Outside These Walls 3/?
Title: Outside These Walls 3/?
Author: KelNY7
Rating: PG
Pairing: Mark/Lexie
Disclaimer: I own nothing...if I did, we wouldn't have to deal with the crap the writers are putting us through :)
OMG! It's been forever since I've had a chance to post. I still owe many of you visits to your LJs, comments, etc...so again, I'm so super sorry for not being caught up on all of that...I feel like the The Little Engine That Could..."I think I can, I think I can, I think I can"
Hopefully everyone is still interested in this story, my muse is back at work on this one, so I'm very happy about that. There is a significant passage of time in this chapter, so be aware of that as you read.
“Dr. Grey, do you see how I made this incision?” Mark asks from behind his surgical mask.
“Lighter at the edge and deeper as you move towards the center of the incision,” Lexie confirms.
“Excellent. And why would I use this methodology?”
“Because it makes for an easier close and leaves minimal scarring.”
“Watch closely. You’ll need to know how to do this next time I’m doing this surgery.”
“Excuse me?” Lexie asks, shocked.
“You’ll be doing this incision next time. You can handle that, can’t you?” Mark asks.
“Yes, Dr. Sloan,” Lexie smiles from behind her surgical mask.
Dr. Bailey watches the verbal foreplay between Lexie Grey and Mark Sloan, wondering just how similar the two Grey sisters really are. She really does not have the time to deal with another Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd situation right now. “Dr. Bailey, are you planning on assisting during this surgery?” Mark growls, taking his attention from Lexie momentarily.
“Anything you need, Dr. Sloan.”
“Excellent. Dr. Grey has this clamp and I’ll need your assistance in resecting the bone,” Mark explains, motioning for Dr. Bailey to join him on the other side of the patient’s body.
Two hours later, Mark sends Lexie to post-op with the patient and joins Dr. Bailey in the scrub room. Mark rips the mask from his face before pushing the button firmly, allowing the stream of water to rush over his hands. “Dr. Grey is on your service quite a bit these days,” Dr. Bailey says, opening the conversation.
“I suppose she is,” Mark agrees.
“Interns aren’t supposed to specialize,” she says, hoping to get her point across in as few words as possible.
“Dr. Bailey,” Mark starts, angling his head towards her. “She’s an intern. She is barely allowed to cut so it is impossible for her to be specializing. She just happens to be a very eager student.”
“Eager student, my ass. She’s Meredith Grey’s sister. Meredith Grey,” Dr. Bailey says, drying her hands,
“slept with Derek Shepherd and caused this hospital to erupt into chaos because he favored her. If I find out that Lexie Grey is sleeping with you…”
“Maybe you should stop worrying about idle gossip, Dr. Bailey,” Mark barks, wiping his hands and tossing his towel in the trash. “If you opened your eyes for even a moment you’d see that your residents, Meredith, Stevens, Karev, and Yang especially, don’t spend one second teaching their interns. They are too focused on being on Meredith’s side that they have forgotten they have a duty to their interns. Lexie Grey is a promising intern who needs a teacher. Yang will not teach her. So I’m teaching her. I think you’d be happy about my interest in teaching, considering you are the Chief Resident and the job that your residents do reflects on you. Think about that.”
Mark stalks out of the scrub room leaving a stunned Dr. Bailey in his wake. He has more important things to do, like find his intern and take her out for a drink.
* * * * *
Megan tells Lexie she can move into the apartment later that week and when Mark shows up to help her unload boxes from her car, her smile broadens. “I didn’t expect to see you,” she admits.
Mark shrugs, “You said you were moving this weekend. I thought you could use some help.”
She smiles, unsure of whether she should trust the perfect man standing in front of her. She’s been battling feelings for weeks, ever since he bought that first dinner at the pizza place. And every night since that they have had drinks, dinner, or just long conversations over surgery. She knows it’s irrational and there isn’t anything to it, because seriously? This is Mark Sloan and there couldn’t possibly be anything between them. She grabs a full box from her backseat and shoves it into his arms, “Apartment 344, top of the stairs. My room is the empty one.”
Mark smirks at her orders but walks towards the propped open door and heads up the three flights of stairs. Dropping the box in the middle of her empty room, Mark takes a moment to look around, trying to take in everything around him. It’s still empty, but it smells like her. It’s a combination of her perfume, scrub soap, and something uniquely Lexie. He’s got to stop this. He never thought of her in that way, not until Bailey called him out on sleeping with her. Well, that’s a lie because he knows he’s been thinking of her in that way since the first night he bought her a drink. For the first time in his life, he’s actually not sleeping with the young, pretty girl. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to. That doesn’t mean that every time she smiles in his direction it doesn’t send a chill up his spine. He wants Lexie, but he shouldn’t, so he’s trying to keep his feelings under control and out of his mind.
“It’s still pretty empty,” Lexie grins from the doorway, dropping the box she’s holding.
“It’ll be full soon enough,” Mark agrees.
Later that night, as Mark is unpacking one of the boxes, Lexie walks into the room with a pizza and two bottles of beer. “I think I owe you some food,” she says, coming to sit across from him, propping the pizza box on top of an unopened box.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Mark smirks, “except for an explanation about that stuffed teddy bear over there.”
“He was my best friend when I was little and I’m not going to abandon him now. Anyway, I’ve always heard that pizza and beer are necessary compensation for friends who are recruited as movers.”
Mark pops the caps on the beers, passing one to her before taking a long drink out of the one remaining in his hand. “I got pepperoni,” Lexie smiles.
“I like pepperoni,” Mark says.
* * * * *
Lexie stands at the OR board, scanning the intricate writing, looking for Mark’s next surgery. It’s been a light day, he’s only had a few lacs to suture in the pit and she’s been virtually unnecessary in those small procedures. She’s not complaining, because if she wasn’t on Mark’s service, she would be following Yang around all day, which isn’t exactly her idea of a good time. She sighs, seeing nothing on the board and drops her chin to her chest. “Light day,” Mark says, appearing behind her.
“Very,” she agrees.
“I’m sorry you haven’t seen anything interesting today. Maybe you can observe someone else’s surgery? Dr. Hahn is performing a valve reconstruction,” he suggests, leaning in as closely as propriety will allow.
“If I watch that surgery, Dr. Yang will yank me off your service and put me in the pit. She doesn’t want any of her interns watching a Hahn surgery,” Lexie explains, shaking her head.
“Yang is a bitch. Besides, Dr. Grey, you can’t leave your education in her hands.”
“Dr. Sloan,” Meredith says, coming up behind the two surgeons. “You mentioned my name?”
Mark rolls his eyes, Meredith Grey is just too much. He’s had just about enough of her holier-than-thou attitude and he’s over it. It’s been bothering him for weeks, her criticism of Lexie. She can’t seem to accept that Lexie exists and she’s a part of the hospital now. And her blatant interruptions of his and Lexie’s conversations are simply inexcusable now. So really what happens next has been on the tip of his tongue for weeks and now it just rolls off. “Alright, enough. Enough. Let’s settle this for once and for all,” he says.
Mark turns to face Meredith and gestures to her with one hand, “Big Grey,” he says before gesturing to Lexie with his other hand, “Little Grey.”
Lexie nearly busts out laughing because he’s been on edge about Meredith’s attitude for weeks. And it doesn’t slip her mind that Mark is standing up for her against Meredith Grey. This is momentous and she hopes that her photographic memory is still intact because she wants to remember this moment exactly.
“Big Grey?” Meredith asks; her eyes slanted in an angry visage.
“Big Grey,” Mark confirms, “You’re the older sister. Lexie is Little Grey. Understand? You’re Big Grey.”
Meredith looks like she’s having to swallow the worst tasting cough syrup and she nods slightly, “Aren’t you offended by that?” she asks, acknowledging Lexie for the first time during the conversation.
“I’m the younger sister, I’m Little Grey. I have no objections,” Lexie smirks, her eyes dancing.
“Whatever, just don’t let the rest of the hospital catch on to this,” Meredith says haughtily before stalking away from the board.
Lexie manages to keep a straight face until Meredith rounds the corner, at which time she allows herself a chuckle at her sister’s expense. “I can’t believe it!”
“What?” Mark asks, smirking at her astonishment.
“You put Meredith in her place and she didn’t even have a comeback. You’re my hero,” she marvels.
Mark can’t help but puff his chest out just a bit at her admission, he’s pretty proud of what he’s just done. But he’s also sure that he’ll hear about this from Derek at some point in the future. “She’s a bitch too,” he
shrugs.
“Please, please let me buy you a drink,” she begs, still smiling.
Mark finds her intoxicating enough without alcohol but he can’t say the things he wants to say. Instead, he says, “I’m happy to oblige.”
* * * * *
“Meredith is pissed,” Derek says without preamble two days later.
“Okay,” Mark says, positive that he doesn’t care one iota about the emotional state of Big Grey.
“She’s pissed because you have this nickname for her or something.”
“Aren’t you dating Rose?” Mark deflects.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“If you’re dating Rose then you don’t have to care whether Big Grey is pissed,” Mark reasons.
“Big Grey, that’s it,” Derek chuckles, actually finding the name amusing.
“So obviously the name doesn’t bother you,” Mark surmises, finally stilling his hand from writing in his open patient chart.
“She’s pissed. And we’re trying to do this clinical trial thing. So it would be nice if she wasn’t pissed all the time.”
“Yeah, I wish I cared about that,” Mark scoffs, returning to his notes. “Big Grey doesn’t have the sparkling personality that Little Grey has.”
“Little Grey? That’s what you’re calling Lexie?” Derek asks, a smile gracing his face. “It’s actually kind of fitting.”
“It is,” Mark agrees, filing away the chart and stepping away from the nurse’s station.
Derek picks up his chart and starts thumbing through the pages, pretending to read something important. “You know, there are rumors.”
“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Mark deadpans before walking away.
“All the same,” Derek calls out to Mark’s retreating form.
* * * * *
They lose a patient. They lose a patient that they shouldn’t have lost and Lexie takes it badly. Mark doesn’t take it much better, he can’t tear himself away from the OR as the scrub nurses finish their portions of the death note. As they scrub out, Lexie remains silent, unsure of the appropriate response, but hoping that she can find it within her to create something he might at least value. “I was thinking we could have dinner at the pizza place tonight,” she suggests.
“No,” Mark says, concentrating on scrubbing every inch of his skin all the way up to his elbows.
“You had somewhere else in mind?”
“No. I thought I’d spend the evening alone.”
He’s taking this out on her and he knows it. It’s wrong. It’s not fair and she deserves better. She’s trying here and he can’t seem to look beyond the end of his nose and see his own struggle with the patient loss. Mark desperately wants to forget about what’s just happened in the OR and he knows that tomorrow is another day and there will be another life to save. But in this moment, he’s too busy going over every aspect of the surgery and wondering where he went wrong.
Lexie’s expression changes when she realizes that he’s not interested in getting through this together. It’s the first time in weeks that she’ll be leaving work without plans to see him later. They’ve fallen into a comfortable routine of after work activities. Usually they have dinner together at least three nights a week. On nights that they don’t have dinner, they go to Joe’s or some other bar to sit and talk for hours. On the nights that they are both on call, they often end up sitting in his office, whiling away the awful pre-dawn hours with games of twenty questions or intern exam prep questions. She’s come to depend on him for more than teaching. Lexie depends on him to be there at the end of the day as her friend and as someone who actually cares. It’s a novel concept for her; she’s been through hell this year and she wonders what might have happened to her without the appearance of Mark Sloan in her life. “No problem,” she stammers. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Mark sighs before slamming a palm against the scrub room door and stalking out.
After her shift, Lexie changes into her street clothes and sits down in the intern locker room. She literally is all dressed up with no where to go. She’s the epitome of cliché and if she is being honest with herself, she knows that she’s going to be miserable tonight. Her fellow interns come in and out of the room, hardly acknowledging her existence. If she’d thought that working with Meredith was going to be the challenge, she was wrong. Instead, she’s learning that her connection to Mark is going a long way to damage her reputation with her peers. The other interns think she’s getting her privileges because of her blood relation to Meredith. She smirks when she hears their snide comments because it couldn’t be further from the truth. But she doesn’t take the time to correct them, it would take too much energy and she doesn’t have time for that kind of groveling when good surgeries are waiting on her.
“Doing anything tonight?” Megan asks as she ties her tennis shoe on the bench in front of the lockers.
“Probably not,” Lexie frowns.
“Oh…well, oh,” Megan stumbles.
“Would you like me to be doing something?” Lexie asks, knowing that such a hesitation can only mean that Megan’s got a hot date that she wants to bring home.
“Oh no, that wouldn’t be appropriate,” Megan blushes.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” Lexie smiles sweetly. “I’ll have a drink at Joe’s. By the time I finish, so will you.”
“You’re funny,” Megan calls as Lexie moves to leave the locker room.
“Not as funny as you.”
Joe’s is a bustling hub of interns and residents when Lexie arrives. The usual suspects line the walls and surround tables, laughing and drinking to their heart’s content. But one figure in particular catches Lexie’s eye as she waits for the door to slam behind her. Mark is hunched over the bar, his hands gripping a glass of scotch, his eyes staring into nothing, and his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. Lexie cautiously makes her way over to him, gaining confidence in her actions with every step she takes. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s bad form to drink alone?” she asks, mimicking their first meeting at Joe’s.
“Go away, Little Grey,” he insists.
Joe slides her a whiskey sour and she takes a quick drink before sitting down on the bar stool next to him.
“No,” she says firmly.
Mark shakes his head and takes another long drink of the scotch, feeling the dark liquid burn as it travels down his esophagus and settling in his stomach. “You’ve gotten mouthy,” he observes.
“I learned from the best.”
“Touche.”
“A wise man once told me that we do our best to save everyone, but sometimes there’s nothing that we can do. Sometimes the risks and complications outweigh what we can medically do for a patient,” she dutifully repeats.
Mark frowns, recognizing his own words and wonders why he ever told her those things. “And sometimes we wallow in our shortcomings. Tonight is one of those nights.”
“Just so long as you’re only wallowing tonight. I need you at work tomorrow. If you’re not around, Yang will stick me in a supply closet,” she teases.
Mark tears his eyes from their focus on his drink and he stares intently in her eyes. “So help me, if Yang ever sticks you in a supply closet, I will ring her neck,” he promises.
Lexie is taken aback by Mark’s vehement defense of her, it’s almost as though he is protective of her. But she chides herself for thinking that because it’s something that a boyfriend would feel about his girlfriend. And if there’s anything she knows, it’s that Mark Sloan isn’t looking for a girlfriend, so is protective nature must just be a part of his personality. “Good to know,” she nods.
The two sit in relative silence for a few moments, each contemplating their respective roles in the botched surgery and focusing on their drinks. Lexie swallows the last sip of her drink and waits patiently for Joe to refill her glass. She smiles when he slides another into her hand and he does the same for Mark. She takes another drink, hoping that a little more liquid courage will help her say the things she wants to say to him right now. Mark sighs, taking a long drink of his new scotch and wonders why this surgery is affecting him so deeply. “I’m not lonely anymore,” Lexie says quietly.
Mark blinks his eyes and wonders if he’s heard her correctly. However, he knows he has. He knows she’s not lonely anymore because neither is he. But he can’t find the words to tell her that, so instead he says, “That’s because we’re never alone anymore.”
“It’s better this way.”
“It is,” he agrees. “Joe, let’s settle up.”
Mark knows he’s taking the coward’s way out, settling the tab and ending the evening early. A real man, a man deserving of a beautiful woman, would sit here and tell her that he’s not lonely either and that he’s never been happier. A real man wouldn’t run from happiness, but he’s Mark Sloan and it’s in his nature to sabotage his chance at happiness. So instead, he tosses a fifty on the counter and places a light hand on Lexie’s back as she downs the last sip of her drink. She stands and leans slightly into his shoulder, trying to regain her balance before walking out of the bar.
They stand outside the bar, off to the side and not blocking the door, saying their goodnights. “I’m in at 8,” Lexie says, “I’ll get the pre-rounds completed and we’ll be ready to go when you get in.”
“Good, we have a surgery at noon,” Mark says.
Lexie nods and looks over at the adjacent parking lot where her crappy car is waiting for her. “Then I guess
I’d better go,” she whispers.
But before she can step away, she feels Mark’s hands grip her hips and haul her closer to his body. Instinctively she places her hands against his chest, but she can’t bring herself to raise her eyes to his. He touches his forehead against hers and breathes deeply before releasing her. “Be safe driving home. Goodnight,” he says, walking away in the direction of the Archfield.
Lexie watches his retreating form for a few moments before breathing deeply, shaking her head, and walking to her car. And just like that, she’s pretty sure that he’s more than her teacher and he’s more than a friend.
Author: KelNY7
Rating: PG
Pairing: Mark/Lexie
Disclaimer: I own nothing...if I did, we wouldn't have to deal with the crap the writers are putting us through :)
OMG! It's been forever since I've had a chance to post. I still owe many of you visits to your LJs, comments, etc...so again, I'm so super sorry for not being caught up on all of that...I feel like the The Little Engine That Could..."I think I can, I think I can, I think I can"
Hopefully everyone is still interested in this story, my muse is back at work on this one, so I'm very happy about that. There is a significant passage of time in this chapter, so be aware of that as you read.
“Dr. Grey, do you see how I made this incision?” Mark asks from behind his surgical mask.
“Lighter at the edge and deeper as you move towards the center of the incision,” Lexie confirms.
“Excellent. And why would I use this methodology?”
“Because it makes for an easier close and leaves minimal scarring.”
“Watch closely. You’ll need to know how to do this next time I’m doing this surgery.”
“Excuse me?” Lexie asks, shocked.
“You’ll be doing this incision next time. You can handle that, can’t you?” Mark asks.
“Yes, Dr. Sloan,” Lexie smiles from behind her surgical mask.
Dr. Bailey watches the verbal foreplay between Lexie Grey and Mark Sloan, wondering just how similar the two Grey sisters really are. She really does not have the time to deal with another Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd situation right now. “Dr. Bailey, are you planning on assisting during this surgery?” Mark growls, taking his attention from Lexie momentarily.
“Anything you need, Dr. Sloan.”
“Excellent. Dr. Grey has this clamp and I’ll need your assistance in resecting the bone,” Mark explains, motioning for Dr. Bailey to join him on the other side of the patient’s body.
Two hours later, Mark sends Lexie to post-op with the patient and joins Dr. Bailey in the scrub room. Mark rips the mask from his face before pushing the button firmly, allowing the stream of water to rush over his hands. “Dr. Grey is on your service quite a bit these days,” Dr. Bailey says, opening the conversation.
“I suppose she is,” Mark agrees.
“Interns aren’t supposed to specialize,” she says, hoping to get her point across in as few words as possible.
“Dr. Bailey,” Mark starts, angling his head towards her. “She’s an intern. She is barely allowed to cut so it is impossible for her to be specializing. She just happens to be a very eager student.”
“Eager student, my ass. She’s Meredith Grey’s sister. Meredith Grey,” Dr. Bailey says, drying her hands,
“slept with Derek Shepherd and caused this hospital to erupt into chaos because he favored her. If I find out that Lexie Grey is sleeping with you…”
“Maybe you should stop worrying about idle gossip, Dr. Bailey,” Mark barks, wiping his hands and tossing his towel in the trash. “If you opened your eyes for even a moment you’d see that your residents, Meredith, Stevens, Karev, and Yang especially, don’t spend one second teaching their interns. They are too focused on being on Meredith’s side that they have forgotten they have a duty to their interns. Lexie Grey is a promising intern who needs a teacher. Yang will not teach her. So I’m teaching her. I think you’d be happy about my interest in teaching, considering you are the Chief Resident and the job that your residents do reflects on you. Think about that.”
Mark stalks out of the scrub room leaving a stunned Dr. Bailey in his wake. He has more important things to do, like find his intern and take her out for a drink.
* * * * *
Megan tells Lexie she can move into the apartment later that week and when Mark shows up to help her unload boxes from her car, her smile broadens. “I didn’t expect to see you,” she admits.
Mark shrugs, “You said you were moving this weekend. I thought you could use some help.”
She smiles, unsure of whether she should trust the perfect man standing in front of her. She’s been battling feelings for weeks, ever since he bought that first dinner at the pizza place. And every night since that they have had drinks, dinner, or just long conversations over surgery. She knows it’s irrational and there isn’t anything to it, because seriously? This is Mark Sloan and there couldn’t possibly be anything between them. She grabs a full box from her backseat and shoves it into his arms, “Apartment 344, top of the stairs. My room is the empty one.”
Mark smirks at her orders but walks towards the propped open door and heads up the three flights of stairs. Dropping the box in the middle of her empty room, Mark takes a moment to look around, trying to take in everything around him. It’s still empty, but it smells like her. It’s a combination of her perfume, scrub soap, and something uniquely Lexie. He’s got to stop this. He never thought of her in that way, not until Bailey called him out on sleeping with her. Well, that’s a lie because he knows he’s been thinking of her in that way since the first night he bought her a drink. For the first time in his life, he’s actually not sleeping with the young, pretty girl. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to. That doesn’t mean that every time she smiles in his direction it doesn’t send a chill up his spine. He wants Lexie, but he shouldn’t, so he’s trying to keep his feelings under control and out of his mind.
“It’s still pretty empty,” Lexie grins from the doorway, dropping the box she’s holding.
“It’ll be full soon enough,” Mark agrees.
Later that night, as Mark is unpacking one of the boxes, Lexie walks into the room with a pizza and two bottles of beer. “I think I owe you some food,” she says, coming to sit across from him, propping the pizza box on top of an unopened box.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Mark smirks, “except for an explanation about that stuffed teddy bear over there.”
“He was my best friend when I was little and I’m not going to abandon him now. Anyway, I’ve always heard that pizza and beer are necessary compensation for friends who are recruited as movers.”
Mark pops the caps on the beers, passing one to her before taking a long drink out of the one remaining in his hand. “I got pepperoni,” Lexie smiles.
“I like pepperoni,” Mark says.
* * * * *
Lexie stands at the OR board, scanning the intricate writing, looking for Mark’s next surgery. It’s been a light day, he’s only had a few lacs to suture in the pit and she’s been virtually unnecessary in those small procedures. She’s not complaining, because if she wasn’t on Mark’s service, she would be following Yang around all day, which isn’t exactly her idea of a good time. She sighs, seeing nothing on the board and drops her chin to her chest. “Light day,” Mark says, appearing behind her.
“Very,” she agrees.
“I’m sorry you haven’t seen anything interesting today. Maybe you can observe someone else’s surgery? Dr. Hahn is performing a valve reconstruction,” he suggests, leaning in as closely as propriety will allow.
“If I watch that surgery, Dr. Yang will yank me off your service and put me in the pit. She doesn’t want any of her interns watching a Hahn surgery,” Lexie explains, shaking her head.
“Yang is a bitch. Besides, Dr. Grey, you can’t leave your education in her hands.”
“Dr. Sloan,” Meredith says, coming up behind the two surgeons. “You mentioned my name?”
Mark rolls his eyes, Meredith Grey is just too much. He’s had just about enough of her holier-than-thou attitude and he’s over it. It’s been bothering him for weeks, her criticism of Lexie. She can’t seem to accept that Lexie exists and she’s a part of the hospital now. And her blatant interruptions of his and Lexie’s conversations are simply inexcusable now. So really what happens next has been on the tip of his tongue for weeks and now it just rolls off. “Alright, enough. Enough. Let’s settle this for once and for all,” he says.
Mark turns to face Meredith and gestures to her with one hand, “Big Grey,” he says before gesturing to Lexie with his other hand, “Little Grey.”
Lexie nearly busts out laughing because he’s been on edge about Meredith’s attitude for weeks. And it doesn’t slip her mind that Mark is standing up for her against Meredith Grey. This is momentous and she hopes that her photographic memory is still intact because she wants to remember this moment exactly.
“Big Grey?” Meredith asks; her eyes slanted in an angry visage.
“Big Grey,” Mark confirms, “You’re the older sister. Lexie is Little Grey. Understand? You’re Big Grey.”
Meredith looks like she’s having to swallow the worst tasting cough syrup and she nods slightly, “Aren’t you offended by that?” she asks, acknowledging Lexie for the first time during the conversation.
“I’m the younger sister, I’m Little Grey. I have no objections,” Lexie smirks, her eyes dancing.
“Whatever, just don’t let the rest of the hospital catch on to this,” Meredith says haughtily before stalking away from the board.
Lexie manages to keep a straight face until Meredith rounds the corner, at which time she allows herself a chuckle at her sister’s expense. “I can’t believe it!”
“What?” Mark asks, smirking at her astonishment.
“You put Meredith in her place and she didn’t even have a comeback. You’re my hero,” she marvels.
Mark can’t help but puff his chest out just a bit at her admission, he’s pretty proud of what he’s just done. But he’s also sure that he’ll hear about this from Derek at some point in the future. “She’s a bitch too,” he
shrugs.
“Please, please let me buy you a drink,” she begs, still smiling.
Mark finds her intoxicating enough without alcohol but he can’t say the things he wants to say. Instead, he says, “I’m happy to oblige.”
* * * * *
“Meredith is pissed,” Derek says without preamble two days later.
“Okay,” Mark says, positive that he doesn’t care one iota about the emotional state of Big Grey.
“She’s pissed because you have this nickname for her or something.”
“Aren’t you dating Rose?” Mark deflects.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“If you’re dating Rose then you don’t have to care whether Big Grey is pissed,” Mark reasons.
“Big Grey, that’s it,” Derek chuckles, actually finding the name amusing.
“So obviously the name doesn’t bother you,” Mark surmises, finally stilling his hand from writing in his open patient chart.
“She’s pissed. And we’re trying to do this clinical trial thing. So it would be nice if she wasn’t pissed all the time.”
“Yeah, I wish I cared about that,” Mark scoffs, returning to his notes. “Big Grey doesn’t have the sparkling personality that Little Grey has.”
“Little Grey? That’s what you’re calling Lexie?” Derek asks, a smile gracing his face. “It’s actually kind of fitting.”
“It is,” Mark agrees, filing away the chart and stepping away from the nurse’s station.
Derek picks up his chart and starts thumbing through the pages, pretending to read something important. “You know, there are rumors.”
“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Mark deadpans before walking away.
“All the same,” Derek calls out to Mark’s retreating form.
* * * * *
They lose a patient. They lose a patient that they shouldn’t have lost and Lexie takes it badly. Mark doesn’t take it much better, he can’t tear himself away from the OR as the scrub nurses finish their portions of the death note. As they scrub out, Lexie remains silent, unsure of the appropriate response, but hoping that she can find it within her to create something he might at least value. “I was thinking we could have dinner at the pizza place tonight,” she suggests.
“No,” Mark says, concentrating on scrubbing every inch of his skin all the way up to his elbows.
“You had somewhere else in mind?”
“No. I thought I’d spend the evening alone.”
He’s taking this out on her and he knows it. It’s wrong. It’s not fair and she deserves better. She’s trying here and he can’t seem to look beyond the end of his nose and see his own struggle with the patient loss. Mark desperately wants to forget about what’s just happened in the OR and he knows that tomorrow is another day and there will be another life to save. But in this moment, he’s too busy going over every aspect of the surgery and wondering where he went wrong.
Lexie’s expression changes when she realizes that he’s not interested in getting through this together. It’s the first time in weeks that she’ll be leaving work without plans to see him later. They’ve fallen into a comfortable routine of after work activities. Usually they have dinner together at least three nights a week. On nights that they don’t have dinner, they go to Joe’s or some other bar to sit and talk for hours. On the nights that they are both on call, they often end up sitting in his office, whiling away the awful pre-dawn hours with games of twenty questions or intern exam prep questions. She’s come to depend on him for more than teaching. Lexie depends on him to be there at the end of the day as her friend and as someone who actually cares. It’s a novel concept for her; she’s been through hell this year and she wonders what might have happened to her without the appearance of Mark Sloan in her life. “No problem,” she stammers. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Mark sighs before slamming a palm against the scrub room door and stalking out.
After her shift, Lexie changes into her street clothes and sits down in the intern locker room. She literally is all dressed up with no where to go. She’s the epitome of cliché and if she is being honest with herself, she knows that she’s going to be miserable tonight. Her fellow interns come in and out of the room, hardly acknowledging her existence. If she’d thought that working with Meredith was going to be the challenge, she was wrong. Instead, she’s learning that her connection to Mark is going a long way to damage her reputation with her peers. The other interns think she’s getting her privileges because of her blood relation to Meredith. She smirks when she hears their snide comments because it couldn’t be further from the truth. But she doesn’t take the time to correct them, it would take too much energy and she doesn’t have time for that kind of groveling when good surgeries are waiting on her.
“Doing anything tonight?” Megan asks as she ties her tennis shoe on the bench in front of the lockers.
“Probably not,” Lexie frowns.
“Oh…well, oh,” Megan stumbles.
“Would you like me to be doing something?” Lexie asks, knowing that such a hesitation can only mean that Megan’s got a hot date that she wants to bring home.
“Oh no, that wouldn’t be appropriate,” Megan blushes.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” Lexie smiles sweetly. “I’ll have a drink at Joe’s. By the time I finish, so will you.”
“You’re funny,” Megan calls as Lexie moves to leave the locker room.
“Not as funny as you.”
Joe’s is a bustling hub of interns and residents when Lexie arrives. The usual suspects line the walls and surround tables, laughing and drinking to their heart’s content. But one figure in particular catches Lexie’s eye as she waits for the door to slam behind her. Mark is hunched over the bar, his hands gripping a glass of scotch, his eyes staring into nothing, and his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. Lexie cautiously makes her way over to him, gaining confidence in her actions with every step she takes. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s bad form to drink alone?” she asks, mimicking their first meeting at Joe’s.
“Go away, Little Grey,” he insists.
Joe slides her a whiskey sour and she takes a quick drink before sitting down on the bar stool next to him.
“No,” she says firmly.
Mark shakes his head and takes another long drink of the scotch, feeling the dark liquid burn as it travels down his esophagus and settling in his stomach. “You’ve gotten mouthy,” he observes.
“I learned from the best.”
“Touche.”
“A wise man once told me that we do our best to save everyone, but sometimes there’s nothing that we can do. Sometimes the risks and complications outweigh what we can medically do for a patient,” she dutifully repeats.
Mark frowns, recognizing his own words and wonders why he ever told her those things. “And sometimes we wallow in our shortcomings. Tonight is one of those nights.”
“Just so long as you’re only wallowing tonight. I need you at work tomorrow. If you’re not around, Yang will stick me in a supply closet,” she teases.
Mark tears his eyes from their focus on his drink and he stares intently in her eyes. “So help me, if Yang ever sticks you in a supply closet, I will ring her neck,” he promises.
Lexie is taken aback by Mark’s vehement defense of her, it’s almost as though he is protective of her. But she chides herself for thinking that because it’s something that a boyfriend would feel about his girlfriend. And if there’s anything she knows, it’s that Mark Sloan isn’t looking for a girlfriend, so is protective nature must just be a part of his personality. “Good to know,” she nods.
The two sit in relative silence for a few moments, each contemplating their respective roles in the botched surgery and focusing on their drinks. Lexie swallows the last sip of her drink and waits patiently for Joe to refill her glass. She smiles when he slides another into her hand and he does the same for Mark. She takes another drink, hoping that a little more liquid courage will help her say the things she wants to say to him right now. Mark sighs, taking a long drink of his new scotch and wonders why this surgery is affecting him so deeply. “I’m not lonely anymore,” Lexie says quietly.
Mark blinks his eyes and wonders if he’s heard her correctly. However, he knows he has. He knows she’s not lonely anymore because neither is he. But he can’t find the words to tell her that, so instead he says, “That’s because we’re never alone anymore.”
“It’s better this way.”
“It is,” he agrees. “Joe, let’s settle up.”
Mark knows he’s taking the coward’s way out, settling the tab and ending the evening early. A real man, a man deserving of a beautiful woman, would sit here and tell her that he’s not lonely either and that he’s never been happier. A real man wouldn’t run from happiness, but he’s Mark Sloan and it’s in his nature to sabotage his chance at happiness. So instead, he tosses a fifty on the counter and places a light hand on Lexie’s back as she downs the last sip of her drink. She stands and leans slightly into his shoulder, trying to regain her balance before walking out of the bar.
They stand outside the bar, off to the side and not blocking the door, saying their goodnights. “I’m in at 8,” Lexie says, “I’ll get the pre-rounds completed and we’ll be ready to go when you get in.”
“Good, we have a surgery at noon,” Mark says.
Lexie nods and looks over at the adjacent parking lot where her crappy car is waiting for her. “Then I guess
I’d better go,” she whispers.
But before she can step away, she feels Mark’s hands grip her hips and haul her closer to his body. Instinctively she places her hands against his chest, but she can’t bring herself to raise her eyes to his. He touches his forehead against hers and breathes deeply before releasing her. “Be safe driving home. Goodnight,” he says, walking away in the direction of the Archfield.
Lexie watches his retreating form for a few moments before breathing deeply, shaking her head, and walking to her car. And just like that, she’s pretty sure that he’s more than her teacher and he’s more than a friend.