Mark gives serious thought to returning to the hospital again today between bites of food, swigs of coffee and water, and the constant throb of a headache lurking just behind his eyes. As he rolls the idea around in his mind, it's uncomfortable knowing how far off its roots his plan has been shaken.
Sure, it'd been a half-baked plan in the first place, brought about by the near crushing emptiness and loneliness that had taken up permanent residence behind his walls since the abandonment of Addison and Derek, his only family, but it'd been a plan. And all it had taken was a quick rescheduling of a few appointments and he had been on the plane to Seattle.
The cut across his cheekbone stings in the light of day, with no alcohol to numb it, a constant reminder of what he's lost so far. Addison's blatant rejection from the night before feels a bit like an angry road rash wrapped around the heart he's worked so hard to protect and hide. Derek's angry parting words don't help, dancing around his head like taunting birds trying to tear away strips of his flesh.
"How come you can forgive her and not me?"
"I haven't forgiven her and with you, I have no obligation to try."
(There's a piece of Mark that hates Derek now, hates him in a blinding way that doesn't make a lick of sense… except it does. Derek is one of the only two people in the world who knows just how much Mark's chosen family means to him, after the neglect from his parents, and yet, the dark-haired neurosurgeon had turned his back and walked away. Sure, Mark had fucked up, but wasn't family supposed to give family a chance?)
Those pesky self-loathing and self-destructive tendencies he had told Meredith about urge him to head to the hospital, to see his best friend, his brother in everything but blood, and let Derek spew even more vicious hatred, hatred Mark so rightfully deserves. Because at least than Derek will be talking to Mark again, something he wants so badly, it's terrifying. The devils are telling him to go in and find Addison, even after she had once again picked Derek, because Addison had been his, even only for a moment, and he wanted her back.
And underneath it all is the faintest whisper Meredith will be there.
For once in his life, he smartly ignores the devils.
Instead, he decides to hop in the shower before he'll crawl back in bed and sleep off the rest of the hangover, wanting to think things over with a clear head. Besides, like he had said yesterday, the rain does make him want to spend all day in bed. Although he had meant with another warm body, Meredith's in particular when he had been flirting, there's something satisfying and easy about the idea of sleeping through the rain.
(And if he wants just another minute, just one damn moment, before having to face the fact that he might never get his brother back, that the woman he loves will not choose him, well then, who's around that can blame him?)
Giving his head a quick shake in an attempt to clear away the dark thoughts, he regrets it immediately when his head spins; the creeping hangover been easy to forget while stationary and eating and Mark groans, dropping his head to his hands as he waits for the vertigo to cease. Even though his stomach does a quick roll and the smell of alcohol seems to radiate from his skin, Mark can't bring himself to even consider regretting drinking as much as he had the night before.
Meredith had been right; he had been trying to get drunk. He just hadn't been expecting to find not only a drinking partner but, what he might loosely call now, a friend.
"I just saw my father for the first time in twenty years," Meredith's voice drifts through his head with a memory, the dead tone mismatched to the words that should hold emotion.
Perhaps Mark isn't the only one hurting today. He suspects he also isn't alone in the dark either.
When the vertigo finally clears, Mark sighs and lifts his head.
Pushing the room service cart to the door and carefully moving it out into the hallway, Mark hangs the do-not-disturb sign on the doorknob and retreats to the bathroom, ignoring his clothing that is still strewn about the floor for the time being. The shower jumps to life at his touch and within moments he's under the hot spray, scrubbing away the lingering scent of scotch and tequila that seems to cling to his skin.
As he does, flashes from the night before, fuzzy around the edges but filled with light laughter and companionship, circle in his head. It brings a smile to his lips,
Eventually, when the bathroom is thick with steam and nearly suffocatingly warm, Mark leaves the warmth and towels off, leaving his hair dripping. He doesn't have the energy to deal with at the moment. Emerging, towel slung low on his hips, he frowns at his abandoned clothing and sighs. While he may sometimes feel like chaos embodied, he dislikes disorder when it can be avoided.
Gathering up articles of clothing, it's only when he finds a small black sock that definitely is not his tucked underneath the corner of the bed and can only locate one of his much larger grey ones, that he starts laughing. The pieces fall together in his mind.
Sitting on the side of the bed, he picks up the piece of paper he's kept and carefully punches in the phone number, still snickering as he brings the phone to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Grey, did you steal one of my socks?"
...
Rounds fly by quickly, Bailey moving at an irritation fueled pace that forces her gaggle of interns to scramble after her, Meredith trailing at the back. Because of it, she isn't surprise when she's assigned to scut. As the rest of the interns scuttle away to their assigned tasks, George shooting her one last unreadable look, Meredith slinks to the main nurses desk under Bailey's watchful eye to collect charts that need updating.
Finding a quiet hallway, she settles herself on one of the empty beds that line the hall, spreading her work around her and beginning to pick her way through. The headache has faded to the dull thump of a base drum against her temples and it's easy enough to ignore as she focuses in on the pages before her.
She gets lost easily in the endless and mind numbing act of adding notes to charts and making sure everything is filed properly. So involved, in fact, that when the phone in her pocket chirps, Meredith starts, a slash of pen skidding across the page. Wincing at the sight of the harsh smear of black, she sets the chart and pen aside and digs the ringing phone out of her lab coat, cursing herself for not leaving it in her locker like usual and praying Bailey doesn't catch her.
With a grateful sigh at the silence that meets her ears when she flips the device open, she lifts the phone to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Grey, did you steal one of my socks?"
At the sound of his voice and the words he says, Meredith feels a faint blush creep across her cheeks. Closing her eyes, she feels a small twinge of embarrassment, but quickly shrugs it off, deciding to own it.
"Yep; I couldn't find my other one and yours was just laying there, begging to be taken. And I needed a sock," she retorts, leaning back and getting comfortable, already feeling lighter.
When Mark's amused hoot of laughter fills her ears, a smile graces her lips.
"It's not the only thing begging to be taken by you," he purrs and Meredith is forced to stifle her giggles in the sleeve of her lab coat.
"Well played," she answers between breaths.
"Thank you," Mark replies smoothly, before continuing. "And Gray, your sock was under the bed."
"Oops?" is all Meredith can offer, blatantly unapologetic.
Mark laughs again, sounding free and light.
"Well, you know what this means Grey; I definitely need to see you again, especially since I'm now holding your sock for ransom," Mark tells her, something mischievous creeping in his voice.
"Are you really Sloan?" Meredith fires back, struggling to keep her own amusement out of her voice.
"I am, and, if you ever want to see this sock again, you'll meet me at the hotel for eight," Mark responds, the fake threat coming apart under Meredith's snickering.
"What if I'm the one holding your sock hostage?" Meredith fires back, easily settling into the banter.
"Well then, I propose a trade, sock for sock. Seems fair."
Meredith ponders this for a second; this could be so wrong, her and Mark and whatever this strange connection was, but she needed to move on and so did he, so perhaps, for now, it could be right. After all, she had left him her number with the vague hope he would call. "I can agree to those terms," she answers finally.
"Excellent, I'll see you then. Now, time to spend all day in bed," Mark tells her, implication and innuendo falling easily from his tongue.
"No need to brag Sloan, it's unbecoming."
"Haven't you learned by now Grey, nothing about me is unbecoming," Mark crows.
Snorting, Meredith shakes her head in mild incredulity. "I have to go back to work. Goodbye," she proclaims, shutting her phone on his answering goodbye and holding the device against her chest for a long moment, feeling warm.
After a long second, she shakes her head and tucks her phone away, picking back up the chart she had been working on and diving back into the work, not noticing the shadow at the end of the hallway walk away.
A/N: Wow, I'm overwhelmed by the response to this. It was only ever intended to be a quick lil fluff piece but here we go I guess :)
Hearts always, A.