Title: reflex
Summary: Reflexes were a strange thing. Post-SLT (6x13)
Couples: Mark/Lexie!
Author's Note: I wish I could tell you what this M/L craze is after almost two months of no stories, but they keep coming! This one is highly unrealistic, and way out of character, but I hope you enjoy it anyway, just because I know it's sort of every M/Lers fantasy, with a bit of a bittersweet ending.
Disclaimer: If I owned Grey's Anatomy, Mark and Lexie would be happily married. Which does not, unfortunately, make good television drama.

[ reflex ]

Reflexes were a strange thing. Your leg kicking the doctor in the shins when he hit your knee with a little hammer; that was reflex. It wasn't like you wanted to make the poor guy's eyes water with pain every time he did it. It just happened. It was deeply embedded in your brain, an unchangeable part that, okay, maybe could be a little changable if you practiced. A lot.

So punching some punk in a bar because he happened to grab your ex-girlfriend's arm when she was very adamantly saying no was not any indication that there was any reason behind it. He'd probably punch any guy who did it to Meredith, and he definitely did not feel anything around her, so it's not as though that was any indication.

Not that he felt anything around Lexie, so it was a moot point.

He'd been doing pretty well for himself, too. He'd moved on to the point that he was hanging out at Joe's, nursing a couple beers at a time, his eye on the girl at the end of the bar who, okay, had a wedding ring on her finger and was talking to a guy with his arm around her, but he was feeling particularly ambitious and a little bit masochistic, and, frankly, he wouldn't have minded a good punch in the face, a welcome distraction.

And, okay, it had only been two hours since he'd made Lexie cry in the elevator, so he was feeling a little bit 'self destructive and self loathing to an almost pathological degree', something he thought he'd kicked in the last few months. He'd seen Lexie cry a grand total of three times, and the first two, he'd been the one comforting her. The third, he'd caused. And that lead him to grab his fifth beer of the night, shoot the married woman a look of upraisal, and smirk at her husband. Before the guy had the chance to come over, however, Lexie walked in.

Of course.

If she'd seen him, she did nothing to give any indication. Instead, she walked across the bar, dressed in a casual pair of jeans and a t-shirt, getting turned heads and looks from guys. He was more than used to this; Lexie was gorgeous. Or, as the college frat boy across the boy was mouthing to his equally-young friend, 'smokin'. Which was by far the least applicable word for her, because smoking implied hot, and, okay, maybe you could call Lexie hot, but gorgeous and beautiful just seemed more... her. Which the idiot frat boys would know, if they knew a thing about her. Instead, they sauntered, one in front of the other, towards her.

And he could no longer walk over casually, drape an arm around her shoulder, and listen to her giggle as she shot him a grateful look. Things had changed. They had changed. To be fair, however, he also knew that he got the same looks of upraisal as she did - the married woman was still eying him.

Turning his eyes back towards the bar, he grabbed hold of his beer and downed it, gesturing at Joe for another. The guy shook his head, grabbing hold of the glass and refilling it with a cautious look in Mark's direction. He placed it on the counter a little precariously, and Mark picked it up, downed that one, too, and gestured for a seventh.

"I'm going to have to cut you off, man," Joe said, shaking his head again. Mark wanted to be pissed, wanted to yell and fight for it, but something in the back of his mind said Lexie would be disappointed in you and that was enough to make him nod a little bit in agreement.

He was pissed as hell, however, towards Lexie, who'd slept with Alex and would probably crawl into bed with the two frat boys she was giggling with. And who'd broken up with him for being a dad. And who glanced over his way, just briefly, causing his heart to rupture a little bit as she turned her attentions back towards the punks, a little less enthusiasm in her manner of speaking. Not noticeable to them, of course. Just to him. Because he knew her so well.

And then he turned his attentions away again, focussing instead on listening to them speak. It was something he'd gotten rather good at, picking out voices in a crowd. His parents had spoken only of him when they thought he couldn't hear, so, naturally, to find out whether or not they even liked him, he'd had to listen. There was her voice, quiet and shaky and relatively calm but consistently nervous, too.

"I'm sorry, I just- I'm not really looking for that sort of thing right now," she muttered, and Mark turned again, caught sight of the frat boys looking a little less cheerful. "But, um, thank you." And Lexie, always polite.

"C'mon, it won't be so bad. You can get over this guy, just like that," the guy said in reply, his voice obnoxious loud and high-pitched, as though he still had yet to hit the all-important puberty.

"Yeah, we're fantastic in bed," the second one replied with an outrageous wink. She was shaking her head before he'd even finished, however.

"I'm sorry, I just... No, thank you," she repeated, a little more firmly. But maybe the guys saw weakness in her, or something, because the first one reached out and grabbed her arm as she began to turn, forcing her to stay put.

It happened reflexively, by reflex, without thinking, emotionlessly, of course. Every word that didn't lead down the path of still-being-in-love. By reflex. Next thing he knew, Mark was across the room and was very forcefully shoving his fist into the guy's mouth, which, fortunately, caused the guy to drop Lexie's arm.

The second one shot out defensively, a sucker punch to the stomach before Mark even had a chance to turn. He wheezed for a moment, before shoving the guy back about seven feet and planting his foot firmly in the guy's stomach, a polite little return message. And then, seeing movement from the first one, he shoved his elbow outwards, not entirely sure where it'd end up. Just like that, the two frat boys scampered off, leaving Mark alone to be escorted out by a somewhat amused Joe.

He wasn't drunk. That was definitely not the reason behind the punches. Sure, he had a nice little buzz going on, but he certainly knew the line between drunk and not, and, though he did stand a little precariously close to drunk, he most certainly was not. Which was what he told Lexie, when she walked out.

"Sorry I got carried away," he muttered. "You could've handled them by yourself."

"Yeah," she agreed, but offered him a little half-smile and a casual hand on his arm. "But thanks, anyway."

"Anytime."

She kissed his cheek gently, as though testing the waters, before she closed her eyes and shook her head. "You never did tell me how Sloan's doing."

"Good," he replied shortly, his eyes glazing over a bit. "She's back at her mom's for a few weeks."

"I bet she's happy." And then, realizing the implication, she flinched. "I didn't mean- I just meant that she's probably happy to be with her mom, not that she's not happy with you." Whether from the alcohol or of his own volition, to both of their surprise, Mark chuckled.

"I hope so." He sat down on the curb, and she followed suit. "How's Karev treating you?" he said, a bit harshly, bitterness underlying the surface. It was her turn to a laugh, equally as bitterly.

"I don't think you want to go down that road."

"Oh?" She looked at him for a moment, weighing either her options or his drunken scale, it was hard to tell. Finally, she sighed, and then hit him across the arm.

"More than once?" she growled. "I slept with Alex once, and I was drunk. You can't use that excuse, because you told me specifically that you don't like to be drunk around Sloan, which means that you weren't drunk that whole week, which means that you slept with Addison more than once when you were sober!" She stood again, her hands balled into fists.

"I- What?" he said stupidly, but she wasn't finished.

"And, okay, sure, you were hurting, but do you honestly think that I wasn't? I- Mark, I wasn't trying to hurt anyone, and I ended up hurting everyone, including myself. Oh, and," she added, chuckling a little bit in that crazy way she did occasionally, the slightly-hysterical way, "You say you can't look at me? Well, every time I see you, I burst into tears, so I can't look at you, either!" After a moment, she added, somewhat immaturely, "So there!"

"Wh- I just... Lexie, be fair! I-" Again, however, she interrupted him.

"Be fair? Oh, that's rich. I'll be fair when you stop being pissed that I slept with Alex once, a few hours after we broke up, when you slept with Addison for a week!" Appparently worn out, she brushed back a piece of her bangs that had gone slightly awry in her rant, and sat back down on the curb. "But thanks for helping me out, back there."

"Uh... yeah, again, anytime."

"Okay, then."

"Alright."

"Aren't you going to yell back?"

"I... I'm a little in shock, give it time."

"I actually don't have time, I have to go home. There's an ice cream carton screaming my name."

"You're not- You won't cry again, will you?"

"No," she lied, and he saw right through it. Silence ensued. "Why'd you do it?" she finally said, looking at her hands nervously, back to being Lexie.

"Reflex," he said automatically, turning to her with a quick grin. "Old habits die hard."

"You never punched anyone, before."

"No, but I would've," he said with a shrug. After a minute, he stood, somewhat shakily, and began to make his way to the car. She, too, stood, shaky for an entirely different reason. "I guess I'll see you later."

"Yeah. Bye."

"Bye."

Neither of them moved for a moment. Finally, Lexie moved forward and placed a gentle kiss, this time reaching his mouth.

"Uh... Reflex," she said, in reply to his questioning gaze as she pulled away. "Old habits die hard."

And she walked towards her car.