Chapter 1: The Decision

Jackson

The phone buzzed loudly on Jackson's bedside table. It was late, but he had an early surgery in the morning and feared complications. Half awake; he answers the phone quickly assuming it was the hospital.

"Yeah?" He waits for a response, but only hears muffled breathing on the other end, "Hello?" he asks again, then catches a look at the Caller ID: April Kepner.

He sits up- "April...What is it? Are you okay?"

They hadn't talked in over a week. In fact, he hadn't even seen her at all in a few days. He suspected that she was avoiding him. She was furious at him for ambushing her with the divorce papers. Jackson winced as he remembered the fight in the hospital hallway. You just serve me papers, just like that. Do you have any idea what a slap in the face this is?

He hadn't meant for it to go down like that, serving her the papers without even telling her. It all spiraled so quickly. It had started after a particularly infuriating therapy session. After talking in circles once again, he couldn't stand to look at her. He decided to go for a beer with Ben, but one beer turned into eight. Soon, he was leaving a voicemail with his lawyer to deliver the papers. Slurring into the phone, he was done, for real this time. He had all but forgotten about the call until the next day when his lawyer rung him, informing him the papers were drawn up and would be delivered to April by next week. He tried to get up the courage to tell her for days, but he kept putting it off. He told himself that he was waiting for the right moment. Well, the moment came and went with an awful fight outside Meredith's hospital room.

There was no excuse, he was an ass. Jackson just couldn't keep up the charade anymore when he knew they were both unhappy.

Every conversation, every disagreement lead right back to the same damn fight they had a million times. They had stopped listening to each other a long time ago. She wasn't budging and he couldn't give anymore. This wasn't the marriage that Jackson signed up for. They had both changed so much in the past year and they just couldn't find their way back.

Jackson thought April could feel the end coming too. He stopped sleeping at the apartment, pulling every excuse in the book from long surgeries to crashing at Ben's after drinking to pulling the nightshift. But, her face in that hospital hallway told a different story. He spent so much of his life trying to protect April, putting her first, and punishing her when she didn't do the same. He was done. He had to be done. Yet, here she was on the phone and he felt that familiar pull, he missed her.

"April?" He asked again, quietly.

"I'll sign them," Her voice came out as a pained whisper as if each word took effort to say.

"What?" Still groggy, he wasn't sure he heard her right.

"The divorce papers. I'll sign them," Her voice was louder this time. The air vanished from the room. This was the moment he had asked for, begged even. Just make it easy, April. Let's stop causing each other pain. But here they were and he was sure the pain was here to stay.

"I… um… Okay," Before he had a chance to say anything else, the phone went dead and Jackson was alone.

April

Earlier that night

"Time of death: 23:32," the nurse stated routinely. She then shut off the beeping heart monitor and the room became eerily quiet. There was a pause, a brief moment of silence, before the surgeons went about their usual business of stripping off their gloves, masks, and gowns.

April, Nathan, and Arizona left the mess of the OR room to be cleaned by the proper people. It had been an exhausting surgery. A woman had slid on black ice and skidded across into oncoming traffic. April and Nathan didn't find out until they had cut that she was almost seven months pregnant. They paged Arizona, who attempted a crash delivery, but it was too late for the baby. Five grueling hours later, it was too late for the mother as well. The three surgeons wanted nothing more than to get off their feet.

"The fiancée still not here yet?" Nathan asked the scrub nurse.

"No, he was in Sacramento on business" She answered, checking the patient information.

"Damn. I was supposed to be off three hours ago. But hell, what is a few more. I can wait for him," Nathan turned to the others.

"Don't be stupid. I'll wait." April grabbed the chart before Nathan had a chance.

"What? Keps, you have been here longer than I have."

"She came into my ER; she is my patient. I'll wait."

"April…" Arizona and Nathan look incredulous.

"Go. Go sleep or go to lesbian trivia or whatever," April waved them off. "Seriously. I want to stay."

They mumbled their tired thanks and went their separate ways. April made her back to the ER and pushed open the doors, slowly walking into the quiet room. All the beds were empty, except one that held a bruised teenager with a skateboard on his lap, talking to an intern. She walked around the tall desk and sank into one of the chairs. She knew why Nathan and Arizona hadn't put up much of fight when she said she'd stay. They knew that she had no reason to leave.

Jackson and April made the mistake of making their reunion and then swift fall back into dissolution very obvious to everyone in the hospital, whether it occupying certain supply closet for their extracurricular activities or later screaming about divorce in hallways. She was sure everyone knew the ins and outs of their present situation. It was clear that Jackson and her weren't living together… or even speaking.

When did you decide, you were done? She posed that question over a week ago. He hadn't answered, not really. He mentioned something about it was meant to stop causing each other pain. "Just make it easy, April," he had told her, like she was an annoying roadblock and not fighting for their marriage.

The words kept her up at night. She would swing back and forth between anger and self-pity, like a pathetic pendulum. HOW COULD HE JUST GIVE UP LIKE THAT? How stupid was she for thinking they were on the road to healing together?

Her thoughts were interrupted when a disheveled desperate-looking man rushed through the emergency room doors. She didn't even have to ask to know that he was her patient's fiancée. She took a breath and stood up from her seat.

"Mr. Radin?"

"Yes. Yes," he rushed to the desk. "My fiancée. She was in car crash... she...Hannah Michaelson. Her name is Michaelson. She's pregnant. She was in a car crash. Can you? Where is…"

"Mr. Radin…"

"Can I see her? Is the baby okay? Can I see her?" He was searching her face for answers, but was too desperate or scared to comprehend what her eyes were saying.

"Mr. Radin. Hannah came in with severe injuries, she was rushed straight to surgery. She was alone, we had no idea she was pregnant."

"She lost the baby?" He started to pace.

"Let's go sit down."

"No. If she lost baby, she is going to need me. I need to see her"

"Sir…"

"We just picked out a crib last week, it took hours. Those places… they act like you are buying a car or house. They tried to sell me a $10,000 crib. Can you believe that? Oh man, I should have bought the damn crib,"

He finally stopped pacing and faced her again.

"Listen, listen. I have to see Hannah. She is going to be heartbroken. I have to be there for her. Don't you understand? We were getting it together for this baby. It took a while, we aren't the perfect match, you know? She is the messiest person you will ever meet. I mean it. Dishes everywhere, crumbs in the bed. And don't even think of watching any movies with her, she pees every five minutes. I am no better. I've had only one set of everything: towels, sheets, dishes. I liked being alone until her. But we are better now, we are better together. We really were getting it together for him. I took a corporate job. Sold out, so we can afford the apartment with two bedrooms and the expensive crib. I took the damn corporate job that has damn business trips to..."

"Mr. Radin, Hannah died 28 minutes ago," April interrupted, she wasn't sure she could take anymore. "There was too much damage. We did everything we could."

There was a terrible moment of silence. She watched as the reality sank in.

"No. No. No. No no no no no no no no," He slumped down against the desk to the floor, putting his head between his knees.

"I am so so sorry," Tears burned her eyes, but she held back.

He let out a heartbreaking sob. April searched for something to say.

"Mr. Radin… Joshua, the world feels like it is ending. I know that."

"It is."

"No. No, it's not. That is the blessing and the curse, you see. This unimaginable life-altering thing has happened to you. And you will never be the same, but you will get through this. You keep going, you keep living...You know why? Because that is what Hannah would want for you."

"I can't," He cried.

"Yes, you can. You do it for them, Joshua. You wake up every morning and do it for them. Otherwise, what was it all for?"

He lifted his head and his words come out barely above a whisper, "It was gonna be a boy. Thomas, after Hannah's dad. Tommy for short."

"That is a really beautiful name," She stands up to hide her tears, there was a special pain of naming a child that never gets to grow up. All the hopes and dreams and love that never sees the light of day.

Joshua sits silently on the floor for another 20 minutes until his sister shows up to take him home. He was in no condition to drive. When he finally left, all the life was drained from his eyes, he looked like a ghost. April knew what it was like to can enter hospital as one person and leave it someone completely different.

April wasn't certain her words got through to him. He would never know that she told herself that same speech to get out of bed some mornings. Live... for Samuel. Some days were easier than others. And some days she preferred the other option.

The exhaustion finally catches up with her and April decides to head home… or whatever it is now without Jackson.

When she arrives, April pours herself a glass of wine, but decides she needs something stronger and takes out the whiskey. She takes a large sip and studies the empty apartment. Jackson hadn't taken much when he moved out, only his clothes and the sports memorabilia. He hadn't even taken any photos, not even their wedding photos. The photos weren't exceptionally special; they didn't have time to hire a professional photographer during their 20-hour engagement. But there was one photo, which Jackson had deemed his favorite. It was picture of them laughing underneath a willow tree, eagerly awaiting their nuptials. It was like no one else existed or have ever existed besides Jackson and her. She was sad when she found the picture missing from their bed side, but relieved that he had taken at least one memento. However, a week ago, in a fit of angry cleaning after being served divorce papers, she had found the picture in the back of the closet. He had hidden it away; too angry or too sad to even look at her face and that hurt more than she could have imagined. She didn't get out of bed for a day. It's been a rough week.

April suddenly noticed that the door to the nursery was cracked open. The cleaning crew (an extravagance left over from Jackson) must have done it, she hadn't been in there in months. It was easier in Jordan; she was too busy to think or feel. But being back, not talking to Jackson, everything was harder and she was having trouble finding a reason to get up in the morning, especially when she had to walk past that damn room, every day.

So did he. The thought jumped out at her. She pictured Jackson walking past that room every day for the year she was gone. This thought propelled to finally open the door that she hadn't touched in months. The room was so...empty. Everything was packed away, with the boxes stacked against the wall.

There was so many things she wishes she could redo, sometimes she wished she could start over completely. But April knew she could never go through the pain of losing Samuel again even if it meant getting Jackson back. They were here in this moment in time and there was nothing they could do to change it. Tears filled her eyes and she slid to the floor.

She pulled one of the boxes over to her, surprised at how light it was. It only held one thing: Samuel's ultrasound. The frame was broken and it looked like Jackson had tried to unsuccessfully glue it back together. They didn't have any family photos to save, no records of first steps or birthdays. The blurry ultrasound was the only photo they had to remember him by. She opened the other boxes, untouched onesies and blankets so carefully folded and placed in the most delicate matter.

She had been so angry when she had first seen the boxes and room bare. How could Jackson pack Samuel away, just like that. But now, even with how angry she was at him, she realized just how painful that must have been. She pictured him having to pack the life that never was, alone.

After Samuel's death, she remembers feeling so envious of Jackson and how his pain seemed so much more manageable than hers. He went to work, he watched sports, he cooked on the days she wasn't sure she could breathe. I wasn't coping, I was covering. For you. His past words filled her with such poignant pain, she let out an uncontrollable sob. She was so immersed in her own pain; she never saw his.

After a few minutes, when her tears stopped flowing, April was met with a clarity she hadn't felt in a very long time. She hadn't understood at first. To survive, she had to go and now it was his turn. He had to go and she had to let him.

She pulled out her phone and dialed his number. She wasn't even sure that he was awake, but she was scared that she would lose her nerve in the morning. It rang twice and then he answered.

"Yeah… Hello?" He had just woken up. He was annoyed, she could tell. He did not like having his sleep disrupted. Years of her as an early-riser and him as a sleep-until-it's-afternoon had proven that fact. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Just make it easy, April.

"April? What's up? Are you okay?" His voice softened, he sounded worried even. Through all the pain and resentment, Jackson would still be there for her if she needed him. He was the friend that punched Karev for being a dick to her, he had carried her home when she got too drunk, he stood up to people who made fun of her, and he always had her back. He was the husband that cooked dinner and did her laundry when she was too tired, promised to go to church with her and their kids even though he watches football on Sunday, took her on long midnight drives when she was pregnant an couldn't sleep, and allowed her to grieve in her own way until it almost killed him. He was a good man. And he deserved to have what he needed.

"I'll sign them," It came out as a whisper.

"What?" He sounded genuinely confused.

"The divorce papers. I'll sign them" She held the ultrasound for strength. You will get through this. You have to keep going, you have to live.

"I…" He was struggling to say something, but April knew she was on the verge of crying. She wasn't sure if she could handle a full conversation right now. "Okay"

And with that, she hung up.