AU: The Holiday.
April Kepner is not the kind of person who has a no-strings holiday romance with a painfully attractive stranger. Things like that just don't happen to her, and when she'd decided to take a break from her regular everyday life back in Seattle to get away from her cheating fiancé, she certainly hadn't expected anything to change.
What she also hadn't expected was that something that was supposed to be casual - a mere attempt to get over Matthew and experience something (or someone) new, would result in something much more complicated than that. It had started out as a strictly one-time arrangement, but she found herself spending much of the three weeks with him and wanting to know everything she could about the man whose bed she was currently residing in. Something kept drawing her back to him, no matter how many times she said it was the last time, and she wasn't sure how she was supposed to leave him in a few days time.
"We can still see each other. We'll make it work somehow."
She sighs, trying to be realistic here, "I don't know...I can't afford to fly here often. I have student loans and have to be frugal with money as it is."
"I have a private plane, you know. You could use that for free." Family be damned, he thinks, because even though he's technically supposed to use the plane strictly for business matters, he feels that this counts as a valid exception. He's not going to be much use to the foundation if he's busy being miserable and pining after the one who got away, so Harper and Catherine will just have to understand that, or disown him.
"I don't want to...take advantage of you like that."
"Maybe I want you to take advantage of me. In any way you'd like," He smirks at her, before leaning closer and planting soft kisses along her jawline and neck.
"Jackson, I'm serious." What he's currently doing to her, though, is making it very hard for her to be the rational and realistic one here. A part of her just wants to give in - to continue living in the moment and not thinking about the fact that she has to leave soon, but she knows that if she does, it'll only hurt more.
"So am I. Look, this isn't just sex to me." He lifts his head back up, his eyes meeting hers as he speaks honestly. It would be so much easier if it was just sex - if he hadn't somehow fallen for the tiny redhead in his bed, and found himself wanting to spend as much time with her as humanly possible. It scared him how much she'd gotten under his skin in such a short amount of time, because he hadn't fallen so deeply for someone before, and Jackson Avery wasn't someone who believed in soulmates (or at least, he never used to be. Maybe a part of him did now.) What if he never got to experience this again?
"It's not?"
"No. I like you, April, and I can't just...pretend this never happened. I don't want to."
She doesn't know what to say to that. A part of her wants to tell him that she feels the same - that this feels so right, but she can't just pack up her life and move to London on a whim. It's not realistic, and it's not what she'd planned for her life to be. Instead, she looks up at him with wide eyes, her lips meeting his passionately. They find themselves lost in each other again; bodies speaking the words that they can't yet verbalise, and end up falling asleep in one another's arms, wanting to pretend that the next day won't come.
When the day finally comes when she's supposed to be flying home - back to her ordinary life, she finds herself spinning on her heels and walking back down the hallway to his apartment, having not even made it out of the building. She knocks on the door and it immediately swings open (almost as if he'd been expecting her, or hoping she'd change her mind), and Jackson stands there with a soft smile on his face. "Forget something?" "Okay, so I was thinking - I should at least stay until the new year, and then after that, I really will have to go back to Seattle, and I don't know what will happen, or what this even is, but I like you, too, and you've...changed me, Jackson, and something that feels this good can't be bad, right? so...maybe we can make this work, or at least we can try, uhm, that is, if you still want to-"
He cuts her off, pulling her in for a long and passionate kiss that has him lifting her off the ground and back into his apartment. She knows she'll have to go back to his sister's cottage at some point (her luggage is there, after all), but right now, she couldn't care less.
"God, this is crazy. We're crazy!" She manages to mumbles against his lips between kisses, as he slams the door behind them and carries her back to the bedroom.
"I'm more than okay with that," He huffs, placing her down on the mattress. How could he not be?