She'd been gone before he woke up.

Mark didn't know how it had happened, because he was usually a light sleeper, and he had specifically wanted to see her in the morning. He'd had all sorts of plans, and had wanted to put them into action, but he'd woken to his alarm at seven am, and she had been gone. The bed had been…lukewarm, so she hadn't been gone long, but in Mark's opinion, it should still have been warm with her body.

It hit him as he stood up, what had really happened.

He'd slept with Lexie Grey. It was an unsettling feeling, for a number of reasons. There was Derek, for one. Behind all of the joking and covert glances between them, Mark had sensed the absolute sincerity Derek had been projecting, and had to sit back down again as he realized what he'd done. He'd broken a promise.

Everyone always assumed that Mark broke promises, but they were wrong.

He just didn't make promises.

Partly, because he hated breaking them so much. He never promised women anything more than a night of sexual ecstasy, and he never promised to be somebody that he wasn't. So, breaking his word to

Derek was a big deal.

He'd also broken his word with Meredith, because a promise to Derek was also a promise to Meredith. Sure, she was just Derek's girlfriend, but Mark had always had a special sort of affection for her, being the second member of the Dirty Mistresses Club. She had become a friend of sorts, albeit because she was Derek's girlfriend, but Mark sensed in her another kindred spirit; broken, low self esteem, and terrified of happiness. She was reaching out towards Derek, however, and Mark had been encouraging her in small ways for the past few months.

So there was the problem of Derek and Meredith.

There was also the problem of him being her boss. It may have worked for his best friend, but Lexie was a completely different person than Meredith. She had an innocence about her- not virginal, and not naïve, but innocent- that made him worry about the consequences of their night. Not staying through the morning had made things fuzzy as well. Mark would have liked the opportunity to discuss what had happened- well, he knew what had happened- but to discuss what could or would happen following their emergence from The Archfield.

Whatever, it didn't matter. He'd just track her down at the hospital- they both worked in the same place.

When he turned on the shower, however, and let the scalding water beat down on his bowed head, he couldn't stop his thoughts. Sex with Lexie had been good. Really good. Better than good. Great. Fantastic.

He'd not only gotten the satisfaction one got from great sex, he'd enjoyed himself. Enjoyed having his arms around her during, and having her arms around him afterwards. He'd liked her weight on his shoulder and chest while she slept, and the fact that he'd slept so deeply was not lost on him. Something about her enchanted him.

Dressing and leaving the hotel, he grabbed coffee and breakfast on the way, and arrived at the hospital in time for rounds. He checked his charts, and went in to talk to one of his patients for post op, his thoughts never really leaving Lexie, once he'd assured himself that his patient was progressing nicely.

Meredith brought her interns by to discuss a case, and he didn't look her in the eye as he addressed her for information and asked questions. She didn't find it weird, or didn't make any awkward gestures implying she found it weird, so he breathed a sigh of relief when he left, and went on to Mrs. Patterson.

Mark had been reading the chart as he wandered through the hall, but stopped abruptly in the doorway as he saw Lexie. She was sitting on Mrs. Patterson's bed, quietly and slowly conversing with the woman who, 24 hours before, had been communicating through post it notes.

She didn't look any different; blue scrubs and a white lab coat, and her hair in a pony tail. Both women turned to look as he entered, and for the first time in his life, Mark couldn't control his reaction to a woman. Their eyes met, and immediately smoldered, as memories from the previous evening surfaced. It must have been there, written in his eyes, because Lexie looked away and blushed, then got off the bed.

Mark allowed himself to linger on her for another second or two, then turned to Mrs. Patterson, a world class surgeon smile on his face.

"Good morning Mrs. Patterson; how are we feeling today?"

"Wonderful. I can talk again."

"You sure can."

He undid the bandages to take a look at how things were progressing, going into doctor mode, and not 'besotted guy who just got laid' mode. He gave some instructions to Lexie, who dutifully wrote them down. Unlike Meredith, however, she seemed to be in the height of awkwardness, and fumbled around on every second thing she did. Mark had suppress the urge to look at her and grin, and then make an inappropriate sexual comment.

Before he could give in to the urge, however, his pager went off, and he quickly glanced at it.

"This is an emergency. Okay, Mrs. Patterson. Dr. Grey here is going to take care of you and get all your post op care taken care of today, and I'll be back this afternoon to take another look after you've had some time to rest."

"Thank you, Dr. Sloan."

She reached out to grab his hand, and Mark allowed himself to revel in the admiration for a quick moment. Sparing a glance at Lexie, he then grinned at his patient again.

"Believe me when I say it was my pleasure."

Lexie choked on …air, it seemed, and he made a swift exit from the room. The ER took up his attention for the next several hours, and he found himself in an OR, attending to the victim of a car crash. He had Alex at his side, assisting him, and it looked like the procedure was going to go textbook smoothly. It wasn't a very exciting operation, however, and the gallery remained mostly empty. Halfway through, Mark glanced up and saw Lexie sitting there, watching him.

Their eyes caught, and held for a fraction of a second, before he returned his attention to his work.

It unnerved him.

Being in the OR was one of the only steady things in his life. He was in control, in charge, and could direct events to unfold. Mark was a plastic surgeon. It wasn't often that he was caught by surprise, or that he did procedures that were vastly different than each other.

He liked being in control. It made him feel like he had a grip on his life. Lexie Grey interrupted that. He hadn't been in the same room with her that morning for even five minutes, and already she'd thrown off his balance.

Forcing himself to ignore her, sitting there, he guided Alex through the rest of the procedure, and quickly left him to close up.

After washing up, he squashed the urge to run up and see Lexie, and instead went to the coffee cart to get himself something strong. Last night's activities had been exhausting, both physically and mentally.

"Hey."

He turned around to see Derek, smiling and jovial as usual.

"One coffee please. How did your surgery go?"

Mark paused for a moment. "Good. Good. It went well."

"That's good. My kid from this morning? Ruptured aneurism."

"That's…not good."

Derek didn't seem to notice Mark's uneasiness, and continued to make small talk.

"So. What did you do last night?"

Mark was in the process of sipping his coffee, and coughed a little.

"Last night?"

"Yeah."

"Why? Why would I have done anything last night."

Derek shrugged, still unconcerned. "We didn't see you at Joe's. I thought you'd want to celebrate after your performance yesterday."

"Performance?"

"Giving that woman back her voice."

"Right. That performance. Yes. I did do that. But I was tired. So I went home. To sleep. Alone."

"Good. You look well rested. I've got to tell you, these days, you've been looking exhausted. You've got to slow down. It's not like you do brain surgery."

Mark rolled his eyes at Derek's good natured ribbing. "Well, we can't all be nerds like you. How's Meredith?"

"Great. She finally gave in about letting me take over her mother's study, actually."

"Really?" Mark raised his eyebrows. Meredith had been pretty against letting Derek make her mother's office his office. They'd gotten into a couple petty fights about it, and she had bitched to him that she thought Derek was being a bit pushy.

"Yeah. I guess she was just holding onto it for posterity's sake. Lexie crashes there sometimes, but she asked Lexie about it today if she wanted to move in, and Lexie said no-"

"Wait-what? She asked Lexie if she wanted to move in? Where did that come from?"

Derek shrugged. "She's been getting closer with Lexie lately. I think she got all protective when she thought that you were interested, but now that she knows you're not and you would never, she's just been more into getting to know her. Besides. She's been growing apart from Cristina, and I think she likes the idea of the whole sister thing."

"So Lexie's not moving in?"

"No. She said that she likes where she's living. With George, I guess. Although I thought she and George weren't really doing that well."

Mark was lost in thought. Meredith had actually asked Lexie to move in? It was like something out of the twilight zone. Even weirder, Lexie had said no. Mark sensed that it was Lexie's greatest wish for Lexie to get to know her sister, so he couldn't understand what the hell was going on.

"Don't you have surgery?"

Derek glanced at his watch and swore. "Yeah. I do. I'll catch up with you later then."

Nodding, Mark went to look for a special intern, and demand some ----explanations about the previous night.

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Sometimes it takes me a while to get into a good rhythm. So I apologize for the awkwardness of these first few chapters. Please review!