Outside These Walls 4/?
Ok...so I am soooo excited for Evan Lysacek right now! Yay! I've really been in his corner hoping he would win the Gold in Men's Figure Skating this year...so yay! Congrats to him!
Ok...now back our regularly scheduled programming:
Here it is, the long awaited next installment of Outside These Walls. Remember, we're in Season Four. I try to give clues about where we are in the season by keeping some of the same events/situations as we actually saw in that Season, so watch for those to give context. I'm anxious to hear what everyone thinks :)
Title: Outside These Walls 4/?
Pairing: Mark/Lexie
Rating: PG...for now
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Her father shows up in the ER again and she’s so pissed that she can’t even see straight by the time the idiot resident running the pit recommends a plastics consult. “Don’t bother,” Lexie bites out, “I’ve already paged Dr. Sloan.”
Her father’s arm is slashed open, she’s fairly certain from a combination of a broken bottle of bourbon and alcoholism. “Daddy,” she says, hoping he remembers who she is, “I’m getting you a better doctor, I promise.”
“Sure, baby. But you should get Meredith Grey, she’s a great doctor,” her father says, slurring every other word.
Lexie nods and worries her lip between her teeth, waiting for Mark to bustle into the pit. She knows he’ll be expecting a great case and he’ll start asking her questions and flashing his perfect teeth at her. But then he’ll realize that this isn’t an interesting case and that her father is really terrible. “Little Grey, what do we have,” Mark asks, walking into the curtained area.
“My father,” she nearly whispers.
Mark looks up at her, forgetting about the chart in his hand. His eyes search hers, wondering if she’s really handling this as well as she’s letting on. “You okay?”
Lexie nods, “Yeah, absolutely. The wound needs irrigation and I think a pulley stitch would be appropriate.”
“You’re sure you want to assist?” he asks, still unsure about how she’s dealing with her father’s drunken state.
“If I don’t, you’ll never get him stitched up. I’ll occupy his mind so you can stitch. I’m so sorry for paging you. Any of your guys in plastics could do this…”
“You should always page me,” Mark insists. “If it’s personal to you, it’s personal to me. Always page me.”
Lexie pulls her lips into a tight, thin smile and she nods towards her father. “He’s still drunk, so you won’t have to use much numbing. He probably can’t even feel the injury,” she scoffs.
Mark nods and moves further into the partitioned area. “Mr. Grey? I’m Dr. Sloan, I’m going to be working on that cut you’ve got there. Is that alright?”
“Of course! If my little Lexie says you’re good, then you’re good. Can I just have a little cup of the liquid courage, it calms my nerves,” Thatcher responds.
Lexie shakes her head at her father’s request and wonders how things got so bad so quickly. “Daddy, I think maybe you should just let Dr. Sloan give you the numbing shot. It’ll work better than the drink will.”
“A drink solves all my problems,” Thatcher reasons.
Mark sees that Thatcher is getting ready to throw a drunken fit in the pit and decides that Lexie shouldn’t have to deal with another disappointment, “Mr. Grey, how about I buy you a drink after? Legally, no one in this hospital can give you a drink and you wouldn’t want Lexie to loose her job, would you?”
Lexie nods, silently thanking Mark for his understanding and his ability to deal with her drunk father. She’s absolutely mortified that her problem is sitting here on an exam table. Most people’s problems are theoretical and logical. Hers is a walking, talking reminder that her mother is dead and her father’s sanity along with her. Mark pulls up a small stool and gloves his hands in preparation for the small procedure. “Mr. Grey, how about you tell me something about your daughter,” he prompts.
Mark begins to numb the arm and then starts suturing the wound with pulley stitches. “Which daughter? Lexie? She’s brilliant. So much smarter than either of my other girls. Meredith is book smart and she doesn’t have a caring bone in her body. She’s her mother’s daughter. And Molly doesn’t have the drive to be anything other than a mother. And that’s ok, but she’ll never have a career. My Lexie is the smartest of them all,” Thatcher says, suddenly somewhat sober. “She’s got the talent to have a great career and a great personal life too. As long as she doesn’t become a surgeon.”
Lexie’s face falls at her father’s last words. Clearly the alcohol is affecting his memory again and he’s forgotten that she’s not in undergrad and trying to decide on a career. She sighs in frustration and moves to assist Mark in the procedure. “You don’t have to do this,” Mark whispers, looking up at her with sympathetic eyes.
“Due respect, Dr. Sloan, I’d prefer that you didn’t get assistance from anyone else on this case.”
Mark nods, admiring her false strength and her desire to want to keep things as private as possible. She dons a set of gloves and offers him a second suture kit when he needs to change needles. “What’s going on here?” Thatcher asks, coming back to reality.
“Daddy, you’re hurt. Dr. Sloan is just stitching up your arm.”
“No, I mean, what’s going on between the two of you,” Thatcher clarifies.
Two shell shocked faces look back at him, neither sure of how to address the observation he’s just made. Mark clears his throat, pulls his lips into a wry smile, and goes back to his work. Lexie is just as unresponsive and returns her focus to watching Mark suture the wound. “There’s something between you. Acknowledge it or don’t, but you’ll both be happier if you do,” Thatcher advises. “Didn’t you say you were going to buy me a drink?”
Mark locks eyes with Thatcher Grey momentarily before returning to his delicate sutures, “Yes, Mr. Grey. One of these days, I’m quite sure I’m going to have to buy you a drink.”
* * * * *
Mark walks into Joe’s bar like he owns the place, he sent Lexie’s father home hours ago and he hasn’t seen her since. She ran out of the pit as soon as she’d assisted him in bandaging the wound. Mark hadn’t bothered to tell her that it was against protocol to leave a patient’s room prior to giving after care instructions. He sighs, knowing that he gave those instructions to man who doesn’t even know himself now. In any event, Lexie bolted and he hadn’t had a case or a reason to page her that wasn’t personal. So he’d buried the urge to page her and make sure that she was truly okay and instead looked over some of his upcoming elective cases. He scans the bar, looking for something, anything that indicates that Lexie might be here. It doesn’t take him long to see her still form sitting at the bar, empty seats on either side of her and a full whiskey sour sitting in front of her.
She doesn’t know why she came here. A bar should be the last place she wants to go after the day she’s had. But for some reason, the comfortable familiarity with Joe’s is too hard to pass up. She ordered a whiskey sour an hour ago as soon as she sat down at the bar. And she’s been staring at it ever since. Lexie knows that she is her own woman and that her father’s inabilities have nothing to do with her. Sure there is some evidence that alcoholism is genetic, but it’s mostly unsubstantiated and she knows that deep inside. But still, she cannot bring herself to raise the glass to her lips.
Mark approaches as swiftly as possible, bypassing Callie and Erica sitting at a corner table. “Should I order one too or should we blow this joint?” he asks, leaning against the bar while pointing at her untouched drink.
Lexie starts, her mind has been running a mile a minute and she even saw him enter the bar. “Mark,” she says, her voice strained and her face contorting in a sad expression.
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t you dare apologize for your father’s mistakes.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Lexie admits, pushing the drink farther from her grasp.
“So don’t say anything,” Mark shrugs, tossing a $10 bill on the bar next to the drink. “Let’s go somewhere with less prying eyes.”
Lexie stands up, allowing him to help her adjust her coat on her shoulders. “Somewhere with food? I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Anywhere you want to go,” he agrees, placing a guiding hand on her back as they navigate through the crowded bar.
They settle on eating at the hole in the wall restaurant across the street from her apartment. The restaurant is nearly empty, an elderly couple sits in the back and two twenty-somethings sit in another booth laughing about something Lexie is certain is some kind of stupid. She really shouldn’t be so jaded, but it’s her knee-jerk reaction where her father is concerned. Mark places his hand on the small of her back and guides her to a secluded booth. They sit down and she proceeds to stare at her hands on the table top for a solid five minutes. Their waitress finally approaches the table and Mark orders them both Dr. Peppers, sending her away so he can have a moment alone with Lexie. He opens his mouth but cannot seem to find the words he’s looking for. He closes his mouth and shakes his head, pursing his lips together before he breathes deeply and opens his mouth again. “My parents were never around. They weren’t what you’d call parent material. My mother couldn’t be bothered to tuck me in at night or read a story to me when I was little. She liked her martinis and olives a little too much for something like that. And my father wasn’t involved. He was always working on the next business deal and climbing the ladder. I could never understand why he just couldn’t be happy with the success he had. After all, I was a little boy and all I wanted was a few minutes of his time.”
Lexie raises her eyes to meet his, wondering where he’s going with all of this. “My point is,” he clarifies, “My parents weren’t around then and they’re not around now. I turned out okay. Your parents were there for you when you were a kid. And now your mom isn’t here and your father is a drunk. So they can’t be here for you now. You turned out alright. And you’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t even know what to do for him anymore,” Lexie admits.
Mark shrugs, “Sometimes you can’t do anything for people unless they want your help. You’re on the outside now.”
“My mother never would have abandoned him the way I have.”
“You can’t know that Lexie. Your mother may have been an extraordinarily strong woman, but even she may not have been able to stand by and watch him go through this. You are not at fault for getting yourself out of that house. In fact, I’m glad you’re out. If you’d been there today, who knows? You could have been the one in the ER with your forearm sliced open.”
It’s harsh and he knows it. But he’s determined to make her understand that she has nothing to be ashamed of here. “He’s my father,” Lexie says, her voice breaking as she struggles to get the words out.
Tears inch slowly down her cheeks and she defiantly scrubs her hands against her eyes to stop the flow. Mark instinctively leaves his seat across from her in the booth and slips into the seat next to her. Lexie collapses against his side and her hands grip onto his shirt as she continues to weep for her lost youth and a father that she’s almost certain she’ll never get back. “It’s going to be okay, Lexie. I promise you. I will make sure that everything is okay,” Mark says, wrapping his arms around her small form and pressing his lips against the top of her head.
The waitress chooses this inopportune moment to return with their drinks. “Can we get those to go?” Mark asks. “And a couple orders of fries too.”
The waitress nods, seeing that her presence is clearly unneeded. “Mark,” Lexie prompts, lifting her head from his shoulder. “You were wonderful with him today. There aren’t many doctors who could have dealt with him so well.”
“I did it for you, Lexie. If not for you, I’d have let a resident handle it.”
“What am I going to do about him?” Lexie wonders.
“You’ll do the best you can. You’ll eat some fries tonight and drink your Dr. Pepper and then tomorrow you’ll come to work and you’ll be fantastic. And despite what your father might say, you’ll be a great surgeon and you are already wonderful woman,” Mark says.
Lexie smiles up at him through the tears that coat her cheeks. “We can eat at my apartment?”
“I think we should,” Mark smirks, grabbing the bag out of the waitress’s hand and throwing a twenty on the table.
* * * * *
“There is a club,” Lexie says as she approaches the nurse’s station and dropping a chart into the file holder there. “There is a club called Nurse’s United Against Mark Sloan.”
“So I’ve been told,” Mark smirks, signing off on the orders in the chart he’s been reviewing.
“There is a club of nurses united against you,” Lexie states, turning to face him fully. “And you don’t seem to be bothered by it?”
“Why should I be? It’s not my problem that they were all very willing participants in their seduction,” he reasons.
“You’re their superior.”
“I’m your superior too. Does that mean we can’t see each other socially?”
“I hope not, you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time,” she admits.
“Addison is here,” Callie says, breezing into the nurse’s station before Mark has a chance to appropriately respond to Lexie’s admission.
Mark looks stricken at Callie’s statement. It’s like a sucker punch he’s not ready for, Addison leaving was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. Things actually seemed to make sense without Addison. It’s an odd thing, he thinks, the woman he once thought he couldn’t live without is turning out to be someone he doesn’t even want in his life. And now she’s here, back in his life again without warning. He feels Lexie place a reassuring hand on his forearm as he leans against the nurse’s station. “She’s working with Bailey?” he manages to ask.
“Looks like it,” Callie smiles and takes off in the direction of the patient rooms.
“Mark?” Lexie prompts. “Are you okay?”
“She won’t be here forever,” he says, half smiling and hoping that his statement rings true.
“She’ll be here long enough,” she sighs following him to their next patient’s room.
* * * * *
“This is so not good,” Mark says while separating the patient’s incision.
“Excuse me?” Lexie asks, unsure of what’s so wrong with their patient.
“Date and Tell. I’m the laughing stock of Seattle Grace,” he laments, shaking his head and holding his hand out for the next tool he needs.
Ordinarily a scrub nurse would be assisting Mark and Lexie, but the nurses are so angry with Mark that they are now refusing to work with him. Things escalated over the last week culminating in the Chief instituting a date and tell policy. Lexie deftly locates the next tool and places it in his waiting hand. “We’re both the laughing stock of Seattle Grace, if you’re going down then so am I,” she reasons.
“What do you have to be ashamed of with this date and tell thing?” he asks, clearly intrigued with her admission.
“I slept with Alex Karev,” she says quickly.
Mark’s eyes widen over his surgical mask and she’s certain that if she could see his mouth right now, it would be hanging open in shock. “It was a one time thing and he’s an ass and I wish I could take it back. But now that we have this date and tell thing, it’s just going to be out there for everyone.”
“It’s my fault,” Mark sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t slept with anyone recently. I don’t know why this is all going down now,” Lexie muses.
“How do you know I haven’t slept with anyone?”
“Come on,” Lexie laughs, watching him remove the foreign object from the patient’s arm, “we’re practically attached at the hip these days. When exactly would you have time to sleep around between our dinners and drinks and OR time?”
“I don’t know whether to be insulted or proud.”
“You should be proud of yourself. You’re learning that there’s more to life than meaningless sex. Congratulations Mark, you’re becoming an adult,” she mocks.
“Gee…thanks,” he laughs. “On the bright side, my lack of a sex life is turning you into one hell of a surgeon. There’s no one watching us, no nurses to blab, why don’t you reattach this yourself. I’ll assist.”
“Really?” she asks, beaming with excitement.
“Why not? We’ll consider it my gift to you for making you a part of the date and tell thing.”
“Thank you, Mark,” she whispers, accepting the clamps from his hands.
“I really am sorry,” he repeats, shaking his head. “We’re going to have to figure out what to do, otherwise it’ll only be you and me in the OR from now on.”
“I could get used to that,” Lexie admits.
Beneath his surgical mask, Mark’s lips form a jubilant smile. It’s the kind of smile he’s grown accustomed to having anytime Lexie is around. And although he knows he’s no good for her and things would only go badly, he can’t help but wonder what would happen if he were to just take the leap of faith with her. “Anyway,” she says, realizing her mistake in letting her emotions show in these last few moments. “You should talk to Bailey. It’s been my experience that Bailey always knows what to do.”
Ok...now back our regularly scheduled programming:
Here it is, the long awaited next installment of Outside These Walls. Remember, we're in Season Four. I try to give clues about where we are in the season by keeping some of the same events/situations as we actually saw in that Season, so watch for those to give context. I'm anxious to hear what everyone thinks :)
Title: Outside These Walls 4/?
Pairing: Mark/Lexie
Rating: PG...for now
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Her father shows up in the ER again and she’s so pissed that she can’t even see straight by the time the idiot resident running the pit recommends a plastics consult. “Don’t bother,” Lexie bites out, “I’ve already paged Dr. Sloan.”
Her father’s arm is slashed open, she’s fairly certain from a combination of a broken bottle of bourbon and alcoholism. “Daddy,” she says, hoping he remembers who she is, “I’m getting you a better doctor, I promise.”
“Sure, baby. But you should get Meredith Grey, she’s a great doctor,” her father says, slurring every other word.
Lexie nods and worries her lip between her teeth, waiting for Mark to bustle into the pit. She knows he’ll be expecting a great case and he’ll start asking her questions and flashing his perfect teeth at her. But then he’ll realize that this isn’t an interesting case and that her father is really terrible. “Little Grey, what do we have,” Mark asks, walking into the curtained area.
“My father,” she nearly whispers.
Mark looks up at her, forgetting about the chart in his hand. His eyes search hers, wondering if she’s really handling this as well as she’s letting on. “You okay?”
Lexie nods, “Yeah, absolutely. The wound needs irrigation and I think a pulley stitch would be appropriate.”
“You’re sure you want to assist?” he asks, still unsure about how she’s dealing with her father’s drunken state.
“If I don’t, you’ll never get him stitched up. I’ll occupy his mind so you can stitch. I’m so sorry for paging you. Any of your guys in plastics could do this…”
“You should always page me,” Mark insists. “If it’s personal to you, it’s personal to me. Always page me.”
Lexie pulls her lips into a tight, thin smile and she nods towards her father. “He’s still drunk, so you won’t have to use much numbing. He probably can’t even feel the injury,” she scoffs.
Mark nods and moves further into the partitioned area. “Mr. Grey? I’m Dr. Sloan, I’m going to be working on that cut you’ve got there. Is that alright?”
“Of course! If my little Lexie says you’re good, then you’re good. Can I just have a little cup of the liquid courage, it calms my nerves,” Thatcher responds.
Lexie shakes her head at her father’s request and wonders how things got so bad so quickly. “Daddy, I think maybe you should just let Dr. Sloan give you the numbing shot. It’ll work better than the drink will.”
“A drink solves all my problems,” Thatcher reasons.
Mark sees that Thatcher is getting ready to throw a drunken fit in the pit and decides that Lexie shouldn’t have to deal with another disappointment, “Mr. Grey, how about I buy you a drink after? Legally, no one in this hospital can give you a drink and you wouldn’t want Lexie to loose her job, would you?”
Lexie nods, silently thanking Mark for his understanding and his ability to deal with her drunk father. She’s absolutely mortified that her problem is sitting here on an exam table. Most people’s problems are theoretical and logical. Hers is a walking, talking reminder that her mother is dead and her father’s sanity along with her. Mark pulls up a small stool and gloves his hands in preparation for the small procedure. “Mr. Grey, how about you tell me something about your daughter,” he prompts.
Mark begins to numb the arm and then starts suturing the wound with pulley stitches. “Which daughter? Lexie? She’s brilliant. So much smarter than either of my other girls. Meredith is book smart and she doesn’t have a caring bone in her body. She’s her mother’s daughter. And Molly doesn’t have the drive to be anything other than a mother. And that’s ok, but she’ll never have a career. My Lexie is the smartest of them all,” Thatcher says, suddenly somewhat sober. “She’s got the talent to have a great career and a great personal life too. As long as she doesn’t become a surgeon.”
Lexie’s face falls at her father’s last words. Clearly the alcohol is affecting his memory again and he’s forgotten that she’s not in undergrad and trying to decide on a career. She sighs in frustration and moves to assist Mark in the procedure. “You don’t have to do this,” Mark whispers, looking up at her with sympathetic eyes.
“Due respect, Dr. Sloan, I’d prefer that you didn’t get assistance from anyone else on this case.”
Mark nods, admiring her false strength and her desire to want to keep things as private as possible. She dons a set of gloves and offers him a second suture kit when he needs to change needles. “What’s going on here?” Thatcher asks, coming back to reality.
“Daddy, you’re hurt. Dr. Sloan is just stitching up your arm.”
“No, I mean, what’s going on between the two of you,” Thatcher clarifies.
Two shell shocked faces look back at him, neither sure of how to address the observation he’s just made. Mark clears his throat, pulls his lips into a wry smile, and goes back to his work. Lexie is just as unresponsive and returns her focus to watching Mark suture the wound. “There’s something between you. Acknowledge it or don’t, but you’ll both be happier if you do,” Thatcher advises. “Didn’t you say you were going to buy me a drink?”
Mark locks eyes with Thatcher Grey momentarily before returning to his delicate sutures, “Yes, Mr. Grey. One of these days, I’m quite sure I’m going to have to buy you a drink.”
* * * * *
Mark walks into Joe’s bar like he owns the place, he sent Lexie’s father home hours ago and he hasn’t seen her since. She ran out of the pit as soon as she’d assisted him in bandaging the wound. Mark hadn’t bothered to tell her that it was against protocol to leave a patient’s room prior to giving after care instructions. He sighs, knowing that he gave those instructions to man who doesn’t even know himself now. In any event, Lexie bolted and he hadn’t had a case or a reason to page her that wasn’t personal. So he’d buried the urge to page her and make sure that she was truly okay and instead looked over some of his upcoming elective cases. He scans the bar, looking for something, anything that indicates that Lexie might be here. It doesn’t take him long to see her still form sitting at the bar, empty seats on either side of her and a full whiskey sour sitting in front of her.
She doesn’t know why she came here. A bar should be the last place she wants to go after the day she’s had. But for some reason, the comfortable familiarity with Joe’s is too hard to pass up. She ordered a whiskey sour an hour ago as soon as she sat down at the bar. And she’s been staring at it ever since. Lexie knows that she is her own woman and that her father’s inabilities have nothing to do with her. Sure there is some evidence that alcoholism is genetic, but it’s mostly unsubstantiated and she knows that deep inside. But still, she cannot bring herself to raise the glass to her lips.
Mark approaches as swiftly as possible, bypassing Callie and Erica sitting at a corner table. “Should I order one too or should we blow this joint?” he asks, leaning against the bar while pointing at her untouched drink.
Lexie starts, her mind has been running a mile a minute and she even saw him enter the bar. “Mark,” she says, her voice strained and her face contorting in a sad expression.
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t you dare apologize for your father’s mistakes.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Lexie admits, pushing the drink farther from her grasp.
“So don’t say anything,” Mark shrugs, tossing a $10 bill on the bar next to the drink. “Let’s go somewhere with less prying eyes.”
Lexie stands up, allowing him to help her adjust her coat on her shoulders. “Somewhere with food? I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Anywhere you want to go,” he agrees, placing a guiding hand on her back as they navigate through the crowded bar.
They settle on eating at the hole in the wall restaurant across the street from her apartment. The restaurant is nearly empty, an elderly couple sits in the back and two twenty-somethings sit in another booth laughing about something Lexie is certain is some kind of stupid. She really shouldn’t be so jaded, but it’s her knee-jerk reaction where her father is concerned. Mark places his hand on the small of her back and guides her to a secluded booth. They sit down and she proceeds to stare at her hands on the table top for a solid five minutes. Their waitress finally approaches the table and Mark orders them both Dr. Peppers, sending her away so he can have a moment alone with Lexie. He opens his mouth but cannot seem to find the words he’s looking for. He closes his mouth and shakes his head, pursing his lips together before he breathes deeply and opens his mouth again. “My parents were never around. They weren’t what you’d call parent material. My mother couldn’t be bothered to tuck me in at night or read a story to me when I was little. She liked her martinis and olives a little too much for something like that. And my father wasn’t involved. He was always working on the next business deal and climbing the ladder. I could never understand why he just couldn’t be happy with the success he had. After all, I was a little boy and all I wanted was a few minutes of his time.”
Lexie raises her eyes to meet his, wondering where he’s going with all of this. “My point is,” he clarifies, “My parents weren’t around then and they’re not around now. I turned out okay. Your parents were there for you when you were a kid. And now your mom isn’t here and your father is a drunk. So they can’t be here for you now. You turned out alright. And you’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t even know what to do for him anymore,” Lexie admits.
Mark shrugs, “Sometimes you can’t do anything for people unless they want your help. You’re on the outside now.”
“My mother never would have abandoned him the way I have.”
“You can’t know that Lexie. Your mother may have been an extraordinarily strong woman, but even she may not have been able to stand by and watch him go through this. You are not at fault for getting yourself out of that house. In fact, I’m glad you’re out. If you’d been there today, who knows? You could have been the one in the ER with your forearm sliced open.”
It’s harsh and he knows it. But he’s determined to make her understand that she has nothing to be ashamed of here. “He’s my father,” Lexie says, her voice breaking as she struggles to get the words out.
Tears inch slowly down her cheeks and she defiantly scrubs her hands against her eyes to stop the flow. Mark instinctively leaves his seat across from her in the booth and slips into the seat next to her. Lexie collapses against his side and her hands grip onto his shirt as she continues to weep for her lost youth and a father that she’s almost certain she’ll never get back. “It’s going to be okay, Lexie. I promise you. I will make sure that everything is okay,” Mark says, wrapping his arms around her small form and pressing his lips against the top of her head.
The waitress chooses this inopportune moment to return with their drinks. “Can we get those to go?” Mark asks. “And a couple orders of fries too.”
The waitress nods, seeing that her presence is clearly unneeded. “Mark,” Lexie prompts, lifting her head from his shoulder. “You were wonderful with him today. There aren’t many doctors who could have dealt with him so well.”
“I did it for you, Lexie. If not for you, I’d have let a resident handle it.”
“What am I going to do about him?” Lexie wonders.
“You’ll do the best you can. You’ll eat some fries tonight and drink your Dr. Pepper and then tomorrow you’ll come to work and you’ll be fantastic. And despite what your father might say, you’ll be a great surgeon and you are already wonderful woman,” Mark says.
Lexie smiles up at him through the tears that coat her cheeks. “We can eat at my apartment?”
“I think we should,” Mark smirks, grabbing the bag out of the waitress’s hand and throwing a twenty on the table.
* * * * *
“There is a club,” Lexie says as she approaches the nurse’s station and dropping a chart into the file holder there. “There is a club called Nurse’s United Against Mark Sloan.”
“So I’ve been told,” Mark smirks, signing off on the orders in the chart he’s been reviewing.
“There is a club of nurses united against you,” Lexie states, turning to face him fully. “And you don’t seem to be bothered by it?”
“Why should I be? It’s not my problem that they were all very willing participants in their seduction,” he reasons.
“You’re their superior.”
“I’m your superior too. Does that mean we can’t see each other socially?”
“I hope not, you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time,” she admits.
“Addison is here,” Callie says, breezing into the nurse’s station before Mark has a chance to appropriately respond to Lexie’s admission.
Mark looks stricken at Callie’s statement. It’s like a sucker punch he’s not ready for, Addison leaving was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. Things actually seemed to make sense without Addison. It’s an odd thing, he thinks, the woman he once thought he couldn’t live without is turning out to be someone he doesn’t even want in his life. And now she’s here, back in his life again without warning. He feels Lexie place a reassuring hand on his forearm as he leans against the nurse’s station. “She’s working with Bailey?” he manages to ask.
“Looks like it,” Callie smiles and takes off in the direction of the patient rooms.
“Mark?” Lexie prompts. “Are you okay?”
“She won’t be here forever,” he says, half smiling and hoping that his statement rings true.
“She’ll be here long enough,” she sighs following him to their next patient’s room.
* * * * *
“This is so not good,” Mark says while separating the patient’s incision.
“Excuse me?” Lexie asks, unsure of what’s so wrong with their patient.
“Date and Tell. I’m the laughing stock of Seattle Grace,” he laments, shaking his head and holding his hand out for the next tool he needs.
Ordinarily a scrub nurse would be assisting Mark and Lexie, but the nurses are so angry with Mark that they are now refusing to work with him. Things escalated over the last week culminating in the Chief instituting a date and tell policy. Lexie deftly locates the next tool and places it in his waiting hand. “We’re both the laughing stock of Seattle Grace, if you’re going down then so am I,” she reasons.
“What do you have to be ashamed of with this date and tell thing?” he asks, clearly intrigued with her admission.
“I slept with Alex Karev,” she says quickly.
Mark’s eyes widen over his surgical mask and she’s certain that if she could see his mouth right now, it would be hanging open in shock. “It was a one time thing and he’s an ass and I wish I could take it back. But now that we have this date and tell thing, it’s just going to be out there for everyone.”
“It’s my fault,” Mark sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t slept with anyone recently. I don’t know why this is all going down now,” Lexie muses.
“How do you know I haven’t slept with anyone?”
“Come on,” Lexie laughs, watching him remove the foreign object from the patient’s arm, “we’re practically attached at the hip these days. When exactly would you have time to sleep around between our dinners and drinks and OR time?”
“I don’t know whether to be insulted or proud.”
“You should be proud of yourself. You’re learning that there’s more to life than meaningless sex. Congratulations Mark, you’re becoming an adult,” she mocks.
“Gee…thanks,” he laughs. “On the bright side, my lack of a sex life is turning you into one hell of a surgeon. There’s no one watching us, no nurses to blab, why don’t you reattach this yourself. I’ll assist.”
“Really?” she asks, beaming with excitement.
“Why not? We’ll consider it my gift to you for making you a part of the date and tell thing.”
“Thank you, Mark,” she whispers, accepting the clamps from his hands.
“I really am sorry,” he repeats, shaking his head. “We’re going to have to figure out what to do, otherwise it’ll only be you and me in the OR from now on.”
“I could get used to that,” Lexie admits.
Beneath his surgical mask, Mark’s lips form a jubilant smile. It’s the kind of smile he’s grown accustomed to having anytime Lexie is around. And although he knows he’s no good for her and things would only go badly, he can’t help but wonder what would happen if he were to just take the leap of faith with her. “Anyway,” she says, realizing her mistake in letting her emotions show in these last few moments. “You should talk to Bailey. It’s been my experience that Bailey always knows what to do.”