Title: I Swear There's Still Some Good In Me

Author's Note: This story is AU, picking up a few days after Mark brought Lexie to the ER.

Inspiration/Prompt: Missy by The Airborne Toxic Event. Orifinally, this was going to be a full-on scongfic, switching from normal Lexie to cracked out Lexie partway through, but then I got caught up writing this one section and it tuned into the entire story.

I hope you like it, and if you were curious, here are some of the lyrics I was going to use for this section if I had written out the whole songfic:

. . .

I should be more deserving than the beggar, thief, and courtesan that I've been

Oh, that I've been…

But I swear, I lie, I curse all of my dreams…

But I swear there's still some good in me

And I think if you stuck around you'd see all the honest attempts at integrity I once had

Maybe if you helped me, I'd get it right

Well, I stay awake almost every night, staring at the ceiling, wondering why I feel so bad

Why I feel so bad…

. . .

She picks up her phone, fishing out a card from the front right pocked of her jeans. It's crumpled up, and she has to smooth it out on the flat plane of her upper thigh until its readable. And even then, she isn't sure she can see it clearly enough.

She glances down the street, first right, then left, and realizes as she tucks her only jacket closer against the chill that things can't get much worse. She takes a breath, berating herself already, and quickly dials the unfamiliar number. The line picks up on the fourth ring, just before she's about to hang up.

"Hello?"

She lifts the phone from her ear, dangling it in front of her. What the hell am I doing, she thinks. The voice doesn't take time for her to think, though, and it comes out scratchy through her low-grade burnout cell phone.

"I don't have time for prank calls, so either tell me what you want or hang up." The voice is gruff and annoyed, and she finds a smile curving her lips at the sound of it. She brings the phone back to her ear.

"Hi," she says. There's a pause, and she realizes she's supposed to explain why she's calling. But she doesn't know what to say. Instead, she glances down at the worn calling card in her hand. "You're a plastic surgeon?" She asks in curiosity, running her tongue over her cracked lips and sucking on the ring on the left side of her mouth.

"Yes," the voice replies, obviously exasperated. She tilts the card in her hand, letting a bit of moonlight illuminate the letters. Mark Sloan, it reads. "Now, did you call because you needed my services or are you just going to waste my time with your inane questions?"

"You brought a girl into Seattle Grace's ER a couple days ago," she replies, smiling to herself at his annoyance. She feels the wind pick up and pulls her thin jacket closer around her body. It doesn't help much to ward off the chill.

"What about her?"

"I was, uh, wondering what you thought of her."

"You're the half-sister?" He guesses.

She freezes, hunched over the curb. How does he know I have a half-sister? "No," she replies after a moment. She rethinks the decision quickly. "No, I mean yes. I—"

"Which is it, no or yes?" He asks impatiently. "Are you the sister or not? Pick a lane."

"I'm the sister."

"Great. Well, you can call Seattle Grace's ER and check, but I'm guessing the crackhead ran out on them."

"Ran out…?"

He sighs disapprovingly under his breath. "She probably took their stock of morphine along with her."

"I didn't take any morphine," she replies hotly before she can stop herself. "Shit," she mutters to herself.

It takes the man on the phone all of two seconds to sort it out. "You're her," he states. She can hear him sigh loudly, and she rolls her eyes in accompaniment. Don't be such a drama queen, Jesus.

"What do you want from me?" He asks, sounding bored already.

"I want to know why you brought me into the ER," she replies. She flicks his calling card between her fingers. "And why you left me a little souvenir of your visit."

"I didn't visit you," he corrects. "I dropped you at the ER because you were lying in the street like a dead fish and I almost hit you with me car. Plus, I was headed to the hospital anyway; I had some business to deal with. It wasn't even out of my way."

She smirks. "Oh, was there a boob job emergency? Or did an eighty-year-old's facelift start to sag again?"

"Funny," he mutters sourly.

"So what's with the calling card?" she inquires a moment later, adjusting her seat on the uncomfortable concrete sidewalk. "Why'd you leave it if all you were doing was dropping me at the ER?"

"Well, seeing as I was the one to bring you in, half-dead, might I add, I thought it would be good of someone to tell me if you ended up living through it or not."

"It was just an overdose."

"Way to play it down. Now no one will ever know you're a junkie."

"I don't make a secret of that fact."

"Yeah, I can tell," he replies dryly. Silence falls on the line for a few seconds. "Okay, are you going to spit it out already or not?"

"Spit what out?" She asks, frowning.

"The reason why you called," he explains. "What do you need? Money, drugs, another ride to the ER?"

"Only if it's in your arms, Dr. Sloan," she coos sarcastically.

He sighs loudly in reply, and she grins at his obvious annoyance.

"Again," he repeats, ignoring her teasing. "What do you want from me?"

She bites her lip, digging her teeth into the soft flesh of her inner gums. "A ride," she replies after a minute. "I actually do need a ride." She hears him take another annoyed breath, and she finds that she's suddenly holding her own, awaiting his decision.

"Fine," he snaps after a moment. "What street corner are you on this time?"

"What makes you think I'm on a street corner?" She replies indignantly, shifting down the sidewalk a few meters so his assumption doesn't hold completely true. Her voice is sharper than she'd intended, but only because he had been able to see right through her so easily.

"Because you're a junkie," he says. She frowns at his response, genuinely confused: there was no malice in his tone. No judgment. It was as if he was just stating a fact about her personality. You're a junkie.

"Right," she mutters. "Well, it uh…" She exhales, tilting her head up to look at the half moon. It brings almost no illumination to her pitch-black surroundings. "It appears I may have finally hit rock bottom."

"And why the hell should I care?"

She almost laughs at his attempt to stay uninvolved. "Oh, please. Don't try to act like you don't care. You could've left me where you found me in the street, but you brought me to the ER." She smirks, half-wishing he could see it. "Don't pretend that you're the type to leave a damsel in distress," she teases.

"Oh?" She can hear the skepticism in his tone. "Are you saying that you're a damsel? Because the way it seemed to me, you didn't look to give a shit about getting someone to help you."

"Well, I'm asking you, aren't I?" She retorts. "Are you coming to get me or not?"

She listens to him sigh again, noting how familiar the sound has become over the last few minutes. "What street corner are you at, again?"

. . .

It's an hour later when she finally sees headlights appear on her darkened street. She gets to her feet, waiting as he puts the car in park and turns off the ignition.

"Jesus," he mutters, stepping out of the car. "Could you have picked a shittier neighborhood? I'm surprised you haven't been stabbed or killed in the time it took me to get here."

"Yeah, well, you took long enough," she mutters ungratefully, walking towards the car.

He holds out his hand when she reaches him. "Mark Sloan."

She stares at it before slowly raising her eyes to his. She glares at him until he drops his hand. Instead of offering her name, she steps around him, reaching for the passenger door. Just as she pulls it open, it slams shut. Her angry eyes flash to his again, and if he weren't twice her size, she'd snatch the keys and drive off without looking back. But she can see the muscles through his shirt, and she knows there's no way she'd be able to make off without him getting to her first.

He stays silent for the three seconds it takes her to resign to her fate.

"Give me a name," he instructs, "or no free ride for you."

She stares at him, her eyes black slits in the dark night, and holds his gaze as she spits on the ground. The message is clear: Fuck you.

"Ooh, tough girl," he smirks, stepping back. Before she can stop him, he's back in the driver's seat. She reaches out for a door handle. Her face scrunches in anger when she finds it locked and hears him turn on the ignition. She scowls at him, watching as he drives away without another word. When he reaches the far end of the block, he stops at a red light. She watches, curious, as he rolls down the window and sticks his head out. "Any last words, junkie?" He shouts back at her.

She hangs her head, groaning to herself loudly—but not loud enough that he can hear it. She knows it's six seconds until the light turns green, so she takes a few steps forward.

"It's Lex," she calls after him. "That's my name." She watches as his head disappears back inside the car. A second later, he's reversing straight back to her. He rolls down the window, catching her eye across the passenger seat.

"Lex?" He repeats dubiously, certain that she's given him a fake name.

She rolls her eyes, exhaling impatiently and tapping her foot on the cracked pavement. "Fine, Lexie. Alexandra. Whatever."

She watches in quiet anger as a smirk spreads over his face. "Alexandra," he repeats slowly, as if tasting the name. She refrains from jumping into the car and hitting him in the face. It won't help to kill your ride before you've even gotten the ride, she tells herself. Tone it down. Five seconds.

"That would be my birth name," she replies, forcing her voice to stay calm.

He surprises her after a few seconds by laughing quietly. Her eyes narrow at him, knowing she's being ridiculed but unsure of the reason why.

"It suits you," he chuckles.

"Oh, fuck off," she mutters.

"Excuse me?" He asks through his laughter.

She eyes him defiantly. "I said, fuck off," she repeats menacingly.

Her tone only causes his grin to widen, and if she really weren't so desperate for outside help, she'd be halfway down the block by now. She looks at the dark streets longingly, knowing every twist and turn even without light to guide her. When her eyes return to the car, he's disappeared. She looks around for a moment, spinning around in case he's crept up behind her. She almost jumps when the passenger door's window rolls down before her. She leans down cautiously, casting a suspicious eye inside.

"You going to keep standing there like a little street rat or are you going to get in the damn car already?"

She pulls open the door without a word, taking a seat inside. She's barely pulled the door shut before he's driving off, speeding down the rain-slicked back alleys.

"Where are we going?"

"We aren't going anywhere," he corrects, glancing to her and quickly doing a once-over. She watches as his eyes linger on her tattoos and piercings. "I'm taking you to a clinic."

"I'm not high," she replies.

"Yeah, but you were recently." She can feel his gaze traveling over her again, but she resolves to stare straight ahead out the window. "And if you don't get help soon, you'll be even worse off than you think you are now."

"I have no money, no clothes, no home, and no way to get any of those things," she informs him. "How could it get any worse?"

"Well, you could be going through severe cocaine withdrawal, for one." He glances over, grinning. "I hear coming down from that one's a bitch."

She holds her tongue, refraining from cursing him out again. "I never said I wanted to go to a clinic," she replies instead.

"Yeah, but it's what you meant when you said you hit rock bottom."

She looks over, sullenly meeting his calm, blue eyes.

"That's why it took so long to get here," he tells her. He leans down, grabbing a small stack of paper from a compartment built into his door. He tosses the contents on her lap. She glances down at the papers, which consists of mainly brochures for rehabilitation clinics.

"What the fuck makes you think I'm going to rehab?" She snarls, shoving the papers to the floor of the car. She crumples them under her feet, but it doesn't seem to faze him.

"Well, I'm certainly not taking care of you," he replies. "But I'm also not going to leave you in the gutter to rot." He glances over to her. "Like you no doubt would have if I hadn't shown up."

"I can take care of myself," she snaps.

"Yes, and that's why you called for help, now, isn't it? Because you're so strong and independent."

"For having come to my rescue, you're being a real asshole about it."

"Ah, so you admit it," he replies. "I did rescue you."

"If you can call not running me over with you car 'rescuing,' then sure."

He chuckles quietly, looking over to her. Her head's rested against the glass of the window; he guesses she's using the chilled surface to dull a headache.

"We've got two hours in this car together," he informs her, "so you can either get used to me being an ass or you pick your next street corner for the night."

"Two hours?" She repeats, turning her head to look at him.

"I'm taking you to Bellingham." He nods at the mess of shredded paper by her feet. "If you'd taken the time to look at those brochures, you would know where we're going. It's called—"

"The Bellingham Drug Abuse Rehabilitation Center," she rattles off. "It offers detox programs, extended treatments, counseling sessions, therapy, and almost a hundred other useless programs to help those trying to 'kick the habit' in a safe and secure environment where they can grow out of their drug dependence and into a healthier life. The focus mainly on substance abuse cases, but—"

"How did you do that?" He cuts in, staring at her as they pull up to a red light. She tilts her head away from the window for a moment, eyeing him expectantly. "I researched this place for forty minutes," he continues, "and even I didn't know all that."

"Yeah, well…" She sniffs, looking away in disinterest. "I happen to have a good memory."

"You looked at those papers for a fifth of a second," he counters. "You couldn't have even read it all that fast."

"Well," she yawns. "A fifth of a second is usually all it takes."

He stares at her, confused. "A fifth of a second is all what takes?"

She sighs, lifting a hand to rub her face tiredly. "I have a photographic memory," she admits after a couple seconds. In her periphery, she watches as he leans back in his seat, blinking in surprise. "A fifth of a second, that's all it takes," she informs him.

"To memorize?" He asks, not quite able to believe the worthless junkie he almost ran over has one of the most rare and most envied abilities in the world.

"To know," she corrects. He glances over, finding her dark eyes trained on his face. "Once I see something, I never forget it. I don't memorize it, I just I know it. It's in my head forever."

"Well," he begins, curious, "what if you had to—"

"Question me later," she mutters, already turning her back to him and lowering the seat back. "I'm going to sleep."

"Fine," he replies, watching as she curls her body into a small ball. The car idles in silence.

"It's green," she mutters a few seconds later.

"What?" He asks, leaning towards her to hear her more clearly.

She looks over her shoulder. "I said, it's green." She looks pointedly at the changed stoplight.

"Oh," he mutters, shifting back into his seat and pulling forward. He glances back to her as they head down yet another darkened street, but she doesn't say anything else. After ten minutes of this repeated behavior, he hears her groan aloud. He stops the car in the middle of the street. "What's wrong with you?" He asks immediately. "Are you going to puke?"

"No, I'm not going to puke," she mutters harshly, half uncurling out of her ball to glare at him. "But I will if you don't stop doing that."

"Doing what?" He questions, narrowing his eyes at her.

"That," she calls, throwing her arm out at him. "Stop staring at me!"

"I'm not staring at you," he replies.

She shakes her head, muttering something under her breath that he doesn't catch, and unbuckles her seatbelt.

"What are you—"

"I'm sleeping in the back," she replies, clambering over the console. She points her finger at him, catching his eye in the rearview mirror. "Don't look at me," she instructs. "Keep your eyes on the road and wake me when we get there."

"Fine," he replies, moving to drive the car forward again.

"And if you so much as touch me," she warns, "I will break your surgery hand."

"Good to know," he mutters, turning on the radio and pulling forward again. He can't help but spare a quick glance back at her, flexing his right hand as he does so.

. . .

With almost no traffic due to the early hour, they made it to Bellingham in a little over half of the time it would have taken otherwise. Though she tried to sleep, Lex never quite fell into unconsciousness. She was too on-edge in a stranger's car, especially when she knew he looked in the rearview mirror almost every twenty seconds to check on her. But she pretended to be asleep anyway. That way they didn't have to talk.

Admittedly, she was quite surprised when they didn't immediately make their way to the rehab center at the first light of dawn. When she felt the car crawl to a stop, she shook herself awake, attempting to make it genuine. She sat up, exhaling in a fake yawn, just as he was putting the car in park.

"Where are we?"

"Some café about thirty miles south of the center," he replies, getting out of the car. She exited the backseat cautiously, staring when he held the door open for her. He shuts it once she stepped out, locked the car, and puts the keys in his pocket. "You hungry?" He asks, leading the way to the eatery without a backward glance. Not seeing any other escape, she follows after him in silence.

. . .

"All right," he calls, turning off the ignition and getting out of the car. He looks up at the grey sky, casting his eye around the large clearing, filled with gravel and ringed by enormous evergreens. "Last stop."

"Great."

He glances over, finding that his companion has also gotten to her feet. He watches as she takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and inhaling the mountain air. Her chest rises and falls slowly.

"What," she begins threateningly without opening her eyes, "did I say about staring at me?"

"Hm," he mutters. "I can't seem to remember. Not all of us have such a brilliant memory, you know."

She opens her eyes, turning to glare at him. "Here's a refresher: Don't do it." Her eyes leave his face a moment later, turning to stare at the imposing brick building down the lane. There's a large wrought-iron gate, drawn open, just a few hundred feet in front of them. "So this is it," she mutters.

"Hey," he says, "it's better than being dead on the side of the road, right?" He can't resist glancing over to her. "At least you'll get some help, you know?"

"Whoop-ie," she cheers tonelessly.

"You better adjust that attitude if you want to make it to the end of your year," he informs her.

Her head snaps around to face him. "Year?" She repeats incredulously.

He shrugs. "What did you expect, three weeks?"

"Six months, at most!"

"Yeah, well…" He grins. "Too bad."

She shakes her head at him. "You are such an asshole."

"I told you I'd get you help," he replies patiently. "You could have refused and stayed back in Seattle, but I brought you here to help you…" He levels his gaze with hers seriously. "Are you really not going to take it?"

She sighs tiredly, surprising both of them by cracking a smile. "God, I told you you had a thing for damsels in distress."

He almost snorts with laughter. "This is a thing?" He questions in amusement.

She shrugs, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "You wouldn't stop staring at me the entire ride up here. What was I supposed to think?"

"I was staring at you because you look like a freak."

"Uh-huh," she chuckles, getting to her feet and stepping out of the car. "Right."

He follows after her, shutting the car door behind him and jogging slightly to catch up. She strides almost purposely towards the clinic's entrance, and he gets the feelings she's doing so willfully just to spite him. Just as he's on her heels, she spins around to face him. He almost stumbles backwards; they aren't more than half a foot apart.

"Admit it," she whispers with a wicked grin as she stares up at him. "I'm dangerous…" She pushes her shoulders back, lifting her chest and face to his. "And it turns you on."

He's about to laugh, but before he can catch his breath to do so, she's crashed her lips to his, reaching up and digging her nails into the back of his neck. She can feel his muscles jump in surprise, but a second later, he's kissing her back and burrowing a hand in her messy dreadlocks to pull her closer. She takes his lower lip between her teeth, biting it sharply before pulling her lips away.

"Told you," she whispers, pressing her forehead against his. She takes a deep breath, keeping her eyes closed, and he watches in quiet fascination as her mouth twitches up into a smile for just the shortest second. But then she's pulled back, stepped away, and opened her eyes. "I knew I turned you on," she says smugly.

He frowns, shrugging indifferently. "Get rid of all the piercings and then maybe we'll talk."

She smirks, letting her tongue run over the ring on her lip. "What, I'm not sexy enough for you just like this, baby?"

She watches the ghost of a smile flitter about his lips. "You're a bit too cracked-out for me," he replies. She doesn't miss how he avoids the question.

"Hm," she murmurs. "I thought we already established the fact that you've got a thing for dangerous girls."

He smirks, looking away for a second. "Most would consider me a dangerous guy, you know."

She snorts in reply, rolling her eyes. "Right. You, dangerous."

"I have my moments."

She raises her eyebrows. "Oh, is that a threat?" She grins. "Or a suggestion?"

He smiles slightly before nodding towards the building behind her. "Why don't you get cleaned up first and then we'll find out?"

She turns around, eyeing the building critically. "You really expect me to think you won't have anything going on once I get out of here?"

He tilts his head to the side when she glances back at him. "Why, Alexandra…" He watches as her nose scrunches in disapproval at the use of her given name, but she doesn't make a move to correct him. "Were you just implying that you find me attractive?"

She bites her lip cheekily, turning away without another word and heading up the pale gravel path. The stones crunch beneath her feet with each step, but the sound grows quieter and more distant with every step she takes. He waits a few feet from the car, intent on not letting his eyes leave her until she reaches the building.

But halfway there, she stops, smiling to herself in secret amusement. Mark watches her, curious, as her arms come up to fiddle with part of her face. From his vantage point, he can't tell what she's doing. When she turns around and walks back towards him, he stands still, wondering what's going on. Without an explanation, she grabs his hand, pressing her other palm into his. He's about to look down at the oddly intimate contact, but before he can, she leans up and slams her lips against his for a second time.

He almost stumbles away in surprise, but one when of her hands comes up to grip the back of his neck, he finds himself leaning forward into the kiss. Just when he's about to take a step forward, she steps back, a mischievous glint in her eye. "I got your souvenir, now you've got mine," she smirks, stepping away.

He smiles slightly, coming back to himself slowly. Her back is to him when he calls out, "Since when is a kiss a souvenir?"

He watches as she looks over her shoulder. She lips her hand, running her thumb over her bottom lip and casting him a devilish smile. It's then that he realizes what she was fiddling with before. He looks down at his hand, the one she grabbed with hers, and sees a small ring resting in his palm. Get rid of all the piercings and maybe we'll talk.

"So we'll talk later, I take it?" She calls, catching his eye.

He laughs silently to himself for a moment, staring after her in wonder. She doesn't look back as she walks into the rehab center, but he could swear she turned her head towards him for just a fifth of a second as she stepped inside.

A fifth of a second, that's all it takes.

To memorize?

To know.

. . .

Author's Note: So what did you guys think of AU Mark and Lexie? I've got to say, I had a surprisingly fun time writing them! Please leave me your thoughts in a review, I would love to hear them!