Fic - The Battle's Almost Won (Mark/Lexie) 3/3

[abvj]

[ t h r e e ]

Lexie wakes first, eyes blinking awake to darkness as she adjusts to her unfamiliar surroundings and remembers. Mark’s body is warm and solid beside her - this is what she notices first. Lexie feels the heat, the warmth, hears the depth and evenness of every breath. As her eyesight adjusts, she watches the rise and fall of his chest, twists her body to rest fully on her side, the weight of her head resting atop her palm as she props herself up on her elbow. She watches him from afar for a long while, traces the dips and curves of his outline, the point of his nose, the angle of his jaw, the hair at his temples that he has finally allowed to turn gray.

It strikes her then, as she counts his breaths and evens her own to match, that while he is still mostly the same person, still Mark in all the ways it matters, there have been changes. They are small, insignificant when placed on their own, but when combined they make all the difference. The Mark of here and now is kinder, gentler. He is not afraid of who he is; he is the man he has always wanted to be - strong, secure, successful - and wears his age like a badge of honor, not a handicap, not something to endure. It makes him all the more attractive to Lexie, and her mouth curls slightly, her mind wandering, a traitor of sorts as she plays the torturous game of what if.

What if she hadn’t left? What if she had stayed? What if she had tried harder? What if she hadn’t been so damn selfish?

Would it have mattered, or were they always destined to be greater separately than they were together?

It is a question she asked herself endlessly in those days and months following Seattle. But she has long since taught herself it simply didn’t matter because playing such games never amounted to anything but anguish. They never led to any real, concrete answers. Her chest constricts tightly, and she remembers just why she stopped allowing herself to think of such foolish things - it simply hurt too much.

Still asleep, Mark reaches for her, his arm sliding across the mattress before colliding with her body, his fingers curling into her skin softly before his palm smoothes against the mattress, the tips of his fingers providing the only physical connection between the two

Her throat constricts tightly. She doesn’t allow herself to think about why.

Suddenly it is all too suffocating, the four walls of his hotel room too restrictive. Lexie swallows frantically around the lump in the back of her throat, tastes bile and the salt of her tears and holds herself together just long enough to slide off of the bed without it creaking in protest. She gathers her clothes, sliding them on one by one as she finds them. Her fingers shake as they fumble with the zipper and button her jeans, her thighs aching as she bends to search under the chair for her shoes.

She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t dare spare him a glance.

Lexie is hovering near the door, one hand supporting her weight against the side table as the other slides on her shoe when his voice stops her.

“You should stay,” he says, voice thick with sleep. “It’s late.” Mark shifts, the springs of the mattress shifting under his weight.

“I have that, uh, presentation tomorrow,” she reminds him quietly. Reaching a hand to hear ears, she checks to make sure she still has both of her earrings, pats the pocket of coat for the outline of her keys. “I need to review, I haven’t really… I’ve been neglecting it, and it’s important, and it’s just not a good time for me,” she tells him. Which is the truth. Mostly.

Her words are met with silence. Still, Lexie doesn’t look at him, but then he murmurs a soft okay and she realizes she doesn’t have to - she can see the look of confusion, the disappointment etched across his face without ever glancing in his direction.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says quietly, and the door clicks shut behind her before she can catch his reply.

At the elevator, Lexie shifts her weight from heel to toe and back again, her thumb angrily jabbing at the call button once, twice, three times before curling her fingers into fists at her sides. Lexie’s sigh is shaky at best when the doors finally slide open and she half expects Mark to come after her. Moving her arms to cross over her chest, her eyes stay trained on the sight of his door in the distance. Lexie isn’t quite sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when the doors announce their closing with a soft ding and Mark is nowhere in sight. It is a purely selfish thought - wanting him to chase after her even though she left - and she only allows herself to ruminate on it for a brief moment before she goes back to listing all the reasons this can never work. Not now. Not again.

In the lobby, she keeps her head down, only offering a small smile to the doorman when he slides the door open for her and offers a hello that is jovial despite the hour. The chill in the air nips at her skin, and she pulls her jacket tighter around her shoulders, doesn’t even think twice about heading in the direction of the hospital instead of home.

The hospital, the OR have always been the places that feel more like home that her apartment, than the house she spent her childhood in and housed the memories - both the good and the bad - she carries with her of her mother, of the family they once were. The hospital usually meant patients, charting, research and other things which easily translate into occupied hands and mind, which is something she has always desperately needed when Mark Sloan is involved.

It is also where Becca is, and despite the conversation Lexie had with her earlier, the one where she pointedly said this is none of your business, Lexie was in desperate need of making sense of the absolute mess inside of her head and no one was better at that than Becca. Lexie spots her by the nurse’s station; her nose is buried in a chart, and Lexie practically drags her in the direction of the on call room without so much of a hello. The words rush out of her mouth in a rush, the whole story of the past two days barely decipherable, the consonants and vowels of her words tangling around each other because Lexie barely stops to breathe.

When she is finished talking, Becca merely looks at her for a beat, her eyebrows knitted in confusion before she shakes her head and asks, “What?”

Lexie groans in frustration. “Weren’t you paying attention?” she whines, falling back into a chair with a huff. The heels of her hands rub at corners of her eyes. “The guy from last night? It was Mark. And tonight? I slept with him.”

Becca’s eyes go wide. “Mark? Mark Sloan? The Mark Sloan? The guy you had to move three thousand miles away from just to get over?”

“That’s the one.” Lexie hangs her head in shame.

“Wow.”

“I know, right?” Lexie laughs, the sound borderline manic, and runs a hand anxiously through her hair.

“Why is he here? In Boston? More importantly, why didn’t you tell me this morning when I flat out asked you?” Becca sits on the edge of the bed, and does this thing with her tone of voice where it is hard to discern whether or not she is serious or joking.

Lexie hates it, mostly because she isn’t a very good judge, so she plays the offensive out of habit. “Because, okay? I don’t know… I just… this is so not why I am here, Becca,” she snaps.

“Why are you here then?”

“For you to tell me what to do,” Lexie tells her, like it is the most obvious thing in the world.

“What do you want to do?”

With a glare Lexie rolls her eyes. “Don’t handle me, Bex. Don’t. I’m not a patient, I’m your friend, and I really, really just want you to tell me what to do right now.”

Becca clicks her tongue and considers Lexie for a long moment, hand moving to her mouth as she chews on the edge of her thumbnail. They have known each other long enough and well enough for Lexie to realize Becca is trying to find the fine line between what Lexie wants to hear and what Lexie needs to hear.

“Let it go,” is what Becca finally settles on. Lexie’s eyebrows rise in response. “It’s an itch. You’ve scratched it. It’s over. It’s been over, right?” She pauses, looks pointedly at Lexie who just nods weakly. “Nobody can blame you for getting caught up in things, but you can’t turn this into something it’s not because at the end of the day he is going back to Seattle and you are staying here.”

The truth is harder to hear than she thought. It weighs heavily on her shoulders, presses into her skin. It is hard to hear aloud, but Lexie knows she needed to hear it. Hearing it makes it real, more concrete. Hearing the truth aloud brings to light just how intangible the whole idea of she and Mark truly is. Lexie knows now the reason she didn’t tell Becca about Mark this morning when she had the opportunity was because admitting it aloud somehow made it all the more real, and Lexie quite liked the fantasy of it all. Even if the fantasy was never meant to last.

“You’re right,” she murmurs, the words tangling around a weighted sigh, but she doesn’t quite believe it.

She sleeps in fits, with her body curled around a pillow and her head buried under the covers. For the most part, sleep evades her, and when it does find her it is fleeting, the smallest sound managing to jerk her awake. After the fourth siren in less than two hours pulls her back into consciousness, her eyes blink to adjust to the darkness and settle on the red florescent numbers of her alarm clock. She rises before the sun, showers, drinks a cup or two of coffee, and pulls out her notes. Tries to focus on reviewing the highlights of her research, organizing her thoughts so the presentation she has to give in eight hours goes seamlessly. The exercise in distraction fails, and she ends up worrying more about what will happen when she sees Mark again than her presentation. About what she is going to say to him, how she is going to act around him in the aftermath of last night.

Mostly, she thinks about how she can still taste him, can still feel him, and how hard it is going to be to say goodbye again.

Lexie misses him already, but tries not to think about that at all. Tries not to think about how she doesn’t have a right to miss him, not now, not ever. Instead, she makes bulleted lists of important points she needs to make sure she hits during her presentation; she drinks coffee and nibbles on a mostly stale bagel to calm her stomach, and starts making a grocery list and a to-do list that starts with going to the grocery store just to calm her nerves.

All of it fails to occupy her cluttered mind, and as she puts on her nicest suit and picks a pair of sensible heels, she allows herself to remember Becca’s advice and tries to let it go. Because that is the smart move, that is the only move available to her in this situation. Lexie knows this. She does. Lexie is acutely aware that despite whatever happened last night, despite whatever feelings may have been born anew because of their lapse in judgment, her and Mark couldn’t work. Not now. Not with him in Seattle and her in Boston. Furthermore, she reminds herself constantly of all the reasons she had left Seattle in the first place: she had wanted her career, to forge her own path completely separately from any outside influences. She wasn’t ready to settle down, to commit to a relationship. Not then, not when there were so many possibilities for the future.

Those reasons were still valid, she tells herself, even if deep down she knows the truth.

Normally, she would have stopped by the hospital to check in with her residents before heading to the conference, but despite spending most of the early morning doing nothing of significance, she is running late so she just stops for coffee instead. Lexie buys two cups - one for her and one for Mark. It is her lame excuse of a peace offering, too much foolish hope placed in the gourmet blend with a slight amount of cream and sugar (just the way he likes it, if she remembers correctly and she knows she does) to say all the things she doesn’t know how to articulate into words. Lexie positions herself so she can easily watch the door, eyes scanning the faces of the people coming and going, her fingers tight around her coffee while Mark’s sits on the vacant seat next to her, saving it for him. She is fully aware of just how obnoxious she is being by constantly muttering this seat is taken before people even had the chance to ask, but it is, and the anxiety over his impending arrival hummed under her skin and nipped at raw nerves.

That anxiety quickly turned into worry and then eventually remorse when ten minutes into the first presentation Mark is nowhere in sight and she is forced to give away his seat to the older gentleman who is eyeing the vacant seat next to her with a rather intimidating amount of intensity. She slides her now empty cup and the full one intended for Mark under chair and tries not to think about just how badly she’s screwed this up, how his absence is more than likely her fault. She allowed things to go too far and took the cowards way out instead of dealing with the repercussions of her actions. She would call him or text him, but then she realizes they never exchanged numbers. It’s possible his is still the same despite all the years even though hers has changed at least four times since then, but she deleted it not long after she left Seattle, when she realized it is hard to call somebody just to make a fool of yourself if you didn’t have their number preprogrammed into your phone.

So, instead she tries to listen to the presentation, but also gives avid attention to the opening and closing of the door, her head turning at the sound of every creek as she looks for him in the face of every sheepish person making a late entrance.

Mark never shows.

(After she left Seattle, Lexie had absolutely no intention of going into plastics. She came to associate plastics with Mark, with a time in her life she always knew could never last. She dabbled in other things -pediatrics, trauma, obstetrics - but neuro, she quickly found, was what she had the most passion for.

Lexie had always been smarter than most. She was a quick learner with skilled and steady hands, a photographic memory that categorized and filed everything away. When she was just a wide-eyed, impressionable medical student trying to make her way, teachers would say, Lexie, you are going places. You could do anything you want, so choose wisely. It was those affirmations from mere strangers - the ones that echoed her mother's constant murmurings and reminded her of the words she yearned to hear her father say - which drove her to succeed. They forced her not to take the easy way out of anything because they instilled in her one, vital truth: she could do anything.

Of course, that is where her original fascination with neuro began. Lexie was good at everything. She excelled at all aspects of being a doctor and in all the specialty areas she had to choose from, but neuro was the only field that confounded her at times. The complexities of the brain were not easily compartmentalized and understood no matter how much she read and how much she practiced. Her skill in neurosurgery took time and effort and it was the first instance in Lexie's life where she had to work towards being great at something.

In her post-Seattle haze, Lexie rose to the occasion. She worked harder than anyone. She was determined to be better, to be great. In the back of her head, though, she always knew, really, that her fascination stemmed from something completely separate from her drive to be the best. Deep down, in a place she had tried so hard to bury, Lexie knew it had everything to do with Mark. She knew it had everything to do with trying to separate herself from all the things she associated with him in an effort to move on and simply survive. By the time her residency was drawing to a close, Lexie was completely immersed in the world of neuro - she was a protégé of a surgeon who possessed skills that could rival Derek Shepherd's and had the prestigious Rawlings Fellowship basically sewn up.

But Becca talked her into going on a six-week trip to the Congo that Kessler was sponsoring. Lexie went because the path from A to B had been mapped out and defined in stone and she couldn't help but think why not?

Two things happened during those six weeks in the Congo. The first of which was Becca decided plastics was in no way, shape or form for her. The second was Lexie figuring out that it was exactly where she was meant to be - right in the middle of repairing cleft lips and palates and performing facial reconstructions. Lexie stayed weeks longer than she originally intended, built she also built a relationship with Kessler, allowed his unrivaled amount of knowledge to be passed on to her.

When she returned to Boston, she was inspired. She turned down the fellowship she had worked so hard to obtain and applied for one directly under Dr. Kessler with absolutely no idea as to whether or not it was even obtainable.

Of course, as soon as she turned down the fellowship she wished she could take it back. She hadn't applied anywhere else because she hadn't needed to. It was always going to be Neuro and Mass Gen, but after she met with the neuro department and told them she was politely declining their invitation, she threw up her breakfast as soon as she found safe haven in the nearest restroom because in doing so she may have just ruined her entire future and without a plan B, C, or even D. It was a risk, but she believed it was the right thing to do.

Kessler told her the fellowship was hers during surgery, a whole two days after the committee had told the applicants they would know the final answer either way. Lexie's nimble and skilled fingers were artfully repairing a cleft palate with the need of little instruction and the words fell between them conversationally, sounding more as if he were asking for a kelly clamp than altering her entire world. Lexie didn't have time to process, to react before he segued into quizzing her on technique and offering subtle critique.

Becca and Jamie took her out after, supplied her with copious amounts of beer and liquor. But her first thought, her immediate reaction once the information had settled and seeped into her consciousness was of Mark. Of how she wanted to call him to murmur thank you quietly over the line for introducing her to a world that would eventually change the very core of hers.

She didn't, of course, but she always knew it said entirely way too much about who he would always be to her.)

When she left Seattle, it wasn’t just Mark she was leaving. She was leaving her family - her father and Meredith, Molly. While she knew leaving meant the end of her and Mark, and she found solace in the fact that her relationship with her father was always better from afar, there was no way to tell what it would do to her relationship with Meredith. Lexie was all too surprised to find out that with a continent between them, Meredith and she could finally have the sort of relationship Lexie had always wanted - supportive, friendly, sisterly. So when Meredith and Derek moved to Boston to pursue careers at Brigham’s and Harvard respectively, the foundation had already been cultivated and strengthened, and now Lexie and Meredith have developed routines out of coffee dates and Sunday night dinners when their careers weren’t too busy getting in the way.

They are finally friends, sisters in the true sense of the word. Their father will never permanently leave Boston, likes to revel in his failures more than is healthy, but Lexie and Meredith build their own family, their own life completely separate from the pasts they’ve tried so hard to outrun, and welcome him into it when he visits for holidays.

Meredith isn’t her first phone call, her first line of defense in matters of her heart (because Lexie knows better than to take advice on how to have a successful relationship from somebody whose marriage started with a post-it and relationship with an affair), but she is usually Lexie’s second, right behind Becca and Jamie. So as soon as the conference breaks for lunch, Lexie has her phone pulled out and Meredith’s number dialed before she is even out the door.

“This is a really bad time, Lex, can I call you back?” Meredith asks in lieu of a hello, and Lexie takes one look at the coffee cup meant for Mark before tossing in the trash with a little more force than necessary, and ignores Meredith’s plea as she finagles her way through the busy street and heads in the direction of the nearest sandwich shop.

“I slept with Mark,” Lexie segues and there is a sharp inhale, the sound of movement, and Lexie knows Meredith is moving to some place that isn’t within an earshot of Derek. “And how could you not tell me he was going to be in town? I talked to you Sunday afternoon and Sunday night, and you never once mentioned it.”

The sound of their front porch door whining open and closing swiftly thereafter echoes in the background. Meredith laughs. “It must have slipped my mind.”

“Or you were planning this.”

“Planning what? For you to sleep with him? I think you are underestimating the amount of spare time I have on my hands.”

“Whatever, okay. That isn’t important. What is important is that we slept together last night, and today he is nowhere to be found and I had this whole speech planned in my head for when I saw him this morning, about how this could never work, but he isn’t here and now I feel really shitty about fleeing in the middle of the night -”

“You left in the middle of the night?” Meredith snorts something unladylike. “That’s incredibly mature, Lexie.”

“Meredith,” Lexie snaps, and if a solid surface were available, her fist would have rapped against it to drive her point home. “Pay attention. That is not what is important here. Focus.”

“Look, Mark is probably just…” Meredith starts, and then stops, and Lexie knows her well enough to realize she is privy to something Lexie isn’t and she is not willing to share. “Look, it is obvious to anyone who knows the both of you that you still love him -”

“I do not -”

“Please.” Meredith draws out the word and Lexie knows she is rolling her eyes. “You do. It’s why you date stupid residents and have relationships that never make it past the third date. And I would bet my last dollar that he feels the same -”

“You don’t know that -“”

“I do happen to have an inside source,” Meredith says, and Lexie’s brain starts going into overload, but before she can start to grill Meredith on just what exactly Derek may have said or not said, Meredith sighs heavily and presses on. “Look, I can’t tell you want to do here. You need to think about what you want to do. Not what makes sense. Not what is practical. But what it is that you want?”

Lexie stops walking when she comes to a crosswalk, presses the button once, twice, three times while she considers. She thinks about all the reasons she left Seattle - her career, her independence, her fear - and how they stopped being applicable years ago. She thinks about Meredith and Derek and how they are living and breathing proof that having a successful marriage doesn’t translate to an unsuccessful career.

“I want thereto not be three thousands miles between us,” Lexie says honestly.

Meredith’s sigh crackles over the line. Above her, the white man signals that it is okay to begin walking, so Lexie does and waits patiently for her sister’s guidance.

“Look, you need to talk to him. You need to be honest with him…and yourself.”

“How am I suppose to talk to him, exactly? I don’t have his number. I don’t have any way to contact him. I have no idea if I will even see him before he gets on a flight back to Seattle -”

“True, but if you weren’t still looking for an out, you would have asked me for his number.”

“Would you give it to me if I asked?” Lexie counters.

“Nope,” Meredith enunciates the words with a smack of her lips. “The conversation you two need to have should be done in person, not over the phone. And certainly not via text. You’re almost thirty. It’s time to stop playing games.”

“You do realize how ridiculous that sounds coming from you, don’t you?”

“Lexie.”

“Fine,” she grumbles, nodding her thanks to the guy holding the door open for her at her favorite sandwich place. She’s hit immediately with the smells of freshly brewed coffee, and has to remind herself that she is already too wired to contemplate ordering more. “I will talk to him. Although I don’t necessary know when, since I have no idea how to contact him.”

“You’re presentation is this afternoon, right? He’ll be there. Talk to him then.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I just do,” Meredith laughs, and before Lexie can reply her sister is saying goodbye and Lexie is left standing there contemplating whether or not she wants chicken salad or tuna salad for lunch and just what exactly she is going to say to Mark when she sees him again.

In the end, she chooses the tuna, and orders another coffee because she’s always been glutton for punishment.

Dr. Andrew Kessler is a freakishly tall, handsome man that likes to hide his intelligence behind unkempt hair and wrinkled clothes. He is nothing short of a genius and has revolutionized the arena of craniofacial surgery with new techniques and more modernized and simpler procedures. In the past two years, he has started to bestow his knowledge onto Lexie, taking it upon himself to mold her into the surgeon he thinks she should be - not only because of her skill, but also because of her association with him. He's brilliant, but also eccentric. He's on his fifth wife who is tall, beautiful, and younger than Lexie. He listens to the B-side of The Rolling Stone's Tattoo You during surgery, volume on full blast because he says it helps center him. He has a son that chose to study liberal arts instead of the sciences and broke his heart in the process. Lexie thinks that is why he took to her so keenly in the beginning - the disappointment with his son hit around the same time they traveled to the Congo and she would be lying if she said she didn't see him as more than a teacher, but rather a mentor and, on some occasions, even a friend.

Either way, Lexie knows it doesn't matter: she is where she is because she is good at what she does and anyone can see that.

Kessler could have made a fortune in the private cosmetic sector doing breast reconstructions and nose jobs, but instead chose to focus his talents on more meaningful work. That is what drew Lexie to him, what pushed her towards scrapping her plans and taking a chance without any pre-devised exit strategies or contingency plans.

Lexie is late coming back from their long lunch and Kessler is waiting for her outside the auditorium, bouncing his knee and tapping his fingers on his thigh.

"You're late," he says, not bothering to look up.

"I'm not late. I am exactly on time." Lexie is twisting the note cards scribbled with her reminders and talking points between her fingers and when he does look up, his attention is directed towards those and not her.

"Those for this?" She nods. "Toss 'em. You don't need them. You could do this lecture in your sleep."

It's a challenge she can see from a mile away, one he probably doesn't even realize he's making, but she takes just in case because Lexie doesn't like to fail at anything. So she merely smiles tightly and shoves the note cards into her purse with slightly unsteady hands. Kessler stands and motions for her to go first, and she does as he follows closely behind.

They're seated in the front way today, their chairs reserved so they have an easier time making their way to the stage when it is their turn to present. Lexie sits there the entire time and reviews talking points and statistics backwards and forwards until they easily roll off her tongue. When it is their turn to take the stage, her hands shake as she walks to the podium. Kessler mumbles something in her direction just before they're within ear shot of the microphone, something along the lines of just breathe, she thinks, but it doesn't matter. The sea of faces loom before her and her palms start to sweat as he begins to talk, the pivotal points and statistics escaping her too easily as she stares at her shoes and tries to remember them.

When she looks up, blinded by the lights of the projector, the first thing she sees is Mark.

He's in the back of the room, hovering in the doorway because he was late and there weren't enough seats - her presentation is, after all, the heart of the convention, the reason people traveled across the country and sat through three days of somewhat redundant research. He smiles and she counts the lines on his face from memory, remembers the night before, and allows that to center her, to pull her back to here and now.

"I didn't think you were going to make it," she says, reaching to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. It is a nervous habit she’s tried a million times to break.

This is later, hours after when she and Kessler are able to escape the onslaught of impromptu question and answer sessions. Mark stands next to her, still smiling, and Lexie's not sure but she thinks she detects a hint of pride there.

"I wouldn't have missed it," he says.

His fingers hover near the small of her back, guiding her through a crowd of people that have thankfully began to turn their attention elsewhere. Like clockwork, his touch causes something to coil deep within in her, a spark to settle at the base of her spine. She covers the involuntary shiver by glancing at her watch, looking for an escape route because even though she had planned a speech word for word, it’s hard to remember when he’s standing right next to her. Lexie is suppose to meet Kessler and his wife for a late, pseudo celebratory dinner later, but that is hours away.

They walk for a little bit with no direction, Mark's hands still at home near the small of her back. She needs space, some time, but doesn't know how to ask him for it. A very large part of her wants to simply throw all caution to the wind and spend one last night with him just so she can finally, finally allow it to rest. His flight leaves at nine AM tomorrow and after that the chances of her seeing him again are slim to none.

They walk and Lexie allows memories of last night flow back to her easily, misses him even though he's standing right next to her. She knows it was a mistake, can feel just how wrong it was deep in her bones because he's leaving and she's never going to see him again. After she says goodbye, again, she will have backtracked right to the same place she was five years ago: horribly and ridiculously in love with him but not allowed to have him.

"Lexie -" he starts, and she's not sure how it happens exactly, but the tiny piece of suturing that had been holding her together frays and unravels, leaving her completely undone. She stops right in the middle of the street, turns to face him, and starts talking, the words flowing out of her mouth and her at a complete loss as to how to stop the trainwreck from occurring.

"I left Seattle to be great, Mark. I left to be a great surgeon, to have a great life. The type of life I couldn't have there."

"I know -" He tries to cut her off, but once the words start flowing, Lexie doesn't know how to stop them, doesn’t bother to even try.

"And I have that now, you know? I have a great job. I am training under one of the most brilliant men of his generation and things are going really good for me and I thought that made it worth it. I thought being a great surgeon and having a great life outweighed everything else. And maybe it did. Maybe it does... I don't... I don't know, but then you show up here and you mess everything up and we have last night and it was so perfect and great - you know it was great, ok? - but it's also messing me up. It's just... making me want things again," Lexie stops and pauses to breathe, feels a little out of breath looks around and sees people starting to stare at them. The longer she talks the louder she becomes, and Mark is just standing there, almost dumbfounded, and that alone fuels her even more, pushes her to keep talking. "And that's why I left, Mark. I left because I wanted to be great, I deserved to be great, but also because you made me want for things that I didn't think I was allowed to have."

"Lexie -"

"And it's not fair wanting those things now. Because you're there and I'm here."

Her voice cracks along the edges, just a little, and he reaches for her on instinct, cupping his palm to her cheek. Lexie allows herself to lean in for just a mere moment, allows her eyes to close and her mind to memorize the feel of his touch for after he's gone before she shies away. She is a smart woman and when her guard is down, like it is now, she is fully able to admit what she couldn’t before, that the distance is the heart of the problem now.

She does not say: I thought I had figured out how to not miss you. I thought I had figured out how to not love you anymore, but then you showed up and proved me wrong.

"Lexie," he tries again patiently and she murmurs a defiant what as she reaches up to wipe at her eyes. When she looks at him, he's smiling. Mark looks older and grayer than she remembers, but Lexie doesn't care in the least. She counts the lines of his mouth, adores the way his smile reaches his eyes when it's real, when it's honest and not just for show and falls in love all over again despite her greatest efforts. It was always moments like these - the quiet, unassuming ones - that made it so incredibly hard not to love him. "Columbia offered me head of plastics. I'm taking it. They came up to meet with me this morning. I was going to tell you last night, but you..." he trails off, searching for the right word.

"Snuck off?"

His mouth quirks and her mind starts reeling, over thinking and overanalyzing, but as soon as she starts his voice cuts through he fog, his laughter soft as it falls between them. "It's been in the works for months before I even knew I'd see you again," he tells her because he's always known her better than she gives him credit for.

That manages to send her mind spiraling in a different direction, her mouth running ahead of her head as she rushes to say, "Columbia isn't that far. It's only, like, a fifty dollar three hour train ride…" she stops when he starts to laugh and she forces herself to take a deep breath and regroup.

"I had thought of that actually,” he says, almost guiltily, and it does so much to ease her nerves and stretch them too thin all at once. Mark has been back in her life for less than seventy-two hours and he's already turned it upside down. He has already made her want for all the things she had forced herself to believe she didn't want or need, made her feel things she had forgotten how to feel. Now, she is standing before him on, in the center of a crowded street, planning to work out the intricate details of a long distance relationship.

Lexie thinks about how she’s always loved him in some faraway type of way, how she just got better at burying it as the years went on. How she reconciled her leaving with the promise of greatness, but how things like her successful career and today, which should have been a cornerstone moment of her life, didn’t mean nearly as much as it should have because she didn’t have somebody to share it with. Lexie has always perceived that to be a weakness - the whole needing somebody else to make you feel whole thing. She always thought it had to be one or other, that she needed to choose which was more worthwhile: her professional life or her personal life.

It’s only now, as he’s standing in front of her and she can no longer outrun the truth, that she realizes she doesn’t have to choose. That she doesn’t want to choose. She is Lexie Grey. She is brilliant and on her way to becoming a world-class surgeon. She wants both, so she will have both.

Still, she is having trouble figuring which way is up, sort of feels like she's starting to drown on dry land, so she breathes again, counts to five backwards and forwards before speaking once more.

"Can we just, I don't know, start over? I feel like we're really bad at this. We always jump five steps ahead without realizing that those first five steps are pretty crucial in the long run. And if we do this, I want to do it right, Mark, because I can't... I can't go through all that again. So can we just..."

"Go grab a cup of coffee?" he offers and she breathes a sigh of relief and sees it on his face then - he wants this, he's in this, and he's willing to work with her and start over.

"I know this great place," she laughs and they share a smile.

After a short stretch of time, they start to walk again, side by side, his arm swinging near hers. There is an indecisive moment before she reaches for him, finds his hand already waiting, fingers interlacing and holding on. Despite all the words she just unloaded on him, she isn't quite sure how to tell him what she had worked so hard at forgetting: it was always him. It is always going to be him. Lexie wouldn't trade these past five years for anything because they molded her into the type of person who was finally comfortable in her own skin, who could be great both professionally and personally.

As Mark leans in close and presses a kiss to her temple, she thinks, maybe, he already knows.

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