Wooh! Update! And it hasn't even been six months since the last one! Yay! By now, my titles are just random songs that I like listening to. This one was inspired by the fact that I really want cake. But I think it fits, although when I see it I think of the band Cake rather than the song. And, as I've mentioned Molly and her baby in this story even though they only appear in season three, I have sufficiently messed up this story. But oh well. This was supposed to be a 'the calm before the storm' sort of chapter but then I kind of ended it on a cliffhanger so I'm not sure if it counts.

Unchained Melody

Chapter Seven: Cake

With the process of Lexie being discharged looming over him, Mark found himself becoming increasingly restless. He couldn't sit still, he tapped his foot against the floor, and he played with his phone until he dropped it and the screen cracked. Eventually, he told his wife he had to go check up on a patient, and left the room.

First, Mark headed for his office. It was a nice office, although it didn't have too many personal touches at this point. His desk was overflowing with paperwork (a lot of paperwork, given there was a large amount of paperwork involved in setting up an entire plastics wing), because he was procrastinating most of it before Lexie arrived in Seattle and now she was here, he couldn't concentrate on something so sheerly mundane amidst so much drama.

His office in New York had a few framed pictures, but he hadn't bought any of that stuff to Seattle, so there were no pictures in his office except for one he kept in the top drawer of his desk – a Polaroid of Addison he got a few weeks back, when one of his kid patients was snapping pictures of everybody and everything passing by. It wasn't a very good picture, because it was blurry and Addison was partially covered in spit-up, but he treasured it (even more so, now).

There was a coffee cup on his desk, right at the edge so that if one of the many folders there slipped and fell on it, it would fall and smash. It wasn't one of those paper cups the coffee from the coffee cart came in, but something ceramic or maybe Pyrex, and it was from some coffee that Mark made for himself in the attendings' lounge. What was special about it was the lipstick stain on the rim, from where Addison drank from it as they shared the coffee between them.

What was special about that coffee cup was that Addison put it down beside her on the desk, because she was sat on it, and pulled Mark in for a goodbye kiss, because she had to leave for a patient. And that kiss tasted like lipgloss and coffee and it was the last time he kissed her.

Under other circumstances, he'd wash the cup and return it to the attendings' lounge, but an uncharacteristic act of sentimentality lead to him instead moving it back a few inches, so that it was less likely to fall, and then leaving it there.

He didn't stay in his office. There wasn't anything to do there – except for paperwork, and there was too much drama at the hospital for anybody to bother with that kind of work, really – and the window didn't open, and he decided that what he needed was fresh air to calm him down.

So next, Mark headed for outside.

Except he didn't make it outside.

He was halfway across the catwalk when he saw Derek. He smiled, as one does when they see their best friend, and began to say, "Hey, man-" when he was cut off by Derek's fist coming into contact with his face.

Mark stumbled backwards and wiped blood away from his face, reeling from the impact. "What the hell, Shep?" he asked incredulously.

"That," Derek said, breathing heavily and clutching his fist, "is for lying to me, and my sister, and my friends, and my best friend. And this," he said, raising his fist again, "is for everything."

Derek always did like being dramatic, was what Mark thought as he heard Webber exclaim, "Shepherd! Your hands!" and Derek's fist once more hit his face, this time right in the centre on his nose. He didn't duck to avoid the hit, because he figured he deserved it at the very least (although it was all still Lexie's fault, really), but swore as he felt blood begin to trickle down his face.

And then he hit Derek right back.

He must have punched pretty hard, because he felt his knuckles burn in pain as they met Derek's cheekbone, and Derek not only stumbled but also fell, clutching the injured part of his face with a ridiculously surprised look on his face. "What was that for?" Derek asked. He sounded annoyed.

"Well, you hit me," Mark shrugged, wiping yet more blood off his face. "I had to hit you back."

"Are you going to hit me again?" Derek asked, warily.

"Nah," Mark said. "I figure I deserved it, for how I hurt Addie at the very least."

"Damn right you did," Dr. Bailey said as she helped Derek up off the floor. "Manwhore. O'Malley, go help Dr. Sloan fix his face so he doesn't sue the hospital."

Mark shrugged off O'Malley. "I'm not suing the hospital," he grumbled. "I'll fix my own damn face." He nodded at Derek and Dr. Bailey and then left, headed for the closest exam room, the one by the attendings' locking room.

However, upon getting there, Mark was once again surprised.

Derek hissed in pain as Meredith carefully examined his cheekbone, the soft pads of her fingers gently skating over his heavily bruised skin.

"I thinks it's broken," she told him. "But I'd have to page Dr. Torres or somebody from ortho to make sure, send you up for an x-ray."

"Feels broken," Derek murmured. "The stupid bastard."

"You did hit him first," Meredith reasoned, hitting a particularly painful part of his face and making him hiss in pain. "Sorry."

Derek's stayed quiet, almost sullen, and Meredith got the feeling that if it weren't for his cheekbone, he'd be pouting right about now.

"She's my sister, you know," Meredith said finally.

"Who?"

"Lexie. McSteamy- Mark's wife. She's Thatcher's daughter, the one who went to med school."

Derek placed a hand on her shoulder. "Well, are you okay?" he asked. "About that?"

"I… think so," Meredith said, sitting down on the on-call room bed beside him. "I've had a little while to get used to the idea, and we've spoken… a little. I mean, I wasn't thrilled to meet her, and she's married to McSteamy? Like, what kind of weird, messed-up logic is that? Some ten million people in the world and she chooses my McDreamy's best friend? That's practically incestuous! But… George likes her. Blythe assigned him to her case. And she is nice. Painfully nice. It makes her hard to hate. She's bright and shiny."

She could have carried on talking, but Derek wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, and she welcomed the warmth offered by his body so soon they were hugging. Or, he was hugging her, really.

It was nice. Meredith hadn't been hugged all that much in her life.

"Derek?" Meredith mumbled into her boyfriend's hair. "Do you think I should ask her to move in with us? I mean, she doesn't really have anyone here, does she? And Mark leaves in the house. She's probably going to live there anyway, if he does, but just in case – she isn't exactly in the kind of condition suited for a hotel – and that's sisterly, right?"

"It sounds sisterly," Derek replied. "Although you shouldn't think about whether what you're doing is sisterly too much. One time when I was staying over at Nancy's house for Easter, she made me sleep in the treehouse outside because she and Addison were trying to convince me to get rid of the trailer. Said it was perfect for a flannel-wearing wood-chopping fisherman."

Meredith smiled. Stories about Derek's family were always nice to hear, given she didn't have many of her own beyond 'I saw my mother kill herself'.

"It could be nice," Meredith decided. "We could be like that. I always wanted a sister, when I was little." She'd wanted a little sister called Ashley, actually, but Ellis had thought the name was tacky. Lexie was no Ashley. "Do you think it'll be awkward?"

"Maybe," Derek said. "In the beginning. Although it doesn't have to be."

"Maybe," she echoed. She then tried to unwrap herself from his arms, to little avail. "Derek, I have to go get someone to look at your face," she laughed as he whined and tried to hold onto her.

He gave her this really pathetic, puppy-face look. "Please?" he said. "I can page Callie for you. I need somebody to look after me!"

"You're hardly dying," Meredith said, but she was still smiling and she picked the discarded ice pack up off the floor and curled up on the on-call room bed with him, gently holding it to his cheekbone.

It all felt oddly like home.

Derek felt like home.

When Mark entered the exam room, it was already occupied. Addison was sat on the exam table, head tilted forwards, a wad of bloody tissues pressed to her face. There were a few blood stains on her scrubs.

"Red?" he asked as he stepped forward, instantly worried. "Are you okay? What happened?" He clenched his bruised fists. "Did somebody hurt you? Who hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Mark," Addison said, glaring at him a little, although the effect was lost a little because she sounded congested as a result of the bloody nose so it came out as 'Ib fibe Babk'. "It's just a nosebleed. Happened in surgery, little bugger. Had to have somebody else take over for me."

"Oh," he said. He grabbed a wad of tissues for himself, wiping away the blood already on his face with the back of his arm, and sat down on the exam table beside Addison. She shuffled over a little to make room for him, or maybe to make room between them.

They sat together in surprisingly comfortable silence for a while. She was using her right hand to hold the wad of tissues to her face, and so was he, and thus they both had free left hands. Both were on the exam table between them, separated by only a few millimetres of space.

Most of his attention was focused on that. She'd had her nails manicured recently – he could tell – and her hands are still a little red from scrubbing out.

"Do you think it looks broken?" he asked her.

"What?"

"My nose. Do you think it looks broken?"

She gently probed his battered nose, and he relished the feeling of her skin meeting his even if it was painful.

"No," she told him finally, her hands leaving his face.

He wasn't sure if that was what makes him do it – missing the feeling of being close to her, already – but he found himself gently tilting her face upwards – the bleeding had stopped, and she threw away her tissues when she began to examine his nose – so he could look into her eyes – this mix of blue and green which he'd always loved – and tracing the line of her red lips with a touch as soft as a whisper.

And then she was leaning in even more.

And so was he.

And he already knew they were going to kiss, because they always kissed. Of course they did. They were MarkandAddison.

Part of him wondered when they became MarkandAddison.

A different part wondered why he liked it so much.

But then her lips were catching his and she was kissing him and he was kissing her and suddenly he wasn't even thinking anymore.

It was probably unsanitary, given they'd both been bleeding from their noses pretty recently, and his face hurt, and it was probably a bad idea all-around because they'd hate themselves for it later.

But he didn't pull away. Because for a minute, just for a minute, he wanted to believe that things could be okay. They could have this. A life together. Not a happy ending – a happy middle.

Eventually, however, they ran out of air.

She ran her finger along the line of the cut Derek left on his face. "That'll need sutures," she informed him softly, her breath tickling his cheek.

"I know," he replied. "I was going to do it myself, but then I found you here, and…. Here we are."

She chuckled. "Here we are."

They stayed as they were for a few blissful minutes, she resting her head on his shoulder.

"I'll suture your face," she told him.

"And kiss it better?" he asked hopefully, grinning.

A smile quirked at her lips. "Maybe," she told him. "If you're good."

But the moment faded and they remembered reality and she lapsed back against his chest. "I'm tired, Mark," she mumbled.

He knew the feeling all too well. The exhaustion. "Me too," he said.

She fell asleep against him, lulled by the sound of his heartbeat, and he knew by the way her breaths slowed and deepened gradually and she allowed herself to relax in his arms.

His face needed suturing still, but he'd willingly scar for her.

There was a pageant on TV, this time, and Callie, Amelia, and Addison were sprawled across the couch making bitchy comments about the contestants and having the time of their lives when the doorbell rang.

"It's the pizza guy," Callie declared as she got to her feet. "He's late!"

"Is it the hot pizza guy?" Amelia asked, following her to the door.

"Amy!" Addison said, naturally also going along for the trip. "The hot pizza guy is practically a fetus still! I wouldn't be surprised if he was still in high school!"

It wasn't the hot pizza guy. Although he wasn't exactly ugly, the looks of disappointment on the women's faces can't have been good for his self-esteem.

"Pizza!" Callie sang, pushing the door closed behind the pizza guy with her elbow as her arms were filled by the three pizza boxes she was holding.

"Oh, gimme!" Amelia said, grabbing the top box and opening it.

"You'll get pizza sauce on the carpet again," Callie complained. "I'm the one who had to get that out."

"Is there olives on it?" Addison asked, peering at the pizza over Amelia's shoulder. "I swear, I'd kill for olives on my pizza right now."

Callie gave her a weird look as the three of them sat back down on the sofa. "You hate olives," she reminded her.

Addison shrugged. "I hated pineapple when I was a kid," she said. "Look at me now."

"Um, you still hate pineapple," Amelia said.

"I know," Addison said, wrinkling her nose. "Ew, pineapple. I'm going to go get some olives."

"I'm not sure if we have any!" Callie called after her.

"I could always go ask next door!"

"Can you grab me a beer? Oh my god, that one looks like a giraffe!"

"Oh, me too!"

Addison returned with two bears and a jar of olives. "Do olives have an expiration date?" she asked, passing her friends their drinks.

Amelia shrugs. "I have no clue," she said. "I've always figured expiration dates are useless, anyway. Are you not drinking?"

"I'm on-call," Addison replied, and then she popped an olive in her mouth. "No, they're good," she said, and then she set about to putting them on her pizza.

Mark loved pizza, a part of her recalled. Except for the crust – a surprisingly finicky eater at times, he hated it.

The crust was Addison's favourite part. And just as he picked the olives out of her salad and she saved him the croutons, he left his crusts and she had them.

It was a nice memory, but Addison wasn't about to let it ruin her pizza.

Although it was hard, she was going to get over Mark. There could no longer by anymore kisses in exam rooms, no more crying over Italian paisley sheets. She had to grow up, and start acting responsible, and be an adult, because that wasn't a choice anymore.

It began awkwardly. Of course it did. Mark and his wife were in some odd sort of relationship status where he followed her around everywhere but spent the whole time pouting and she looked at him with love but also like he'd just killed her puppy.

But then it continued to be awkward. Meredith hadn't realised just how much her sister would be… around. Logically, she should have. She lived with Derek and George and Mark and Izzie, and there'd been a point where Addison had practically lived there too, so she knew what having another person live at the house would entail. She knew Lexie was pregnant and wasn't currently attending school.

That didn't mean she was prepared for it.

Suddenly, Lexie was everywhere. She was failing at doing yoga in front of the TV, and she was eating all their food, and she was stocking orange juice in cupboards which had held only alcohol and coffee for the past years.

And Meredith tried not to mind. She really did.

But it was morning. Early morning. Because she had an early shift. And so did Derek.

Therefore, Derek was sat at the kitchen table. He was eating his muesli and doing the crossword. Meredith was sat on his lap, comfortably drowning in a pair of his pajamas, eating her own grilled cheese and helping.

And it would have been the perfect couple-y image, something for the scrapbooks – if Lexie weren't there. But Lexie was there, because Lexie was always there. She was sat right across from them at the kitchen table, hogging the international news section of the newspaper and eating pickles.

And, seriously, Meredith was trying but she was always there.

On the other hand, this actually meant that Meredith built a kind-of bond with Mark. Both were still pretty widely hated throughout the hospital (Meredith by the nurses who still believed she'd stolen Rose's McDreamy; Mark by just about everybody) and both were currently pretty annoyed about Lexie.

"She steals my sheets," Mark grumbled as they drank tequila in the back garden, like teenagers. "All of them. I've always hated that. Addison didn't steal the sheets. She kicked them off, usually. She kicked a lot. I didn't mind. I think I'd mind if Lexie was kicking a lot."

"She keeps asking me about baby names," Meredith said. "And talking, about the baby, and I have no idea how to tell her that I don't care, because I just don't like kids. And she won't. Stop. Talking!"

The worst part was, everybody else seemed to like Lexie. Izzie, although somewhat wary of the woman and rarely home anymore anyway because she was spending most of her time at Alex's, was friendly towards her, George was completely enamoured with her (Cristina claimed it was a crush, and it was probably because Lexie was so much like Meredith if Meredith was bright and shiny, although – personally – Meredith didn't see any resemblance), and even Derek liked her.

In fact, Derek liked Lexie quite a bit. Not in the same way he liked Meredith – that was clear, and she trusted him, anyway – but in a little sister kind of way that made Amelia dislike Lexie all the more than she already did. Derek had taken to tutoring Lexie a little, telling her stuff about his surgeries and explaining things. Meredith could tell he liked it, for the first time actually seeing that part of Derek Shepherd which had always seemed to long for the simple profession of being a high school biology teacher.

The hospital adored Lexie. They probably shouldn't have, seeing as she was Meredith's sister and they hated Meredith, and also she cheated on Mark even if he did cheat too, but they did. She was chirpy and naïve and she was nice to the nurses, and it was enough. The fact that she was pregnant probably helped.

However, today, when Meredith made her way down to the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine in preparation for Derek, she found no Lexie in the kitchen.

She wasn't 'nesting', or ruining perfectly good pickles with maple syrup and ice-cream, or making pros and cons lists about the names Sylvie and Elsa.

Meredith assumed that she was just asleep.

But then she was hit by her feeling. Her bad feeling.

Something wasn't right.

Apologies for any mistakes. As always, thank you for the reviews! And sorry if yours didn't post, because there seems to be a bit of a problem right now where either the reviews post really late, or they appear in my thingy really late, so – again – sorry if I didn't reply to your review.

Gguest - don't we all hate Lexie? She gets in the way of Maddison, and Mark totally should have left the preschooler for Addie on the show. However, that being said, I do plan on her sticking around a while, until like season eight-ish of my timeline, I think only really because of something I need her to do about season seven-ish in my timeline. On the other hand, we may be guest-starring Sam in a few chapters! Thanks for loving my story!

Irony-FLD - I'm glad you like this! I'm not sure how to make Mark a little jealous on Addison's part, but I'll try and incorporate it. If Sam does make a guest appearance, there'll at least be a little jealousy of a different kind. :)

Patsy –there was a little MerDer in this chapter! I think. I hoped you liked it, anyway. I've always thought Lexie was a sort of April Kepner character in that she got on the show, and people didn't like her, and then she was paired with Mark even though he clearly belongs with Addison, and suddenly people liked her. I'm not sure how her and Lexie's relationship will develop in this story. Thanks!

Guest - ¡Gracias! Bebé Ella Montgomery es sin duda una posibilidad en este punto! Thanks for reviewing, and sorry because I used google translate to write this so it's almost definitely all wrong.

Kae (I'm just hoping both reviews by Kae were by the same person, sorry) – wow, you're perceptive. But is Addison pregnant? Maybe I'm just littering the story with red herrings to confuse you. Maybe I'm going to make even Addison think she's pregnant, only for her to come up with a load of negative pregnancy tests. Maybe she's actually got cancer. Or maybe she is pregnant and in a few years Addison will be cheering on little towheaded Ella as she plays soccer. You'll probably find out, like, next chapter. Thanks for liking this and reviewing!