So, this is my first Grey's fic, brought on (of course) by the season finale that absolutely crushed my heart into smithereens. I created this story to kind of flesh out a lot of the things I had wanted so badly to happen for Mark and Lexie in a perfect world. This story is purely AU and will be jam packed full of romance and adorable M/L stuff. I love reviews (hint hint hint) and hope you guys enjoy!
Sorry if there's an abundance of typos or anything in this first chapter. Currently, it is 2:17 in the morning my time, as inspiration for this only struck at around 1:00am.
A lot of people viewed death as a tunnel—something you were sucked into, with the light at the other end practically calling your name, greeting you warmly as you passed from life to whatever was afterward.
To Lexie Grey, death appeared as the ocean, with water so blue it made her heart hurt and sand so white that she felt she'd been transported from Washington to the Bahamas in the blink of an eye. The sun shone down on her like a warm friend, enveloping her in a cocoon of calmness and tranquility as her toes crinkled in the sand. It was a lovely feeling. Beautiful. A light breeze played with her hair and the lavender-colored sundress tousled around her knees as she walked on what felt like unfamiliar legs toward a dark-skinned girl sitting in the sand ten feet in front of her, making a sandcastle.
"Zola?" Lexie asked, and her niece turned from the sand and looked at her with a wide smile. Zola stretched out her hand, allowing Lexie to help her up from the sand. "But you're—" "Older," Zola answered, dusting off her own dress before beginning to walk toward the shore, hand in hand with her aunt. "Can't exactly communicate much in the present time, you see." In this world or hallucination or whatever it was, Zola appeared to be about fifteen, but spoke as if she was much older.
Of course none of this was real. Lexie could process that much. It was far too perfect and the water far too empty. If this was real, there would have been others out playing in the sand, soaking up such beautiful rays. "Am I dead?" She asked finally, after several minutes of silence. Zola considered this. "I think you could be, if you wanted to." It took Lexie a minute to process this. Did she want to die? To let go of everything and just simply float away? She couldn't help but revel in the perfection of this world, in the utter beauty of it. "You aren't sure?" Zola raised an eyebrow. "What is the last thing you remember before you were here?"
It was all very fuzzy for several moments, before the shocking realization hit her as her toes touched the cool edge of the ocean's tide. "Our plane crashed," she stated, voice coming out an octave lower than it had previously. "I—I was stuck. Mark tried to get me out. Told me to hold on because… because…"
"You had too much ahead of you," this older version of Zola finished.
"Yes." And, like that, her foggy visions of what could have been came back to her. All the things Mark had explained. They could get married. They could have kids. Lexie had never minded children, but her career goal of becoming a doctor had put up a bit of a road block in that department. For a while, she'd been certain that having children wasn't what she wanted. And now that she thought about it—thought about her own stomach rounded and full and the sensation of baby feet kicking inside of it and the thought of waking up every morning laying next to Mark Sloan—an overpowering feeling of wanting crashed over her like a tidal wave.
"So I could go back?" Lexie stopped and turned to her niece. There had been a time once where she'd had a dream very much like this, of her carrying her niece along the shore of the ocean. The ocean was always her favorite as a child. The Grey family had vacationed there several times. And she'd always dreamt of taking Zola, using up entire afternoons to build sandcastles and splash around when the tide was low.
As nice as this entire pre-afterlife scenario was, Lexie Grey would have taken the real thing any day.
Zola closed her eyes and let the breeze rustle her hair. "Yes," she answered finally, as if something in the wind had spoken to her and declared a final answer, "If that is truly what you want." Her eyes opened. "But think about the choice you're making. Life is difficult. The after is much like this. Very peaceful, and beautiful. And your loved ones will all be here one day, though most likely none of them will get the chance to make this choice. Your circumstance is a strange one," she smiled. "What is your heart telling you?"
This time, Lexie thought of not only Mark, but the others she would be leaving behind. She thought of Meredith, who had been such a good sister, who she would miss so terribly. She thought of Derek, who had truly become her big brother in every sense of the word. She thought of the real Zola, who would one day need her crazy Aunt Lexie for boy advice and spa days. And she thought of her own children; the ones Mark had talked about. And with these people in her head, she couldn't say no. "I want to go home." And Zola nodded solemnly, "Then you know what you have to do."
And, if nothing else had told her that this was a dream, the fact that ruby red heels (so coated with glitter that it was obnoxious) appeared on her feet at that moment did. "There is no place like home… There is no place like home… There is no place like home…"