Sand and Stone

Or, five times Lexie Grey said "Yes" when she really meant "No," and the one time she said "Yes" and really, really meant "Yes."

Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy. This piece of fanfiction is purely for entertainment and feels.

"Write the good things that happen to you in stone. Write the bad things that happen to you in sand."

Arabic Proverb

1. Mom ("Yes, Mom, it'll be fine. Hiccups are so routine you'll be home by dinner. Spaghetti OK?")

Lexie hated the fog.

Absolutely, positively loathed it.

She wanted to be in Boston, city of ivy, crimson, and dreams. That was her home— leisurely walks by the Charles, ice cream on the Esplanade, and libraries filled with the slightly vanillic tinge of cracked spines and musky glue. She chose that life for herself with its flashing lights and sorrowful nights on the pale, moonlight stones. There were dreams tied to that city and that city only. Nowhere else in the world that she felt completely and utterly at home because it was the place she chose with the faded Aerosmith poster and oversized sweatshirts past her knees.

But no, she's here now in this strangely airless place that hasn't felt like home in like, forever. Seattle is just fog, fog, rain, sleet, fog, and emptiness.

Lexie stands by the ferry and whispers into the mist.

How do I rebuild my life without my foundation? Who am I when one of the pillars collapses and twists upon itself?

(She hates the fog because there are no answers.)

2. Dad ("Yes, Dad, it'll be fine. Just another drink won't hurt you. But just one more, OK?")

She used to love cheap beer in plastic cups. Which is funny, because the first time she went to a frat party, she slipped in the basement and almost fell on top of some vomit, which is really, really funny considering the amount of vomit she sees and cleans at the hospital and now, at home with Dad.

It was cute at first, how he charmed his way into breakfast for dinner at the local dive and told hilariously (inappropriate) jokes that made even Joe the bartender blush. Not so cute when it was the fifty-fifth time that she had to haul his ass home from the bar because the taxi companies started screening his calls (something something, vomit cleaning fee). Not even remotely cute when he started yelling about how she was ungrateful for the sacrifices he made (something something, Meredith notwithstanding).

Then it was just plain sad, because she found him curled in the corner of the closet more than once, holding Mom's old sweater.

So she hates beers now, hides all the plastic cups, "borrows" some hospital-grade cleaner for the vomit, and prays to Mom to watch over Dad, because her foundations are raw and it's going to be even harder to build something where two of the support beams are twisted and eviscerated.

3. Meredith ("Yes, of course I'll leave you alone. We're not family. I get that now.")

Lexie thinks it's strange how alike they are. Same eyes, sense of humor, size shoes. They even happy dance when things go well, like when the attending don't murder them for presenting a patient wrong or when they get to scrub in on a really awesome surgery or when that kid who broke like 85 bones in the ICU waltzes in a few years later on his way to prom to say "Yo, dudes, whaddap, it's lit, fam."

And it's weird and a little funny that they both have to look up exactly what "whaddap" and "lit" and "fam" means, but it's also a little weird and sad that Meredith is "lit" about being "fam" with a kid that she's seen in the OR a few times but not "lit" about being "fam" with an actual sister wandering around the same fucking hospital everyday.

But yeah, sure, Lexie can wait. It's "lit" to be patient and loving for your family, right?

(No?)

4. George ("Yes, of course we're just friends. Why would you even ask me that question?")

So…yeah…George.

Clueless in a totally can't be helped, head in the sand, wouldn't see a fracture if a fracture was whacking him in the eyeballs kind of way.

Cute though, in a socially awkward, idiotic kind of way that definitely does not preclude adorable but socially challenged way. The kind of person who thinks nothing of himself and always does the right thing for other people, which, come to think of it, is kind of the problem, because he doesn't see himself the way Lexie does, and oh God, here she goes again down this path and it's just so, so ironic because he's practically legally blind and she's just, blindingly in "I really LIKE you."

5. Jackson ("Yes, let's be friends. Why wouldn't we be able to hang out and support each other without feelings being involved?")

So, yeah, Jackson.

Insightful in a totally can be helped, head above the water, would definitely see a cluster B personality from a few gestures away kind of thing.

Handsome in a totally socially acceptable, Mom and Dad approved, build a forever home together kind of way. The kind of person who thinks everything of her, Lexie Grey, klutz extraordinaire, walking Pictionary, zero bandaids for her bleeding heart over every patient and everything, because he sees her in a way that no one ever has and probably ever will again.

But her heart is blind and she can't do anything about that even though she tries, tries, tries, and fails.

6. Mark ("Yes, we're meant to be.")

There's too much to say, and too little time to say it.

Lexie knows she's dying before the moment comes. The crunch of metal, heat, and God, oh God, the pain.

The shiver is excruciating torture, sizzling hot and icy hot and tingly, spiky, crawling its way through every nerve, tendon, and muscle in her body.

Well, what was left of it, anyways.

It's funny how even now she can see page 89 of the old New England Journal of Medicine story about how a small child miraculously survived a plane crash out in rural Vermont in '67. The child had been shielded from the bitter snow by a fortuitous combination of leaves and timber.

What were the trauma rules again?

Oh right. Help yourself first.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

The image of the journal flickers in her mind and Lexie realizes that it's not her brain that's flickering, but her very existence. The photos of her childhood cross her mind. Five years old, swaddled in Mom's brand new red sweater, chasing their golden retriever down the street. Seven years old, wrapped in Dad's old cardigan hidden under the Big Bed, blowing out candles and playing with a Barbie dream house. Seventeen years old, Homecoming Queen and Class President and trying, so, so hard to be cool. Twenty years old, trying beer for the first time, and vomiting all over the corner of the basement, neatly, on top of someone else's vomit. Twenty-four years old, in the hospital, seeing him for the first time and realizing that no, all the memories of family and love before, they were all just illusions and this, this ass of a man standing by the Nurse's Station with his impossibly blue eyes and six-pack, this was reality and no other family would ever compare to the family they were going to have one day.

Except…she was dying and that dream is dying with her, hemoglobin and lymphocytes dripping into the wet earth below.

They were dying. He was going to remember her like this— what was left of her that wasn't marching towards flatlining— and he would die, too, slowly and in pieces, tears and mucous dripping into the cold, damp ground below.

They deserved so much better.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

The images flicker and she sees their kids. All brown-eyed, like her, because that's how genetics works, dominant and recessive genes and all. The boys would have his curly hair and Merry Sue, the only girl, would have her straight as a pin hair and personality. The grandkids would have his eyes, of course, because at least one of the kids was bound to carry the blue eyed gene and marry someone with impossibly blue eyes, too.

(they're just meant to be, maybe in some other lifetime than this one, and maybe in this one, too, and perhaps in every iteration of the universe to follow, they would find each other again)

And Lexie thinks that it's so terribly sad that this vision of the future she's hurtling towards is leaving her body drip by drip. Their house of stone and ivy, the foundations were slowly disintegrating, and Mark, poor Mark, he'll have to build that life with someone else now. Someone alive, gloriously alive, with blood and guts and squishy parts that can plaster walls, lay beams, and laugh about the absurdities that accompany 36 hour calls at the hospital.

No matter, though. He'll see her again in a miracle case (there were a lot of those at Seattle Grace for some reason), a dazzling sunset (a lot of those, too, everyday, when the fog lifted over the Sound), or a surprise birthday party somewhere down the line (hopefully many, many of those for him to come, a long, long time before she sees him again, hopefully, oh God, please, give Mark as many of those as possible— please, please, please….