Meredith was worried. She hadn't managed to talk to Derek after he yelled at Izzie the day before. It should have been easy to track someone down at the hospital, but she hadn't been able to. She had tried paging him, but he hadn't responded. He hadn't shown up at her house that night either. At this point, she didn't know what to think.
Izzie hadn't really given her any details about the fight she had with Derek, just that it was about Addison and Alex. Meredith could not understand how he could be so upset about this. It wasn't like she expected him to not care about Addison at all. He had been married to her for a long time. She even understood that part of him would probably always love Addison. She was okay with that. Derek had chosen her. But she couldn't help but worry that maybe Derek was starting to regret that choice. Why else would he be so angry about Addison moving on?
Meredith pulled on her scrub top and slammed her locker door shut. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Instead of facing her and talking to her about what was going on, he was avoiding her completely. He had been distant for days now, ever since he found out about Addison and Alex. But at first he had at least talked to her and worked things out. Now she couldn't even find him.
She walked through the locker room door, and found herself face to face with Derek. Meredith pushed passed him and kept walking.
"Meredith!" Derek called out as he hurried after her. "Meredith, can we please talk?"
Meredith shot him a dirty look. "Maybe I don't want to talk to you, Derek. I was ready to talk yesterday, after you dragged friend into an empty room to scream at her. I was ready to talk last night, after I repeatedly paged you. I was ready to talk last night after I stopped by the trailer. I was ready to talk then. Now? I don't feel like talking."
"Meredith," Derek pleaded.
"I have rounds, Derek." Meredith started walking faster, and Derek let her go.
Meredith let out an angry sigh as she continued walking. She knew she'd have to talk to Derek later, but right now she was too upset. She noticed her fellow interns up ahead, and hurried to join them.
"Hey guys."
Cristina looked at Meredith, a concerned expression on her face. "Are you okay? You look mad. Did you ever manage to find McDreamy last night?"
Meredith shook her head. "I just ran into him by the locker rooms. Now he's ready to talk."
"Shepherd's a jerk," Alex said simply.
Izzie slapped his arm. "Not helping, Alex."
George looked at Alex a little awkwardly. "Hey, Callie wanted me to ask you if you and Addison wanted to go out for drinks tonight."
Alex raised an eyebrow, "Torres wants to double-date?"
George shrugged; it was obvious he was embarrassed. "She's all excited about having another couple to do things with."
Alex shook his head, making small-talk with O'Malley and Torres wasn't exactly how he wanted to spend his night, but he knew Addison would probably be all for it. Reluctantly, Alex nodded his head. "I don't think we've got any plans. I'll ask her when I see her."
"Okay, everybody. I have your assignments. Grey and Karev, you're with Burke. O'Malley, Shepherd. Yang, you're with Montgomery and Doctor Stevens, you've got Doctor Sloan." Bailey stood before them, reading from her clipboard.
Meredith breathed a sigh of relief, glad she wasn't assigned to work with Derek.
"Anyone want to trade with me?" Izzie asked.
"No trading!" Bailey admonished. "Anyway, Sloan asked for you. Now lets go people, we have rounds to do."
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Izzie wondered why Doctor Sloan had asked for her. She couldn't help but think it was probably some sort of punishment. He'd most likely stick her with some sort of gross grunt work to get back at her for yelling at him last night. One thing was for sure; it was going to be a very long day.
"Doctor Sloan?" Izzie approached the Nurses' Station where Sloan was looking over a chart.
Sloan glanced in her direction and pushed a coffee cup toward her. "Here."
Izzie looked at the coffee cup in surprise. "You got me coffee?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Izzie asked, very confused.
Mark flipped the chart closed and began to walk, Izzie hurrying after him.
"It's not a diamond ring, Doctor Stevens, it's a cup of coffee. Does it really need to be questioned?"
Izzie wrinkled her nose in thought. "You know, I really think it does."
"You know what? Now I'm just going to take it back."
He reached for the coffee cup, but Izzie held it away from him.
"You can't take it back. I just want to know why you gave it to me." Izzie went to take a sip, then hesitated. "You didn't spit in it or anything, did you?"
Mark sighed. "Yeah, Stevens. I spat in your coffee. Because apparently I'm 15 years old."
Izzie winced at the sarcasm. "Okay, okay. Sorry." She took a drink. "I'm confused, that's all. I was fairly sure you hated me. After all, I hate you."
"No, you don't."
Izzie blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"
Mark shrugged. "You don't hate me. I'm too charming to hate."
Izzie snorted. "You weren't very charming when you were yelling at me yesterday."
"Well, you were actually quite charming when you were yelling at me."
Izzie decided to ignore that new, rather disturbing, information and press on. "So, you're not mad at me?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Mark stopped walking and looked at her. "You're not actually going to make me say it, are you?"
"Say what?" Izzie was getting frustrated. It was like she had she had been thrown into somebody else's conversation.
"You weren't wrong," Mark said grudgingly.
"I wasn't wrong about what?" Izzie asked.
Mark let out a sigh. "About Addison. She's happy. She wouldn't be happy with me. She can't be happy with me. Not after everything that happened."
Izzie started to respond, but Mark held up a hand to stop her.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm still pissed. Karev's not good enough for her. But Addison deserves to be happy. And if he's what she needs right now, I'm not going to interfere."
Izzie studied him appraisingly. He actually seemed genuine. She was again seeing the part of him that he had shown her the other night when they had gone to Joe's.
Izzie nodded. "Okay. I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"No, you're not." Mark started walking again and Izzie followed.
"You don't think I'm sorry?"
"Nope. But that's okay. I probably deserved it. And I heard you yelled at Derek too, that makes up for it. Besides, it made me realize something. Other than the fact that I need to get over Addison, I mean."
"What's that?"
"We're going to sleep together."
Izzie almost choked on her coffee. "What?!"
"I've decided to seduce you." He said it so matter-of-factly that he might as well have said he decided he wanted her to get his patient's vitals.
Izzie stopped in her tracks. "You realize I could file sexual harassment charges against you, right?"
Mark stopped walking as well, and turned back to look at her. "You could. But you won't."
"And why won't I?" Izzie asked, folding her arms over her chest.
Mark smirked. "Like I said before, I'm very charming."
Izzie just stared at him, and he started moving once again.
"Are you coming or not?" Mark called over his shoulder. "We've got a patient to check in on."
Izzie shook her head, but quickly hurried to catch up. He may be crazy, but Izzie wasn't about to give up a surgery because of it.
"I still hate you," she muttered when she caught up with him.
"No," Mark said simply. "You really don't."
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A/N: Sorry it's been so long since I updated. I needed to talk a little break from this fic to try to get a better handle on where I was going with it. And I know, there wasn't any Alex /Addison in this part. Sorry. There will be more next time, it just didn't fit here. Mark was really fun to write this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed him. It's time to bring on the Mizzie action!
Next chapter: The double date. Meredith and Derek talk. Izzie considers the Mark thing.
(Oh, and a comment on the Meredith/Derek thing. I'm not a Mer/Der fan, but it just sort of works for this story. I'm not going into gooey-romance territory, but it'll give a better view of what's going on in Derek's head now.)