Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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PINK

Colors are not something Mark Sloan has ever given any conscious thought to, and if he had, the color most certainly would not have been pink. Pink is a girl's color, and Mark is most definitely a MAN. But since last night with Lexie, he sees it everywhere, noticing every shade and variation, not to mention just how damned often it shows up.

Arriving at the Chief's office to issue a press release about his successful hypopharynx reconstruction, the dark fuchsia of Patricia's blouse so exactly duplicates the color bra Lexie's "teach me" strip revealed that Mark can no longer remember why he's there.

Answering Callie's page for an ER consult, he notices her lipstick matches the intense flush that suffuses Lexie's face and body when she comes. Suddenly he's almost fully hard, as well as stumbling and stuttering like some idiot intern on their first day.

A new artificial flower arrangement at the surgical nursing station has snapdragons in the same surprising hot-pink as her nipples, nipples he had teased and suckled as she mewed happily, arching and wriggling beneath him until he.... Immediately clamping down on the memory, he averts his gaze and flees, hoping to forestall the incipient erection stirring in his pants, only to find similar displays now adorn every nurses' station and the cafeteria cash registers.

A toddler in for cleft palate reconstruction clutches a teddy bear in a rosy-pink that is identical to Lexie's... God, it's obscene! He feels like a pervert for even thinking such a thing, but one glimpse of the toy and suddenly he's reliving the exhilaration of lying between her legs, repeatedly licking, sucking and fucking her into screaming oblivion.

Pink. He now sees the damn color everywhere: balloons, sheets, wallpaper, sweaters, rugs, sneakers, art prints, backpacks, nurses' scrubs, pillows.... No matter where he goes in Seattle Grace, pink is already there, waiting to torment him.

He manages to grit his way through the day, then heads for the safety of Joe's and some much-needed liquid relief. There'll be no pink there; it is, after all, the Emerald City bar. Right?

Wrong.

One look at Joe's naturally ruddy Irish complexion and Mark can no longer deny what he knows – it isn't the place, it's him. He sees pink everywhere because, as far as his subconscious is concerned, SHE is everywhere, a part of everything. "Everything I never knew I always wanted" echoes through his mind, a line he'd heard years before on some TV show and had immediately labelled sappy, in order to blunt the aching conviction that he would never merit such a miracle.

"Sorry, kid, I'm going to Denver," he growls to Callie as he leaves, intent on reclaiming the shot at happiness Lexie had so freely and unexpectedly offered him last night. And with every step, he surrenders to the truth before him: that pink is now his favorite color, and will continue to be his favorite, as long as it comes wrapped up in the sexy, irresistible, extraordinary package known as Lexie Grey.