A/N: THIS IS POSSIBLY AN UPDATING RECORD. :D I've pretty much finished this little venture; I just need to edit it all together. Which is going well, evidently. ;) Now if I could only resuscitate my fic fairy and get LM a final three chapters, that would be great...

Also, thanks to the reviewers and the PMers and the lurkers. The numbers prove that even though people don't tend to review short things, you ARE reading, so I'm so glad you're still with me so far. :) Although, you know, saying hi wouldn't hurt. ;P

Part 9

Now her liver is inside him, and instead of feeling better, he feels worse.

She insists she did it for Lexie, for Molly. For their relationships with him, for the father he was to his other daughters.

(He used to think of them as his better daughters. The ones that didn't kill the woman he loves.

Now he isn't sure.

After all, she may have let Susan die, yes, but she did just save him.)

She insists—albeit without explicitly stating so—that she has no part in this, no personal interest. That he's just the guy who poured her cereal.

She seems entirely unaffected.

The worst part is, he knows it's not just an act.

Whenever she asks about him, it's about his incision, about his heart rate or blood pressure or something, about his liver. Their liver.

Never about him.

(Goddammit.)

He had hoped, stupidly, that she would realize he could die, and that her reaction to this news would be something other than nonchalant disinterest.

But—he knows now that she has always known he could die. Would die. Will die, still. After all, she is a surgeon. (It's nearly a dirty word, to him.)

She stares down death every day of her life.

And additionally, she's read his chart; knows more about his condition than he does.

I'm just doing this for Lexie, she clarifies as she strolls in, only slightly gingerly, after the surgery. She looks completely at home in the sterile hospital environment—exchanging pleasantries with the nurses and other doctors, chatting and laughing at something said by some guy walking next to her.

Thatcher can't see him or hear him, but he's pretty sure it's one of her bosses, and well, that's just perfect. She's an attending-chaser just like her mother.

Stopping at the foot of his bed, she just flips open his chart, glancing at the seemingly-incomprehensible medical garble and instantly decoding it.

He knows exactly why this pisses him off.

The reason is this.

He is the only one who can answer her questions.

How are you feeling?

Any pain at the incision site?

He is the one with answers. The only one who can answer those questions. She needs them and he has them, and it feels… it feels like she needs him. Even just a little, for yes/no questions and a cursory prod at his abdomen.

Except when she reads his fucking chart.

Then it's like he's not even in the room at all.

She says that he's just the guy who poured her cereal, and he believes her.

She does not need him.

But she is willing to have him need her.

He's not sure what this says about her.

To be honest, she perplexes him.

He was removed from her life abruptly. Prematurely. A healthy tooth, extracted in its prime. His absence left in her life a hole, a gaping space that she tried to fill but never quite succeeded.

Or…

Or was it the other way around?