A/N:

First of all, WOW! Thank you all so much for your reviews and alerts, I'm completely overwhelmed by the response to this story. Hope this chapter lives up to your expectations :)

Also, time moves rather quickly in this story, particularly in this chapter.


CHAPTER ONE

..

She's almost entirely sure that he's avoiding her.

Which is fine, really.

(Not really).

She resigned herself to doing this alone when it became clear that Scott wasn't going to be any help, and her father's reaction only cemented the conclusion.

Meredith and Derek made their support clear, but she's fairly sure sister and brother in law support means little more than the occasional baby sitter.

Mark…

She never meant to lead him on or make him think she was in any position to pick up where they left off, but with him all it takes is one look, one sentence, one kiss, and good intentions are out the window on an express train.

Mark did pretty much the same thing as her father, only without the yelling and the cursing.

Basically, she's alone.

Which is fine when the extent of her responsibilities is going to work and trying to control her morning sickness, but she knows that it will be harder when the baby's actually born, if not impossible.

..

He realises he was one of the first people she told, when the rumour that Lexie Grey is pregnant flies around the hospital a week later.

Callie approaches him and asks if he knocked her up, proceeding to lecture him about doing the right thing before he cuts her off to inform her that no, he is not the father of Lexie's baby.

Then she looks at him with something akin to sympathy, and he doesn't know how to handle it, so he makes an excuse about a patient and leaves her to feel sorry for someone else.

..

You can do this, you can do this, you can do this.

It's a mantra that she repeats constantly because if she stops to contemplate anything else she might break down.

She's starting to show.

Like, actually show, not just when she thought she was showing and Meredith told her she was being ridiculous.

The thought scares the hell out of her.

It's not as if the pregnancy is a secret.

She's told Meredith and Derek, and the other people who live in the house – it seems to change night to night. Mark knows, and she knows the majority of the hospital does too, because she overheard two nurses talking about her a week ago.

Their conversation wasn't exactly flattering, but it was realistic, and she knows it's not exactly going to be easy – being a single mother, while trying to maintain a surgical career. She knows it's going to be hard; impossible.

But she's going to do it, even if she has to switch to an easier, less time consuming specialty.

She descends the stairs to find one of Alex's skanks in the kitchen and throws up a little in her mouth.

She needs to move out.

She knows this.

Her child cannot grow up in a frat house.

..

He's barely seen her in months. He doesn't know whether she's purposefully avoiding plastics or she's just stuck on another specialty, but either way he's barely seen her.

It's not as if he's seeking her out.

He still doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

He loves her.

He knows this.

It's almost one of his defining characteristics now, being hopelessly in love with Lexie Grey.

But she's having a baby, a baby that is not his, and he really thinks avoiding her is the best option.

She doesn't need him and his confusion right now. She needs all or nothing and he isn't quite at all yet.

..

She finds the cheapest apartment she can that isn't hours from the hospital.

It's tiny – one bedroom and barely enough space to live in by herself, let alone raise a child in, but she can afford it, and it doesn't have cockroaches. Win-win.

..

She isn't expecting Meredith to take her shopping for baby clothes.

While her sister has been surprisingly helpful and supportive during the pregnancy, shopping wasn't exactly on the short list of things she anticipated from Meredith. It wasn't even on the long list.

Covering for her at work when she had morning sickness? Sure.

Baby clothes and paraphernalia shopping? Absolutely not.

She feels guilty enough that Meredith and Derek have been trying for months to have a child – and still are – with all sorts of painful fertility treatments, and she has a one night stand and gets pregnant.

"You don't have anything for the baby," Meredith tells her, and while Lexie knows it to be true, she's had more important things to worry about than shopping for a baby that is still three months away.

There's also that other tiny factor of money.

So while Meredith is pointing out fifty dollar onesies, she's thinking her kid is never going to have anything ever.

She ends up bawling her eyes out in the middle of the store.

Meredith looks horrified, and has no idea what to do, so she pulls Lexie to her in an awkward hug, guiding her out of the store.

"What's wrong?" Meredith asks, and she can barely hold off the tears for more than a second to explain.

"I-" hiccup. "I can't afford any of that!" She says before continuing to cry, and Meredith's eyes widen as she nods.

"Oh."

Meredith doesn't know what to say, because she's never really had to think about money, let alone raising a kid on an intern's salary.

"It's okay," she says, pulling tissues from her purse, and staring Lexie down. "This is not a problem. We'll have a baby shower. People will bring gifts and we can sort out whatever else you might need from there."

Her voice is so confident, as if this is such a non-issue they shouldn't even be wasting words on it that Lexie can't help but nod.

"Okay."

"Okay."

..

She never really appreciated that she has a genius for a sister before.

She does now.

They have the baby shower at the hospital, and people she's barely spoken more than a sentence to come by to congratulate her and drop off a small gift.

She can barely count the number of onesies she has now.

Meredith just smirks at her knowingly.

..

He goes to the baby shower.

He can't avoid it.

More than half the hospital stops by because "Lexie Grey is really one of the nicest residents".

She should know by now how many people like her because she says please and thank you and is just generally adorable.

The pile of gifts attests to that fact.

He couldn't help himself. Some tiny token gesture present seemed insulting really, to give the love of his life.

Especially when Derek told him she had some sort of breakdown in the middle of a shopping mall because she's broke and pregnant.

He gets her a stroller. And a car seat. And a yearlong supply of diapers.

He has Callie deposit them stealthily in the pile when Lexie isn't looking, because some things she doesn't need to know.

He knows Meredith and Derek got her a crib, and he figures that combined with all the onesies and toys, it's a good start.

He's smiling at her from across the room while she's talking to a nurse he hasn't slept with and doesn't know the name of, when Derek commissions him into helping get the crib into Lexie's apartment.

"It's a surprise," he explains, nodding toward Meredith. "She wants it done by the time Lexie gets home, and now's the best chance we'll have."

He can't argue with that, and he'd rather help Derek than watch her from a distance for another hour.

"Let's go."

..

"Meredith gave me a key," Derek explains, as he jiggles the key in the lock and finally gets it to pop open.

He never saw the crapartment she shared with O'Malley, but it had to have been better than this.

It's tiny, and dingy, and really so far from homey that he isn't sure how Lexie can bare it.

He puts the box on the floor, opening it to find a million pieces that apparently when assembled make up a crib, and he really hates Derek for doing this to him.

"You couldn't have got one that came assembled?" He complains and Derek just grins.

"What's the fun in that?"

..

They can barely fit the crib in her room, among all the boxes and the stuff crammed into the tiny space.

"Why'd you let her leave your place?" He asks Derek, who smiles at him sympathetically.

"She wanted to. She didn't want to have the baby grow up amongst the madness that is our house. We all said she could stay, that we'd work it out, but she wanted to do it on her own."

Mark sighs. Sounds like Lexie. Too stubborn to realise that raising a kid in an attic of a house with five other people was preferable to a tiny apartment with no one to help.

..

She's on his service for the first time in weeks; months, possibly, and he can't seem to get over just how pregnant she looks.

At seven months she's sporting a clear baby bump, and he knows better than to suggest she take it easy because he heard her screaming at Derek just last week in the corridor for making such a statement.

There are no major traumas, for which he's thankful, so they perform a routine rhinoplasty, and they're scrubbing out after a fairly stress-free day when he gets the chance to actually talk to her.

There's a lull in the polite conversation, and he can't help himself. He has to ask, because it's the one thing that has been in the back of his mind this whole time, nagging him.

"Why didn't you get an abortion?"

It's intrusive, and far too personal for the kind of relationship they've established over the last few months, and he probably could have phrased it more politely, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to him.

The Lexie he knew didn't want kids, at least not yet.

She wanted to be twenty five and carefree; she wanted to enjoy this part of her life.

It also wasn't long ago that she dumped him because she didn't want to raise his grandson, and he can't ignore the insecurity any longer. She'd rather raise some asshole's kid alone than your grandson with you.

She looks at him when he asks the question, pressing her lips together before replying.

"I thought about it," she admits, dropping his gaze. "I made an appointment, I just… I couldn't do it. I mean, I'm pro-choice, I have nothing against women who make the choice, I just, I couldn't do it."

He nods, understanding, because he remembers the pain and regret that came with Addison's abortion, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone.

"I mean, this might not be how I thought my life would pan out, but it happened, and I know when she's born, I'm never going to be able to imagine my life without her."

He smiles, his eyes meeting hers.

"It's a girl?"

"Yeah," she grins back at him, and he pulls her into a congratulatory hug.

"You're going to be a wonderful mother, Lex," he tells her, with absolute certainty.

"Thanks."


Feedback would be very much appreciated :)