It had been roughly a week since I broke Mark's penis and though sex of course was off the table until it healed, the past week was nothing less than perfect. We talked and laughed for hours every night and since we had both seen each other vulnerable, it seemed like there were no secrets between us. Though in the pit of my stomach this was a secret that I was keeping from Meredith and everyone else. Each night that was spent together, the more I wanted to share the cause of my happiness with everyone else, but I knew that wasn't an option. I didn't want to think about what everyone else had to say about our relationship. My chest tighten every time I thought about it and my blood pressure would rise. I had to continuously keeping calming myself down and tell myself that I don't care about what other people thought but I knew that was a lie. We stood side by side in the elevator, my right pinkie wrapped around his left and though it wasn't actually hand holding, for the fear of someone seeing it, the small little act said enough. It showed that this was becoming more than sex, not just for me but for Mark as well. The elevator dinged as the door opened and he looked down at me to give me one last heartwarming smile before walking out onto the floor, his pinkie slipping from my grasp.
He went right to find Owen to do one final exam on his penis and I went left to head to the resident lounge to get changed. Once I was in my resident scrubs, I headed down to the trauma bay to meet up with Lexie and Meredith. As I walked out in the bay, slipping on my gloves, and tying my trauma gown behind me neck, Meredith gave me a look of disconcert. I stared back at her as I finished dressing before I couldn't take her staring anymore.
"What?" I snapped as an ambulance siren sounded in the distance.
"So, uh, what's going on with you and Mark Sloan?" Meredith questioned me, the wailing sirens getting closer. There was once again that rapid heart rate and shortness of breath as I was thrown off. I forced myself to not look at Lexie, knowing that would definitely make me look guilty.
"Nothing. Why? W-w-why would you ask that? Nothing is going on. What did you think was going on?" I slammed my lips shut before I could stammer anymore and give myself away.
"Well, because you've been on his service for over a week." The ambulance pulled into the bay.
"I'm really interested in plastics a-as a—as a specialty. You know this. I've told you this. In order to learn plastics, I kind of need to be on his service." Meredith narrowed her eyes at me before turning to the ambulance.
"Mm-hmm." Fidgeting with my gloves, I walked over to Lexie who was standing off to the side waiting for the ambulance to back up, indicators beeping.
"She knows." I whispered hastily to Lexie. "She knows. Oh, my God. She knows."
"She doesn't know." Lexie said quietly, staring at the ambulance. "She's just curious about why you're on his service."
"She knows, Lexie and now she's going to go tell Derek and it's going to ruin his friendship with Mark. You know, Derek and Mark just mended their friendship and now it's going to be ruined again."
"Calm down and focus on the patient. Get your mind off of it and focus." Inhaling deeply and exhaling loosely, I turned to the ambulance as the back doors opened and an EMT climbed out and began to run down the patient.
"Vehicular blunt trauma, right shoulder, stabilized in the field.
"Somebody help us, please!" A pregnant woman called hysterically as an EMT helped her out of the ambulance.
"Jen, honey, slow down, will you?" A man from the gurney, who I assume was her husband, tried to reassure her. Jen went up to Meredith and gripped her arms as something on the man's left pectoral caught my eyes. Burn marks! Absolutely terrible for the patient but debriding is just what I needed to get my mind off Meredith and Mark and this whole high blood pressure secret.
"Please, please, can you help my husband? I ran him over with the car."
"Sweetie, sweetie… you have to calm down."
"Okay."
"I'm gonna be fine. I'm gonna be fine."
"Okay, I'm calm. I'm calm." I began to guide the husband through trauma bay and into the ER.
GA
"Oh, my God, it's my brain." Jen cried as we got her into a bed next to her husband after she fainted in the trauma bay. I stood over the husband and gingerly began to clean the burn marks on his shoulder and get them ready for Mark to debride in surgery. Keeping my hands steady and light kept my mind distracted and I reveled in it. "It's my stupid, pregnant brain. I left the car in drive. Oh, God, baby. I'm so sorry."
"It's a normal neuro exam." Derek said coming back with the husband's scans.
"Okay, well, he's got an inferior shoulder dislocation and some associated fractures. He'll definitely need surgery." Finishing clean the wound and taking out any debris I found, I began to prepare a hydrocolloid dressing to cover the burn just until we could get him into the OR.
"Sloan will debride the burns when he's in surgery."
"Surgery?" Jen gasped. "Oh, baby."
"Her BP is 170 over 100." I heard Lexie tell Meredith.
"Give her five of hydralazine." Meredith instructed.
"Oh, my God." Jen breathed.
"Sweetie, just calm down." The husband tried to soothe her. "How's the baby?" Jen smiled and looked over at him.
"Kicking like crazy and pressing right on my bladder."
"Well, look on the bright side. At least, uh, she's not running you over with a truck."
"Hey, you wanted the SUV, right?" Fastening off the bandage to his shoulder, I took a step back from patient.
"The burns are all ready for Dr. Sloan to debride." I told Callie, taking off my gloves and tossing them in the trash before grabbing his chart and filling it out.
"Are you going to take him into surgery now?"
"Yeah, it's a good thing." Callie answered her. "We can get his dislocation fixed so we can prevent problems with his circulation."
"Her last BP was still up—162 over 102." Lexie told Meredith.
"Okay, well, the OB was worried about placental blood flow." Meredith whispered back. "Stay with her and just try to keep her calm, okay?"
"I'm going to go get the OR prepped and I'll meet you up there." I told Callie and when she gave me a nod of approval, I set the chart back on his bed and headed up to the third floor.
GA
I stood to the right of Mark in the OR looking over his arm as he began debriding the wound. Every movement was clean and precise and graceful. Years and years of experience were shown in his movements. I watched with bright eyes and eagerness to learn, eating up everything that he was doing and storing it in my brain.
"Why is debridement important?" Mark asked me quietly never once faltering in his work.
"You have to remove any debris from the wound but also remove any necrotic tissue." I answered, keeping my eyes on the wound. "As the tissue becomes necrotic, it releases toxins back into the body which will prevent proper healing and skin regeneration. So, debridement is important to remove that dead material."
"Very good, Dr. Wolfe." It felt like glitter exploded inside me as he praised me, my pride glowing. The doors to the operating room hissed as they slid open and Meredith walked in.
"Sorry." Meredith apologized as a nurse handed her a sterile hand towel to dry her hands before slipping them into some gloves. "I had to make sure the patient's wife is stable. She's hypertensive, and I think this surgery's more stressful on her than it is on him." The monitor began beeping erratically and I looked to my right to see his blood pressure dropping.
"Damn it." Callie cursed and I glanced across the table to see blood pouring out of the wound. "There's a huge tear. His clavicle fracture is jutting into the artery. Grey, hold this clamp." Meredith ran up to Callie's side and took the clamp from her.
"Wolfe, put pressure right here." Mark instructed and I placed my hands just on top of the clavicle on the artery and pressed down as hard as I could to try to stop the bleeding so Mark could work with Callie to try to close off the artery. "Page Hunt. Get him in here now." The monitor continued to beep erratically and by the time Owen finally arrived in the OR, my fingers were numb and lack of circulation with the amount of pressure I was putting on his clavicle. My pressure did not falter though as Owen worked with haste and efficiency to close off the bleeder. We watched the monitor, all holding our breaths.
"Come on, come on, come on, come on, stabilize." Owen muttered under his breath as the beeping continued.
"BPs going up." Mark confirmed as the monitor began to beep rhythmically. "Going up." Meredith breathed deeply and I let out a sigh as Callie exhaled deeply before turning to Owen.
"Thank you." She breathed to him, her voice full of sincerity and gratitude.
"Yep." Owen said. "Should be good to go." The side door to the OR opened and Lexie stepped in with her mask and scrub cap on, brown eyes wide with worry.
"Dr. Grey, Jen Harmon—" Lexie began to speak but Meredith cut her off.
"Tell Jen he's stable."
"She's not. She had a seizure."
"A seizure?"
"We got him, Grey." Callie informed her. "Go help her." Meredith stepped away from the table and rushed out of the OR with Lexie.
GA
I sat at a large round table in the middle of the cafeteria with Alex, Sadie, George, Izzie, Cristina, Meredith, and Lexie. Alex was just telling us about a patient that came into the ER because him and his wife wanted to spice up their sex life and now the husband had a sex toy lodged up his rectum. Alex even brought the magazine that they got the idea from so that we could visualize what happened. We all laughed.
"They tried number nine?" Izzie laughed. "Who does nine?" Sadie picked up the magazine and began to look through the list.
"Personally, I'm a fan of five… seven, eight… well, pretty much twelve through twenty." Sadie said and we all broke into laughter again, filling the room. "I would try fifteen."
"Don't try fifteen." George and Izzie exclaimed in unison. The whole table fell silent as we looked from one person to the other. George and Izzie looked down at their food in embarrassment and Alex cleared his throat.
"I would try sixteen." Izzie finally said. I leaned to the middle of the table to look at number sixteen and almost choked on my food when I saw that it was the position that I broke Mark's penis.
"You'd try sixteen?" Alex chuckled.
"Mm-hmm. I would. I totally would." Alex cleared his throat and check his watch before getting up and speed walking out of the cafeteria with Izzie closely behind him.
"Um, don't do sixteen too fast." I called after them. "It can—you can get hurt… badly…" I turned back to the table to see Meredith eying me through narrowed eyes. "So, I've heard." She continued to stare at me, and I began to feel my cheeks heat up. I abruptly stood from my chair and grabbed my chair. "I got to, um, to go, uh, check on my patient." I turned on my heel and left Meredith's unnerving line of sight, tossing my scraps in the trash as I went.
GA
I leaned my back against the wall with my legs crossed in front of me. I tapped my pager against my palm as it went off for the third time as Mark was paging me to the on-call room. Must have gotten the all clear from Owen. I let out a loose breath of air to try to slow my breathing. Lexie told me to fight for what I want, and I wanted a relationship with Mark. An actual relationship, not just sex but I couldn't do that in secret. I wanted this but I couldn't keep it a secret from Meredith. It literally gives me anxiety every time I'm around her. I wanted this but I couldn't have this and now I had to go tell Mark. My pager beeped for the fourth time and I knew that if I didn't answer this page then he would come looking for me.
Sighing, I clipped my pager back to my pants and made my way down the hall to the on-call room. Looking left and right to make sure no one was around was like second nature now. I opened the door and Mark instantly stood up from the bed, grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire Cat. He looked so happy, eyes bright and beaming. I slowly closed the door, facing it to collect my thoughts before I faced him. I couldn't say what I had to say with him smiling like that.
"Hi." He greeted me.
"I don't want to keep secrets." I blurted out.
"Sorry?" I slowly turned back around to see the smile vanished from his face. That was better but I stilled internally kicked myself for ruining his good mood.
"I've been keeping secrets for months now, about you. And—and that secret, the—the—the you secret, it's giving me high blood pressure. And I-I don't want that secret." Mark looked down at his feet. "We're having… a relationship. Or at least I hope we are having a relationship. And if we are, if we're in a relationship," Mark looked back up, locking eyes with me. "Then, I need to be in it in front of Meredith and Derek Shepherd. If we can't do that, then I can't do this." He stared at me, eyes full of confliction and confusion. When he didn't offer anything else to say, I turned and walked out of the room, feeling empty and lost.