DINNER & DIATRIBES. . . JACKSON AVERY!

chapter forty-two: one step too far

Cristina becomes paranoid after that.

Briar can't exactly blame her–if she thought she was being cheated on, she would likely be just as worried as Cristina is. She asks her every day if Briar saw anything, and Briar gives her a detailed report every time, even though she never finds any evidence of Owen cheating. They have a lot of traumas over the next week, and Owen is consistently sleeping in the hospital in between them.

Privately, Briar thinks that the man is avoiding going home, because he could go and get paged back like the rest of them do.

All of this to say, Briar isn't the slightest bit surprised when Cristina texts her while she's with Jackson in an on-call room.

"Wait, one sec." Briar tells him, leaning over to try and get access to her phone from the side table, much to his dismay.

"Are you seriously checking your phone right now?" He questions. Briar nods, making a triumphant noise when she gets her hand around the case, pulling it to her and opening Cristina's text.

Anything?

Briar starts typing no, we had a bus cra before yelping when the phone is pulled out of her hands and tossed onto the bed behind them. Jackson gives her a smug smile, reminding her that she isn't by herself, and she gives him a guilty look back.

"My bad?" She tries, giggling when he shakes his head at her before rolling her to be on top of him. "Sorry, sorry, it's just Cristina and–"

"I really don't want to think about Hunt and Yang right now." Jackson tells her pointedly, and she nods quickly, trying to push it out of her mind.

"You know what? Me neither." She breathes out, leaning down to kiss him again, smiling into it when his hands start exploring. Just as they're getting back where they left off, the door opens, and Briar shrieks again while Jackson quickly flips them so that she's mostly covered. He pulls the blanket over them, and she clutches it to her chest, her heart racing.

If it's Bailey or Richard, I'm jumping off a cliff, Briar thinks to herself, slowly turning to look at the doorway. The relief of seeing Cristina there nearly makes her lightheaded.

"Oh, thank fuck." She breathes, shaking her head. "Cris? You okay?"

Cristina doesn't say anything, backing out of the room, and she hears the door across the hall get opened.

"Cristina, come shut the damn door!" Briar shouts, and Cristina does just that before continuing down the hallway, likely searching for Owen, who once again didn't go home the night before.

"Nice save." She tells Jackson, gesturing to the blanket, and he just smiles at her before looking over his shoulder.

"Is she okay? She seems . . . off." He says slowly, sounding worried, and she just sighs.

"Her and Owen are having marital troubles." She says as clinically as possible, not wanting to betray Cristina by discussing her worries with anyone else. "Anyway, this is why I didn't want to be having sex in the damn hospital!"

Jackson smirks at her, one of his hands drifting down and making her breath catch. "I really don't hear you complaining."

"Fuck you." She breathes, even as she pulls him closer.

She doesn't complain again after that.

✦

"Okay, let's go over the game plan again." Jackson tells Mark, following him into the skills lab. "If we see my mother. . ."

"We're buried with work today." Mark fills in with a monotonous tone, heading straight for the microscope they came in for.

"And . . . you're sorry, but Jackson has no time to spend with her, okay?" Jackson continues, wanting to make sure that Mark truly understands how important this is. While things went moderately well the last time his mother visited the hospital, Jackson doesn't want her trying to poke around in his life again. Thankfully, she seems to really like Briar, so at least he doesn't have to worry about her trying to set him up anymore.