After Everything That Happened. [Alex Karev + Jo Wilson ]

Chapter 12

"Karev?" Callie shouted, opening the door to the shared house.

"We brought you soup!" Sofia exclaimed, excitedly, heading over to the couch and turning on the TV.

"I'm not sick." He replied, peering his head around the arch way, from the kitchen.

"You are. You're sick of life, Alex, and we aren't here to make you better. Maybe just cheer you up." Arizona said, bouncing baby Michael on her hip.

"I'm fine." He groaned out.

"And you're not at the hospital, why?"

"I'm-"

"Ha! Don't even try it." Arizona put the soup on the counter, only to notice an empty and an open booze on the kitchen table. "You're drinking?" She already knew the answer.

"Yeah? What about it?"

"What about it? It's 11 AM Karev, you need time away from this house."

"When you were depressed you-"

"No, don't use me as an excuse. I lost a leg-" Arizona interrupted.

"I lost a child!" He snapped, alcohol lingering between the two's noses.

"Alex."

"No, guys just please go. I don't need company. It's just Eve and I today, I finally got Alexis to go to school. She was late, but I did it. I call that parenting."

"We aren't leaving." Callie said, sternly. "We aren't leaving until you sober up or Jo comes home."

"That's not for another 7 hours, guys."

"Then, I guess you're stuck with us."

"Hate you." He whispered, taking a swig from the bottle.

"Love you too!" The couple called out simultaneously as they exited the kitchen, tending to their mini brunette child.

Neither of the parents wanted to leave their friend when he was in this state of mind. He couldn't be trusted drinking, and if he was alone with Eve, it wouldn't be safe to leave the child in his drunk custody.

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(possible trigger warning)

"It's my fault. It's all my fault." April said, pacing back and forth in the waiting room. April may have been given privileges but even when the working doctors began working on their loved ones, they knew they could finish the jobs in surgery.

"I'm sure it's not-" Jo began.

"I slept with Jackson. That's what broke us up."

"Join the club." Jo whispered.

"What?" April snapped her head around, in the direction of Jo, who now regrets the last three words to leave her mouth. "You slept with Jackson?"

"Yeah, when Alex first left but it was only sex. Nothing else."

"But you have a child, I see her on your Instagram all the time- Oh, my God is it Jackson's?" April pondered.

"Oh, my God no! I was pregnant and didn't know. When I found out, I stopped sleeping with him!"

"Wait, so it's Alex's? What about Izzie and their children?"

"She, uh, died..." Jo paused. "And so did one of their kids."

"Oh woah. How is he?"

"Not good."

Jo's news to April shocked the nerves and anxiety about Matthew's surgery right out of her system, leaving her dumb founded about all she had missed in the last 4 years. Sure, she had kept track of everyone, but not everyone posts the day their child or the mother of his children dies, definitely not Alex Karev of all people.

"I can go talk to him, if you want. I understand." She said softly.

"Arizona and Callie are there now, so if you want to, you can."

"Wait, are they back together?"

"Oh, my God you really are behind, Kepner! Keep up, what were you doing these last 4 years?!" Jo exclaimed.

"Marrying men I can't stick with. Jackson always, somehow, springs back romantically in my life."

"Meant to be maybe?"

"God knows who's meant to be in the world, and even so I don't think he really knows."

April's words sat on Jo's mind for the rest of the day, toying with her mind. Who decides who actually gets to be together in the end? Was it a series of fate or just luck? Is 'meant to be' even real, and if not, why do Jo and Alex continue ending up together even after everything that's pulled them apart in the recent years.

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Jo's mind could barely focus as she entered the home, but the smell of booze, popcorn and baby food burning the inside of her nose got her out of her trance. She turned into the living room to find Callie, Sofia and Michael on one side of the L shaped couch, Alex, Eve and Alexis on the other, all 6 asleep, with distant sounds of 'The Greatest Showman' playing on the TV, and Arizona in the kitchen, cooking.

"Hey?" Jo whispered, stepping over Zola, Bailey and Ellis also in the living room, on the floor looking up at the TV.

"Hey!" Arizona said, looking up from the cookbook.

"How come you're still here?"

"Uh, Alex had been drinking, and it didn't seem sensible to leave him or Eve alone. We didn't want to call you because of April and Taylor. She came by earlier with Harriet, talked Alex out of drinking more than already had, and left about an hour ago." She explained. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Mer has to stay late tonight. Something to do with the COVID files from last year, they got mixed up and Bailey was scared about her mother's file getting lost. They sent me home after I helped for a while." She turned toward the snoring six, before looking back at the happy blonde. "You should have called. I would have left to get Eve."

"Even so, Alex couldn't have been left alone. Did you know he was drinking?"

She shook her head. But she lied.

She could smell the scent of booze on Alex's toothbrush every day, and when they lightly kissed, but that was only rare. She knew what he was doing, but she also knew how much shit she had put him through with her depression. The drinking came with hers, maybe it did for him too? Everyone's different however.

Alex was very different to her, yet so similar. Maybe that's what brought them together. Her crazy equals out his.

He didn't give up on her crazy, she's, in no way, giving up on his.