Plus One

Benched.

He pushed open the door tentatively taking a deep breath readying himself for what he knew was to come. Shutting it quietly behind him he pulled off his leather jacket and threw it over the couch as he walked into the lounge. He could see Derek, Owen and Cristina's smirking faces from where he had left them in the attending's room when he'd announced that he was heading home for the day. And while they had all teased him he knew that they weren't at all envious of Mark's next job after the long day of surgery after surgery they'd had.

"Hope you bought a comfortable couch Sloan" Cristina had yelled after him and in response he'd thrown her a mock glare before he left the room and their laughter behind.

As Mark walked into the large open dining area he frowned at the silence of the house. Walking down the hall further into the back family room area the surgeon felt a familiar warm feeling spread through his chest as his eyes took in the sight before him. She lay on the couch, on her side, one arm folded beneath her while the other lay limply over her stomach. Her eyes were closed and the sunlight flooding in the large windows made her golden skin shimmer. He couldn't help the grin that crept onto his lips and Mark let his bag slide off his shoulder before he placed it softly on the ground. He silently made his way towards his wife before he crouched down beside the couch lifting an arm to brush back one of her midnight black curls that had escaped from the clip she held her hair back with,

"Don't touch me" Mark jumped violently in surprise, freezing his arm suspended in mid air and when her eyes snapped open he could see the anger in them. The anger, he reminded himself, that he had completely expected. The anger that made her brown eyes sparkle distracting him from the glare that he was supposed to be worried about,

"Mark!" her sharp voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he retracted his arm as she sat up with a small amount of effort. Without another word she stood up and walked around him towards the kitchen without so much as a hello. It hurt, he would admit it. He felt the sharp blow to the stomach. They rarely fought, hardly ever actually fought. Sure they disagreed, had arguments all the time they were both stubborn, but they never really fought. So of course it bothered him.

He stood and followed the woman catching sight of the stone that sparkled as the sun caught it. The stone attached to the golden band he had slid onto her finger almost a year and a half before. Looking down at his own finger he observed his matching thicker band minus the diamonds of course. When he looked back up he gulped seeing his wife glaring at him once again and forced the smile that had reformed on his lips away,

"Cal" but her glare just intensified as she took another sip of water holding her hand up at him. And for a moment he wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh and hold her and kiss her because at that moment she was the most beautiful and most comical thing he'd ever seen. He knew she couldn't be angry with him, not really. She had no real grounds to be upset with him not that she would ever admit it. They were both to stubborn for their own good.

"Love" He tried again and this time the scathing look caused him to hear Cristina's words again and glance back towards their couch where he knew there was a high possibility he would sleeping that night.

"Don't talk to me I'm angry at you" she stated and he nodded having learned over the last couple of months that the worst thing he could do was to disagree with her.

"You can take the couch tonight Sloan" She said coldly the unforgiving anger laced in her voice. But he wasn't happy with that and he certainly wasn't going to spend the night without her. It wasn't something they'd done once in the past two years. Not unless they'd had to. Unless one of them had a surgery or was working overnight. Their hours had, for the most part, however become pretty constant and it made it a lot easier to plan their lives out. And so apart from the nights they spent running around the hospital they'd spent every night wrapped up in each other neither wanting to be anywhere else.

It wasn't going to change now.

The plastic surgeon followed the orthopaedic one to their bedroom where she began to pull the top she was wearing from her frame. He grinned, thanking the heavens that she had her back turned to him, when she got her arms stuck and after a few seconds of her struggling he crossed the room tugging the offending item over her head, only to be met with the same glare as before. Once she'd pulled on a more comfy attire as she had been doing each night she'd gotten home from work she turned back to the doorway ready to leave. Only to be met with her husband who wasn't planning on moving any time soon.

He didn't fail to realise that the fact that she hadn't yet changed meant that she'd fallen asleep as soon as she'd arrived home from the hospital which she'd left in a huff while he and Owen had been in surgery. Derek and Karev had been quick to inform them however that she'd made quite the show storming down the stairs with the chief calling her back from the balcony above.

He also couldn't help but notice it was one of his shirts that she had pulled over her head. The one that she had claimed as her own that fell to her mid thigh that looked mighty good on her and that made it even harder to take the irritated woman seriously.

"Move" she commanded irately but he shook his head watching her eyes narrow dangerously,

"Move" She repeated more forcefully but it was about as successful as the first time she had made her request. Finally she gave in and threw her hands up looking at him furiously,

"No surgery Mark...None...No. Surgeries!" he just watched her knowing that she'd be able to tell simply by looking at him that he had been deadly serious when he'd told the chief that he thought it was time for his wife to ease up on the surgeries. Sure he probably should have talked it through with her first but he knew there was no way he'd ever get her to agree. But he was the one who saw how saw she was after leaning over a patient for hours upon end. He was the one who knew about the dizziness she had been having lately...not to mention how high her last blood pressure check had been. Since then Mark would do it whenever he ran into her around the hospital and there was a cuff in sight.

But then she surprised him, as she did a lot lately, and he frowned as he watched the anger in her eyes evaporate being replaced by sadness and exhaustion the latter which he had been seeing in her far too often which had made him decide in the first place to lighten her work load a little.

"My jobs what I live for Mark, you know that. It's what we both live for. It's who we are. You can't take that away from me" she said quietly and his heart swelled taking in the sight of her eyes filling with tears. She turned from him and trudged into their en-suite standing at the vanity. He followed her once again and resisted her as she tried to pull away when he wrapped his arms around her waist feeling the roundness of her stomach.

"You're wrong Cal" and even he was shocked with his words for a moment cursing himself but he ploughed on before she could get even more upset with him.

"I used to live for work love and yeah it is who we are but I'm so much more now Callie, we're so much more. And now I live for more than work and I'm not going to let anything take that away from me Cal" He spoke to her holding her gaze in the mirror with his arms still wrapped around her. Even though he'd seen her cry more in the last three weeks than in their whole relationship he still wasn't immune to the horrible feeling that consumed him whenever he saw the salty drops roll down her cheeks.

"Mark I didn't mean—" But he cut her off as he gently spun her around and silenced her with a finger on her lips.

"I know" he whispered and then he replaced his finger with his lips in a gentle kiss. When he pulled back he wiped her tears from her faintly flushed cheeks with his thumbs.

"I'm sorry I wasn't really angry with you I'm just not used to being so...useless" his heart ached with her last word and he could feel her frustration with herself. She didn't want to slow down, she didn't want to stop working and she wasn't used to having to take care of herself so carefully. She didn't know how. Mark leant down and kissed her once more before replying,

"You're definitely not useless Cal you've got the most important job of all" And her eyes shined once again but this time with happiness as a smile spread across her lips. Their hands met each other's his laying over the top of hers beneath the hem of his shirt on the soft skin of her stomach and she knew that as far as her husband and best friend was concerned she was doing the most important job in the world.

"Can I at least do some short surgeries if my blood pressure goes down a little" he laughed at her attempt and her innocent voice,

"We'll see" he replied as her hand gently cupped over her slightly rounded stomach she leaned into his arms letting herself relax for the first time in days knowing that she wasn't useless and helpless or feeble and vulnerable like she had been thinking. Instead she was still the strong and independent ortho surgeon that she had always been and her body warmed as she caught her husband looking down at her tenderly and knew that he had been right all along.

Not that she would ever admit it.

New little thing I'm trying let me know what you think and if I should continue. They're going to be snippets of Mark and Callie's life together.

If I do it'll probably be random moments from Callie and Mark's life while she's pregnant and they prepare for their baby and maybe afterwards? :) Anywho let me know what you think about it!

Thank you for reading guys, hope you liked it!

Nina xx