Fic - Stalemate (Lexie, Mark/Lexie) pg, 1/1
Title: Stalemate
Summary: She shifts her weight from left to right, bottom lip between her teeth for a moment as she remembers.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 502 words. For lizzy29 who requested Mark/Lexie. This is... not as happy as I would have liked, so you'll have to take an IOU for the fluff. Set in season six. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
She shifts her weight from left to right, bottom lip between her teeth for one thousand, two thousand as she remembers.
There is a memory, stuck somewhere in the before. Before George. Before Sloan. Before the botched proposal of cohabitation that turned everything she loved about them upside down. It’s hazy, barely there, really, buried somewhere in the back of her heart and mind with everything else she has filed and compartmentalized away under the label of Mark and do not venture down this road again.
Still, though, she looks back on it sometimes. Usually in moments akin to these when he is near but still so unbelievably far away.
It’s him and her, this memory. Some lazy Sunday morning that stretched the full length of the day and then some. His voice in her ear, lips on her neck. I love you. You know that, right?
And there was something kind of lovely about the way he smiled then, unashamed with his want and need and sheer vulnerability in that moment.
Lexie remembers leaning in, a gentle brush of her lips against his. A smile in lieu of all the things she felt, but wasn’t quite ready to say and he being perfectly okay with that. She remembers, with distinct clarity, the way the left corner of his mouth shifted upwards, his statement of acceptance.
She swallows and fights the memory and it is, still, the hardest part of all this. To have him near but not with her. To remember these things about him, about them that she wishes so badly to forget because experience has taught her that forgetting makes the scars a little easier to carry. She fights the memory and there is an ache inside of her chest, sharp and blinding and she tastes all the things she could never say on the tip of her tongue, feels him behind her and her fingers twitch to hold his and something gets caught in the back of her throat.
“Lexie,” he starts, and her eyes close as his voice seeps deep into her bones and she hears him move towards her. She shifts her weight again - left foot, right foot.
“Don’t,” she says, but doesn’t fully mean it. “Don’t. I just…” there’s a sigh, deep and lengthy as she trails off with a shake of her head, bottom lip characteristically between her teeth, and her shoulders sag with relief when she hears him retreat backwards.
I just can’t she thinks, but does not say.
It is still too hard, the ache in her chest still too great and her fingers are twitching again and if he pushed - just a little bit, just a fraction of an inch too hard - she knows that she might just give in. She’s just not ready yet; he hurt her, too, and it’s something he may not fully realize but she carries with her every day.
The elevator dings, breaking the silence as the doors slide open.
Lexie steps off without looking back.
Summary: She shifts her weight from left to right, bottom lip between her teeth for a moment as she remembers.
Rating: pg
Author's Notes: 502 words. For lizzy29 who requested Mark/Lexie. This is... not as happy as I would have liked, so you'll have to take an IOU for the fluff. Set in season six. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not.
She shifts her weight from left to right, bottom lip between her teeth for one thousand, two thousand as she remembers.
There is a memory, stuck somewhere in the before. Before George. Before Sloan. Before the botched proposal of cohabitation that turned everything she loved about them upside down. It’s hazy, barely there, really, buried somewhere in the back of her heart and mind with everything else she has filed and compartmentalized away under the label of Mark and do not venture down this road again.
Still, though, she looks back on it sometimes. Usually in moments akin to these when he is near but still so unbelievably far away.
It’s him and her, this memory. Some lazy Sunday morning that stretched the full length of the day and then some. His voice in her ear, lips on her neck. I love you. You know that, right?
And there was something kind of lovely about the way he smiled then, unashamed with his want and need and sheer vulnerability in that moment.
Lexie remembers leaning in, a gentle brush of her lips against his. A smile in lieu of all the things she felt, but wasn’t quite ready to say and he being perfectly okay with that. She remembers, with distinct clarity, the way the left corner of his mouth shifted upwards, his statement of acceptance.
She swallows and fights the memory and it is, still, the hardest part of all this. To have him near but not with her. To remember these things about him, about them that she wishes so badly to forget because experience has taught her that forgetting makes the scars a little easier to carry. She fights the memory and there is an ache inside of her chest, sharp and blinding and she tastes all the things she could never say on the tip of her tongue, feels him behind her and her fingers twitch to hold his and something gets caught in the back of her throat.
“Lexie,” he starts, and her eyes close as his voice seeps deep into her bones and she hears him move towards her. She shifts her weight again - left foot, right foot.
“Don’t,” she says, but doesn’t fully mean it. “Don’t. I just…” there’s a sigh, deep and lengthy as she trails off with a shake of her head, bottom lip characteristically between her teeth, and her shoulders sag with relief when she hears him retreat backwards.
I just can’t she thinks, but does not say.
It is still too hard, the ache in her chest still too great and her fingers are twitching again and if he pushed - just a little bit, just a fraction of an inch too hard - she knows that she might just give in. She’s just not ready yet; he hurt her, too, and it’s something he may not fully realize but she carries with her every day.
The elevator dings, breaking the silence as the doors slide open.
Lexie steps off without looking back.