The night after 10x16 when Jackson and April tell each other about their childhoods.
"April?" Jackson opened the door to their bathroom and saw April was brushing her teeth. She looked up at him and furrowed her eyebrows.
"Mmmh?" She spit into the washbasin and grabbed a towel to wash her face.
"What is it?" she asked, even though she knew it had to do with the conversation they just had with his mother, the conversation about how they were going to raise their kids and deal with the pressures of handling a multi millions dollar business. Jackson leaned against the doorway as April walked towards him. He slipped his hand around her waist and leaned down to kiss her slowly. He pressed his head against hers and inhaled the scent surrounding her. It was the smell of peppermint toothpaste, the hospital, the wine they drank at Richard's birthday and her perfume.
"April, I want to know you." That was not the statement she was expecting so she looked up at him confused, "You do know me Jackson. If this has something to do with my religion, I'm telling you-"
"No," Jackson interrupted, "This isn't about your religion, or our future children. I want to know who you were before I met you. I want to know about your childhood, your school, college, med school. You're favorite pets, hobbies, heck, even your co-curricular activities. I want to know my wife, before she became my wife." His fingers lightly traced the outline of her cheek and she grasped the other. They were trying, they were moving into the next step of their relationship. April smiled to herself.
"Okay, but only one condition," said April. "You have to tell me about yours, and everything about the Foundation. How it runs and how, all the projects. Everything." Jackson nodded and they moved into their bed and turned off all the lights except the one above their heads.
"Oh, and also the number of a lawyer to consult about this post-nuptial. Because I don't know what the hell I'm doing here." She grinned at him and he chuckled. He pulled her closer to him and listened to her story. Laughed when she told him about the time she got dragged around in the mud when she was nine because a pig got loose. Held her tight when she told him about how her first dog died. He shook his head when she told him that the only boy who asked her to prom did so on a dare and felt proud of her when she told him how she got into medical school.
On her part April tried her best to understand the workings of the complex institution Jackson was to head. She realized that the work the Foundation did was truly life changing and she was proud to be, even though only by marriage, associated with that change. She understood how he grew up in a boarding school and had to learn to be independent very early on. She learnt that he actually didn't mind the board meetings at fifteen because they always had good food after. She appreciated the work he put into becoming a doctor when his grandfather told him that he should stop attending those meetings after he nearly failed his first semester at Columbia. She learnt that unlike Meredith, the pressures of his name were far more and he didn't mind them. Until he found out that he got an easy ride because of it. She laughed with him at stories at how he and his friends would torture their warden by unwiring the morning bell every night, and by leaving the doors to the horses' stables open after he had just closed them. She got how important it was for him that his children took part in their family legacy.
What they both learnt was that they were very different. They had very different upbringings and that they differed on the small things that made a life because of that. They learnt that they became doctors to make their families proud of them, to prove something. To save lives. They knew that their respect for each other grew after that night. Neither of them had thought about the consequences of getting married the way they did. They just knew had to be together. And when they were done with their stories they knew with time they would figure everything out with time. Together.
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