Chapter 14 – When No One Is Around Love Will Always Love You

"I never cried as a kid."

Mark was sitting on Dr. Wyatt's couch. Twenty-five minutes had passed and these were the first words he'd said other than mumbling, "Hey," when he'd first arrived and "Thanks," when she offered him a seat. Most of that time had been spent trying to suppress the only too familiar prickle of tears behind his eyes.

"Now I can't fucking stop," he added quietly, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply in a futile effort to prove himself wrong this time.

Dr. Wyatt reached forward and handed him a box of tissues. He took one and scrubbed it over his eyes and blew his nose, then caught her eye, guardedly grateful. It was a simple, well-timed act. He knew it was just a routine part of therapy; that she must get through truckloads of tissues and handing the box over was just a professional reflex. But she had noticed, without commenting or asking for an explanation (he assumed that would come later, but for now, she'd let it go and somehow that mattered) and she had been kind at the right time and that mattered too.

"I never let myself cry," Mark said. "I never wanted to let her see me cry."

After that he sat in silence, lost in a kind of absence of thought that completely filled his mind, not noticing time passing, until Dr. Wyatt said, "That's it for today."

That was the first session. Then he went back to his room and slept.

"When I first got diagnosed with cancer, I guess I wasn't really planning on staying alive. Does that count?"

Dr. Wyatt had asked if he ever had thoughts about suicide. She'd raised the subject of his leaving the psych ward, wanting to set a goal, and he had panicked, blurting out stuff he could barely even remember now, less than five minutes later, about his house and the lake and how he didn't know who he was and couldn't cope.

"You weren't planning on staying alive?" she asked carefully.

Mark sighed. "It was . . . is . . . I don't know . . . I'm supposed to be in remission but I only found out a few days ago and it's only been a year, so who the fuck knows?" He sighed again and made a decision to be optimistic about this one relatively simple thing in his life. "It was advanced duodenal cancer. It doesn't have a great remission rate. I was in pain. My best friend hated me and the woman I loved had given up on me and run away to L.A. and I was stuck in Seattle and I thought," until a few days ago, the words had lost their relevance; now they were back to haunt him, "death would be the easy way out."

She paused. "Do you feel that way now?"

Mark looked into her eyes. "Right now?" he asked. "Honestly?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, pretty much," he admitted. "But it's not . . . I'm not looking to find the nearest scalpel and off myself. You don't have to worry." He paused, then said very quietly, "If I was going to do that, I already would have. Trust me." He inhaled and ran a hand through his hair. "I thought about it . . . when the memories first came back." Between leaving Callie and Derek finding him. "But I didn't and I won't. Accumulating random acts of self-destruction is more my style." He attempted a kind of smile. "I, uh . . . for a while, it was different, though." Because of Meredith. "I had someone and she made it seem worth fighting; worth living." He gave one soft, bitter laugh. "But that's done. I screwed it up, of course. So now," he shrugged, "I have surgery and not letting my mother win and that's it."

"Is that enough?" she asked. "To want to live?"

"No," Mark said, watching as Dr. Wyatt carefully controlled her reaction. She was good, he had to give her that. She had gotten him to trust her enough to talk honestly without appearing to do anything. His shrink in New York had a tendency to show off her skills, while he deflected her questions, covered up his feelings and ached inside; this one was more like him at his best, making intricate cuts and doing sutures you couldn't see. "But living and staying alive are two different things. It's enough to want to stay alive."

That was the second session. Somehow, he got through it without crying. He didn't know whether that was progress, or because he was numb, or because there weren't enough tears to express what he was feeling right now.

"Excuse me," Meredith said tentatively. She had finally made it up to the fifth floor and she was shaking and trying to hide it.

The resident sitting behind the counter looked up and slid back the unwelcoming protective Perspex. "Yes?" he said, then his face fell. "Dr. Grey," he said wearily.

She smiled, trying to seem appeasing and un-surgeon-like, despite the fact she was wearing her scrubs and lab coat. "I'm not . . . I'm not here as myself," she said, earning a raised eyebrow. "I'm here to see Dr. . . . Mark Sloan. Is he allowed visitors?"

The resident consulted a list. "I'll have to check with his doctor," he said, picking up the telephone receiver. He indicated the waiting area. "Take a seat over there and I'll let you know."

"Thank you," Meredith said, then half turned away, before asking, "Uhm, is there anywhere I can get coffee?"

"Not allowed," he said curtly. He leaned forwards and pointed irritably to a notice stuck underneath the window. No sharp objects. No cell phones. No caffeine.

"Of course. I get it," Meredith said, flinching inside at the stark inhospitality of the place. As a doctor, she knew all these rules were for good reasons; as a visitor, they brought home the awful reality of Mark's situation.

"You have a cell phone?" he asked accusingly. A little empathy might have been nice, but she guessed he was only doing his job. She figured it was the surgeon thing, because he seriously couldn't be this unpleasant to regular visitors. "If you have one, you'll have to leave it with me."

"No." Meredith shook her head rapidly. "No cell phone. Just my pager." She tried the appeasing smile again. "No scalpels either. Look!" She spread her hands open and let out an almost frantic nervous laugh.

The psych resident merely glared, indicated the waiting area again and went on with his call, while Meredith wandered away towards the seats. Looking around, trying to occupy her mind, she noticed that there was something slightly shabbier, slightly more depressing about the psych waiting area. On the surgical floor, everything was newer, plusher and somehow better lit. Again, it hurt her a little to think of Mark being here. She wondered if he was lonely; whether Derek or Callie or anyone else - the Chief, maybe - had been to see him. Or whether, literally, as Alex had said, he'd been left alone to deal with it all by himself.

A chill crept over her shoulders and spine and the shaking got a little bit worse, so she sat down on the edge of the nearest seat and squeezed her hands between her knees, closing her eyes to try to find some composure.

"Dr. Grey?"

Meredith looked up to see an older woman, wiry, with sharp, intelligent eyes, scrutinizing her. She felt the nervous smile return as she jumped up from her seat too quickly, the tremor in her legs causing her to lose her balance very slightly

"Yes. That's me. I'm Dr. Grey . . . Meredith Grey. Yes."

"Meredith?" the woman asked curiously, putting her head on one side and, when Meredith nodded she nodded back, as though she had found the answer to some kind of puzzle. "I'm Dr. Wyatt, Dr. Sloan's psychiatrist. I understand you'd like to see him."

Meredith felt her pulse rate increase and registered a sudden desire to pee. She felt as though she were being assessed – quite probably as insane and unfit and she half-expected to be ordered off the psych floor there and then. "Yes," she said, swallowing to lubricate her throat.

"What's your relationship with Dr. Sloan?"

Meredith's eyes briefly met Dr. Wyatt's. A routine question, but another assessment. She wondered if Mark had talked about her and, if so, what he had said.

"I work with him," she began, tentative again, but then the rest rushed out in a blur of evasive, semi-contradictory words. "I'm a surgical resident. And we. . . . we used to date . . . at one time. We're friends, kind of."

Dr. Wyatt very slightly raised one eyebrow, but the expression cleared before Meredith had time to think about what it might mean. She narrowed her eyes, weighing something up. "Okay," she said finally. "But he's asleep and I'd rather you didn't wake him. Can you wait?"

Meredith nodded. She could wait. She still wasn't entirely sure she was going to get further than the waiting area anyway.

"I'll have the resident on duty let you know when you can go in." Dr. Wyatt went on. "Dr. Sloan's in room 5423. It's good that someone's visiting him." She paused, then smiled kindly. "He's doing okay. It's not easy for him, but he's making progress. It's good that you're here."

"What's wrong with him?" Meredith asked, encouraged by the psychiatrist's words.

Dr. Wyatt tilted her head to one side. "I can't tell you that," she said, "and . . . I'd prefer if it you didn't ask him when you see him. He'll tell you if he wants you to know."

"I understand," Meredith said. She didn't really – well, again, the doctor part of her did; the scared out of her mind visitor part just felt even more anxious and exposed. She sank back down on the seat, resuming the same posture, hands jammed between tight knees, as Dr. Wyatt walked away.

Ten minutes later, the urge to pee became too great to ignore and, after a brief conversation with the surly resident, Meredith found her way to the bathroom. As she washed her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror and wondered what exactly she was doing here. It would be so easy to walk away – to go back down in the elevator and bury herself in the safety of being a surgeon. When she worked she almost forgot; she'd had a lot of practice with almost forgetting and she figured, in the end, the way her heart ached and the way she hated him and longed for him at the same time would fade away to the subliminal place where she stored all the other half-remembered pain.

She splashed her face with cold water and breathed in. Although her pulse was racing now, she could breathe. She could breathe without him. That was all that was necessary – to keep breathing, act like she was fine and, in the end, it would get better. She was going back down in the elevator; she was going to work; she was going to almost forget.

But, exiting the bathroom, a secure hallway to her left caught her eye, falling away behind a heavy door, protected by card entry and with the words Psych. Dept. Staff Only in dark block letters against the reinforced glass window. Her stomach dropped – the room numbers were 5412 – 5420 and Mark quite clearly didn't belong in that hallway but, once again, the stark encounter with his reality shocked her. She turned away quickly, then saw another hallway, unsecured, the first door displaying the number 5421.

Maybe if she just got a look at him, that would be enough? She could check on him, she would know that he was okay and then she could move on. Looking around for staff, she walked more decisively than she felt to room 5423 and pushed the door open.

He was sleeping, curled on his side on top of the bed, facing into the room. Meredith stood in the doorway, hesitating, looking over her shoulder. This was what she wanted, right? To see him and go? So she should go now; she should go . . . but something drew her inside the room.

She walked in slowly and, after hovering for a few seconds, sat down on the couch, pressed at the end furthest away from Mark and nearest the door, hands once again squeezed between tight knees.

Lost in sleep, Mark breathed slowly in and out and, by some kind of emotional osmosis, his calmness started to calm her and she relaxed, freeing her hands and leaning against the arm of the couch. She wondered if he was cold. She had dreaded seeing him a hospital gown – she hated seeing him broken; and there were too many memories of a year ago when she'd sat with him and held his hand and they had begun to fall in love. But seeing him out of bed and fully dressed – jeans, a black sweater, socks – was unexpected. She wondered if that was part of the progress Dr. Wyatt had talked about – it had to be some kind of good sign. But his skin was pale and somehow drier than she remembered it, and his hair seemed grayer. Drinking and sickness and stupidly long hours had left him looking creased and rumpled in the last couple of days before they broke up. But now that his beard was overgrown by three more days, the unkemptness of the usually immaculately trimmed facial hair tore at her heart a little. He had lost weight – he lost weight quickly if he didn't eat. Meredith wasn't a nurturer – but any abilities she had for it, Mark brought out. Perhaps it was falling in love with him when he had cancer; perhaps it was the off-hand, teasing way he nurtured her. She closed her eyes and inhaled. She had known it was a mistake to come up here: she couldn't be in the same room with him and not care about him. She couldn't just check on him and go.

He stirred, giving a groan as he shifted position slightly and she held her breath, waiting for him to wake up. She didn't know what she would do if he woke up. Without words, without the need to acknowledge their history, here with him without his knowing it, it was okay. She could balance on the edge of love and pain and more or less bear it and it was . . . okay.

She yawned, unintentionally settling back on the couch. He still made her feel safe. He had hurt her – physically and with his awful words – and let her leave his house and his life with a kind of cruel casualness that she couldn't remember without reliving the pain. But in this unspoken world they were sharing, she couldn't help herself – he made her feel safe, exactly as he always had, and she let herself give in to it.

There was a blue pillow on the couch and she picked it up and cradled it, burying her chin in the soft, puffed-up fabric. It wasn't a bad room. More or less like a surgical patient room and not as shabby as the waiting area. Perhaps they had given him a special one – who knew? Her thoughts were wandering now – avoiding the realizations that had just exploded on her - and her eyes began to close. That was the safe thing again. She loved sleeping next to him, in the same bed, in a chair in the same room; she was exhausted; and even though she fought against sleeping, knowing she couldn't, her instincts won and her eyes closed.

When Mark opened his eyes and saw Meredith asleep on his couch, he thought he was dreaming. This wasn't something he dreamed about; her, here, in this room. All his dreams of her were from the past; he had killed any hope of a present or future with her and even his subconscious seemed to have gotten that message. She moaned – a small sound that seemed almost contented and slightly shifted the position of her head against her arm – and when Mark's ears took in the sound, physically audible and carried on the airwaves between them, he knew this was really happening.

She was sitting, her neck bent awkwardly, as though she had fallen asleep unintentionally. He found himself smiling. That was okay, right? She wouldn't know; she wouldn't ever have to know that she had made him happy for the first time in days just by being in his room, sleeping, on his couch, as though their lives were normal. It felt wrong, almost dirty, as though his happiness would harm her. But she was asleep and she wouldn't know.

There was a noise in the doorway and Mark propped himself up just in time to intercept one of the residents. "No," he mouthed and shook his head and, after a brief, questioning look, the resident accepted it and left Meredith alone. She shifted again, twisting her neck, and Mark longed to pick her up and rearrange her; save her from the aches and stiffness that sleeping that way would bring. But he had lost the right to care for her that way, so he contented himself with watching her breathe and matching his breath to hers. He breathed easier with her. He had talked to her a lot about love, and he had meant it; but love was easy to mistake in his life and it had been a learning process. Now though he knew without any doubt that this, with her, had been the real thing.

Meredith gave a little snore and jerked her head. Mark froze, wanting her to stay asleep just a little longer so that this didn't have to end. But her eyelids flickered open and Mark felt his stomach clench with the beginning of loss. Her eyes widened and looked directly into his. She didn't know where she was; all she saw was him and, for one second, that was okay; that was good. Her lips turned up into a slight smile and he couldn't help responding. The affectionate greeting didn't make it past his lips, but in his head he said, Hey.

Then he watched her expression change from softness to alarm as she came back to the unforgiving present. She sat up, no longer quite looking at him, pushing aside the pillow she had been holding, and pressed her knees together.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have . . . " She looked down at her lap as she ran out of words. "Are you feeling any better?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah." Mark pushed himself into a sitting position. "I guess. Thank you." Colliding with their painful reality hurt, but he owed it to her not to show that.

"That's good," she said quickly. She smoothed down her scrubs nervously, then started picking at a loose thread on the arm of the couch.

"You're working today," Mark commented, wondering where he'd found the presence of mind for this banality.

She nodded. "You're . . . I thought you'd be wearing a gown. I didn't expect . . . "

"I'm supposed to get out of here in a couple of days," Mark said. "My shrink seems to think wearing real clothes will help with that." And maybe they would if they hadn't been the ones, retrieved from his locker, he'd put on the morning after he raped Meredith. He closed his eyes. That was the very first time he'd allowed himself to use the word – up until now, he had found one euphemism after another. Confronting himself, now, with her sitting opposite him, with the verbalized truth of what he had done was almost too much to deal with.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Mark opened his eyes again. "Yeah, Meredith. Yeah." He couldn't help his voice taking on an inappropriate caress. He loved her; he was bad for her, but he loved her and he couldn't help that showing through.

"You don't want to leave?"

He shook his head. "It's complicated," he said. It was safe here – he hated that he felt that way, but this room, this ward, the staff, the therapy, the sedatives, the IV if he didn't eat or drink – it was safe. Going back outside scared the shit out of him. He sighed. "Meredith. You don't have to be here. It's nice that you came, but —"

"You don't get to decide that," she broke in, her voice suddenly strong.

Mark nodded. "Okay." He crossed his arms over his diaphragm and folded into himself, bowing his head. She was right; he didn't get to decide.

"Alex," Meredith said. "Alex said I should . . . he wanted me to see you."

From somewhere inside his pain and shame, Mark could feel some lost part of himself narrowing its eyes and uttering a sardonic, "Karev said . . . ?" But, really, he wasn't that guy anymore. Instead, he just hunched slightly further into himself. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Meredith didn't reply, but her breathing quickened.

"I know it's not worth anything. But you should know that I'm sorry." It was inadequate, but it was all he had to give her. All except one thing: because he knew now that he had to let her go.

Several minutes passed in silence, then Meredith said, "I might want . . ." She swallowed. "Do you want me to forgive you?"

Mark forced himself to look up and into her eyes. "No," he said softly.

"No?" she asked.

"What I did . . . that isn't forgivable." He made himself breath. "I can't forgive myself and I can't let you forgive me."

"You're shutting me out?" she demanded. Her voice was overlaid with dullness, but it was an accusation and full of pain. "Again? I give you chances and I offer to forgive you and you shut me out. I don't . . . I just . . . sometimes . . . " She took a deep breath. "You're here. You're a psych patient. I've known that for three days and I left you here, by yourself and I don't know how I did that." She shook her head slightly. "I'm becoming someone I don't know. I've run away from myself so much that I can't talk to Cristina, because she knows who I am and that terrifies me. And you . . . I don't know how to be in this world and not care about you. So I have to forgive you; I have to forgive you and you have to let me. Except . . . I don't know how to. I don't know how to forgive what you did and," she looked at him desperately, "what you said."

Then she cried, almost motionless on the edge of the couch, almost without sound except for her ragged breaths. "Why?" she asked.

"Mer, don't," Mark said, using her nickname without thinking. She didn't respond; she just fought to stop crying.

Mark hesitated for a moment, then he stood up, picked up the box of tissues by the bed and walked towards her. If he had given it any thought, he would probably have stayed where he was. But he didn't know how not to care about her either and, even though he had to let her go, he couldn't do it, this time, anything less than gently.

"Mer," he said uncertainly. She still didn't respond. "Mer, can I . . . ?" He wanted to touch her, but he didn't know how she would take that and he didn't want to frighten her or make her angry. Instead, he knelt down in front of her and pushed the tissues towards her.

"Did I do this to you?" she asked. "The almost cheating . . . the bad sex . . . talking about stuff you hate? Did I do this?"

"No, Meredith. No. God, if either of us did this, it was me." He sighed: the If either of us did this – that wasn't fair on her. He wasn't going to tell her the details, so that wasn't fair. "It was me," he repeated without the qualification that only helped him.

"It wasn't just about sex," she said. "I loved you."

"I know." He nodded. "I know that." His heart was breaking for her. "Here," he pulled out a tissue and handed it to her, setting the box down. "I'm not worth this, Mer. You've got to get that. I'm not worth this pain." He sighed. "Something happened to me. Something I'd forgotten about. That's the reason I'm here and that's the reason . . ." it killed him to say this, but it had to be done, "I'm never going to be able to love you how you deserve to be loved."

"Your family?" Meredith asked cautiously.

"Yeah," Mark sighed. "My family." He paused. "I never had any business loving you. You can't forgive me because this . . . you and me . . . it's never going to work out. We've gone too far now and we're . . ." He couldn't quite bring himself to finish.

Meredith looked at him and he watched her eyes transition from pain, to argument to a kind of resigned acceptance. "We're over," she said steadily and used the tissue to wipe her eyes and face.

Mark nodded, then dropped his gaze to the floor.

Neither of them moved until suddenly, in a gesture she retracted almost before it began, Meredith ran her fingers through his hair. Then she stood up abruptly, pushing him away from her and left without another word.

The third session was brutal.

"She said she wanted a baby, she just didn't want one with me." Something else he hadn't cried about, because it was tacitly agreed between him and Addison that he had no feelings, not even when his heart had just been crushed. "How about that, huh? I'm so bad I can't even be a sperm donor." He shook his head. "Tragic thing is, she was probably right."

"Right about what?" Dr. Wyatt asked.

"Me," he replied quietly. "She thought I was only good for sex; she thought I'd make a terrible father." He inhaled. "Well, my father was a fucking bastard and I pretty much became him – I work and I fuck and I screw people over. The older I get, I even look like him. And then," he looked into Dr. Wyatt's eyes and swallowed, "my own mother thought I was only good for sex, so . . . " He trailed off and shrugged. "Who the hell would want a baby with my DNA?"

Dr. Wyatt studied him. "Dr. Sloan, your mother's actions weren't caused by any flaw in you," she said quietly. "But our pasts can cause us to act in ways that are detrimental to us; even unconsciously recreate trauma. Do you think you did that with Addison?"

"I loved her," he said. "I wanted a family with her."

"But she was your best friend's wife," she persisted.

"They weren't working," Mark said. "I loved her. I just wanted a chance."

"A chance she couldn't give you, in a situation that was tied up with your surrogate family." She leaned forward. "You take it to mean something about your worth as a human being. But all it shows is that you sought out an impossible situation where you could recreate the pain of your childhood."

"I thought you were supposed to be on my side," Mark muttered. "What's coming next, huh? That when that failed, I moved on to Meredith for the same reasons?"

"You tell me," she said, then added, "I met Meredith yesterday."

"You met her?" he asked, momentarily captivated by the idea that Dr. Wyatt had met her and he could talk about her and be understood and, when the doctor nodded, said, "She's beautiful, isn't she?" He had been thinking about her all night. Then, brought back to reality, he let out a grunt of bitter laughter. "Anyway I'm pretty sure you've heard that story. Fits your theory kind of neatly, doesn't it?"

Dr. Wyatt shrugged slightly. "I hear things. I try to avoid the details, though. Gossip rarely reveals anything worth knowing. Tell me about her."

"What do you want to know?" Mark asked. "That she's another woman I stole from Derek Shepherd? Another woman I hurt? That everything I do is toxic and that I dragged her into the shit with me?" He shook his head. "'Cause I get that that's how it seems – I get that. Hell, that's how it is. But how it feels . . . is that I love her." He inhaled. "I love her. I didn't seek her out; I didn't try to screw it up; I didn't want any of that. Maybe you're right about Addison – it kind of makes sense. But with her . . . with Meredith . . . I just love her."

Title song: Say by Cat Power

Learn to say the same thing
Let us hold fast to saying the same thing
I hope all is well with you
I wish the best for you
When no one is around love will always love you