Summary: Lexie can't get Mark out of her head, and she finally decides to enlist some professional help to deal with the ever-present problem. M/L, rated T

Rating: T, for some sexual references and desperate!Lexie

Author's Note: That awkward moment when a rerun of Seinfeld from 1996 inspires you. (Guys, what is happening to me? I am in some serious need of real M/L.) The dialogue in between sections comes from the episode The Keys. If you type in /watch?v=wA4oJfNe-DU after the standard youtube web address, you can find the scene. …And, yes, I know it was a joke. It was a funny moment, and never really meant to be taken seriously (except by Kramer, of course)… But I have this really pathetic ability that enables me to relate anything to Mark and Lexie. So here we go. I hope you enjoy it.

. . .

"Hi," Lexie says softly, opening the door and stepping into the small room. The woman sitting in an armchair in the middle of the room looks up, and Lexie immediately recognizes her. Dr. Greta Jenson. Doctor. Psychiatrist. Shrink. And possibly someone who can help me, Lexie reminds herself, trying to keep an open, tolerable mind.

"Hello," the woman replies. "Please have a seat." She gestures to the other armchair in the room. A long, thin coffee table separates the two chairs. Lexie perches in the seat. After a moment, the psychiatrist smiles knowingly. "You don't want to be here, do you?"

Lexie gives her a weak smile. "No, I… I don't."

"So why are you here, then?"

"Because I need someone to help me."

Greta nods, leaning backward slightly to appraise her client. "With what?"

Lexie takes a deep breath. "With getting a certain… person out of my head."

Greta reclines in her chair, nodding slowly. "And you think I'll be able to help you?" She smiles wryly. "I can't exactly modify your memory, you know. And hypnosis rarely—if ever—works. If you've formed a deep attachment with this person, they will no doubt always be in your head. Maybe not in the forefront," she adds, "but they'll be in there somewhere."

Lexie nods. She hadn't expected a quick-fix. "Well, 'somewhere' I can deal with," she replies. "But this…" She sighs. "This constant barrage, this—this constant assault on my mind…" She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. "This," she begins slowly, opening her eyes to stare at the professional in the other chair. "This, I cannot deal with."

The psychiatrist nods. "Okay," she replies after a moment. Lexie watches as she clicks the pen in her hand before settling into her seat. "Why don't we begin with something simple… Who is it that's in your head? Who's this person that's dominating your thoughts?"

Lexie takes a shaky breath. "His name is Mark."

She watches as Greta writes this down. "I noticed you didn't give me a last name," she comments.
Lexie sighs. "Is that really necessary?"

"No. Just an observation."

Lexie nods, relieved that she doesn't have to make this personal matter into a professional one as well by admitting his identity to the surgical staff's personal on-site shrink. "So," she says, leaning forward. "What are you thinking of when he's on your mind?"

.

"I have surgery in twenty minutes," he mumbles against her mouth, trying to get the words out among her forceful kisses.

"Don't care," she replies tersely, already tugging at the hem of his scrub shirt. He lips his arms immediately, helping her to remove it. When his eyes find her again, he notices she's discarded her clothing as well—and any protests he might've had left vanish at the sight of her.

"Lex…"

She smiles, taking a few dainty steps forward, pressing her bare body against his. "Hi," she murmurs, her voice much softer than before as she stares up at him.

"Hi," he grins down at her. His hands grip her hips lightly but possessively. "Slowed down a bit, have you?" Lexie rolls her eyes at his mocking tone of voice. "First, you send me a fake emergency page—which was not okay, by the way—and then you start ripping off my clothes like you have two minutes to live. And now you're—"

"One," Lexie interrupts with a cheeky smile, "don't pretend that you didn't like the page. And two…" She pretends to glare at him. "If I have only two minutes to live, who's to say I'd want to spend it, naked, with you?"
He grins. "Even if you had an eternity to live, we both know you'd want to spend it with me." His hands squeeze her hips. "And we would most definitely be naked the entire time."

Lexie rolls her eyes, but smiles anyway. She arches her neck, lifting her mouth to his as her hands slip beneath the waistline of his scrub pants.

"Nineteen minutes," she hears him mumble faintly, just before relieving him of the rest of his clothes and leading the way to the bed.

.

"They… They aren't memories, exactly," Lexie replies. "Sometimes, they're daydreams, things I would think up when I was feeling desperate or when I really missed him… I—I used to just have them right after we broke up. But now…" She closes her eyes. "Now it's all the time." She sighs, knowing it'll be easier to give up the details willingly than to have this stranger pick at her ridiculous fantasies. She stares at the coffee table between them as she speaks. "Many… Many times, we're at work. He'll pull me aside or I'll pull him aside… We'll sneak into an on-call room or an empty exam room and…" A smile takes place on her lips involuntarily. "Sometimes it's a bit more frenzied than that. I'll stop the elevator when it's just us inside, or we'll pass each other in the hall, and we can't do anything except give in…"

"To desire?"

Lexie lifts her eyes at the other woman's voice. She'd almost forgotten she was speaking aloud. "To each other," she replies, finally meeting the woman's gaze. "This—this isn't just about sex," she adds a moment later. Greta holds her gaze, taking in the young woman's words seriously. "If it were, I would dream about anyone. If it were, I'd pick up any guy at the bar. But this is about him, and—"

"And these fantasies are how you're keeping your relationship alive," Greta finishes for her. "Through illicit sexual acts."

Lexie blushes, not having thought the older woman would be so explicit. "I… I…" She takes a breath, forcing herself to keep cool. "I can't exactly help myself, if that makes sense. I—I mean, I've tried, obviously but I… I just can't stop."

. . .

"Do you ever yearn?"

"'Yearn?' Do I yearn?"

"I yearn."

"You yearn?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I yearn. Often I, I sit…and yearn."

. . .

"It's like I'm going crazy. All I think about are these dreams. They—" She takes a deep breath. "I literally think it might drive me crazy. I think he might drive me crazy," she adds quietly after a second.

Greta smiles sympathetically. "I don't think you'll go insane just from longing, Dr. Grey."

"'Longing?'" Lexie repeats skeptically.

The psychiatrist nods. "Yes, longing. That's what this is, isn't it? Longing, yearning, pining, craving, aching… Call it what you want, but the bottom line is: you miss him. And you want him," she adds seriously, eying her client.

"I…" Lexie trails off, struggling to swallow her emotions and refute the woman's claim. The lump rising in her throat is obstructing her voice from being heard, much the same way her continual desire for him has blocked out everything else in her life. As if there were anything else. She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. She tries to discipline herself, to force those thoughts away, but already—it's too late. Already—

.

"Mark," she breathes. "What are you doing?"

He presses his body closer against hers, and from the way his mouth curves against the side of her neck, she knows he's smiling. "I think you know exactly what I'm doing," he whispers, placing warm kisses just above the neckline of her scrubs.

"I…" She bites her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood if he hadn't reached out and turned her head to face his. Her mouth falls slack when she looks into his eyes.

"I'm here because you want me to be here," he informs her softly. He glances down, his eyes falling to the few inches of floor between their feet. Lexie follows his gaze, unsurprised to find they're both naked now even though they were fully clothed just a moment ago. "I'm here because you want me." He's staring at her when she looks back up. "But I'll go if you want me to go," he tells her quietly.

Lexie's shaking her head before he even finishes the sentence. "No," she replies. "No, you're right. I… I do want you. And I don't want you to go. I… never want you to go."

He smiles, and the happiness in that gesture reaches his eyes in a split-second. "Glad to hear it," he whispers, leaning forward to lower his mouth to hers. Lexie's eyes fall closed at the kiss, but that doesn't stop her from stepping forward. It doesn't stop her from reaching up and burrowing her hands in his hair, or relishing in the way his hands cup her back, tugging her closer and closer—

.

"Did you say hi to Mark from me?"

Lexie jolts in her seat, a fiery blush covering her skin as she recognizes the voice of her psychiatrist. She meets the woman's eyes for barely a fraction of a second—she can't stand any longer—but even then, she could see the amusement in the woman's expression.

"So?" Greta prompts a minute later, after Lexie's blush has all bust faded to nothingness. "Are you going to tell me what just went on in your head or are we going to sit here for the next hour and pretend like nothing happened?"

. . .

"Have you yearned?"

"…Well, not recently. I craved. I crave all the time. Constant craving. But I haven't yearned."

. . .

"I can't stop thinking about him. It's—it's not like before. Before, it was a lot, but now—it's all the time now." She closes her eyes momentarily. "I don't know what to do," she whispers.

"And this is… just because you know he's with someone else?" Greta wonders, curious.

Lexie debates this, mulling over the answer. "Partly," she replies finally. "But mostly, it's just because… He's not with me. Do you know what I mean? He—He could have a girlfriend or he could be alone; it wouldn't matter. I'd still want him. Still, I'd think of him. Still, I'd… I…"

"And what do you think of?" Greta asks quietly.

Lexie raises guilty eyes to the other woman. "I…" She looks down for a moment, and the skin covering her cheeks takes on a decidedly pinkish hue. "I'm not sure how appropriate it is to say aloud."

Greta is smiling wryly when Lexie looks back up. "You'd be surprised the intimate details one reveals to a person they believe could have insight into the turmoil raging within their mind." She inclines her head to the young surgeon. "Indulge me for a moment. I promise I won't judge."

Lexie sighs loudly, trying to stamp out the embarrassment rising within her. "Mostly, I dream about him….and me. And if—if I see them together, I always do, I always dream."

Greta nods, knowing she's referring to the plastic surgeon Mark Sloan and his girlfriend, whose name is never spoken—just as his last name isn't—even though they both know it's Julia. "And what have you been dreaming about recently?"

.

She can feel his breath at her ear. She can feel the heat from his body as he stands mere centimeters away.

"You've been thinking of me," he whispers quietly. He doesn't ask a question, she already knows that he knows. Her eyes drift closed at the gravelly quality of his voice. "I know you have," he murmurs, affirming her suspicions. His hands reach out to hover lightly on her hips. "Why don't you tell me what you've been thinking of, baby?"

Lexie opens her eyes, turning around to face him. In the blink of an eye, the clothes they'd been wearing disappeared. The hospital walls disappeared. His bed—their old bed—is placed just before them and she absentmindedly registers that they're in his apartment. Alone. Together.

"This," she whispers, pressing her lips to his and bringing their bare bodies together. Somehow, already, they've become one. "I've been thinking of this."

He's smiling at her a moment later, now crouched above her on the bed. "Me too," he whispers, leaning down for a kiss. Her hands grapple for his face, cupping his cheeks and pulling him as close as possible as his arms do the same, wrapping around her back and holding her front flush against his.

.

"…Being with him," Lexie admits softly.

"Intimately?"

Lexie takes a shallow breath before nodding. "Yes," she forces out.

"And are the dreams…always like this? Are they always of a sexual nature?"

Lexie shakes her head. "No, not always." She sighs, thinking back. She remembers a few times, when she dreamt they were married. They had been picking out furniture for a house they were buying. Everything he'd wanted to buy was hideous.

But she let him buy it all anyway, knowing it would make him happy.

"Mostly…" Lexie takes a breath, forcing herself to forget and continue. "You're right, mostly they're—they're like that. Sexual, and…" She trails off with a tired sigh. "And I'll…"

"And you'll what?" Greta presses softly.

Lexie raises her eyes to the other woman, her expression strained. "And when I wake up, just for a second, I'll think what happened in my dreams was reality. But then I open my eyes, and… And he's not there. The dreams weren't real, no matter how much I wanted them to be. And then I have to get up, go to work, and see him every day. And every time I see him, I just remember what it was like to—to be with him, to have him with me, and I…" She sighs, closing her eyes and trying to forget the way it felt to have him hold her hand and kiss her lips. To look down and see a ring on her finger, and to know that there was a matching one on his. To hear him say I love you with an honest, happy smile. "It's like a vicious cycle," she resumes after a moment, forcing her mind to go blank and her eyes to open. "The more I see him, the more I think about him and then dream about him. And after I dream, I—I know I shouldn't, but I always want to see him. Just—just to know he's real. On some level. On any level."

"But he isn't yours," Greta points out.

Lexie bites back an exasperated sigh at the reminder. "I know that," she replies tersely.

"Have you talked to him about this?"

Lexie laughs, feeling suddenly lighthearted. "Are you kidding?" She grins.

Greta shakes her head seriously, and Lexie's face goes blank as she realizes what the other woman is saying. "You're… serious?" She manages. "What the hell—what would I even say? Oh, hi, Mark, I know we haven't talked since we broke up, but would you be interested to know that I fantasize about you on a nightly basis?"

"That is… one way to approach the subject," the psychiatrist allows. "But I had something more subtle in mind."

"No matter how subtle you introduce the topic, the facts remain the same: I am always thinking about him. And we are no longer together."

Greta nods. She opens her mouth, but closes it a moment later. Lexie stares at her, wondering what she thought better of before deciding not to speak. "What?" She asks, her voice sharper than she originally intended. "What is it?"

Greta pauses to take a breath, just before looking up into her client's eyes. "Do you… Do you think about him when you're intimate with others?"

Lexie stares at her, completely taken aback. "I…" She swallows. Why would she say that? Her tongue feels glued to the inside of her mouth. She tries to hold onto her outrage, but soon another thought breaks its way to the surface of her frazzled mind, and the outrage fades to wonder: How did she know? "I… I haven't been with anyone since I broke up with my last boyfriend three months ago." Over Mark, she adds silently.

"Oh," Greta replies quietly.

The ghost of a smirk makes an appearance on Lexie's face as she tries to combat her anxiety. "Dry spell, right?"

"More like a forced drought," Greta replies. She stares at her client when the woman's eyes fly to hers. "You don't want to be with anyone but him, do you?" She wonders softly a moment later.

Lexie looks away. She knows if she has to spend one more second looking into those perceptive eyes, she'll blurt the truth. Just like she always does when put under pressure.

But the shrink continues anyway. "And this isn't just because of, I'm guessing, your exceptional chemistry?"

Lexie still doesn't meet the doctor's eyes, choosing instead to study the pattern of the worn carpet across the room.

"You're still in love with him."

The six simple words slice through the tense air like six bullets from a gun, and from the way her client starts at the statement, Greta half-expects the woman to start sporting bloodstains on her immaculate scrubs. Nothing happens, though, and as silence descends again a mere second later, the two fall back in their chairs. Lexie's ears still ring from the words and she has to hold her body in place so it doesn't visibly shake. It feels like an eternity to her, but it can't be more than five minutes before Lexie finally looks back and opens her mouth to speak.

"What do I do?" She whispers, her voice hushed with barely-concealed terror.

. . .

"Look at you. You're wasting your life."

. . .

"Okay," Greta says tiredly. It's their tenth session, and after almost two and a half months, each meeting has been the same. They'll talk about her life for a bit. How work is going, how her family is, how she is… And then they'll talk about Mark. In their early sessions, Lexie had jumped right into the topic of her ex. She explained things without skipping a detail, but these days, it seems like she's been omitting things left and right. Now, she wastes hours recounting minutes-long conversations with her sister or her brother-in-law or other coworkers. And whenever the subject of Mark is brought up, she quickly changes it. "Lexie," she begins, "you need to hear this." It didn't take a professional with decades of insight into the human mind to tell that she needed a push in the right direction.

"I need to hear what?" Lexie replies dejectedly. "Nothing you're telling me has done anything. I can't get him out of my head, and these meetings are really only furthering the problem."

"You've made no progress since you admitted to being in love with him," Greta informs her. "You clammed up since then." She stares at her client. "You're ignoring the problem, Lexie. And that isn't helping anyone, least of all you."

Lexie bristles immediately, feeling the truthful sting of the woman's words. "I am not—"

"Anyway," Greta continues with a dismissive wave of her hand, "the time for fixing that problem is long gone."

Lexie glares at her. "Then why, exactly, are we continuing these meetings if I'm beyond all hope of being fixed? What are you trying to say here?"

Greta takes a slow breath, eyeing her client and wondering how best to break the news. "'I'm trying to say… Have you heard… that Dr. Sloan is single?"

It takes Lexie a few silent moments to process this. Eventually, her reply comes out with a hushed breath, "What?"

Greta nods, a smile tugging at her lips. "A few of the nurses that see me mentioned it in passing a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure if you knew, but now it's clear you didn't—"

"He's single," Lexie breathes. The psychiatrist nods.

"Now, I suggest you—"

"Thank you," Lexie interrupts, already on her feet. "Thank you very much for all your help, but I think I've got it from here."

Greta watches, a bit stupefied, as her client rushes across the room, pulling open the door and letting it fall shut behind her without another word. She feels a proud smile take shape on her face in less than a minute, happy to see the young surgeon finally take some action towards redirecting her fate.

.

"Hey, Mark?"

Mark Sloan turns around, surprised to find Lexie Grey directly addressing him. She hasn't spoken to him in months. "Yeah?" He asks, feeling a smile tug at the edges of his mouth just from hearing her voice.

"I, uh, I was wondering…" He watches, amused, as she stumbles over her words nervously. But a second later, her voice has evened out and her words are determined. "What are you doing later?"

"Later?" He repeats, dumbstruck.

"Yeah," she replies, not at all put off by his surprise. She knew it would be her best asset. "I was wondering if we could maybe get a drink? And talk," she adds, a half-nervous smile flitting onto her face.

"Talk," he repeats, staring at her.

"Yeah," she replies. "Talk." A suggestions slips into her smile a moment later. She takes only a small step towards him, but to anyone watching, it's clear that she's invaded his personal space. And he let her do so without a second thought. "I have a few questions for you."

"What questions?" He wonders, letting his eyes run over her.

"Well, for one…" She smiles, looking down before flicking her eyes to look up at him. "Mark, do you ever…" She lowers her voice, and for a second he thinks she's going to reach out and touch him. For a second, he thinks she's about to step forward and press her lips to his. "Do you ever…" Her lips flicker into a secretly amused smile, "yearn?"

"Yearn?" He repeats dumbly, feeling his blood pressure skyrocket and her proximity. Somehow she's moved even closer without his notice. The navy and bright blue fabric of their identical scrubs is almost touching. "Do I ever yearn?"

"Yeah, you know…" She pauses momentarily as her tongue darts out to wet her lips. Mark tries not to view the gesture as prelude to erotica, but of course once he thinks it, the idea is out there. He forces himself to push those thoughts from his mind and focus on her words. But that doesn't help much.

"Have you ever longed for anything, or…" Her eyes flicker to the floor for just a half-second before returning to his. Her dark gaze almost bowls him over with all the unspoken emotion behind it. "Or for anyone?" She finishes quietly, her eyes locked with his.

He stares at her, mute, for almost an entire minute. As the seconds drag by without a word from him, Lexie feels her confidence growing. He isn't running away, he isn't laughing at her… In fact, he seems to be taking her much more seriously than she ever expected he would. When one minute turns into three, Lexie realizes its time for them to part ways. She can't stand here all day, waiting for him to come back to earth. She smiles once—secretly, to herself—just as she's about to leave.

And then she leans forward, elevating herself a few inches, and places a quick kiss on his left cheek. Her lips pause by his face for a moment afterwards, letting her words drift past his ear. After speaking, she walks away without another word, leaving Mark to stare after her and watch her go, speechless and frozen.

Her words play over, again and again in his head—and hers—as they part ways. Lexie's smiling as she goes, forcing herself to keep her cool and stare straight ahead, no matter how much she'd like to look back and see his reaction. Just thinking about it makes her insides twist with excitement and nervous fear. Yet she doesn't stop smiling.

It takes Mark two more minutes to remove the cotton from his ears. It takes him another minute to unstick his feet from the floor. And it takes him a good, concentrated ten minutes to make his blood to pump to all of his extremities, not just the one. But even after all that's done, even after his body has returned to "normal"… His brain hasn't. Every syllable from the relatively short conversation he just exchanged with her is still bouncing around in his head… But one phrase in particular, one phrase that she whispered in his ear just after placing a quick kiss on his cheek, is dominating his mind… He shakes his head, still unable to determine if she really said it or not.

I yearn for you.

.

Author's Note: Reviews are greatly appreciated. I may continue this. :)