Chapter Text
The first time it happens, she chalks it up to a weird dream.
It’s 7 a.m, she’s been up since 4 a.m. doing pre-rounds and charts, and she’s dozing off in the residents lounge. Her second year of residency is coming to an end, but her job at Mercy West is more demanding than ever. Especially with the rumors about the hospital shutting down and her potentially losing her job, or having to go work at Seattle Grace or another hospital in the city. It’s not like she’s a relaxed person to begin with, so to say she’s been under pressure and stressed out lately is an understatement.
Still, falling asleep just before rounds is new.
Falling asleep just before rounds AND having a sex dream is even newer.
At first, she doesn’t even realize she’s dreaming. She and Jackson Avery are standing in an on-call room, slightly different from the ones they have here at Mercy West. They’re both wearing dark blue scrubs, her hair is the bright red she’s hiding under all her brunette dye jobs, and Jackson sports short curls. It looks different from the all-shaven look he favors these days, and April has to say that it suits him well. Really well.
“Do you want to get married?" says Dream Jackson, and she freezes.
Uh, what?
“Uh, what?” mirrors Dream April.
"Because if you're serious about this whole re-virginizing thing, that means that the next guy that you sleep with is probably gonna be your husband. Right? That's what you want. And I am not ready to be anybody's husband. And I really don't think you're ready to be anybody's wife.”
She doesn’t know what re-virginization he’s talking about, or why he’s so concerned about her future husband, but she relaxes, because Jackson would never talk to her about this. She's obviously dreaming. And the beauty of dreams is that they don’t have to make sense.
“So let's remember that it happened. Make sure it doesn't happen again. Unless we want it to. Unless we are… ready."
Dream April nods, but regular April shakes her head.
"I'm, um, I can't, I can't be near you or I might…"
"Me too."
Her brain is powerful, because to anyone, this would look like an awkward conversation. To her, it feels like foreplay, and the way Dream April bites her lip and stares at him shows she agrees.
She zones out and doesn’t really listen to what Dream April answers, because she’s too busy looking at Dream Jackson. His eyes alternate between meeting hers and staring at her lips, and if she had to guess, she’d say he really, really wants this.
"Uh, bye."
In the dream reality, “bye” apparently means “kiss”, because Dream April practically assaults him. Not that Dream Jackson seems to mind: grabbing her, he pushes her against a file cabinet and enthusiastically works on removing her scrubs, his lips never leaving her skin.
She’s never had an out-of-body experience, but there are firsts for everything, apparently. Because she sees the whole scene, but she also hears everything. The rattling noise the file cabinet makes as Jackson presses her against it, her soft moans, the rustling of her clothes as his hands trace the outlines of her scrubs. She feels everything too, his lips on hers, that deep, burning desire overtaking her, his curls between her fingers. It’s like all her senses are heightened, and it’s the most vivid dream she’s ever had.
And what a dream it is.
She watches as they explore each other. The desire has made way to a hunger that feels both foreign and familiar, and she could swear that Jackson’s shoulders, the ones she grips as he pins her against the wall and enters her in one swift move, have already been explored by her fingers. Their movements are frantic, desperate, and Dream April’s eyes roll as she reaches her climax. April cannot blame her, because it’s so powerful she has to close her eyes too. When she opens them, she finds herself back in the Mercy West residents lounge, her heart beating a thousand beats per minute.
Fuck.
As she’s trying to regain her breath, she slowly comes to terms with what just happened. She’s just had a sex dream. About Jackson Avery. Her face reaches unknown levels of crimson, and she’s not sure it’s going to change any time soon.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. She’s a virgin, but she’s not a prude, and she’s done stuff before (granted, not on-call rooms, jumping each other like animals stuff, but still). Sue her, she has needs and urges like anybody else, and she can’t say she’s never dreamed of getting hot and heavy with a man – who usually looks like one of the NSYNC guys. Still, it’s a little bit (actually, a lot) embarrassing, because Jackson’s her friend, has been for the past two years, and she’s pretty sure they’ve never really thought of each other that way. She’s Reed’s shy, reliable, quiet friend, the one you come to see when you need help studying, but she doesn’t think she’s the type of girls to elicit that strong of a reaction from a guy. Especially from someone as suave and charming as Jackson.
“April! Time for rounds!”
Reed’s voice interrupts her post-dream haze, and she quickly gathers her notebook and stethoscope and heads downstairs. She’s lucky enough to not get called on this morning, and she stays quiet as their attending drones on and on about their patient’s condition (which could be interesting, except said patient has IBS, and, well, it’s actually not the most interesting disease ever). Jackson catches her gaze and playfully rolls his eyes, like he does when that particular attending goes on one of his tangents, and she feels herself reddening again. She quickly looks back to the patient, and wills herself to forget the feeling of his hands on her skin or his lips everywhere. She’d be annoyed that the dream was this vivid if it also didn’t feel this good (and something that feels this good cannot be bad, right?).
As the rest of her day goes, she tries really hard to forget all about it.
She still avoids Jackson like the plague for a solid week, though.
Jackson Avery is a rational man. He believes in what he can see, and he’s never been interested in a higher power. Most miracles are easily explained by science, not by an invisible hand, and he’s perfectly fine with that. He’s not one to believe in signs, and soulmates are not a thing, because having just one person perfectly made for you seems like such a dumb system.
Suffice to say that prophetic visions are very much not a thing for him.
Especially when he’s been chosen to scrub in on a heart transplant, and that every other resident is giving him the stink eye. Granted, he’s not done much so far save for some suction, but at least he’s down there, in the heart of things, and not watching from the gallery.
The thing (he doesn’t know how to qualify it yet) happens pretty fast. The beeping from the machines starts to be amplified, reverberating in his head, while the voices of the medical staff get lost in a low buzz. The lights in the OR seem to brighten gradually, until they nearly blind him, forcing him to close his eyes.
When he opens them again, he’s no longer standing in the OR, or in scrubs. He’s in a rustic building, a barn, wearing a suit, and apparently the guest in a wedding. Next to him (the other him, the one who is sitting) is a woman he doesn’t know, presumably his date or girlfriend – good for him, because she looks cute –, and Jackson quickly looks around, trying to understand. Scanning the crowd, he doesn’t recognize anyone, and it’s only when he looks towards the aisle that he finally finds a familiar face, wearing a beaming smile fitting for a bride.
She’s familiar, but at the same time she’s not, because April Kepner doesn’t usually have red hair. Or exude confidence. Or wear a wedding dress, for that matters.
He wonders if he’s still feeling the effect of last night’s drinks (even though he’s pretty sure he’s stopped after three beers), and if he’s fallen unconscious in the middle of the OR. He’s never going to hear the end of it if that’s the case, and he tries everything to wake himself up – pinching himself, blinking really fast, almost slapping himself. Still, it’s a little weird that he would choose to dream about April’s wedding (when she’s not currently dating anyone, as far as he knows). Maybe it’s because she’s been avoiding him lately, and he’s not sure what he’s done to deserve it. They’re not best friends or joined at the hip, but last night she all but stammered and fled when he joined her, Reed and Charles at the bar.
Reluctantly, he admits defeat and keeps watching as the ceremony progresses. It’s all extremely fine and a little bit boring, all with the God talk, and April’s three bridesmaids don’t look too invested either. Jackson smirks, because Reed would be pissed she’s not a bridesmaid, even in Jackson’s dream. Speaking of, where’s Reed? It seems weird April’s best friend is not there in this sort of hallucination (he’s not going to call it a vision) when Jackson is among the guests, but he guesses his brain had other ideas in store.
Really stupid ideas.
Like having Jackson stand up in the middle of the aisle as the pastor is still talking.
He’s rational, so surely, him standing up at the ceremony and staring at the bride is nothing. He probably just needs to pee, or he’s been paged for an emergency surgery. Yeah, there’s probably a patient with a grizzly cardio problem, or he has his transplant to go back to, and he’s going to save the day and be back in time to eat mini-quiches at the reception (because April Kepner can cook and would definitely serve good food at her wedding, and Jackson knows it’s all a dream, but he’s not thinking clearly and even dream food sounds good at the moment).
But then he sees himself sit back down. And get back up. And proclaim his undying love to the woman in a wedding dress, who, until five seconds ago, was just his intern friend with a tendency to blush and a rambling problem.
Wait, what?
He’s not the only one surprised. His bombshell leaves everyone stunned – except for one guy next to him who just rolls his eyes. April in particular opens and closes her mouth, and it feels like hours before she turns her head towards her fiancé, who doesn’t look particularly pleased with Jackson.
As if to make up for lost time though, she mutters a small “sorry”, gives him back her engagement ring, and then sprints towards Jackson, taking his hand and tugging him towards the entrance of the barn. He thinks he can hear someone call after April, but neither of them bothers to stop long enough to answer.
Just add a cheesy love song, and this stuff would be straight out of a romantic comedy.
He doesn’t have time to process what he just experienced, because everything fades away, and he’s suddenly back in the OR. No more blinding light nor distorted sound. He’s still in the middle of the surgery. No one seems to have noticed his episode, and it’s only when Dr. Parker asks him for more suction that he notices that his hand shakes a little.
“You’re okay there, Avery?”
“Yes sir, sorry,” he stammers, and tries to focus on his task.
Which is easier said than done, because he’s absolutely freaking out. What the hell just happened?
He’s used to keeping a cool head, something that has been drilled into him by his grandfather since he was a child, because Averys don’t embarrass themselves and babble or panic, but he has a hard time centering himself this time. The main reason is that deep within, he can still feel everything from his dream. The pit in his stomach when he and the other members of the assembly were asked to support April and her future husband, the absolute terror when he stared at her, waiting for his “Do you?” to be answered, the unbridled hope and the unadulterated joy when she ran towards him and took his hand.
It takes of all his willpower to shift his attention to the patient, and he thinks he manages to do so. It doesn’t prevent him from noticing April leaving the viewing gallery just before the surgery is over.
The second time it happens, she starts getting suspicious.
Because she’s not tired, she’s not horny, and it’s not even a sex dream anyway. She’s relaxing at home on her day off, all by herself since Reed is on shift. Her cup of tea is freshly brewed, she’s looking for the TV remote to watch one of her comfort shows, but before she can do anything, she feels faint. She blinks a few times, and her living-room slowly disappears.
She’s soon standing in a parking lot at night. Jackson, again, is looking at the dream version of her, a dream version that looks worried, and weary, and… pregnant?
“You want to feel something unbelievably awesome?”
Dream April goes to Jackson and puts his hand on her baby bump, and April watches with a mixture of fascination and envy.
“Was that a kick?”
Wow. It definitely was, because even though she’s merely watching, even though she’s never been pregnant and has no idea what carrying a baby feels like, she’s definitely experiencing a baby kicking inside her. The sensation feels so realistic it scares her.
“He’s kicking.”
“Or she’s kicking.”
“This baby can kick.”
Jackson’s voice has a soft lilt she’s never heard, and his eyes are a sea of emotions as his hand rests on her belly. She gets so lost in the feeling that engulfs her that she almost doesn’t hear the answer.
“Our baby can kick.”
Our baby?
As in, a baby they made together?
The scene fades away so quickly it makes her dizzy, but she figures she'll be back on her couch any second now and wil be fine.
To her surprise, she opens her eyes again to find Jackson (who else, now?) sitting on a pew in a small chapel.
It's official: nothing makes sense anymore.
"God... I don't know. I don't know, uh... If you're out there or not. Or if you can even hear people who don't know if you're out there. Or if you give a crap about what they say. But, um... God, Yahweh, Buddha, E.T., whatever. April… knows. Right? She believes. And she needs you.”
As if the sight of Jackson praying wasn’t enough, she realizes he’s not praying for himself, or to get something he wants.
He’s praying for her.
Why?
“So, uh... Show up for her? Please? Show up for April. She loves you. She needs you. Please, show up for her. Please."
The pure despair in his voice, the tears in his eyes make her want to go hug him, to tell him everything’s going to be okay, even if she has no idea what he’s talking about. But his silhouette becomes blurry, and there’s another change of scenery. She’s now in a hallway, and Jackson is calling after her, dressed for surgery.
“Tell him who you are. If he doesn't get it, then you don't need him anyway.”
She’s not even trying to make sense of the scene this time, and focuses on the distance between the two of them, of the fact that her body seems to want to move forward but won't.
“But I really like him, and I think if I tell him, it's all gonna be over.”
“So wait. A little while, let him get to know you better. Once he does, he's gonna want to follow you anywhere.”
It's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to her, and it would be enough to melt her heart.
“Trust me.”
That does the trick.
Dream April looks down, but she's captivated by the look in Jackson’s eyes, that seems to betray so many emotions. No one has ever looked at her like this, with so much feeling and tenderness, and she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, not even Reed, but sometimes, she’s scared no one ever will.
When she finally makes it back to her couch, her cup of tea is still warm, and she hugs herself, trying to make the coldness that she suddenly feels go away.
This dream makes even less sense than the one before. Why does she keep dreaming about Jackson Avery? More importantly, why is she dreaming of an idealized, romantic version of the guy?
Because this is so far from the Jackson she knows. Jackson is usually charming, confident, a little shallow sometimes. That’s the aura he projects, the way he acts in public, and though they’re friends, or friendly at least, she doesn’t know him well enough to pretend to know what he’s really like when he lets his guard down, when he truly lets someone in. Still, she doesn’t know why she pictures him in those hypothetical scenarios, so tender, bursting with repressed feelings.
The next day, she sees him with Charles in the cafeteria, bragging about a surgery he’s scrubbed in and flirting with a nurse to get into another OR, and snippets from her visions start playing in her mind.
It’s a little bit annoying.
He’s been having a bad day – a bad week, really, and the surgery he’s assisting on this afternoon is one he cannot screw up, not as a second-year resident, certainly not as an Avery. He’s been studying it non-stop for the past week, and it’s been taking its toll on him.
Which probably explains why he falls asleep in the break room when he’s supposed to cram some last-minute knowledge. At least he thinks he must be asleep, because he suddenly finds himself in a dimly lit house, on a stormy night. There are candles everywhere, but the atmosphere is far from romantic. If he had to guess, the power went out, and all the candles (one of which is shaped like a nun, which seems like an odd detail to focus on) are the only source of light.
Facing him is April Kepner, again, and no offense, but she looks older, and out of place in this messy house. He’s been to her and Reed’s place several times (him and Charles can’t cook to save their lives, and are not ones to turn down a dinner invitation), and it’s always been spotless. This April is rambling, though, so he guesses some things never change.
“You’re a brilliant surgeon. You rebuild people’s faces, you rebuild their lives. You find a way to make them breathe when, when it seems impossible.”
Phew, way to stroke a guy’s ego. He doesn’t know what prompted this little speech, but so far, he’s loving it. He’s not loving the part where he’s apparently not a cardio surgeon, but he’ll take it if it means he’s brilliant at what he does.
Dream Jackson doesn’t seem to know what to make of her speech, though. He looks cautious, all defenses up, and this Jackson suddenly feels how tired and weary the man is. It makes no sense.
“You gave a little boy back his hands! You prayed me back into the world when I was almost dead!”
Wait, “almost dead”? April? Prayed? Him?
What?
“You take out impossible tumors, and you make people walk out into the world with their heads held high. That’s where you left your mark. It’s what makes you exceptional.”
He doesn’t see his answer, because of course the scene immediately freezes. God forbid he should enjoy these little dreams even just a bit (though a small part of him knows his ego doesn’t need the boost). Before it fades to black though, random statements that don’t seem related echo in his head. They don’t all make sense, they’re not part of a conversation as far as he can make out, but they’re all stated by April, her voice sometimes soft, sometimes more commanding.
“Jackson, I know what a good father is. I had one my whole life. You are a good father.”
“I’m sorry, but I will not let you take it out on Dr. Avery anymore. He deserves your respect. He’s not his mother, so stop it.”
“I’ve known him for a long time. He can be complicated, but not morally, not like that. He’s a good man.”
“You’re holding this place together, Jackson. That’s pretty miraculous.”
When he opens his eyes, he’s a little bit stunned.
He’s never had anyone put this much faith in him – not his teachers, who only saw him as a pretty face, not his residents, impressed with his name but not willing to dig further, not his mother, certainly not his grandfather. Still reeling from all the praise, he decides that it must be his subconscious trying to hype him up ahead of his surgery. Why it chose April Kepner to do that, he doesn’t know, but the words have filled him with more comfort than he’s ever known. He suddenly feels like he can do anything, as long as he puts his mind to it, and it’s a new sensation he would gladly get used to.
He’s a busy man, so he can’t allow himself to spend too much time finding an explanation for what happened. But he nails his surgery that afternoon, gets complimented by the head of cardio, scrubs in on three other amazing procedures that week alone, and he feels lighter than ever.
He’s just sat down at a table in the cafeteria next to Charles, Reed and April when they hear the familiar sound of a pager going off. Sighing, they all check to discover who drew the short straw, and April’s sigh of relief matches his when they realize Reed and Charles are the unlucky ones who won’t get to enjoy a meal in peace today. Grumbling, their friends leave their seats, and Jackson takes the opportunity to swipe Charles’ leftovers from his tray (sue him, he hasn’t eaten in hours).
He brings the burrito to his mouth, sees April open her mouth, no doubt to comment on his food-stealing ways, and then everything turns to black. Again.
And just as he was about to finally enjoy his food. Great.
With a huff, he opens his eyes to take in the scene in front of him. He sees April (of course), a heavily pregnant April (well, that’s new), laying on a kitchen table (and he’s given up trying to make sense of these things, but that’s still a bit odd). A man then steps in next to her, pouring some anti-bacterial gel on a bunch of knives that lay on the side, and then on her belly.
Wait, knives?
What kind of sick game is going on?
April opens her mouth, and he feels like she doesn’t look as terrified as she should be. As terrified as he currently feels.
“I need you to promise me something, okay? If you feel like you’re gonna lose me, if I’m bleeding out, you, you make sure that this baby is okay.”
Panic is filling him (even though being selfless enough to sacrifice herself for the sake of others? A complete April Kepner move), and he hears his own voice protesting in the background, though a speaker or a phone, but this April stands her ground.
“You promise me that you will save this baby no matter what. Ben, okay??”
The guy named Ben then has a small meltdown, which does nothing to help assuage Jackson’s fears, but he finds out that he can only focus on April, who is whispering prayers with her eyes closed.
The scene that follows is straight out of a horror movie. There’s an incision, a scream, ringing in his ears, and he feels himself actually shake. From a distance, he hears a voice, apparently his own, asking what’s going on, and urging April or this guy Ben to speak.
In answer, bright flashes assault him in rapid succession. An ambulance. April’s face, so pale he assumes the worst. A baby, bundled in a foil blanket.
Just as soon as it started, it's over. He’s back in the cafeteria, the burrito he was about to devour dropping from his clammy hands on his tray.
He’s pretty sure this time that he won’t be able to ever forget what he just witnessed. The image of April writhing when the knife cut her flesh is burned in his mind, and the horrifying scream matching the scene is playing on a loop in his brain, sending shivers in his whole body. Sweat is trickling down his back, dampening his scrubs, and he realizes he’s been holding his breath.
Incredulous, he unclenches his hands and turns to April. His friend is white as a sheet as her panicked eyes find him, her breath short, her hands clutching her stomach.
“Wait, you saw that too?”