Saving Lives
Title: Saving Lives (29/32)
Pairing: Mark/Meredith
Characters: Mark, Meredith, Derek, Addison, Cast
Rating: R
Summary: How Mark's and others' lives change when he receives bad news. Set post-Season 3.
Previous chapters here
Chapter 29, Eight Weeks Later, Tuesday Morning - Part 2
“Do you want me to go with you?” Derek had asked just before Mark had left his office.
He’d refused the offer . . . “No, man. It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” reverting to the usual evasive bravado in an attempt to control his emotions. Now he wished he’d accepted. He knew he had to go to oncology, but he couldn’t make himself, and Derek being with him would have helped.
He was procrastinating, putting off the moment when he wouldn’t have to guess any more. He’d spent nearly a half hour walking around outside the hospital, trying to convince himself that the next time he reached the main entrance, he’d go back in. He thought about paging Meredith, because he would have liked her support, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Earlier this morning they’d been talking about what amounted to making a commitment to one another. Now what could he offer her? Holding his hand while he died a slow death?
Whatever it was Julia had paged him about, he didn’t want to hear it spelled out. The metastasis has increased. The tumor’s grown. You’ve become resistant to the therapy. It’s stage 4. You’re going to fucking die, painfully, before you’re forty, and just when your life has finally turned into something worth having.
He briefly considered just giving up and going to the nearest liquor store, because getting wasted would be so much easier than facing this, but had the sense to reject this truly crappy idea. But he could maybe go to the surgical floor. Check on some patients, find out what Karev was doing. After all, he still had a job to do, even if he was going to-
Just stop! He interrupted himself. Give the fucking pessimism a rest! A lab got messed up; she wants a consult on a breast reconstruction; she’s horny and she wants you to screw her! It’s nothing. Get a grip, for God’s sake! Fucking man up! Just go up there and find out what she wants. Because really, he didn’t have a choice.
- - - - -
Meredith had spent the first part of the morning getting side-tracked by George, who wanted to talk, ramble endlessly in fact, about Mark and Derek’s dead patient. She had been impatient for him to finish and when he had said, “She just died,” helplessly, for what seemed like the hundredth time, she’d snapped at him, “You followed procedure. You did everything you could. Why are you taking this so hard, anyway? You’ve seen patients die before, lots of times.” George had looked hurt, but she didn’t have the energy to care about that now.
All she wanted to know was what was going on with Mark and Derek. Mark had hardly talked during the drive in to work and she was concerned for him. She couldn’t help anticipating that Derek would do something to hurt him when he was just trying to be nice, and she wanted to be able to protect him from this. She was beginning to learn how deeply he felt things, even if he hardly ever let anyone know this, and half the time didn’t know it himself. And she knew only too well how remote and difficult Derek could be while at the same time making you feel that you were missing something wonderful by not having his love, or friendship, or whatever. She could still remember McDreamy-how he smiled and looked at her and how he’d made her feel once. Now she had something . . . someone she loved more; but that didn’t mean she had no memories and that sometimes it didn’t still hurt.
Thankfully, George’s pager had gone off and he’d muttered something about ‘Shepherd’s autopsy report,’ and gone away disconsolately, leaving Meredith relieved that she could finally go and look for Mark. But George and worry and getting up at 3:00 am had exhausted her, so she went to get coffee first.
- - - - -
“Meredith.” She knew exactly and precisely who the gentle voice behind her belonged to. She had heard it so many times. It had, after all, at one time, less than two months ago, been the voice she most wanted to hear in the world. She turned to face him, a just purchased caramel latte in her hand, and tried to smile.
“Derek,” she said, trying not to put any inflection into his name. She didn’t want to seem hostile or welcoming or . . . anything; she wanted to seem neutral until she’d figured out what he wanted. She indicated the coffee cart. “You want some? I could . . . ” She trailed off, conscious that their last conversation had begun at the coffee cart, and conscious that he must remember this as well.
“Why not?” he said. The friendliness was still evident in his voice. “Cappuccino. Thank you.” When she hesitated, he added, smiling to show that he meant well, “It’s okay. However it comes. I’m not as particular as some people.”
Meredith smiled weakly at Derek’s joke and took refuge in ordering his coffee. But his affability made her feel braver and, as she handed him the Styrofoam cup she asked him, “Did you . . . did you talk to Mark?”
He raised his eyebrows slightly and she remembered that this had been the beginning of yet another conversation they’d had before.
Preempting any reply he might make, she said, “I’m sorry. I treated you badly. I never meant . . . it wasn’t my intention for . . . it just happened.” She gave a small shrug. “I fell in love with him.”
Derek acknowledged her explanation with a brief nod. “We talked,” he said. “I believe we understand each other better.” He sighed, absorbed briefly by his own thoughts. “It was certainly an enlightening morning.” He smiled, but there was something in his expression that Meredith, who was used to reading his moods, interpreted as worry.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Not at all. I was just-”
“What is it?” she insisted. She knew something was wrong. Part of her felt inappropriate, haranguing Derek when he was being so nice and . . . well, generous. But something in his manner made her feel anxious, especially now that his eyes had taken on the look of compassion she remembered so well from when she’d been in love with him rather than Mark.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just that, when we were talking, Mark’s oncologist paged him.”
“What did she want?” Meredith demanded sharply.
“Really, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Derek repeated, not very convincingly.
Meredith looked intently into his eyes. “What did she want?” she repeated in an intense whisper.
“I don’t know, Meredith. That wasn’t clear. Mark seemed to think it might be-”
“It’s something bad, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Meredith,” he said again. “Mark was worried by it, yes. But, I thought it could be . . . well, anything. I’ve worked with Julia Lindstrom. Her job’s difficult and she can be a little unorthodox sometimes.” Derek had talked himself into this point of view between Mark’s office, picking up the autopsy report from O’Malley and arriving at the coffee cart. Saying it out loud was as much for his benefit as for Meredith’s.
For a second, Meredith panicked, unable to deal with her emotions. But she had a choice: lose it or stall until she got a hold of herself, and she chose to stall. “Did you find out why the meningioma patient died?” she asked him in a distracted voice.
Derek glanced briefly at the file in his hand. “Yes” he said, sensitive to her need to gather her thoughts. “She had a brain hemorrhage and that caused a sudden coma. Fluid built up in her lungs and airways and that led to-”
“Heart failure,” Meredith supplied.
“Yes,” he nodded. “It’s not common, but it’s documented with meningiomas. Nobody really knows why it occurs and it usually happens too fast to intervene. It’s tragic. I thought I could help her.”
“It is tragic,” she repeated, then swallowed and then asked in a quiet, urgent voice, “What if Mark dies? I never really thought about it. Everything was so,” she glanced at him to assess his reaction; his eyes still looked caring, “complicated. I never had time to think about . . . that.” She sighed. “And I guess I didn’t want to.”
“I never thought about it either,” he said softly. “Not enough, anyway.”
Meredith nodded. Her anxiety wasn’t relieved, but she was grateful for Derek’s kindness, and that he seemed to have restored his friendship with Mark. This was the man she had once fallen in love with. She’d hoped he was capable of acting this way, but she hadn’t dared to expect it. “Thank you,” she said. “For understanding. It must mean so much to Mark. It means so much to me. And . . . just thank you.”
- - - - -
“Dr. Lindstom around?” Mark asked, and the oncology nurse on duty at the small nurse’s station looked up and smiled. She was a pretty little brunette with nice tits that were clearly what God gave her and he’d always sort of flirted with her because, well, that’s what he did. Right now, though, he was too assaulted by his own feelings to flirt and he hoped she wouldn’t want to.
“Dr. Sloan!” She gushed his name in a way that implied he could fuck her right there on the counter if he wanted.
He gave her a tired smile and willed her to treat him like any other patient. “Julia Lindstrom paged me,” he said.
The nurse seemed to get the message and, when she spoke next, the flirty had gone, replaced by detached kindness.
“Dr. Lindstrom has an emergency,” she said gently. “Would you like to take a seat and wait for her?” She indicated the soft, leather seats in the waiting area.
Mark nodded. “Somebody circling the drain?” he asked, half sardonic and half . . . what? . . . half, more than half, scared it was going to be him next.
“She has an emergency,” the nurse repeated, firmly tactful. “I’m not certain of the details. Take a seat and she’ll be with you as soon as she can. I’ll make sure she knows you’re here.”
He slumped into the pliable leather and closed his eyes. The more he tried not thinking or thinking positively, the more worst-case scenarios played themselves out in his head, until he found himself breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Mark?” He opened his eyes. It was Meredith, looking uncertain and awkward. And relief flooded him.
“Hey,” he said, in a soft, low, gentle voice, and held out his hand.
She sat down next to him, close enough that their bodies just touched and took his hand. “Is it okay that I’m. . . ? Derek said . . .”
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice still very soft. “It’s more than okay. Thank you.”
“Did you find anything out? Are you all right?” she asked apprehensively.
“No and, uh, not exactly,” he said and smiled. He was tempted to say ‘I’m fine,’ but he wasn’t fine and he didn’t want to hide that from her. “It’s better with you here, though.” He lifted her hand and kissed it tenderly. Hand kissing wasn’t a customary move of his; but this wasn’t a move. It was a spontaneous expression of love and trust.
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m sure it’s nothing horrible.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.” He sighed. “You talked to Derek?”
She nodded.
“How’d that go?”
“Good,” she said. “He was nice. He was-”
‘McDreamy, right?” Mark said only half-snarkily and Meredith nodded again. “I knew there had to be some reason I was friends with him all those years.” He almost managed a smirk. “So you think-”
Julia rushed into the waiting area. He had been about to make some lame joke about Meredith going back to Derek and was a little relieved that Julia’s entrance had prevented this. A small, nagging part of him couldn’t help worrying about this possibility, and the joke would probably have misfired.
Julia looked disheveled and like she’d been up all night and her long, pale blonde hair was piled up on her head and fixed there with something that Mark thought probably had more to do with office supplies than personal adornment. She was dressed in wrinkled looking pink scrubs. Not Addison-colored pink; a kind of pallid, washed-out pink, which accentuated the obvious puke and blood stains on the left hip of her scrub pants. Shit! Was that going to be him soon; spending the night puking blood on his oncologist and being described as ‘an emergency’ to Meredith and Derek?
“Hi!” she said breathlessly and then focused on Meredith and said “Hi!” again, in a surprised, delighted tone. She looked back at Mark. “That’s her!” she said. “The woman who was in your room.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Ohhh . . .” she said. “That’s her her; the woman you were talking about. When you told me about the woman and the house, at your IT session.”
Meredith’s eyes widened and Mark eyed Julia caustically.
“Are we done making tactless remarks, or is there anything else you’d like to share with us?” he asked her.
“Sorry,” she said and ran a hand through her hair, dislodging some of it from its precarious binding. “I’ve been here all night and it’s been,” she inhaled “frankly crappy. But . . .” she smiled broadly at him. “It’s so great that you’re here!” She turned to the nurse. She seemed wired and Mark assumed she’d just lost the emergency patient or was about to. It got doctors different ways and this was one of them. “This guy . . .” she indicated Mark “is my star patient and-”
“Julia,” he broke in curtly. She was beginning to piss him off. “You want to tell me why you paged me?”
“Oh, of course,” she said. “Why don’t we go into my office?”
“’S fine. You can do out it here.”
“Wouldn’t you like some privacy?” Meredith asked, concerned for him.
Julia stared at Meredith and then at Mark. “Oh, fuck!” she said and looked almost ashamed.
“Fuck?” Mark asked irritably.
“Yeah,” she sort of sighed. “I screwed up. It never occurred to me. You think I paged you with bad news, don’t you? I’m so sorry. I’ve been awake too many hours and drunk too much coffee and I have two terminal patients near-” she made herself stop her stream of talking. “But you’re not one of them.”
“I’m not?” he asked uncertainly.
“God, no!” she said. “You’re progressing beautifully. I was just psyched when I saw your latest results and I wanted to let you know as soon as possible.”
Meredith breathed out audibly and squeezed Mark’s hand. He smiled absently at her, but wasn’t quite able to take in what he was hearing. “You said you’d contact me immediately if something was wrong. Last time you paged me, it was to tell me I was . . . fucked,” he said gruffly.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said. “You’re right. I did say that, but . . . ” She couldn’t keep up the contrition and her face broke into a huge grin. “Your progress is phenomenal. Your latest tests show an 83% reduction in the metastatic tumor-”
“I’m not dying?” he interrupted her.
“No,” she said. “The exact opposite! And, if you’ll just let me finish . . . the primary tumor has also shown some reduction and your immune system is functioning beautifully and-”
“Did you ever hear the words ‘unnecessary mental anguish?’” He asked her, playing for time with sarcasm while he processed the news. It was a lawyer’s phrase; it had been one of the issues in the botched rhinoplasty he’d cleaned up a couple of months ago.
Julia pulled a face. “I’ve already apologized for that,” she said. “Anyway, why would you jump to the conclusion that you were dying? Didn’t we already go over that?”
“Didn’t I tell you she’s a bitch?” Mark asked Meredith, staring pointedly at Julia. A part of him was pissed that Julia’s thoughtlessness had put him, and Meredith and even Derek through so much shit that morning. But for the most part, he was teasing her. Her patient skills left something to be desired; but if it wasn’t for her attitude and her clinical trial, he probably would be the ‘emergency’ right now.
Julia shrugged. “Go ahead and call me a bitch!” she retorted happily. “Whatever floats your boat! But you had a very likely incurable cancer. And I put you on this protocol and now you’re undergoing a startling remission. You’re virtually stage 2 now. It’s . . . miraculous, almost, how well this treatment works for you. You have an amazing body!”
“Oh, I already knew that!” Meredith couldn’t resist saying. She grinned dirtily and this made Mark laugh.
“Yeah,” Julia joked. “Prettiness is the something he does have going for him, I guess. If not for that, who the hell would put up with him?”
“Oh, he grows on you,” Meredith said, and added, softly, to Mark. “He grows on you a lot, in fact.” She stroked his face, and he noticed tears in her eyes, which she tried to blink away.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey, yourself,” she said and smiled.
Julia cleared her throat loudly. “I get that the surgeons in this hospital screw each other as a matter of routine. But do you think you could wait until you’ve left oncology? At least, not in the waiting area.” She paused and smiled at Mark. “I guess we’re done here for today,” she said. “I’m glad I could give you a little good news, even if the delivery left something to be desired.”
“Julia, thank you,” he said. “I mean that. I-” He looked down awkwardly.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “You still have a way to go, of course. But . . . it’s looking really good.” She briefly touched his arm. “I, however, have a lot more patients, a whiny resident, and a date with a double espresso. So, if you’ll excuse me . . . ”
As soon as she had left, Mark said, “We have to find an exam room. I need you take some blood from me.”
“Why?” Meredith was confused.
“STD tests, remember?” He grinned. “I want to celebrate not dying. I want to celebrate it a lot! Anyway you’re turning me on just sitting there holding my hand, Grey. It’s about time I did something about it, don’t you think?” He considered. “What you said that night about people dating before they fucked . . .”
She nodded.
“Well, strictly speaking, although you’ve been very creative, we didn’t actually fuck yet.” He smiled. “So . . . you want to go on a date first? Dinner, maybe, someplace nice?”
“I’d like that,” Meredith said. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”
“And once that’s over with . . . then we can fuck.” He winked.
Meredith slapped his arm playfully. “So the only point of going on this date is the fucking afterwards?”
“Pretty much,” he teased her. “You have problem with that?”
She snuggled against him. “I have no problem with that,” she said in a dreamy voice. “Fucking afterwards sounds perfect.”
Mark suddenly felt drained and tired as the rush of adrenaline Julia’s news had caused subsided. He could talk all he wanted about fucking afterwards but, really, he still wasn’t confident that he could deliver. And right now, all he wanted to do was sleep.
He inhaled. “Shall we see about these tests?” he asked her. “And then . . . you’re off right? You want to go back to the hotel and get some rest with me?”
“I didn’t think,” she said. “You must be exhausted.”
He sighed. He could lie, but they’d gotten beyond that. “I feel like a wreck,” he admitted. “I’m sorry-” he started to apologize, but Meredith stopped him with a gentle kiss.
“Whatever you need,” she said, “I’m here for you.”
Mark tried to find words to tell her how much he loved her; how she made him feel loved and cared for in ways he’d never known before and never expected. But he had no words that were adequate. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, hoping that his touch would convey the feelings that he was unable to express out loud.
Pairing: Mark/Meredith
Characters: Mark, Meredith, Derek, Addison, Cast
Rating: R
Summary: How Mark's and others' lives change when he receives bad news. Set post-Season 3.
Previous chapters here
Chapter 29, Eight Weeks Later, Tuesday Morning - Part 2
“Do you want me to go with you?” Derek had asked just before Mark had left his office.
He’d refused the offer . . . “No, man. It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” reverting to the usual evasive bravado in an attempt to control his emotions. Now he wished he’d accepted. He knew he had to go to oncology, but he couldn’t make himself, and Derek being with him would have helped.
He was procrastinating, putting off the moment when he wouldn’t have to guess any more. He’d spent nearly a half hour walking around outside the hospital, trying to convince himself that the next time he reached the main entrance, he’d go back in. He thought about paging Meredith, because he would have liked her support, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Earlier this morning they’d been talking about what amounted to making a commitment to one another. Now what could he offer her? Holding his hand while he died a slow death?
Whatever it was Julia had paged him about, he didn’t want to hear it spelled out. The metastasis has increased. The tumor’s grown. You’ve become resistant to the therapy. It’s stage 4. You’re going to fucking die, painfully, before you’re forty, and just when your life has finally turned into something worth having.
He briefly considered just giving up and going to the nearest liquor store, because getting wasted would be so much easier than facing this, but had the sense to reject this truly crappy idea. But he could maybe go to the surgical floor. Check on some patients, find out what Karev was doing. After all, he still had a job to do, even if he was going to-
Just stop! He interrupted himself. Give the fucking pessimism a rest! A lab got messed up; she wants a consult on a breast reconstruction; she’s horny and she wants you to screw her! It’s nothing. Get a grip, for God’s sake! Fucking man up! Just go up there and find out what she wants. Because really, he didn’t have a choice.
- - - - -
Meredith had spent the first part of the morning getting side-tracked by George, who wanted to talk, ramble endlessly in fact, about Mark and Derek’s dead patient. She had been impatient for him to finish and when he had said, “She just died,” helplessly, for what seemed like the hundredth time, she’d snapped at him, “You followed procedure. You did everything you could. Why are you taking this so hard, anyway? You’ve seen patients die before, lots of times.” George had looked hurt, but she didn’t have the energy to care about that now.
All she wanted to know was what was going on with Mark and Derek. Mark had hardly talked during the drive in to work and she was concerned for him. She couldn’t help anticipating that Derek would do something to hurt him when he was just trying to be nice, and she wanted to be able to protect him from this. She was beginning to learn how deeply he felt things, even if he hardly ever let anyone know this, and half the time didn’t know it himself. And she knew only too well how remote and difficult Derek could be while at the same time making you feel that you were missing something wonderful by not having his love, or friendship, or whatever. She could still remember McDreamy-how he smiled and looked at her and how he’d made her feel once. Now she had something . . . someone she loved more; but that didn’t mean she had no memories and that sometimes it didn’t still hurt.
Thankfully, George’s pager had gone off and he’d muttered something about ‘Shepherd’s autopsy report,’ and gone away disconsolately, leaving Meredith relieved that she could finally go and look for Mark. But George and worry and getting up at 3:00 am had exhausted her, so she went to get coffee first.
- - - - -
“Meredith.” She knew exactly and precisely who the gentle voice behind her belonged to. She had heard it so many times. It had, after all, at one time, less than two months ago, been the voice she most wanted to hear in the world. She turned to face him, a just purchased caramel latte in her hand, and tried to smile.
“Derek,” she said, trying not to put any inflection into his name. She didn’t want to seem hostile or welcoming or . . . anything; she wanted to seem neutral until she’d figured out what he wanted. She indicated the coffee cart. “You want some? I could . . . ” She trailed off, conscious that their last conversation had begun at the coffee cart, and conscious that he must remember this as well.
“Why not?” he said. The friendliness was still evident in his voice. “Cappuccino. Thank you.” When she hesitated, he added, smiling to show that he meant well, “It’s okay. However it comes. I’m not as particular as some people.”
Meredith smiled weakly at Derek’s joke and took refuge in ordering his coffee. But his affability made her feel braver and, as she handed him the Styrofoam cup she asked him, “Did you . . . did you talk to Mark?”
He raised his eyebrows slightly and she remembered that this had been the beginning of yet another conversation they’d had before.
Preempting any reply he might make, she said, “I’m sorry. I treated you badly. I never meant . . . it wasn’t my intention for . . . it just happened.” She gave a small shrug. “I fell in love with him.”
Derek acknowledged her explanation with a brief nod. “We talked,” he said. “I believe we understand each other better.” He sighed, absorbed briefly by his own thoughts. “It was certainly an enlightening morning.” He smiled, but there was something in his expression that Meredith, who was used to reading his moods, interpreted as worry.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Not at all. I was just-”
“What is it?” she insisted. She knew something was wrong. Part of her felt inappropriate, haranguing Derek when he was being so nice and . . . well, generous. But something in his manner made her feel anxious, especially now that his eyes had taken on the look of compassion she remembered so well from when she’d been in love with him rather than Mark.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just that, when we were talking, Mark’s oncologist paged him.”
“What did she want?” Meredith demanded sharply.
“Really, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Derek repeated, not very convincingly.
Meredith looked intently into his eyes. “What did she want?” she repeated in an intense whisper.
“I don’t know, Meredith. That wasn’t clear. Mark seemed to think it might be-”
“It’s something bad, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Meredith,” he said again. “Mark was worried by it, yes. But, I thought it could be . . . well, anything. I’ve worked with Julia Lindstrom. Her job’s difficult and she can be a little unorthodox sometimes.” Derek had talked himself into this point of view between Mark’s office, picking up the autopsy report from O’Malley and arriving at the coffee cart. Saying it out loud was as much for his benefit as for Meredith’s.
For a second, Meredith panicked, unable to deal with her emotions. But she had a choice: lose it or stall until she got a hold of herself, and she chose to stall. “Did you find out why the meningioma patient died?” she asked him in a distracted voice.
Derek glanced briefly at the file in his hand. “Yes” he said, sensitive to her need to gather her thoughts. “She had a brain hemorrhage and that caused a sudden coma. Fluid built up in her lungs and airways and that led to-”
“Heart failure,” Meredith supplied.
“Yes,” he nodded. “It’s not common, but it’s documented with meningiomas. Nobody really knows why it occurs and it usually happens too fast to intervene. It’s tragic. I thought I could help her.”
“It is tragic,” she repeated, then swallowed and then asked in a quiet, urgent voice, “What if Mark dies? I never really thought about it. Everything was so,” she glanced at him to assess his reaction; his eyes still looked caring, “complicated. I never had time to think about . . . that.” She sighed. “And I guess I didn’t want to.”
“I never thought about it either,” he said softly. “Not enough, anyway.”
Meredith nodded. Her anxiety wasn’t relieved, but she was grateful for Derek’s kindness, and that he seemed to have restored his friendship with Mark. This was the man she had once fallen in love with. She’d hoped he was capable of acting this way, but she hadn’t dared to expect it. “Thank you,” she said. “For understanding. It must mean so much to Mark. It means so much to me. And . . . just thank you.”
- - - - -
“Dr. Lindstom around?” Mark asked, and the oncology nurse on duty at the small nurse’s station looked up and smiled. She was a pretty little brunette with nice tits that were clearly what God gave her and he’d always sort of flirted with her because, well, that’s what he did. Right now, though, he was too assaulted by his own feelings to flirt and he hoped she wouldn’t want to.
“Dr. Sloan!” She gushed his name in a way that implied he could fuck her right there on the counter if he wanted.
He gave her a tired smile and willed her to treat him like any other patient. “Julia Lindstrom paged me,” he said.
The nurse seemed to get the message and, when she spoke next, the flirty had gone, replaced by detached kindness.
“Dr. Lindstrom has an emergency,” she said gently. “Would you like to take a seat and wait for her?” She indicated the soft, leather seats in the waiting area.
Mark nodded. “Somebody circling the drain?” he asked, half sardonic and half . . . what? . . . half, more than half, scared it was going to be him next.
“She has an emergency,” the nurse repeated, firmly tactful. “I’m not certain of the details. Take a seat and she’ll be with you as soon as she can. I’ll make sure she knows you’re here.”
He slumped into the pliable leather and closed his eyes. The more he tried not thinking or thinking positively, the more worst-case scenarios played themselves out in his head, until he found himself breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Mark?” He opened his eyes. It was Meredith, looking uncertain and awkward. And relief flooded him.
“Hey,” he said, in a soft, low, gentle voice, and held out his hand.
She sat down next to him, close enough that their bodies just touched and took his hand. “Is it okay that I’m. . . ? Derek said . . .”
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice still very soft. “It’s more than okay. Thank you.”
“Did you find anything out? Are you all right?” she asked apprehensively.
“No and, uh, not exactly,” he said and smiled. He was tempted to say ‘I’m fine,’ but he wasn’t fine and he didn’t want to hide that from her. “It’s better with you here, though.” He lifted her hand and kissed it tenderly. Hand kissing wasn’t a customary move of his; but this wasn’t a move. It was a spontaneous expression of love and trust.
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m sure it’s nothing horrible.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.” He sighed. “You talked to Derek?”
She nodded.
“How’d that go?”
“Good,” she said. “He was nice. He was-”
‘McDreamy, right?” Mark said only half-snarkily and Meredith nodded again. “I knew there had to be some reason I was friends with him all those years.” He almost managed a smirk. “So you think-”
Julia rushed into the waiting area. He had been about to make some lame joke about Meredith going back to Derek and was a little relieved that Julia’s entrance had prevented this. A small, nagging part of him couldn’t help worrying about this possibility, and the joke would probably have misfired.
Julia looked disheveled and like she’d been up all night and her long, pale blonde hair was piled up on her head and fixed there with something that Mark thought probably had more to do with office supplies than personal adornment. She was dressed in wrinkled looking pink scrubs. Not Addison-colored pink; a kind of pallid, washed-out pink, which accentuated the obvious puke and blood stains on the left hip of her scrub pants. Shit! Was that going to be him soon; spending the night puking blood on his oncologist and being described as ‘an emergency’ to Meredith and Derek?
“Hi!” she said breathlessly and then focused on Meredith and said “Hi!” again, in a surprised, delighted tone. She looked back at Mark. “That’s her!” she said. “The woman who was in your room.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Ohhh . . .” she said. “That’s her her; the woman you were talking about. When you told me about the woman and the house, at your IT session.”
Meredith’s eyes widened and Mark eyed Julia caustically.
“Are we done making tactless remarks, or is there anything else you’d like to share with us?” he asked her.
“Sorry,” she said and ran a hand through her hair, dislodging some of it from its precarious binding. “I’ve been here all night and it’s been,” she inhaled “frankly crappy. But . . .” she smiled broadly at him. “It’s so great that you’re here!” She turned to the nurse. She seemed wired and Mark assumed she’d just lost the emergency patient or was about to. It got doctors different ways and this was one of them. “This guy . . .” she indicated Mark “is my star patient and-”
“Julia,” he broke in curtly. She was beginning to piss him off. “You want to tell me why you paged me?”
“Oh, of course,” she said. “Why don’t we go into my office?”
“’S fine. You can do out it here.”
“Wouldn’t you like some privacy?” Meredith asked, concerned for him.
Julia stared at Meredith and then at Mark. “Oh, fuck!” she said and looked almost ashamed.
“Fuck?” Mark asked irritably.
“Yeah,” she sort of sighed. “I screwed up. It never occurred to me. You think I paged you with bad news, don’t you? I’m so sorry. I’ve been awake too many hours and drunk too much coffee and I have two terminal patients near-” she made herself stop her stream of talking. “But you’re not one of them.”
“I’m not?” he asked uncertainly.
“God, no!” she said. “You’re progressing beautifully. I was just psyched when I saw your latest results and I wanted to let you know as soon as possible.”
Meredith breathed out audibly and squeezed Mark’s hand. He smiled absently at her, but wasn’t quite able to take in what he was hearing. “You said you’d contact me immediately if something was wrong. Last time you paged me, it was to tell me I was . . . fucked,” he said gruffly.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said. “You’re right. I did say that, but . . . ” She couldn’t keep up the contrition and her face broke into a huge grin. “Your progress is phenomenal. Your latest tests show an 83% reduction in the metastatic tumor-”
“I’m not dying?” he interrupted her.
“No,” she said. “The exact opposite! And, if you’ll just let me finish . . . the primary tumor has also shown some reduction and your immune system is functioning beautifully and-”
“Did you ever hear the words ‘unnecessary mental anguish?’” He asked her, playing for time with sarcasm while he processed the news. It was a lawyer’s phrase; it had been one of the issues in the botched rhinoplasty he’d cleaned up a couple of months ago.
Julia pulled a face. “I’ve already apologized for that,” she said. “Anyway, why would you jump to the conclusion that you were dying? Didn’t we already go over that?”
“Didn’t I tell you she’s a bitch?” Mark asked Meredith, staring pointedly at Julia. A part of him was pissed that Julia’s thoughtlessness had put him, and Meredith and even Derek through so much shit that morning. But for the most part, he was teasing her. Her patient skills left something to be desired; but if it wasn’t for her attitude and her clinical trial, he probably would be the ‘emergency’ right now.
Julia shrugged. “Go ahead and call me a bitch!” she retorted happily. “Whatever floats your boat! But you had a very likely incurable cancer. And I put you on this protocol and now you’re undergoing a startling remission. You’re virtually stage 2 now. It’s . . . miraculous, almost, how well this treatment works for you. You have an amazing body!”
“Oh, I already knew that!” Meredith couldn’t resist saying. She grinned dirtily and this made Mark laugh.
“Yeah,” Julia joked. “Prettiness is the something he does have going for him, I guess. If not for that, who the hell would put up with him?”
“Oh, he grows on you,” Meredith said, and added, softly, to Mark. “He grows on you a lot, in fact.” She stroked his face, and he noticed tears in her eyes, which she tried to blink away.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey, yourself,” she said and smiled.
Julia cleared her throat loudly. “I get that the surgeons in this hospital screw each other as a matter of routine. But do you think you could wait until you’ve left oncology? At least, not in the waiting area.” She paused and smiled at Mark. “I guess we’re done here for today,” she said. “I’m glad I could give you a little good news, even if the delivery left something to be desired.”
“Julia, thank you,” he said. “I mean that. I-” He looked down awkwardly.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “You still have a way to go, of course. But . . . it’s looking really good.” She briefly touched his arm. “I, however, have a lot more patients, a whiny resident, and a date with a double espresso. So, if you’ll excuse me . . . ”
As soon as she had left, Mark said, “We have to find an exam room. I need you take some blood from me.”
“Why?” Meredith was confused.
“STD tests, remember?” He grinned. “I want to celebrate not dying. I want to celebrate it a lot! Anyway you’re turning me on just sitting there holding my hand, Grey. It’s about time I did something about it, don’t you think?” He considered. “What you said that night about people dating before they fucked . . .”
She nodded.
“Well, strictly speaking, although you’ve been very creative, we didn’t actually fuck yet.” He smiled. “So . . . you want to go on a date first? Dinner, maybe, someplace nice?”
“I’d like that,” Meredith said. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”
“And once that’s over with . . . then we can fuck.” He winked.
Meredith slapped his arm playfully. “So the only point of going on this date is the fucking afterwards?”
“Pretty much,” he teased her. “You have problem with that?”
She snuggled against him. “I have no problem with that,” she said in a dreamy voice. “Fucking afterwards sounds perfect.”
Mark suddenly felt drained and tired as the rush of adrenaline Julia’s news had caused subsided. He could talk all he wanted about fucking afterwards but, really, he still wasn’t confident that he could deliver. And right now, all he wanted to do was sleep.
He inhaled. “Shall we see about these tests?” he asked her. “And then . . . you’re off right? You want to go back to the hotel and get some rest with me?”
“I didn’t think,” she said. “You must be exhausted.”
He sighed. He could lie, but they’d gotten beyond that. “I feel like a wreck,” he admitted. “I’m sorry-” he started to apologize, but Meredith stopped him with a gentle kiss.
“Whatever you need,” she said, “I’m here for you.”
Mark tried to find words to tell her how much he loved her; how she made him feel loved and cared for in ways he’d never known before and never expected. But he had no words that were adequate. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, hoping that his touch would convey the feelings that he was unable to express out loud.