Thank you for all the amazing feedback! Here's the first chapter. Hope you enjoy it.
1/10 - Starting Over.
It takes ten minutes for them to get back to the apartment. Jackson hands the cab driver a twenty,
while she stares up at the building that's been her home for the last few months.
It feels weird to think she'd ever wanted to leave it all behind. He takes her hand and leads her up the stairs,
only pausing to fish the keys out of his pocket and turn them in the lock.
The first thing she notices is the boxes of her things piled beside the front door.
Her name and address back in Ohio printed neatly on the top.
It was only yesterday that she'd packed them, but it feels like a lifetime since then.
She realises that he's standing there looking at her, and maybe it's her turn to make the first move.
She's been making a lot of those lately.
The heat in his eyes lights her desire, and it's almost enough to make her forget about everything that's brought them here. Almost.
"Jackson. We have to talk about this." She says.
It's the last thing she wants to do, but the rational part of her brain knows they need to understand what this means.
"I know. Just not tonight. Please." He begs, hoarsely. His fingertips dig in to her sides just a bit.
He's so close that she can feel the warmth radiating from him on her skin.
He's been so strong through everything that she know's it's only a matter of time before he falls apart.
So she does the only thing she can. She holds him tightly, wraps her arms around him, pressing him impossibly close to her chest.
He doesn't cry, just takes deep breaths. After a moment she can feel the damp spots along her collarbone.
She closes her eyes, and runs her fingers up and down his back, like her mother did for her when she was a child.
She holds on to him, and presses her fingertips into his spine, her love, and hopes it finds its way into his heart.
It seems like hours they stay like that, huddled together, arms holding on to each other, for something that is only just returning.
She know's she should be asking for how long, but she doesn't.
Makes a silent promise to herself that she won't let go until he does.
Her stomach does a backwards flip when she realizes she can hear his heart beat.
It means they're alone. The house is silent. She thinks maybe he realizes at the same time she does,
because he cups her jaw with his hand, thumb stroking her cheek. When he leans in, she lets go of her anxiety and opens her mouth,
closes her eyes when he kisses her.
She tries to wrap her brain around what is happening, to rationalise the insanity of this strangely magnetic pull he has over her,
but fails miserably as his mouth sweeps away all logic, can feel her heart pound violently against her chest, comforted by the swift pounding of his own,
the frantic beats overlapping in perfect harmony. His mouth never leaves hers, sliding fluidly over bruised lips, threatening to swallow her entirely.
They kiss him until his lips are swollen and hers are red and bruised. He tastes of scotch and spearmint and whatever he had for dinner at the hospital.
She's not sure who leads who but eventually they end up in the hallway, his hands pushing her backwards towards his bedroom.
She shakes her head and pulls him into her old room. The double bed, neatly made, is the only possession left in the room.
In a way it seems fitting, the empty room is a reminder that this is new, starting over. Maybe this time they can have a clean slate.
When he lays her down on the mattress She feels everything in the way that he looks at her.
Alive and adventurous, and out of breath all at the same time. It's terrifying really, how just the sight of him sets
every one of her nerve endings on fire.
She sees her lipstick smeared on him and imagines how it must look on her own face. He pulls her hair free from its pony tail,
releasing her the curls down her back. His hand sinks into her hair when he holds her head still for another kiss
"April." When she kisses his neck, the sound of her name is so soft that she isn't even sure he's spoken them aloud,
but it hangs in the air, strangely endearing, echoing in her ears, wrapped in magnetic electricity,
a current that has been building between them since their first night at the boards.
They don't speak after that, as they undress, hands running over skin as he pushes into her, as they come together once again.
It feels good for her to think of it that way. From her fingertips to her toes. There's no more protests in her head or in her heart,
just the feel of their lips and skin, and she wants to remember this moment. The moment between them when everything is shifting and changing,
while the outside world continues to spin in it's own perfect motion.
Afterwards they lay together, legs tangled and bodies intertwined.
Her eyes flutter open, traveling over his face. His remained closed, and he looks content, almost serene.
Her heart tugs at the thought that she could bring him a sense of peace, something that seems to have constantly evaded him the last few months.
Maybe this is what her sisters had meant when they told her what falling in love feels like.
He leans over and kisses her, and her head still full of foolish fantasies, she kisses him back eagerly, pressing her body against his.
"The first week after you told me you chose Tulane I already missed you. I was scared to go to sleep, because I knew eventually I'd wake up and you wouldn't be here anymore." She says. "That's why I left Jackson. I had to leave you before you left me. I wouldn't have been able to take it."
He looks at her for a long time before answering. "I wont ever leave you, April."
He's so vulnerable in that moment, that she can feel her heart swell up with affection for him.
It's a frightening feeling, like laying her heart on an operating table and handing someone a scalpel, but trusting that they won't use it.
Giving him her love means giving him the power to hurt her more than anyone else ever has. But if she's honest with herself she's always loved him.
Maybe up until now, it was never crossed the line past friendship, but he's always been so careful with her in the past.
He deserves all the love she can give him.
I love you, she thinks as she watches him fall asleep, almost certain she can hear it echoed back,
by the steady breathing and soft beating of his heart.
The rain against the window is what eventually wakes her up.
She sits up slowly, sliding from the bed, picking up his t shirt to cover her body as she silently walks to the bathroom.
She brushes her teeth and stares at the reflection looking back at her in the mirror, notices the faint red outlines along her neck
from Jacksons mouth. Her hair has always seemed redder in the moonlight, skin paler, eyes darker. She think's she looks older.
After the shooting, it took her months to put herself back to what she was. She'd lost a best friend, and a colleague, and one of the last remaining pieces of innocence she was holding on to. Maybe that's why the aftermath of giving up her virginity was such a tremendous deal. She wasn't innocent anymore.
At Reed's funeral, she'd worn black, and her new high heels. She'd held hands with Dr Bailey and Jackson,
but at the time it felt more like they were holding on to her. She couldn't remember how to work her hands anymore.
They'd sat in the front row, and stood when they were supposed to, and she'd sung the hymns she'd learnt in church as a child,
and when they'd lowered the coffin into the ground all she could focus on was the warmth of his Jackson's hand as they threw
the first shovel of dirt into the ground.
She was younger then, even though it was only a year ago. She's so different now. A year can change a lot.
She's never told anyone but she see's her sometimes. Reed.
When she's walking through the corridors, or leaving work, when she's drinking at Joe's after a long shift.
She see's the glimpse of dark her, and hears the tinkle of her laughter, and it's so real that it makes her heart stop and her knees weak,
and all she can think of is the girl who started as her best friend and ended laying on the hospital floor in a pool of her own blood.
For the first few months there was no escape, just darkness. Every night the memories would lull her into sleep, the follow her into her dreams.
She'd wake up with bloody hands and stained scrubs while Jackson screamed out across the hallway for the best friend he'd lost.
Reed was the only one who understood who she really was. Even Jackson doesn't, hasn't fully seen her yet.
She can't help resent that she knows so much about everyone else around her, but no one knows the little things about her, not anymore.
How she takes her tea scolding hot, that she can barely sleep more than four hours a night.
How she know's the lines to every Molly Ringwald movie, even the one's she doesn't like.
He sits up, the sheets slipping off his shoulders, when she re enters the bedroom but doesn't move to fix it.
She moves inside and closes the door with a quiet click, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh.
She glances at him for a moment before her eyes flutter closed again, and whispers, "Hey."
All of the conversations they need to have can wait until the morning. For this moment it's just them. The two of them,
and if she's sure of anything it's that they can make it through this.
They're two broken puzzles, missing pieces of themselves, because they can't be anything without each other, right?
They have to be complete, because if not then this was all just a waste.
Everything they've been through was just a waste of time and effort and heartache and life will never be able to shine as brightly as it once did.
They're made for each other, made to fill the empty spaces.
He's the first one to rise the next morning, his hands brushing back her hair as she helps her out of bed and into the kitchen.
She accepts the cup of scalding coffee he pours her with her bare hands, sipping at the steaming drink immediately,
not really caring when it burns her tongue or makes her wince.
He sits down beside her and they look at each other. She know's he want's to say something but she just rests her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and feeling the warmth of his body. He takes her smaller hand in his and they stay like that, just touching.
They sit there for what feels like hours not talking. It sounds strange, but they've always been good at it,
spent hours in operating rooms and skills labs practicing, neither of them noticing the silence until they've broken it.
She'd never realised how much she didn't have to say, until she had someone to say it to.
She makes pancakes for breakfast, and they spend the next few hours huddled together watching re runs of Law and Order on tv before he has to start his shift. It's only when he mentions the rhinoplasty he has scheduled for this afternoon that she realises she no longer has a job at the hospital anymore.
"Will you come with me to the hospital later?" He asks her, and when she ask him why, he explains that he wants to say goodbye to his mentor.
The will Sloan had signed stated that he only wanted hospital care for thirty days before they turned off the machines,
unless there was any sign of brain activity, but both Jackson and April don't have to be doctors to know that he won't wake up again.
She nods and squeezes his hand, as she moves off the couch towards the boxes stacked by the front door, looking for something to wear.
They'll need to be unpacked eventually, phone calls to her parents to let them know she's staying will have to be made,
and she'll have to find a job, but for now that can wait.
When she emerges from the bedroom half an hour later, freshly showered and make up done, he's waiting for her by the door.
They drive together in comfortable silence, April occasionally singing along to songs on the radio and Jackson criticizing the other drivers on the road.
It's something so small, but so familiar that she can hold on to, almost like nothings really changed.
It makes her smile to herself, and reach across the console to take his hand in hers.
The hospital is exactly the way she remember it, which shouldn't be much of a surprise seeing as she was only here twelve hours ago.
The only difference is the gloomy cloud that seems to hang above it.
The weather seems fitting given the reason she's here. To commemorate the life of a fallen comrade.
They walk hand in hand to the coffee cart and she's thankful to not have seen any of their colleagues.
She doesn't even realize he's ordered until he places the caramel latte in her hand and they're already in the elevator.
When they step out onto the ICU floor, he falters for just a second, but it's enough for her to place her hand on his arm and walk them towards Sloans room. The older man's room is quiet, and the only sounds come from the rhythmic beeping of the monitors beside his bedside.
Pale skin, and eyes closed, he looks more peaceful then she has ever seen him, but it makes her chest ache to know she'll never see the trademark smirk on his face again.
She places a soft kiss on the man's cool skin, and whispers a small prayer that he finds Lexie up in heaven.
She knows despite Sloan's strength, that's the reason he was so ready to let go.
How do you live in a world where you've lost the one person who mattered most to you.
Jackson remains frozen at the entrance to the room, and all she can do is pull him against her in a gentle embrace.
"I'll meet you in the cafeteria when you're ready." She says, and she can tell despite his silence he's grateful for the alone time with his mentor.
She walks around the hospital twice before she ends up in front of the nursery, gazing through the window at the newborns inside their cribs.
How peaceful they seem, unaware of the struggles going on inside the hallways of this hospital.
That's where Hunt finds her, twenty minutes later. He doesn't seem all that surprised to see her here, despite the end of her contract,
just stands beside her looking at the activity inside the NICU.
They stand there for a few minutes, watching the nurses attend to the babies before he asks to speak to her in his office.
She follows him down the corridor and no sooner is she sitting in front of his desk, does he offer her her job back.
"I keep trying to think of ways I could have done things differently, and if I.. If I realised they were missing sooner, if I had told Christina.."
He pauses to rest his head in his hands and she feels a pang of sorrow for the older man, who's seen so much and experienced so much weight on his shoulders.
"I keep looking for do-overs.. but there's no do-overs. It's just the way it is, and I can't fix that. Except for this. For you. I didn't teach you the way I should have. I should have made you be strong, instead of kicking when you were down."
She doesn't blame him, not really. He was looking out for the hospital. He's always been looking out for them.
"I should have never taken your job from you, April."
He doesn't give her a chance to speak, just hands her the forms she needs to sign to be reinstated along with her ID badge, and then she's back down in the cafeteria.
She spots Meredith and Alex eating lunch outside, and grabs an apple from the cashier before sitting down beside them.
"Hey guys."
"Kepner. What the hell are you doing here? Didn't you get fired?"
It's hard to understand him through his mouthful of fries, but she'll admit she'd have missed Alex if she had gone back to Moline.
"Hunt offered me my job back. Just now." She says, and it's hard to keep the smile off her face.
"That's great, April." Meredith says, and she's grateful to the blonde surgeon for the encouragement.
"Yeah, yeah. Really great." Alex says as he dumps his tray into the trash. "I gotta run, we're doing a _ on a baby in pedes." He says walking inside.
"How are you?" She asks. Meredith might be the same age as her, but she's gone through so many more things that April ever has.
Losing a baby, a sister, almost losing her husband, and her best friend leaving town that there's only so much a person can take before they break.
"I'm fine. Surviving." Meredith says, offering her a small smile as she finishes her lunch. "I'm glad you're back, April."
"Yeah, me too."
It's only seconds after Meredith leaves that she feels Jackson sit down beside her, snatching up a piece of her apple.
"You okay?" She asks, and she's satisfied when he nods his head and puts his arm around her shoulders.
They share the last of her apple, and she tells him what Hunt had said to her while he was with Mark.
When she gets to the part about him offering her her job back, he leans over and kisses her.
"That's really great." He says, and the smile he gives her is contagious.
They spend the next few minutes talking about his upcoming surgeries before his pager goes off, and he has to leave, offering her a quick kiss as he runs upstairs to change into his scrubs.
"I'll see you at home."
The next few days pass in a blur, as she gets re acquainted with the hospital.
She catches up on her patients, and meets the interns and before she knows it she's ready for her first surgery since being back.
She has a hernia consult with Jackson scheduled for his patient, and he smiles at her when she walks in the room.
"This is Dr Kepner, she's going to be repairing your hernia." He says to the patient, as his intern gives a brief run down of what they'll be doing. April's never been the jealous type but she can't help but notice the way the darker haired intern's eyes keep straying to her boyfriend.
It's strange to think of him as that, she's never really had a boyfriend before, but the last few days everything between them has been going so well.
He'd taken her out for dinner last night, after her shift and then they'd spent the night in bed catching up on lost time.
The look that he gives her as they listen to their patient ask how soon she can sleep with her fiance after the surgery, causes her insides to tighten.
The butterflies inside her own stomach seem more like giant wasps delivering toxin throughout her bloodstream.
It's enough to make her grab his hand and request a quick consult in the on call room before they prepare for their surgery.
Thanks for all the amazing reviews everyone, they're really appreciated. The next part will be up tomorrow.
Stay tuned for angst, drama and a ridiculous amount of feels.
Also, what's your favourite Jackson/April song? Does anyone else think 'Only If For A Night' By Florence and The Machine matches their relationship perfectly.