grey's anatomy fanfiction, mark - two important lessons and the finer applications of anatomy [7/12]

[recycledstars]

Flaws In Science
Author's Notes: My Mark and Addie are nerds but I love them for it because well, I made them that nerdy therefore I am a bigger nerd. That said, not sure if the details are correct; I did what I could. NC-17


It is four weeks after you meet her and her number is still taped beside the phone in the apartment you share with Derek. You have seen her in several classes since, and on occasion you offer her a greeting but you continually put off calling her. You told Derek to ask her out, but he’s still with Amy and so this evening you finally decided it would be polite to call her. She was horribly surprised when you did, and now you’ve somehow been invited to her place because she’s ‘studying right now’ (which is what her machine said before you smirked and started to leave a message and she picked up). While it’s not what you’d ordinarily suggest, you really don’t have it in you to argue, especially since she chided you for taking so long to call her. It was too complicated to explain why, so you just told her you’d see her in ten minutes and now you’re standing in front of her door, feeling stupid, and waiting for her to answer.

She smiles at you when she finally opens the door, allowing you to step through the doorway and into the small apartment.

“Hey,” she smiles, her hair falling around her face.

Your hand brushes against hers as you tuck it behind her ears automatically.

She looks a little embarrassed and twists the strands around her hands nervously.

“Hi,” you respond.

“Well I um,” she claps her hands together and leads you down the hallway, past her roommate’s bedroom, who is noticeably absent, “Was just going over some of my notes and I figured… since it’s Wednesday and all.”

“Microbiology and genetics early am,” you smirk at her and she shakes her head, “One day, one day I’m going to find out how you both managed to figure out my schedule without evening knowing my name.”

She pushes open the door to her room and ushers you inside, slapping your arm when you smile smugly and say, “Straight to the bedroom? You don’t waste any time.”

She is obviously in the middle of studying; her notes are spread around a central patch of cream carpet and her anatomy text is open on her desk. Other than this mess, the room is painfully tidy. Her bed is properly made, and aside from a framed photograph of her family on her desk and large collection of books, nothing personal disrupts the cleanliness.

“Should have known you’d be a neat freak,” you tease, sinking down on her bed.

She resumes her position in the middle of the wads of paper.

“Here,” she thrusts a pile of papers in your direction without responding, “The first lecture. I guess you’d better start there.”

“How judgemental of you,” you try to look wounded as you flop back against her pillows, “How do you know I’m not a model student?”

She rolls her eyes, “Who are you trying to fool? You couldn’t remember to call me for a month.”

“I’ve seen you since then,” you defend yourself, “What’s the point in calling when you can walk up and say hello?”

She smiles, “I told you that you’d forget.”

“I didn’t forget,” you insist.

“Oh really?” one eyebrow quirks above the tortoiseshell frames.

“I remembered,” you tell her, “I just… didn’t call you.”

“Well I’m sure to be less affronted by this honest admission as opposed to the idea that you just forgot,” she informs you sarcastically.

“I wasn’t sure you actually wanted me to call,” you shrug, “And then there’s the fact that you have a thing for Derek.”

“I do not have a thing for Derek,” but her ears turn pink so you don’t really believe her.

“Sure you don’t,” you roll your eyes.

“He’s got a girlfriend,” she counters defensively.

“But you like him,” you assert confidently, “It’s ok, while there is sometimes a direct correlation between his relationship status and his likeability, you haven’t known him long enough to notice the trend. The point is: you can like him; I won’t be offended.”

“How do you know,” she crawls over to the side of the bed on her knees and pokes you in the shoulder, “That I don’t like you?”

“That’s what Derek says to me,” you groan, “And like I tell him, I just know these things.”

She leans closer to your mouth and smiles, “Sure you do.”

You blink at her for several seconds and you both inhale and exhale slightly out of time, disturbing the carbon dioxide-oxygen equilibrium in your lungs. Henry’s Law, you think as your breathing quickens: the concentration of gas dissolved in a liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of the gas above the liquid. By increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the inhaled air you effectively increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood therefore you have to breathe faster to maintain the equilibrium situation. It has everything to do with biochemistry and nothing to do with her proximity.

She smiles even more widely and pulls backwards, resting her elbows on the edge of her bed and resting her head on her folded hands, “You know, I think you like me.”

You snort, “And you base this assumption on an automatic physiological response?”

“No,” she counters, tilting her head to one side and causing her hair to slide back and forth as it momentarily imitates a pendulum. You watch, analysing the simple harmonic motion (tension is equal to mg cos theta) and wait for her to continue, the lilt in her voice matching the oscillation of her red curls, “I base this assumption on the fact that you didn’t kiss me.”

You smirk, “You don’t strike me as the kind of girl that invites a guy over with the objective of being kissed.”

She smirks back, “And you don’t strike me as the kind of guy that lets that get in his way very often. You’re the … charming one, if I recall correctly.”

“And you’re the smart, feisty one who wouldn’t hesitate to slap me into next week if I pulled anything stupid,” you shrug, “So I’m protecting my own interests. Your theory is based on a flawed assumption.”

She shakes her head and laughs lightly, “Not so fast mister. At least give me a chance to explain the theory before you dismiss it as flawed.”

“Ah, but mathematically,” you point out, “Nay logically, if the theory is based on a flawed assumption, the theory itself cannot be correct.”

“I agree, mathematically speaking,” she says, “But from a scientific perspective, that is, in a more practical, less theoretical sense, trends in data can be observable in an experiment before they are explained theoretically. Planck’s constant for example,” she shrugs, “His assumption was wrong but his findings were correct. So hear me out.”

“Physics?” you raise an eyebrow at her, “I thought you were a pre-med.”

“I was,” she shrugs, “I took an extra class. Besides, I could ask you the same question. Mathematical proofs?”

“My professor said I would be insane to enrol in the life sciences statistics class,” you tell her, “So somehow I ended up in advanced chaos and number theory with the math majors. Speaking of which, do share your hypothesis with the class.”

“I think you approach girls in two different ways,” she is more than happy to oblige, “On the one hand, they’re sex objects and on the other,” she holds out her hands in opposing directions, net displacement of zero, “They’re people. Now, a lot of the time your preoccupation with sex and women leads people to assume that you have no respect for women or, another, sometimes co-existing error, that you like these girls and have trouble expressing these feelings,” she holds up a hand when you move to speak, “Let me finish. Now, I think that you actually genuinely like girls sometimes, and they fall into the category of ‘people’. I think that most, if not all, of the girls you sleep with fall into category of ‘sex object’ and you don’t really care about them much. You don’t like to get the approaches confused and some part of you is afraid of sleeping with a girl you like but,” she shrugs, “You like me and so you didn’t kiss me.”

“You’re sure of that?” you tease, considering the idea briefly and deciding it is partly correct, but too simple to describe the complexity of the whole; there are far too many exceptions to consider it a rule.

She looks at you, “Admit it, my theory has merit.”

You twist sideways a little and grin at her, “Maybe. But I’d say there are exceptions to every rule. And you’re the kind of girl that’s used to being exceptional.”

She blushes a little, “Oh really?”

“Oh yes,” you nod towards the sprawl of paper blanketing her carpet, “It’s written all over your floor and I can tell you’ve read the textbooks when you talk.”

“So I’m an exception because you don’t do smart girls?” she raises an eyebrow at you and sounds disapproving despite the amused twist of her mouth. She pulls backwards slightly though and you can tell she’s nervous, despite the projection of confidence.

“That’s not what I said,” you smirk at her, “According to your theory, most smart girls would probably have to fall into the category of ‘people’ despite their physical attractiveness though.”

She nods speechlessly, because you’re speaking inches from her lips, pointedly leaning in far too close and you watch her reaction intently because you’re curious about her. She’s interesting and intelligent and far too analytical for her own good. There’s something more attractive about that than the rest of her, which is (you look her up and down briefly) not at all bad.

She shifts her weight nervously from one knee to the other and is about to speak when you interject, reaching for her arm and holding her in position as she tries to wriggle away.

“The inherent flaw in your logic is that it’s entirely digital,” you tell her and there’s a part of you that likens the sensation to the attraction between opposite magnetic poles or electrostatic charge, “The only output is 1 or 0. Life is rarely that simple.”

“True,” she whispers as you brush your fingers against the inside of her wrist lightly, curling your hand around the soft skin and absently measuring her pulse. She is still for a moment, though her heart rate is outside normal resting rate. You try not to stare at her, but you’re waiting for a reaction and she is staring back besides, the hint of a challenge in her eyes. The silent stand off continues, the experimental proof of her theory versus yours waiting to happen until finally, she leans forward ever so slightly. You just sit there, smiling smugly because you were right: she wants to be kissed. She’s testing you too though, so you don’t move, you just wait. And after a minute she looks faintly embarrassed, pressing her lips together and pulling backwards so you tighten your grip on her wrist, forces equal but opposite, and press your lips to hers gently, experimentally, to see how she responds.

Her eyes widen a little at first, but then she’s kissing you back, shyly, giggling nervously until you reach out with your free hand to draw her closer until it’s tongues against tongues and quiet sucking noises. She makes a noise somewhere between a moan and a sigh, her breath extending in all directions across your face and hers from the sides of your mouths. You pull backwards and pat the side of her hair back into position because you have twisted it into an oddly angled mess and she breathes heavily, eyes still closed, until you tap her chin and speak, ruining the silence.

“I like you,” you inform her presently, “And I kissed you. So that’s one from Column A, one from Column B and an exception to the rule.”

She eyes you in that frowning-upon-but-amused-in-spite-of-herself way and disengages her hand, sitting back against her ankles.

“You did that just to prove me wrong,” she accuses.

“Maybe,” you shrug, deciding to change the subject before she pursues that line of questioning too far: much better to let her think you’re not interested for any number of very good reasons; “So, you just happened be studying anatomy when I called?”

She rolls her eyes and edges back towards a specific pile of notes, “Yes actually, so save the lewd remarks: we’ve got a lab class for the practical and I for one only dissect dead people at this early stage in my career.”

You lean back against her pillows and raise her notes in front of your face, bringing the neat loops of her perfectly aligned handwriting into focus, “Relax, I was merely alluding to med school’s greatest cliché,” you look at over her notes briefly, noting her colour-coded glossary of anatomical terms, a neat list of prefixes and suffixes and general introductory notes, “And you actually went to the first lecture? It was in the university’s published lecture notes that it was going to be an introduction.”

“I like to keep my attendance up at the beginning of semester,” she leans forward on her hands to investigate the contents of the pile of paper furthest from her and you raise an eyebrow at the image, sticking your head out from behind the wad of paper you’re perusing and smirking. She turns to meet your eyes and tosses her hair over her shoulder, “Oh grow up.”

Smiling sweetly you say, “Second lecture please? I went to that one; we started doing the head and neck, which is stupid because we have to do neuroanatomy last and it would obviously make more sense to start at the bottom and work up, systematically but what would I know? Obviously Professor Lyndes has a Ph.D. and therefore a valid point.”

She blinks at you, “That’s exactly what I thought.”

“Yes, because that’s the only logical thought,” you gesture towards the text open on her desk, “That’s how the book does it, it starts with general information about tissues and structures and does embryology, which would prepare us for the histology elective next semester but of course, who needs complementary material across disciplines? Anyway, I remember that lecture. Lyndie finally called on me to get Derek and I to shut up and you looked so pissed that I knew the answer.”

“After he repeated the question,” she adds, sounding thoroughly irritated, “And it was annoying. Some of us actually pay attention and then you just sit up the back, acting like an idiot, and yet you still get it right.”

“Lighten up Miss Addison,” you smile smugly, “If you must know, I spent the first week of ‘introductory’ classes reading the text.”

She sits upright, “Really?”

“Yeah,” you shrug, “I like it. There’s a lot of rote learning which I hate but it’s interesting. Still, physiology is better.”

She shuffles closer and sits cross-legged beside the bed, looking genuinely interested in the academic side of this conversation and not much else, “Why do you say that?”

You shrug, “I’ve always been more concerned with how and why rather than what.”

“Hence the advanced theoretical math classes?” she raises an eyebrow at you, “Now, if anything was concerned with whats rather than hows and whys it’s math.”

“Unfair and uneducated assumption,” you say, “All of science is explained by math and all of math has applications in science. They’re a complementary whole; two different approaches to the same problem which is explaining how and why our universe is as it is. And physiology takes the concepts of anatomy and expands on them. Plus we get to perform experiments on live cats.”

“Ew,” she wrinkles her nose, “That’s disgusting but,” she pauses, “Kind of awesome. Which experiment is that? It’s not in this semester’s lab manual.”

“Because we do it next semester,” you tell her, “So says word on the street from my faithful fourth year friends in the West Wing computer lab during compulsory Psyche Tuesdays.”

She shakes her head, “You’ve skipped compulsory psyche? You’ve missed three lectures of type theory. We’re doing Jung and Myer-Briggs.”

“Yeah,” you wrinkle your nose sounding more thrilled than remorseful, “Mores the pity. I’ll actually have to go next week.”

“Hey wait a minute,” she looks up at you, “Are you in my psyche class?”

“Probably,” you shrug, “After lunch?”

“Yeah,” she narrows her eyes at you, “And I’ve never, ever seen you there.”

“Because I’ve never, ever actually been,” you explain impatiently, “If it wasn’t compulsory, I wouldn’t bother going at all since psyche is stupid… but can I borrow your notes? These are really detailed,” you hold up her anatomy notes and smile, “I particularly love the scented markers in all different colours.”

“Shut up,” she swipes them from your hand and turns an interesting shade of pink, “They’re… cute.”

“Sure they are,” you twist on your side to look down at her, “I noticed you didn’t sketch any of our dissections though.”

She twists her hair around her fingers and laughs a little, “You should see me trying to draw. It’s like revenge of the third grade-style stick figures.”

“I brought mine over if you want to have a look,” you reach out beside you for the wad of disorganised paper and place it in her waiting hands, “I mean, they’re nothing special, I just scribbled them down instead of taking notes in lectures because it’s far more interesting to look at them than listen to what the old guy is rambling on about up there.”

She snorts when you call Unhinged Lyndie ‘the old guy’ and shakes her head before positioning the sketches in her lap and slowly pouring over each one.

“These are,” she looks over them with wonderment lifting the muscles in her face, “Really good Mark. I mean, really good. You should… I don’t know, illustrate a text or something.”

You laugh, “Maybe if you write it.”

She rolls her eyes, “My notes are just a summarised version of the text with a few of Lyndes’ more witty witticisms thrown in.”

“No need to be modest,” you tease, “You cut through five pages of bullshit on teeth that belong in a dentistry text and summarised it neatly in ten bullet points.”

“So you’re saying we could write a text and call it Montgomery-Sloane’s Selective Anatomy?”

“The textbook without the extraneous crap disguised as minute detail,” you grin at her, “Exactly.”

“You don’t mind if I borrow these do you?” she holds up your sketches and you shake your head at her, “Like I said: I was just messing around in the lab.”

She shuffles a pile of paper around and stands carefully, picking her way across the floor to place the newly acquired sketches next to her text on the desk before returning to the bedside to prod you in the shoulder until you make room for her on the mattress. Regarding her curiously, you hope to God none of the less appropriate thoughts that cross your mind show on your face.

She laughs at your clueless expression, spreading her notes across her lap and your knees, “We should probably actually study, or I’ll get behind. You don’t mind do you?”

You shrug, “Beats a crappy Meg Ryan movie.”

“I know I’m a little neurotic about this stuff,” she sighs and leans back against her wall, “And I study a lot so I’m not the best company but I… I’m not a complete nerd or anything, despite what some people might have said. I’m just focussed.”

“Hey, if you love what you’re studying then,” you reach out and slide your hand along her arm because her teeth are burrowing into her lip and she looks worried about your reaction, “One couldn’t fault you for being a complete nerd.”

“You just don’t seem like the kind of guy who would,” she pauses shyly, “Well you know, appreciate that. I mean, obviously you’re smart but you know, if you met me five years ago you would have laughed at me.”

“Your jokes are still funny now,” you tease her, watching as she sits upright and glances over the notes in front of her.

She shoots you a look at that, one that implies your jokes aren’t, “You probably still do laugh at people like me because you’re that jackass that just shows up to the exam and effortlessly does well. You never have to try for anything. Girls sleep with you if you so much as smile at them, professors love you because you’ve got so much natural ability, mothers want you to marry their daughters because you can be so charming when it suits you and people like you because you’re unaffected, you just don’t care about anything and nothing fazes you,” she pauses and tucks her hair behind her ears, “How close am I?”

You look thoughtful for a second, “Well most mothers hate me because I’ve somehow managed to break their daughters’ heart after a brief liaison with little to do with love and some professors also hate me because I waste said ability on nothing in particular mostly because I’m afraid of failing so I don’t bother to try, but otherwise you did well.”

She stares at her hands, twisting them nervously against her notes, folding and unfolding the corner of the page repeatedly, “Well you probably laugh at people like me anyway; you probably think that I only do well because I work hard and study all the time.”

“No,” you nudge her with your elbow, “I think that you’re smart Addison Montgomery, genuinely smart… you’re just also a perfectionist so you do far more studying than you need to.”

“I just have to get good grades,” she explains, “My dad… he’s… he’s a surgeon and I’ve always wanted to follow in his footsteps which probably sounds stupid but,” she stops abruptly and raises her hand to her mouth, “I’m sorry, you probably don’t care about any of this.”

You pull her arm away from her mouth and squeeze at her elbow, “No, by all means. You want to be a surgeon?”

“Yeah,” she says, “You know, you’re the only person that hasn’t laughed when I said that.”

You laugh a little at that, “Well, I might have once but Marie Louise Thiele kicked my ass in tenth grade biology and after the initial blow to my ego, I’ve had a little more respect for what women are capable of. Besides, who am I to judge? I’m the jackass that hasn’t been to psyche lecture. And I have to avoid the Dean because I missed that compulsory hand-holding, shoulder patting class we all have to take once and he still hasn’t found me in order lay into me for it.”

She smirks in amused disbelief, “You cut perspectives on the practise of medicine?”

“Maybe,” you grin sheepishly, “Oh come on, it’s boring.”

“I think it’s interesting,” she sniffs, “The debates are fun.”

“Social issues, not medical issues,” you counter.

“Social issues approached from a medical perspective,” she argues, “Fundamentally important discussions for the profession since any social change will greatly impact on how doctors practise medicine. Surely even you see the benefits in exploring these topics in some depth: if social trends are based on ignorance then our ability to help people as doctors is compromised.”

“Eloquent argument,” you wave her off, “But I care more about facial anatomy than about the warm fuzzy side of medicine.”

“We all want to help people,” she insists, but picks up her notes and looks at them more studiously in any case, “Otherwise there’s no way you’d put yourself through four years of colleges, the MCAT and four years of med school.”

“No,” you say, “I was just curious.”

“Curious?” she looks up over her glasses.

“Yeah,” you repeat, “Curious. I wanted to know how it all worked and how to keep it all working or at least, how to fix it when it breaks. Helping people is a benefit, a perk, but it’s not the only reason or even the best reason to become a doctor. If you get too involved with your patients you’re going to end up very bitter very quickly.”

She shakes her head, “So you’re saying that the reason you’re studying medicine is basically because you can?”

You shrug, “Derek and I have wanted to do it since we were kids and after college, he was sure it was what he wanted. I was pretty sure I didn’t like my employment options at that point or the idea of leaving school for the big wide adult world. University is a nicely sheltered academic existence and I like that.”

She raises an eyebrow, “So that’s the reason why you’re studying medicine?”

“Why not is sometimes just as good a question as why,” you point out, “And I had no good reason not to. I’m not saying I don’t admire your noble intentions,” you shrug, “I just don’t share them in exactly the same way. I do want to help people; I just … think there’s more to it than the glamorous notion of saving lives.”

“I don’t think it’s glamorous,” she counters, “You’re twisting my words.”

“Everyone thinks it’s glamorous,” you quip, plucking the page from her hands and looking over it, “But I’ll agree to disagree and actually study for the sake of maintaining the peace. I get the feeling this is just a fundamental difference in viewpoint. You’re idealistic, I’m cynical.”

“I am not idealistic,” she huffs, folding her arms.

You look at the paper in front of you, “Come on, I’ll ask a question, you answer. The palate is the roof of the mouth, hard palate is the hard part at the top, soft is the soft part at the back, in case you couldn’t figure it out, please ignore my sarcasm but this is quite condescending… so, ok, hard palate consists of?”

She raises an eyebrow at you, “Premaxilla, maxilla and palatine bones. Maxillae join across the premaxilla in humans, distinguishing us from all other mammals. The suture between the structures lies along the incisor teeth. The main mass of the hard palate is made by the palatal processes of the maxillae; posteriorly the horizontal plates of the palatine bones complete the bony shelf.”

“Ok Miss Textbook, what’s it mean?” you challenge her.

She sniffs, “The maxilla overlays the premaxillae which is,” she opens her mouth and points to her hard palate just behind her teeth; her voice is thus garbled as she says, “Tha’ one,” she pulls her hand from her mouth, “And the join between them in along the teeth here. And the palatine bones make up the hard part at the back. Simple enough for you?”

“Fine, your turn,” you hand her the wad of paper and shrug, “Ask a question.”

“Nerve supply to the hard palate?” she smiles wickedly, “There’s no way you remember all these names.”

“Sure there is,” you counter, “The anterior palatine nerve which is a branch of the maxillary nerve via the pterygo-palatine ganglion.”

“And in the area of the premaxilla?” she smiles sweetly.

You just look at her, “Oh come on. Be nice.”

“No, what’s the answer?” she smirks.

“It’s from the same source,” you say, “I just… can’t remember the name.”

“Two,” she gives you a hint.

“You can quit gloating now,” you inform her.

“The naso-palatine nerves,” she looks at you as though this is common knowledge and you grin at her a little, “You nerd.”

She actually smiles back, “And you tried to tell me you were a model student.”

“I did not,” you argue, “I merely pointed out that you were making unfair assumptions,” you wrench the notes from her fingers and glance over them, smirking up at her, “Oh look, we’re up to the tongue.”

She lets her shoulder brush against yours and laughs quietly, “I thought I told you we had lab classes for practicals.”

“We do,” you shrug, “But don’t try to pretend you’re not thinking about it; you’re the one who skipped over blood supply to the hard palate.”

“Greater palatine artery, emerges from the greater palatine foramen and passes around the palate lateral to the nerve to enter the incisive foramen and pass up into the nose. You want me to tell you about the veins as well?” she rolls her eyes, “Because they accompany the artery back to the pterygoid plexus.”

“You were thinking about it,” you wager, watching in amusement as she swallows and shakes her head just slightly.

“It’s my turn,” she declares resolutely, regaining her composure, “To ask you a question.”

“Ask away,” you challenge, your tone echoing your smile, “But if I get it right, you have to kiss me.”

“That is not why I invited you over,” she protests weakly.

“Then why did you?” you respond immediately, because she walked into that one.

“Because I...” she falters for a second, “I don’t know, you… I… we…” she sighs, “Because I did. Like you decided to go to med school, I had no reason not to. Why did you say you’d come?”

“Because,” you tell her outright, “You’re interesting.”

She smiles wryly, but the choice of words obviously appeals to some part of her because she leans a little closer, rests her shoulder against yours, “Interesting?”

“The other night at the party,” you begin, “You were easily the hottest girl in the room, yet you were hiding in the corner all on your own. Why?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs a little, “My friend Sav was off with her boyfriend somewhere and I hate being the third wheel?”

“And when I talked to you, you misinterpreted my intentions.”

“I did not,” she exclaims open-mouthed, “You said just now that the only reason you talked to me was because you liked the way I looked.”

“Who’s twisting whose words?” you respond good-naturedly, “I said you were interesting. You’re hot and you’re smart and you’re funny as well. But you’re interesting. So, why do you always assume the guy is hitting on you since by your own admission, you’re more likely to be studying than reciprocating his interest?”

“Because,” she shrugs, “Why else would you talk to me? You didn’t know me and no one introduced us, so it had to be the way I look.”

“But I did know you,” you point out, “We have a similar timetable. I had a pretty good reason to talk to you and for all you knew it could have been entirely unrelated to your favourable physical characteristics.”

“I know but I,” she wriggles around uncomfortably and sighs again, “You’re the kind of guy that… immediately, I’m going to wary of your intentions because you’re so sure of yourself or at least you pretend to be and I’m still not quite sure how much is an act and how much is honest arrogance.”

“So why’d you flirt back?” you smirk at her, “And why do you get shy if I actually make a move? It’s like before, you wanted me to kiss you but when I did, you withdrew entirely.”

“I don’t want to be that girl,” she swallows and looks up at you, “I don’t want to be the girl that guys like you sleep with because she’s stupid enough to be fooled by the charm. You’re … smart and you’re all right, underneath all that bad boy crap so whatever you say, I like you and I’m…” she pauses awkwardly, “Attracted to you so I’m not going to let myself be the girl you screw because you can.”

“You say that as though I would lose all interest in you if you did,” you tell her, “Which isn’t true or as if I’m interested in the first place, which may or may not be true.”

“You’re infuriating,” she blinks at you, “That is so ambiguous that I have exactly no idea what your intentions are.”

You slip your fingers through the ends of her hair and let them slide forward along her jaw, “Mandible, consisting of a body that holds the teeth and a?”

She looks even more confused, but mumbles the answer instinctively, “Ramus which is for the insertion of jaw-moving muscl-”

You tilt her face upward and pull her mouth to yours, cutting her off mid-sentence. You’re not really sure why you do this kind of thing, because you can, because you’re here and she’s there and she’s hot and maybe, just maybe because you’re attracted to her on so many levels; she’s quick-tempered and quick-witted, intellectual, physically appealing but sexy in ways women usually aren’t. And you’re probably ruining any chance you’d have with her but you’re an idiot and she’s pressing her hand against the inside of your thigh so you kiss her harder, let your hand tangle in her hair and reach out with the other to help her clamber into your lap, her body sinking neatly around yours as her tongue does something similar in your mouth.

She pulls backwards and you lean against her pillows, rearranging the hair at the side of her face as you both breathe and stare at each other. You’re in your element now, since physically things with women are so much easier than the more complicated emotion-related things. A girl might be interested, but in what exactly? At least if it’s sex you know what to expect. There’s a concrete and defined set of parameters.

Her mouth is open expressionlessly as she breathes heavily but after a few seconds she smiles, shyly and tucks her hair behind her ears again, trying to shuffle sideways but you put your hand on her hip and hold her in position, sliding your fingers against the soft fabric of her shirt.

“Clear things up?” you ask, teasing but reassuring because you can tell that she’s shy about this sort of thing.

She reaches for your hands and tugs them away from her body, sliding her fingers through yours and leaning forward until your foreheads touch, “So you want to screw me?”

“You make it sound like there’s nothing in it for you,” you smile a little at her dry tone, “And yes, I want to screw you, most guys probably do because you’re an attractive girl, the hottest girl in the room most of the time. Just because I’m honest about it doesn’t mean I don’t … like you. To most guys, sex is sex. That’s all it is and just because it doesn’t necessarily mean more than that doesn’t automatically mean I don’t like you or respect you or value your ideas and opinions.”

“I,” she squirms a little above you, which has unfortunate consequences in the places her body is pressed against yours, “I didn’t say that I just… I’m not… I don’t usually…”

You hold a finger to her lips, bringing your entwined hands up between your faces since she’s still gripping at your palms tightly, “Yeah, usually you’re not that kind of girl, ok, I get it and I… don’t care if you don’t want to. I didn’t say I’d come over because I thought I’d get lucky and if you’re uncomfortable then whatever, we can study or talk or I can go but if you do want to but you just ‘don’t usually’,” you quote her words and she looks a little embarrassed, “Because you’re shy or you’re nervous or insecure then you shouldn’t be. And I’m not saying it should mean nothing because it doesn’t, but at the same time, it’s physical, it’s attraction and physiological response to stimuli so,” you pull at her hands, resting them on your shoulders, “It doesn’t have to mean everything. It doesn’t make you a slut if you physically enjoy sex without some life-altering emotional connection.”

“Ok,” she whispers, pressing her mouth against yours quickly, “But I don’t do this a lot and I… is it ok if we stop if I change my mind because,” she swallows uneasily, “I do want to I just don’t know if I can.”

“You’re really nervous,” you observe as she reaches up to adjust her clothing. Her hands tremble slightly and you can see her intently concentrating on keeping them still. Within a few seconds they’re as steady as ever and she moves her fingers deftly across the fabric of her shirt, smoothing the wrinkles and tugging it down to cover her stomach again.

“I’ve practised,” she explains hurriedly when she catches your curious stare, “Because I figure during surgery I’m going to be really nervous, at least at first so I have to be able to hold my hands still.”

You smile at her, “Yeah of course.”

“I can write with both hands too,” she adds proudly, “I learnt over the summer.”

“I’ve always been sort of ambidextrous,” you let your hands meet hers against her clothes, “As a kid I had to make sure I did things with both hands pretty equally.”

“There you go again,” she teases, relaxing a little and leaning forward against your hands to speak above your mouth, “Effortlessly achieving what some of us had to learn.”

“Some things don’t come effortlessly to me,” you tell her, “It’s just easier to pretend that they do.”

“What exactly do you find difficult?” she shivers a little as you slip your hands beneath the wool and brush your fingers against the warmth of her skin, “We’ve already established that you’re effortlessly brilliant, ambidextrous and alarmingly comfortable on a girl’s bed.”

“That came with practise,” you tell her, grinning.

“I’m sure it did,” she brushes her nose against yours, “So what, pray tell is so hard for you, lewd jokes aside?”

“Well,” you pause, contemplating whether to be seriously candid or crack a joke, “I suck at relating to people. That takes time and effort.”

She laughs softly, her body moving against yours, “You relate to people quite well, in my limited experience.”

“Yeah but for every one I relate to, there are five that I piss off,” you shrug, leaning forward to tug at her bottom lip with your own. She gently kisses back for a while, her hands curling around your arms and her fingernails digging into your skin uncomfortably for several seconds as she tenses. You’re about to pull backwards and tell her it’s ok when her hands loosen their grip and she opens her mouth against yours, smiling into the kiss and you feel a silent giggle making her stomach shake. It’s obviously a small victory for her so you wait for her to sit upright and smile, “Addison?”

“Yes?” she says quietly.

“We can stop,” you tap at her nose, “Just tell me and it’s ok.”

“I’m sorry I’m so weird about this,” she mumbles, sounding disappointed with herself all over again, “I just… it’d be the first time with a stranger really and I’m still not really sure of myself with this kind of thing so, promise you won’t laugh at me?” she pouts a little and you do laugh at that, “Why would I laugh at you?”

She slaps your shoulder, “I don’t know, because I’m still a little dorky and awkward sometimes?”

“Hey, nothing about you is awkward,” your hands explore the curve of her body quite thoroughly, “And you’re not weird about it, it’s just a little new to you.”

“Yeah but it was new for most people at sixteen,” she points out, raising an eyebrow.

“So whatever,” you reach beneath her shirt and unclasp her bra, earning a surprised yelp, “At sixteen, most people are awkward. Trust me: you probably saved yourself some traumatic memories.”

She laughs a little so you kiss her again and soon you’re cupping her breasts inside two layers of fabric, her tongue is tracing the edge of your premaxilla and she’s giggling because her attempts at naming the structures are decidedly garbled by her tongue in your mouth and your lips against hers. She is looking at you with one eye open, her elbow folded behind your neck, and you’re smirking at her because she is such a nerd and it’s completely hot, when the door to her room opens and she scrambles backwards a little in surprise, not quite succeeding in removing herself from your lap when her roommate sticks her head through the door.

“Addie… oh,” is all she says before she pulls the door shut with a peal of laugher, “I’m sorry hon; I didn’t know you had company. I’ll just go… and… not think about what I just saw.”

“Sav,” Addison calls out, “It’s not… it’s just… I didn’t…”

“Oh hon,” more laughter from outside, “It’s ok, it’s ok, don’t freak out on me here I’m just,” she giggles, “Surprised, but in a good way.”

“Well this is Mark,” she yells through the door, “Ok?”

“Yeah ok,” is the teasing response from the corridor and the door opens a fraction of an inch, “I was just going to ask if you wanted to get a pizza and some cheap vodka but I’ll just… go and …” she bursts into a fit of giggles again, “Call Weiss or something. Nice to um, meet you, Mark. You just keep doing what you’re doing Ad, I’ll be pointedly ignoring your shrieks of pleasure in the next room.”

She looks at you, thoroughly mortified and says, “That’s Savvy, my best friend and roomie and ohmyGod, I am never, ever going to hear the end of this.”

You sigh and lean back against the pillows. They smell of clean and vaguely like her hair; you shift a little beneath her and wait for her to speak again.

Finally she rests her elbows beside your body and her chin against your chest, “Sorry about that, she can be a little uncouth sometimes.”

You shrug, “It’s ok. You don’t want me to … I mean, we can go eat with her if you want?”

“I’m not hungry,” she declares softly, and makes a face, “For pizza anyway.”

“What are you hungry for?” you raise an eyebrow at her and she laughs, shaking her head.

“So about that anatomy of the mouth,” she grins, sidling up until her hands are resting either side of your face against the covers, “I think we could review it in some detail.”

“I thought you said,” you begin to tease her but she kisses you, hard and demanding and confident all over again, before you actually get a chance to expand on that statement.

“I know what I said,” she mumbles, as you move your hands beneath her shirt and push up on the fabric, “But I also,” she pecks at your mouth, teasing, “Reserved the right to change my mind.”

She moves her hands from your shoulders tentatively at first, much in the same way she was kissing you but in as much time as it took the brush of lips to become a heated tangle of tongues, her fingers are doing something similar to yours, lightly tracing your stomach. She rocks against you and leans forward to deepen the kiss, shivering a little when you groan in response and you pull at her clothing more insistently this time, palms pressing against her shoulders until she sits upright to reluctantly lift her arms.

You pull the shirt over her head and the bra from her body and smile a little as she automatically folds her arms. Circling her wrists with your fingers, you tug at her arms and hold them by her side, waiting for her to look up and meet your eyes. Finally she does, and lets out a half-embarrassed sigh so you let your fingers brush against the side of her face and say, “About that anatomy…”

She smiles a little; her voice is flirtatious again, “What about it?”

“I can’t think of a specific question right now,” you thumb her bottom lip, “Tell me what you know.”

“The mucous membrane of the margins of the lips is highly sensitive, represented by a large area on the sensory cortex,” she breathes, shivering as you pull your hand away, fingertips just barely touching her lips.

“And then,” hers darts out of her mouth and slides along her bottom lip as she shuffles backwards, more than comfortable now that there’s something to explore which she knows inside out, “There’s the tongue.”

At which point, you realise she’s perched on your knees, fingers tugging at the zip of your pants and mouth open as she concentrates on her hands. You smirk a little because God, this was a good idea and you accommodate her attempts to remove two layers of clothing at once with that thought (and several others) in mind.

“It’s skin is more sensitive that that of the fingertips,” the emphasis is perfectly in time with the motion of her hands as said fingertips brush against you far too lightly, “And it also possesses the sense of taste to accept,” she leans forward and breathes against you, all moist and warm and playful, and you groan little at her knowing grin, “Or reject what is in the mouth,” and it’s painfully brief, but she does choose this point to pause significantly, parted lips slipping forward over your erection.

She curls her fingers around you and moves them in time with her mouth, slowly and deliberately and further forward each time until she’s breathing against you once more. And you would be disappointed about that, because it’s wet and warm and almost claustrophobic, but you’re curious to see what she’s going to say next.

“The mucous membrane on the dorsum of the tongue consists of two parts: the anterior two-thirds, covered in a thick fibrous mucous membrane, the surface is projected into two types of papillae, conical and fungiform. Conical papillae are the reason behind the tongue’s velvety,” she lets hers slide along your length, “Texture. The remaining posterior third is bounded by vallate papillae, which form an apex towards the back of the mouth. Behind the vallate papillae, the posterior one-third like the soft palate above it, is coated with mucus from multiple glands and makes a smooth,” she tilts her head sideways, pressing the inside of her gum against you and you wonder where on earth she thought of that, “Slippery” you’re presently glad the shyness seems forgotten when she repeats the gesture with the edge of her tongue, “Surface for,” she tenses and relaxes her bottom lip, drawing the tip of your erection in and out of her mouth repeatedly before tossing her hair a little and saying coyly, “Swallowing.”

Since it seems imperative to say something witty in response, you tug at her hair gently and observe wryly, “You’re very knowledgeable.”

She giggles and resumes her lecture.

“The lowest fibres of genio-glossus draw the tongue forward,” she demonstrates and you twist your fingers in her hair, “Stylo-glossus opposes this movement, drawing it backward,” she performs the counteraction, “Hyo-glossus draws the sides of the tongue downwards. The position is altered by the mylo-hyoid muscle on which the tongue rests on the floor of the,” she takes you in her mouth again moves her head backward and forward several times, smirking at you, “Mouth. The tongue is mobile enough to perform almost any,” and her mouth is engaged all over you again; to illustrate her point, she loops her tongue around and sucks gently as she moves backward to finish the sentence, “Movement.”

Both hands twist in her hair and you tug upwards at her body insistently, because if she doesn’t stop, it’s all going to be over embarrassingly quickly, “Addison, much as I’m enjoying this study of your mouth...”

She smiles and crawls upwards until her lips are poised above yours, “We’ve become medical schools greatest cliché.”

You run your hands over her hips and along her waist, pausing to brush the back of your palms against the curve of her breasts, “Because knowing how it all works, this kind of thing is different now.”

She leans backwards and tugs up at your shirt, “I’m just muscles and bones, arteries and veins, nerves and glands to you?”

You let her pull the shirt over your head and shrug, “No but,” you reach out and trace the pinkish brown flesh surrounding her left nipple, “The breast tissue doesn’t extend beyond the margin of the areola,” you quote, filling your palm with subcutaneous fat, “I particularly liked this part I have to say, he says the female form is variable indeed,” you squeeze at her chest gently, “But the size of the base of the breast is fairly constant. It extends from,” you press your lips into her chest in the appropriate place, “The second to the sixth,” you slide your tongue along the underside of her breast, “Rib, lying over the pectoralis major.”

“Trust you to remember that,” she murmurs, moaning quietly as you roll her nipple between your teeth, squeezing the other between thumb and forefinger, “I bet you read that chapter first.”

“Actually I started at chapter one,” you smirk as she arches her back into your mouth, effectively pressing her hips against yours, “With tissues and structures. This is the outer layer of the epidermis,” your fingers brush against the skin between her breasts lightly, “The dead horny layer,” you both laugh a little at that, “Softened by the watery secretions of sweat glands.”

She lets her head fall forward and tugs at your earlobe with her teeth, “I’m dead horny.”

“Does that mean you haven’t changed your mind?” you brush your lips against hers and thumb her nipples absently.

She nods, “Yeah, I want to.”

And it does have some kind of greater meaning. You slide your hands along her body, bits and pieces of information coming to mind. Ribs are not primarily protective. In air-breathing mammals their primary function is respiratory. You trace hers absently as she sucks in a breath. The wall of the thorax and the wall of the abdomen are one, topographically and developmentally. And then your hands are resting on her twelfth rib, tracing the external oblique muscle of the anterior abdominal wall back to its insertion into the out lip of the iliac crest. Inserted as fleshy fibres into the anterior half. She laughs at little, at your expression as your hands move over her body and names the places you touch quietly, pressing her body against your hands.

Finally you’re unbuttoning and unzipping her designer jeans, pressing your fingers (phalanges) against her through her underwear and she’s staring at the movements of your left hand as your trace circles against the lace muttering, “Figure 2.66, the Palmar view.”

Her fingers close over your wrist and she digs her nails into each carpal bone, pulling your hand close, “Trapezium, trapezoid, scaphoid, lunate, capitate, triquetral, pisiform and hamate, oh God,” because you’ve wedged a hand in her panties and let your thumb trace slow circles against her, two fingers pushed inside of her and your hand wet from her arousal.

She groans, rocking against your fingers and reaching down to remove what remains of her clothing. You curl your fingers around her hip, and hold her steady but she shakes her head, “Let’s just… now, please.”

“What exactly are we doing now?” you can’t help yourself, even though her cheeks are flushed and her pupils are dilated and it’s obvious what she’s asking for.

She kisses you roughly and wraps her arms around you face tightly, pulling her body closer so that the damp area at the front of her presses against your erecion, “Erectile tissue consists of fibrous saccules into which aterioles open directly,” she mutters quickly, “The helicine arteries elongate during erection which occurs when the arterioles open and the fibrous tissues become tightly distended with arterial blood making erectile tissue red and warm,” she stares at you without flinching and completes the paragraph, “Stimuli,” (she rocks her hips forward), “Resulting in erection of external genitalia in either sex are mediated by the parasympathetics, nervi erigentes. Ejaculation is initiated by the sympathetic system, the hypogastric nerves,” she breathes above you mouth, “And yes, I read that chapter first so do it, now.”

“It might be easier,” you tell her, swallowing and trying to maintain your focus on logistics at least for another ten to fifteen seconds, “For you if you’re the one lying there enjoying it and I’m doing all the work.”

She laughs at your distracted reaction and lets you roll her over onto her back, stretching her arms above her head, “Ok, when you put it that way.”

And then you’re tugging the jeans off her ankles, fingers brushing against where the deltoid ligament, tracing the flexor digitorum longus (a bipennate muscle, arising by flesh from the tibia) and pressing into her patella, and brushing against the inside of the thighs which is where your memory fails you but she’s sprawled against her covers looking impatient which is really misdirected uncertainty so you let her tug at your wrists until your face is above hers and her palms are pressing against your cheeks.

“Still ok?” you ask, “And we’re ok right? We don’t need anything or…”

She nods in response, folding her legs around your middle and pulling her body against yours; you both groan at the contact. One of your hands braces her thigh and you press the fingers of the other against her insistently, watching as she sighs breathily and using the momentary distraction to push into her. She half-squeaks, half-moans in surprise, but makes no complaint so you repeat the motion, cautiously at first, until she smirks at you, “I won’t break you know.”

You don’t respond other than to move your hand a little faster, and she squeezes her eyes closed, meeting your thrusts with her hips. You’re carefully rhythmic about it all, you listen intently to the small gasps the pressure elicits; because in your experience it works better if you’re close yourself before you get to the part where you’re both making noises. (You had enough bad sex in high school and college that you think about these things and you consider it your personal responsibility to the girl and yourself to avoid any number of potential disasters.)

You’re not normally one to talk much or kiss a lot during sex, maybe it’s just because generally you sleep with girls who you wouldn’t start a conversation with for any other reason, but when she presses her hand against the back of your neck, trying to pull your mouth to hers it’s counterintuitive. Still, she parts your lips with her tongue, breathing heavily into the kiss and the intensity distracts you from the clinical way you’ve been considering pace.

You’re both too breathless to continue though, so she clasps her hands behind your neck and moans, biting down on her lip to silence the sound. You feel her tighten around you, and she collapses against the pillows in a series of small shrieks and breathy noises which was perfectly timed, you think, congratulating yourself just a little before you close your own eyes and lose yourself just a little, until your breathing matches hers and she’s lying there, looking at you with a curious expression on her face. You roll sideways, stereotypically, and she writhes around against the pillows with a lazy smile on her face, pressing her palms against the side of your face and pulling it into her shoulder, hugging you against her chest.

You laugh a little at her breathless sigh, “So, are you done studying for the night?”

She nods with closed eyes and pulls down on the covers, shuffling around until the sheet is pulled up around her body and yours, “You can stay if you want.”

You lie back and look at her, watching as she settles herself down, curling her body around your side, arm slung across your chest and face resting inches from yours on the pillow.

“You’re sure you don’t do this often?” you tease, pushing the hair out of her eyes.

She snuggles into your shoulder and sighs, “I might have to with you.”

You laugh quietly, “So it was good for you?”

She rolls over onto her elbows suddenly and reaches for something hanging from the bed post, “Mmmhmm. Let me show you.”

And you realise she’s brandishing a stethoscope, grinning widely as she tucks the appropriate parts into your ears and lets the end rest against her chest.

“My dad gave it to me,” she murmurs sleepily, “And that’s what you did to me.”

It’s the second time in your life you’ve listened to a beating human heart and like the first time, you’re still somewhat amazed; though your technical knowledge of how and why is more than what it used to be somehow that understanding makes it less of a mystery and more of a miracle.

“And I get to make you listen to my heart,” she mumbles, “Because we just had nerdy anatomy sex that didn’t mean nothing; just not everything.”

The rhythmic thud-thud-thud-thud of the muscle contracting and relaxing is the last thing you hear before your eyes slip closed and your breathing slows slightly.

What lulled you into sleep draws you from it hours later and you drift into consciousness slowly, the process punctuated by the same dull sound at regular pace and interval. She is sleeping beside you, still pressed against your side but you shift sideways, watching as she stirs slightly but quickly curls around the warmth in the sheets where you used to be. Smiling at that, you tuck the stethoscope into her ears and let it rest against her chest, wedged between her arm and her body.

After that her number sits beside the phone for weeks, but you don’t call her. Derek finally breaks it off with Amy and you pointedly tease him for weeks about that scrap of paper taped to the wall. You can’t explain to yourself why you don’t call her yourself, why you don’t tell him you did, why you don’t do more than smirk at her in anatomy class and why she still grins back sometimes. After a while she pointedly looks the other way and after a while you figure too much time has passed anyway; she’s probably not expecting anything. When Derek tells you he ran into her on campus and rambles about her for at least half an hour before you deliberately drop the telephone in his lap, you decide it’s easier this way. You’re not really sure why you do this kind of thing, but you’re an idiot and you think some questions are better off left unanswered.

Later in the year, first semester results are published for all your subjects and she beats you overall at anatomy, coming first in the class, but you score the best by far on the practical dissection. Professor Lyndes, who you still call ‘that old guy’ comes up behind you and clears his throat. You turn around in surprise; a little embarrassed to be caught staring at a result that obviously impresses you but the professor waves you off, grinning.

“Go ahead,” he says, “Stare all you like; it was an excellent result. I haven’t given a 99 to a first year in oh,” he pauses thoughtfully, “Nine years. The last was Jeremy Pitchard.”

You raise an awed eyebrow, “Brilliant surgeon.”

The professor nods.

“You have an extraordinary gift for dissection young man,” he tells you, “And if you actually applied yourself you’d give that Montgomery something to worry about. I can always pick the speciality my students would be most suited to,” he sighs, “Sometimes it takes longer than others, but with you,” he taps at the score printed next to your name, “You have to be considering surgery.”

You shrug, “I was thinking plastics.”

He nods shortly, “You’ll be a brilliant surgeon Sloan,” he pauses thoughtfully, “But consider it carefully. You’ve got an ability that I can’t teach, you look at a bod and you can visualise it. I’m sure that half the time you forget the name of half the parts you’re exposing but you can see exactly what you’re doing before you even pick up a scalpel,” he sighs, “And it will come effortlessly to you. Just remember, the best things in life are the things you have to work for, fight for, try and try again until you finally obtain whatever it was you were after. Plastics won’t give that to you, but you’ll be brilliant and,” he sighs again, “The young always confuse the idea of greatness with genuine happiness,” he trails off and shuffles away.

The next day, you sit beside her for the last class of semester and smile, “Hey pretty redhead from anatomy.”

She turns to you, with a withering glare and says coldly, “Do. Not. Talk. To. Me.”

“Addison,” you begin but she cuts you off with a finger raised in warning.

“It wasn’t just sex,” she mutters, “It was intimate and personal so don’t lie to me and tell me it wasn’t. And don’t talk to me because I was an idiot to think that you’d care and that you’d call and that you’d be interested in a girl like me.”

“I…”

“No,” she says finally, “If you’re interested in a girl you call her, you fight for her, you try and try again until she agrees to go out with you. So no, you’re not interested. And no, don’t talk to me.”

“I gave Derek your number,” you shrug.

“He called,” she offers in response.

“If you’re interested in a girl you break up with your girlfriend,” you mumble and she nods, “I heard you and her had a thing.”

“Not like our thing.”

“What did you want me to do?” she sighs, running a hand through her hair, “It was one time, and then you didn’t call and you cut class for two weeks just to avoid me… I gave you a chance, and I kept giving it another day, another week. I gave you more chances than you deserved.”

“Yeah well,” you tap your pencil against the desk, “He saw you first.”

She reaches out and slams your wrist and your pencil against the bench top so hard that it breaks, “That’s a pathetic excuse Mark Sloan, which is fitting because you are pathetic. It was never that my theory was flawed, it was just that I forgot to mention the second concept: that you liked me and because you were scared of your feelings, you tried to make me into one of those girls you just screw. Well, I guess that’s my fault because I was stupid enough to let you.”

They’re the two incidents you remember most vividly: Addison and anatomy, and Looney Lyndes telling you that you have to fight for anything worth having. At the time you didn’t make the connection.

Chapter Eight: Skin Against Skin; Move It Front To Back And Start It Again

Bibliography: My savvy is really not mine at all so please read this fic and all parts that sound like they could be from a textbook... are! This one here to be precise.