The Breath that Passed from You to Me (5/?)
Rating: M
Word Count: 1682
Summary: Takes place after Mark and Lexie's very short, very unsatisfying, conversation/fight/whatever at the end of 6x12.
Hey everyone! It's been a long time since I've updated any of my stories. Part of it was that school started back up and is taking up all of my time. The other part is that I've hit some serious writer's block since the show has destroyed M/L. But I forced myself to sit down and write something. I'm also working on the next chapter of NEM. This story is obviously gonna be AU since I haven't watched any GA episodes since 6x14.
Here's the next chapter and I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy or it's characters.
All mistakes are mine. I might be a bit rusty.
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Lexie tiredly rubbed a hand over her eyes while adjusting the bag on her shoulder. She was exhausted. All she wanted to do was to get back to Meredith's, she could never really call that place home...not when home was always where he was, and take a nice long bath. Maybe even have a glass of wine...anything to get her mind off of today.
It felt like she had been running a marathon the entire day; with trying to keep up with her patients plus the added stress of Mark ignoring her once again. For the entire day, Lexie tried in vain to get Mark to talk to her. She had to admit, the way he managed to avoid her was comical and sort of impressive in the beginning. When Mark really didn't want to see you, you never saw him. Even Derek, who was surprisingly nice to her even though she broke his best friend's heart, had no idea where he was. Lexie brushed it off at the time but the entire reality of the situation hit her while she was treating Cristina's sex injury. Seeing firsthand the kind of passion a couple was supposed to have made her start to cry all over Cristina's bare ass. She was never going to have a sex injury again...at least not with Mark. And the thought of having a sex injury with someone else made her sick to her stomach. Her heart sank when she couldn't even remember the last time they actually had sex...and whenever she thought about the last time she had sex, she wanted to throw up right on her own scrubs.
Staring at the closed elevator doors, she thought that after the painful conversation they had in his apartment, they were closer to maybe cleaning up the mess they made or at least past him not talking to her. She wasn't naive enough to think that they would magically get back together but she hoped that they could still be friends. He was, after all, her best friend and the first guy she ever pictured spending the rest of her life with. That kind of connection couldn't just go away because of their break-up.
Right?
But as hard as she tried to talk to him, Mark tried even harder to make himself scarce. For some reason he had reverted back to making her feel like she didn't exist...to making her feel like she didn't matter. Every time she approached him, he would just ignore her and quickly leave the room. The act of making her feel irrelevant and unimportant was what hurt her the most.
By the end of the day, Lexie's nerves were fried and her emotional control was on thin ice; control that was rapidly slipping when she looked up and saw Mark stepping into the elevator.
At first, Lexie tried to ignore the pang in her chest. It was getting more painful every second to be so close to him, yet no longer able to touch him. Her heart fluttered when she thought of how roughly he grabbed her earlier that morning. It had been too long since he last touched her and those precious few seconds were not enough. Nothing would ever be enough with him. He was as addicting as the most powerful drug and she could feel her body starting to feel the withdrawal effects of being without his touch for so long.
As they rode the elevator in silence, she could feel the heat of his gaze on her back. The waves of uneasiness and discomfort he was sending her made her sick. When she thought about how obviously uncomfortable he looked when the elevator doors prevented him from leaving the small space, something broke inside of her.
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She ran away from him.
Lexie actually ran away from him.
She used to say that just being around him was like a soothing balm for her aches; now she was running away from him like he had the plague.
Mark watched in shock as she ran out of the elevator; her dark brown hair rippling behind her like ribbons. Soft hair that his fingers had once spent hours getting lost in while his body was busy getting intimately lost in hers.
When he saw her face contort in an attempt to hold back tears, he unconsciously moved forward to comfort her. Every cell in his body wanted to move forward and comfort every cell in hers. It was a deeply ingrained habit; practically instinctual for him to want to envelop her in his arms and shield her from whatever was causing her pain.
He admits that when he first stepped into the elevator, he didn't really try hard enough to leave. A part of him, a ridiculously big part, wanted to stay trapped in that elevator with her. Mark missed Lexie so much he was willing to withstand yelling or lectures about how immature and hypocritical he was being. Being in that elevator filled him with so many different emotions he thought could never mix together.
Disgust with what she did.
Happiness just being close to her.
Sadness that he was going home alone to an empty apartment.
Regret that they were apart.
Lusting to shove her against the wall and erase his touch from her body.
It was a strange combination of feelings he had never felt before. Not even when Addison broke his heart.
The elevator doors shut and Mark's gaze caught his reflection in the closed doors. Cold blue eyes met their mirror image and he felt sick. He was causing the pain that made her bolt away in tears. All day he was conscious of his own pain, like it was a living and breathing tumor sucking the life out of him, that he didn't think of her own pain until that moment. Seeing her tears drilled home the realization that she was also hurting; a fact he tried as hard as hell to ignore. It was easier to be angry with her if he thought she didn't care about him.
A painful churning began in his belly; not for the first time since this entire mess began. The churning that started when Lexie broke up with him and continued to churn long after finding out Lexie slept with Karev. It had been one huge cooking pot of disgust and anger directed toward the only person that he ever loved.
Mark was instantly transported back to when Addison aborted their child all those years ago...the only other time that he felt the way he feels now. There had also been anger, disgust, disappointment and the crushing pain of heartbreak that threatened to kill him. But the only difference between losing that child and losing Lexie was that in the case of his unborn child, he had no idea what he was missing. He never knew what it was like to hold a newborn that was his own; someone who depended on him and loved him unconditionally. With his unborn child, he mostly mourned for the loss of possibilities a child could have offered to his life.
When Sloane first entered his life, he thought that he would finally be able to feel that familial connection. That at last, he would be able to have that special bond between a parent and child. But as hard as he tried with her, he had come to the painful realization that they would never have a close relationship.
With Lexie, he knew exactly what he was missing. That first kiss in his hotel room had told him everything he ever needed to know; that she was going to change his life forever. That she was going to take the jagged pieces of his heart and put them back together. As time went on, he knew in his heart that she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She was the one he wanted to have babies with. The one he wanted to come home to every night. She might have come to his hotel that night begging but for every night (and sometimes day) after, he would be the one begging at her beautiful feet.
He knows now that he never had a choice; that he was doomed from the beginning. Lexie was like gravity. Like he told Callie, it wasn't just the sex; just being near her made his empty heart fill with something it's been lacking for way too long. No matter how hard he tried to stay away, there was always something pulling him back to her.
The elevator dinged and Mark snapped out of his thoughts. The doors opened and once again, he was in the presence of someone who made his blood boil...and not in a good way.
Alex absently nodded to Mark before pressing the button to close the elevator doors.
"Hey" Alex said, oblivious to how his mere presence was filling Mark with rage. Mark wondered if Alex thought him wouldn't hit him again just because they were in the hospital. Mark's hand unconsciously clenched, pulsing with energy as if it knew it's owner was going to pummel someone's face.
Mark's silence caused Alex to look back and see the murderous glare aimed at him.
"Dude, what's your problem?"
"You slept with Lexie."
"Your point?"
Mark's heated gaze didn't waver "You slept with Lexie."
Alex rolled his eyes "And I heard you slept with Addison."
"You slept with Lexie" Mark repeated.
"Dude, are you a freaking record player? Yeah, I slept with Lexie. You slept with Addison. From where I'm standing that makes you even. Now can you please take that stick out of your ass and talk to her." Alex let out a frustrated sigh and shook his head "Just...talk to her. She keeps whining and bothering me, complaining how you won't look at her. It's annoying as hell."
Without another word, Alex walked out of the elevator seconds later when the doors opened, leaving a conflicted Mark behind.
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