The Breath that Passed from You to Me (4/?)
Rating: M
Summary: Takes place after the last aired episode (6x12) after Mark and Lexie's very short, very unsatisfying, conversation/fight/whatever.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Chapter Four
I know, I know. I should be working on Nothing Else Matters. It's just, this story keeps calling to me and writing itself every time I open up a word document.
Any and all mistakes are mine.
Word Count: 2608
A sudden sharp bang on his apartment door caused Mark to spill some of his coffee on the newspaper he was reading. He was seated at the kitchen counter, eating a depressingly lonely breakfast and whoever was at the door was entirely unwelcome at the moment. His head hurt and his hand was turning black and blue so he was in no mood to entertain guests.
“Mark! Open the door!”
The unexpected sound of Lexie’s angry and impatient voice caused him to spill the rest of his coffee...onto his lap. It took all of his self control to keep quiet as the scolding hot liquid seeped through his sweat pants. When Lexie’s banging ceased, he naively prayed that Lexie thought he wasn’t home. But his luck wasn’t that lucky.
“I know you’re in there Mark. I can hear the radio playing.”
Mark cursed out loud as he looked at the traitorous radio in question. He was checking in on his beloved Yankees on the East Coast and had forgotten he left the radio on.
“Go away!” he yelled in the direction of the door.
“Not until you open this door!” Lexie yelled back.
Mark could hear the door to Callie’s apartment open and Arizona ask Lexie what she was doing.
“Apparently Mark broke Alex’s nose last night at Joe’s.”
Mark couldn’t help but smile to himself proudly. He was glad that the pain he was feeling in his hand wasn't for nothing.
“Jerk deserved it” he thought to himself.
“Why would Mark break Karev’s nose?” Arizona confusedly asked. She was obviously not well versed in Seattle Grace gossip.
“Because I slept with him. Although, that’s still not a good excuse for violence.” Mark knew that she threw that last bit in for his benefit and scowled childishly at the door.
“Oh” was Arizona’s only response. A few moments later he heard her politely say she had to get ready for work and closed Callie’s door. Mark knew from Callie that Arizona wasn’t on call today but was probably hoping not to get involved in his and Lexie’s drama. He wished he was able to do the same and remove himself from this fucked up situation. Maybe if he continued to ignore Lexie, she'd leave him alone. Looking back, this was probably not one of his more brilliant plans. But hey, it was early and he was hungover. His synapses weren't firing properly at the moment.
Lexie’s banging on the door wasn’t doing anything to help his headache and he wished she would just take the hint and leave. Mark was getting prepared to sneak out onto the fire escape if Lexie didn’t leave sometime soon when his front door suddenly opened. Mark mentally slapped himself. How drunk was he last night that he couldn’t manage to lock his door?
“You broke his nose!” Lexie yelled, obviously deciding to skip small talk.
Mark casually looked up from his place at the kitchen counter with more indifference than he actually felt.
“So?” he said before going back to mopping up his spilled coffee.
“So?! You can’t just go around hitting people in the face because they slept with me!” Lexie fumed.
Mark’s hands froze and his shoulders momentarily tensed. He really didn't like being reminded there were other men in Lexie's life before him. It was that stupid male pride that made him seethe at the thought of other guys touching Lexie. To Mark, Lexie was his...even when she wasn't.
“Why are you here Lexie?”
“You shouldn’t have punched Alex.”
“Why? Is he your boyfriend now?”
Lexie’s fingers uncharacteristically clenched into a fist. She didn’t like to inflict pain on others but Mark was seriously testing her patience.
“Shut up.”
Mark stood with a speed that put her off balance. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore. Not since you dumped me and opened your legs for the first guy that showed an interest.”
Lexie glared at him before slapping him across the face. The sound of her slap reverberated throughout the room as they stared at each other in shocked silence. They had never, ever raised a hand to each other. Not once. There may have been some playful moments in the bedroom...or whatever room they were in when the mood struck, but it was never anything malicious or hurtful.
Mark brought a hand to his cheek to soothe the sting of her slap while Lexie unconsciously took a step back. Mark brought his hand down to his side before opening his mouth.
“What are you doing here Lexie?” His voice came out very low. “You didn’t just come here to slap me for punching Karev, so why are you here?” he asked again. Even though they were no longer together, he was still able to read the emotions on Lexie's face. Although she might have initially come over to tell him off for punching Alex, there was something underneath the surface that told him there was another reason she was here.
“I don’t know!” she said, half confused with her own reasoning as to why she came. She had been off kilter the entire day...starting the moment she realized Mark snuck into Meredith’s house and draped his jacket around her sleeping body. That one action seemed so out of character for him lately that she had no idea what to make of it. She had come over to scold him for breaking Alex’s nose but there was something else that brought her here; mostly curiosity. Was the leather jacket a peace offering? Was he finally thinking like an adult and want to talk rationally? Maybe forgive her for sleeping with Alex and apologize for his own actions with Addison? But his obvious anger at her right now told her she had been mistaken and that he didn't want to start fixing this mess they were in. That revelation caused a sharp pain in her chest.
Mark took in her confused and pained expression and the anger flooded out of his body. If there was one thing that could flip the switch on his emotions, it was Lexie. Just one look from her could make him forget he was even angry in the first place. That was one of the reasons why he couldn’t make himself look at her; it was way too tempting to just take her in his arms and forget everything. He hated that his feelings didn't stop once the relationship ended.
This entire situation suddenly made him really tired. Rubbing his face with the palm of his hand, he walked over and sat on the back of the couch.
“I hate fighting with you” he truthfully admitted.
A few painfully silent seconds passed before Lexie walked over to sit next to him; not close enough to touch but close enough that he could feel her body heat.
“I never thought this would be us. Did you?” Mark asked her.
“I thought we’d be happy forever” she said with a little chuckle. Naivety was something she did well. Even though she knew no relationship could exist peacefully forever, she never thought her relationship with Mark would have ended so abruptly. Granted, she was the one that ended it, she never thought the day would come when she would have to step away from their relationship. But even though they were broken up, that didn’t stop her from loving him still. It was like trying to stop the rain from falling; impossible. And all this avoidance and fighting wasn’t making the situation any less painful for either of them.
Mark turned his head to the side to look at her. His heart jumped when he noticed she was wearing his leather jacket. He still didn’t know what possessed him to go into Meredith’s house last night to drape it over her sleeping frame but he was glad he did. That jacket always seemed to look better on her than it ever did on him.
“What happened to us Lexie? We were good together, weren’t we?”
Lexie looked up at him with sad eyes before replying. “Yeah, we were.”
They sat in silence while they both gathered their respective chaotic thoughts together.
Mark sensed her take a deep breath before speaking. “Where’s Sloan?”
He knew that it took a lot for her to ask that and his heart swelled a tiny bit at her concern.
“She’s back with her mother.”
“But I thought her mother kicked her out.”
“When Samantha heard that Sloan was giving up the baby, she allowed Sloan to move back home.”
Mark looked up in surprise when he felt Lexie’s hand slip into his. She gripped it tightly between both of hers. The amount of love and compassion he felt in that one gesture made him fall in love with her all over again...even if at the moment, he was trying like hell to hate her.
“I’m so sorry Mark. I know how important getting to know Sloan and your grandchild was to you.”
Mark shrugged halfheartedly, “I guess I wasn’t as important to them as they were to me.”
“Don’t say that. You were-are” Lexie corrected herself “a great father. You’ve done more for that girl than most men would have...including offering to adopt the baby yourself.”
Mark looked at her curiously. Lexie looked down and smiled sheepishly while tracing circles on the back of his hand with her thumb.
“Derek told me.” She then looked softly into his eyes “I wish you would have told me. Even if we are fighting or whatever it is we’re doing, you’re still my best friend Mark.”
Mark took in a harsh breath as he took in what she said. They sat there in silence as her words seemed to wrap around him in a loving embrace.
“You know,” he started softly “I’ve told you things that I’ve never told anyone else. I've given you something I’ve never given anyone else” his voice lowered at the end of his sentence. They both knew what he meant without saying. Mark Sloan had given her his elusive heart.
“And you don’t think I haven’t done the same?” Lexie argued. The thought that Mark didn't believe he had her heart caused her anger to return two-fold. "This was the problem" she thought; he didn't think she was hurting as much as he was.
Mark took his hand from her grasp and folded his arms across his chest. No longer looking at her face and at those eyes that always sucked him in, he was able to just barely shut his feelings off and to turn the pain and heartbreak on.
“I don’t know. What I do know is that you didn’t seem too heartbroken if you were able to jump into bed with someone right after breaking up with me.”
"Here we go again" Lexie thought. Once again, he was making the breakup and consequent sex with other people all about him. Like he was the only one feeling sad and heartbroken and betrayed by everything that happened.
The momentary truce was over between them at his statement and Lexie could feel the rush of tears building behind her eyes. She always began to cry when she was angry or frustrated.
“You are an asshole.” Lexie said as she pushed herself off the back of the couch.
Mark laughed without humor as he watched Lexie stand in front of him with arms folded across her chest. “I’m the asshole?”
“Are you forgetting that you slept with Addison? You don’t think that hurts me?! You don’t think I can’t get that picture out of my head?!" With every word, Lexie's feet brought her closer to him. “How do you think that makes me feel? Knowing that she was all over you? Doing things that only I’m supposed to be doing.”
At this point, Lexie’s legs were almost pressed up against his knees and she was looking down at him. The rapid beating of their hearts and the rough sounds of their breath seemed to fill the room as they glared at each other.
Without thinking, Mark stood and roughly grabbed Lexie; holding her flush against his body. One of his arms held her tightly around the waist while his right hand cupped the back of her neck; he ignored the rush of pain the action caused his hand.
“I haven’t thought about Addison since I left L.A. I haven't been thinking about a lot of things since you left me.” Lexie suddenly found it hard to breathe as she stared into his eyes; eyes intense with emotion.
"All I can think about are his hands on you." Mark swallowed roughly before tightening his grip on her waist and neck; making it hard for her to move.
"His fingers grabbing your hair" he said while sifting his own fingers through her chestnut locks. She shouldn't be feeling a rush of electricity as he did this, but she did. She felt it all the way down to her toes.
"His lips on your lips" he continued while running a thumb across her soft bottom lip, causing her lips to part. Lexie couldn't help it. Just like she couldn't help the warm liquid pooling between her legs as a result of his touch. It was always hard to resist him when his hands were on her body.
"Him touching something that belongs to me” he said, lowering his lips until they were hovering not a hair's length from hers; finishing his assault on her body and her emotions.
The heated blush coloring Lexie’s face caused a stirring deep inside of him. He could feel something primitive inside him ordering to take her right there. To claim her right on the kitchen counter. Only the rush of surgery had ever been able to invoke the kind of passion currently coursing through his veins. No woman had ever made him feel like Lexie could. No woman had ever believed in him or given him a chance to prove the rumors about him wrong...and he hated the fact the she was no longer his.
“I don’t belong to anyone” Lexie said while defiantly looking up into his face. No one had ever manhandled her like this and she wasn’t about to let it start now...no matter how good it felt.
“Let go of me” she demanded.
Mark reluctantly released her from his grip and he could feel a rushing emptiness fill his chest. It had been too long since he last held her and those small seconds holding her were not enough to satisfy him.
Lexie took a couple steps back in an attempt to keep space between them. She rubbed her arms roughly, trying to erase his touch, but she could still feel his arms around her. Arms she once thought she’d never be without and arms she thought she would never feel again.
The sound of two pagers simultaneously beeping brought the coming argument to a halt. They both checked their pagers to see that there was an emergency and they were both needed at the hospital. Rushing out of the apartment with barely a glance at each other, they both knew that this conversation was far from over.
Wow, I'm really surprising myself with these long chapters.
Reviews please!! =D