A/N: Hello you guys! Finally we have the final new few episodes to look forward to! That hiatus was pretty brutal! I kind of had to stretch to pull Shane into this one, and I hope this works for you all. I also just wanted to give you guys fair warning that the follow up to this weeks episode may either be delayed, combined with the follow up to 9x23, or skipped out all together depending on my time and what actually happens Shane and Japril wise. Why, do you ask? Well, next Wednesday (May 8th) I will be defending by graduate thesis, a mammoth paper, armed only with low fi powerpoint skills, a killer smile and some wit (none of which will help me during the snake portion of the exam). So, as you can imagine, all my spare time is being spent preparing for that. I don't really want to get behind so I may find break time to write it this weekend, but I can make no guarantees, and I wanted to give you all a heads up! (Fingers crossed I pass!) Thank you all so much for your support and reviews! Enjoy.

Shane was updating his patient files in the ER, for the third night of the week. Since his abrupt and painful dismissal from Dr. Shepherd's services, and in part because freaking Heather Brooks had spread it around the hospital that he 'couldn't take a hint', other attendings seemed to be giving him the pretty cold shoulder too. That new reputation, combined with the board doctors and Dr. Bailey getting all caught up and busy with this whole CDC infection thing meant that he'd spent a lot of time in the pit on Hunt's and Kepner's services.

Even though he'd never have admitted it before, Shane could now say that he didn't find the rush and uncertainty of Emergency Room shifts to be that bad. It was certainly never boring. He just didn't know whether or not he had the aptitude for it. He jumped, pulled swiftly from this thoughts when an fuming Jo Wilson slammed her tablet on the nurses station in front of Shane.

"What an asshole! The nerve of him!" the brunette doctor practically growled banging the electronic on the counter top once again for emphasis.

Shane scowled in confusion and commented, "You know we don't get those for free if you break one..."

"Oh whatever," Jo rolled her eyes, continuing on her rant. "How the hell did he think that was okay?"

Sighing, Shane rested his elbow on the table and held his head up with his hand. "Who are you talking about?"

Like he even needed to ask. He felt like he hardly saw his roommate at all these days, and on the occasions he did, Jo was talking about one of two people. 'Chest Peckwell' or Alex Karev. More often than not, Wilson talked about Alex Karev, though Shane wasn't sure if Jo noticed that.

Sure enough, her exasperated reply confirmed Shane's suspicions, "Dr. Karev!"

"Why are you mad at him this time?" Shane rolled his eyes.

Jo didn't seem to notice the lack of enthusiasm he mustered toward her whole arrival and pressed on angrily, "He's such an asshole! First, he acts like a jerk and has the nerve to tell me I shouldn't move in with Jason-"

"What? You're moving in with Chest Peckwell?" This was news to Shane. Then again, she wasn't home much these days, and was probably already basically living with the guy.

"Then he has the gall to talk to Jason behind my back! Telling him all this personal stuff I didn't want him to know," Jo continued, ignoring Shane's question and crossing her arms. "He's such a jerk."

"Dr. Karev knows personal stuff about you that your boyfriend doesn't know?"

Shane didn't really think that made much sense. But then again, maybe that was due to a difference in his approach to relationships than more of the interns in his class. He believed dating was a way to get to know someone better. The whole point was to learn 'personal' stuff.

Wilson huffed angrily and tilted her head as she fumbled her answer, "Yeah, he's...he's my attending. And I didn't give him my permission to spread my business all around."

"'All around' as in to the person you are apparently going to live with soon?" Shane asked skeptically. "Besides, I thought you wanted Karev and Peckwell to get along. What's the big secret anyway? It can't possibly be that bad."

Shane realized that he didn't really know that much about is soon to be former roommate. It wasn't just that Jo didn't hang out with him or at home as much as she had earlier that year. It was how she hung out. Looking back he realized that a lot of the time Jo would steer conversations away from herself and on to to others. She'd turn the focus to Stephanie or Shane, (and if he was honest with himself, he noted that their personalities were kind of suited to being the center of attention anyway), or she'd talk about medicine, or gossip. Jo was very adept in cultivating her image. People only knew what she wanted them to know about her past. All the more interesting to Shane then, because the fact was she'd revealed something pretty deep to Dr. Karev and no one else.

"It's not-" Jo shook her head. "It's not like...just, it's the principle of the thing."

Her eyes drifted to the next nearest nursing station just as Dr. Kepner arrived and started typing commands on her tablet. Jo gestured to Shane's mentor, "Your attending is supposed to have your back you know? And not spill your private business to everyone. Don't tell me you wouldn't get mad if Dr. Kepner told everyone you went to college on a scholarship."

Shane shook his head. He wouldn't be. "Anyone who looks at my academic record would know that."

Wilson's jaw tightened in a challenge, "Or if she told people you grew up in the South Central LA? In the projects?"

"It's the truth. I don't try to hide it," Shane shrugged.

It was a painful truth, but it was his truth nonetheless. It was a part of his past that made Shane the person he was, and he didn't care that other people knew about it. Heck, being revolutionary compared to Jo, he actually talked about it a lot to people.

Sighing dramatically, Jo rolled her eyes, "You just don't understand. It's...well, needless to say, I won't be talking to Karev again. At least if I can help it. Professional stuff only."

"I-" Shane opened his mouth to reply, because he thought that Jo's resolve to be angry at Karev for talking about something she told him about, was a little over the top, but he was distracted by the fact that Jackson was rapidly approaching April. It was the first time Shane had seen them interact all week, and it looked rather intense. The plastic surgeon leaned down on the nurses station looking Kepner in the eye. Unfortunately, from the angle of Shane's vantage point, his mentor's head blocked his ability to get a good read on Jackson's face. He leaned forward, trying to watch.

Jo scoffed indignantly at Shane's obvious distraction from her complaining, "Really?"

"Does Dr. Avery look mad to you?"

"He looks like he can pull of a man bag," she replied sarcastically.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Shane gasped as he watched Dr. Avery leave the hospital, just as another, very tall and rather goofy man approached Dr. Kepner. "Mr. Paramedic is back!"

Now, Shane wished he could see the expression on his mentor's face. He'd thought that Matt and April were over. She admitted to him that her lie about her 'v' status had really pissed her boyfriend off, and that it had caused a true rift between them. Now, however, it looked like at least some of that was changing, because now Kepner was allowing the guy to pull her into a tight embrace. What Shane wouldn't give to hear the conversation going on between them right now.

If they were getting back together, Shane thought he might scream. For both selfish and less personal reasons, he thought that his friend would probably be better off if she could sort out whatever the hell it was she had going on with her ex-best friend/lover. He thought that maybe April would be happier if, at the very least, she moved past all the fear and the doubts and the guilt. He thought she'd feel better if she just told Jackson the truth. And then on some level it wouldn't even matter if Avery loved her back (although Shane knew that the other man probably did). Either way it would be a victory for his mentor to go there and embrace her emotions.

At best, she'd have revealed her feelings to a man who cared for her just as much and they got back together or worked towards that or something more. At worst, she'd tell Jackson and he'd say he didn't feel the same way. The important part would be that the awkwardness and the confusion and the not knowing would be over, and April would have had the courage to actually be vulnerable and put her heart on the line.

Shane was getting to know his mentor well, and he could totally understand, and empathize with his mentors tendencies. He'd had similar enough experiences. April was pushing all her feelings down as a way of protecting herself. In order to escape pain and possible ridicule. Because she didn't think very highly of herself, and a lot of the time people around her confirmed that low confidence, as far as Shane could see. She wanted to avoid risk.

Matthew the goofy paramedic wasn't terribly complex. Neither, as far as Shane could understand, were April's feelings toward him. They were nothing like the feelings she seemed to have for Jackson. Deep down he suspected that April new that simple and complex love might be the difference between a fling and the love of your life. That had to be scary.

It was like with his grandmother back home. South Central was no picnic and no one in the family really liked for elderly Big Mama Ross to go out on her own. They encouraged her to stay inside, safe from the stray bullets, muggings, and drug deals of the neighborhood outside. Everyone pitched in, buying her food for her, doing her hair for her, and all of that. On paper, it was everything she needed. Playing it safe was easy to do.

But eventually Big Mama had had enough. She wanted to go to the park, and the hair dressers. She wanted to get her own groceries. She'd wanted to fully live. Even if actually living was a dangerous thing. Not that the old woman was reckless. She kept her head down, frequented safe places and made her trips during the day.

But at least she went outside. Thus far, it had served her well enough.

"Boy," his grandmother had told Shane once after returning from the store. "You can't win, if you don't play the game."

Matthew was walking out of the hospital now too, ironically taking virtually the same path Jackson had moments previous. Shane watched as the other man offered April an awkward wave before the sliding doors of the ER closed behind him.

"Is this your thing now?" Jo demanded with concern. "Spying on attendings? Everyone says you're stalking Shepherd. Don't tell me you are starting to creep on Kepner too? You need to get your own life, man. It's really pathetic."

Shane turned to glare at his friend, "You stop talking to Karev the moment he finally bonds with your idiot boyfriend, and I am pathetic? If you want to have secrets, you have to keep them yourself. No one else will."

Turning on his heel, Shane left a shocked Jo in his wake and made his way to April's side. She looked incredibly bewildered and confused.

"Oh...hello Ross," she said softly.

"Hi," he grinned, offering her his tablet for inspection. "I finished updating these."

"Um...good," Kepner said, though her eyes barely even glanced at the screen. "That's good."

"Busy night for you, huh?" Shane commented casually, leaning on the nurses station, mirroring Avery's earlier stance.

The position was not lost on his mentor. April's eyes flicked to his nervously, "I know what you are really asking."

Shane grinned, "I'm just curious. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

She straightened her shoulders, "I don't have to tell you anything."

His smile grew, "You don't have to. But I think you are going to."

"Matthew and I got back together."

"You don't seem very happy about it."

"I..." April couldn't deny it. "I'm just surprised. He wants a do over...so..."

Fed up from his conversation with Jo, the loss of neuro, and from observing this slow motion crash that was his menotr's love life, Shane felt bold. He didn't think April loved Matt.

"Just because he wants a do over doesn't mean you have to give him one."

Kepner's eyes sharpened at Shane's words, "He's giving me one. He understands that I lied because I was scared."

"Did you say anything to Jackson? He was here before Mr. Paramedic."

"Yes. No," April sighed, still confused and flustered enough to allow Shane to continue his questioning. "I-I said something I didn't mean and he called me on it and...he said...he said he didn't regret sleeping with me..."

"You thought he did?"

"Why...why else would be break up with me?"

Shane didn't have any answers to that. He had absolutely no idea why Jackson Avery behaved the way he did. He had no idea why the man could seem so together and professional on one hand, yet sleep with his intern the next. He didn't understand why the man seemed so protective of April some of the time, but willing to crush her heart at other times. Shane didn't understand Jackson Avery. But April might.

"Why didn't you say something to him?" he demanded.

Dr. Kepner broke eye contact and bit her lip, staring at the counter in front of them, "That's none of your business, Ross."

"You're afraid, aren't you?"

"Ross-"

"You're terrified to tell him how you really feel. You're too terrified to even tell yourself how you really feel. That's the real problem."

Inhaling shakily, Dr. Kepner glared. The look in her eyes told Shane that he'd hit a nerve. Her gaze was full. Full of anger, frustration, sadness, and yes, fear. It was so full that Shane took a step back, realizing that he actually might have pushed her to too far.

Gathering her belongings, April stepped back, storming away from the nurses station, "We're done here."

Damn it. Shane realized he shouldn't have kept going. He'd never really made April this mad before. She'd been irritated with him on bump and pump day, but looking back, he could now understand that the tension that day had likely had nothing to do with him. But this time, he had a feeling that April was actually pissed at him. And for what? Sure, he'd crossed a professional line, but Shane felt that it was important for his mentor to confront her own fears. She'd helped him so much in learning to let go of his fears and see a surgical future in specialties outside of neuro, Shane wanted to repay the favor as much as he could. And all he could see to do, was to act as a voice of reason.

Not that it was appreciated. April was probably going to be pissed for a while. Even so, Shane had enough confidence in both their friendship and professional relationship to believe that their relationship would survive. Kepner was nothing but fair to him. Stealing a glass back across the room to where Wilson still stood, Shane was rewarded with yet another anger filled gaze. His roommate was probably gong to be mad at him for a while too. And he didn't feel as secure with her friendship.

And all because he'd called them on their bull. Thinking of Jo and April, Shane shook his head. Why was everyone so damned afraid of being who they were?