Again, thank you all for your kind reviews! I'm working on chapter four right now, so I'm pretty hopeful that I can manage a once-a-week update! But anyway, here's Chapter 3, let me know what you think (Mark might come across as a little mean :( But I kind of needed it to end this way to fit in with the whole Fight Club Rules theme, so keep that in mind!) Thank you again to all of the readers, and hope this doesn't disappoint!

"The third rule of Fight Club is: someone yells 'Stop!', goes limp, taps out, the fight is over."


Technically her shift isn't over for another twenty minutes, and she's pretty sure no one would mind, at this point, if she just got the hell out of here and went home. They might celebrate a little, actually, on her way out the door. But Lexie refuses to give anyone anything else to punish her for (even though she knows it was deserved today for being so reckless and stupid), and she doesn't really want to go home and face George just yet, because besides being the object of her once-crush (Lexie's still not sure she's completely over that, but she has other things on her mind right now) he's pretty much her best friend here (only friend now, since that thing with Dr. Sloan in the closet?), and she can only imagine how disappointed he'll be.

So she sets up camp in the waiting room, sitting cross legged in one of the chairs, and alternating between staring blankly out the window and staring blankly at the floor. Nineteen more minutes.

He takes a seat next to her, and Lexie just doesn't have the energy right now to spend on this. He was right, she was wrong, and even though a large part of her really, really wants to talk to him, an even larger part doesn't even want to look at him right now. She's about to tell him this when he speaks first, surprising her.

"You okay?"

His voice is a little gruffer than it normally is with her, but then again, Lexie supposes she deserves that. She almost laughs at the absurdity of everything (was this day even real? It went by so quickly, one bad decision after the other), but the best that she can manage right now is a shaky kind of breath, and her answer changes before she can even get it out:

"No."

If Mark is surprised by the answer, he doesn't show it, just reclines a little in his chair, trying to get as comfortable as possible. "That's not the first time someone's asked you that today." It's more of a statement than a question, but Lexie feels compelled to answer it anyway.

"No."

She doesn't meet his gaze, instead staring resolutely at her sneakers, hooked on the edge of her seat, almost underneath her in some unconscious effort to ball herself up as small as she can. She can tell he's still watching her, though, and the thought is a little disconcerting.

"Is that the first time your answer wasn't 'I'm fine'?"

This question seems to come out of the blue for Lexie (although she should have known because somehow he gets her, even though he doesn't really know her), and for a split-second she's tempted to tell him 'no'. To tell him that it didn't matter who asked her today because she told everyone the same thing. But he'd see through it; of course she would tell everyone she was fine (not that a lot of people were asking, but still, most of the interns were just used to looking out for each other at this point). She would tell Mark the truth.

"Yeah." Her answer comes out more of a sigh, defeated and tired. "Look, could we just not do this right now? The whole 'I told you so' thing?" Her arms wrap tighter around herself, and for one brief moment her elbow brushes against the skin of his arm. Then the contact is gone again and some traitorous part of her misses it already.

He lets one shoulder rise and fall, in sort of a half-shrug. "I wasn't going to say anything." He follows her lead, staring out the window in front of them. He knows it rains all the time in Seattle, but finds it especially fitting that it's raining right now, and watches one fat drop crash against the glass, making a trail down the pane. Mark knows enough to not say anything further, instead sitting with her in silence for several minutes. He notices her eyes flicker to the clock every so often.

"I shouldn't even be here" she says, finally, and she sags a little in her seat at the admission.

"So go home, get some sleep." The corner of his mouth turns upward in what was meant to be a comforting smile. It's more sincere than the grins he offers many of the nurses (and the rest of the female population employed at the hospital) but Mark is quickly finding that he's formed a soft-spot for the littler Grey sister. "Tomorrow's another day."

She shakes her head, eyes still focused on the window opposite them (on the ceiling, on that ugly painting in the corner, on anything but him). "That's not what I mean. I shouldn't be here, in Seattle." She scoffs. "People don't want me here. I don't want me here."

He quirks an eyebrow. "What are you talking about, Grey?"

"I wasn't supposed to be here. At all. Actually, this is probably the last place I would've wanted to be, but what does it matter what I want?" And then it all starts spilling out of her: Boston and Mass General, her mother's death and her return to Seattle. Living with Thatcher (although she sort of leaves out the drunken mess part), living with George (and he already knows about the wanting him in more than a quasi-friend-turned-friend-turned-roommate way), and how none of this should have happened.

She knows at this point that she must look like a mess (and probably sounds like a lunatic, but it's not like she hasn't been told that before), and so she shouldn't really feel anything towards him but gratitude that he's still sitting next to her and hasn't bolted yet.

And then he starts laughing a little to himself, more chuckling, really, than anything, and Lexie can't help it; she's a little offended.

To his credit, Mark tries to keep it quiet, but she hears him anyway (the shaking of his shoulders is a pretty big give-away, too). Out of all the possible reactions, Lexie muses, this is probably both the least helpful and least welcomed. And she'd already been having the Bad Day (with, yes, capital letters) to end all bad days. Mark Sloan laughing at her was the last thing she needed.

"Want to let me in on the joke?" she asks irritably, and he knows it shouldn't, but the angered look on her face makes him laugh just a moment longer before he finally calms down. He takes a deep breath, shaking his head as he turns to face her.

"I was just thinking, all this time I was right." He explains, although the meaning is lost on Lexie. He continues anyway, talking over the small sound of protest she'd been about to make. "I mean, I know it started as a teasing kind of thing, but, Grey… you really are pathetic, aren't you?"

Lexie's breath catches in her throat and suddenly she feels very sick to her stomach. Wherever this was headed, it wasn't good. "Excuse me?" Her voice is dangerously low, and Mark knows that he's gone one step too far, but he's always been a go-big-or-go-home kind of guy, and what the hell? Why stop now?

He shrugs, and with each move of his he can see Lexie becoming more and more irritated. "The whole thing with O'Malley was pathetic, sure, but everyone's bound to make mistakes sooner or later." The slight dig at George isn't lost on Lexie, and she's biting her lip at this point to keep from exploding at him (and what gave him the right to criticize her like this, anyway?) "So I could just overlook that. In fact, I tried to, because, let's face it, really? O'Malley?" He's having too much fun with this.

"George is…" Lexie starts, quick to come to his defense, but Mark waves his hand dismissively and cuts her off.

"Not my point. The point is, you just running away from bigger mistakes, like, I don't know, cutting open a fellow intern unsupervised? That's not unfortunate middle-school crush pathetic. That's a truly pathetic pathetic." He glances at her. "It's just a little funny, that's all."

Un-frickin'-believable. She doesn't even know how to begin to respond to this. She tries anyway.

"You don't have any idea what you're talking about."

"You can't just run away from all of your problems. Believe me, they just end up following you." His tone is more sincere now, his expression too, but all Lexie can see is the malicious glint he had in his eye when insulting her. It hurt more than it should have. "What, you're saying you have nothing worth staying for?"

If he had asked her that just one day ago, just this morning, her answer might have been different. But then she went and involved herself in the appendectomy fiasco (if she's being honest she was practically a ringleader to the whole thing) and he came and berated her out of nowhere for a few minutes, so really, what's left for her now? "If you're so smart, Dr. Sloan, why don't you just tell me?"

Clearly, whatever answer he was expecting, it wasn't that. Still, his face did not betray his surprise, but Lexie took advantage of the silence, leaning closer, over the armrest of her chair, and for the first time since he sat down facing him head on, gaze locked with his.

"So… Do I? Have anything worth staying for?" She asked again, happy at least that she sounded much more confident than she felt. As angry as she was at him, at herself, and as hurtful as his comments really had been to her, Lexie knew she still wanted his answer to be 'yes'. Even if she wouldn't admit it to anyone but herself (and even that was a stretch).

Mark was conflicted, because there was Lexie in front of him and he knew she would forgive him if he just answered the question right. But there was also this voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like his best friend, warning him away from Meredith's half-sister, and what kind of man would he be if he went back on a promise? He sighed heavily, resignedly, before: "You know what, Grey, why don't you just go back to your apartment and wait for O'Malley to notice you again?"

To this, Lexie has no response, but they both know whatever this was, whatever they had, was broken now.

Neither said a word.

"Ready to go, Lexie?"

Startled, she turns in her seat to see Derek standing near the door, smiling cautiously at her, waiting to take her home. She's not sure why the thought makes her want to cry a little. Probably because she's already told herself she's not going to cry over Mark Sloan and now would be a good time for an excuse to let just a couple of tears to escape; she's not usually the one people wait for by the exit.

Hastily she grabs her coat from the floor under her chair. "Uh, yeah. Yes. Thank you." Her breath is shaky (but Derek doesn't question it because he is the sensitive one who knows how to handle fragile situations and apparently Mark is the one who makes them fragile in the first place), and she rushes to meet him by the door. "Thank you" she says again, partly because she really is grateful for a place to stay tonight other than the crap-partment or with Thatcher, mostly because she doesn't know what else to do right now.

Derek nods at her, helps her with her coat without a word (she missed the curious look he shot over her head at Mark), before holding the door open. "After you."

She walks out into the rain, thinking about Sadie volunteering to be cut open by a bunch of interns with a textbook, about Meredith and Christina standing in front of the Chief, about Mark dragging her into the supply closet and seeing her stitches. About all of this could have been prevented (and the furthest their stupid little club would have gone was inserting the IV's into each other). She could be focusing on that kiss in the basement instead of on being banned from the OR.

But since when did anything in her life go according to plan?

So this time it's Mark who's left behind, sitting alone and watching her retreating form through the clear glass of the exit doors, the rain obscuring what little view he had. He ignores the sympathetic glance Derek sends his way (because, realistically, he is just the messenger, but he's also the reason Mark needs to keep his promise above anything else), and doesn't bother following him out the door. Mark will leave later, when the scent of Lexie Grey dissipates from the seat next to him and the urge to go to Joe's to find some company for the night lessens. He drives home to an empty hotel room, that night, thinking by now he should be used to it.