Warning: Some cursing and mild language. Rated T.

A/N: Thank you again for your continued support. Please enjoy this next chapter.

Chapter 6

Mark

THAT NAME.

Mark saw red with just hearing Sergei Anatoly's name. He suspected they thought it was because of the beating at the hands of the Russian crime lord, but that wasn't the primary reason.

The reason had been his name coming out of her mouth. He hadn't expected the primal reaction he had when she had said his number one enemy's name. Half of it was because he found her exceedingly attractive and the thought that if he acted on that in anyway, meant that he was bringing her into his world, were she could become susceptible to trouble.

One rule: No attachments.

It had been one of the major reasons that he had been selected for the undercover operation nine years ago. He had been out of the academy a couple of years, and a stellar agent. He had the looks, the ability to profile, and adapt to any hostile situation. Among his caseload, he had the highest closing of cases, and criminals who were brought to justice.

The bureau knew he had no real family other than Derek. Becoming a Special Agent had been his primary choice after his mother had been murdered. Had she lived, maybe in another world, he would have been a doctor and could've crossed paths with Lexie Grey when danger wouldn't be lurking around his every corner.

That wasn't his world.

Not having a family, not having attachments, meant that no one could harm him should his cover be blown, or should he die. He was the bureau's perfect contingency plan.

When Derek had told him that he wanted to join the academy with him, he couldn't have been happier. They were already brothers for life, why not be brothers and partners at work. He trusted no one else as much as he trusted Derek. When they were approached for the undercover assignment, he as the crime boss—gritter and rougher around the edges then Derek was—it was a blessing and a curse.

Derek taking on the role as his number two, meant that he always had someone watching his back, and could easily slip behind the scenes when Mark's movements were more regarded or watched. The only downside, was that the knot in the pit of his stomach should he or they be found out, meant that Derek's life would also be in jeopardy. It was a huge weight and burden to carry to not only ensure he didn't fuck up his cover for himself, but for his brother too.

Which brought him to the other half of why he had gotten so mad when Lexie Grey had uttered Sergei Anatoly's name. It had taken his breath away. Because in that moment, her being anywhere near him, tied to him, meant that she could become a target to Sergei or any of the other crime bosses within Seattle.

The FBI was becoming more and more aggressive. Special Agent Summers and Young were increasingly pushing him and Derek to find ways to get more evidence, do more out of the box things including expanding his operation across the country.

While Derek and Mark agreed this could end up being the FBI's biggest—and most successful—undercover operation to date, meant it could also come crashing down around them if they made the wrong decision and moved to quickly. He had already put nine years of his life into this, put everything on hold for this job, he wasn't about to screw it all up so Summers and Young could try and take all the credit and get Director jobs or higher in their preferred field office.

What worried Mark the most, was if Summers and Young found out that Lexie knew about who they really were, they would push for her to become another chess piece in the game. That would be something that Mark would never allow. He would never allow a beauty like her, someone that had managed to take his breath away, put herself in harm's way for someone like him.

He didn't even know who he was anymore. Seven years undercover having to make the hardest and toughest decisions, watching ruthless crime boss after ruthless crime boss—like Sergei Anatoly—start to muddy the waters between what was right and what was wrong. Most days, he was starting to feel like Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

He frowned, his thoughts going back to Lexie and the hurt on her face when he had dismissed her so carelessly. She was light. She was good. She had it written all over her. Like a beacon, the light that sailors needed to bring their ship home safely.

How easily she could become that light for him. To find his way home. To find himself back to the Mark Sloan he had been nine years earlier before he had muddied the waters.

Life just once again showed him how cruel it could be. He went from one second feeling he could have it all—finding the most gorgeous, smart, caring woman he had ever seen—to then getting decked right across the jaw as a reminder that he couldn't have personal attachments. She was simply off limits to him.

He would hurt himself to protect and spare her from any possible pain.

It didn't help matters that now anytime any other woman floated in his head or tried to flirt with him—like some of the nurses here even tried to do—that they had become irrelevant now that he had laid eyes on Lexie Grey. He was sure there would never be an opportunity to go back to before, and as he learned how to deal with after, it would always be her face in his mind.

The one that got away.

The sacrifices he had to make.

"You want to tell me what that was about?" Derek asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

"No attachments. You know that," Mark stated simply. "How could you even contemplate allowing her to help after what Anatoly did to me?" he asked.

"I'm not asking her to join our club. She could be useful to us here in the hospital. We could use her," he opined.

Mark gritted his teeth. "Is that what we've become. People that just use other people. We can't even tell what is right from what is wrong anymore."

"No, that's…"

Mark's eyes snapped up at his friend, Derek's voice trailing off, as his best friend was looking at him as if he just clicked the final puzzle piece into place.

"You like her," he stated.

"This has nothing to do with liking or anything," he denied.

Derek snorted. "Yes, it does. You like her," he repeated.

"It doesn't matter what or who I like. Dr. Lexie Grey is off limits. Understand?"

It was the truth. It didn't matter if she was the sexiest woman, he had ever laid eyes on. It didn't matter that within minutes of meeting her she ignited a spark he hadn't ever known before within him. It didn't matter that he couldn't recall another single moment in his life that he wanted something as bad as wanting to get to know Lexie Grey. That included him wanting to become a cop to make sure that no kid ever had to deal with the loss he felt when his mother had been taken from him.

Derek crossed his arms over his chest. "There's no one here but you and me. So, your crime boss routine to follow your orders isn't going to work on me now," he rebutted.

"Let it go, Derek," he warned.

"I've never seen you get this worked up before. Care this much about anyone before," he surmised.

His head jerked up towards his friend. "You know why that is. You remember what happened the last time I loved someone. Cared about someone."

Derek released a ragged sigh. "Lexie is not your mother. You are not your father."

His hand clenched into a fist. "My mother was an innocent. She was a good person. She married a shitty person who cared about himself and only himself. He allowed his troubles, brought his dangers into our lives, and she paid the price. All while he skated away without any problems," he replied angrily.

"He didn't skate away without a mark left on his soul. He will always have to live with that," Derek reminded him.

"It should have been him. Not her. Not her," he said, his voice strained.

"The best thing you can do too not be like him is to be the opposite of him. If you don't want to become him, then allow yourself to care. You would never let yourself let anyone you care about get hurt. Betray them. That, I know from experience."

Mark tensed. "It's not going to happen. Let's not discuss it anymore."

Derek sighed. "Can we talk about her sister then? She was kind of cute."

He tried to fight the grin, but he could feel the corners of his mouth turning upwards anyway. "You two were practically in the midst of foreplay right in front of us."

Derek beamed. "And she called me McDreamy," he boasted.

He threw a pillow at his best friend. "There is nothing McDreamy about your ugly ass."

Derek caught the pillow with ease, and laughed. "Your just mad that you didn't get a nickname. Although, I'm sure if you ask Lexie nicely, she would give you one."

He growled. "Not happening."

Derek sat in the chair next to him, throwing the pillow back on the side of his bed. "So, what do you want to do about her knowing about us and the operation?"

He let out a long-exasperated breath, the pain in his head starting to get worse. He knew he should probably tell Lexie that he had a headache that was throbbing, but that would mean she would be checking in on him more frequently and that was the last thing he needed right now. He needed distance from her.

"Nothing. We remind her that she is under strict orders to not mention a word about anything she has heard here today. Do what you have too. Threaten jail time, losing her license, fines, whatever it takes to make her understand how important this is."

Derek pointed at him. "When you keep saying we, you mean you," he clarified.

He glared at his friend. "I mean you."

Derek shook his head automatically. "Oh, no you don't. This is on you."

"But she likes you. You guys seem to have built a good report, and I am still recovering. She will take it better coming from you," he proposed.

"No, I'm not doing it."

Mark grunted in frustration. "Why not?"

"Because I disagree with you. I think she could be helpful to us. She's your doctor, which already gives us the cover for why she comes in to see you. The reasons I know why you like her are the same reasons no one would suspect her—she's got that sweet innocent thing going on—and if your going to throw all of that away because you are too chickenshit to attempt to give it a try like you have everything else in your life, then you are going to be the one to tell her."

He took a deep, slow breath. "Please."

"Nope. Nah. This is on you, my friend."

On cue, the sound of a knock on the open door to his hospital room, Lexie Grey stood in the doorway, looking half unsure, and half like she wanted to rip his throat out. She looked fucking cute as hell.

"May I come in?" she asked.

Derek turned his cat ate the carney grin in his direction. "Perfect timing. I have to go, uh, check-in for another update. Have fun with your check-up."

Lexie looked as if she wanted to cry out and beg Derek to stay and not leave the two of them alone, but she clamped her lips shut and masked the shock from her face that it was just the two of them left in the room.

Once Derek had left, she turned the icy cool stare in his direction. "How are you feeling?" she managed to ask less hostile than she looked.

"I have a bit of a headache," he admitted.

Her hostile expression changing for an instant, before she quickly transitioned back into her doctor disposition. It didn't matter how mad she might have been at him before she had left and even walking into his hospital room right now, she was a medical professional first, and would put everything aside to make sure he was ok.

She was at his side in a moment, looking up to the machine to do a vital check and what else he didn't know. "On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain in your head?"

He debated on what number to give her. The truth, or the guy answer. The answer that said he was macho and it wasn't really painful, just an annoyance. He had only known Lexie for a couple of hours, and he could already sense she wasn't the kind of doctor that like being lied too, or being downplayed when it came to his symptoms.

"About a strong four," he answered.

She frowned. "I'm going to check your bandages," she informed.

He sat still, while he allowed her to go through the motions of checking his bandages, doing her exam including having him following her finger from left to right and asking if he was experiencing any pain. When she was done, she paused to write something in his chart, and then finally met his gaze.

"It's normal to experience headaches after the kind of trauma you experienced. Your recent CT scan before I came in continues to show the surgery fixed the bleed, and the swelling decreased just a tiny bit more, but not as much as the first time. Still good, but I would like to see more. We will continue to watch over the next couple of hours. What you really need is sleep and limited stress," she briefed.

"I don't really have the luxury for stress free."

She clucked her tongue. "Doctor's orders. Unless you want permanent brain damage," she quipped back, some of her walls neatly put back up now that she was less worried that he was going to die on her.

"Lexie, I would like it if we could talk a minute," he said at last.

She pursed her lips. "It's Dr. Grey, and I think you made it perfectly clear the last time I came in here all that you needed to say."

Her walls were definitely back in place, and he hated it. He hated it because he had been the one to put them there in the first place.

"I would like to apologize for how I acted with you."

Her eyes lifted to his face, and he could see she was calculating whether to believe him, or turn tail and run in the other direction. He hated the push pull that he was fighting himself from within. The need to push her away and say something that would likely make her run from him and keep her safe threatened to come from his mouth. But then there was the pull, that his head and heart would grip at him tightly to just hold on a little bit longer. Bask in that warmth and light before he had to immerse himself back in the darkness once again.

As she stood next to his bed, silently contemplating what she was going to do, he took the opportunity just to gaze at her. He would see her look at him and then look away. She wanted to look at him, but then he sensed that same push, pull, reaction within herself as well. He couldn't help but think about how beautiful she looked just standing here looking at him.

"Okay," she said finally.

"I—" he hadn't expected her to agree. He expected her to run, and that suddenly made him tongue-tied.

He was so out of his environment. He didn't chase women. Women came to him. Begged him to pick them. Using any and all techniques from sexy clothes, sexual innuendos, and even dirty talk to get his attention. None of that compared to anything Lexie Grey did. She could sneeze in his face and he was sure it would be the sexiest thing anyone had ever done.

He didn't know why it seemed like every conversation he wanted to have with her was so difficult. He was the best when it came to thinking on his feet and adapting in extreme situations—he scored highest in his class at the academy—and now, he was having a hard time finding any words that would do Lexie the justice she deserved.

"How about you pull up a chair," he finally suggested.

She looked at the chair like it was going to bite her, a shade of pink starting to creep up her neck and to her cheeks. He didn't know if she should be flattered and just as relieved that she was having just as much as a hard time with this conversation as he was, or feel just as bad for her that she was also in this same situation.

She moved the chair towards his bed, but he caught her looking at the distance from the chair to his bedside as if she was calculating how quickly she could bolt from the room if she needed too.

Was he that scary?

She sat down, crossing her right leg over her left. A second later, she switched her legs, her hands fidgeting in her lap as she waited for him to say anything. She looked just like many of the criminals on the witness stand that squirmed from the truth when he knew he had enough evidence to nail them for years to life in jail.

"I promise I won't snap at you again," he offered.

He saw her resistance thaw just a little as she stopped her hands from fidgeting in her lap. Her eyes looked up to meet his, searching to see if there was truth to what he was saying. He realized in that moment, how much his anger earlier must've upset her and he cursed himself for having done it.

"Do I scare you?" he asked suddenly, the words flying out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Lexie looked up at him, the line between her eyes making him frown. A moment later, she shook her head, and strangely he knew her response was the truth. She knew the kind of life he led—albeit knowing now he was one of the good guys at the end of the day—she had seen what his job had done to him. She had even felt his wrath within a blink of an eye. She had a reason to be scared of him, to want nothing to do with him, and yet, here she sat.

"You never scared me," she admitted. "Why did you react that way when I mentioned…his name?"

He did his best to keep his face neutral and not let that anger that fear he kept under locked and key from so long ago. Lexie was not his mother. She would not face the same kind of fate because of a Sloan.

"He's a dangerous man," he answered.

"Yeah, I get that. Everyone you potentially work with are dangerous. They are in the mob." she paused. "He's the leader of the Russian's, isn't he?"

"Was," he corrected.

"Is…did…you have him…"

"Killed?" He asked for her when she couldn't get the word out. Her head moved up and down to signal that had been her question. "No. I'm a cop. Killing people is sorta the opposite of what we do. He'll be taken into custody, interrogated, and then put somewhere with no communication coming in and out. Everyone in the mob will think he's dead," he replied.

"Have you ever had to kill someone to keep your cover?" she asked.

He took a deep breath. "No, thankfully. We've been lucky that with our intel and plants within the organization that if something needed to escalate, we can have time to prep to make it look like we killed them." He paused and met her gaze. "I have had to watch people die in front of me. People that I couldn't save without Derek and I blowing our covers."

Her face fell, her eyes softening at whatever emotion his face must've betrayed him by showing it to her. He was usually more careful about being able to keep his emotions under lock and key. For some reason, just sitting here, with Lexie, talking about his world and the awful things he had to say and do was cathartic.

"How do you do it?" she asked. "I imagine that has to be hard knowing you can't stop the very thing happening in front of you. How do you do it?" she repeated.

As she stared up into his eyes, he slowly started to feel all those years of closing himself off, building the walls, pushing people away start to come down little by little. He should stop it from happening, but he couldn't seem to stop it.

"Much like I would assume what you do as a doctor. You focus on the fact that what you do saves lives. That all the sacrifices you make, all the difficult days could be worth it in the end if you just keep pushing through," he answered.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, breaking the contact with him. "Did…did this happen to you because they figured out who you were?"

He gave her another shake of his head. "No. My world is dangerous and no one is ever happy for long with what they have. The more power one has, the more of a target they have on their back."

Her eyes focused on her lap, her hands resting there on her thighs. He could see the inner workings of her mind, that she was gearing up to ask him another question, but couldn't bring herself to actually ask. He wanted to know what was on her mind, what could possibly be making her afraid to ask it.

You chewed her head off the last time she did.

She bit her lip. "I meant what I said earlier. If I can help you or Derek while you are in here, I would be happy to do so," she offered again.

"I appreciate that Lexie, but I would never do anything to put you in harm's way. I could never forgive myself, if yo—a civilian got hurt," he said.

She gave a sad small smile. "I would be careful. No one really notices me much here anyway. Besides, I'm your doctor, so no one would question my reason for needing to be in here," she added.

His lips were drawn hard and tight. "I won't take the risk."

She licked her lips, and stood from the chair. "I understand. I should probably let you get some rest before I have to come back in and check you again."

"Thank you for listening to me," he said, trying to hide the fact that he didn't want her to go.

Just a few minutes alone with her brought him more peace than he had ever had in his lifetime of constant fights, violence, and mob wars. She was becoming the one thing he was starting to look forward to seeing, and that was dangerous.

"You're welcome," she replied, turning to leave his room.

He felt helpless that she was going to leave and he didn't want their conversation to end just yet. "Hey, Lexie?"

She half-turned back, her hands back in her pockets of her lab coat. "Yeah."

He gave her a tender expression. "Anyone who wouldn't notice you, isn't really seeing to begin with."

There was a sparkle that reached her eyes, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth before she turned and walked out of his room. He tried to close his eyes and get some sleep. Every time he did, it was her brown eyes that was starring right back at him.

His chest grew tight with the thought that he was already sad for when the time would come that he would have to completely walk away from her.