AN: Buckle in! This is a long chapter but it's worth it in the end!
Before Lexie's even made it to her locker she's stopped by Cristina. "Grey the Chief wants to see you in his office before you round." Nodding, Lexie changes quickly before changing and heading upstairs to Chief Webber's office.
Patricia waves Lexie right in and she knocks on the door. "You wanted to see me Chief Webber?" she asks opening the door.
It takes her less than ten seconds to notice Mark sitting in one of the chairs in the office. "Yes, please take a seat." Webber gestures to the open chair. Taking a seat, Lexie has a feeling this conversation will not be a fun one.
Clearing his throat, Webber looks at both of them. "So I can't say I've encountered before where we have a head of a department married to an intern. Occasionally we get a resident married to an attending, but you two pose a particularly unique situation." The Chief starts and Lexie groans internally.
Before he can continue, Lexie can't help but to butt in. "We're separated. At the moment Mark and I are technically separated, we don't even live together." She can feel Mark's head drop at this, it's true. They're not living together and she came out here without him, without the intentions of ever living with him again.
"Like I was saying," Richard continues looking at both of them. "We have a unique situation on our hands. I just want to make sure that you'll keep your personal business out of the hospital. I trust both of you to act with the utmost etiquette and professionalism. Grey- because you're arguably one of the brightest in your class you're going to run the risk of others claiming favoritism. Between your sister, your friendship with Doctor Shepherd, and whatever the state of this marriage is, I just want you to be prepared. Both of you." From the tone of his voice Lexie wonders if he suspects something is going on or if he just genuinely wants to warn them.
"Doctor Sloan, I expect you to not favor your wife. Estranged or not you need to make sure to treat her with the same decorum that you would treat another intern of a similar caliber." At this Lexie's confused by the Chief's words. It sounds almost like he's expecting Mark to favor her. "This hospital is not a place to try and - uhm, repair your marriage. If you two do follow through with separating or resume living together then I expect you to notify HR as soon as possible." By now Lexie wishes she could leave this office.
Mark nods, his face unreadable. "Understood. Is that all?" Mark asks and Lexie just hopes they can leave. She'd love to pretend this conversation never happened.
Dismissing them with a wave of his hand, Richard gestures towards the door. "That's all. You're free to go on rounds now. And welcome to Seattle Grace Doctor Sloan."
Mark and Lexie all but jump out of their seats and sprint towards the door. "Is it just me or did that feel like getting called to the principal's office?" Lexie asks once they've crossed the catwalk.
"Have you ever been called to the principal's office in your life Lexie? And for an award doesn't count." Mark asks finding it hard to believe that Lexie has ever gotten in trouble in her life. He remembered her worrying about bringing the wrong color pen to an exam, he really can't see her getting in trouble.
Laughing softly she looks back to him. "I'm not sure I've ever gotten in trouble, but I would imagine that conversation is what getting in trouble feels like. I'm sure you would know better than me what getting in trouble feels like." The teasing comes so naturally that Lexie doesn't even know she's doing it until after the words fall from her lips.
Nodding in agreement Mark looks over at her. "You're right there, we both know I spent more than my fair share of time in trouble." The two step onto the elevator, each pressing a different floor. The conversation dies between them as the elevator doors shut.
Lexie's floor comes up first. "I'll see you around." She says slipping out of the elevator just before the doors shut. Leaving Mark in the elevator alone, he runs his hands through his hair, leaning back against the wall. He lets out a deep breath, barely gathering himself before Derek steps on.
"Let me guess, you just had an interaction with Lexie?" Derek teases standing next to Mark on the elevator.
Chuckling Mark drops his hands out of his hair. "We got called into the chief's office this morning. Where we had to promise that our personal life wouldn't get dragged into the hospital, and I had to promise I wouldn't favor Lexie even though she's light years ahead of the other interns in skill and knowledge." Mark explains.
"So basically you got lectured at like high school juniors." It takes everything Derek had to not burst out laughing at the thought of Chief Webber telling them what to do like sullen teenagers. Personally, Derek just wanted to lock them in a closet and see what happened if he left them in there for long enough.
Taking a step off the elevator, Mark falls into step with Derek. "Pretty much. We are to uphold professionalism at all times." Mark couldn't even imagine if they were still together Lexie letting him act with anything but professionalism. Not that he would ever want to put her in a situation like that at work, but Lexie would never let him act like anything other than is proper with her at work.
Across the hospital, Lexie's assigned to the pit for the day. Of all the departments, trauma is not her favorite. Whenever she spent days in the pit she always felt the furthest from saving lives. Death always seemed right around the corner here, and even if they spent all day fighting to save someone, it always seemed like they had too many dead on arrivals that she would get stuck calling.
"Two ambulances, three minutes out!" Owen yelled. Gowning up Lexie moved into the receiving bay.
As the first of the ambulances arrived, Lexie listened as the paramedic read off the stats. "Anna Siegel, Female 25, traveling with husband aged 33. Hit by a drunk driver and pinned against a telephone pole. Female took the brunt of the impact. Lost consciousness at the scene." Lexie takes the side of the gurney and begins to run with it into the trauma room. Behind her she hears the stats of the husband as they unload the second gurney.
"Anna can you hear me?" Lexie asks beginning the exam. To her side the other doctors yell out orders, asking for scans, drugs, and suture kits. Checking her eyes, Lexie sees the responsiveness of her pupils. "Left pupil is dilating slower. Can someone page Shepherd?" Lexie calls out as Anna's eyes both shoot open.
"Jon? Where's Jon?" Anna calls out straining against the table. Lexie gently tries to coax her back down.
"Anna you and Jon were in an accident. Jon's in the room next door getting checked out. Can you tell me what hurts?" Lexie pretty safely assumes that she's a candidate for internal bleeding, and they need a full body CT before moving onward.
"I can't- I need to see Jon. We were arguing when the car hit us. I need to tell him I love him and I'm sorry." She pleads as Lexie keeps trying to keep her patient calm.
Knowing that her patient will do so much damage to herself if she manages to get up off the gurney, Lexie looks her right in the eyes. "He knows. You're married right?" She asks and Anna nods weakly. "He knows that you love him, couples fight and they argue, and they say stupid things. He knows you love him, but you need to lie still so that we can make sure you're okay." She promises. The doctors to her side give her a look as she tries to calm this patient down.
Relaxing suddenly, Lexie watches her BP drop as Anna softly says "Okay." Before Lexie can even put the heavier oxygen mask on her, Anna is seizing.
Just as Lexie's pushing seizure drugs and getting ready to yell about paging Shepherd, Derek comes in the door. "What do we have here?" He asks slipping gloves on his hand.
"Anna Siegel, 25, hit by a drunk driver and pinned against a pole while driving home with her husband. I suspect internal bleeding due to the tenderness over her abdomen. Her pupils are also reacting at different speeds, we just pushed 10mg of lorazepam in an attempt to stop her seizing." Lexie reads off as Anna stops seizing. "I suggested we get a head and full body CT to check for internal bleeding and any intracranial bleeding."
Derek nods in agreement. "Good and Doctor Grey see if you can book an OR for once we've got the scans back." Once they've gotten Anna stable enough to move Lexie begins to push her towards the room with the CT machine.
Once Anna's in the machine Lexie pages Derek to come back and look at the scan. It takes only a few moment for the screen to popup. "She has a massive bleed. We're going to need to operate right away, do we have anyone that can sign a consent form or are we going to need a two doctor signature?" Derek asks.
"We're going to need two doctor signature. Her husband is unconscious in the ER. I'll call down to the OR right now and tell them we're coming." Lexie signs off on the sheet to take her into the OR. While the orderlies get Anna all settled to go down Lexie calls down to get an update on Anna's husband. He's in less than stable condition and they're trying to get him to the OR and get him stabilized.
Running up to the OR, Lexie moves to scrub in while she watches them finish prepping their patient. While she scrubs in, Derek comes in. "This is going to be a difficult surgery, I'm going to need you watch for bleeders. If we're going to prevent permanent damage, we're going to need to move quickly. How's the husband?" Dere asks as they get gloved and gowned.
She shakes her head while the gown gets tied around her. "He's touch and go, they were trying to get him into OR 3 last time I checked. They're going to come update us when he's done." Lexie explains.
Forty-five minutes into the surgery Owen comes into the OR. "Jon Siegel died 20 minutes ago." He says and Lexie feels her heart drop in her chest. All Anna had done while she was in the ER was call out for her husband and now, he's gone. In the end, Anna pulls through barely.
"The next few hours are going to tell us if she's suffered any permanent damage. Doctor Grey I want you to monitor for the next four hours." Derek says as they begin to scrub out. Which is how Lexie ends up seated by her patients beside, doing paperwork and noting the numbers on the monitors.
Suddenly, just before the fourth hour Anna begins to groan. They'd taken the intubation tube out pretty quickly as she had fought it almost the moment the anesthesia had worn off. So far Anna had nothing but good signs, Lexie would just have to break her heart when she woke up.
Once Anna groans again Lexie stands by the bedside waiting for her to open her eyes. When they finally open the patient takes one look at Lexie. "Jon died didn't he." It's not a question, the wife already knows her husband didn't survive the crash.
Sadly, Lexie nods. "He passed away at 5:30 this evening. The damage sustained in the crash was too much for his body to handle. I'm so sorry." Lexie places her hand comfortingly on Anna. Somehow, Lexie manages to make it through the exam, but she watches as her patient falls apart right in front of her eyes. Going from sobbing to catatonically silent in a matter of minutes. Remembering to arrange for a counselor to come speak with her, Lexie stays until Anna falls back asleep, and then goes to notify her extended kin.
By the time she's done all of that, Lexie finally loses it. Sinking down in an abandoned hallway, Lexie lets go of the day. Sobs shake her small form as she replays Anna crying out for her husband in the ER, and the look on her face the moment she processed her husband had died. Even though she's separated from her husband she couldn't help but think about what would happen if she lost Mark. While they weren't together, Lexie needed to know that he was safe. That she would never be the un-updated emergency contact rushing into the ER to find out the love of her life had died. Nothing would change that, regardless of what happened, in the end he would have always been the love of her life. Just sometimes, the love of your life isn't meant to last for your whole life, sometimes they blip in and out. She's so wrapped up replaying it in her head and thinking about what would happen if Mark died that she doesn't notice as someone comes and sits down next to her.
"Lex? You okay?" Of course Mark had found her.
Wiping her eyes she lifted her head to look up at him. "I had to tell my patient that the husband she called out for in the ER died while in surgery. They'd been fighting when a drunk driver ran into them and pinned their car against the pole." Lexie explains looking at him. She's suddenly grateful for her photographic memory, and that she can never forget him.
He runs a hand over her arm comfortingly, wondering where her mind was at right now. "I'm sorry. It's always hard to lose a patient." He hesitates for half a second on what to say next. Instead of saying anything he chooses to just run his hand through her hair, remembering how years ago she said how when she was sick or hurt she liked having her hair stroked.
Without even thinking Lexie laid her head down on his shoulder. "I miss you." She says quietly. "I know I'm the one that left and it doesn't change anything, but my patient today reminded me of you. Somedays are just hard." Lexie knows she should pull herself away, but she just can't bring herself to.
Mar's a little bit shocked to hear her admit it. "I miss you too. I wish you would give us a chance, let me try to fix it." He's cautious here, not wanting to scare her off.
Sighing Lexie gets up. "I wish it was. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have leaned on you. I gave up that right the day I left." She apologizes rapidly and Mark knows he's only got a few moments before she runs.
"Don't worry about it. You can come to me, whenever, with anything. Doesn't matter what's going on between us. I'm here for you." He promises, looking for any way in. Mark's brain is already rolling, coming up with plans.
"Thanks. I"m gonna go check on my patients and get some sleep. Thanks again Mark." Lexie says before walking up.
"Of course, any time." He says and watches her walk off. The moment she turns the corner he turns around and runs at a dead sprint across the hospital. Opening the door to Derek's office, he's panting when he finally gets in the room.
Derek looks up concerned to see Mark standing there breathing so heavily. "I know what to do."
"What?" Derek asks having no idea what's going on.
"I know how I can win Lexie back."
AN: A longgggg chapter. I just couldn't break it up! Thanks for reading and drop me a review if you feel like it!
