Warning: Rated T for strong language.

A/N: Loving all the questions and theories! Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 20

Mark

Mark looked up from his bar stool, signaling another round of scotch. This was his fourth. No, maybe his fifth. The bartender looked at him questioningly—no doubt debating whether to serve him or not—before ultimately deciding to pour him another round.

He paused, as the glass came to his lips, before taking another long gulp, the richness of the scotch reaching his throat. It was the only warmth he had felt since he had walked away from Lexie.

God, he missed Lex. Her smile. Her laugh. Her breathy little moans when he would touch or kiss her. Her body, and the way she fit next to him so perfectly that it was almost as if she was made for him. Mostly, he missed their talks—that they could almost talk about anything so easily—even the most difficult things. He missed how much she had brought peace to him in a life of constant craziness and evilness.

He used all of his grouchiness and anger back into his job. Command thought he was lacking or not focused on the job, he would show them—no prove to them—why he was the best of the best and why he had been chosen for this operation to begin with.

But at the cost of Lexie.

He threw back another gulp to quiet the voice in the back of his mind. Just like his heart, the damn thing seemed to be just as mad at him for making the decision to walk away from her. Derek was right, which only made his hand clench even tighter into a fist. He was a coward. He let Tom and his attempt at mind games stop him from the only good thing to come in his life since Derek.

He kept telling himself that things with command and the operation were getting far more serious and that he needed to be focused. He needed to make sure that he was ready to do what was needed to be done in the event things took a turn for the worse. Having Lexie meant that it could slow down his decisions.

Coward. Liar.

Just as he brought his glass up to take a final sip, a presence slid into the seat next to him. He didn't need to even turn to know it was his best friend and brother.

"What are you doing here?" Mark grumbled.

"Funny, that was my exact question to you," Derek answered.

Mark held up his now empty glass after taking the last swig. "Bar. Drinking. Even you can put two and two together."

Derek pressed his lips together obviously not amused. "Do you really think it is wise to be drinking all the way over here?"

His reply was curt. "It's a bar."

Derek signaling the barkeep for a drink of his own and nodded for an additional for Mark. "It's the bar all of Seattle Grace's doctors come too. In fact, most of them are here right now."

Mark turned his head, but his voice was deadpan. "Huh. Would you look at that."

Derek took a sip of his own drink, turning to his friend and lowering his voice. "You made the decision to walk away, Mark. What are you doing here?"

He grunted. "Drinking."

"There are about ten bars you could hit close to your house. Why are you here?" he pressed.

Mark turned his glare on him. "Why the hell are you here?"

Derek shook his head. "Nice try. You aren't going to deflect on me, and your attempt at shutting me down with your scary crime boss routine won't work on me." he paused and tried again. "Why are you here?"

He looked down at the newly placed scotch in front of him, his fingers playing with the edge. "I miss her." he admitted.

"It didn't have to go this way," Derek said plainly. "You didn't have to make yourself and her miserable."

He turned to Derek. "She's miserable?"

His brows drew together. "Of course, she's miserable. She loves you, you idiot, and you just up and left her."

"I'm protecting her."

Derek took a sip, his jaw tightening. "No. You're protecting yourself."

Mark's hand gripped his glass. "How…how do you know she's miserable?"

"Because I saw her yesterday."

He turned towards Dark, surprise and jealousy flaring through him. "You saw her? Where?"

He let out an exasperated sigh. "At her house."

His eyes narrowed. "What were you doing at her home?"

Derek sized his friend up. "Doing what you could no longer do. Look after her. She's like a sister to me, Mark. She's Big Grey's sister, and because I am choosing Big Grey…that means I now have to protect Little Grey. Even if that means from you," he said.

Mark looked affronted. "You think I would hurt her?"

"You already have," he replied, the note in his voice somber.

Derek's words had played in his head over and over again.

He'd hurt her.

He had known that, but he thought he was doing the right thing. He was protecting her.

It was angering him more, because by hurting her and walking away, he had given up the opportunity to check in on her. Talk to her. Make sure she was ok. That now fell to his best friend…and it made him mad.

He loved her. He should be the one to talk to her and know how she was feeling. He had that before he had made the stupid decision to let command dictate his life. Before he had let the fear from long ago rear its ugly head and make him do something completely stupid.

The next morning, he found himself standing in front of Seattle Grace's hospital. Sleeping hadn't been something he was getting a lot lately—even in his drunken state—so he climbed out of bed, threw back three cups of coffee and found himself headed towards Seattle Grace.

It was early, but even as early as it was, the place was bustling around with doctors and patients. It looked exactly like it had the last time he had been here.

He walked into the ER that was meant only for those coming in through first responders, but no one even bothered to look at him or tell him otherwise. As he stepped into the room, majority of the beds were empty with a few patients being treated by nurses and doctors.

He walked up towards the desk, a woman with red-hair in dark blue scrubs and a lab coat stood looking down at something in her chart. She turned, the moment his presence was looming behind her.

She arched her brow. "Sir, can I help you?"

"I'm…I'm looking for Dr. Lexie Grey," he replied.

"Are you in need of immediate medical attention?" He shook his head no. "Are you a patient of hers?"

"I was," he said automatically.

She nodded seeming to relax. "Why don't I escort you to a room over here and I will have her paged."

He followed her to a small room just off the ER wing. She shut the door behind him, as he waited. He shouldn't be here. It wasn't just because he had left her, but because him being here meant it was taking time away from his operation. They were looking for any opportunity to sideline him and Derek, and spending his time chasing after Lexie wasn't what she should be doing.

He brought his hand to his forehead before rubbing his eyes. The hangover was tearing him a new one, and most likely keeping him from thinking straight. He should walk right out that door right now. She would never have to know he was here.

He heard the soft knock on the door behind him, and he let out a strangled sigh.

"Hi, I'm…"

Lexie's voice trailed off as soon as she saw him standing in front of her. He was aching for Lexie Grey. Every time he saw her and went without touching her, holding her—it was agonizing and getting worse every second.

She gave him a quick once-over, her arms crossing over her chest, her brows snapped together. "What are you doing here?" she snapped.

She was angry. She had every right to be angry with him. Even through her anger, he could see that desire and pull behind her eyes that he was fighting every moment too.

"I had to see you," he said.

Her eyes flashed, before they hardened again. She licked her lips. "Do you have a medical situation?"

She was freezing him out. He deserved nothing less, but it still made him ache all over anyway. "No…but…"

"Then I'm leaving," she declared turning back towards the door.

"Lex, please…wait."

Her hand stilled on the door, her shoulders rising and falling slowly. "I have nothing left to say to you." Her words said directly at the door.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Are…are you ok?"

She turned abruptly, marching over towards him. "Are you freaking kidding me? You break up with me. You tell me you love me but I am not enough, and then you have the audacity to ask me if I am, ok?"

Water was already starting to pool at the back of her eyes, but her anger was overriding her other emotion.

"I know I have no right…I know to you I am a bastard…but I miss you."

Her eyes narrowed. "Good-bye, Mark."

"Please," he pleaded one more time, just as her hand reached the door again. "Just five minutes. That's all I am asking even though I don't deserve it. Just…five minutes and then you will never have to see me again."

She turned, looking back at him and weighing whether she should or not. He had been wrong to push her away. He would do whatever he could in those five minutes to convince her to give him another chance. If she refused him again, then he would have to walk away and regret this decision for the rest of his life. Because he would.

Her arms were still crossed over her chest as she looked him over. She bit her lip, her body bouncing up and down, before she finally gave him a slight nod.

"Not here. Meet me outside the ER. We still have your cover to keep intact."

With that, she turned and walked out of the patient room.

He walked out of the patient room, and back through the ER entrance, and out into the cold. The wind had picked up, making the chill going through him twofold.

He heard her footsteps before he saw her, before she rounded the corner her arms back over her chest to fight out the wind. She had come out here in nothing but her lab coat and it was freezing out.

"Lexie it's cold out," he said.

"You have five minutes. I suggest you use them wisely," she responded, bouncing up and down now because she was freezing.

He removed the coat from his arms, not even hesitating to make sure she was warm. As he started to move closer to her, she stepped back as if he was the bubonic plague, but nothing was going to stop him from ensuring that she was taken care of first.

Whether she was too cold, or didn't have the energy to battle him, she allowed him to settle his heavier and more expensive overcoat over her shoulders, the cold Seattle air causing her to shiver again and again in just her lab coat. His coat dwarfed over her compared to her smaller frame to his much larger size.

As soon as the coat closed completely around her, she pulled it tightly to her, relaxing into it, her hands barely grazing against his as he pulled away from her shoulders. He hadn't wanted to let go of touching her, but any longer and he would appear like a creep. A wave of desire flooded through him when she hadn't pulled away at the contact. If he didn't know any better, she was fighting the pull between them as much as he was.

Finally, after another moment, she stepped away from him, huddled in his coat, and peered over at him.

"What is it that you want to say, that you couldn't have possibly said to me already?" she asked.

"I made a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life by walking away from you. Hurting you, and letting you go," he replied.

"Now you want me to believe that you want the opposite?"

"I do," he said earnestly.

She shook her head. "I'd like to believe you…but I just can't anymore. This constant push me away to then try and pull me back in. It's too much. I can't handle it," she said.

His face fell. "You don't love me anymore?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with me loving you," she exclaimed. "I love you so much, that it hurts. It physically hurts to be separated from you. That for the first time since forever I had to take time away from something I love, because something that I loved more told me I couldn't have it anymore. You broke my heart," she sobbed looking up at him.

He looked at her with a mixture of torture and agony. "I never wanted to hurt you."

She shook her head, trying to clamp back her emotions. "But you did." She wiped the tears that had fallen from her eyes. "I know you had a shitty past. What happened to you should never happen to anyone—let alone a child—but you have let that drive and become who you are instead of who you were meant to be."

"And who am I meant to be?" His brows were pinched together. "Tell me, Lex, because I am not really sure if I even know. Everything I do…everyone I love…I hurt by just being with me."

She shook her head as if she was in disbelief that he didn't know that answer. She took a step forward and then another, but stopped. She wanted to reach out, but then decided against it. He had hurt her, and now she was protecting herself. From him.

"Your kind. Your loyal. Your protective. Your strong. That's you Mark Sloan and no one else. Everyone who knows you, knows that. It's just you that doesn't want to seem to believe it," she said softly.

"Lex…"

She put her hand up to keep him from coming closer. She was trying so hard to hardened herself from him, but he could see behind her eyes that despite everything, she wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

"I told you…you broke my heart. I can't…I won't let you in again. Because I don't think I would survive it again when something spooks you to want to walk away from me."

"I won't," he assured. "I made a mistake. You don't understand how much I wish I could take it back and never have let it happen, Lex. Please…just please think about it. You don't have to answer me right away. Just tell me you will think about it. About us."

She looked him in the eyes, biting her lip as she weighed his request. After what felt like long agonizing minutes—but was only seconds—she nodded.

"Alright."

She removed his coat from her shoulders, a shudder already coursing through her from the cold. She raised her arm to hand him the coat, his own hand coming up to take it from her. That was all it took. The sensation of their fingers touching in passing…and she gasped, her mouth falling open.

She stiffened, letting out a startled Mph, their eyes connecting holding each of them there. His hand moved up hers until he clasped it around her wrist and pulled her gently. She came instantly, before her arms came up around his neck, their kisses turning into pants as their mouths crashed against each other. He had missed putting his hands in her hair, as he gripped her securely, holding her to him. He missed this. He missed her.

When the need for air became apparent, they pulled apart, her eyes heavy-lidded. She licked her lips. "So much for thinking," she said breathlessly.

"If that's what you still want…you've got it," he said, his lips barely grazing hers.

She drew in a gigantic lungful of air. "I know I should push you away. I should…but I don't want too."

His lips came down on hers again, both of them clutching to each other. He knew he needed to put a stop to this, because at any minute an emergency vehicle or someone from the hospital could come looking for her.

With each kiss from her, it was as if he was slowly starting to become whole again. After a second, he regretfully had to pull back his hand caressing her face and hair.

"You should get back inside," he said.

"Mmmh…I should," she agreed.

"That means you need to walk away."

She grinned. "That means you need to let me go."

"Alright, Lex, I'm letting you go. That's means you have to walk away now."

She crossed her arms over her chest, smiled, and turned to walk away. After a few steps, she stopped and turned back. "Mark?"

"Yeah."

"Don't ever do that to me again. If you love me, truly love me, you stick it out. Even when it's hard," she said.

"I promise you."

She nodded. "I get off at eight. If, you, you know, want to make it up properly to me."

He grinned. "Eight sounds perfect."

He watched her walk back into the hospital, a gigantic smile crossing his lips. He shoved his arms back through his coat, just as he felt his pocket start to buzz. He pulled out his phone.

"Sloan."

"Your attention is needed immediately," said Derek on the other line.

He sighed. "I'm on my way."

A/N: Here we are…probably just a few more chapters to go.