now you lift your eyes to the sun
"I forgive you. I forgive you for treating me like crap and I forgive you for letting your friend treat me like crap. I don't know how you get up in the morning. I honestly don't. Our dad abandoned you, and your mom by all accounts was the meanest person ever and you can't let Derek love you, and it all really, really sucks. But ever since I knew you existed, I had this fantasy about my big sister, and you have failed, on every occasion to live up to that fantasy. But I still love you, whether you are capable of letting me or not. So I forgive you."
Meredith Grey sees her father again for the first time in three years at Lexie's funeral. The door had been open for the estranged father and daughter to get to know each other, to become family again but life got in the way and before either of them knew it, its three years later and they're grieving for the littlest Grey. He's sitting on one side of the church with Molly and her husband while Meredith sits on the other side of the room with Derek and Cristina.
Once everyone arrives at the cemetery for the burial and the official ceremony is over, Derek kisses her lips and Cristina nods in encouragement before she crosses the fresh earth to hug the man that used to pour her cereal. In that moment, Meredith likes to think that Lexie would have been proud of her.
She almost smiles at the thought when she's hugging her father. There is a whole world of loss and tragedy between them. Thatcher squeezes her gently and when she finally pulls away from his shaky, weak and unsure embrace, he looks at her with blue eyes that resemble her own and watches as clarity flashes behind them.
He then raises his hand, the very same hand that slapped her hard across the face a few years ago. But this time, the move is not violent or hostile. It's gentle and tentative; he touches her cheek and kisses her forehead like the kind of father that loves his daughter.
She can't help the tears that stream down her face as she cries. She cries for herself, she cries for her father but most of all she cries for her little sister – for Lexie.
People gather at the house after they disperse from the cemetery. Coffee and sandwiches are served, memories are exchanged, tears are shed and it's all too much for her to handle. About twenty minutes into the gathering, after kissing Zola goodbye and sneaking past Derek, she drives to Joe's.
She shouldn't be surprised that he's there as well. He's still in his tailor-made suit, nursing a single malt scotch as he crushes the peanuts between his fingers. Three shots of tequila are already in front of her by the time she's sitting in the available seat next to him. The pair suffers in silence for what seems like an eternity before he finally speaks up.
His voice is quiet and laced with anguish when he says, "She wanted me to tell you that she loves you and that you were a good sister. She wanted you to know that."
Not that anything she says could ever ease the undoubtedly burning ache in his chest, but she thinks that she should say something, something on behalf of her sister to the love of her life – the only love of her life. "She loved you, you know. Even when you weren't together, she loved you. There was never anyone else for Lexie. It was always you."
"And for me, it was always her. It's always gonna be her."
…
"I love you. Oh, G— oh, my God. That just came… Fly— Flying out of my face like it was s— s— some kind of— I— I— I love you. I just— God. Did it again. I… I— I— I— I love you. I— I do. I just— I— I love you. And I have been trying not to say it. I have been trying so hard to just mash it down and ignore it and not say it. And Jackson is a great guy. He— he is, and he— he's gorgeous, and— and he's younger than you, and he doesn't have any grandkids or— or babies with his lesbian BFF's and he's an Avery, and— and he liked me, you know? He— he really liked me. But it was never gonna work out because I— I love you. I am so in love with you. And you're – you're – you're in me. It's – you're like – it's – it's like you're a disease. It's like I am infected by Mark Sloan and I just can't – I can't think about anything or anybody and I can't sleep. I can't breathe. I can't eat. And I love you. I just – I love you all the time, just every minute of every day. And I – I – I – I – I…love you. God, that feels good, just to – to say that to – I am – I feel so much better. Just – I love you."
He does a lot of pretending. He pretends the plane didn't crash, or it did but search and rescue got there in time to save her. He pretends her body wasn't lying, bruised and broken beneath the wing of the plane. He pretends he didn't waste the last year of his life trying not to love her. He pretends that they were gonna get married. He pretends she's alive. He pretends he's not dead inside.
But the plane did crash; search and rescue taking over twelve hours to finally get to them. He wasted the last year of his life pretending he didn't love her, pretending he was in love with someone else. They didn't get married; they didn't get their happy ending. She's dead and gone and he's just dead inside.
He wasn't the same after that.
He looked like, sounded like and felt like Mark Sloan but it wasn't him. Not really. He was practically the walking dead, with his heart and soul gone – lost and broken in another world entirely; lying with his Lexie somewhere he can only dream of being someday.
People give him points for breathing in and out; the love of his life was dead and he survived and in spite of the constant ache inside of his chest, he did what she would have wanted him to do and moved on. Not the way she wanted him to live, but the best way he knew how to live without her.
Everything hits him, really hits him for the first time six months later. He's in the middle of surgery, the patient's body is covered head to toe with first and second degree burns. He's doing his best to repair the salvageable skin but when someone mentions a possible facial reconstructive surgery, he freezes. He is a world renowned surgeon performing a surgery he could do with his eyes closed but he freezes.
The world stills, time stops and he finally breaks. His skilled and steady hands that hovered above the patient's frail skin were suddenly shaking violently. Someone starts shouting his name from the O.R gallery but its all white noise. His body hits the hardness of the cool floor but the pain doesn't register. Like an outer-body experience, he watches from the sidelines as the scalpel gets removed from his tight grasp, mask untied from his face and gown torn from his body until he finally succumbs to the darkness that's been calling him every day since the crash.
Callie and Arizona are waiting for him when he wakes up, but he's too numb to feel anything other than broken. He is not comforted by their familiar presence, warmed by their soft smiles or pained by their tears of sympathy. He is just numb. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, he is simultaneously numb and broken.
They want to help him — save him, but he just shakes his head seemly and insists that he doesn't want to be saved, doesn't want to be saved because no one was there to save her. He's somewhere in the place between sleep and awake when he hears Callie whisper to her wife.
"He's my best friend. He's been there for me through all of it and now he's broken and I can't fix him. That's what best friends are supposed to do, they're supposed to fix each other but I don't know how. I don't know how to make this better or easier for him. Arizona, I-I don't know if he'll ever come back from this. I wish I knew what to say to just – make it all disappear but I can't and I don't know if – I don't think he's ever gonna be the same."
(He doesn't think he'll ever be the same either).
"When you lose someone like that – so quickly and unfairly, it stays with you." Arizona is speaking softly but with certainty, determination and understanding. "Lexie's dead – she's dead. There's nothing anyone can say or do that'll bring her back and fix him."
(If she were here, Lexie could fix him. He would be whole again).
…
He doesn't know why or how he ended up here, he just did.
It's nearly three o'clock in the morning, its pouring rain outside and he's pretty sure all of Seattle is sleeping except for him. It's not like him to pay random visits to friends or family, especially when he should be at home looking after his daughter right now, but he downed a whole bottle of scotch by himself and wandered through the dark streets until he ended up here.
He makes it all the way to the front door, his hand tiredly resting against the wood as his palm pounds against the door. He can barely hear the sound over the loud rain, so he repeatedly slams his hand against the door until he sees a light turn on inside the house.
When the door opens, a very tired and blurry Derek is standing on the other side, wiping sleep out of his eyes before he asks, "Mark? What's wrong? Is everything okay?"
It takes a very conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other in an attempt to make it into the house and out of the rain, but he trips over his own feet and if it weren't for Derek catching him, he probably would have passed out in the front foyer.
He hears soft footfalls pad down the stairs, and he's pretty sure it's Meredith when an urgent voice asks Derek questions he isn't sure his friend can answer. "Oh my god, is he okay?"
"I think so; he's just had a lot to drink. Help me get him on the couch." He tries to make the journey from the foyer to the couch easier for them by attempting to move his legs and make his weight less dead, but he's too tired, drunk and sad to care. As soon as his back hits the soft cushions of the couch, he lets go of his body and surrenders to the exhaustion and sadness.
"I'll get him some blankets and towels," Meredith announces as Derek helps him shrug off his wet and muddy boots, take off his leather jacket. Eventually, soft weight is thrown over him in the form of a towel and soft fleece blanket. Moments pass, and he hears Meredith ask, "Did he say what he wanted?"
"No, but he didn't have to. It's Lexie. He always wants Lexie."
(It's all he ever wanted).
…
"You can't keep doing this," Derek says quietly, handing over a steaming coffee mug. It's the morning after the fourth time in one month that he's wound up on Derek's couch after a night of binge drinking on an empty stomach.
He nods his head in solemn acknowledgment. "I know."
"She loved you; she wouldn't want this for you."
At first, he's angry by that comment because how would Derek know what Lexie would or wouldn't want? But then he thinks about her, her with her big heart and big smile and big hopes and dreams and he knows Derek is right. "I know she wouldn't want this for me, but I don't know what else to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"I think you're supposed to move on."
"I don't know how," he admits.
"No one does."
(He thinks his heart breaks all over again).
…
The entire church is vacant save for Mark sitting alone in the front pew, misty eyes gazing up at the statue that stands alone at the front of the altar. He's been here once before, for Karev and Stevens' wedding day, but now he's here by his own accord and for the life of him, he doesn't know why.
"I don't know if you're listening, or if you're even there but you should know that I wondered about you once or twice," he admits. "The first time when I was about eight years old and the Shepherd's took me in as her own, and once when Lexie came into my life as something more than my intern. She—she fell asleep in my arms one night, and I stayed awake until dawn, just watching her sleep. I remember thinking to myself that maybe Callie had to have been right, because only by some miracle would someone like Lexie ever love someone like me."
Lexie always used to say the same thing about him. She would talk about Mark – about loving him and about him loving her back the same way like it was the strangest thing in the world, like there was no way she deserved him, no way she deserved to be loved by him. Maybe that's why they were so beautiful and never ugly; they found one another, saved one another and loved one another.
His elbows rest on his knees as he buries his face in his hands. "I miss her everyday," he whispers, his voice pained. "It—it hurts. It aches in places that I never knew existed inside me. I can't breathe—not without her and its just wrong. She should be here with me—she should be here. Why did you take her from me? Why isn't she here with me? What did she do to deserve this?"
He doesn't know why he's asking all these questions when he knows he's not going to get an answer. He may never get an answer. He may never know why her. He doesn't even know what he's looking for by being here. Maybe he's looking for some peace and quiet, maybe he's looking for some answers. Mostly, he thinks he's looking for the kind of clarity he had when she was alive.
…
It's been thirty years, thirty long years since her death and not a day has gone by that he hasn't wished she was here with him, or he was there with her. People say that time heals all wounds but he knows that's a lie because even though it's been thirty years, he's not healed. He's just better.
He's better for having known Lexie. He's better for having her in his life, even if it was for such a short period of time. He's better for loving her but most of all, he's better for having been loved by her.