a/n: we missed out how how jackson and april came to be back on speaking terms after their breakup because there was a five week gap between 9x07 and 9x09, so this is my head-canon of sorts as to how it happened. unbeta'd, so mistakes are mine.

i do not own grey's anatomy.

Jackson's plan to drink himself into a stupor worked.

It was three am; he wasn't sure where he was going, his head felt slightly detached from his body, his tongue didn't feel like it belong in his mouth, and putting one foot in front of the other was getting progressively harder the longer he kept walking.

Not to mention he kept pulling his phone out of his pocket every two minutes, hoping to have gotten a call from her.

He wasn't going to be the first to call, that was for sure. Drunk dialing was for people who were at rock bottom, and he wasn't quite there yet. He may have been wandering the streets of Seattle at three am, pissed off his face and his eyes burning with the threat of tears, but that wasn't rock bottom. To get there, he'd have to call her. Beg for her forgiveness, tell her he was wrong, that he wanted to go back to the way things were. Rock Bottom Jackson would ask her to forget that he ever said he had feelings for her, to overlook their pregnancy scare, not to mention the fact that he proposed to her.

He actually wanted to marry her. Not because it was the honorable thing to do, or because he felt trapped in the situation they'd so fucking stupidly gotten themselves into. He wanted a baby and a life and everything that he didn't think he was ready for. All it had taken was a speech from Torres about making a plan to help ease Derek's fear; he'd come to the realization that he not only wanted to make her feel less scared, but he wanted the life he planned in his head and he wanted it with her more than he had wanted it with anyone.

And then she had opened her big fucking mouth, throwing him back into reality. They make have been best friends for a really long time, but they hadn't been fucking for more than a few months and she didn't even like fucking him. Why the fuck did he think she would want to marry him all of a sudden?

At that thought, Jackson felt his stomach heave, the back of this throat burn, and all of a sudden everything he had to drink was coming back up. Throwing up while wandering Seattle at almost the crack of dawn was one step closer to rock bottom; he needed to get home.

He hailed a taxi, practically fell inside of it as he tried to get in, and spent the drive home trying not to think about any of it in an effort not to throw up again. Throwing up in taxis in the middle of the night was not something Avery's did. And anyway, why was he even still thinking at all? He'd gotten so wasted so he wouldn't have to think, but his brain kept forcing the now slightly jumbled thoughts into his head.

Once he was home, the thought of everything tied up and thrown into the back of his mind, he made his way to his bed. He had to sleep. The alcohol should make it easy for him to sleep, he wouldn't need to vomit again, he just had to sleep and forget that this day even happened. Hell, he could take the forgetting one step further and try and forget he'd even slept with her.

What kind of piece of shit takes their best friend's virginity anyway? They weren't in love (then, anyway), they weren't together, and he should have told her no. He should have told her no, but he was thinking with his dick and about how he could give her the best first time anyone could ever hope for.

If she hadn't looked so damn hopeful, if she hadn't been so damn confident and carefree, if she'd been drunk and begging, if she hadn't looked so pretty that night the he would have told her no and then none of this would have happened. Fuck; maybe if he'd been a better friend to her and actually stayed with her afterwards, instead of leaving her like the douchebag he was, then they could have avoided all of this. Or if they hadn't had sex in the bathroom during their boards, or if he had taken the time to explain his feelings earlier, or if she hadn't taken off to Moline, or if he'd called her –

It took him a moment too long to realize that he'd been thinking about her again, and he felt his stomach twist and gurgle, a sensation that sent him running for the toilet.

And after he'd finished throwing up, Jackson realized that he was lying on the bathroom floor after going on a bender, and that he couldn't even bear to think her name. He hadn't thought her name all night, not since he'd spoken to Alex in the bar.

Maybe he had hit rock bottom, after all.

"Jackson, are you going to have the last of the salad or can I have it?" April asked him two days later, as they were in line for lunch.

He'd imagined their first conversation after their break up (could he even call it a break up if they were never together?) would be a bit more serious than one over who gets the last of the lettuce at the salad bar in the cafeteria, but he could hardly be surprised; when it came to April, his imagination had been a bit off as of late.

"Of course. I'll have… pie or something. Go for it." And then he walked off without looking back.

He knew that he was going to have to have a proper conversation with her at some point, but for now he was going to stick with avoidance and a few words over salad.

What Would Mark Sloan Do?

After the crash, Jackson would ask himself that question on an hourly basis when it came to his work. He'd promised that he'd make sure the Plastics Posse would live on, and he intended to keep that promise. Even almost five months after the crash, he still regularly thought about what Mark would do if he were still here.

"I was thinking of going from a B to a D, or maybe even a DD. I mean that's my boyfriend would want right?" A woman he was performing a boob job on asked him, and what he fully intended to tell her was that a D would better suit her frame and body, that it would put less pressure on her back, but then What Would Mark Sloan Do had popped in his head and the words had come tumbling out of his mouth.

"You have a really beautiful body at the moment, and I know that you may think that you're doing something nice for your boyfriend but are you sure that it's what you want? If you're going to have implants put in, make sure that you're doing it for you and not someone else." He told the woman, and she promptly thanked him and told him she would reconsider. He could almost feel Mark next to him, patting him on the back and telling him what a good job he had done. He missed Mark actually being there, knowing exactly what he was doing and teaching Jackson exactly was it was he had to do to be the best.

It was a week later, on the edge of sleep in the on call room, he finally thought of Mark outside of work, because he would know exactly what Jackson would need to do about April.

"That's easy, Jackson." He imagined his mentor saying, "Just give her some time to sort out her head. Then you've got to go in with the grand gesture, you know; flowers and chocolate. Kepner seems like a flowers and chocolate kind of woman."

Last time he followed Mark's love-life advice was when he'd tried to talk to April at Joe's. Mark had been dying, saying things about telling someone you love them before it was too late, and then he'd been running to get Sofia and had seen April and all of a sudden Mark's words had made sense. He was going to meet her at the bar, tell her that he didn't feel guilty and that she shouldn't either because it was more than sex to him.

Jackson was going to tell April that he wanted her and she'd run off to Moline before he had gotten the chance.

He sighed; he was asking a dead man how to fix his shambles of a life, even after the last time that very same man gave him advice it had all blown up in his face. And besides, even if Mark were here, he wouldn't be able to fix this; Mark relied on women knowing exactly what he was doing when it came to dating and flirting, and April was clueless. Jackson would get some stupid advice that Mark would use on Lexie and it would fuck everything up.

And besides, Mark had waited until the girl he loved had been dead to tell her how he really felt. If he were Mark, he would have to wait until April was crushed underneath a ton of scrap metal to tell her how he felt. That's what Mark Sloan would do, because Mark Sloan was a fucking idiot.

Jackson didn't even realize he was crying until he sat up tasted salt on his lips. He missed Mark more than he ever cared to admit; he may have been an idiot, but he'd also been Jackson's mentor and friend. Even if Mark talked out of his ass a lot of the time, he knew what to say to make Jackson feel better about his job and he would have known what to say to make him feel better about this thing with April.

He got out of bed, unable to sleep, and decided that asking what Mark would do was useless. Mark was dead, and no matter how real it felt to Jackson in his head he knew Mark couldn't help him now.

Jackson missed his best friend.

He missed the sex, he was a dude and obviously he missed the sex, but mostly he just missed her. It had been a month since he and April last talked properly; they had civil conversations about patients and work, they'd said their uncomfortable hellos every morning in the attending's lounge, and on good days they'd even managed to be in the same group conversation at lunch times sitting around the table.

He missed being able to be there for April. Whenever he noticed her biting on her lip, or that her voice raised an octave, or that she was talking way too fast for anyone to really understand what she was saying, he wanted to go over and tell her that everything was going to be okay. It's what he would have done if they'd remained friends, because he was the only one who knew exactly how to take care of her whenever she got too anxious. But since they were no longer speaking properly, he continued with whatever he was doing whenever he noticed any of these things and tried not to give them a second thought.

Jackson almost wanted to go back to the days before they had slept together. He wanted to go back to when they lived together and sat in one another's rooms for hours on end talking about what had happened at work that day, or gossiping like school girls, or studying tirelessly for their boards. He missed being able to talk to her about what was bothering him, telling her things that he didn't think he could tell anyone else.

For god's sake, he almost wanted to go back to when everyone was missing from the plane crash. They'd spent that week holed up in Jackson's room barely moving or speaking or eating. Owen had declared that they were not to come into work until their friends had been found, he didn't want distracted doctors in his hospital. One of them had gotten up once a day to make toast, and then had come straight back to bed. They'd held one another all week, and they had cried without saying a word.

Jackson hated to think it, but their friendship had been in a better state then than it was now and he missed her so much.

So that Thursday at work he noticed April laughing with Meredith and Cristina about something over lunch, and he made up his mind that he had to go and try to go back to being her friend. He could live without sex, but he didn't want to live without her.

"Hey guys. Hey April," he said, sitting down next to Meredith at their table.

"Hey, Jackson," Meredith and April replied, and Jackson noted that April's hello had been quieter than Meredith's. Maybe that was because he hadn't been this… perky around her for a long time.

"Here for a sex date, Avery? I thought you too had broken up. I hear break-up sex is awesome, though I don't know if Jesus will approve."

Jackson should have been anticipating a snarky comment from Cristina.

"We- we're not having a sex date! Or any sort of date! There is no dating going on!" April's cheeks flushed, and she got up from the table so fast that she almost knocked the chair over.

"Thanks for that, Yang," he grumbled, getting up after her. Cristina only smiled in response.

Jackson followed April out of the cafeteria, yelling her name, trying to make her listen. It took her a minute, but she eventually stopped and turned around.

"April, hey, don't listen to Yang," he said when he caught up.

"I wasn't listening to Cristina, but that was just so-" April cut off mid-sentence, her face going from tomato to cherry red, and her eyes becoming wide and shiny.

Jackson put his hands on her shoulders, hoping he wasn't crossing a line, and she took a deep breath.

"I just don't know how to react when they say things like that, and it's not like you've been around to set them straight."

Jackson immediately felt guilty. He should have been there, but he was so busy being mad or feeling let down or both that he'd left April alone for far too long.

"That's actually what I wanted to come and talk to you about. I wanted to say I'm sorry, and would you like to have dinner at my place? You know, as friends. No sex involved,"

April made a face, but a good kind of face. A face that said even though she wasn't sure, she was at least thinking about it. All he could ask for was that she thought about it before saying flat-out no.

"I don't know Jackson," she said after a second, "Ever since San Francisco, pretty much every time we've been in the same room alone we've always ended up naked. We've been doing really well with avoiding each other for a month and why stop that now?"

"I promise, April. I will keep my clothes on, and I'll make sure you do the same."

He saw the exact moment she caved written all over her face; she smiled at him, and he felt something swell in his chest, as if it were about to burst.

"Ok, fine. I'm cooking because, let's face it Jackson, you're a crappy cook. I've got to get back to work, but I'll see you at seven."

Jackson smiled as she walked off, satisfied that she'd agreed. The feeling in his chest continued to grow, and maybe that was a bad thing, but for now he let himself feel what it was like to have April back on his side.

A few days before Bailey's wedding, Jackson noticed something unusual out of the corner of his eye.

He was going about his business, making Edwards and her friend with the square shaped face do his charting for him, when he overheard a conversation on the other side of the nurses station.

"You did a fantastic job, Doctor Kepner. I mean, really great. I'm learning so much from you, you're a really great teacher."

Ross, the weepy intern, was brown-nosing April. Not only brown-nosing, but he was being flirtatious about it. Jackson felt his gut clench and his hands ball into fists. Shane was using April to get ahead, he had to be.

"Thank you, Ross. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask me."

Jackson felt a little lighter knowing April wasn't flirting back, had no interest in Shane and whatever it was he had to be up to, but he didn't like Shane flirting in the first place.

Deep down, Jackson knew he didn't have any right at all to be feeling whatever it was he was feeling. He was the one who broke it off with her, and he was the one that said he wanted to go back to just being friends with her.

He didn't have a right to feel possessive, or jealous, or to be imagining going up to the intern and punching him square in the jaw, because he had never been April's boyfriend. That was his fault, he'd pushed her away instead of just telling her how he felt, and now Ross was flirting with her.

Even if she wasn't flirting back now, Jackson knew there was going to be a time where April would flirt back with someone, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He was the one that decided he wanted to be friends with April again, and so far it had been going well. They'd been talking more, hanging out after work, even texting a little bit. It almost felt like they were back to the way they used to be, except there was always something a little off. On the surface, everything was great, but if he dug deeper it felt like there was always an elephant in the room whenever they spoke, and this metaphorical elephant was preventing everything from truly being okay again. If he dug even deeper, into what this elephant really was, he knew there were still feelings for her that he was trying desperately to suppress. She didn't, she couldn't, feel the same way so he just made sure they were buried as deep as possible whenever they were in the same proximity.

Ross walked away, and Jackson saw April smile to herself. The smile told him she was proud of herself, and that made Jackson smile to himself in return; partly because her smile was infectious, partly because proud meant she wasn't aware of the flirting that was going on from Shane.

"Hey Jackson, what's up?" Shane finally walked away, and Jackson was relieved. He reminded himself, once again, that he had no right whatsoever to feel possessive.

"Hey April. Just making the interns do all the hard work. Are you going to Bailey's wedding?" He hadn't meant to ask her that, because a wedding was sure to bring out the romantic in both of them, and it sounded awfully like he was going to ask her on a date. Asking her on a date would be a very bad idea, because a date with April would only lead to one thing, and then they'd be back to square one.

"No, no I don't think I'll be going." She sounded as if she had picked up on the date thing too, for which he was glad, "Are you?"

"Maybe. I might go stag with Karev. I'm not sure."

"Oh, good for you."

He noted that the elephant was back, which is exactly where he didn't want it to be. The freaking elephant needed to go back to the zoo.

"Well, I have interns to check on. See you." April said after a few silent moments. Before he could say anything back, she walked away.

Jackson felt his stomach sink a little. Not everything was okay with them, and he wasn't sure if it ever would be again. Not only that, but he'd almost asked her on a date. He wanted to go on a date with her, which meant his feelings were no closer to leaving him be.

He sighed, and went to check on his interns and their charting. Anything to distract him from the elephant in the room.

Going on a date with Stephanie Edwards was not as bad as he'd originally expected it to be.

When April told him that she was going to the wedding and suggested they take dates, he felt the kind of disappointment that he experienced every time April freaked out after sex. He wanted to be asked by her, he wanted her to feel something back, and he wanted another chance. He wasn't going to take that step, but for a split second he thought that she was. If she made the first move then everything would be okay.

But she suggested they go with other people, and she handpicked Stephanie Edwards and in return he picked Shane. Shane would be nice to April, even if Jackson was suspicious of his intentions (he reminded himself that he didn't have any right to be, and there wasn't any reason for him to be). And then he saw April in her dress, and he realized that taking other people was definitely the best option. They had their friendship back, even if it wasn't quite the same as it used to be. He wasn't going to go back to square one just for the quickie in the coat closet that would inevitably happen if they went together.

So he got ready with his friends, tried his best not to look at April, and he tried to make himself excited. He had to be excited; if he let himself be anything else he had a feeling he might let himself get out of control. This wedding wasn't about him and April, anyway, it was about Bailey and Ben. He was going for them, and he was going to take Stephanie.

It wasn't hard to be excited when he actually saw Stephanie, and she looked good. Really good. Amazing. He was going to enjoy himself with Stephanie. He was not going to think about anyone else. He wasn't even going to comment on Karev and whatever was going on with him and Wilson.

And then Bailey didn't even show up to her own wedding, and Ben and the rest of the wedding party went to go and see what had become of her. That left all of the other wedding guests to stand around the chapel and talk while they sipped on the flask Karev bought. Jackson had only talked to Stephanie for most of the night, as Karev and Wilson were busy dealing with their fight or whatever it was they were having. Jackson liked Stephanie's company, he found; she was easy to talk to, laid back, and she made Jackson laugh the way April used to before they got themselves in deeper than either of them could handle. Not that he was thinking about April. At all.

"Hey, Stephanie, do you want to come back to my car?" He said when he had one sip too many. He was trying not to think about April, and he just wanted someone to want him; someone who wouldn't regret it afterwards, someone who wouldn't panic and run, someone who would make it easy. It was pretty clear that Stephanie could be that person; she obviously liked him, and he liked her well enough too.

Jackson caught April's eye, but after a quick smile she went back to drinking her champagne and talking to Shane. It was a sad smile, he noticed, but then maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Maybe he was seeing a sad smile because that was what he wanted to see.

"Jackson, are you coming?" Stephanie asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." He replied, grabbing Stephanie's hand.

As they left the chapel, hand in hand, he didn't let himself look back.