Chapter Text
Jennifer hadn’t even planned on offering April a ride home—it just happened, like most things did when she was around the younger woman. One minute, she was walking toward her car, and the next, she’d gestured with all the casual confidence of someone assuming the world would fall in line.
The drive home wasn’t exactly tense, but it wasn’t what anyone would call great either. Jennifer kept her eyes on the road, one hand on the wheel, the other casually draped over the gear shift like she wasn’t thinking at all about the fact that April Ludgate, of all people, was sitting in her passenger seat. (Seriously, that shouldnt bother her, what? April was her intern.)
April, meanwhile, was pressed against the car door like she was trying to create as much space between them as possible, her chin resting on her fist as she stared out the window. The city lights zipped by in streaks of neon, reflecting off the window and playing tricks on her expression—though it was impossible to tell whether the small hint of a smile was real or just another product of the glare.
“You’re quiet,” Jennifer said at last, her voice breaking through the hum of the car.
“Wow, you’re observant,” April shot back, her tone flat, though it lacked the usual bite she reserved for unsolicited small talk.
Jennifer rolled her eyes but didn’t press. She was good at reading rooms, even cramped ones like this car, and April clearly wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Fine. She could handle the silence. She was great at silence.
Except... she wasn’t. Not tonight. Not with April sitting there, half-drowning in her oversized blazer like it wasn’t ridiculously expensive and not designed to hang off her like that. It shouldn’t have been noteworthy—it was just a jacket. But something about it made Jennifer’s gaze flick over a little too often, catching the way April fidgeted or tugged at the lapels as though she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Or herself.
It was—what was the word? Interesting. Yes, that’s all it was. Jennifer nodded to herself. April was interesting. The kind of person who could maybe make a decent friend. (Which was also an interesting thought..)
April, meanwhile, let her eyes wander from the cityscape to the reflection of Jennifer’s hands on the wheel—steady and annoyingly elegant. She frowned at the thought and immediately filed it away under “Things That Don’t Matter.” But still... Jennifer wasn’t as unbearable as she seemed at first. Sure, she was bossy, kind of smug, and always talking like she was the star of her own made-for-TV drama, but there was... something.
No. It was nothing. Jennifer was just—ugh, fine—a good person (well, a little). Deep, deep down. April huffed, more at herself than anything, and shifted in her seat. She wasn’t going to dwell on it. Jennifer Barkley was the kind of person who could make a good friend.
The city lights flickered in and out, casting shadows across two people pretending they weren’t figuring out what to do with this unfamiliar, inconvenient warmth in their chests.
It's just friendly.
—
It was the 23rd of December.
Jennifer stood at the airport gate, watching her mother and her latest husband—who, for the record, was 19 years old—exchange an overly enthusiastic farewell. Her mom was practically glowing, arms wrapped around him like he was her first love, while Jennifer, as usual, was just there to wave them off like a dutiful, emotionally detached daughter. It was fine, really. They’d been doing this for years—her mom off to some new exotic destination with a guy who probably couldn't even pronounce half the places they were visiting, and Jennifer, well, Jennifer was still stuck in D.C. taking care of everything that mattered. She wasn’t bitter, though. Not at all. She smiled as they hugged it out for the third time, wished them a nice flight, and watched them walk away. Classic family stuff.
Jennifer turned away from the gate, already gearing up for a quick escape from this overly sentimental Hallmark scene her mom had crafted, when a familiar shape caught her eye. Sitting in one of those uncomfortable airport chairs near the world’s saddest coffee kiosk was April, looking like she’d been sentenced to solitary confinement, and her expression screamed, This airport is the ninth circle of hell. Had she been placed into the inferno by Satan himself?
For a second, Jen debated just walking past. It wasn’t like they were close or anything, and she’d already hit her socializing quota for the day with her mom and her child groom of a husband. But something stopped her, some tiny spark of curiosity—or maybe it was the fact that April looked genuinely miserable, and that wasn’t something she saw every day, no matter how much it humoured her.
“Ludgate?” Jen spoke aloud, her voice cutting through the chaos of boarding calls and crying babies.
April glanced up hearing the voice she knew all too well, turning her head from the left to the right, her eyes searching and scattering until she narrowed down the source. Shit.. she uttered. She was debating whether to even acknowledge her. “Oh, great. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get worse.”
Jen smirked, taking a step closer. “Merry Christmas to you too. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be on a flight to... wherever it is your family does?”
April let out a dramatic sigh and slumped further into her seat. “Flight got canceled. Thanks to this stupid snowstorm, I’m stuck here with nothing but overpriced coffee and the faint hope that a giant snow plow will just take me out and end my suffering.”
Jen raised an eyebrow and glanced out the window, where snow was coming down in thick, relentless sheets. “Well, that’s festive.”
April shot her a look. “Yeah, super festive. Nothing says Christmas like being trapped in an airport with a bunch of strangers pretending not to hate each other.”
Jen tilted her head, studying her for a moment. There was something unusually subdued about April tonight—not her usual biting sarcasm, but something quieter, almost resigned. It wasn’t sad, exactly, but it was close enough to catch Jen off guard.
She gestured her non-dominant hand vaguely toward the window, an incoherent flick that would’ve looked foolish and idiotic on everyone, but not Jen. She made it look calculated, like she had everything planned out and a backup for whatever else was headed her way. “My place isn’t far from here, you know.”
April blinked, sure, she was a little too infatuated with such a simple move, but that didn’t mean she could be still unimpressed. “Cool. Want a medal for being good at geography?”
Jennifer tilted her head, studying April for a moment. She wasn’t used to seeing her like this—slumped in her seat, almost defeated, the sharp edges of her usual sarcasm dulled by exhaustion or boredom or… whatever. It wasn’t sad exactly, but it was definitely something..
“You want a ride to my place?” she offered, keeping her voice casual, like she hadn’t just surprised herself by saying it. “It’s close, and, I mean, unless you’re really enjoying sitting here with the human equivalent of a lukewarm latte.” She motioned vaguely at the sad coffee kiosk.
April’s eyes fluttered, her eyebrows furrowing. “What? Why?”
Jen gave her an exaggerated shrug, trying to mask the weird build up of tension in her chest. “Because it’s snowing, because flights aren’t happening, because I’m feeling, like, this much festive spirit, apparently.” She held up her fingers an inch apart. “Take it or leave it, Ludgate.”
April tilted her head, her eyes narrowing like she was trying to find the catch. “This feels like a setup. What’s the endgame here? You make me watch some weird Scandinavian Christmas special and bond over eggnog?”
Jen smirked, hands slipping into her coat pockets as she shifted her weight onto one foot. “No eggnog. No bonding. Just a couch, a heater, and maybe a bottle of wine. Unless you’d rather keep marinating in here.”
April huffed and stood up from her seat, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “If this turns into some weird Christmas miracle thing where you make me feel a weird jolly epiphany, I’m walking back here in the snow.”
“Noted,” Jen replied smoothly, already turning toward the exit.
—
By the time Jennifer’s sleek car slid into the driveway of her absurdly modern, very “I-own-a-ski-lodge-in-Aspen” mansion, April had developed a new hatred for Christmas music. Somewhere along the drive, a jazzy rendition of “Jingle Bells” came on, and now it was permanently etched into her brain like a personal attack.
When they stepped out, the snow had piled up high enough to bury someone’s will to live. April stood for a moment, looking at the house in front of her.
“You live here?” she asked, voice flat. “This is the kind of place where someone gets murdered in the first ten minutes of a Netflix thriller.”
Jennifer locked the car with a flick of her wrist, already heading for the door. “Thanks, sweets. I’ll be sure to print that on the holiday cards next year.”
Inside, Jennifer’s house was everything April had expected: wildly expensive, and so devoid of personality it could have been a showroom. The kind of place where even the throw pillows looked like they came with a security deposit.
April stood just inside the door, surveying the open floor plan and glass walls with her arms crossed. “This is your house? You live here? Willingly?”
Jennifer rolled her eyes as she kicked off her heels, placing them neatly by the door like someone might come and grade her on it. “I’ll have you know, I paid an absurd amount of money for this ‘aesthetic.’ Try not to ruin it with your... attitude.”
April let out a snort, dropping her bag onto the couch with zero regard for its designer origins. “Yeah, this place just screams ‘lived-in.’ It’s like a museum exhibit for people who’ve never felt joy.”
Jennifer ignored the jab, heading into the kitchen and returning a minute later with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Walking over to April, she questions her. “Red or white? Actually, don’t answer that. You’re drinking red.” She places the bottle of wine with the two glasses onto the coffee table, already expecting a snappy reaction from the other woman already loitering on her couch.
Instead, she was met with a brief moment of silence.
April raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue as Jennifer poured the wine and handed her a glass. “What, no hand-knit stockings on the mantle? Where’s your Christmas spirit?”
Jennifer smirked, taking a sip of her wine as she sat down on the farthest end of the couch. “My Christmas spirit is currently snowed in at the airport with the rest of humanity. Now, shut up and pick a movie before I make you watch an eight-part documentary on Nordic design.”
April rolled her eyes but grabbed the remote anyway, scrolling through Jennifer’s aggressively curated streaming library. Everything was either too pretentious or too depressing, so she settled on a random christmas movie.
—
The movie was background noise, the kind you didn’t even notice unless you tried too hard to ignore it. April didn’t seem interested in the painfully predictable plot—some couple saving a Christmas tree farm or whatever—and Jennifer couldn’t blame her. Her own gaze had drifted more than once to the way April had curled into the corner of the couch, her legs tucked up beneath her like she was trying to make herself as small as possible.
April had her glass of wine perched on the armrest, untouched for the last fifteen minutes. Her eyes flicked toward the screen every so often, but Jennifer could tell she wasn’t really watching. Instead, her fingers absentmindedly played with the edge of the throw pillow in her lap.
Jennifer sighed, setting her wine glass down with a soft clink. Subtlety wasn’t her strong suit, and frankly, it was exhausting. “Ludgate,” she said, turning to face her fully.
April glanced at her without moving her head, her expression halfway between intrigued and suspicious. “What?”
Jennifer rested her elbow on the back of the couch, her hand propping up her head as she tilted it to study April. “Do you wanna spend Christmas here with me?"
April blinked, visibly caught off guard. “What?”
“You heard me.” Jennifer waved a hand toward the snowy window as if to say, Look outside, genius. “Your flight is canceled, it’s a blizzard out there, and let’s be honest—do you really want to go back to the airport and fight a hundred angry parents for a spot at Cinnabon?”
April gave her a look, skepticism dripping from her voice. “You’re seriously asking me to spend Christmas with you? Why?”
Jennifer shrugged, leaning back against the couch and pretending she wasn’t hyper aware of how close they were sitting. “Because I can’t imagine anyone else who would willingly endure my terrible taste in wine and overwhelming charm. And—” She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then added, “I don't wanna spend the holidays with people who make me wanna claw my eyes out."
April stared at Jennifer, her mouth opening slightly like she was about to shoot back some sarcastic quip, but nothing came out. For a moment, she just blinked, like her brain was buffering.
And there it was. That stupid, inconvenient warmth in April’s chest she had felt a few days before, creeping in uninvited. She actually hated it. Hated that it made her feel like a person who might actually care about someone else’s motives. Hated that it made Jennifer Barkley, of all people, seem less like the embodiment of a snarky political machine and more like someone who wasn’t completely awful.
“Wow,” April finally said, her voice carefully flat. “That’s the saddest pitch for company I’ve ever heard. You want me to stay here so you don’t have to sit in your cold, soulless mansion by yourself?”
Jennifer’s smirk faltered, just for a second—so brief it could have been mistaken for a trick of the dim lighting. Of course, April wasn’t going to make this easy. Jennifer didn’t know why she’d expected anything else.
She leaned back into the couch, taking a deliberate sip of her wine to cover the faint flicker of disappointment. Not that it mattered. She was Jennifer Barkley, and disappointment wasn’t in her vocabulary. At least, that’s what she told herself.
April hesitated for a moment, her fingers still absently tugging at the pillow, but Jennifer's nonchalant shrug, the way she tried so hard to act like she wasn’t bothered, made something in April shift. It wasn’t guilt—she didn’t do guilt.
She glanced at Jennifer, who was now expertly pretending not to care about anything, but April could see the small trace of disappointment still hanging in the air, thick like fog.
“I'd like that though,” April muttered, quietly.
Jennifer’s lips curled into a satisfied smirk, like she had finally got a point into their unspoken games, but there was a softness to her eyes now. She hadn't expected April to respond with no rude or snarky remark attached to it. Instead of pestering her about it, she decides to leave it be, at least for now.
—
After some time of talking, Jennifer had slipped out a few minutes earlier, mumbling something about the house being “a literal glacier” as she disappeared down the hall. April, cocooned in her corner of the couch, had rolled her eyes and vowed—vowed—she wouldn’t fall asleep. It wasn’t like she trusted Jennifer to come back with anything better than some overpriced cashmere throw that probably cost more than April’s first car.
Still, the movie droned on in the background, a swirl of saccharine Christmas tropes and soft holiday jingles. April had told herself she was just closing her eyes for a second. She was resting, not sleeping.
And yet.
When Jennifer returned, a bundle of actual, practical blankets in her arms (surprising, really), she stopped in her tracks. April was slumped in the corner, her head tipped back against the couch cushion and her legs tucked under her. Her arms were loosely crossed like she was still pretending to be unimpressed with everything, but her breathing was steady, her features softer than Jennifer had ever seen them, her nose not as scrunched, neither her brows—not as furrowed as they typically are.
Jennifer paused, tilting her head slightly as she took in the sight. Of course. April had fallen asleep during the most painfully cheesy movie on Jennifer’s meticulously curated streaming list.
“Well, this is adorable,” Jennifer murmured to herself.
Carefully, she unfolded one of the blankets and stepped closer, draping it over April, making sure that it wouldn’t disrupt April’s sleep. Despite all the complaints that she would get from her coworkers regarding April, she had known how hardworking she was, even though if she ever told her that she’d be greeted with an immediate death threat. The world gradually felt like it was slowing around her, as if it was finally letting her breathe with the thoughts she didn’t dare to say aloud. That wasn’t until April shifted slightly, her head turning just enough that a strand of hair fell into her face. Jennifer hesitated for what it felt like forever instead of half a second before brushing it away, her fingers lingering for the barest moment as if she was testing her own patience.
“There,” Jennifer said quietly, more to herself than anyone. She tucked the blanket around April’s shoulders with surprising gentleness, making sure it covered her completely. “Now you look like you were born to hate this holiday.”
April let out a soft sigh in her sleep, shifting just enough to curl further into the blanket. Jennifer froze, briefly wondering if she’d wake up and throw a sarcastic comment her way, but April stayed asleep, her expression blissfully neutral.
Jen sat back down on her end of the couch, pulling her own blanket over her legs. She glanced at April, then at the screen, then back at April.
I should charge you rent..but then again, I did ask you to stay, she thought, though the smirk on her face softened almost immediately. She shook her head, reaching for her wine glass.
Jennifer took a sip, eyes flicking back to April once more. She tried to focus on the movie, but her gaze drifted back to April again, and she sighed.
Jennifer leaned back into the couch, her wine glass dangling from her fingers as she glanced at April again. It wasn’t like she was catching feelings or whatever (that was absurd)—Jennifer Barkley didn’t do feelings—but there was something about April passed out on her couch, wrapped in a blanket like some idiot, that made her chest feel weirdly... tight. Probably indigestion. Or the wine. Definitely not the way April looked kind of peaceful for once. Jen shook her head, forcing her gaze back to the screen. Whatever. She was fine, normal. If anything, this was just proof that even Jennifer Barkley had a soft spot for her intern, who fell asleep on her couch. That was all. Nothing else.