When Owen Hunt calls her, she has to fight the urge to ask, "Seriously! There's not at least one other neonatal surgeon on the west coast that would do? Why the hell don't you employ someone who can manage more than a routine C-section?" But she's a little hormonal, a little flattered and his request was preceded by some ex-Chiefly coaxing from Richard, so she keeps her mouth shut and sets out for the helicopter pad, leaving voicemails (because everyone is with a patient or in surgery or in therapy) as she goes.
Past and present Chiefs aside, she manages to avoid everyone she knows, not exactly by design, but she makes no effort to find anyone and appreciates the reciprocated lack of effort to find her. And yet, at the end of the day, she can't quite make herself leave when she's supposed to and finds herself standing outside his apartment door with a question burning in her mind.
"She's beautiful," she says, when he opens the door, bearing a curious-faced Sofia in his arms.
He says nothing at first, his own face less curious than wary, but then smirks and concurs. "Her parents are insanely hot. What did you expect?" Then dips his head and softens his smile, adding a genuine, proud, "Thank you."
"May I . . .?" she trails off, gesturing inside his apartment with her head.
"Yeah. Sure." He's still a little wary, but he pulls the door wide open to let her in, shutting it behind him with his foot, then leads the way to the couch.
She watches him with the baby for a while, maintaining a calm exterior while her mind furiously debates whether or not to tell him she's a few weeks' pregnant and in the end decides, for her sanity (and maybe his too) she'll keep it to herself.
Which brings her back to the burning question; the unease she can't quite erase from her mind despite Amelia's apologies.
"Amelia said something –" she begins, as he cuts her off.
"She doing okay?"
"Yes." She seizes the brief respite. "One day at a time. You know. But . . . yeah . . ." She swallows her way back to the subject at hand. "She said something. About . . ." A beat, while she considers whether to take the broad view by including her unquestionable destruction of Derek, but that would be, oddly, easier, and also really isn't the point. "You."
He reddens. "It was dumb," he blurts, confusing her for a moment. "It was really, really dumb. But she was here and I was in a bad place and . . ." Sofia fidgets in his arms and he instinctively soothes her, then raises his eyes, remorseful, like he must have looked when he was a little kid. "It was just one night!"
She bursts out laughing, a little hysterically. She's getting so many chances not to go where she feels she has to go and the temporary relief is unhinging. "Not the inappropriate sex!" she splutters, while he squirms. "I've known about that for ages! You must know by now that the Shepherd sisters consider you a rite of passage! Surely you didn't think she'd keep that to herself?"
"A rite of -?" He looks wounded. "That's . . . mean." Then he considers, the corner of his mouth turning up sleazily. "Or kinda cool, maybe. Or . . ." He shakes his head. "Forget I said that. It's not cool. It's mean! But probably well deserved." He swallows. "I'm not that guy any more, okay? I date now."
As amusing as this could be, it brings her back to reality. "Is that . . .good?" She asks tentatively. "Dating? Not being that guy?"
He looks puzzled.
"Are you happy?" she tries to clarify. "Because Amelia said . . ." She falters. "She said I . . . she pretty much said I destroyed you and . . ."
She searches his face for emotions, and her stomach sinks as his eyes cloud over a little.
"You did," he says quietly, but then his eyes crinkle into a tired but accepting smile. "I was an idiot, though. I probably needed a little destroying. So I could . . ." he pauses, train of thought briefly diverted, "get put back together again." He raises an eyebrow and lifts Sofia up. "Be the new and improved Mark Sloan."
"So you're okay?" she asks, ignoring the tears prickling the corners of her eyes at his quiet honesty, not sure whether they're from reassurance or pain. Maybe both.
He scans her face. "Not exactly," he says. "But before you, after you, I was," he laughs softly, "critical. Now I'm stable. I teach. I have friends. I don't wake up hung-over next to women I can't tell the difference between. And," he smiles a warm, broad smile, "I have the most beautiful daughter in the world. And when I'm with her, yeah, I'm okay." He pauses. "How about you, Red?"
She doesn't know why. It's considered bad luck and she's not anywhere close to ready and only moments ago she knew it was a bad idea, but somehow the words come out of their own accord as her fingers brush her stomach. "I'm three weeks pregnant." Then she hears Amelia's voice again. You aborted his baby, right? and suddenly she's in a fused mess of past and present, because she's been three weeks pregnant before, sitting next to him on a couch not unlike this one and, even if he's right that he's a better man for all of it, she knows how much she hurt him.
He's saying Congratulations!, asking for details, but her mind is focused on one thing and, though she smiles and thanks him, she's waiting for a pause so she can clean up a little of the destruction.
"I was wrong," she says, briefly stroking Sofia's head. "You are not a terrible father."
He looks down, nodding slowly, and she can tell from the eyes he won't show her that he's fighting conflicted tears that mirror hers a few moments earlier. When he finally looks at her again, he smiles. "You're gonna make a great mom," he says, his voice gravelly but gently caressing.
"Thank you," she breathes, then, awkward, "I should probably go." But he just shrugs and she doesn't move. Somewhere between obligation, regret and a kind of longing, she can't make her body want to leave his side.