A/N:Title taken from Landon Pigg, The Way It Ends

When Lexie Grey enters Derek's room to say goodnight, he knows better than to offer her a ride back home. She's already turned this down more times than he wants to think about. Of course she won't be alone with him.

This time, the favor he offers her is to return Alex Karev's chart to the nurses' counter. And to his surprise, she indeed parts with the folder, although she was clutching the thing like a piece of armor. There's even a small smile, but before he can return it, she's passing him by to focus on Derek and her sister.

This must be a kind of sign. He sighs while approaching Karev's room. He's sighing a lot these days. Maybe it's time for him to leave. Maybe he should accept that job offer from New York Presbyterian after all.

He hesitates on the doorstep, not quite ready for this. But then, this may well be his sole opportunity. She will be back, that's for sure.

Karev seems to be sleeping amidst the familiar hum of the machines. As could be expected, given the dose of pain meds and sedatives they administered. He takes his time to check all the other details on the paper as well. It's somewhat uneasy to be that close to Alex Karev again.

He tries to not think about inserting the chest tube without the slightest dose of narcotics. Fuck, he's a plastic surgeon for a reason. His patients usually sign up for the pain they get. The sad truth is, he still hates to inflict pain, and how fucked up was this? Alex Karev, of all people?

Didn't help that she did not even try to hide her horror at what they were doing, holding Alex down and cutting him open in spite of pleas and moans and screams. If Karev ever found out that his attending was haunted by that screaming for nights on end, he'd probably have to kill him to shut him up.

Don't waste any more time. Mark clears his throat tentatively. And he's somewhere between relief and alarm, when Karev actually comes to, slowly, an expression of incredulous surprise spreading over his face as he processes who is paying him a visit.

"How you're doing, Karev?" Mark offers dryly.

"Dude." Karev gives a joyless snort and immediately winces from the pain that the muscle movement caused to his chest wound. "You don't want to know."

Mark moves closer and rests the folder on the edge of the bed frame, having a close look at the patient in person, finally. Though he never intended to go so far as to touch the bandages, of course, even before catching the quizzical look on Alex's face. So he just sighs and says, "Look, I'm sorry that I had to do the tube thoracostomy without anesthetics. But this was the only thing we could do to try and prevent you from bleeding out."

They were saving his life, god damn it. He doesn't get to be a life saver on a regular basis. He didn't want to have to save him. He certainly doesn't want him to owe his life to him.

"I'm a doctor, man. I know you weren't trying to kill me." Karev pauses for a moment before adding, "Though I kind of could have understood if you tried, mate."

There they go again. Smart ass. He hated this fucking joke before. Beyond absurd, really, how much he wanted Karev to be alive and well and ready for a challenge. He'd better concentrate on reading the figures on these displays, rather than linger on the ice-cold feeling of doom that grasped him when the elevator revealed its blood-soaked passenger. Yeah, I'll try not to kill you. Dude.

He shuts the folder with a forceful snap that startles the patient. As it damn well should. For he needs him to pay attention.

"What do you remember about that room, Karev?" he asks, looking him straight in the eye.

And it's instantly obvious that Alex Karev remembers far more than he would be willing to admit. So they are in for quite a staring contest, counting up to 23, when Karev finally looks away and answers dismissively, "Freaking nightmare. You cut me, she gagged me, she left me." As if the rest is silence.

Well, he knows and Karev knows there was more, when the injured man was definitely conscious. But that's beside the point here really. And he would never mention that he's had bacon for breakfast all week long.

And he'd never admit how closely the sex issue hit home. Karev's damn lucky that the mere thought of that last time, of Reed Adamson, sucks all the energy out of his anger. Or most of it, he realizes, as his hands grab the bed frame tightly of their own accord.

What the fuck is it about Karev anyway? They keep dumping him for that creep. Bold as brass, talking to him about sex. Seems to think that he knows better tricks than the Sloan method, or what. When it's more likely about treating them like shit, tapping into their save-the-puppy-instinct or whatever, and he can fucking rival Karev's rude fucked-up-ness just alright, okay? How about try and find Stevens and check whether she would tell, about the sex secret, and know, about the love secret, just to get even.

But right now - now - he certainly is not going to let Karev get away with this. So, he prods him on with barely concealed irritation, "Then she came back."

And out of the blue, Karev surprises him by replying from between clenched teeth, "No, she didn't."

This now was a lot easier than Mark thought. In fact, his anger immediately deflates at the pain in Karev's voice, and suddenly exhaustion sets in. For he already knew, of course, that any punishment he could ever inflict on Alex Karev would miss its point. For he sure can relate to how it feels like to love a woman that has no use for guys like them. To love that woman so irrevocably that there's nothing left but bloodshed.

Another sigh breaks free. "Lex was playing along for you."

"I know." Alex's voice is positively choked now.

And to be honest, he's feeling much more sorry for Karev than he's actually prepared for. For it's only now that he fully realizes that there is absolutely nothing he, or Karev, can do about this, and boy, does he hate that feeling.

Maybe it's time to accept it. Maybe that's just the way they both are. Meant to get their hearts ripped out over and over again until they'd submit to loneliness for good.

He can't help Alex Karev. He should leave.

But there's still this other thing about that room. Might be some consolation that Mark Sloan cannot be helped either. And there it is again, the memory of being held hostage by white-hot panic in this vicious party of three.

"When she told you that she loves you, she wasn't impersonating Stevens," he says quietly.

"What?" The surprise is definitely genuine. The younger man's eyes are huge in shock. The word hangs in the air for a second; then there's a rush of annoyance. "Stop kidding me."

Mark feels somewhat cold suddenly, and so he crosses his arms around his chest, tightly. His muscles feel sore. And he really feels like laughing, for crying out loud, but what comes out is a far too subdued, "No time for jokes, Karev."

Karev still sounds annoyed. "She does not love me, Sloan. That's plain ridiculous."

He just sighs. For the millionth time.

And he waits while the truth takes some time to fully sink in to Karev, who keeps gazing at the ceiling and uttering in a bewildered voice, addressed to no one in particular, "Lexie is... she's great… We have something, but she… I don't..."

But of course, Alex Karev finally remembers that he's not exactly the kind of guy who'd own up to not knowing something, least of all in front of Mark Sloan. And so he finishes with the irritated air of having to explain the most obvious thing ever, "Dude, she's sleeping with me to get over you."

And at that revelation, the impulse to laugh becomes just too urgent to resist. Although Mark's never heard something less funny before. Under Karev's half-frightened-half-dismissive stare, though, he manages to tone the laughter down to an ironic smirk, "Royal fuck-up, huh? Suppose we all really deserve one another."

And if the exercise had not been instantly stifled by the wound, Karev would have matched his laughing fit just fine. "Fucked up as you wouldn't believe," he gasps.

Mark nods, and shakes his head, and as he finally feels his smirk fade, he turns to leave, for this was already far more than he was asking for.

"Hey, Sloan," Karev shouts to his back, though, and so he turns to face him again.

And Alex Karev is now wearing a very sober expression as he goes for direct eye contact and calmly declares, "Thank you." And he keeps looking at him for another second, and then adds with a half-assed smile that looks almost apologetic, "For saving my life."

And suddenly Mark feels so grateful that Karev managed to cling to life, that he can't help but close the distance between them with a quick move that makes Karev wince on instinct. And it's funny because Mark's never been farther from punching him. So he laughs again, and goes for it nevertheless, squeezing Alex's healthy shoulder cordially, and hoping that Karev somehow gets the message of how much Mark Sloan wants him to keep defying fate.