Leave What Was Found

43: Better Days

Avery and Julian went to his house for spring break. All their friends were going to New York, but Avery felt no desire to. All she wanted to do was relax after a chaotic month. She assured Julian that he was free to go to New York with their friends but he reassured her that all he wanted to do was spend the break with her.

Initially though, Avery felt bad about bothering Julian's family by tagging along on a holiday again. She already felt rather guilty about all the time they had spent with her in the hospital when it was her own fault for trusting Grace in the first place.

Someone had clearly clued in Meredith, probably Julian, about what Avery had discovered about her mom and how she felt because Meredith had called Avery and told her how much she absolutely adored her and that she would absolutely love to have her over.

So, the two of them were on their way. Avery was happy to get away from Hartfield, she needed to get away. The only thing she still felt sour about was Uncle Mark. She offered to spend the break with him, but he said he had some things to do. He promised her that he would find something fun to do as well but she still felt bad. Clearly he was still dealing with some things and their relationship was far from healed. Avery hoped they would get along again soon though.

"Mickey has been asking to go to the aquarium," Julian informed her as he drove.

Avery looked up at him from her notebook. Even though she had gotten more comfortable in cars since the accident, she couldn't get herself to look outside the car too much, instead she was calculating the exact speed and distance they should be at to break in time if the car in front came to an immediate stop. So far she had concluded they needed to be at least three seconds apart.

"Sounds like a plan to me," she replied.

She snuck a little glance at the road and counted to three.

"Too close," she murmured. "You need to be three seconds behind the car in front in order to react and stop in time if they suddenly stop."

Julian gave her a funny look but she pointed to her calculations and he slowed down. She counted again and pleased that there were now three seconds between the cars she relaxed into her seat and looked away again.

"You know we could spend part of the break getting you to drive again," he offered gently.

Avery shook her head at once. "I'm never driving again," she muttered.

"Okay," he said slowly. "But just explain to me what the difference is between you sitting in the passenger seat with me and you driving yourself."

"Easy, I trust you," she said. "Only you, by the way, I tried to get in the car with Chelsey when she took Nikki shopping the other day but I couldn't. I don't even trust myself, and then there's everyone else on the road." Avery shuddered at the thought.

"I understand not trusting others, but you don't trust yourself?" Julian asked.

Avery sighed. "I don't seem to always have sound judgment, my past choices are pretty indicative of that."

Julian gave her a sympathetic look. "Hey, you haven't always made bad choices, dating me was a good one, right?"

Avery smiled. "Yeah, that is one thing I got right."

He held her hand as he drove the rest of the way there and Avery slowly began to stop calculating more ways to prevent future car accidents.

When they arrived, Mickey practically ran out the door to meet them.

"Avery!" he shouted, running up to her.

She bent down and he ran into her arms.

"Hi Mickey," she replied.