The on-call room is dark, but it's not so dark that you can't see him as he looms over you, smiling. You love that smile, the one he gives you when he knows he's made you happy, and just a moment ago he made you happier than you'd been since the last time you had sex with him in this very same on-call room.
He leans down and kisses you, and you like that he kisses you after every one of these on-call room trysts. That first time, when you picked him up at the bar, he hadn't kissed you, and in the back of your booze and lust-addled mind you wondered why, but never really bothered to find out. And then George's dad died, so you never got around to asking.
The second time you picked him up at the bar, the night Addison was back and you'd gone for drinks, that was the night he finally kissed you. When he did, you wondered why he hadn't that last time, and although you were far from drunk, you asked.
"I only kiss the special ones," he'd said, kissing you again. Even if you hadn't planned on having sex with him that night, that kiss would have changed your mind. He could kiss you and ask you to commit a felony and you'd say yes, just so long as he kept kissing you like that, like you were the only woman on Earth at that moment.
Since your first encounter, you know he's slept with many women, but you haven't gotten up the courage to ask him if he'd ever kissed any of them. You almost don't want to know, because the idea of him kissing them like he kisses you makes you more jealous than actually knowing that he'd fucked them. You'd rather pretend that none of that ever happened, so you can keep your green-eyed monster at bay and pretend that you are the only woman Mark has ever kissed.
His kiss is the same as always, sensual and sweet and slow, and you like how it never changes because you like it the way it is. But this time, instead of rolling off of you and throwing an arm around you, he puts his head on your breast and sighs deeply.
You know what that sigh means. You know what just about everything means with him; he has his own language and you are fluent in it. You know that sigh means that he wants to talk, that there is something weighing on his mind. But you also know that he will talk when he's ready, and that to push him to talk is to take a chance on pushing him away. So instead you stroke his hair, content to lie with him like this until someone's pager goes off or he decides to talk, whichever comes first.
He doesn't often want to talk like this. Usually after these on-call room sessions there's little time for talking, and when there is the talk is more like banter. Sometimes you fall asleep together, and sometimes Mark just holds you, and you never know what to expect. But when he lays his head over your heart and sighs like that, you know that carrying the weight of the world on those broad shoulders has become an unbearable burden, and he needs you to listen, to hold him, to make him feel a little less alone.
"Three years." His voice is low, so low you can barely hear it, even in the quiet on-call room. It takes less than a moment to register what he's said, and when you do your heart breaks for him a little bit. You never imagined that Mark was the kind of man who remembered birthdays and anniversaries, and you certainly never thought that he would remember the due date of the child Addison aborted. He's full of surprises, Mark Sloan, and it's part of the reason you like him so much-he keeps you on your toes.
"Do you think I'd be a good dad?" he asks, and you know that he's not looking for reassurance. He's not that type.
You think for a moment, and although you have a hard time imagining him changing a diaper or burping a baby, you can easily imagine him teaching a child to ride a bike, to add numbers, to catch a ball.
"Yeah," you whisper, your hands still stroking his hair. "I do."
His pager goes off, and with a sigh he reaches over and grabs it. "I gotta go." You immediately miss the warmth of his body pressed against yours, and you pull the covers up as you watch him get dressed.
He grabs his long white coat and with a smile, he leans over and kisses you gently. "We still on for dinner?"
"Yes."
He brushes your hair out of your face as he looks intently at you, and you love the feeling it makes in the pit of your stomach, like butterflies. He opens his mouth to say something, and you feel the hope rising in your chest that maybe this time will be the time that he says it, those three little words that you're pretty sure he feels, but just can't bring himself to say. He leans in and presses his forehead to yours, and when he does speak, it's so soft you almost miss it.
"I love you, Cal."
You can't help but smile, because you've been waiting for those words from him for so long. It's almost like you've won the lottery but so much better, because instead of winning a million dollars you've won his heart, which is all you've ever really wanted. He kisses you one last time before he goes to whoever paged him, and you lie back in the tiny, uncomfortable bed and think to yourself that you are, without a doubt, the luckiest woman in the world. You are the last woman Mark Sloan will ever kiss.