Warning: Rated T for strong language.

A/N: Hope you enjoy this next chapter...for those of you wanting a little sister sister time...this one is for you.

Chapter 19

Lexie

Lexie felt numb.

Completely and utterly numb.

She felt as if someone had just clocked her right in the face when she hadn't expected it. When that hadn't been enough, they kept kicking her until she could no longer feel anything anymore.

She didn't know how long it had been since the sound of the door shutting behind him had been. She had been standing in the middle of her apartment feeling so cold she didn't know if she would ever be warm again.

How did it come to this? How did they get here? They were happy. Weren't they? How had she not seen the signs that this was coming?

They had just made really passionate love last night. The words I love you had been right on the tip of her tongue then, but she had held them back because it had only been a couple of weeks since they had been together. She realized how crazy that sounded—falling in love with someone after only a couple of weeks—but she knew what she felt for him was love.

She had been so sure he had felt the same. He had.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered automatically.

A sob broke through her throat. How could a love that she was so sure, so strong not be enough? She never would have put him in the position to choose his job over her, but it seemed he was. She understood how important what he did was. Of anyone that could…she did, because that would be like him asking her to stop saving lives by not performing surgery. It made no sense.

She didn't like that his job scared the shit out of her. Being a cop was dangerous enough, but he was essentially a double agent, making what he did even more dangerous. Those concerns about his safety plagued at her, but she swallowed them back because his work made him happy, and she loved him. She was proud at what he was accomplishing.

At some point, she must've found her couch, her body crumpling into the fetal position, as her eyes stared out into the open space.

Something deep inside her chest was aching and no matter how much pressure she shoved at her chest to try and make it go away, it only got worse.

Is this what your heart-breaking feels like?

It didn't matter that he chose to break her heart. It didn't matter that he walked away…she still loved him. She still couldn't stand the thought that anything bad could happen to him. Mark Sloan was some kind of disease that infiltrated her heart, mind, and body, and she didn't think there was any cure for this.

Streams of tears rolled down her eyes, as she finally closed her eyes, her eyelashes heavy with wetness.

All she could think about was him. She just wanted him. She knew that wouldn't happen the moment he walked out of her apartment.

He made his choice.

It wasn't her.

A few Days Later….

Lexie groaned hearing the pounding on her front door. She had been stuffing her face full of cheese doodles.

"Go away!" she shouted throwing one of her doodles at the front door.

"We're not going anywhere, Lexie. Open the door," Meredith's muffled response came from the other end.

"I'm fine, go away," she muttered.

"I am giving you three seconds to open this door, and then I am going to have Derek break the damn thing down."

Derek?

"Fine."

She shoved her bag of cheese doodles to the side, rose to her feet and moved to the front door. She opened it slightly, hoping the limited amount of view her sister had of her was enough. Once Meredith saw that she was ok and breathing she would leave.

That decision had been the opposite. Meredith's eyes went wide, her head shaking, before she put her palm on the door and pushed it open even further.

Just great.

She tore her eyes away from her sister, and to the large looming presence over her sister's shoulder. She sighed, exasperated, as she stepped away and let them fully into her place. As she looked around, even she had to wince how it looked.

"Ohmygod," Meredith whispered.

"I've been a little preoccupied. I was just getting started with cleaning," Lexie said unable to look either of them in the eye.

Meredith walked over to her sister, her eyes taking in all of her appearance. Her sister was normally very good about hiding her emotions, but even Lexie could see the worry and concern in her expression. It made her feel only worse, because she could tell her sister generally cared.

"I'm ok, really, Mer."

Meredith huffed, raising her hand to her head, plucking a cheese doodle from her hair and holding it to her face. "You have food in your hair," she pointed out.

Lexie took the puffy chip in her hand to hide her embarrassment. Her voice was tight. "I must've gotten a little carried away…I haven't had cheese doodles since studying for college."

She was trying to downplay her messy apartment and the fact that even after three days she was still falling apart. Meredith stood there not buying any of it.

Meredith fixed her with a stare. "Three days, Lexie. No one has heard from you in three days."

"Not true," she argued. "I called Owen and told him I was taking some time off."

Meredith crossed her arms over her chest. "He said you could barely get the words out. That it sounded like you were crying, and before he could even get how much time you needed off, you hung up on him."

She shrugged, aware that her emotional state was still not solid, and this interrogation—in front of Derek no less—wasn't helping. "I just needed some time," she whispered.

"The only time you ever took a day away from the hospital was when you were an intern and we moved mom to the long-care facility. This isn't you."

Her stomach twisted. "What do you want from me, Mer?"

Meredith's mouth fell open. "What do you mean, what do I want. I…"

Meredith's words drifted, when Derek's hand came to her shoulder. For the first time since he had stepped into the apartment, Lexie risked a glance in his direction, their eyes connecting. His eyes softened, making water fill at the back of her eyes. She had thought after the last three days she had shed every tear imaginable, but one look from Derek, and that wasn't true. Because as much as she loved her sister, Meredith couldn't understand. Derek seemed too.

Meredith's expression turned to pure shock, when Derek side stepped her and stepped forward until Lexie fell into his arms, her sobs coming back from her throat. His arms came around her back, hers around his waist as he rocked her, and rubbed her back comfortably.

At some point, Derek must've moved them to her coach, so she could sit, as she brought the back of her hand up to her cheek and wiped away the fresh set of tears. Derek had let Meredith sit next to her, while he moved to the chair opposite of them.

Her shoulders sagged, and there was no way based on the state of her apartment, the fact that she hadn't showered in three days and probably smelled wretched, that she could sugar coat whatever questions they had for them. Meredith looked back at Derek something silently passing between them, before she turned her attention back to Lexie again.

"What happened?" Meredith asked.

Lexie stared at her hands in her lap, her fingers threading together so tightly, it kept her from crying again. She looked up at Derek's whose expression was guarded again, but even she could see the simmering anger behind his eyes.

She took a deep shuddering breath. Don't cry. Don't cry. She could do this. She could get the words out. It's what they did all the time as doctors. They had to deliver the worst news to patients. They had to legally tell the patient that when their loved one died, they had done everything, all the life saving measures possible to save them.

Her voice broke. "He left. He left me," she answered.

To Lexie's surprise, her sister did the first emotionally sisterly thing possible and wrapped her arm around her shoulder and pulled her to her side. She spent the next twenty minutes answering as much as she could of Meredith's questions in between her sobs and pauses to catch her breath.

When she was done and spent, and couldn't talk about it anymore in that moment, Meredith declared she needed to shower and get the place cleaned up. Derek offered to start picking things up—which only mortified her even more through her protests—while Meredith took the big sister role a little too seriously, by ensuring she would actually go and shower.

Once the warm water turned cold, she had turned off the shower, only feeling slightly better in the last three days since the whole nightmare began. She wrapped her towel around her naked body and peeked around her bathroom door into her bedroom.

She was alone, but Meredith had laid out a fresh pair of clothes and underwear. It was such a motherly thing to do, that it made Lexie's heart lift for the first time in the three days. She quickly dried off the remaining water remnants, and dressed into the fresh pair of sweats and t-shirt. After she combed her hair, and looked back at her reflection that she was somewhat decent—outside of her red eyes and somewhat blotching skin from crying—she walked back out into her living room.

As she stepped out, she could hear the slight shuffling around her place, but no voices. She didn't know how long she had been in the shower, but her entire apartment was practically clean—cleaner then even she normally kept it.

At the sound of her footsteps, Derek turned around from inside the kitchen to face her. She crossed her left arm over the right. "Where's Mer?"

He held a coffee cup in his hand, offering a small smile. She suddenly realized that he had been making coffee, the aroma of the beans filling the air.

"She went to go and get you some more food. Your selection is kind of lacking," he said lightly.

"Sorry," she said meekly.

He let out a long breath, placing a coffee pod into her coffee maker, the machine humming as it started to brew another cup. "I thought maybe you and I could talk."

She bit her lip. "He's your friend…you don't have to do this."

He handed her a fresh cup of coffee. She smiled at the fact that he had gotten it right with a whole bunch of cream and sugar.

After a pause he said, "He's an idiot. And it's because he is my brother that I am doing this," he replied. "Although, these last couple of weeks, I've come to think about you like one of my sisters. One that I can actually stand to be around." he laughed.

Despite her depressing mood and broken heart, that comment made her smile. Derek made himself a cup of coffee and came to stand next to her. "How about we go and sit."

She followed him, and took a seat next to him on the couch. "I'm sorry. I feel terrible that you spent all this time cleaning up after my mess."

"It wasn't a big deal, Little Grey," he replied.

Her face fell at hearing him use the nickname that Mark had come up with when they had first met at the hospital. That seemed so long ago at this point. Water started to pool at the back of her eyes. Derek dropped his mug on her coffee table, wrapped his arm around her shoulder and brought her to his side.

She sniffled. "I'm so sorry. I don't know why I'm such a mess."

"Because you love him," he said so matter-of-factly.

She nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I do. I wish it would just go away."

"If it makes you feel any better, he isn't doing that well either," he divulged.

She tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. "Yeah?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

She looked back down at her lap, a single tear escaping her eye. "It should make me feel better, but it doesn't."

He sighed. "I know." He squeezed her arm gently, reminding her of something her dad used to do when she was upset or was down. "I'm not trying to make excuses…and even though he is a complete and utter idiot…I believe he is doing this because he thinks it's the best way to protect you," he told her.

She eased back. "I'm not sure I believe that. He walked away because his job and your operation was more important. I was just getting in the way." she rebutted in a harsh whisper.

His eyes were drawn tight. She could feel that Derek honestly felt the opposite. "Things…are really tense with command and with the operation, Little Grey. He doesn't want you wrapped up in the danger."

She shook her head in frustration. "That's a bullshit excuse and you know it. You don't believe that for one second. He got scared and he ran."

Derek rubbed the back of his neck, before letting out a long sigh, leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees. "Lexie, the only person he ever loved was taken away from him so violently, that I was scared he would never be the same," he breathed out.

She looked at him helplessly, her eyes softening a little bit. "He told me. He told me what happened to his mother. The betrayal of his father."

Derek was stricken with sorrow. "No one should ever have to go through or witness what he had too, let alone at the age of five. For years afterwards, he was so closed off. Didn't want to talk to anyone, open up to anyone—outside of myself—and I feared the friend I knew from a young age would never be whole again." He paused, his voice turning a note of desperation for her to try and understand. "The first time I saw a glimpse of the Mark I once knew was when he decided to join the academy. The purpose to find justice, to bring his mother's killer to justice, to stop anyone from having to experience what he had to experience."

She tried to separate her anger and heartbreak knowing that his history was one of suffering. He went from having a family to having everything ripped away from him so violently. While she could never compare to what had happened to him, her own childhood wasn't always roses and sunshine. He still had a choice and he was choosing to give up instead of fighting for them.

"Are you telling me there is no saving him from himself?" she asked.

The pain on Derek's face twisted in her own gut. "He threw everything into this operation. He is damn good at his job, Lexie. I know deep in my gut that no one can do this better than him…but even the job never filled or healed that void from so long ago…until you."

Her jaw went slack, as she realized the weight of his words. Was he trying to tell her that when it came to Mark, she was some kind of cure to make him not completely whole, but close to it? The thought made her head spin.

She tried to keep the hope from her voice. "W—what do you mean? What are you saying?"

"I know he loves you," he said fiercely. "I have never been surer of anything in my life. I know that what he did to you was shitty. He's being a big fat shitty jerk because he thinks it's the best way to protect you. I know you are angry with him…and you have every right to be." He paused, straightened and looked over at her directly in the eye, his expression so earnest. "I guess…I have no right to ask you this…but if there comes a time, just don't give up on him."

He was right. He was asking a lot of her. She trusted Mark. She put her faith in Mark. She loved Mark. He asked her not to run. He promised that he was in this with her. That he would stay with her forever—whether he thought he heard her or not—he made her believe that the two of them together could overcome anything.

The first-time things got hard, he bailed on her. He left. He ran, and left her behind to try and pick up the pieces of her fragile heart. She loved him. She knew a part of her would always love him. She understood that even as young as she was with her whole life still ahead of her…that she would never feel about someone else the way she felt about Mark.

With all of that even in her mind, working through the pain now was slowly suffocating her from the inside out. She would survive this—because she was a survivor—but that didn't mean she would be the same. That she would ever be whole either.

She nibbled on her bottom lip. "I don't know if I can." she whispered.

He nodded in understanding. "I just want you to know…he might be my brother, but you are my sister. If you ever need anything…you can always call me."

Water started to pool at the back of her eyes, but before she could respond, her front door opened, Meredith juggling two paper bags full of food. Derek was on his feet, taking the goods from her arms as he settled them in the kitchen and started to put things away.

"You didn't have to do all that," Lexie said, when her sister came to sit down next to her.

"It's what sisters are for. You would do it for me," she replied, flashing a smile, her hand resting on her knee.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"I know I don't say this often, but I love you, Lexie. You don't have to do this alone."

Lexie plastered a smile on her face, her head leaning on her sister's shoulder. "I know. I love you."

"Do you think you will be back to work soon?"

She shrugged. "Probably. I…I just need a couple more days. Whose working my cases?"

Meredith snorted. "Jim. They call him shadow Lexie."

She chuckled. "Jim's a good neurosurgeon."

Meredith nodded. "He is. But he isn't you." she exhaled. "And I don't know why Mark is such an idiot, but if what Derek tells me is true about him walking away to protect him…I want to hurt him less." Lexie gaped at her. "I still want to kick him in the balls for breaking your heart…but as your big sister, I have a healthy respect for anyone that would do anything to protect you."

She cleared her throat. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Like what?"

Lexie looked back into the kitchen where Derek was just finishing putting the groceries that Meredith had picked up away.

"What's happening between you and McDreamy?"

There was a twinkle in her sister's eye. Even though she was miserable, she was glad that her sister seemed happy. Derek was a great guy, and she couldn't picture anyone else for her sister then him. He had already considered her a sister, and she very much considered him a brother.

Meredith tried to come across as nonchalant, but Lexie knew better. "He's fun. He's good for me," she answered.

"He is." she agreed.

Meredith bumped her shoulder. "Plus, he is damn good in bed."

Lexie snorted. She tried not to feel a pang of jealousy, because she remembered what it was like to have Mark in her bed, and she was sure that Mark was the best you could ever get when it came to sex.

"I'm so happy for you, Mer."

Meredith wrapped her up in her arms and hugged her tight. "You will find your happily ever after, Lexie. I am so sure of it. Until then, let's eat a ton of ice cream and bash all men."

A Few Days Later….

It was Lexie's first day back at the hospital, but it might as well felt like years since she had last been there.

The warm reception she got to have her back and working cases was hard to ignore. Outside of Meredith, no one really knew why she decided to just up and take vacation. It wouldn't be hard to fathom after all the recent work she had put in on her last case with her ballerina patient. That case had been taxing.

As much as she tried to put on a blank face, pushback the emotions ever since Mark left, she couldn't seem to convince anyone anyway. It made no sense, considering she had to deliver bad news to patients all the time. Had to hide her emotions and say the awful words that no family wanted to hear. If one more doctor or nurse asked her if everything was ok, or if she had to hear Karev ask her one more time—who died—she was going to want to punch something. After the first hour, she decided to hide most of the day in the research lab and away from everyone to avoid asking any questions.

"Hey, Lexie," April said, standing in the doorway of the lab.

"Hey, April."

She could tell by April's expression that her friend knew something was up. She was weighing in her head whether she should attempt to broach the subject. Lexie tried to plead with her eyes, to just leave it alone. To not ask.

After a moment, April pressed her lips together and nodded. Lexie shot her an appreciative look. "I hate to bother you, but a patient just came in and specifically asked for you by name. If you aren't up to handling it, I can send them away and ask to reschedule whenever your available."

She offered her friend her diplomatic smile. "It's no problem. I'll take the case."

"Great," April exclaimed. "I moved them to a private room near the ER whenever you're ready."

"Thanks. I'll be right there."

April turned on her heel and walked away. Lexie smoothed out her hair and her scrubs and left the research room in search for her mystery patient. After her ballerina case, Chief Owen had said calls and potential requests to partner with her on cases or take new patients had been coming in.

In some ways, it was exciting because it afforded her the opportunity to take some really interesting cases, and Owen was more than happy regarding the publicity the hospital was getting. He had even talked about the rumors that she was going to be featured in an upcoming article for top neurosurgeons in the country.

In the past, that would have been something she would have killed for as far as an accomplishment. After all, it had been everything she had worked so hard for in her career, but in this moment…everything just felt dreary.

As she marched into the ER area, she walked over to the private room that April had mentioned her potential new patient was waiting. She knocked on the door to alert that she was entering and then opened the door.

She froze.

Her eyes opened wide. Her mouth fell open. She had a hard time forming any words. All thoughts just vanished from her mind.

"Hey, Lex."

She finally looked up into his blue eyes that she had missed so much these last couple of days, all hopes of ever trying to move on without him just left her mind.

Mark Sloan was standing before her.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed.