taking in breaths, as though he was about to say something, but ending up remaining quiet.

Alex glanced over to Jackson, and then looked down at his feet. The tension in the room was palpable. He drummed the fingers of his free hand on the edge of the couch, waiting for Jackson to say whatever it was he wanted to say. Jesus, just spit it out already. No need to waste time beating around the bush.

"What?" Alex curtly demanded, when he could stand the unasked questions no longer.

Jackson only turned to him, looking slightly puzzled.

"Dude! If you want to say something, just say something. Your huffing and puffing isn't helping anyone."

The other resident let out a wry laugh, shaking his head. "I don't even know...I don't even know what happened to her. It's all so quick and...She just went out to work and now all of the sudden she could be dying? And all I have, the only way I can find out what happened, is from an incoming ambulance report. And you."

He sneered, "A report. And you."

Jackson ran a hand across the back of his head, "So I'm sorry if I'm pissing you off, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this. I want...I need to know what happened. I just don't know how to ask. Deal with it."

Oh. Alex looked straight ahead, biting the inside of his cheeks. Okay. So, maybe he shouldn't have snapped at Avery. It was hard to believe, but Alex did realize that Jackson, like almost everyone else, hadn't been there. In the building. Only Bailey and Meredith had come into the field with them. And only Alex had been buried with April in the building collapse. To everyone else it must have just looked like the four doctors had left and returned with one gravely injured.

Jackson cared about April, so Alex figured he deserved to know what had happened to her. He even thought that she wouldn't mind him telling Avery some of the details, all things considered.

Maybe he just needed an excuse to talk about it. Part of his own processing or whatever.

Because he took a deep breath and began, "Alright..." Alex shifted the ice on his back. "What happened? Well, it's all pretty unreal. It happened really fast. We were helping this homeless kid. He was in this partially collapsed building. We had him on a stretcher." Alex shrugged uncomfortably, recalling the events that led him to this point in his day.

"We almost made it out. And then, there was this aftershock, did you guys feel it? Then, the whole damn building just..." He shook his head, wide eyed. "It came down right on top of us."

Jackson let out a low whistle, "We didn't even think that aftershock was very big. Really. She's...so far, she's the most...the most critical patient we've had since the earthquake. Who would have predicted that? It really sucks."

Thinking it back over again Alex murmured, "I think April probably saved my life. And the patient's. She pushed us forward. Right before."

Jackson nodded and gulped, "Um, how...how was she? I mean her leg looks pretty bad from what I saw...and, she's unconscious now but...was she...?"

"The leg was under rubble and stuff. She was in and out. Probably hit her head at some point. I...I think there was a lot of pain." He cleared his throat trying to push back the vivid memories, and still explain to Jackson what his friend had experienced. "But, I gave her the meds in my pack and pulled her out as soon as I could. And I tried to distract her, or whatever. So she wouldn't be scared."

"You did that?"

Alex didn't know if he should be offended by Jackson's tone of surprise. Seriously? What else did Avery think he would have done? Make fun of her when she was hurt? He knew he acted like an jerk, but he was capable of behaving differently. Maybe he didn't show it very often, but still.

"Well, yeah. I did my best."

"Then thanks, man. For doing that for her. For telling me what happened. It, uh...It means a lot."

Alex only shrugged. He didn't really feel like it meant a lot. Because no matter what he had done, April was still fighting for her life. So, he had to have failed somehow. At least, his explanation of events seemed to have calmed Jackson down somewhat. He still looked concerned, but Alex thought he seemed to have a better hold on his emotions now.

Silence filled the room again. This time Jackson was the first to break it, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket and holding it in his hand. Alex sighed and stared at the device as Jackson spoke.

"I should call her mom and dad. If they know about the earthquake at all, they'll probably already really worried," he began, sighing. " And now I have to call them and let them know they actually have a reason to be worried."

"You, uh, you know her folks?" Alex said, thinking of all the times Kepner talked to her family. He wondered what it felt like to have parents that worried about you. That were actually capable of it. His own parents, for various reasons, didn't. Or couldn't worry about him, in his mother's case, and that was hardly her fault, so Alex didn't really blame her. His Dad though, plenty of blame there.

But April's family clearly wasn't anything like his. Maybe that's why she was so very April.

No one's family seemed anything like his. In many ways, the residents and doctors here were more his family than his actual family. They worried about him at least. Not that Alex really thought he needed a family or anything. He'd had to manage and he had done fine on his own for years.

He'd tease April at the house because it always seemed like she was getting texts from one of her army of sisters, or because her parents called like clockwork. Nothing like his family. His dad didn't even know where he was, and Alex didn't know where his father was. And it was better for everyone that way. Yet, as an outsider, Alex found it intriguing to see how other people's families worked. How life was if your dad didn't beat up your family, if your mom and brother weren't mentally ill, or if you could be the kind of brother who stays. If things in a family were steady, or even if they could ever be. He'd never had much stability, and he still didn't quite believe that anyone did.

Jackson's voice pulled Alex from his thoughts,"Yeah, sure. I've met them quite a few times now."

Avery leaned his head back and smiled slightly, "They came up for Thanksgiving our first year as interns at Mercy West. We were the grunts, you know? We got the crappy shifts. And none of us could make it home to our families and stuff. So April's mom and dad came out here that year. To see April. Brought her littlest sister, because she still lived at home. The others were with their in-laws or something. Anyway, they all came out and we had this makeshift holiday. Them and me, and Reed, and Charles."

When speaking of his old friends, Jackson's expression turned wistful. Alex sighed, remembering what he had seen of Reed's dead body after the shooting, and what he'd heard had happened to Charles. So much had changed. He hoped Avery wasn't about to lose his last remaining friend from that intern group.

"It was pretty cool. Everyone had a good time, I think."

"Right..." Alex replied. He'd never really talked to Jackson or April or any of the Mercy Wester's about their years as interns. He knew that some of his own intern group's exploits were Seattle Grace legends, but now that he thought of it, her intern experience was another thing he didn't really know about April. Something he'd never stopped and asked her. And maybe now would never get the chance to ask her. If she...if she died. He recoiled from those thoughts, remembering her blood and screams. He pressed to heels of his palms to his eyes and tried not to think about it.

This was so messed up. Damn it. And now all they could do was wait. Alex, Jackson, and even April's parents could only sit and wait while others worked to save her life. And he hated it.

Jackson rose, carrying the phone and ventured toward the hall, dialing a number onto the screen. He shut the door behind him, speaking quietly into the receiver, "Hello? Uh, Karen? This is Jackson Avery. April's friend? I have some bad news...it's April."

Alex remained seated, still slumped on the couch with ice on his bruises. He couldn't help but think about his own family. About Amber. He remembered their heated phone call that morning. And all the calls he'd had to ignore because of the earthquake emergency. Had she heard anything on the news? Would she really be worried about him? Maybe his dad didn't care, and his mom and brother might be too out of it to worry, but Amber, she might care. Maybe.

Chuckling slightly, and reaching into his pocket, Alex realized that he actually had no idea whether his phone had even survived in his pocket throughout the whole ordeal. Pulling the plastic object out of his pocket, Alex inspected it, pressing the on button and flicking around for a moment. It seemed to have fared about as well as he had. He blew some dust off the screen. Everything still worked, but the outside looked a little rough, and a long crack filled the back case.

It was broken, but still trucking along.

As his finger hovered over his sister's number, Alex was still uncertain as to what he was even thinking about doing. What were April words to him on the ambulance that morning, before the day had gone from bad to worse? She'd said that whatever problems he and Amber had, his sister was probably really worried about him. April thought that all the other crap didn't matter. And maybe she was right. At the end of the day, Amber was his little sister. She'd probably be glad to know he was okay. Sure, he could buy that.

April would want him to call. And if she really was dying in an OR upstairs, Alex thought he might just owe it to her to give her method of dealing with family a try. What the hell? If Amber hung up on him again, she hung up on him again. And all he was going to be doing for the next few hours was waiting anyway. Until they finished the surgery. Until he knew what was going to happen to April. The prospect of waiting seemed unbearable. A call might pass the time.

He bounced his knees in indecision. After the ambulance crash, it had taken Alex days to call Amber, but today...Screw it, maybe April had a point. He pressed the button and listened to the dial tone ring once, then twice.

"It's me," Alex said, and he had to smile faintly at the relief he heard in his sister's voice.

"Hey...Yeah, we did. It wasn't so big though...Well, I don't know! I haven't had a chance to check magnitudes and stuff..."

The call was stilted. Awkward. They weren't really used to talking to each other. But this call held none of the venom or resentment of the one they'd shared this morning. There'd be time to deal with that later. Now, Amber just seemed happy to hear from him.

Alex sniffed and shifted the ice again, "I'm...I'm okay. Whatever...No, I really am. It's just, someone I know is hurt pretty badly and...No. My-my friend. She could die..."


Meredith had performed numerous surgeries on people's brains. She knew how they looked and how they worked. What could go wrong, and how to prevent it from happening in surgeries. She understood them in all of their complexity.

Yet, it was something entirely different to operate on someone you knew. Somehow, the intricate organ seemed more fragile, more delicate, when you knew that it was the driving force behind a person you were familiar with. It was the reason they were who they were. And knowing if the surgery went wrong, if you made one wrong move, the person you knew might never be the same again? That was something else entirely.

Glancing up from her work, Meredith caught sight of Callie, who was down by April's leg. It had felt the same way when she'd had her car accident the previous year. Everyone on the surgical team had banded together then, to save Torres and unborn little Sofia, and it seemed that they were doing it again now for April. Hopefully it would work out.

Meredith had tried not to dwell on these thoughts, as she concentrated on the procedure before her. She'd followed Derek's instructions carefully, from shaving a patch of April's hair from her head, to drilling a hole in the skull, and draining the excess blood to take pressure off the brain. She'd been mostly right on the ambulance. Derek had confirmed it as soon as they'd started to work; it was a subdural hematoma. Luckily a low grade one, though. And April had somehow managed to avoid having any seizures, the most dangerous complications for hematomas because they usually led to brain damage.

Meredith flexed her leg muscles, shifting from foot to foot. She'd found that simple movements like these kept you from getting stiff during hours and hours of surgery.

The low grade bleed was just another lucky turn in what was turning out to be April's lucky surgery. Already, Teddy ad Cristina had done their work, and closed. Altman had been amazed at how fortunate Kepner was. Apparently the rib had come that close to perforating her lung. Cristina had emphasized just how close, holding up her gloved hand, with her thumb and pointer finger barely apart. That close to drastically damaging the lung. But it hadn't. So, when they'd set the rib, her breathing had rapidly stabilized, and without the extra strain the breathing had created, April's heart stabilized too. Which meant her cardiothoracic prognosis was looking much better. All very good indeed.

Now Meredith had just located the bleeder, and Derek was carefully working to shut it down.

"Got it," he said quietly in the soft voice that he always seemed to use during surgeries. "Brain bleed is controlled." He looked to Meredith as he stepped back, pulling his instruments away from April's head. She could tell from his eyes that he was smiling.

"Let's close up. We got it, Meredith. There is still some slight chance of brain damage, but since the bleed was slow, and there were no seizures, I don't think that will happen. I'm very optimistic that April can make a full recovery. I'd like to do some scans, as well as do a full neurological check up."

He lowered his eyes slightly and added, "Good work."

Meredith acknowledged his words with a slight nod. This was their first time working together professionally since the whole blowup over her behavior during the clinical trial. It was nice to hear him compliment her professional abilities once again. Now that they had Zola back, maybe they could smooth out their professional relationship as well.

When they'd finished closing and bandaging the incision on April's head, Derek headed out of the OR. Meredith lingered, watching as Callie and the anesthesiologist continued to work. Looking at all the tools and apparatus that Dr. Torres had at the ready, Meredith guessed sadly that, where April might have been lucky in terms of her other injuries, her leg had really taken the brunt of things.

"Do you need an assist?" She asked. Callie glanced up from her work, and slowly shook her head.

"Okay. Hold this." Torres handed Meredith a metal object that she wasn't sure she even recognized. Boy, ortho was definitely not her thing. She could hold the tools though.

"You think you are going to be able to save the leg?"

"Yeah," Callie began tentatively. "I mean she's not going to need an amputation. But, uh, there's only so much I can fix. I've had to do a full knee replacement, and I'm putting in titanium plates and a few screws in the lower leg. It's a good thing her shoes had strong soles. She could easily have lost some toes. As it is, April's gonna need a lot of therapy; I think she'll be able to walk and move around again. Even so...it'll probably never work the same again. It's hard to say for sure, but April will probably have a pretty pronounced limp."

After they worked for another 30 minutes, Callie instructed Meredith to bandage and elevate the leg. It looked more like Frankenstein's leg now with its array of stitches, and all the swelling. Torres glanced at the clock, blinking away the haze that focusing on a small area for hours on end created, "Good to go. We can send her to post-op."

Meredith nodded, finished the task, and left the OR, feeling a surge of sympathy for her still unconscious housemate. It looked like April would definitely survive, but with a lasting change to her life. Her leg and ability to move would always be altered. In life, unfortunately, people only had so much luck.

After quickly scrubbing out, Meredith headed to find Alex and Jackson. She suspected that they were anxiously waiting to find out how April was doing. It had been a long day, and the evening sunset was streaming through the hospital's big windows as she walked across the hospital's long cat walk. After several moments searching, Meredith finally found her fellow residents and her sister, camped out in the attendings lounge of all places, with a tray of hospital food spread out on the table in front of the couch.

They didn't notice her right away, so when Meredith cleared her throat, all three faces looked to greet her, their expressions changing from glum to hopeful and fearful in mere seconds.

"April is out of surgery. She's stable. Doing very well. Breathing on her own and everything. Derek is doing a quick neuro exam, but we think she is intact. Her leg damage is pretty bad, and Callie had to do a lot of work. She replaced the whole knee. Coming back from that is going to be hard for her, but that's a worry for another day. They're moving her to post-op now, so you should be able to see her soon."

Jackson what already on his feet, "Her parents are taking the red eye from Columbus. They fly out in half an hour, so if I see her now, I can at least tell them she got through the surgery. So they don't worry as much on the flight over?"

"Yeah," Meredith checked her time. Her minutes wasted looking everywhere but the attendings lounge had probably given the nursing staff enough time to set Kepner up in her room. "I think so. Come on."

She glanced over to Alex who had risen to his feet also. His chin was set, and he looked exhausted. He'd had a long and stressful day, and Meredith knew that the waiting probably hadn't done anything for his mood. As they slowly made their way to post-op, Lexie had to peel off from the group because of a page.

As they walked down the hallway toward April's room, Meredith could see Derek coming down the hall in the opposite direction carrying a chart which she assumed belonged to April. He offered them a small smile and fulled a film out of the folder and held it up to the light as Alex, Meredith and Jackson paused outside the patient room door.

"Initial scans look quite good. I think we drained the fluid and stopped her brain bleed in time to prevent serious damage. I'm about to do a preliminary neuro exam," Derek said, sweeping into the room and making his way to April's bedside.

As Meredith followed her husband into the room. She heard an audible gasp from behind her and glanced to see that Jackson had only taken a few steps into the room, and his eyes were wide in shock. After having spent the past hours working on April in surgery Meredith supposed she was used to seeing her housemate's injured condition.

To them, or Jackson at least, the sight must be a lot to take in. April was surrounded by and attached to an array of beeping monitors, IV's and a supplementary oxygen line. At the top of her hospital gown, the bandages from her chest incision were clearly visible. Her hair was spread out, tangled, on the pillow behind her, and portion of her head was shaved and bandaged. April's leg was elevated in a sling, and held immobile by some ominous looking hardware.

In a word, April looked rough.

"It's okay. I know she looks pretty bad, but the surgery really did go well. She made it."

Alex looked less shocked than Jackson. But his brow was furrowed and his arms were crossed. He looked sullen and closed off. And he hadn't made it past the doorway.

Meredith didn't want to pressure either one of them, so she moved to assist Derek run his neurological check. Jackson ventured into the room a little further, and watched as the neuro surgeon fiddled with April's IV.

"I'm backing off on her pain medication to see if she responds to a few prompts."

April moaned as she woke up slightly, and her eyes flickered open. She squinted dazedly around the room, eventually settling and doing a fairly good job of focusing on Derek.

"April? It's Dr. Shepherd. If you understand me, can you squeeze my hand?"

His smile grew as his question was rewarded with a very firm squeeze from the chief resident's right hand. Jackson moved even closer to April's bedside as Derek continued her exam, and Meredith turned to see if Alex had come any closer.

Nope. He still stood in the doorway, with his arms across his chest. Meredith watched as he sniffed, and squared his jaw, and lifted one hand up to his face. Derek continued his exam, and began to restore April's pain medication. He explained to Jackson, who now stood directly across from him and holding April's other hand.

"She seems to be intact. Kepner must have nine lives. She'll probably wake up on her own in a few hours."

April mumbled slightly, pulling everyone's attention back to her as her face twisted slightly in pain as the restored medicine slowly entered her system. Alex blanched and stepped backwards into the hallway.

"Alex?" Meredith asked tentatively.

Alex paused, gulping and sighing. "She's alright, that's good. Whatever. Really."

He pursed his lips, and his eyes widened and roamed around the contours of the room. "I-I just can't freakin' be here."

And with that, Alex turned and practically sprinted down the hallway. "Alex!" Meredith tried again, but this time he didn't stop.

"What the hell?" Jackson asked, still gently holding April's hand. "He has been waiting all day to see if she'd be alright. I thought he's easily as worried as I am! And now what? He's just gonna leave her? I don't understand him."

Meredith had a good idea of why Alex reacted the way he had, now that she thought about it. She could even kick herself a little for not expecting it in the first place. She knew Alex pretty well after all.

"He just needs time to breathe," Meredith said, to no one in particular because it seemed Jackson had turned all his attention back to April, telling her softly that her parents were coming soon.

Derek and Meredith quietly slipped into the hallway, both glancing at a clock hanging behind a nearby nurse's station.

"I am going to go ahead and get Zola," Derek began. "Take her home. See how the house fared in all of this."

Meredith nodded, and replied, "I'm going to stay here. I'm not sure how long, but...I want to stay until Alex..."

Eventually, she'd go home to Derek and Zola. Meredith had already decided she'd stay at least until April was more settled in post-op, if only to support Alex, because she thought that he might need a friend right now. It seemed like things had finally caught up with him.

Tilting his head and gently curling his lips into a small smile Derek said, "I know. That's good. We'll see you later."

He wrapped an arm around Meredith's shoulder and gave her a quick kiss before he strode down the hall. Meredith watched him go, and sighed. Now, what was she going to do about Alex?


As Alex stood in the doorway of April's hospital room, it felt like the air was just sucked out of him. Like suddenly someone had just pulled the plug on all the oxygen in the room. He couldn't move. His chest felt tight. He couldn't breathe. Because he was here again. Again. It was all too much. He had to get out. He couldn't handle seeing this, feeling this. No way. Not again. So, he quickly stepped back into the hall and away from the room, not caring where his feet took him.

April looked so frail and vulnerable. Just lying there in a hospital bed. So much like...He'd been there before. In a hospital room. Watching. So much like...Izzie. And when she was pale in a hospital? That was when Alex's life had started to all fall apart.

And now, it felt like he'd let himself get to that place again. Where it felt like someone had pulled the earth from beneath his feet. Where it felt like his life was all tangled up in someone else's well-being. It was terrifying. But Alex didn't get it. Why did he feel that way now? Over April? Maybe...but no. If he opened up and let himself feel what he was afraid he felt? That road had to led to madness, loneliness. Heartbreak. He never wanted to face those feelings again.

Alex urged his legs faster, so that by the time he reached the elevators, he was full on running. Unable to stop and wait for an elevator to come, he continued moving, making his way to the stairs and taking them two at a time heading somewhere else. Anywhere else. He kept running and running, until he finally found himself grabbing a door handle and slipping into a room. He slumped down into the nearest seat and held his head in his hands, letting a small sob escape his lips before he clamped them shut.

No freakin' way. Alex took a few deep breaths and managed to gain some control over himself again. Then he sat back, taking the moment to pause. That's what he needed. Time to pause and think. And then he realized where he was. Where his body had taken him when he wasn't paying attention. Figures. He was on Kepner's couch. In her office. Just like she'd left it that morning. Spilled cereal on the floor, post it notes on the desk, and cheerful flowered pillows on the couch.

The thing was, Alex had spent the whole day practically paralyzed. Waiting to hear how April was doing. It had been a shock, his reaction, but Alex had realized that he was afraid. Not because he might lose a patient and get a bad outcome. Not even just because it was a sad situation and he might lose someone he knew.

He'd been lying to himself. Alex realized now that his fear came from the fact that he actually cared about her. He was afraid of losing April because she mattered much more to him than he'd ever thought. It was strange, but he knew that if she died he'd miss her. A lot. And not only her. He'd miss the possibilities. All the things he'd never asked her. The possibility of being the kind of person April thought he could be. Alex realized that if April died, he'd regret not getting to know her better.

She'd somehow become this huge part of his life, and Alex hadn't noticed. It was more than the fact that she cooked, cleaned and sometimes even bought his groceries. More than the fact that she usually put up with his bad jokes, even when they were at her own expense.

April was always nice to Alex, even when he didn't deserve it. No matter how much he chose to act like a jerk, she consistently treated him like he wasn't. Like she expected more of him. Better from him. And it felt like a long time since someone had done that. Expected the best from Alex. Expected him to act like the man he could be, rather than persona he displayed. And there weren't that many people left in the world who expected much from Alex.

His father hadn't. None of the foster families had. He was the tough kid. The problem child. The one nobody wanted to care for. Messed up. A pig. Everything in his life had taught him that being nice was weak, and that if you were weak, you got hurt. It happened to his mom, his siblings. They were weak, and he'd had to find a way to protect them.

So Alex had learned to be hard. Not to care. Not to show any weaknesses. And in many ways this mentality had gotten him a long way. He'd stood up to his dad. Taken care of Aaron and Amber as best he could. He'd graduated college, and med school. He was in one of the best damn residency programs in the country. But it hadn't gotten him much in terms of relationships. His friendships with Meredith and Cristina were much loved exceptions in a life that hadn't left much room for friends. Or anything more.

Alex was hard, because when you were soft, you let people in, and when you let people in you got hurt. People just screw you over in the end. Like Ava or whatever. Like Lucy Fields. And Izzie.

But April. He didn't know. She wasn't his father. She wasn't Lucy. Or Izzie. Alex didn't think she'd hurt him. He might, well, he actually thought he might want to let her in. Even though that notion was just as terrifying as being in her hospital room. But it was true. April still saw the good in him. She still hoped that he could be the best; knew that he could be more than just the edgy survivor.

And because April had survived, he now had the chance to let her in. If he hadn't screwed things up with her enough already. Alex could hardly believe she'd ever forgive him after the way he'd treated her over the years. But April had lived. She was still here. And that had to be a sign, or something.

Alex's head snapped up as he heard someone enter the room. It was Meredith. He felt bad. Here he'd just had this freakin' epiphany about how he felt about April, but in order to do it he'd actually ran away from her bedside. Sure. This is why Alex had never been the good guy. He blinking up at his friend as she stood in front of him, he realized that he had no idea how long he'd been sitting here. The windows outside looked much darker than he remembered. Come to that, the room was much darker than Alex remembered.

"Here you are," Meredith said, flipping on the light switch near the door. "Sitting in the dark?"

Alex just shrugged and said nothing still reeling from his realization.

Meredith moved to the couch and sat down next to him. "Alex-"

"I called my sister. This afternoon. I called her."

"Oh...Why?"

"Because of April...I'm sorry. I know I bailed on her. I just..." his voiced wavered slightly and he shook his head, unsure of how to explain. "I never realized how much I'd miss her, if she...It's kind of dumb but, I would. Mer, I really would."

His friend only shook her head, "It's not dumb Alex. I think this was a bit of wakeup call for everyone. We'd all miss April, but you...I know you care about her."

Alex let out a small laugh. "Really? I don't think I even knew until right now."

"Well, don't take this the wrong way Alex, but you're not the kind of person who likes to waste his time. If you really don't like someone you don't put any effort into being around them at all. Even to tease them. You eat lunch in here, like every day...I'm just sayin'."

He only sighed, and looked down. Alex did care. And so he felt guilty for being here and not in April's room with her. He felt rotten. Meredith bit her lip and leaned closer to him.

"I know you, Alex. I know you couldn't stay because the room reminded you of Izzie. You don't have to feel bad about that. Not at all."

Alex smiled slightly and turned to look at his friend. She really did understand him. It was nice to have people there for you. And maybe now he could admit that he needed people around who cared about him.

"I know you just needed time Alex," Meredith continued, with a glint in her eye. "But you've had your break. Now I think you should suck it up and go sit with her. Because Jackson has to pick up her parents. And I should get home to Derek and Zola. April's starting to wake up. She shouldn't do that alone."

Turning more serious, and nudging Alex's shoulder she said, "And now you know you care. You've admitted it to yourself. Go care. That's all you can do. You have the chance to care now. See what happens."

Alex nodded. She was right. All this earthquake stuff. Maybe it had a silver lining or some bull like that. There could be an upside. Great. Now he really must be channeling April or something. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

He stood up and offered Meredith a quick goodbye before making his way back into April's room. In the hallway Alex paused at the nurse's station, grabbing a cup of ice chips, in case April really did wake up.

He paused in the doorway, and took a deep breath before making his way to a chair next to April's bed. She seemed to sense him because her eyes slowly opened, and she let her head fall to one side, facing him. Her pupils were huge, and she looked adorable, and he could actually admit that now, even just to himself. Alex had to laugh a little. It was nice to see some life in her. It helped him to process and accept the fact that she'd made it. But Alex figured April must be drugged out of her mind.

"Al-lex?" April croaked, coughing slightly.

"Hey." Lamest line ever.

Her brow furrowed and her eyes lazily rolled around, staring at the dimmed room. "Are we out yet?"

Alex reached for her hand, gently slipping her long fingers between his own. This sucks. She still thought she was buried.

"Yeah. You're in the hospital."

April began to move, slowly stretching her limbs as best she could. She lifted her other hand uncoordinatedly and held it out in front of her face, pulling it closer and farther away from her. It took her eyes a moment to focus, but when they did April looked at her hand as though it was the most fascinating thing ever. She continued her sloppy motions and started to cough again.

"Don't do that, you'll pull out your IV. How about some ice?" Alex said, trying to distract her.

April nodded woozily and he gently slipped an ice cube into her open mouth. Her eyes held a look of relief and she tried to smile as the cool liquid soothed her dry throat.

"You...ssstayed..." She slurred over the ice cube in her mouth, turning to look at Alex again.

Head injury or medication induced confusion, be damned. April's memory seemed to be in tact.

"I, uh, I said I wouldn't leave didn't I?"

"Goo-ood."

"I may be an ass, but I am not a lying ass."

That made April chuckle a little, her lips pulling in to a goofy half smile. Then her face suddenly turned serious, and she moved her IV-laden hand roughly in Alex's direction. She was trying to point at him, and failing miserably.

April's next words really made Alex laugh. Oh, the conversation's you had with people in post-op.

"You...you had syphilis."

"I know. Thanks for the little reminder. I got treated though."

"That'ss good."

Alex chuckled harder. Being with April was actually making him feel better. Nothing like how he'd felt in Izzie's room a couple years ago. This wasn't stressful. It wasn't terrifying. She was alive, and mostly herself. Making him laugh. It was so different than her confused rambling in the building. She'd almost been dying then. But April was going to be alright. He could finally believe it now. So, sitting here was a relief.

April continued, watching Alex's face. "You sm-mile nice. You should do it more."

"Okay, April."

"Really, I like it."

"They gave you the good stuff, huh?" Surely, that was the real reason she'd said she liked Alex's smile.

"Yeah," April sighed letting her eyes hazily roam around the room again. "But tha-doesm..doesn't mmake me lie."

She coughed again, and her eyes looked droopy.

"Need another ice cube?"

"Uh huh."

Alex carefully slipped another one into her mouth.

"Thankss..."

"All you have to do is ask."

"Not that...na-only that…" April's eyes were almost closed again. "Thanks for saving me..."

Her body relaxed, eyes closing, and the end of her sentence trailed off into a dreamy sigh. Alex indulged an unexpected urge, and stood up to gently arrange the bed covers closer around April's body.

Settling back down into his chair, and feeling his own need for sleep, Alex leaned forward and rested his head on one side of the bed, near April's arm. As he let himself drift off to sleep, he took her hand again and whispered, "Right back at ya."

April had saved Alex too. Probably in more ways than one.