A/N: Thank you once again to EscapismRocks for all the wonderful beta-ing. Reviews very much appreciated!

Chapter 3—It's Not That We're Scared, It's Just That It's Delicate

Mark listened to Meredith's cell phone ring. He had a brief surge of hope when it seemed like she was finally going to answer. But this was immediately followed by intense disappointment when, instead of Meredith's real voice on the end of the line, he heard her voicemail message.

As the tone sounded, he cleared his throat, feeling stupidly nervous. "Uhhh . . . hey Mer," he said and then paused, not knowing what to say next, before adding the obvious, "it's me. Mark." No shit! he berated himself. "Uhhh . . . I . . . I thought we had plans and you're . . . uhhh . . . not here. So . . . maybe give me a call?" He paused again and inhaled. "I love you, Mer . . . I, uh, talked to Lexie today." He didn't know whether she'd like that or it would piss her off, but he wanted to let her know he'd tried, sort of, to talk about her father. He sighed. He was so out of his depth here. "I'm sorry I'm an ass . . . I . . . I really want to see you." He hung up and put the phone handset on the couch behind him.

It was just after 10 pm and he figured Meredith was around an hour late, give or take. For the second time that day, he recoiled at the image of himself as insecure, nagging boyfriend and resolved not to call her again. Love scared the shit out of him, but he'd known that going in. Meredith loved him; she got him; and she wasn't . . . love wasn't . . . going to fuck him over again. That wasn't the inevitable consequence of falling for someone. He took a deep breath. For God's sake get a grip, he thought.

An open, partially consumed bottle of Dom Pérignon was on the floor next to him, where he sat leaning against the couch, and he poured himself a glass and drank it down, before immediately pouring himself another one.

The champagne had been for Meredith . . . well, for him to get around Meredith and persuade her to forgive him for whatever it was he was supposed to have done. He groaned out loud. He knew damn well what he'd done. But all he wanted was to forget about it and get back on her good side and spend the rest of the evening making love with her. That was what the Dom was for. And, yeah, it was Addison's drink; but he figured it could work for Meredith too. Although, so far, the only person it was doing anything for was him. And he briefly wondered how, between early that morning and now, he'd gone from being in love to drinking alone in his apartment.

He drank half the new glass of champagne, then topped it up.

He could, he supposed, try to give Meredith what she wanted. He guessed he'd been trying to make a start on this by talking to Lexie. Although he was willing to bet Meredith wouldn't recognize this as trying. But what she didn't seem to understand and what he couldn't get past was the effect on him of talking about his family. It made him so angry and . . . desperate; made his stomach clench and his intellect shut down and a bunch of stupid thoughts and impulses run around his head. And it was no good her asking him why. Because, other than what he'd already told her, he didn't have anything else to say. His parents had been bastards. His father was cold and distant and pathologically, sneeringly indifferent. His mother was a fucked-up, psycho bitch. Even Derek knew that and had the tact to shut up about it! Mark had tried to avoid having any thoughts about them, until cancer and painkillers and love had forced unwanted memories to the surface of his mind, and he'd liked it just fine that way.

Almost on autopilot now, Mark drained his drink and picked up the bottle for another refill. When it turned out to be empty, he got up unsteadily, stumbling a little as he went into the kitchen to fetch a fresh one.

"God, what a crappy day!" Cristina flounced into her apartment, slammed the door behind her and dropped her leather jacket, rucksack and keys on the floor in a heap and stepped over them. Callie was stretched out on the couch watching TV and she raised her head in Cristina's direction, picked up the remote and muted the sound.

"I cooked," she said. "Paella. It's pretty damn good, if I do say so. And there's beer in the refrigerator."

Sometimes it bugged Cristina that Callie shared her apartment, but tonight she was almost glad to see her.

"You're like the perfect wife," Cristina snarked happily and Callie gave a hollow laugh.

"Yeah, well, George didn't seem to think so."

Cristina snorted. "Like Bambi's opinion on anything counts," she said. "He's an idiot. But you have to be a worse one for ever marrying him."

She went into the small kitchen, found a fork and, after removing the lid, started to shovel Paella into her mouth directly from the pan. She broke off long enough to turn around to the refrigerator, extract a beer, remove the top violently against the counter, and pour half the contents down her throat. Then she returned her attentions to the food.

"'S good," she said, indistinctly, through a mouthful of spicy chicken, shrimp and rice and Callie smiled complacently.

"Seriously, I mean it," Cristina went on. "About George . . . about all marriages, relationships, whatever, anything more than occasional screwing. Relationships suck and mess people up. We should all just work . . . and fuck sometimes, if the itch has to be scratched . . . and then work again."

She felt bad for Mark. She knew, because he'd told her when she'd yelled at him in the elevator that time, that he'd been lonely and screwed up before Meredith. But there was something independent about his manwhorishness that, in a weird way, she respected. Now he'd given all that up and look where it had gotten him. And, yes, damn it, Meredith was right, the whole thing stung her with memories of Burke. But, as far as she was concerned, that backed up her argument. Relationships suck!

"You want to talk about it?" Callie asked.

"No."

"Okay," Callie said, but then started playing with her hair and looking at Cristina.

"What?"

"It's just funny you should bring it up. I was in the elevator this morning and Meredith and Mark seemed like they're having problems."

"I don't want to talk about it," Cristina snapped.

"O-kay," Callie said again, but then added, "I just thought you might be interested, as she's like your best friend forever."

Cristina snorted again, then drank down the remainder of her beer and chucked her fork into the sink with a loud clatter.

"I gotta say," Callie mused, half to herself. "I wouldn't fight him off if he was pressed up against me in the elevator."

"Please! You really want to be that woman?"

"What woman?"

"The pathetic one with a crush on her one-night stand?"

Callie stared at her. "Seriously, Yang. Speak your mind, why don't you?" She frowned. "You know about that?"

"Everybody knows about that. George practically took out an ad. Anyway, I thought you hated it. Meredith said George said you said it was dirty."

Callie winced, but otherwise ignored the remark. "Mark's changed," she said. "Since the cancer. He's . . . less . . . predatory. More attractive. And we're friends . . . kind of." She glanced at Cristina and shrugged. She probably shouldn't be saying this to Meredith's best friend, but she didn't mean anything by it and Yang was, well, Yang. You could say pretty much anything to her. Still . . . maybe this was dangerous territory and they needed some kind of distraction. She glanced back at the TV and noticed House was starting.

"Want to watch House and try and make the diagnosis before they do?" she asked.

"Whatever," Cristina sighed, opening the refrigerator and extracting two more beers.

"Cool," Callie replied. "We can be pathetic together." She grinned and sat up and made room for Cristina on the couch.

"Shut up and watch House," Cristina said, handing her one of the beers, before she reached over, grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

Jason had Meredith pushed up against the wall of a stall in the rest room and she could feel something uncomfortably plastic jabbing her in the back. She was fully clothed, except that Jason had unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, and her skin crawled as his hand snaked between her legs and his hot breath hit her neck. A chill of revulsion crept down her spine at his insistent touch and she finally voiced what her heart and instincts had wanted to scream from the beginning, but insecurity and tequila had prevented until now. Because this wasn't the easy way; it wasn't a release; it was sad and desperate and unfair to Mark and inappropriate and—Jason's hand worked its way inside her panties—and gross.

"No!" she shouted, as firmly as she could manage, and shoved him away from her and began to hastily rearrange her clothes. "I can't . . . I don't want to . . . please go away." She could feel tears starting to emerge in her eyes and she hoped that he would be decent enough to leave her alone before she started to cry.

He moved away from her and laughed harshly. "'S funny, Dr. Grey," he said. "I'd heard you were easy."

It was only fury that allowed her to master the emotions that wanted to flood out long enough to say, with dignity, "Not easy enough to fuck you, apparently." She pushed past him and opened the stall door. "Get out," she said. "This is the ladies' room."

Jason shrugged. "I guess I'll see you round," he said derisively and, thankfully, left as Meredith slid limply down the white-tiled wall and burst into tears.

She wished that Cristina were still here. No, she wished she'd just gone to Mark's house like they'd discussed. And now she hated herself so much, and she was so confused, all she could do was sit here on the cold, not especially clean floor, and let the tears run down her face.

Eventually, though, she got up and peered into the rest room mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy and her cheeks streaked with mascara. She looked as much of a mess as she felt. She washed her face with cold water and dried herself off with a paper towel and then prepared herself to go back into the bar, wishing it was as easy to fix her emotions as it was to fix her face.

The bar was now nearly empty and there was no sign of Jason and she breathed such a loud sigh of relief that she caught Joe's attention.

"Meredith?" he asked, concerned. "You okay sweetie?"

She nodded but as she did so fresh tears started up, which she tried to wipe away.

"Come here," Joe said gently, indicating a bar stool. "Have some coffee."

Feeling numb, she nodded again and sat down where he had pointed. "Can you call me a cab, please Joe?" she asked shakily.

"Sure thing," he said. "Where to?"

"54th Avenue, South," she said. She didn't know how she was going to face Mark or what she was going to say to him, but his house was the only place she wanted to be right now.

Joe placed the cup of coffee in front of her and she drank the hot, comfortingly bitter liquid while he made the phone call.

When he came back to stand supportively with her, she whispered, "Please, Joe. Don't say—"

He cut her off with a gentle smile and shook his head. "Bar was busy, Mer. Didn't see a thing," he reassured her and briefly squeezed her hand.

Okay. Now he was getting trashed. He'd drunk the entire first bottle without really noticing and was now more than half way through the second. But it was only champagne, for God's sake, and he'd figured he could handle it.

Once, years ago, back in New York, he'd drunk what must have been a half bottle of scotch and then driven Derek's pregnant sister Molly to the hospital. Yeah, it had been dumb and irresponsible and had caused no end of bitching. But, he'd been the only person there; he hadn't known she was going to go into premature labor before he started drinking; and it turned out she'd have died if he hadn't gotten her to a hospital. And fuck! He'd done it, without getting pulled over and his inner frat-boy was still inanely proud of this at the age of forty.

Mark poured himself another drink . . . and, seriously, this had to be the last one . . . and brought it to his lips. Except this didn't quite come off as intended and he found himself with champagne soaking into his jeans and sufficiently little left in his glass that he was obliged to refill it again. Shit, he really was trashed!

The problem was that, in eleven months, since he'd started the immunotherapy program for real, he hadn't had more than one drink a day, if that, and his tolerance for alcohol was shot to hell. Maybe once Dom Pérignon had been a lightweight, over-hyped, barely alcoholic soda to placate women with. Now it affected him more like hard liquor. And once he'd pushed back the breast augmentation to treat the burns case, he'd been playing catch-up all day and had hardly eaten. So, yeah, he was trashed.

He decided it was time he called Meredith again, before the whole evening turned into a complete fuck-up and she arrived to find him passed out on the floor or puking—because as he remembered too well and too late, the IT meds and large amounts of booze didn't mix well— and neither seemed like much of a strategy for getting laid or for getting back on her good side.

He located the phone behind him on the couch and groped around for her number among the contacts, eventually finding it after a couple of false starts and hanging up twice on a bemused Derek.

Her phone rang and he smiled at the thought of hearing her voice. But she didn't answer and the only voice he got to hear, for the second time that night, was her voicemail recording.

"Yeah, well, fuck you very much Mer," he growled after hanging up and slinging the phone onto the floor, but instantly felt bad about this and mumbled "Sorry," although there was nobody there to hear him or care.

He decided to try not to think or feel anything about Meredith. It hurt too much. And it turned out to be easier than he expected, because once he'd finished off yet another glass of champagne, his thoughts and feelings weren't functioning anyway.

From his position slumped on its sunken floor, leaning against the couch, he looked around his living room and thought that it was ridiculously beautiful for a guy by himself who had previously lived more or less in on-call rooms and a hotel room. He almost felt like he didn't belong here and had a wave of nostalgia for his apartment in New York, and the ugly but familiar and very well used futon couch. He glanced upwards at the intimidating, spacious high ceiling and quickly looked down again. You couldn't hide in this damn place. Not unless you went out on the deck, anyway. And this thought and a longing for the deck and the lake captured his attention for moment, until he poured another glass of champagne and drank it down in one gulp, at which point he forgot all about going outside. Because something else touched the edge of his wrecked and fuzzy memory . . . a woman, very young, very blonde, beautiful in that frail, uptight, society way that he didn't go for, drinking champagne and laughing. For some reason, this mesmerized him and made him uneasy at the same time, and he replayed the image in his head, distracted, without knowing why, until the sound of a car passing outside in the wet street brought him back to reality, and he was left grappling with his rapidly fracturing understanding of what the hell he was supposed to be doing right now.

He knew he'd tried to call Meredith at some point. But now he couldn't remember whether he'd spoken to her or not. And if he had, he couldn't remember what she'd said, unless it was something about connective tissue allotransplantation, because he was pretty certain that someone had mentioned that to him sometime recently. Ah, what the fuck! He couldn't remember anything. At this point his vision became unreliable and, feeling massively dizzy, he let himself sprawl down onto the floor. When his head came in contact with the very soft, very expensive rug, he did remember something about not wanting Meredith to find him in this state. But he couldn't remember why any longer or why he'd even thought this.

Anyway, she wasn't here, was she? It couldn't possibly make any goddamn difference and he was way past caring.

"Hey," Meredith whispered, touching Mark gently on the shoulder.

He woke up explosively, bleary eyed and completely disorientated. "Please . . . please don't . . . I can't . . . " he stammered, obviously still dreaming and then woke fully and looked at her for a moment as if he didn't know who she was, and she took a few steps backwards away from him, her own guilt making her anticipate anger.

But Mark wasn't angry, only confused and dazed and suffering the first after-effects of drinking too much. The room started to spin and he pressed his palm against his forehead. "Ah, fuck," he muttered as his champagne induced headache stabbed him between the eyes. "I didn't know you were here. I must've fallen asleep," he grinned painfully at her, "well, passed out, I think. I kind of overdid it with the champagne."

"I'm sorry," Meredith said in a tiny voice that Mark was too befuddled to notice.

"S okay. Stuff comes up, right?" He smiled. "Was there an emergency or something?"

She didn't answer and when Mark looked closer at her, he realized that she was crying and that her face was already streaked with dried tears.

"Hey, no," he coaxed. "Don't do that, beautiful. C'mere." He sat up properly, trying to ignore the pain in his head and the beginnings of nausea in his stomach and concentrate on Meredith. When she didn't move towards him, but just stayed where she was, crying silently, he hauled himself up off the floor, reeling slightly when he first stood upright, and then took her in his arms.

"I . . . I . . . " she sobbed incoherently into his chest, trying to lose herself in his strength and warmth.

"Ssshh. It doesn't matter now. I was an ass, Mer."

"But I—"

"We can talk tomorrow," he interrupted her gently and pressed a kiss into the top of her head. "We've talked altogether too goddamn much today, don't you think?" He really needed to sit down again and he really didn't want to talk about families, not even if she was going to apologize or forgive him. He wasn't in any state to deal with it right now.

"No," she insisted. "I have to tell you—"

"Tomorrow, Mer," Mark said as, still holding her, he lowered himself back down onto the floor, leaned up against the couch and pulled Meredith close to him.

Meredith sighed. She was here with him; she was relieved. And she almost felt safe. Almost, except for her fears that what he couldn't talk about and she couldn't resolve was going to break them apart; and, almost, except for the knowledge that she'd come so close to cheating on him she might as well have done it.

"Mark," she said softly, determined to be honest with him.

He didn't answer and, when she craned her head, twisting a little in his arms, to look at him, she realized he'd fallen asleep, still holding her in a reassuring hug, with his head resting on her shoulder. She sighed and pushed back against him, nestling her body into his as much as she could manage. She could wait until he woke up. And, anyway, the contact with him was too good to break right now and she needed this, needed him, needed to remember that they loved each other.

She closed her eyes and let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "I love you, Mark," she said, very softly. "Please remember that when . . ." Her words trailed off. Right now it was simple; tomorrow it would be complicated again; worse than before, after what she'd done. But she didn't want to think about that now.

He must have heard her, because he stirred groggily. "Love you too," he murmured in her ear, before allowing his head to fall gently back on her shoulder and dozing off again.

Title song: Delicate, Damien Rice

It's not that we're scared
It's just that it's delicate

So why do you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've known