Two
"Too good to be true"
Lexie could not wipe off the smile that had been a permanent fixture on her face since she woke up this morning. It had been one good thing after another today and it was not even noon yet.
To wake up next to Mark this morning, to spend the night with him, had been everything Lexie had thought it would be and more. It had not been her intention to sleep with him when she went over to his hotel room last night, but it had been inevitable really. Something has been brewing between them for weeks. There has been subtle flirting by the nurses' station and innocent touching while handling charts. It has also not gone unnoticed by Lexie that Mark seemed to have more patience with her then with other interns. More than once Mark has stopped what he is doing to let her help or show her something complicated or unusual. It had all lead up to that moment in Mark's hotel room last night when they both exploded, and what an explosion it had been.
Lexie has heard all the rumours that floated around the hospital. Everyone knew of the rumours that followed Mark Sloan around, the nurses tended to have very loose lips, but the rumours had not done him any justice. If there was anyone who knew the woman's body it was Mark, he knew it like the back of his hand. He had her writhing in pleasure the minute he took her into his arms. It had been so intense and like Lexie has ever experienced before. Just before she closed her eyes out of pure exhaustion she felt something that she could not put her finger on, but when she woke up this morning and did not want to open her eyes it all clicked. She had not wanted to open her eyes because to her it meant so much more than just sex and it scared her that maybe Mark did not feel the same. It had been no mystery to her what was supposed to happen next. They would say an awkward goodbye and then they would never speak of it again, but when that did not happen, her body got all warm and tingly. This morning had been just as amazing as last night.
Then to top it all off, she was no longer on Christina Yang's service, who was determined to make her life a living hell. Dr. Hunt had cornered her 30 minutes into her shift and informed her that she was now a part of his new code team.
His job as the new trauma surgeon is to improve their efficiency and make Seattle Grace the number one trauma hospital. The new code team is a part of that. So instead of doing post-op notes and run around with test results for Christina Yang, Lexie would now work closely with the residents and attendings on the team in the ER. Their job is to handle every major trauma that comes in and to do it better than anyone else. They are to be the elite and is currently being trained to handle the pressure while getting the job done. It is to be fast and flawless, there's no room for mistakes. Lexie, who was not one to back down from a challenge, jumped at the chance to prove her worth and make a name for herself other than Meredith Grey's little sister.
That is why she was currently running up and down the stairs at Seattle Grace in a crazed pace. Despite the so called "promotion" she still had to do a lot of running to do one thing or another, but for this she did not mind. This time she was running from the ER to the surgical floor to find her brother in law. They needed a consult and as she was at the bottom of the food chain, the intern got to do the running.
Lexie spotted him the moment she walked out from the stairwell. He was standing at the nurses' station, reading a chart, but he wasn't alone. Next to him, in all his glory, stood Mark. Lexie bit her lip. Scrubs weren't the most flattering clothes you could wear, but Mark managed to pull it off. The dark blue scrubs hugged his hips and were tight over his shoulders and chest. There was not one sane person who would not look twice in his direction.
She walked over to them nervously and waited for them to pause in their conversation.
"Doctor Shepherd?"
"Lexie?" the two attendings turned around and waited for her to continue.
"We need your consult on a head trauma down in the ER."
"Sure!" he said. "By the way, congratulations on your "promotion"!"
"Thank you!"
While Derek turned around and talked to the nurse about his patient, Lexie looked over at Mark. He met her gaze but he looked away so fast you would have thought that she had burnt him. She frowned but she didn't have the time to pounder Mark's strange behaviour because Derek was waiting for her to lead the way.
The case had been more extensive than they had first thought and it took several hours before Lexie had a moment to herself to breathe. She found herself sitting in the stairwell between the ER and the surgical floor, just in case she was needed again.
After letting out a loud groan, she let her head fall back against the wall behind her. Lexie was exhausted from all the running around and this thing with Mark doing her head in. Why had he acted so strange? He never had a problem with talking to her in front of Derek before. Sure they had now slept together but from what Lexie could tell, Mark wasn't the kind of person who was usually bothered by something like that.
Lexie knew she was not supposed to expect anything. Mark and she was not an item, but she couldn't help but feel a little hurt by his actions. She thought that this morning meant that what they had done was more than a one night stand.
The vibration of her pager brought her back to the stairwell.
"Where are you?"
The page was from Mark and for a few seconds she thought about ignoring it and Mark, but she was curious of what he wanted. So she waited eagerly in her spot while looking at the arms on her watch move. It took two minutes and 35 seconds for him to come walking down the stairs, which meant that he had most likely been up to check on a patient. She waited for him to take a seat beside her before she looked at him. He didn't look like his normal happy self. He looked bothered by something, which was usually the dace her sister would normally wear.
"Hi." Lexie said quietly.
"Hi." when he didn't say anything else or even make an attempt to, Lexie wanted to yell out her frustration. She was not in the mood to deal with his weird mood right now.
"Why did you want to see me?"
"It can't happen again." he blurted out after a few seconds of silence and she stopped breathing. "I made a promise to Derek. I don´t regret it, but it can´t happen again. It was a mistake and I can't go down this road again."
"A mistake? That´s what I am to you?" Lexie felt how a knot started to form in her throat.
"Lexie…" Mark sighed pleadingly. It was like he was begging her to just accept what he was saying and not make it harder for him. "I think it would just be easier for the both of us if we forget it ever happened and go back to how it was before."
"You know that that is not possible for me." Lexie was on the verge of tears. "I will remember every second of it in excruciating detail for the rest of my life."
Mark touched his hand to her cheek and Lexie closed her eyes. It hurt. It hurt more than it should and that just made it all worse.
"I'm sorry." Mark whispered before he removed his hand from her cheek and left.
Lexie was once again all alone in the stairwell, but this time she wanted nothing more than for someone to be there to hold her. Tears fell down her cheeks and her breath was rapid. This was not how Lexie had thought her day would turn out. She supposed she should have seen it coming. Things had been going so well, perhaps a little too well for someone with a history like her. Her mother died, her sister didn't want to know her, her father had become a drunk after her mother's death and the guy she had fallen for didn't even notice her. Now Mark thought of her as nothing more than his latest one night stand. That was Lexie Grey's life in a nutshell.
She let out a bitter laugh and got up from the floor. It was time to get back to work so that she could leave when her shift ended. She needed to get some sleep, even if it was under several layers of blankets in Meredith´s attic. But not just yet. Lexie collected herself and left the stairs to find her brother in law, who was the main reason for the sudden change in her mood. She couldn't wait to go home.
