Hello, everyone. Thank you for the kind reviews. I'm happy you liked the prologue. I'm excited to write this story and I'm so glad that you want to follow it :D
Here's chapter 2. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :) Happy reading!
Lexie couldn't stop smiling as she walked down the hallway towards the residents' locker room. This day couldn't have started any better. The positive pregnancy test seemed to make her love Mark even more. As if that was even possible. All she wanted to do right now was to get up on the roof and scream as loud as she could. She wanted to tell the whole world that she was carrying Mark Sloan's baby. Sure, a baby didn't quite fit into her 5-year plan. She wasn't even an attending yet. But if the plane crash taught her one thing, it was that life is too short. This baby wasn't planned, but not unwanted just because of it. Lexie couldn't be happier right now.
She greeted a few of the other residents in the locker room as she walked in, the smile still on her face as she walked over to her locker. She quickly changed into her scrubs, making sure she kept her tank top on under her scrub shirt. No one was gonna look at her belly and make the conclusion that she was pregnant, but somehow it felt like it and she wanted to make sure no one found out before Mark. Just thinking about how Mark would react sent butterflies to her stomach. He never told her when his first surgery today would be over, but she really hoped it would be soon. Because she felt like she was gonna explode if she didn't get to tell him soon.
As she left the locker room and walked towards the nurses station, she started to think about how she was gonna tell him. Maybe make it a riddle, 'What do you get when you cross a Sloan with a Grey?'. Or maybe tell him about her symptoms and make him diagnose her. However, she knew it would be useless to decide how she was gonna tell him, because she knew she would end up speechless and then just spit it out, 'I'm pregnant!'. A light chuckle left her at the thought and she shook her head.
When she got to the nurses station, she noticed a few interns leaning against the counter, currently in a heated discussion. She just shook her head with a smile on her face and grabbed an iPad and checked Mark's schedule.
"They've been in there for a long time now. It can't just be a quick exam." One of the interns said with a chuckle. None of them seemed to have noticed Lexie yet.
"But are you sure it was just an exam? There has to be something more. And why weren't we allowed to help?"
After a moment, Lexie started to get annoyed. "Hey." She barked as she looked up at them, which caused them all to jump and turn around to look at her with wide eyes, as if they had just been caught doing something really bad. "Don't you have something important to do? Like save someone's life?"
"Oh, I'm sorry Dr. Grey." A short girl apologized.
"We… We are with Dr. Bailey today. She has a patient but we weren't allowed inside." The first intern explained. "They've been in there for a while now."
"Well…" Lexie started annoyed. "Maybe it's a VIP patient, or a family member." She suggested, not even knowing why she was still talking to these guys.
"I don't think so." The other intern said with a shrug and looked down at the iPad. "The patient's name is Naols. Not a name I recognize. I'm not even sure that is a name."
"Bailey and Dr. Sloan have been in there with the patient forever now." The girl said, trying to calculate everything once again.
"Dr. Sloan is in there?" Lexie asked, trying to figure out why he was doing a consult with Bailey. According to his schedule, he wasn't done with his surgery yet. A frown covered her face as she then thought of something. "Wait. What was the patient's name again?" She asked and walked over to the intern with the iPad.
"Naols." He said and showed her the iPad. "Why, do you know him, or her?"
Lexie didn't answer the question. She was too focused to look at the name. Naols. There was something about it. It didn't really sound like a name. It was like it was made up. One of her favorite thing as a child and teenager was to play with words. She loved the games where you change the order of the letters and then try to figure out which word it was.
And then she figured out what it was about the name 'Naols'.
Naols - Sloan.
"Which room are they in?" Lexie asked in a monotone voice, trying her best to keep it casual.
"1128." The intern replied, utterly confused and curious about what the older resident just discovered.
Lexie didn't even give him a 'thank you' before she just turned on her heel and firmly walked towards the room. The room she knew only Dr. Bailey and her husband were occupying, no patient. Except for the fact that Mark was the patient. She was so angry. Like in those cartoon where the character's face turns red and fume comes out of it's ears. But an amount of fear lingered there as well.
Without even thinking about knocking on the door, she just opened it and burst into the room. And as expected, no patient. Just Bailey and Mark. Mark was sitting on the bed and Bailey was sitting on a chair opposite him, with an iPad in her hands. It looked like they had been talking about something really serious, based on their facial expressions. However, both their expressions changed when they looked up and noticed Lexie in the doorway. Mark looked like he had just been caught making out with the other doctor and Bailey just looked angry.
"Dr. Grey, didn't your parents teach you how to knock before you enter a room?" Bailey asked in an annoyed tone. After all, Grey had just burst into the room while she was talking to a patient.
Lexie didn't respond to Bailey's rhetorical question. Her eyes were glued on Mark.
"Lexie…" Mark started softly, trying hard to come up with a good explanation.
"What's going on in here?" Lexie asked furiously, not bothering to hide her emotions.
Bailey and Mark looked towards each other before Mark just looked down at his hands. He didn't know how to break this to her. And he knew Bailey wasn't gonna say anything.
Lexie looked between the older surgeons and shook her head as she smiled bitterly. "Okay. Don't tell me. I'll just look it up myself." She announced as she got her own iPad and started looking up the chart of Mr. Naols. Now more known as her own husband.
"Lexie, don't." Mark tried but it was useless
"Clever cover, by the way." She said ironically as she scrolled through the files. "As if I wouldn't find out." She continued and got more angry. "You know that 'Sloan' is my name now too, right?" She asked with a bitter laugh. "Naols, Sloan. I actually almost missed it. Thank God for nosey interns."
And after some scrolling, she got to the files. The files that contained information about symtoms, patient history, tests, test results and now; Diagnosis. She read the results again. And again. She just wanted to double check and hopefully find a mistake of some sort.
But there was no mistake. Bailey had done everything right. Lexie thought she was gonna pass out as she read the diagnosis Bailey had determined. Gastrointestinal stromal tumor.
Swallowing hard, she looked up at Mark with a defeated look. Their gazes met immediately, both knowing what the other was thinking. Her voice was shaking as she spoke. "You… You have cancer?" She asked, even though she knew the answer. Tears welled up in her eyes as the realization finally hit her.
"Lexie…" Mark called her name softly and got to his feet. Taking a few steps towards her slowly, as if she were a scared animal he didn't want to scare away.
"Don't!" Lexie said, raising her voice and taking a small step back. "Don't come anywhere near me." She told him. In milliseconds, she realized what all this meant. That the baby resting in her uterus probably would grow up without a father. In that moment she realized that she was pregnant with Mark's child at the same time as he got cancer. She felt dizzy. It was becoming too much too fast and she felt like she couldn't breathe. "Just…" She started and held up her hand, stopping him from coming any closer. "Just don't follow me. I don't want to talk to you right now."
And with that, she just turned around and walked away. Leaving a devastated Mark Sloan behind. As she left her iPad by the nurses station, she heard him call her name. She didn't respond. She just kept walking, failing the attempt to keep her tears inside her eyelids.
For a moment, it felt like Mark had betrayed her. It felt wrong to feel like that. It wasn't his fault. But a part of her really wished that she had caught Mark and Bailey making out in that room. That would have been easier to handle.
Lexie was pregnant and Mark was sick. It was all so scary. She was really terrified.
—
For the rest of the day, Lexie worked hard to avoid Mark. It didn't feel good and she hated herself for it, but she couldn't help it. She needed time to process this and figure out a way to handle it. But right now, she needed to be alone for a while.
Lexie was writing in a chart when she suddenly felt someone grab her arm really tight and pull her away. She was pulled into an exam room and the door slammed shut. "Hey! What the-"
"Uh, uh. You better be quiet and listen to me." Miranda Bailey barked at the resident. She had her classic Bailey look with the eyes that threatened to eat interns for breakfast.
Lexie softened when she looked at the older attending. If there was one surgeon Lexie never fought against or questioned, ever, it was Dr. Miranda Bailey. Wrapping her arms around herself, she took a breath and nodded a little, indicating for Bailey to continue.
"First of all, I really don't like when people just burst into my exam rooms while I'm consulting a patient. You knock first, and when I say 'come in', you can come in. Are we clear?"
"Yes, ma'am." Lexie replied softly, feeling like a little girl again who was caught eating cookies out of the jar when she wasn't allowed to.
"Good." Bailey said sternly. She took a moment to eye the resident before she softened a bit. "Look, what Dr. Sloan has is a pretty easy fix. It seems worse than it really is. And… Well, he needs you right now."
Lexie nodded again and looked down at the floor, wrapping her arms a little tighter around herself. Well, I need him as well. She thought to herself and had to bite her tongue in order to keep herself quiet. "Yeah, I know."
"What's going on?" Bailey asked. She had always been quick at noticing when something was wrong. After all, she is Miranda Bailey.
"Can… Can I tell you something? In confidence?" Lexie asked and kept her eyes to the floor, trying her best to keep her tears in.
"Of course."
Lexie took a deep breath and gathered herself before lifting her gaze to meet the attending's. "I'm pregnant." She confessed softly, feeling emotional pain as she uttered the words. It made everything so much more real.
Bailey sighed. If it was of annoyance or sympathy, Lexie didn't know. "Have you told him?" She asked softly.
"No." Lexie said and shook her head. "I was planning to tell him but… Something kind of came up."
Bailey nodded in understanding. "Well… You should tell him. He's the father and he deserves to know. He has a right to know."
"I know." Lexie whispered and wiped her eyes. She hadn't even noticed that a few tears had escaped.
A moment passed before Bailey's pager started beeping. With a heavy sigh, she checked it and looked up at Lexie with a calm look on her face. "I have to go. But everything will be alright. We are gonna operate on him and get that nasty thing out, okay?"
Lexie met the attending's eyes and nodded. She felt safe with Bailey.
"But you gotta tell him about the baby. And I mean it. He deserves to know."
Lexie nodded once more. "Yeah. I'll tell him." She replied. They held each other's gaze for a moment before Bailey left the exam room, leaving Lexie alone with her thoughts. So many thoughts were running through her head right now. She needed a break.
After a moment of thinking and considering different options, she decided that the best thing probably would be to spend the night with Derek and Meredith, and talk to Mark in the morning. She obviously had been pregnant for several weeks, another day of Mark not knowing wouldn't hurt.
—
Towards the end of the day, Mark was done with all his surgeries and consults. Thanks to that, he could keep his mind off of Lexie and his condition. Receiving the news from Bailey wasn't exactly easy. And seeing Lexie's devastated face when she found out wasn't helping. All he'd wanted to do all day was to just talk to his wife and explain the situation. But she had asked him to leave her alone, so that's what he did. Just because they didn't talk for one day didn't mean they would get divorced. And this wasn't their first fight.
"Hey." Derek greeted his best friend, joining him by the nurses station and left a chart.
"Hey." Mark replied, keeping his eyes on the chart in front of him.
"Long day?" Derek asked, noticing the look on his friend's face.
"You could say that." Mark said dryly, hoping that Derek would take the hint and leave.
"I hate those days." Derek said, not planning on ending this conversation anytime soon.
"Do you need anything, Derek or are you just bothering me for fun?" The annoyance in his voice was clear, but he didn't care.
"Nope. Just trying to make conversation with my friend." Derek acknowledged the annoyance. And he was determined to find out what was going on.
Derek was met by silence. Mark figured that if he stopped responding, the conversation couldn't go on. And hopefully that would make Derek leave.
Sadly for Mark, Derek wasn't giving up that easily.
"Hey, let me ask you a question." Derek said and leaned in closer to his brother. He didn't get a reply, but that was expected. "Is everything alright with you and Lexie?" He asked with a concerned tone in his voice, knowing the subject would probably be sensitive.
Without thinking, Mark actually responded. "Everything is fine." He lied and kept avoiding eye contact. He had finished his chart minutes ago. Right now he was just fake writing to look busy.
Derek nodded slowly, not really believing the answer he received. And frankly he didn't believe it. Since he knew the truth. "Really? Everything is fine?" He questioned. "Then why is Lexie staying with us tonight?"
The last question made Mark finally look up at his best friend with a confused look on his face. "Lexie is staying with you tonight?" He asked, not understanding at all. "Why?"
"I don't know." Derek said with a shrug. "But maybe you can get the answer now." He said and nodded over Mark's shoulder towards the main entrance.
Mark frowned and noticed that Derek was looking over his shoulder. He turned around to see what Derek was talking about. He then saw Lexie walking towards the doors, dressed in her street clothes and ready to leave.
Without saying anything to Derek, Mark left his chart on the counter and ran after his wife. He knew he was breaking his promise, but now he wanted answers. Something was terribly wrong if Lexie wanted to spend the night somewhere else. As he got closer to the doors, he called the name of his wife to get her attention. "Lexie, wait!"
Lexie didn't need to think for two seconds to know who was following her. She took one look at her husband and gave him an irritated look before she turned around and walked through the doors. She did not want to talk right now. "Go away, Mark."
"No." Mark said firmly and kept following her. He was close enough to slow down and just walk after her. "Why is Derek telling me that you won't come home tonight?" He asked, demanding an answer.
"Because I'm not. I'm staying with him and Meredith tonight." She replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the whole world and everyone should understand that.
"Why?" Mark asked, slowly starting to lose his patience. Especially since she refused to stop walking.
"Because I need time, Mark. Now, leave me alone." She explained and raised her voice. All she wanted was to be left alone.
This started to feel just like the time he tried to talk to her after the shooting. The time she also asked him to leave her alone. "Lexie, come on." He pleaded, getting anxious and worried. "I get that you're pissed at me. But will you just let me explain?"
"Explain!?" Lexie asked angrily and stopped walking so quick Mark almost walked right into her. She turned around to look at her husband with angry eyes. "You think now would be a good time to explain!?" She was so angry at him. And maybe she was overreacting, but to her defense, her hormones and feelings were everywhere. "You don't tell me anything for weeks and let me find out the truth through interns. I thought that after everything we've been through, and I mean everything, you would be honest with me and tell me if something was wrong. For better and for worse, Mark. In sickness and in health. Remember that part?" Angry tears were welling up in her eyes and she didn't bother to try stopping them. "Do you remember that because I swear that I saw you at the wedding. Yeah, my memory might be a little blurry, but I remember you standing right in front of me, holding my hands and saying 'I do'." Her feelings were so messed up right now. She wanted to punch him hard in the face and at the same time, she wanted to kiss him and be in his arms.
"Lexie, please-"
"You know what the worst part is? That you've kept this a secret for weeks. Not hours or days, weeks. Were you ever going to tell me? Or were you just gonna get treatment without telling me at all? I just don't…" She closed her eyes for a moment and rested her hand on her forehead. "You lied to me." She said, her voice more soft than earlier.
"Lexie, I never lied to you-"
"Yes, you did, Mark!" Lexie was yelling now. Removing her hand from her forehead and opening her eyes to look at her husband, her eyes were now angrier than ever. "You did! You lied to me! Every day, every morning, every time I asked you how you were, and you said 'Oh, I'm fine, Lex.', you lied to me! You should have told me the truth! You should have told me about your pain and your other symptoms. But you didn't. So you lied to me!" Her BP was probably sky-high right now, which was not good for the baby. The baby.
She closed her eyes again, mentally distancing herself from Mark for a moment so she could gather herself and calm down. Technically she was doing the same thing right now as he'd done. She was keeping information from him. But she hadn't lied to him about it. She had told him about feeling nauseous, even though she hadn't realized it was because of the pregnancy.
It wasn't fair. She couldn't keep this from him any longer. Bailey was right, he deserved to know.
She opened her eyes slowly, meeting Mark's soft, worried ones instantly. He had been quiet since her outburst, which she was incredible thankful for. She didn't want to fight anymore. "There's also something that I need to tell you." She said, her voice as soft as ever.
When she didn't receive a verbal response from him, she swallowed hard before opening her mouth again. "I'm pregnant." She watched Mark's eyes widen a bit and she continued to talk before he could interrupt. "I'm carrying your baby, Mark. Our baby. We are gonna have a baby. And now you…" Shaking her head in disbelief, she wiped her cheeks. "I guess we both have something growing in our stomachs." She couldn't help but laugh a little at the irony of it all.
Silence fell between them. The only sound was the late night traffic and sirens from ambulances arriving at the ER. Neither of them said anything. In that moment, Mark finally realized why she needed some time alone. And he accepted that. Maybe they both needed some time. One night apart wouldn't hurt.
When Lexie realized that Mark wasn't gonna say anything, she decided to break the silence instead. "I think we both need a night apart. So we'll talk tomorrow. Okay?"
Mark only managed to nod in response. So many thoughts, feelings and memories were running through his head right now. His head was a mess.
Lexie offered him the smallest of smiles before she turned around and walked away. The tears started running down her cheeks again. This wasn't the first time she had left him like this in the very same spot. And it felt just as horrible as the first time it happened.
But everything would be okay. They would talk tomorrow.
