Fic: spending bottle caps
spending bottle caps
grey’s anatomy ; lexie/mark ; 3,016 words, PG
navigation: it still leads us all where we’re supposed to be. spoilers for death and all of his friends.
notes: So this happened. It’ll probably happen again, seeing as I kind of dig Grey’s Anatomy again and stuff. This is for mathhhh (♥), who makes really amazing icons and tumblr posts and basically can get me to write whatever she wants me to write. I’m easy, what I can I say.
-
There is still glass on the sidewalk. They sit outside, staring at the entrance.
Mark hands Lexie his coffee.
Lexie stands at the entrance again. “He’s okay,” she says out loud.
The door in front of her slides open and then shuts. A piece of rubber catches at the bottom. Two nurse stand, watching from the side.
“Karev?” Mark’s pulled away from his phone, reassuring someone, Callie, Sloane - she doesn’t ask, she can’t ask. Her throat catches and he’s watching her, his hand curled tightly around his phone.
She shakes her head. She doesn’t answer yet. The nurses come into view; one smiles, the other doesn’t, and there are jokes she remembers from med school, something about pissing off the nurses, something about. All she can think about are the first shots and the blood, the woman on the floor, who she’s sure had a name, but it’s gone now again. Blood isn’t supposed to feel that way.
The door in front of them skids open though. Lexie steps forward and kicks the piece of rubber, flattening it with the bottom of her sneaker. It squeaks and she frowns, shaking her head again.
“Derek,” she says then. “Meredith,” she says too. “Derek and Meredith. They’re okay. I wasn’t even thinking.”
Mark sighs and she hears him. She feels his hand curl around her arm again, his fingers digging gently into her arm. His palm presses just above her elbow and she’s thinking skin and bones and circulation. She wonders if he thinks about that two, about how things work and how things should work. They’re sort of the same thing anyway, but she doesn’t ask. It’s nice thought to have.
He pulls her back too, walking her away from the entrance and the nurses, back to the benches in the front that have somehow remained untouched after all of this. This, she thinks. She can’t call it anything else this, that, here and there; she still thinks about Mr. Clark and grief.
“They prepare you for this,” Mark says as he sits her down. He follows too and they sit knee to knee. “You know, that’s what they say.”
“I know. They give you that speech.”
“That speech?” he asks, blinking. She almost smiles. He makes a sound and she looks at him, unsure if she’s supposed to catch it. It’s affectionate and it should make her nervous. She’s just tired and maybe a little sad, too far away from relief to give him that.
“That speech,” she says instead, “the one where they tell you that this is going to happen, that there are families where it’s not going to be okay that one of them is sick and really sick, and that there’s nothing you can do about it, that keeping them alive because of grief - they taught a class on grief, you know - is somehow unnaturally cruel. They tell you that. At Harvard, they use really fancy words and smiles that say hey, you’re going to be amazing. Gold star. You still have feelings. They tell you that everybody snaps. They just don’t tell you what to do after.”
Her eyes burn. Mark’s shoulder drops into hers. His hand drops over her knee. The gesture is shy and she turns her hand underneath his, her palm pressing into his palm. She gives him a watery laugh and shakes her head.
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
“It’s not your fault, Lex.” Mark pauses. His thumb traces the lines in her skin, like he’s counting them. “I’ll keep telling you that,” he adds.
It’s awkward, but she’s smiling, almost smiling. She looks up at him.
“That’s nice.”
He barks a laugh. “I’m a nice guy, you know. It happens from time to time.”
She looks at the entrance, just as he laughs again, and she realizes that she hasn’t really been back inside since she’s left. Her legs feel heavy. Her feet are digging into the sidewalk, the bottom of her shoes scrapping into the dirt. They make that sound, the one where she thinks about falling and skidding and trying to hide.
Her gaze catches the nurses again too. They’ve moved from their corner, to outside and into her view. One of them pulls a pack of cigarettes out from her side.
Lexie frowns and pulls her hand away from Mark. “I remember,” she says.
Meredith sits outside one of the rooms down the hall. Lexie’s hands are empty but her mouth twists with relief. Her sister’s okay, she thinks.
It’s still weird to think that way, weirder when Lexie wants to think of Meredith as her sister with the same amount of affection that she musters when she thinks of Meredith as Meredith. She moves to sit next to her though, and the seat moans under her weight. It’s just not the time.
“He’s okay?” she asks, slowing herself. Her thoughts are all over the place. She wishes for Mark, she doesn’t wish for Mark. She thinks of Alex too. “I wanted - ” she stops herself, and then, “is Derek okay?”
“He’s okay,” her sister says, studying her hands. “He’s really great. I’m really great. It’s been a really bad day though.”
“I know,” she says gently.
Meredith’s mouth twist. She says nothing and Lexie doesn’t know what to say. Her hands press over her knees and she starts to rub her palms back and forth against her legs. She looks around them, up and down the hallway, half-full with people on either end. It’s too quiet, she thinks, or too easy.
Looking over at the other woman again, Lexie offers a smile. Meredith smiles too, as she’s catching her movements out of the corner of her eyes. Lexie doesn’t try and peek into Derek’s room either. She doesn’t know if she can handle one more person.
“How’s your guy?” Meredith asks and Lexie blinks, catching Meredith as she studies her. Lexie’s mouth opens, then closes, and looks away, down the hall and back to the small crowd of people that is seemingly intent on cleaning up. There are people kneeling, but no cops. She should be relieved that there are no more cops.
“He’ll make it,” she says absently, and doesn’t think about Alex or Mark, if that’s really the question.
“That’s what Mark said.”
Lexie blinks but she’s not surprised. She smiles and then stops. “Mark,” she says, and draws his name out, shaking her head. “He told you?”
“He brought me coffee,” Meredith says.
They stare at each other then, Lexie pulling herself away from the hallway, the group of people that seem to grow in numbers. Meredith’s hand covers hers.
“I was pregnant,” she says.
Lexie’s eyes widen and she inhales. “What?” she ask and it’s breathless, almost too breathless, as she tries and links the words together: I was pregnant and was is the strongest word.
“I was pregnant,” she repeats. Lexie watches Meredith as she smiles carefully. She stands and then turns, looking down at her. “I was going to tell him today because I found out to today. We needed really good news.”
“Are you - ”
Lexie stops because she doesn’t know how to ask the question. Bad news is bad news and she doesn’t know if she can take more. She thinks about Mr. Clark and then Alex, remembering relief. Relief is almost ugly too.
But there’s this look in Meredith’s eyes, sad and accepting, in the kind of way Lexie remembers her mother when she knew it was time to go, time for the rest of them to let go, and it’s peaceful, just peaceful. It makes her sad and lonely because she doesn’t know her sister this way or has really had the chance; then again, it’s that kind of piece to Meredith that isn’t Lexie’s to know. They have a lot of too late pieces to sort through.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. It works, she’d like to think, or hopes. It’s then she thinks about Mark, Mark not Alex, and his hands and coffee. “I’m sorry that this happened.”
Meredith nods. “I’m okay. It wasn’t my turn yet. I don’t know, I guess. We weren’t ready for it to happen today.”
She takes Lexie by the elbow, but doesn’t pull or offer some kind of momentum to stand. There’s no offer of going back into Derek’s room and maybe, it’s that Meredith isn’t ready to walk inside just yet or needs some sort of break to break; for that, Lexie thinks she’d rather be out here with her. She needs to breathe too.
But she’s startled then, as Meredith’s head drops against her shoulder, and then together, it’s just the two of them as they sag into the seat. Lexie doesn’t tell Meredith that she took the stairs up here.
“We have to pick,” her sister says absently.
It’s a declaration, a tired one. Lexie tenses and tries not to sigh, listening.
“I’m not saying you have to pick Lexie right now. I’m not good at picking. I’m not good at deciding either. I think that’s my mom right there, the picking and deciding outside of this hospital and having a life or something. But I have a life and I have someone I love. He’s going to be okay and we’ll have our chance again because we deserve it. I deserve it.”
Lexie is quiet. Meredith pulls back. She stands too and her hair falls in an odd, crooked wave over her shoulder. It’s still in a ponytail and she looks down at her, her hands pressing into her hips.
“I guess my point is don’t make a choice that isn’t there. You can move forward or backwards or whatever. If it doesn’t happen today -” Meredith laughs, rubbing her eyes. She turns away. “I sound like a cookie.”
Lexie doesn’t stand. “A good cookie,” she murmurs.
It’s silly, it’s really silly, silly in a way that needs to be said but it’s all that Lexie can think of doing. Meredith laughs out loud and she manages to smile, standing too.
“I like being a good cookie,” Meredith says.
“You’re a good cookie,” she tells Mark, who turns and looks at her strangely, it’s that look that he has when he’s going to get the point but she’s got to give him a chance because she doesn’t make sense every once in awhile.
They are together, downstairs, by the seats where it says family only and it makes Lexie think of Mr. Clark again, alone and with his gun. She remembers the look in his eyes and blinks, catching Mark as he steps forward.
“A cookie?” he asks, and it takes her another minute to realize that he’s changed; he’s in jeans and a shirt. His jacket is on the counter behind him, looped over an empty file holder. There’s a nurse frowning, but she’s not paying attention to her or to Mark.
Lexie nods. She still hasn’t changed, she thinks. She looks down at herself and sighs. Mark clears his throat.
“Okay,” he says. He blinks. “I - uh, I’m heading back over to check in on some patients. I was going to look in on Karev too.”
“You were?” she asks, surprised.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes are wide. Her fingers pick at the end of her shirt, and she can’t decide what’s better or worse, knowing or admitting or admitting everything all together. She knows Mark well-enough that he has absolutely no patience for games and that’s one of those things, in a list of many things, that she respects him for.
“I know what he said,” she says quietly, unexpectedly. It’s there between them and she should acknowledge Alex in that sense, in front of Mark because he was there too and these things just don’t go away. She remembers the look that Meredith gave her, or really didn’t give her; Lexie was there and this is the same.
“Lex,” Mark starts, but she shakes her head. He ignores her though. “Look, you don’t have to tell me. I get it. “
“That’s what you said the last time,” she says, “and then you didn’t get it. Let me talk, Mark. I want to talk.”
Her hands rise and she brushes them over her face. She takes a step back and then another, sitting in one of the chairs nearby. She could lead them outside, she thinks but doesn’t; Mark follows and stops in front of her.
Lexie takes a deep breath. “I know he said Izzie’s name. I know he’s not over Izzie because that’s what Karev does, he holds on to the people that he loves the most and whether or not he forgives them, they’re still there, they’re always there. I get that. I do it too.”
He studies her. He says nothing and she waits. There’s this terrifying sense of familiarity with this moment, like they’ve been here before and she’s supposed to be waiting for some kind of assumption not understanding. But Mark watches her and looks patient, stands patient, and that seems to make her more nervous.
“I’m telling you this because I miss talking to you,” she says. She pauses and shakes her head. “I don’t know how to not miss talking to you. That’s my problem.”
“That’s not a problem.”
She sighs. “Mark,” she murmurs. “You can’t go and say -”
“You said you loved him,” he interrupts, and says it to mean it. He sits next to her, almost over her chair. Their knees press together and he doesn’t seem to realize it. She doesn’t pull back either. It’s selfish.
“I heard you,” he says too. “It’s not - I heard you and if you said it and meant it, then okay. If you said it and I - “
He stops and trails off and Lexie looks at him sadly. She reaches forward and brushes her fingers over his knee. They press lightly and then she pulls back. Her hands drop to her lap.
“I don’t know,” she murmurs.
He nods. He looks defeated and she wants to be sorry. Alex is okay because of him. Mark’s hands are stronger, steadier, and Alex is okay. Lexie thinks of that nurse again, the one that died right before she was thrown down to the ground, and the way her hand slide over the woman’s wound. Everything was sticky.
“It was a moment,” she says, and inhales quickly, standing. Her fingers flex. She doesn’t pace but she turns and balances on her heels, rocking back and forth. “Adrenaline rush. Worry. Concern. It was a moment. I’m allowed to have moments, you know.”
“I know,” he tells her.
“No, you don’t,” she says.
She blinks and then faces him, mouth set into a hard frown. She wants to tell him that this is confusing for her, that he can’t start dropping things and not mean them without some thought, and that he can’t want her to just come running. She won’t, she wants to say. She’s not a runner.
“I took a step, Mark. I took a step forward and meant it. It’s been really hard for me to do something like that. So if you’re going to start saying things, you’re going to have to mean them and really mean them, okay?”
It’s then, right here, where she really gets to look at Mark. Her ears aren’t ringing. She’s not shaking. She’s not thinking about guilt and Alex and Mr. Clark and all of the things that she’s supposed to be doing. The taste in her mouth is still there, still waiting for her to swallow and move on. It’s not the kind of thing you move on from, she thinks.
Mark is standing when she blinks. He steps forward, into her space, and towers over her. He looks down at her.
“ - you’re saying - that’s not what I wanted you to think,” he says quickly, and she catches the end of what he’s saying, “I just wanted you to hear me. For a second, you know? And yeah, right, I get it’s stupid - what?”
She laughs softly, suddenly, and he frowns. “What?” he asks again. He sits back down and they feel like nervous children all of the sudden.
Lexie takes a step forward. Her legs graze his knees. She watches his hand reach for hers and then it drops to the side.
“Nothing,” she says. “We’re just … we’re here.”
She doesn’t know what else to say. She lets him take her hand, then drop it, and then she’s left with the sensation of his fingers sliding over her knuckles.
The hospital seems still suddenly. She looks around and Mark says nothing, and maybe that’s okay, saying nothing for awhile. She’ll figure it out, she wants to tell him, tell them all regardless of whether or not it’s the right thing to do. There’s too many right things in her head, and very little of what she wants to do. Maybe she’s afraid of something backfiring.
She feels ashamed. Then she doesn’t. She looks up and around, at the stairs where the chief is supposed to be standing, survey the rest of the hospital. She doesn’t hear Bailey, doesn’t see Christina or Meredith and thinks of her sister tucked away, quiet and unrelenting in the corners upstairs.
When she looks at Mark then, finally, he smiles too, but smiles carefully, watching her and waiting for her to react, or maybe just to push him away. That makes her sad then, and maybe a little relieved, in the kind of way that feels unexpected and too new for her to go back to again.
“I missed you,” he says, and Lexie sighs, almost admitting to relief, sitting back down with him. Their fingers lace for the slightest of seconds and then she pulls her hands back to her lap. It’s okay though and she thinks it too: it’s okay, it’s really okay, and maybe it’ll be easier to believe in a little while.
She can do that, she thinks. Her fingers tremble. She almost smiles at Mark.
In the morning, they share a coffee.
grey’s anatomy ; lexie/mark ; 3,016 words, PG
navigation: it still leads us all where we’re supposed to be. spoilers for death and all of his friends.
notes: So this happened. It’ll probably happen again, seeing as I kind of dig Grey’s Anatomy again and stuff. This is for mathhhh (♥), who makes really amazing icons and tumblr posts and basically can get me to write whatever she wants me to write. I’m easy, what I can I say.
-
There is still glass on the sidewalk. They sit outside, staring at the entrance.
Mark hands Lexie his coffee.
Lexie stands at the entrance again. “He’s okay,” she says out loud.
The door in front of her slides open and then shuts. A piece of rubber catches at the bottom. Two nurse stand, watching from the side.
“Karev?” Mark’s pulled away from his phone, reassuring someone, Callie, Sloane - she doesn’t ask, she can’t ask. Her throat catches and he’s watching her, his hand curled tightly around his phone.
She shakes her head. She doesn’t answer yet. The nurses come into view; one smiles, the other doesn’t, and there are jokes she remembers from med school, something about pissing off the nurses, something about. All she can think about are the first shots and the blood, the woman on the floor, who she’s sure had a name, but it’s gone now again. Blood isn’t supposed to feel that way.
The door in front of them skids open though. Lexie steps forward and kicks the piece of rubber, flattening it with the bottom of her sneaker. It squeaks and she frowns, shaking her head again.
“Derek,” she says then. “Meredith,” she says too. “Derek and Meredith. They’re okay. I wasn’t even thinking.”
Mark sighs and she hears him. She feels his hand curl around her arm again, his fingers digging gently into her arm. His palm presses just above her elbow and she’s thinking skin and bones and circulation. She wonders if he thinks about that two, about how things work and how things should work. They’re sort of the same thing anyway, but she doesn’t ask. It’s nice thought to have.
He pulls her back too, walking her away from the entrance and the nurses, back to the benches in the front that have somehow remained untouched after all of this. This, she thinks. She can’t call it anything else this, that, here and there; she still thinks about Mr. Clark and grief.
“They prepare you for this,” Mark says as he sits her down. He follows too and they sit knee to knee. “You know, that’s what they say.”
“I know. They give you that speech.”
“That speech?” he asks, blinking. She almost smiles. He makes a sound and she looks at him, unsure if she’s supposed to catch it. It’s affectionate and it should make her nervous. She’s just tired and maybe a little sad, too far away from relief to give him that.
“That speech,” she says instead, “the one where they tell you that this is going to happen, that there are families where it’s not going to be okay that one of them is sick and really sick, and that there’s nothing you can do about it, that keeping them alive because of grief - they taught a class on grief, you know - is somehow unnaturally cruel. They tell you that. At Harvard, they use really fancy words and smiles that say hey, you’re going to be amazing. Gold star. You still have feelings. They tell you that everybody snaps. They just don’t tell you what to do after.”
Her eyes burn. Mark’s shoulder drops into hers. His hand drops over her knee. The gesture is shy and she turns her hand underneath his, her palm pressing into his palm. She gives him a watery laugh and shakes her head.
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
“It’s not your fault, Lex.” Mark pauses. His thumb traces the lines in her skin, like he’s counting them. “I’ll keep telling you that,” he adds.
It’s awkward, but she’s smiling, almost smiling. She looks up at him.
“That’s nice.”
He barks a laugh. “I’m a nice guy, you know. It happens from time to time.”
She looks at the entrance, just as he laughs again, and she realizes that she hasn’t really been back inside since she’s left. Her legs feel heavy. Her feet are digging into the sidewalk, the bottom of her shoes scrapping into the dirt. They make that sound, the one where she thinks about falling and skidding and trying to hide.
Her gaze catches the nurses again too. They’ve moved from their corner, to outside and into her view. One of them pulls a pack of cigarettes out from her side.
Lexie frowns and pulls her hand away from Mark. “I remember,” she says.
Meredith sits outside one of the rooms down the hall. Lexie’s hands are empty but her mouth twists with relief. Her sister’s okay, she thinks.
It’s still weird to think that way, weirder when Lexie wants to think of Meredith as her sister with the same amount of affection that she musters when she thinks of Meredith as Meredith. She moves to sit next to her though, and the seat moans under her weight. It’s just not the time.
“He’s okay?” she asks, slowing herself. Her thoughts are all over the place. She wishes for Mark, she doesn’t wish for Mark. She thinks of Alex too. “I wanted - ” she stops herself, and then, “is Derek okay?”
“He’s okay,” her sister says, studying her hands. “He’s really great. I’m really great. It’s been a really bad day though.”
“I know,” she says gently.
Meredith’s mouth twist. She says nothing and Lexie doesn’t know what to say. Her hands press over her knees and she starts to rub her palms back and forth against her legs. She looks around them, up and down the hallway, half-full with people on either end. It’s too quiet, she thinks, or too easy.
Looking over at the other woman again, Lexie offers a smile. Meredith smiles too, as she’s catching her movements out of the corner of her eyes. Lexie doesn’t try and peek into Derek’s room either. She doesn’t know if she can handle one more person.
“How’s your guy?” Meredith asks and Lexie blinks, catching Meredith as she studies her. Lexie’s mouth opens, then closes, and looks away, down the hall and back to the small crowd of people that is seemingly intent on cleaning up. There are people kneeling, but no cops. She should be relieved that there are no more cops.
“He’ll make it,” she says absently, and doesn’t think about Alex or Mark, if that’s really the question.
“That’s what Mark said.”
Lexie blinks but she’s not surprised. She smiles and then stops. “Mark,” she says, and draws his name out, shaking her head. “He told you?”
“He brought me coffee,” Meredith says.
They stare at each other then, Lexie pulling herself away from the hallway, the group of people that seem to grow in numbers. Meredith’s hand covers hers.
“I was pregnant,” she says.
Lexie’s eyes widen and she inhales. “What?” she ask and it’s breathless, almost too breathless, as she tries and links the words together: I was pregnant and was is the strongest word.
“I was pregnant,” she repeats. Lexie watches Meredith as she smiles carefully. She stands and then turns, looking down at her. “I was going to tell him today because I found out to today. We needed really good news.”
“Are you - ”
Lexie stops because she doesn’t know how to ask the question. Bad news is bad news and she doesn’t know if she can take more. She thinks about Mr. Clark and then Alex, remembering relief. Relief is almost ugly too.
But there’s this look in Meredith’s eyes, sad and accepting, in the kind of way Lexie remembers her mother when she knew it was time to go, time for the rest of them to let go, and it’s peaceful, just peaceful. It makes her sad and lonely because she doesn’t know her sister this way or has really had the chance; then again, it’s that kind of piece to Meredith that isn’t Lexie’s to know. They have a lot of too late pieces to sort through.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. It works, she’d like to think, or hopes. It’s then she thinks about Mark, Mark not Alex, and his hands and coffee. “I’m sorry that this happened.”
Meredith nods. “I’m okay. It wasn’t my turn yet. I don’t know, I guess. We weren’t ready for it to happen today.”
She takes Lexie by the elbow, but doesn’t pull or offer some kind of momentum to stand. There’s no offer of going back into Derek’s room and maybe, it’s that Meredith isn’t ready to walk inside just yet or needs some sort of break to break; for that, Lexie thinks she’d rather be out here with her. She needs to breathe too.
But she’s startled then, as Meredith’s head drops against her shoulder, and then together, it’s just the two of them as they sag into the seat. Lexie doesn’t tell Meredith that she took the stairs up here.
“We have to pick,” her sister says absently.
It’s a declaration, a tired one. Lexie tenses and tries not to sigh, listening.
“I’m not saying you have to pick Lexie right now. I’m not good at picking. I’m not good at deciding either. I think that’s my mom right there, the picking and deciding outside of this hospital and having a life or something. But I have a life and I have someone I love. He’s going to be okay and we’ll have our chance again because we deserve it. I deserve it.”
Lexie is quiet. Meredith pulls back. She stands too and her hair falls in an odd, crooked wave over her shoulder. It’s still in a ponytail and she looks down at her, her hands pressing into her hips.
“I guess my point is don’t make a choice that isn’t there. You can move forward or backwards or whatever. If it doesn’t happen today -” Meredith laughs, rubbing her eyes. She turns away. “I sound like a cookie.”
Lexie doesn’t stand. “A good cookie,” she murmurs.
It’s silly, it’s really silly, silly in a way that needs to be said but it’s all that Lexie can think of doing. Meredith laughs out loud and she manages to smile, standing too.
“I like being a good cookie,” Meredith says.
“You’re a good cookie,” she tells Mark, who turns and looks at her strangely, it’s that look that he has when he’s going to get the point but she’s got to give him a chance because she doesn’t make sense every once in awhile.
They are together, downstairs, by the seats where it says family only and it makes Lexie think of Mr. Clark again, alone and with his gun. She remembers the look in his eyes and blinks, catching Mark as he steps forward.
“A cookie?” he asks, and it takes her another minute to realize that he’s changed; he’s in jeans and a shirt. His jacket is on the counter behind him, looped over an empty file holder. There’s a nurse frowning, but she’s not paying attention to her or to Mark.
Lexie nods. She still hasn’t changed, she thinks. She looks down at herself and sighs. Mark clears his throat.
“Okay,” he says. He blinks. “I - uh, I’m heading back over to check in on some patients. I was going to look in on Karev too.”
“You were?” she asks, surprised.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes are wide. Her fingers pick at the end of her shirt, and she can’t decide what’s better or worse, knowing or admitting or admitting everything all together. She knows Mark well-enough that he has absolutely no patience for games and that’s one of those things, in a list of many things, that she respects him for.
“I know what he said,” she says quietly, unexpectedly. It’s there between them and she should acknowledge Alex in that sense, in front of Mark because he was there too and these things just don’t go away. She remembers the look that Meredith gave her, or really didn’t give her; Lexie was there and this is the same.
“Lex,” Mark starts, but she shakes her head. He ignores her though. “Look, you don’t have to tell me. I get it. “
“That’s what you said the last time,” she says, “and then you didn’t get it. Let me talk, Mark. I want to talk.”
Her hands rise and she brushes them over her face. She takes a step back and then another, sitting in one of the chairs nearby. She could lead them outside, she thinks but doesn’t; Mark follows and stops in front of her.
Lexie takes a deep breath. “I know he said Izzie’s name. I know he’s not over Izzie because that’s what Karev does, he holds on to the people that he loves the most and whether or not he forgives them, they’re still there, they’re always there. I get that. I do it too.”
He studies her. He says nothing and she waits. There’s this terrifying sense of familiarity with this moment, like they’ve been here before and she’s supposed to be waiting for some kind of assumption not understanding. But Mark watches her and looks patient, stands patient, and that seems to make her more nervous.
“I’m telling you this because I miss talking to you,” she says. She pauses and shakes her head. “I don’t know how to not miss talking to you. That’s my problem.”
“That’s not a problem.”
She sighs. “Mark,” she murmurs. “You can’t go and say -”
“You said you loved him,” he interrupts, and says it to mean it. He sits next to her, almost over her chair. Their knees press together and he doesn’t seem to realize it. She doesn’t pull back either. It’s selfish.
“I heard you,” he says too. “It’s not - I heard you and if you said it and meant it, then okay. If you said it and I - “
He stops and trails off and Lexie looks at him sadly. She reaches forward and brushes her fingers over his knee. They press lightly and then she pulls back. Her hands drop to her lap.
“I don’t know,” she murmurs.
He nods. He looks defeated and she wants to be sorry. Alex is okay because of him. Mark’s hands are stronger, steadier, and Alex is okay. Lexie thinks of that nurse again, the one that died right before she was thrown down to the ground, and the way her hand slide over the woman’s wound. Everything was sticky.
“It was a moment,” she says, and inhales quickly, standing. Her fingers flex. She doesn’t pace but she turns and balances on her heels, rocking back and forth. “Adrenaline rush. Worry. Concern. It was a moment. I’m allowed to have moments, you know.”
“I know,” he tells her.
“No, you don’t,” she says.
She blinks and then faces him, mouth set into a hard frown. She wants to tell him that this is confusing for her, that he can’t start dropping things and not mean them without some thought, and that he can’t want her to just come running. She won’t, she wants to say. She’s not a runner.
“I took a step, Mark. I took a step forward and meant it. It’s been really hard for me to do something like that. So if you’re going to start saying things, you’re going to have to mean them and really mean them, okay?”
It’s then, right here, where she really gets to look at Mark. Her ears aren’t ringing. She’s not shaking. She’s not thinking about guilt and Alex and Mr. Clark and all of the things that she’s supposed to be doing. The taste in her mouth is still there, still waiting for her to swallow and move on. It’s not the kind of thing you move on from, she thinks.
Mark is standing when she blinks. He steps forward, into her space, and towers over her. He looks down at her.
“ - you’re saying - that’s not what I wanted you to think,” he says quickly, and she catches the end of what he’s saying, “I just wanted you to hear me. For a second, you know? And yeah, right, I get it’s stupid - what?”
She laughs softly, suddenly, and he frowns. “What?” he asks again. He sits back down and they feel like nervous children all of the sudden.
Lexie takes a step forward. Her legs graze his knees. She watches his hand reach for hers and then it drops to the side.
“Nothing,” she says. “We’re just … we’re here.”
She doesn’t know what else to say. She lets him take her hand, then drop it, and then she’s left with the sensation of his fingers sliding over her knuckles.
The hospital seems still suddenly. She looks around and Mark says nothing, and maybe that’s okay, saying nothing for awhile. She’ll figure it out, she wants to tell him, tell them all regardless of whether or not it’s the right thing to do. There’s too many right things in her head, and very little of what she wants to do. Maybe she’s afraid of something backfiring.
She feels ashamed. Then she doesn’t. She looks up and around, at the stairs where the chief is supposed to be standing, survey the rest of the hospital. She doesn’t hear Bailey, doesn’t see Christina or Meredith and thinks of her sister tucked away, quiet and unrelenting in the corners upstairs.
When she looks at Mark then, finally, he smiles too, but smiles carefully, watching her and waiting for her to react, or maybe just to push him away. That makes her sad then, and maybe a little relieved, in the kind of way that feels unexpected and too new for her to go back to again.
“I missed you,” he says, and Lexie sighs, almost admitting to relief, sitting back down with him. Their fingers lace for the slightest of seconds and then she pulls her hands back to her lap. It’s okay though and she thinks it too: it’s okay, it’s really okay, and maybe it’ll be easier to believe in a little while.
She can do that, she thinks. Her fingers tremble. She almost smiles at Mark.
In the morning, they share a coffee.