AN: This chapter wrote itself pretty hard and fast. I kind of found myself being angry at things I didn't even think were even relevant, but I think that's because this particular song by Springsteen is…well, angry to say the least. Though many interpret the song to be a betrayal between friends, I used it in this chapter to speak of betrayal in general.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Though tumultuous, I think it creates a lot of meat between the characters. =) Do let me know what you think!

Chapter Eleven: Backstreets

Hiding on the backstreets, with a love so hard and filled with defeat

She gave the surgery to Graziella.

Part of her knew she was here to learn and, quite frankly, her career was all she at this point. Sabotaging it over a surgery that was happening whether her moral compass was on board or not was beyond stubborn; it was just plain stupid.

But the other part of Lexie could already see the Chief's skeptical face when Mark dropped her name for the surgery. So she gave Graziella the chart and told her to book an OR.

Then she took a seat in the gallery and watched as Mark held out his palm for the scalpel. Posed over the drape sheet, he paused for a moment, his eyes flickering up to meet hers. There was no moment of searching; he had known exactly where she sat. The loops over his eyes made it hard to discern his gaze, what he was thinking, if he was condemning her or just curious.

She was the first to break contact. Ryan offered her some chips and she turned to shake her head no. When she looked back down to the OR, Mark had already started.

At night, sometimes it seemed you could hear the whole damn city crying

Hours later, she was the first to invade the dim space of the room. She took care not to wake the girl as she sat down with her paperwork. Lexie's shift had ended an hour ago, but she'd told Meredith she wouldn't be home for dinner.

Movement came from the bed. Lexie stood, setting her pen aside as she walked to the bedside.

"Hey," she whispered, taking the girl's hand. "No, don't try to talk. Maybe tomorrow." Lexie smiled. "The surgery went perfectly. Dr. Sloan was able to remove the tube and close the incision."

She was rewarded with a drowsy smile. Her lips parted to speak and Lexie once again shushed her. "You can tell me tomorrow," Lexie said gently, giving the hand in hers a small squeeze.

Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be

The next morning Lexie jogged down the hallway while flipping her stethoscope around her neck. She freed her hair and wound it up in a loose bun before entering the room.

"Hello—" her cheery greeting was truncated when she saw Mark already in the room. Smile frozen, she cleared her throat and didn't take any more steps, hesitant about coming closer.

"Morning, Dr. Grey," he said, glancing at her briefly before turning his attention back to their patient.

"Dr. Sloan," she said stiffly. "I just—"

"Came to check up on my patient?"

Lexie swallowed. "I was monitoring her vitals last night so I though I'd stop by."

Mark raised a brow. "Funny," he mused. "I thought Graziella was the resident on this case." He made a notation on the chart. "I seem to remember her in the OR yesterday."

Lexie narrowed her eyes at him before turning to meet the rather curious eyes of the girl in the bed. "How is she?"

"Ask her yourself." He grinned.

"Sore, but good," the girl whispered. Beaming, her smile morphed her features. "Better than good."

Lexie's lips pressed together in an effort to remain professional. But her smile was irrepressible. She sucked in a breath. "That's a nice voice you got there," she finally said, her voice husky.

Then the girl laughed and Lexie felt her eyes moisten. Blinking rapidly, she turned to leave when she heard her speak again. "Have there been any calls for me?"

Mark cleared his throat. "Ah—no, I don't think so. But we can check with the front desk to be sure."

"He'll be here today; I know it."

Lexie exhaled slowly, forcing her spine to relax. Then she kept walking. She wondered if she ever had sounded like that; disturbingly pathetically optimistic about a lover's return. Had it been obvious to everyone but her?

And after all this time, to find we're just like all the rest

Once she left the room, she went to the nurse's station to get her next assignment. Before he could even speak, Lexie knew what the young man waiting for assistance would ask.

"Hello," he said, taking in her scrubs. "I was wondering if you could tell me where—"

"Your wife is?" she filled in, her tone so antagonistic, she could barely recognize it.

His eyes blinked twice before he nodded his assent. "I heard they removed the tube—is that true?" Sincere hope lined each angle of his face and he looked so eager to have an undamaged wife, she clenched her hands to keep from physically striking him.

"She's alive," Lexie snapped. "Just—" she shrugged, the gesture filled with caustic casualness. "By the way. In case you were, you know, wondering."

His brow furrowed at the anger she wasn't even bothering to mask. "Is there…" he looked around the hallway. "Are you her doctor?"

"No, I am."

They turned to look at Mark at the same time. The husband's attention left Lexie completely as he directed his questions toward the seemingly more approachable, rational man. "They called me, told me her—" he waved a hand around his neck to gesture in lieu of words. "Is it…fixed?"

The word sent her over the edge. "She's not a vase, or a dog." Her nostrils flared in an endeavor to keep her breathing even. "You took vows. You don't to pick and choose when she's good enough for you."

"Dr. Grey." Mark's interjection was quelling.

Cornered, the husband divided a look between her and Mark and let his eyes rest on the doctor who looked less volatile. "Can I see her?"

"No," Lexie said immediately. "You don't get to be here."

"I can take it from here, Dr. Grey," Mark said tightly, his words a low rumble.

She continued as if she hadn't heard. Stepping closer, she said, "She needed you and you promised her." Shoulders moving with exertion that spoke of extreme fury, she went on: "You promised her that you'd stay, that you'd be there with her—for her—and you left. You left. What kind of person does that?" she demanded.

"Dr. Grey." It was a warning.

Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down

But she was beyond warnings.

"You're a selfish, cruel son of a bitch," she said, her vision blurring until she couldn't even see her target anymore, just a bleary mural of what had once been. Her voice broke, but she pushed forward. "She deserved more from you. She deserves more than you."

"Dr. Grey." Mark's voice, by its very nature, was too deep to constitute as a real yell, but it reverberated through the halls nonetheless.

She stepped back.

"You are so out of line right now," Mark said, the words pushing past his clenched jaw. His hand found her elbow, the heat of it seeping through her lab coat.

She shrugged him off. "Yeah, I got it," she bit back, already walking away. "But he's not, right?"

You can blame it all on me

She was crying by the time she made it to the hallway. Sometimes, when she was lucky, she was a fairly pretty crier. Her cheeks would flush pink, her eyes would swell with tears, making them twice their normal size. Her mouth would tremble and it'd all be rather effective in getting what she wanted. That is, if she was feeling particular manipulative. It had gotten her a bike when she was twelve, a car when she was sixteen.

And then there were other times. Times when pretty was out the door because her nose was invested in the crying jag, too. She sniffed hard, trying to clear her nasal passages because she was all but leaking. Then she exhaled, her eyes rising to the ceiling in a failed attempt to stop being a weepy, lame mess of a woman.

"Damn," she said aloud, to one in particular. "Damn, damn, damn." Sniffing again, she fanned her eyes, working on stemming the flow.

"What the hell was that about?"

Her back straightened as she recognized the voice behind her. "Nothing," she said without turning around, wishing she could have made the word less clogged and more cutting.

He sighed impatiently, still out of her line of vision. "Ask a stupid question, right?"

When she didn't respond, he walked to face her. She turned away by the same degrees. He tried again and still she avoided him.

"I know you're crying," he said. After a beat of silence, he added, "The jig is up."

"Go away."

"I know you feel sorry for yourself, but you can't bring it here."

She laughed humorlessly. "Is that your best sympathetic boss? It needs work."

"I'm not your boss," he said, finally winning the circular dance and catching her face. He ducked his head to meet her watery eyes. Somewhere along the line, she noticed, she'd stopped crying.

Swiping at her damp face with her fingertips, she inhaled deeply. "I'm fine," she said when he just peered at her.

"Right," he agreed, his voice droll. "Which is why you just went batshit on a patient's husband."

Belligerent, she countered with: "Are you going to try to tell me he didn't deserve it?"

"No." It was unequivocal and unexpected.

All she could come back with was, "Oh."

"But it was inappropriate."

She nodded. There was the other shoe. Dropping. "Right."

"Not to mention not even about the patient."

Her head snapped back to meet his eyes. Confidence emanated from him like carbon dioxide. Arms crossed, he looked down at her, his face knowing. "What?"

"Come off it, Grey. It wasn't about her today, and it wasn't about me that night at dinner."

She shook her head and tried to move past him. He wouldn't allow it. "I don't know what you're talking about," she muttered.

"Sure you do." His smile was entirely too light, too easy. Especially for the subject matter. "You're projecting." He had said that to her once before. She'd ignored it then and found it was a pattern worth repeating now.

"That's a mighty big word for an underwear model," she shot back when he once again blocked her retreat.

He let it slide, which angered her further. "It's okay to be angry about George."

Feigning shock, she clapped a hand to her upper chest. "Really?" she asked with mock surprise. "Really, Dr. Phil? Is it? Are you sure?" Gasping her plastic relief, she continued, "Thank you, thank you so much."

Lexie dropped the pretense of caustic joy and simply glared at him. She wasn't used to the venom that burned through her like coffee on an empty stomach; she wasn't used to being so angry, having so much rage and no outlet.

His eyes darkened and for a brief moment, she thought she had pushed him too far. But then they cleared to their normal blue and he said, his voice mocking, "It's what you do with the anger that's important. You can be the kicked puppy. Or you can do something constructive."

Stranded in the park and forced to confess

She glared at him. "You should have told me," she said abruptly. He frowned. "About who you were, why you were here, everything." She licked her dry lips. The tang of salt hit her tongue as she collected a wayward tear. "You should have told me."

He nodded. "You're probably right," he conceded.

"I was the last person to know."

"About me?" he guessed.

She nodded stiffly. "Being the last to know…" she shook her head, words failing her. "It's like the world's laughing at you." Her voice was dull, hollow even as she looked past his shoulder to a corner of the stairwell.

His gaze never broke away from her drying eyes, even if she didn't return the favor. He nodded slowly. "I know," he said, the two words soft. Then, with the awkward cadence of someone in unfamiliar territory, he tried. "I'm sorry."

She nodded her acknowledgement. He figured she'd try to move away again and this time, this time he was prepared to let her seek privacy. But she stayed and, though still not looking at him, she spoke. "People," she started and then stopped. "People shouldn't be allowed to tell you they love when they're planning on leaving." With that, their eyes finally met, naked pain shining in hers. "It's not right," she finished quietly.

He watched as her lips pressed in the way they did when she struggled to rein in her emotions. Then he nodded once, his voice husky and candid, "I know."

She didn't know if she believed him, but she nodded anyway before leaving him sole custody of the stairwell.

There was nothing left to say

But I hated him and I hated you when you went away

AN: Please review!

"Backstreets" is written and performed by Bruce Springsteen.