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Lexie and Jackson were forced to work together on a gender reassignment surgery. Mark was watching from the gallery with other doctors, while he had his urologist wife use the opportunity wisely to interrogate the plastic surgeon.

"More suction, Edwards," Jackson ordered his resident. The second year resident did as she was told, though her hand slightly trembled. He had that effect on all of the female residents who scrubbed in with him, many of which had slept with him at least once since he moved to Seattle. "Shaky hands? For a delicate surgery like this one, shaky hands are unacceptable. Switch with Mostow."

"Perhaps you should choose residents you don't have any prior history with," Lexie mumbled behind her surgical mask. He furrowed his eyebrows at her in response. "Maybe then you wouldn't have to deal with uneasy residents. Just some advice, Avery."

A few of the women in the OR who hadn't slept with the playboy snickered at her remark. Jackson simply rolled his eyes. "Well, I won't pick just any resident for this complicated procedure – not that they'll be touching the patient, but some are better at suctioning than others. Unfortunately, I made the wrong choice today."

Meanwhile upstairs in the gallery, April arrived with a cup of coffee. She found an empty seat beside Mark and sat down. "Hey, how come you're not down there? This surgery's pretty much a big deal and as the Head of Plastics, I'm surprised you're up here instead."

"Avery's got this. Still hate the guy, but that doesn't take away the fact that he's a good surgeon. Plus, I can't be in the same operating room as him without wanting to kick his ass," her stepbrother answered as he kept his eyes on the surgery below. Since witnessing Jackson and April kissing in front of his home, he forcefully restrained himself from wrapping his million dollar hands around the egotistical surgeon's neck. "And what are you doing here? Don't tell me you're here to watch Mr. Pretty Eyes."

She nudged him with her elbow. "I have some free time on my hands and I've never watched a gender reassignment procedure in person before," the peds surgeon insisted and pointed at Lexie. "I'm also showing support for my best friend, you know. Maybe you're the one who's obsessed with Jackson."

"Please," he scoffed. "I normally don't give a crap about what he does personally, but since you're involved I have to be too. He's playing games with you, April. You're a smart girl, but he's making you so dense. If Matthew was still alive-"

"Don't pull the Matthew card on me, Mark. That's not fair," she sternly whispered. April glanced down at Jackson, who just happened to look up at her. He smiled behind his surgical mask, but she tried her best not to return the gesture at the risk of pissing off Mark even more. "And people can change. You changed."

"If you're expecting him to transform into this Prince Charming for you, you're wrong," Mark dismissed, shaking his head. "First and foremost, you two wouldn't work out because Avery hates children. He wants nothing to do with them unless it's surgical related. Maddy needs a father figure who won't put her second. She always comes first no matter what."

"How do you know he hates children?" April asked, raising her eyebrow at him.

He softly chuckled. "C'mon, a guy like him? Sleeping around with various women, living the single life because being a bachelor is easier than the married life. No room for kids. You want confirmation about that? Ask Karev. He's an asshole, but he tells the truth."

"I think you're wrong. If he hated children, he wouldn't have volunteered to help me babysit the girls the other night," she insisted, her eyes gazing back at Jackson in the OR. "They were fine, Mark. For once, can you just cut him some slack?"

"No. He's not right for you, April. Maybe when he was Dweebles-"

"Who?" April immediately furrowed her eyebrows at Mark. "Umm, who is… Dweebles?"

Mark looked back at her with a smug grin on his face. "Dweebles is the nerd I beat up during my last summer as a counselor at Wazi," he answered and laughed to himself. "I had no idea he was your boyfriend until Lexie told me who Avery actually was. I was pretty shocked a dork like him landed a girlfriend at camp and the fact that it was you makes it even funnier."

She remembered young Jackson fearing for his life whenever some guy called The Hawk was nearby. While she was aware of the fact that her older brother preyed on nerdy boys to bully, she always knew him as Mark and not by a silly nickname. "Wait a minute. You were The Hawk?"

He nodded arrogantly and twitched his eyebrows. "Hilarious, huh?" Instead of laughing along with him, April slapped his bicep hard. He winced as he rubbed his arm. "Hey, what the hell was that for?"

"You ass! Do you have any idea how miserable you made him?" the angry redhead scolded him. "And it's not funny! Jackson was a sweet boy when I met him at camp and it's people like you who turned him into the person he is today."

"Whoa now. I am not the one who turned Avery into a cocky plastic surgeon. His personality change is his own damn fault. I didn't do anything," he retorted. "Newsflash, he's not the same boy you dated when you were thirteen. And you know what? Sucking face with him only makes you just like the other women he slept with and dumped the next morning."

April ignored the bystanders around them, who were listening to their conversation. They hadn't been keeping their voices down at that point. "What I do with Jackson is none of your business," she angrily replied.

"As long as you're living in my house, I say it is," Mark countered.

"Fine! We're moving out!" she exclaimed. "Maddy and I can survive on our own. I don't need you ordering me around like you own me, Mark."

Down below in the OR, Lexie briefly glanced up at the gallery. Before she returned to her patient, she did a double take when she noticed Mark and April engaging in a heated argument. Their voices were inaudible because the intercom was off, but her best friend's flailing arms signaled that she was uber pissed. Most of the staff inside with them upstairs weren't paying attention to the surgery anymore. They were more intrigued by what was happening between the two step-siblings.

"What in the world is going on up there?" the brunette questioned in annoyance. This was an epic procedure for her, the biggest and most important surgery she was participating in and nobody seemed to care anymore. "Will somebody go up to the gallery and tell those two to shut up or get the hell out? They're distracting."

Jackson's eyes darted towards the gallery. It was a no-brainer to him what they were fighting about. Plus, he was highly skilled at reading lips and he caught April saying his name. "Maybe if Sloan would just back off-"

"He's only trying to protect April from you," Lexie interrupted before she muttered, "I have no problem with that at all."

"So you're playing control freak too?" he scoffed. "She's allowed to date whoever she wants."

"You don't date people, Jackson. You sleep with them. Big difference," she argued. "And I don't enjoy seeing my best friend getting pulled into your carousel of skanks either."

"That was uncalled for, Lexie."

"How so? It's true, isn't it?"

The plastic surgeon scowled at the urologist. "Listen, my personal life has no business being put in the spotlight while I'm operating. You don't have to like what I do with my life, but you should at least have the courtesy to respect me in a professional environment," he rebuked.

"Respect?" she guffawed. "Pardon me, but when did you ever show any respect to anybody in the OR? I can probably list names on one hand and unfortunately, I would just have a balled up fist because I can't think of a doctor, nurse, anesthesiologist or any other staff member you've ever given respect to anywhere in this hospital."

Now the two surgeons were in an argument of their own as the rest of the people occupying the OR watched quietly. While it would have been appropriate for somebody to intervene, seeing the always perfect and pompous Jackson Avery get put in his place was too good to stop. Unprofessional? Yes, but nobody dared to challenge him the way Lexie had.

Arizona entered the gallery after overhearing the bickering between April and Mark. She walked towards the first row where they were seated and stopped in front of them. "Excuse me, but what the hell is going on?" she snapped before pointing at the window behind her. "In case you haven't noticed, Seattle Grace has the honor of performing just the second sex change operation in the Northwest. This is a teaching hospital and you two are attendings. You should be setting an example for our residents by acting like grown adults instead of little children. Whatever your problem is between each other, either wait until the surgery is over or take it outside right now."

"Actually, I was just leaving," April irritably stated, standing up from her seat. She headed for the exit and stopped in the doorway. "And one more thing, Dr. Sloan. That Vanilla Ice haircut you had when you were eighteen? That was so 1990. You were three years late with that ridiculous hairstyle."

After she left, Mark slowly slouched in his seat, while the younger residents snickered in response. Arizona smirked at her colleague and he instantly glared back at her. "Before you say anything, shut up," he mumbled.

The Chief turned around to check on how Jackson and Lexie were progressing with their surgery. However, they were busy pointing fingers at each other rather than fixing their patient. "Them too?" she said in disgust, then she pressed the intercom bottom. "Dr. Avery, Dr. Grey-Sloan. Is there a problem?"

Both surgeons peered up at their superior. Lexie cleared her throat before she answered, "I'm sorry, but Dr. Avery has been disruptive in my OR. I'm having trouble concentrating due to his inappropriate behavior."

"Are you kidding me?" He pointed at himself. "I've done nothing wrong, Chief Robbins. It's Dr. Grey-Sloan who has been inappropriate and unprofessional."

"You know what? I can take it from here," Mark chimed in and stood up. "Avery, you're out. This is a complex surgery and I don't want you botching it because neither of you can get along."

"No! This is my surgery too!" Jackson yelled. "You can't throw me out of every OR simply because your wife doesn't like me. That's favoritism by a landslide. Chief Robbins, you can't let him do this to me!"

Arizona raised her hand to silence the pretty man. "Dr. Avery, you're a fine surgeon and I'm sure you're doing your best, but Sloan has a point. You two won't successfully complete this procedure if you're not on the same page with each other. Please step aside and let him take over," she instructed.

"Unbelievable," he muttered, tossing his instruments into the tray beside him. Jackson removed his surgical mask before ripping off his gloves and gown. Without saying another word, he left the OR feeling more frustrated than the first time he was kicked out of a surgery.

This time, he didn't deserve it. He hadn't started any trouble with Lexie until she opened her mouth about his personal life. It was a surgery he knew his mother would have been proud of him for doing. He thought he would finally get the recognition he desperately wanted from his family except now he was off of the case due to nepotism and well, a bunch of bullshit.

Jackson skipped the scrub room and angrily strolled down the hallway. He knew most of his coworkers despised him, but he felt they were unnecessarily ganging up on him – because of April. Working at Seattle Grace almost didn't feel worth it anymore. There were other hospitals who would gladly accept him into their plastic surgery department. Maybe he would meet another woman like April without the excess baggage.

Oh, who was he kidding? There wouldn't be another woman like her elsewhere.

And why did he care about commitment now? He loved the bachelor life. It was free of attachment and feelings. The pervert in him missed sex greatly. Although, he believed he was beginning to have a good thing going with April, so screwing it up now by sleeping with a random woman from Joe's would destroy any hope of making it far with her. Of course, any chance of having a normal relationship with the peds surgeon was damn near impossible if Mark continued to act as a roadblock for them. He likely rallied the rest of his friends to do the same.

The more he thought about how aggravating his boss was, the angrier he became. He was ready to explode.

"Dr. Avery, is the surgery finished? I was really hoping to watch some of it in the gallery after scrubbing out of Yang's triple bypass procedure," an overly perky Shane Ross inquired. The wide grin on the intern's face seemed to do enough to set off the plastic surgeon.

Shocking him and the other people passing by, Jackson violently swung his right hand and his fist collided with the vending machine, shattering the glass all over the floor. Shane jumped back, fearing he would be the next target. Blood spilled out from the older surgeon's knuckles and shards of glass were piercing into his skin. He hardly felt any pain with the adrenaline temporarily numbing him from feeling the stupidity he had just done.

"Avery! What the hell did you do?" Callie barked at him as she rushed towards the injured doctor. She gingerly picked up his right hand and shook her head. "Are you insane? C'mon, let's get this cleaned up before you do something else idiotic. Ross, can you have someone clean up the glass, please?"

She escorted Jackson away from the scene, shooing away nurses and doctors who witnessed the incident. He inhaled sharply as he clenched his hand against chest. The pain gradually increased, forcing him to worry that he may have done more damage than he intended to. He knew he had possibly screwed himself out of one or two months worth of surgeries.

Summer 1993 – Day 25

For the first time since arriving at Wazi, Jackson was on his own. April and Lexie were away on their cabin's overnight camping trip. He and George weren't exactly best friends, probably never would be until the redhead they both had feelings for was single again. Being alone forced him to engage in various activities he normally wouldn't do if his girlfriend was around. Pottery class, free swim, archery. He took another stab at the rock climbing wall too. Once again, he never reached the top of the wall, but his time improved by one minute less, which was satisfying enough for him.

April left behind her Walkman for him, so he could listen to the mix tape she created for the summer. Blind Melon's "No Rain" was the first song on the playlist and he finally understood why she appreciated the song so much. He found himself relating to it as well.

Jackson was seated on a bench with headphones covering his ears. He slowly bobbed his head to Radiohead's "Creep". The song was practically his anthem in his mind. A hand yanked the headphones away from his ears causing him to jump. He groaned as Mark walked around the bench, grinning mischievously at the poor nerd.

"What do we have here, Dweebles?" he teasingly said and grabbed the Walkman from Jackson's hands. "Don't you know the rules? No listening to music outside of the cabins. So you're a rule breaker too?"

"Give that back!" the younger teenager demanded. Jackson reached for April's Walkman, but Mark slapped his hand away. "It's not even mine! It's my girlfriend's!"

Mark laughed hysterically. "You? You got a girlfriend? Imaginary girlfriends don't count, you little wiener," he quipped. Waving the cassette player in the air, he entertained himself as Jackson tried to snatch it back from him. The counselor had more height on the nerd, standing at 6'2" over his 5'8" stature. "C'mon, you can try harder than that, dork."

The Hawk may have been taller and stronger, but he also wasn't the most clever person between them. Jackson took advantage of Mark's arms in the air and punched him in the nuts.

Keeling over, Mark temporarily wheezed in pain as he grabbed his favorite body part. "You little shit!" he grunted. Pushing himself up, he swung his forearm against the side of Jackson's head knocking off his glasses. "You want your stupid Walkman back?"

Jackson gasped in horror when Mark threw the Walkman down onto the ground. He stepped on the already ruined cassette player to wreck it even more. "I told you that wasn't mine!"

"Oh, right. Your so-called girlfriend's," he scoffed, playfully slapping his favorite nerd's cheek. "Consider yourself lucky that I didn't beat your ass today, Dweebles. Try that crap on me again and you're gonna regret it."

After his bully left him alone, Jackson picked up his glasses and quickly cleaned them off with his t-shirt. He hoped April's Walkman wasn't broken, but he wasn't very optimistic about that. Bits and pieces were spread out on the ground. None of the buttons worked. Broken. April was going to kill him – and possibly dump him when she returned.

"Fuck," Jackson mumbled under his breath as Callie used pliers to carefully pull out a shard of glass from his swollen hand. They sat alone in an examination room with his right arm resting flat on a table. His hand had ballooned by the time she started cleaning it up. "I broke something, didn't I?"

"Most likely," she gleefully replied, holding back her smile. "We still need an x-ray to confirm it, though. So, what exactly did the big, bad vending machine do to you?"

"Torres, shut it. I've dealt with enough crap from the Sloan brigade today, so spare me the heckling," he dejectedly answered, grimacing when she worked on another piece of glass in his hand.

Callie pulled out another piece of glass and dropped it into a tray. "Did it have anything to do with a certain redhead whose brother is my best guy friend?" she speculated.

"Lexie asked Robbins to basically throw me out of the OR in the middle of our gender reassignment surgery. She started badgering me about my personal life and we started arguing, then she freakin' told on me like we're in Kindergarten," the plastics man complained. "And nobody will take my side in anything, so Mark opted to replace me with himself and Robbins agreed. It's pathetic. I deserve to be in that OR. I worked my ass off to be in there and I get kicked out over a stupid grudge."

"Mark is a family man. He cares about everything that happens to his family and he's always been overprotective of April even when he picked on her at times," the orthopedic surgeon explained.

"Well, he's taking it too far. How am I supposed to improve as a surgeon if I'm getting kicked out of major surgeries?"

"Doesn't matter right now anyway. You probably won't be operating anytime soon," she reminded him. After she finished removing all of the pieces of glass from Jackson's hand, Callie rinsed off the blood with saline. She examined his bruised hand and gently pressed her thumb over each metacarpal bone until she reached the fourth one, in which he nearly screamed in pain. "Huh, we have a winner. Your ring finger appears aligned, but I won't know how bad your fracture is until we get the x-ray done."

Jackson sighed. "You think I'll need surgery for this?"

"Not sure yet. Like I said, we need to get an x-ray first. If your fracture's angulated to the point I can't push it back in place myself, I'll have to insert pins. You should pray for no surgery because that could knock you out of OR's for at least three months." Callie cleaned Jackson's cuts with an antibiotic ointment. "I will get you some ice for your hand. Just sit back and relax, Avery."

"Umm… thank you for helping me," he acknowledged. "I appreciate it."

The Latina woman gave him a quick nod before she left him alone. It wasn't often he thanked his peers and actually meant it. Even his normally bigheaded ego couldn't overpower his shame. Eventually, Arizona would give him a piece of her mind. Mark too. What would April think of him now?

He fully expected Callie to enter the room with a bag of ice when the door opened, but it was April instead. She softly gasped at his injured hand and frowned. "I heard you umm… messed up your hand. Why?" she asked worriedly as she approached him. "You're a freaking surgeon for crying out loud!"

"You're gonna think I'm an idiot. It had to do with your brother, which shouldn't come as a surprise to you."

"Regardless of the reason, punching a vending machine is idiotic," she chided. April sat down across from Jackson. "I have my own issues with Mark too, but I'm not going to risk my surgical career by breaking my hand. What are you even doing outside of the OR anyway? You guys weren't close to being finished."

"I was kicked off the surgery because of Mark and Lexie! Robbins took their words over mine and I lost my place in the OR. I'm sorry if this doesn't impress you, but I was furious," he defended himself. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I don't punch vending machines over a woman and I most certainly don't try this hard to be with one."

April nervously bit her lower lip and stared down at the floor. "Do you hate children?" she timidly questioned, changing the subject. "I-I heard something about you and I just want to know the truth. So… is it true? Because Maddy means everything to me an-and I can't date anybody who has zero interest in her."

Jackson took a deep breath before he answered, "In my opinion, kids are a pain in the ass. I never wanted them. I just fix them and babysitting Maddy and Kylie alone was terrible." He chuckled to himself. "Maddy wouldn't talk to me. I tried to bribe her with cookies when she started throwing a tantrum after you left. Kylie swiped the bag from me and hid under a bed. Took me half an hour to convince her to come out. By then, she probably ate six or seven cookies. Oh, and I made her cry when I told her about the Boogeyman. No offense, but that little girl is a brat."

She glanced up at him appalled. "You were just kissing my ass then?"

"Honestly, I was at first. Even offering to babysit was me sucking up to you. I didn't thoroughly enjoy babysitting, but there were moments when I thought I got the hang of it. It wasn't so bad, just exhausting," he admitted. "But you know I've also been developing feelings for you. And I thought I wasn't making any progress with you until you kissed me that night. So, you can believe what you want to believe. I'm not sure what else I can do to show how sincere I am. Nobody seems to think I can change, so why should I expect you to?"

"If you don't care about my daughter, then why should I bother dating you?"

"I never said I didn't care about her. Kids weren't something I envisioned in my future, that's all." Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose with his good hand. He was incredibly stressed out with everything that had just happened and the possibility of blowing his chance with April again made him feel worse. "If I told you right now that I'm ready to be a father to Maddy, that would be the biggest lie I've ever told. I'm not ready to be a father to anybody. I don't know a thing about fatherhood because mine left when I was two years old. And my mother had a new boyfriend every three or four months. I can't say that didn't screw me up a little bit."

April understood where Jackson was coming from. She had her share of abandonment issues when she was a young child. "I don't think I told you what happened to my mother when we were teenagers. Actually, I couldn't because I have no idea what happened in the first place. All my dad found was a short note beside his bed and she was gone by then," she recalled. "I was barely three years old and my older sister Libby was five. Dad said she had issues, but that's all he would tell us. He seemed really unhappy until he met Mark's mom and well, you know the rest of the story."

"Yeah, but you were able to grow up with two parents throughout most of your life. I was raised by one parent who cared more about who her next boyfriend would be than how miserable I was," he resentfully stated. "I'm a messed up guy, alright? I'll admit it. Mark and the others, they're right about you. You're too good for me, so just go. A guy like O'Malley is perfect for you."

"George?" she softly chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand. "We're just friends. I don't want to date him."

"The man's crazy about you, has been since we were teens. We fought over you even when I was already with you," he replied, rolling his eyes. "And I may not like him much, but he's a better person than I am."

April shook her head. "Jackson, just… shut up." She placed her hands against his cheeks and kissed him passionately, gently biting on his lower lip when she partially pulled away from him. "I'm not going to let you push me away that easily. You're a good person. You just need to show that side of you more often."

"I can't do that when everyone else already has their final judgments about me." The plastic surgeon sadly smiled at the redhead in front of him. He was convinced she was ready to end their playful game after he answered her question about children, but that didn't appear to be the case. "So… why aren't you walking away from me? I told you things that should be turning you off."

"Because I do believe you can change. For somebody who's usually confident in himself, I would've thought you did too. And umm… don't we have a date on Friday?" she playfully asked and slid onto his lap. "I mean, if you want to cancel-"

"No way," Jackson quickly disagreed and laughed. "I don't want to cancel. So, you really want to give this a shot?"

"Yes, but let's go slow. No rushing, no funny business. Besides, you need to take care of that hand first." April looked back at the not so pretty hand. "Seriously, what were you thinking? Chief Robbins is going to give you hell for this. And Mark-"

"I don't care what he thinks about us, okay?"

"Is this a bad time to tell you that Mark was the guy who beat you up when we were thirteen?" she asked with a grimace.

"The Hawk was Mark?!" Jackson stared at her with wide eyes. His former tormentor was now his boss. He was certain somebody placed a curse on him. "Did you know the whole time?"

She quickly shook her head. "No, I swear! I only knew Mark as… well, Mark. If I knew it was him, I would've told him to stop picking on you. I am so sorry, Jackson. I wish I had known then."

He smirked at her as he recalled the Walkman incident. "Okay, I have a confession to make. Remember your Walkman?"

"The one I bought with my birthday money and you dropped into the lake?"

"Yeah, that one except I lied. I didn't drop it in the lake. Your dumbass brother smashed it. I lied about what happened to it because I was afraid he'd kick my ass if I ratted him out."

"You should've just told me the truth. I almost broke up with you!" April laughed as she remembered how distraught she was over her lost Walkman. "I'm glad I didn't. I couldn't stay mad at you because you were so sweet."

Jackson soothingly rubbed her lower back with his left hand and smiled. "Do you think I'm sweet now?"

"Right now, yes, but you need to learn to stay that way," she truthfully answered and kissed him again.

Callie returned with an ice bag and whistled at the couple making out in front of her. "Alright. Break it up, kids," she teased, giggling when April jumped up to her feet. "Kepner, you should get out of here. Mark's coming over from the OR to see the damage your Prince Charming's done to his hand."

April nodded as she rushed towards the door. "Please don't tell him I was in here." She smiled back at Jackson before she left the room.

The orthopedic surgeon handed the ice bag to her coworker. "So, this thing you're doing with April, should I be concerned? Because I look at her as a younger sister and if you do anything to hurt her, Mark won't be the only person who wants to murder you."

"I'm not using her or taking advantage of her," he insisted as he placed the ice bag on top of his swollen hand. "She's someone I care about, which you probably don't believe, but I'm serious."

"I know about your past. April told me about it, so I know you're not looking at her like she's just another easy lay for you. However, that doesn't necessarily mean I trust you completely, Avery. Keep that in mind." Callie folded her arms and shrugged with a smile on her face. "Anyway, it's kind of fun watching this. It's like a live action Nicholas Sparks novel."

He softly chuckled. "Whatever. As long as the guy gets the girl in the end, you can call it anything you want."

Thoughts? Also, Mama Avery's coming to town in the next chapter ;)