Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Rated: K+ or PG
Summary: OneShot Marsan set towards the end of Season Two. "Yours is the only place I can remember my way to when I've drunk this much."
Am I the only one who feels inspired by the early ER episode reruns on More4? Possibly. Well, thanks to them (and possibly britgirl's constant shipping), I've ended up writing a stand-alone Marsan fic. Apologies for any mistakes you find in this – there probably will be several – but I've just started and finished this in one evening and would rather like to put it up now. Sorry it's so long! The song is "Blackbird" by The Beatles, in case you haven't got that already. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
- o -
BlackBird Singing
- o -
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
This isn't the way back to her house. Susan knows.
This isn't her front door. She knows that too.
But it's late – it's really late – and she didn't know what else she could do with herself.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
"Mark..." Susan murmurs, pressing one fingertip to the doorbell and leaning against it. "Maaaaark...?"
Mark Greene trips down the last few steps, cursing whichever escaped psych patient thinks it's a good idea to ring his doorbell at 2am.
"Just leave it." comes Iris' voice from upstairs, irritated that he's already leapt out of bed, pulled on a T-shirt and shorts and stumbled off to answer the door at such an unearthly hour. But whoever's ringing the doorbell is persistent and he can tell that whoever it is won't be leaving them alone anytime soon. If it's a stupid kid, Mark thinks, he'll disembowel them. If it's anything hospital related, he'll shut the door. And if it's an escaped convict...well...he'll think of something. Pulling his dressing gown more tightly around him and nervously putting on his glasses, Mark Greene opens the door at 2 o'clock on this cold Chicago fall morning.
And it's Susan.
And he realises that he hadn't planned for this scenario.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
"Maaaaaaaaark..." Susan has turned it into some form of game. Draw out his name for as long as she's pressing on the doorbell – but not a moment longer. Wait – no, wait... Ha – she almost caught herself out with that one. "Maaaaark..."
"Uh – Susan?" Mark pushes his glasses up his nose and blinks a couple of times. Susan jumps at the sound of his voice and looks almost surprised to see him.
"Hi Mark! You're out late!" Susan says brightly.
"Hey Suze..." Mark answers uncertainly, studying her shining, unfocussed eyes. "You're...drunk."
She points between him and the doorbell with a broad grin. "Hey, that's weird – I was just about to ring for you." she tells him, wide-eyed. "Freaky, huh? Shall I do it again, anyway? Y'know – for good luck?" She makes to press the doorbell again but Mark quickly grabs her hand and moves her gently away.
"No, no – there's no need for that, Susan." he assures her hurriedly and leads her down the steps. "How about we take a walk, okay?"
"Okay," Susan chirps and takes his arm as he leads her unsteadily along the midnight sidewalks. "You're the doctor."
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Mark looks at the woman hanging off his arm and turns to her when they stop at the curb for a rare car to glide past.
"So what's going on, Suze?" he asks and then, after a pause, adds, "Where's Susie?"
Susan sways on the spot for a moment before holding up three fingers. "I'll give you three guesses," she challenges him. "Three, because that's the number of nights Chloe is going to be taking Susie every week."
He sighs when her lower lips trembles slightly and draws her into a tight hug. "Oh Susan..." And he walks her across the road with her head still buried in his dressing gown.
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
"Are you alright?" he asks her, after a moment of silence.
"No." comes her muffled and blunt reply. "But I'm not crying, if that's what you're asking."
"That wasn't what I was asking." Mark tells her.
She narrows his eyes at him carefully. "Yes it was."
But then a rain drop lands on her cheek and runs down just as though it were a tear. The pair of them look up into the black sky as the rain starts to fall faster and heavier.
"Oh crap." They both curse in unison and Mark drags her under the shelter of a taxi stand, perhaps holding onto her for just a moment longer than necessary.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.
They sit on the edge of the bench in the taxi stand and watch the rain run in rivers down the fibreglass roof.
"So what brought you here?" Mark speaks up eventually. But Susan is more than a little bit drunk and she blinks confusedly at him.
"You did. Remember?" she replies, punching his shoulder lightly.
"No, no," Mark shakes his head and subtly rubs his shoulder. "I mean – what brought you to my place?"
Susan studies the paving stones beneath her shoes and picks at the strings of Mark's dressing gown, it not having occurred to her why he was out in the middle of the night in a dressing gown. And then she looks up and puts on a sad smile.
"Look at me." she muses bitterly. "I'm the hopelessly drunk sister now."
"Susan..." Mark begins. But she shakes her head against his words and he stops whatever he was planning on saying. She's silent for a long time before looking at him again, directly eye-to-eye.
"Yours is the only place I can remember my way to when I've drunk this much." she says. And he knows she's telling the truth.
Blackbird fly
"I miss her, Mark." Susan admits, lamely. "I really miss her."
When Mark opens his mouth to offer some consoling words, however, he's cut off by the impatient honk of a car horn and he turns his head to see a cab driver has pulled up alongside the stand.
"Hey!" the man inside calls, waving his arm at them from the window – the windscreen wipers working overtime.
"No thanks!" Mark yells back, mildly annoyed. "We don't want a cab. Go away!"
The taxi driver raises an eyebrow and winds his window back up again.
"Freakin' bums." he mutters darkly to himself and drives off into the rain.
Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
"The thing is," Susan goes on. "Is that I didn't count on it hurting this much. And nobody seems to see that. It's all – 'Poor Chloe, poor, poor Chloe; she's tried her best and big bad Susan's not even letting her see her daughter.' Nobody seems to see. She was the one to throw her life away. I don't want to see Susie get dragged down in that. I can't."
Mark chooses his words carefully when he speaks up tentatively, "Maybe she really has changed."
"Maybe she has, maybe she has – and maybe she'll change back just as quickly, just like before." Susan answers. "And I didn't...I didn't..."
She trails off and Mark looks at her. "Didn't what?" he prompts gently.
"I didn't count on it hurting this much."
Blackbird fly
With a long sigh, Mark wraps his arms around her again. "Nobody said this would be easy, Suze." he tells her.
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" she demands, dubiously.
"No," he replies. "Time will though. And maybe the fact that I'm out here, sitting under a taxi stand in the pouring rain and wearing a dressing gown at 2am while a probably very angry woman is at home in my bed, might help too."
Susan looks up at him with a slight smile. "There's a woman in your bed?"
"Why is that so hard to believe?" he enquires with a self-deprecating grin. He didn't much believe it himself, either. And he doubted there'd be another woman in his bed for quite a long time now, after this. He learnt from Doug that women tended to 'network' – which meant that they somehow knew every single bad thing you'd ever done to a past girlfriend even before they tell you their names.
"You left her there?" Susan asks.
"For you?" Mark shrugs. "Sure."
Susan smiles and leans her head against his shoulder. "That's nice," she comments quietly.
Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Then something Susan sees whilst resting her forehead against his chest strikes her as odd.
"Mark?" she starts.
"Yes?"
"Where are your shoes?"
And Mark looks down at his bare legs and feet poking out from his dressing gown. "Home."
"Oh." Susan utters. There is another long pause before she speaks up again: "Mark?"
"Mm?"
"Aren't your feet cold?"
He laughs at this. "They were freezing about ten minutes ago," he replies. "But thankfully, I can't feel them anymore."
"Oh."
Suddenly, they're interrupted again by blazing headlights that cut into the taxi stand as another cab draws up.
"Hurry up!" the cab driver hollers through the driving rain. "I'm clocking out in ten."
"No thank you!" Mark shouts back, pissed off now.
The taxi driver stares for a moment before getting back into his cab, already soaked through. "Suit yourself," he grumbles. "Stupid kids."
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
"You're right." she tells him suddenly.
"Huh?" Mark asks distractedly.
"You're right about your being here – and it making me feel better," she clarifies. "I'm sorry for dragging you out."
"That's okay; I don't mind," he assures her and then adds as an afterthought, "Iris might though."
"Iris?" Susan repeats.
"The woman in my bed," Mark explains and Susan snorts with laughter.
"You're kidding? Iris?" she smirks. "What is she? 80?"
Mark points a warning finger at her. "Now that's not funny," he tells her sternly, unable to hold back the big grin across his face.
"I'm sorry." she pulls her face straight and looks at him in all seriousness. "Thank you. For being here."
"Anytime, Suze." he says and, glancing at his watch, thinks to himself – "Clearly."
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
For the third time that night, a taxi cab rolls up to the curb and hoots at him sharply.
"Jesus Christ!" Mark yells, walking right out of the shelter to stand in the pouring rain. "Can't a guy sit at a taxi stand without wanting a cab!"
"No, Mark," Susan tugs on his dressing gown sleeve that's getting steadily wetter and wetter. "Will you take me home?"
He looks at her, she looks suddenly small and cold and tired. "Okay." And he holds out a hand to the cab driver, asking him to wait.
"And will you stay?" she furthers, pleadingly. "Only I don't know – I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I don't know what I'm gonna do."
"Of course," he promises. "Of course I'll stay." She forces a smile for him and nods firmly. He takes her hand and tears his eyes away from her to glance at the impatient cab.
"Come on," he shouts through the thundering rain at her. "Let's go – we're both soaking and you're crying."
"I'm not," she counters sharply, wiping rain and tears from her cheeks. "It's just the rain."
"Liar." he retorts kindly and opens up the cab door for her, falling in behind her.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
The taxi cab rolls steadily down the streets and soon the windows are fogged up with the rain rising from their clothes. Susan, still under Mark's arm, leans against him with her face in his chest, being slowly rocked to sleep by the monotonous whine of the windscreen wipers against the glass and the constant rattle of rain on the little vehicle.
"Mm," Susan mumbles suddenly without opening her eyes. "I love this song. Turn it up."
But the taxi driver doesn't hear her and, at any rate, would not know what the hell she was on about since he didn't even have the radio on.
"You were only waiting for this moment to arise." she sings in a soft drone into Mark's soaking wet dressing gown.
The cab driver pauses at the traffic lights and glances at the couple in the backseat through the bleary mirror. He sees, for a moment, a man sitting with his arm around his passed out girlfriend slumped in his lap and offers him a small grin.
"Rough night, huh?" he remarks.
Mark jerks his head in a nod. "You've got that right." he tells him politely and the cab driver chuckles slightly, turning back to the wheel thinking he'd seen this kind of thing all before.
And Mark watches the blurred streetlights zip past the misty windows, recognising the route back to Susan's despite the haze. He thinks that The Woman in his Bed is going to kill him when he finally shows up – whenever that will be. He thinks it might be a task explaining to Susan the next morning why he's there in his dressing gown and very dirty feet. But he also thinks that there's a woman lying half-asleep against him who really needs someone right now. And that seems to make the other two irrelevant.
Susan shifts a little against his chest and drifts off to sleep with that song playing gently in her head. "You were only waiting for this moment to arise."
- o -