A/N Thanks for the reviews and the story alerts they mean more than I can say. Please keep them coming they help me right.

Chapter 2

Mark turned off the lights of his hotel room, shut the door and made his way down the quiet hallway to the lobby. That was one of the things he liked on days when he had to be at the hospital, the quietness of the hotel in the morning. He ran through the mental list he had made of things that needed to be done. The most important thing on the list had been completed. He had made callsthe day before and found a baseball team for Timmy to play on. His games would be Thursday's and Saturday's. Getting in the elevator he realized that he was going to have to talk to the chief about changing his schedule so that he wouldn't miss one of Timmy's games. He made his way to the valet desk, "Good morning, would you mind bringing my car around?"

"Of course not, Mr. Sloan," the valet said, while leaning down to grab Mark's keys. None of the valets here at the Archfield even bothered to ask him to present a ticket. They all knew what he drove and what his keys looked like. "I will have it here in a minute for you sir," the valet said as he hurried out the door to grab Mark's car. He waited in the deserted lobby for his car to appear.

Once comfortably seated in his car Mark began to think of the day ahead, the surgeries he would perform and, the people he would perform them on. In the short distance between the hotel and the hospital Mark turned off his personal side. When he got to work, the staff would see Dr. Mark Sloan head of Reconstructive/Plastic Surgery at Seattle Grace Hospital. As soon as he stepped into that hospital, the sensitive side of Mark would be long gone, and he would become Dr. Mark Sloan, the womanizing man whore staff had come to expect.

He was confident in his abilities as a surgeon, he was one of the best in the country; people came from all over to see him. It was because of this distinction that he expected the best out of everyone who worked with him. That was why he was hard on the interns. Today was no different; he had two interns assigned to his service for the day. Their names he couldn't remember. One, he sent with his patient to get a series of pre-op tests. The other intern, for some reason, rubbed him the wrong way so he had sent him to retrieve his morning coffee.

"Hey Mark," Derek Sheppard fell into step with him as they made their way to the surgical board. Derek had been Mark's best friend for years. They had been through a lot together. Most friends would never have forgiven him for sleeping with their wife, but Derek forgave Mark for sleeping with his, and slowly they had rebuilt their relationship

"How was your date with the nurse from pediatrics last night?" Derek gave Mark a quick knowing smirk.

"It was nothing special, mutual enjoyment for both parties, no strings attached." Mark shot a quick bored look towards Derek."Time is short, that's why I choose to always leave my options open." Mark continued to look at the board "How was your evening with Meredith?"

"It was alright, she made me dinner." Meredith Grey was Derek's girlfriend. Their relationship had defiantly been a bumpy ride from the beginning. Lately they had hit a smooth patch and Mark could only hope it stayed that way.

Mark could remember a time when Meredith and Derek went their own ways. Derek was miserable even though he had started a new relationship with one of the surgical staff. That relationship did not last very long though because Derek just couldn't get past Meredith. All of a sudden Derek's pager went off, "this conversation will have to be continued at a later time, Derek said as he headed off in the other direction, towards his patient's room.

The intern returned with the coffee in hand, "here you go Dr. Sloan,"

"You better hope you have it right," Dr. Sloan took the coffee from the terrified looking intern and took one sip. "I'll have to remember to write this date on my calendar, you actually got something right. I need you to update the chart for room 303 and when your other intern friend returns with our patient in room 307 page me. I need to see those test results immediatelyso we can determine whether or not this patient can have surgery today."

Mark handed the charts to him, and headed in the other direction towards his office. Finally an hour later he received the page he had been waiting for.The test results were in. He went back to the nurses' station and was met by an eager set of interns. "Here are the test results for the patient in room 307 Dr. Sloan." One of them handed over the chart and the X-Rays as they followed him down to an evaluation room

Once they got to the evaluation room Mark turned on the x-ray viewer. "Okay you." Mark said looking at the intern who had just returned with the patient. Given what we know about this patient and her test results, should we allow this patient to go into surgery? The nervous intern took a look at the lab results and up at the x-rays, he repeated this a few times.

"Do you not have an opinion," Mark raised his voice in frustration, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Because I am sure this patient would love to hear that you have no idea whether or not she should have surgery today." Mark just stared at him and made a mental note to talk to his resident as soon as he was done giving his patient the results.

"Okay since he is unable to determine whether or not this patient should have surgery today, what do you think?" Mark turned to face the other intern waiting to see whether or not he would have an opinion.

"Well considering that her blood work came back showing that the infection she is currently being treated for has not completely been cleared up, I would suggest to this patient that the surgery be postponed at least another twenty four hours. This will give our patient a chance of being infection free before she has surgery." The intern looked up at Dr. Sloan expectantly as if he was waiting to be corrected.

"Very good, that is exactly how I feel about doing this procedure today. I won't do it because it would put the patient at risk for more complications in the future." With that, Mark took the x-rays down and the three of them headed towards room 307 to give the patient the news.

On his way out of that patient's room he heard his name being called by Dr. Torres. "Hey Mark wait up I need to talk to you"

Mark slowed his pace and waited for her. Turning to his two interns who were still on his heels, "Would you two go check on my post-op patients and update their charts." Mark anything. The gossip that got started by the nurses was bad enough. The two interns just looked at himturned and started walking the other direction. When they thought he was out of ear shot they started talking amongst themselves "That guy is such an ass. Why do we always get stuck checking on patients and updating charts?"Both interns just laughed, "

I mean come on since when does being an intern mean fetching an attendant's coffee?

Neither of the interns noticed that Mark had come up behind them "Do you to think I am deaf?" Mark said coming up behind them, both interns turned sharply on their heels and looked up at Dr. Sloan sheepishly. The look on their face is priceless Mark thought to himself.

"I heard every word you said and let me just answer those questions for you. First, I am an ass on general principle because I hate interns. I will only quit being an ass when the two of you show me why they allowed you into this program in the first place." Mark leaned forward to get right in their faces, "the second and third comments pretty much have to do with the same thing. You are interns plain and simple. You are here to be taught and part of the learning process is to learn to take directions and orders. Now go do as you were told and page me when you are finished."

"You know, you don't have to be that mean," Callie Torres said after listening to Dr. Sloan. "They are after all interns and just beginning to learn the ropes. Their supervising residents haven't been supervising that much these days, so they are not totally the ones to blame"

Mark looked down at Callie Torres with a smirk on his face, "Well I can't let them think they can get away with whatever they want. All of the interns this year are just plain horrible." Mark mumbled.

"Oh I am not so sure about that. Have you seen Dr. Lexie Grey?" She is so good with the patients, and her skills in the operating room are just as good. She is so knowledgeable."

Mark, of course knew of the younger Dr. Grey. Her arrival at Seattle Grace Hospital had made waves for Derek and Meredith. Meredith had no idea that she even had a half sister. Lexie and Meredith's relationship was less than perfect. Most of the time Meredith would rather pretend that she didn't have a sister.

"I have only had the younger Grey on a few cases so I haven't made up mind on her yet."

""Well," Callie said excited look on her face, "I think the new intern Sadie has a thing for me"

"That's great Callie"

"I know isn't it? We had such a good time at Joe's last night. Speaking of Joe's do you want to go later?"

"Yeah sure,"

Callie's pager went off, "I need to go check my post-op patient," she said as she hurried down the hall.

Mark watched Callie head in the other direction. A few months ago they had a thing going on, but it turned out that she was into women. In retrospect Mark thought to himself maybe it ended at a good point. They had become friends, even though he still guarded himself with her she could see through most of his attitude and knew when he needed to be put in his place.

The last few hours of his shift seemed to just drag on and on because his assigned interns couldn't keep themselves busy, but the end of the day did finally come. As he was walking out of the locker room, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and noticed a missed call. It was from the Jacob's. Once he was in the car on his way to Joe's he called back.

The phone only rang twice before he heard Timmy's voice. "Hey Timmy," Mark said a smile on his face.

"Oh Hey Mark," Timmy said excitedly. "I just wanted to tell you I got an A on my reading test," he finished in one breath

"Hey that is wonderful." Mark was so happy for him. A year ago the thought of an A for him was a foreign idea

"You'll be here Saturday right?"

"Of course, after we get your homework done on Saturday do you want to go to the ballpark again?

"Yep," Timmy said excitedly, "I can't wait."

"Neither can I Timmy. Can I please speak to your mom for a minute?"

"Sure" Mark could hear Timmy handing the phone to his mom.

"Hi Mark! I am sorry that Tim called but he was so excited."

"You never have to apologize for that Kathy. The news made my day actually."

"Well that's good."

"Actually it is. I wanted to let you know that I was able to get Timmy on a team."

"Okay, when are the games and practices?"

"Well the games are on Thursdays and Saturdays. The practices are on Monday starting next week"

"Well Monday is my normal day off and Thursdays are my early days so that works out wonderful. The only time I might have a conflict is my every other Saturday."

"Don't worry about that. I will get him to those Saturday games."

"Thank you Mark for everything. I will see you on Saturday."

"See you Saturday "Mark hung up the phone and put it back in his packet just before pulled into the parking lot at Joe's

A/N Please don't give up on the story Mark and Lexie interaction coming I promise maybe in the next chapter at latest chapter 4. I am trying to get the beginning of the story right