A/N: New chapter! First off, thank you for your feedback on the last chapter. I'm glad that you are all enjoying this so much. I had many people ask if this is the ALA benefit chapter. The answer is no - that will most likely be next chapter. Hope you enjoy this one :D

Chapter Nine

Just when April thought her life could not get anymore difficult, she was given a big fat sign that yes, it could, and her car ended up in the shop leaving her with no mode of transportation.

"Thank you for picking me up," April said, slipping into the backseat of Jackson's car. "Of course, as luck would have it, my stupid car is no longer working so I had to take it to the dealer-"

"You took it to the dealer?" Alex said snidely. "Everyone knows the dealer rips you off."

"The manual said to take it to the dealer."

"Yeah, I'm with Karev on this one," Jackson said. "The dealer totally screws you over with pricing."

April frowned, flopping her hands on either side of her on the seat morosely.

"Well, I didn't know that! Why did no one tell me?"

"I thought everyone knew that," Alex said.

"Great. Now my car is over at the dealer and I am getting ripped off and screwed over with pricing. This is just great!"

Alex winced at her tone and said, "Okay, some ground rules for this picking you up thing. You need to keep your voice in a decibel that freaking dogs can't hear."

"Oh, shut up," April said.

"Hey, everyone be nice," Jackson said. "And this is my car, Karev. I'm the one who makes the ground rules."

"So, what's wrong with your car?" Alex asked. "You pop the wheel on a curb or something?"

"No, I'm not an idiot driver, Alex. I've never hit a curb."

"Everyone's hit a curb," Alex retorted.

"Yeah, maybe if you don't know how to drive. People who can drive, though, - people like me – do not hit curbs."

"Have you hit a curb?" Alex asked Jackson. The other man shrugged and then nodded. "See, Avery can clearly drive and he's hit a curb."

"I haven't hit a curb!" April said loudly.

"Again, with the decibel!" Alex returned.
"It was not a curb. The check engine light was going off," April said, forcing her voice to become more measured. "So, I brought it in."

"You brought it in for a check engine light?" Jackson said, glancing at her in the mirror. "And it needs to be in for a few days?"

"They said they found more."

Alex snorted. "And that is why you don't bring it to the dealer. You are so being played."

"What?"

"Unnecessary tests and tune-ups," Alex said. "You know, if we did that as doctors we'd have eighty lawyers up our asses in a second."

"Oh my god," April breathed out. "I'm being played. I have no car and I'm being played."

"It's fine. We'll drive you until you get it back," Jackson told her. "And, next time, just don't go to the dealer."

"You don't have to worry about that," April said, looking out the window. "I'll never go to the dealer again."

Her voice held a sort of solemnity that was much too heavy for car issues, but the two men let it go, smirking to themselves.

Izzie stopped short when she saw them together. Walking side by side, it reminded her of how they used to be. Before there was so much baggage between them that not the largest caravan could lighten the load. Meredith came beside her, following her gaze.

"Her name's Morgan. She's an intern."

"She looks nice. I mean, she has a nice face."

"It's new," Meredith supplied, glancing at the blonde. "Just in case you were curious."

"I wasn't," Izzie answered immediately, which was a blatant lie because when you saw your ex-husband with another woman, there was nothing besides curiosity. Meredith smirked and replied, "Of course you weren't. So, how's your first week back been?"

Izzie took a deep breath, happy to have the conversation move on from Alex.

"It's been good. A little weird to be back. Sometimes I feel like I never left, and then I'll see something or someone will make some random remark and I remember that it's been two years."

"A lot has changed," Meredith agreed quietly.

"Yeah, you and Cristina married. You with a daughter!"

"I'll have to introduce you to Zola," Meredith said. "You'd like her."

"Oh, I'll bake her something! Kids like cookies and stuff right?"

Meredith grinned and nodded. "Yeah, I think it's sort of one of those things all kids share. Like crying and jam hands."

Izzie laughed. "Well, name the day and I will bring something for her."

"You may just become her favorite," Meredith said.

"Dr. Stevens," Derek said with a grin, joining the three of them. He looked down at Meredith and gave her a quick peck. "Dr. Grey. What are you two talking about?"

"Izzie is going to bake something for Zola."

Derek's eyes brightened and he said, "Bake something with peanut butter. That's my favorite."

An ambulance pulled up to the E.R. entrance and Owen, Cristina and Jackson rushed outside to see what they had. The paramedic opened the back of the ambulance and said, "We have a male, 34, with a broken arm, cut on his head and possible internal bleeding. He drove his car into the local pharmacy."

"Did he fall asleep at the wheel?" Owen asked as they pulled the gurney out of the ambulance. The paramedic shook her head.

"No. The guy's high as a kite."

"I need my meds!" the man yelled, thrashing on the gurney. "My meds! I need my meds!"

"Help me hold him down," Owen said through gritted teeth, struggling to pull the restraints on him before they wheeled him in. With Cristina's help he was able to fasten the restraints and they wheeled the guy in, Jackson running in behind them.

"Someone page Torres," Owen said, feeling the arm. "This bone is definitely broken."

"Give me my meds, man!" the patient yelled, struggling against the restraints.

"Sir, you need to calm down," Owen said. "You have some injuries-"

"My meds! I need my meds!"

"Dr. Avery," Owen said, gesturing for him to sedate him. He quickly nodded and turned around toward the medical supplies, grabbing the syringe. He turned around and grabbed the man's arm, sliding the needle into his vein as he howled in pain.

"It's not that bad, man," he murmured, sliding the needle out. Just then the restraints buckled, and the patient's arm shot out, knocking into the syringe. Jackson swore when he felt the needle stab him arm through his lab coat.

"Get him down!" Owen said loudly, two attendants coming over to help as the man thrashed one last time against the restraints. The sedation took effect, though, and the man slackened against the hospital bed.

"Avery, are you okay?"

He nodded quickly, tensing his jaw. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine."

Torres joined them and said, "Someone paged me."

"Look at his arm," Owen said, pointing toward the patient's arms before resuming his examination. Torres felt the arm, mouth screwed into a frown as she felt for swelling.

"Yeah, this bad boy needs to be set," Torres said. "Do I get him first?"

"It'll depend on what the x-rays show," Owen said. "Dr. Avery, bring him down to radiology and get a scan of his abdomen. I have a feeling we have some internal bleeding we're going to have to deal with. Dr. Yang, you accompany him, too."

Jackson and Cristina took a hold of either side of the bed, wheeling it to the elevator. Cristina peered at him over the bed and said, "You got stabbed by that syringe, didn't you?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not going to pass out are, you? There's only room for one hospital bed in these elevators."

"Just keep walking," he said dryly.

"I have the car accident guy Roger Meroni's chart," the nurse said, handing it over to Owen. "They just came in a few minutes ago."

"Alright, thank you," Owen said, flipping open the chart and casually going through the pages. Something caught his eye, though, and he flipped back, eyes carefully reading the test results displayed on the page. His stomach twisted at what he saw. He looked up and grabbed the nurse's attention.

"I need you to page Dr. Avery for me. Now."

"What's going on?" Jackson said, joining Owen in his office. "One of the nurses paged me. Did something happen with the patient?"

"Did you get stabbed with that needle?" Owen asked.

"It was nothing," Jackson said dismissively. "A scratch. I'm fine, really."

Owen looked at him with serious eyes and said, "Avery, I need you tell me if you were stabbed with that needle."

Jackson looked at him strangely while something he couldn't quite discern built in the pit of his stomach. There was a reason for Hunt's dogged questioning.

"Yeah," he finally said. "It stabbed me." Owen shook his head, looking away as he swore softly. Jackson stepped forward and asked, "What's the big deal?"

"I just got the patient's chart."

"And?"

"He's HIV positive."

"You should wear strapless," Callie said, sitting with April as they waited for a patient's CT scan to load.

"For what?"

"For the ALA benefit," Callie said. "You have good shoulders."

"I'm wearing a lab coat," April pointed out. Her shoulders were very much not on display. Nor were they particularly good. They were just shoulders.

"Well, I can tell you have good shoulders," Callie said. "Labcoat or no. Have you picked out a dress yet?"

April shook her head. Her time had been spent at the hospital or in front of the television OD-ing on romantic comedies. There was nothing quite like watching other people get their lives together when yours was falling into shambles.

"I haven't had time. Too busy working and wallowing."

"Hey, shopping can be categorized as wallowing!" Callie enthused. "What says wallowing more than getting a smoking hot dress?"

"A Gilmore Girls marathon with rocky road ice cream?"

Callie considered that for a moment and said, "That does sound pretty great, actually."

"You should try it sometime, with or without a breakup."

"Preferably without. I have that whole being married thing. I'd like to keep that."

April stared out toward the patient, imagining herself at the benefit. After a moment she murmured, "Strapless, huh?"

Jackson told no one before he went for the blood test. He didn't need anyone adding to the panic building rapidly in his chest.

He kept telling himself that the blood work would come back negative. The needle couldn't have been in his arm for more than a second. That was less than a second for the disease to transmit. Less than a second for his entire life to be forever changed.

It couldn't happen. Just an hour ago he was HIV negative, and it was a preposterous thought that sixty odd minutes later he was HIV positive. It was a preposterous notion, and what made it even more ridiculous was that it could be true. He could be HIV positive.

"You should do some charting," Owen said. "While you wait."

"I can operate," Jackson said stubbornly. This wouldn't put his entire day on hold. He had a bypass with Dr. Altman in the afternoon, and after that he would have to check in on their car accident patient.

"I know this is difficult for you-"

"Do you?" Jackson snapped. "Do you know what it's like to possibly be HIV positive because someone couldn't fasten restraints correctly?"

The younger man's eyes were lit with fury, directed clearly at Owen who appraised him carefully. He knew Jackson was going off fumes – off fear and worry – but he couldn't deny what was said. He thought it from the moment the guy's arm had come free. He played the moment over and over in his mind, wondering if there was something he could have done differently.

"The restraints were fastened properly," he said. From what he could remember they were, at least.

"Then how did he break free of them?"

"Freak accidents happen," Owen said calmly.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather not get be HIV positive because of some freak accident."

"You don't know that you are," Owen said. "Don't get yourself worked up until you see the results."

"You try not getting worked up," Jackson said, his anger ebbing as the worry built.

"The blood work will come back soon, and then we'll know."

"Yeah," Jackson said, shaking his head. "We'll know. Then what?"

Owen hadn't approached Cristina since they met at the vent. He had gotten her forgiveness, and he wouldn't push it. She would come to him when she was ready for the next step, and only then. This was a time that he needed her, though. She had been her rock, just as he had been hers at one time, and right now he needed her. He needed someone to assure him that he wasn't the one who got one of their attendings stabbed with a syringe from someone HIV positive.

"Cristina, can I talk with you?"

She looked up from her chart, and her face registered worry when she saw the pinched expression on his. She closed the chart and nodded.

"Yeah, sure. What's up?"

"Somewhere private," he quickly said, gesturing toward an on-call room. She followed him in, closing the door.

"What's going on?

He explained everything with Jackson and the needle. She listened in silence, her eyes growing wider as he told her more.

"It wasn't my fault," Owen said, more to himself than anything. "I could fasten those restraints in my sleep."

"They were fastened correctly," Cristina told him. "I saw it for myself. You did nothing wrong."

"Then how did he break free? How did I let him break free?"

"They might not have been tight enough," she answered, adding on, "Which you couldn't have known."

"I should have," he said, shaking his head. "People come in all the time, and I should have…"

She moved forward and placed her hands on his arms to calm him down. He looked at her, eyes pained.

"I could have ruined his life, Cristina. I could have ruined his entire life."

"But you didn't. Stop doing this to yourself. You did nothing wrong. Things happen in the ER, and it's no one's fault."

Owen sat down on the bed heavily, resting his arms on his knees.

"When did he get his blood taken?"

"About twenty minutes ago."

"Results should be up soon then," Cristina noted.

"If he's positive…"

"Then we will deal with it," she said, sitting beside him. "But we don't know that. So, let's not prepare for the worst, okay?"

"I'm a trauma surgeon," he said with a humorless smile. "That's what I do."

April found Jackson in the pit, working on a pile of charts. She propped her elbows on the counter and said, "Why are you working on charts?"

"Seemed like a good thing to do," he said unenthusiastically.

"But you hate charts."

"Well, they're not too bad right now."

She straightened up and asked him, "So, what do you think of my shoulders?"

"Huh?"

"My shoulders? Are they good?" She moved them around a bit, squaring them off and then shrugging a bit. "Callie said I had good shoulders. She told me I should wear a strapless dress this weekend."

"Your shoulders are fine," Jackson said, looking back down at the charts.
"Just fine?"

"Look, April, I don't really care about your shoulders right now," Jackson snapped. She looked at him strangely and said, "Sorry. I'll, uh, change the subject."

"I can't talk right now," he said sharply. "I'm trying to do work."

"You're doing chart work. That takes less concentration than parallel parking."

"Would you just take a hint?" he said, voice rising. "I don't want to talk right now, okay?"

"Okay!" she said forcefully. "I get it! Geez, what crawled up your backside?"

She stormed off and he exhaled sharply, shaking his head. He knew he shouldn't have snapped at her, but right then he honestly couldn't handle anyone else's problems, even if it only involved deciding whether or not to wear a strapless dress. Clenching his jaw, he returned his attention to the charts.

"He can be such an ass sometimes," April said, plopping beside Cristina in the cafeteria in a huff.

"What are you going on about?"

"Jackson," April hissed, not noticing the way Cristina's eyes flashed. "Sometimes I think he's more hormonal than I am!"

"Just give him a break," Cristina said, voice strange. "He's having a hard day."

"What do you mean a hard day?" April asked immediately.

"Difficult case," Cristina covered quickly. "That car accident guy. He's not been easy, in more ways than one."

"Well, I've had difficult cases too without biting off my friend's heads. He should learn how to compartmentalize."

"You should cut him some slack," Cristina said. She paused for a moment and then added, "You never know what someone's really going through."

April looked at her strangely, but before she could question further her pager went off. April looked down at the small pager on her belt, and smiled wide when she saw it was from Dr. Sheperd. Pages from him usually boded well.

"Well, I have a case to get to," she chirped. "Enjoy the rest of your lunch!"

To her retreating back Cristina murmured, "Yeah, sure."

The results.

Owen picked them up from the nephrology department, bringing Jackson to a small conference room. Jaw clenched tightly, he handed them over with a few stilted words and then turned to leave. Jackson stared at the folded piece of paper in his hand, unsure if there had ever been a time in his life when he was more terrified. At the last moment he looked up and stopped Owen at the door.

"Would you mind staying?" he asked.

Owen nodded, stepping forward and stuffing his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Before Jackson opened the paper he said, "I know it wasn't your fault. I was pretty much terrified. I…"

"It's okay," Owen said.

Jackson nodded, clearing his throat before looking back down at the paper. His hands trembled as he flipped it open, eyes reading over the test results. He was silent, reading the same line over and over.

"Avery?"

"It's negative," he said. Hands shaking so badly that he dropped the paper. "It-it's negative."

April waited by the front of the hospital for Jackson and Alex. She wasn't exactly looking forward to this particular ride after Jackson's attitude that afternoon. It was bad enough having to deal with Alex's attitude. Jackson walked over, bag slung over his shoulder.

"Hey," he said.

She appraised him coolly and said, "Hello Jackson. In better spirits, I hope?"

He frowned. "I'm sorry about that. I was, uh, under some stress."

"What was going on with you?"

He bristled a bit at her tone and said, "I was stabbed by a needle used on an ER patient who was HIV positive. That's what happened. You found me when I was waiting for my test results to come back."

April stared at him in horror. He had been going through all of that, and she had-

"I'm a bitch," she breathed out. "The way that I treated you. Jackson, I am so sorry."

"You didn't know," Jackson told her, his irritation ebbing. She hadn't known. Yes, she hadn't handled his outburst in the best way, but she wouldn't be April if she had.

"The test results," she blurted out, realizing that in the mess of her thoughts she had neglected to see what had ultimately happened. She struggled to find a way to poise the question politely, mouth opening and closing several times when he finally told her, "They're negative. I'm not HIV positive."

"Oh, thank God," she said, relief flooding her. "That is very good."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I would have to agree."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want anyone to know," he said. "It was hard enough not freaking out completely. I don't think I could have handled other people being worried, too."

April could see his point. She would have been beside herself if he had told her.

"Well, I'm happy that it turned out okay," she said with a decisive nod. "Are you okay after all of it?"

"A little shook up," he admitted. "But I'm okay."

"Good."

"So, we can head out if you're ready," he said, readjusting the strap of the messenger bag on his shoulder.

"What about Alex?"

"He's staying late on a case. So, it's just the two of us."

"Oh, I'm ready then," she said. "Lead the way."

Together, they left the hospital.

A/N: If you are an ER fan, yes I 100% took the HIV needle thing from that. But, hey, it's fanfic! We're already half-way to plagiarism. lol Hope that you enjoyed this :D