Meredith looks around the conference room that she's in and wonders how she ended up locked in a room with her chief of surgery, ex-boyfriend, his wife, and her maybe, maybe-not ex-husband who she really can't decide if she's still in love with.
"Punching out people on my surgical floor. My head of Neurosurgery punching out people on my surgical floor." Richard Webber yells angrily as he walks into a room holding three of his doctors and one man that he's not sure how he feels about. On one hand Derek doesn't go around punching people without cause but he seems to make Meredith happy and that all the Chief can really say he's wanted all these years.
"Put the ice pack on your hand," Addison says to her stubborn ass of a husband under her breath.
"My hand is fine," Derek manages to get out through his clinched teeth, because honestly he'd normally be balling his hands into fists to keep his temper down but that's not exactly an option right now.
"Put the ice pack on your two million dollar a year hand!" the Chief yells at him, almost having enough of the tension that this couple has brought into his hospital. "Now will someone tell me what the hell happened?"
At this statement Derek looks at Addison rolls his eyes and gives her a look that clearly says that this is her mess and she's damn well going to be the one to tell Richard why he's punching people out on the surgical floor. If he's a little honest with himself he's even a little bit happy about the embarrassment she's going to have to go through admitting this to Richard a man she respects so much.
"This is Mark."
"Who is Mark?"
"He and Derek used to work together back in New York," Addison starts. Derek gives her a look letting her know that's she's not going to get away with playing this off as if Derek and Mark were nothing more than co-workers. "They were, we all were, close friends. Until Derek found us in bed together." Addison adds rushing it a little while taking a deep breath, knowing she was just brought down a notch on the pedestal she knows the chief holds her on.
The chief takes a moment to think about this. He can see why this would lead to a punch in the face, he understands it really. He also understands that this probably wouldn't have happened if Mark had chosen Yang to talk to, but he had chosen Meredith. Speaking of which….
"How do you play into this Meredith?" When everyone gives him a duh look he adds "I mean other than the obvious."
"I spent a year in Europe a few years ago…" Meredith trails off not really knowing how into this Mark wants to get. She makes eye contact with him and he seems to understand that for her sanity he needs to pick up the story from here.
"Well, I guess about 5 years ago I went to Europe on a business trip for about a year." Meredith had to snicker at this because the business part of his trip lasted about two weeks. Mark looks to Meredith and gives her a secret smirk that makes Derek's blood boil because he doesn't want anyone but him to be giving Meredith secret smirks. He didn't want anyone having a history with Meredith either to be honest. "Well I guess about two weeks into the trip? Right Meri?" Meredith answered with a simple nod. "Right about two weeks into the trip I'm out one night and I see this," and here Mark has to pause and figure out how exactly to describe the first time he saw Meredith. With a shake of his head he continues, "beautiful women sitting at a table. She was blonde and had on this red short dress. She was sitting across from another blonde, pretty, but didn't radiate the way the first blonde did. So being me I walk over to their table, take a seat next to the first blonde and ask if I can buy her a drink. That's when I got the first look into her brilliant blue eyes. That was when they introduced themselves. Death and Die. When Death shook my hand there was this bolt, it ran straight through my whole system. That had never happened to me before. Die eventually went home. Death stayed. We talked for hours, sober." He chuckles here. "I was confused. I didn't talk to women sober. Then we went home together, again sober. For the next week, sometimes sober, sometimes tipsy, and sometimes drunk we would meet up, talk, and go home together. Even in that short week we had some crazy adventures with Die. Anyway, on the last night that week we got a little drunk. Not stupid drunk to where we didn't know what we were doing, but enough that we let our guards down. I told Death all about my man whore ways and how I never thought I could settle down, never thought I could have a wife, sleep with only her, have the kids white picket fence the whole nine yards. Not with my damage. Death agreed, she didn't think she could either. She, like me, was too damaged. She always wondered what it would be like, to do the marriage thing, but didn't think she could take it seriously. So we hatched a plan. We'd get married for the year. Do the marriage thing. Death was only supposed to be there for a few more months but decided to extend her vacation, put off med school for a year and screw around in Europe with me. I quite the business trip I was supposed to be on. At the end of the year we'd divorce, go back to our old ways, keep in touch if we saw each other and that would be the end of it. We wanted to at least be able to say we'd been married once in our lives. We told no one other than Die. The next day, sober, we did just that. That year, surprising to both of us, there was no one else. We were like an honest married couple. No one night stands, no picking up people in bars to drown our sorrows in. We were the Sloan's. Death, Die and Sloan caused hell in Europe those first few months. Then Die got on and plane, Meri and I stayed behind." This part was going to be the hardest for Mark to tell. "At the end of the year we did as we'd made the deal. We divorced and went our separate ways. We kept in touch for a while, then it got too hard and we drifted apart. We haven't spoken since I watched the graduate med school. Shortly after that I got something in the mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Mark and Meredith Sloan. I ignored it at first but," he turns to Meredith for this part. "As it turns out Meri, we're still hitched. You're still Mrs. Mark Sloan, or Dr. Sloan if you prefer." he adds with a little bit of a chuckle, just to cut the tension in this room.
"How Mark? I mean have we been married for years and not even known about it?" Meredith asks a little dazed.
"Can you please work out your marriage issues somewhere else?" Derek spits out more than a little bitter. The way he spits out marriage showing just how supportive he is of the whole idea.
"You know what? I think my wife and I will go and do just that," Mark says smirking at Derek, making sure to emphasize the word wife just to piss Derek off.
Meredith half expects them to whip it out and see whose is longer right here with this little show of who is the manliest their pulling but since she already knows how much more endowed Mark is she just grabs his hand and drags him out of the conference room. So what if half the reason she's holding Mark's hand is to piss Derek off, she's allowed. Maybe she's just not really ready to admit that she likes the tingles it's sending up and down her arm just yet. And maybe the smug grin she's wearing has a little to do with the fact that Addison also knows that Meredith is the one married to the one whose better at the one thing all four of them are thinking is wearing his own smug grin because when he takes a second to look back into the room the looks of disbelief on the Shepherd's faces almost make him want to put up with the rain. Maybe he's not ready to admit that what's really making the rain worth it is Meredith either.
"So you're Derek's lusty intern. We did always have the same taste in women. You know I heard about you all the way back in New York? You're famous."
"Yeah well, I heard about you all the way here in Seattle. You're famous too. Seems we have a lot in common."
"More than a last name you mean Dr. Sloan?" Mark asks Meredith with a laugh.
"About that…"
"Yeah, I figure we should have this conversation but do you really want to do it in the middle of a hospital while cleaning up my face?"
"Probably shouldn't."
"Probably shouldn't," he agrees. "Hey, do you still have your rings?"
"Of course I do. Do you?"
Surprising them both Mark whips out his wallet and pulls out his silver wedding band that he wore on his finger for a year.
"Well, my engagement ring won't exactly fit in a small space now will it Mark?" Meredith asks with a smirk. Mark had bought her a rock if we're being honest. It attracted a lot of attention when she was in sunlight that year.
"No, it wouldn't. You know, it's worth noting that Derek walked in on me, in bed with his wife, actually in the act and he walks away. I so much as speak to you and I'm on the ground bleeding. Interesting don't you think?"
"I call it shock and pent up anger." At this Mark rolls his eyes. Figures Meredith would be back to thinking she wasn't lovable. Maybe he should change that. While he pondering this he sees her coming at him with a suture kit.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Giving my long lost husband stitches," Meredith smirks at him. All Mark can think about is kissing that smirk right off her face. Instead he simply says "hold the mirror, wife." And gives her a smirk as good as the one he got. Once again in their own world they don't notice Meredith's four fellow interns and friends watching the scene.
"Why is he suturing his own face?" George asks.
"I would say to turn me on but with the eyes he's giving Mer I don't think he knows any of us even exist," Christina comments back. She's excited if she's honest, both because her person's eyes now have a light in them she's never seen and because with the way this has got to be killing Derek this is going to be good for some serious drama.
"More like because he's Mark Sloan. The go to plastic surgeon on the East coast." Alex adds in.
"I'm pretty sure you forgot to add Meredith's husband to that title. I mean, who saw THAT coming?" Izzie asks the group.
"Wait that's the man Addison was sleeping with?" George asks in a whisper.
"You can't really blame her can you?" Izzie asks. Immediately she feels a little guilty for lusting after her friend's husband. Not enough to stop though.
"McSexy needs an x-ray who wants to take him?" Meredith asks joining them. Alex is the first to volunteer.
"McSexy?" Christina asks.
"No," the three female interns agree.
"McYummy?" Izzie suggests, much to Meredith's displeasure. She's not okay with the lust in Izzie's eyes.
"McSteamy." Meredith decides with no protests. She's pretty sure George makes a comment about McVomit but she's women enough to admit she didn't really catch it because she was too busy admiring her husband's face.
"So are we going to all just sit here and pretend that it's totally normal that you have a husband that we didn't know about or are we going to talk about this?" Christina asks looking at Meredith.
"I think you're forgetting that I didn't know I had a husband either. I knew I had an ex-husband, a current one? No. Any questions other than that I can't answer because I either don't know the answer because I haven't spoken to Mark yet or because the story is too long to start here in the middle of the hospital."
"Fine, but I'm your person so I get first dibs," Christina reminds her. If crap is going to go down she wants to be in the know. She's also pretty curious as to why these two aren't together now because there is something in Mark Sloan's eyes right now as he's watching us while walking away with Alex and the only two emotions I'm reading are regret and a whole lot of love.
"First dibs on what?"
"Everything Mer, everything." And with that she drags Izzie away letting Meredith think all this over because if there is one thing she knows about her person it's that she's going to try to run from this because it makes her happy but this time Christina intends to be there to stop her because while Derek turned out to be a real McBastard and really McMarried McSteamy seems like he's going to be the cure to make that hurt seem like a distant memory.
As Meredith sits there and contemplates all that's happened today she does, as Christina said, have the huge urge to run, but the more she thinks about it the more she realizes that running is what got her here in the first place. Running from Mark at the end of that year is what made her so unhappy last time. She knows she loved Mark in the way a women is supposed to love her husband, and if she was able to be completely honest with herself she's pretty sure Mark loved her in a way that a husband is supposed to love his wife, the problem back then was that she was too damn scared to admit that that might be the case. She didn't want to confront Mark about it because while they could talk about anything with each other she was scared of rejection and that's what lead her to signing the divorce papers like had always been planned. It was probably the most amicable divorce in history. They had sex after signing the papers. It was in an airport bathroom of course but it was easier than saying a long formal goodbye. They did say their goodbye and she had managed to keep almost all of her tears in until she had gotten on the plane. She broke down real fast after that though. She's thinking about what would happen if she decided to make tapes on her deathbed like her patient today was. What would her tape to Mark have said? There definitely would have been one. Would she have said that she loves him or that she loved him? She definitely would have said that in the end she didn't want the stupid divorce. Somehow fate had made that wish come true. What she really needed to focus on was if that love was present or past tense.
"Grey!" Bailey yells dragging her out of her musings. "Or should I call you Sloan?" Meredith rolls her eyes and gets back to work. As much as Bailey wanted to disapprove of Meredith's shiny new husband it was hard for her to do because while everyone knows that Bailey is a hard ass they also know that for some reason Bailey is really attached to her five interns and only wants what is best for them. She's wondering if maybe what's best for Meredith is one Mark Sloan.
In another part of the hospital Alex and Mark were looking at Mark's X-ray's.
"What about that jaw reconstruction you did using a micro vascular free transfer from the foot?"
"You interested in plastics?"
"Absolutely."
"You might want to consider a transfer to New York or Los Angeles. You're not gonna see any heat up here."
"Well actually have you ever seen an advanced case of crandiaphyseal dysplasia?"
"Lionitis?"
"Yeah. Plus, I figure there is a chance that some heat is going to be transferring here."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you're married to Mer right? Doesn't that mean that you're moving here? Or did you come for a divorce and to take Addison home with you?"
"Those are probably things that I should be discussing with Meri."
"You're probably right. Look, I get that you're physically bigger than me, I get that you're more powerful than me, I get that one day you could be my boss, and I get that you could ruin me in the plastics world before I can even choose it as a specialty, but right now we're putting that all aside for just right now we're two men who care about Meredith. She's been hurt and humiliated inside of this hospital for reasons that she didn't know. She didn't know Derek was married and if she had she would never would have slept with him and she never would have started a relationship with him, it's just not who she is. She's been painted as a mistress and she's really not. So if you're here to hurt her I need you to leave, because I'm not sitting around and watching her get hurt again and there's something telling me that you have the ability to hurt her in a way that Derek never did."
"Never, at any point in my life has my goal ever been to hurt Meri. There is so much about the two of us that I'm assuming she hasn't told you guys. But if I do hurt her, I'll give you a free punch because I'll deserve it. Now, this conversation never happened. I have a feeling you're a tough guy and don't want people knowing that you threatened an attending and I don't want it getting out that I let you. Now let's go see about this case."
Derek is pretty sure this day can't get any worse. He can't spend another minute in this hospital, he just wants to do this surgery and go home, without Addison, and figure all this out. Ever since he chose Addison he's wondered how things could have been different if he had chosen Meredith. Right now he's pretty sure that Mark wouldn't be in his life again if he had.
"Dr. Yang, book a O.R. we're going through with this surgery to-" The world hates him. That's the only explanation for him to see why Mark would be talking to his patient's parents.
"How is that possible?" She was asking him.
"It's precision work. It won't be easy, but-" Okay this is enough of this.
"Dr. Sloan, can I help you with something?" Before Mark can answer him his patient speaks up.
"He says he can fix my face. He says he can make me look normal." Mark sends him a smug grin, knowing that with the patient on Mark's side there's not much Derek can do.
Christina is busy laughing her ass off watching the fight unfold. McDreamy vs. McSteamy and while the words are about a patient everyone knows that this is really about Meredith. Ex-boyfriend vs. husband and anyone with eyes can see who's going to win. And just like she suspected as they walk out, this round went to the hubby.
As Mark and Derek are walking out of the chief's office they run into Addison and all three of them freeze for a moment. Derek of course recovers first and stalks away, shaking Addison out of her stupor making her turn and walk away from him. Maybe Mark is here for Meredith, but he also doesn't want to see Addison continue to get hurt either, it's just not fair. They shouldn't have slept together, no one is denying that, but Derek isn't innocent in all this either. That's plain as day.
"You're not even a little happy to see me?" Mark tries starting out with a little humor, maybe she'll be a little more open. Addison can tell his tactic but the thing is, she is happy to see him. Maybe it's hurting her marriage, him being here, but she'd be lying if she said that she wasn't glad to see him, she'll admit to that at least. Maybe she'll also admit that she still has feelings for him, but she'll admit that to no one but herself.
"Go home, whatever it is that you came here to do, just drop it and leave."
"We all made mistakes Addison, all three of us. But somehow I lost my best friend and well you, who I thought I loved."
"Please don't say that." The word thought is killing her. Thought he loved her? When she was leaving he knew he loved her. What the hell is it about Meredith Grey? Well, Meredith Sloan. And with that thought she's chocking back bile.
"He doesn't know how we felt. He doesn't know you stayed with me after he left. How do you expect to work out a marriage if you can't even be honest with him?"
"Why are you here?" She knows she's setting herself up here. She knows he's not going to say what she wants him to. He's not going to say that he's here for her, he's not going to ask her to go back, honestly she probably would if he asked. But he won't.
"Honestly Addie, my original plan was to bring you home. Now," he takes a deep breath, "now the reason I'm here has very little to do with you if I'm honest, I'm here for the same reason you ran out here Addison, I'm here for my wife." It feels good to Mark to admit that out loud, like it's in preparation for telling Meredith.
"I'm in love with my husband, Mark." And that, the fact that she feels the need to defend that even when he's not around tells him that she's trying to convince herself of that fact as much as she's trying to convince everyone else. He'll be a decent person and not point that out to her though. But he is going to give her at least a little wake up call because he knows no one else has told her that out loud and no one's going to.
"But he's not in love with you. He's in love with Meri," she flinches at his loving pet name for her, "and he's not even trying to hide it. Now why would you want to stick around for that?" And with that he's walking away because honestly, Addison was his main concern for a long time but now his concern is his wife because she should have been this whole time. And with that he sets out to find his new patient so he can get this surgery over with and meet up with Meri later.
Meredith was sitting through a very uncomfortable surgery with Dr. Burke. Apparently he had found out that Cristina had kept her apartment even though she told him she had moved in with him. Needless to say, he wasn't happy. That in itself would have been bad enough, but the stares she was getting about her husband showing up randomly weren't helping, especially after she found out that he was in surgery with Derek.
Mark's surgery wasn't going much better. The boy was cashing on the table and they were loosing him fast. Too fast to do much about it. While the idea of how pissed off him being on that surgery was going to make Derek had been a plus, Mark really did want to preform this surgery, but it soon became obvious he wasn't going to be able to complete it. But when Alex Karev approached him after the surgery about fixing the young man's face anyway, there was no way he could say no, after all, it was all that he had really wanted.
Word that Dr. Sloan had fixed a young man's face even after he died soon made it's way through the hospital. It made Derek clench both his hands into fists because Mark had one up'ed him in the OR, but he really should have been worried about the effect that it was having on the women in his life because it was quickly reminded Meredith and Addison why they had fallen in love with him, a notorious man whore, and while Addison Montgomery Shepherd had never broken him of that title Meredith Grey Sloan had and she had managed to do it with a ring on his finger, something Mark would have gone on record at one point in time saying was the worst form of shackles.
While thoughts of her husband were clouding her mind Meredith headed over to Joe's, she wanted one drink with her friends and then she was meeting Mark to figure out how they were still married and what exactly they were going to do about it.
On his way out of the hospital Mark ran into Addison and Derek in an elevator, throughout the day he had learned this was Derek's trick with Meri but he had a feeling Derek wasn't using it like that on Addison. But Mark did decide to try and be the bigger person here and tried to make Derek feel a little bit better about what happened in the OR, immidiatly resulting in Derek exiting the elevator and heading for the stairs. Enough was enough.
"Oh come on! How can you forgive her and not me?"
"I didn't forgive her, and with you I have no obligation to try." And with that revelation the elevators door closed in Addison and Mark's faces, kind of like the hope was fading out of Addison's life.
"You're marriage is over Addison." But Mark also realized that that particular marriage was not is problem, his marriage to Meri was so he just squeezed Addison's hand and went off to meet Meredith.
Meredith was sitting with Christina each with a shot in front of them.
"Whose life sucks the worse game?" Christina propositioned.
"You first," Meredith countered. She had this one in the bag, she wasn't the east bit concerned.
"My boyfriend found out about my hidden apartment that I lied to him about keeping, so I gave it up, and now he probably hates me so I'm homeless. Your turn."
"My ex-husband showed up at my work today, he happens to be the entire reason my ex-boyfriend was ever with me because he slept with his wife, turns out he's not my ex-husband after all he's my still current husband who I'm pretty sure is just here for Addison making it all that much better because I'm almost positive I'm still as in love with him as I was the day I signed my divorce papers."
"You realize that this kind of shit only happens to you right?"
"Oh yeah."
"Well, you win."
"And I always will."
It's too bad that Meredith didn't see the wide smile across Mark's face because he heard her confession and as it turns out he's as in love with her as he was when he signed the divorce papers too, and as soon as they cleared up that Addison stuff, they might just be able to get back on track. Because maybe, just this once, life will come down on the side of the Dirty Mistresses.
