All right kids...I have wised up since the finale, and I realized how stupid it was to publish a non-finale story within two weeks post finale. So, this is a repost, because this little guy, who I love to death, has horrible hit count. Thank you for reading. Er. Being about to read. You get the point.
This idea's been sitting in my head long before "Sentences," but I just laid it out this afternoon, because I love Mark. I realize that that sentence made no sense, and I'm sorry.
Disclaimer: I own no part of Grey's Anatomy
His house was quiet when he returned from the hospital. That wasn't to say that it usually wasn't quiet. It was just...more quiet than usual. Mr. Snuffles (well, Mr. Snuffles Junior) was sleeping in his glass cage.
He headed into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. It wasn't until he had pulled down a glass that the smell hit him.
Or, actually the lack of smell. It was the kind of smell that made you realize what odors surrounded you every day. It reminded him strangely of a new house.
He made a general survey of the bottom floor before calling up the stairs. "Addison?" There wasn't an answer; there wasn't even any creaking in the ceiling that suggested she was upstairs. He walked up with a strange calm. A faint beating was rising in his head, but he ignored it.
Addison's room was remarkably clean. Cleaner than the clean that her neurotic personality usually had the time to achieve. If he didn't know better, he would have thought that it hadn't been used in years. He sat on the bed, and for a second, he imagined that some kind of smell came out of it other than the nothing scent that pervaded the rest of the house.
She wasn't merely "out." He had been ready for this day for weeks now. He had been expecting this. She wasn't out, she was gone. He didn't bother looking in the closets; he knew they would be empty.
He had been prepared for this, and some part of him still twisted at the thought of Addison leaving to find his former best friend.
She hadn't left a note, which he also expected. She wouldn't want to give him hope. More importantly, she wouldn't want to spend any extra time in New York; she'd do just enough to erase herself from his life.
Maybe she did it so that he'd come after her; maybe she wanted to be rescued. She should have known that he loved her, and he would let her go. He would let her go because that was what she really wanted, and he always got her what she wanted.
He held a pillow to his face and inhaled; Christ, she even washed the case. For a second, Mark Sloan cried into the fabric, but only for a second.
He'd go after her one of these days. He'll give her some time to realize that Derek would never love her again, and then he'll take her back and comfort her, because that was what he did; he fixed things up and gave her hope and watched her love another man.
Because he loved her, and Derek didn't.
He didn't wait up that night, like people do in the movies, for her footsteps; he knew she wasn't coming back. He lay in his own bed and replayed his own voice that told him that he had expected this. He didn't try to air out the nothing-smell. And for the last time in the weeks to follow, he didn't dream; he just slept.
-end-
The origin of Mr. Snuffles is in "Mister Snuffles," by moi.
I really do love Mark.
Please review.