I updated! Yay! The title of this chapter is entirely based on like, one line mentioned somewhere near the end of it, but I couldn't help myself and I thought it kinda sorta fit. I'm fairly sure I messed up all the math about Lexie's due date and stuff mentioned it further on in the chapter, but really, who cares? There have been worse timeline mistakes. I was going to write something in this A/N but then I forgot it, and now I have that annoying niggling feeling about forgetting it in my head. Anyway, enjoy!

Unchained Melody

Chapter 6: I Write Sins Not Tragedies

There was a frosty look of contempt painted onto Mark's face as he sat by his wife's bedside and watched her sleep. He'd never been one to watch women sleep, because there was little point in it except that it was creepy – besides, it was hard to find the tiny bit of drool leaking from Lexie's mouth, or the quiet rumble of her breaths as she slept (vaguely reminiscent of but too quiet for snoring) cute or endearing.

However, it was Lexie's stomach rather than Lexie herself that Mark was watching. His subscriptions to medical journals were still listed under his apartment in New York, and hospital tabloids focusing on who's dating who and why he cheated on her with her sister had proven surprisingly boring even though Mark had always held a love of gossip. Thus, he had little to do except twiddle his thumbs, and his gaze was naturally drawn to the newest change to his wife's body, despite the bad blood between them.

It was Sam's baby. Mark knew this because if it were his baby, Lexie would have come here sooner. She probably only came here now to break it off with him, or maybe settle divorce proceedings. She probably wouldn't stay long either, because she had to go back to school – unless, worst-case scenario, she stayed here in Seattle so her parents could help her with the baby; she'd mentioned her parents lived here in passing, but nobody from either of their families attended Mark and Lexie's Vegas wedding. Mark still hadn't met them, in fact. He didn't know much about them at all, although he'd met Lexie's sister Molly a few times in passing.

He wondered idly whether the baby was a boy or a girl. Lexie better hope for a boy, some petty side of Mark thought, because if it's a girl she'll probably be a whore just like her mother. He probably would have felt bad if he'd said it aloud, but thinking it made him feel none the worse.

And somehow, thinking about this – about babies – led to Mark thinking about Addison. Logically, it was probably because Addison's job was almost completely centred around babies, but he felt like the correlations made in his brain to get him there were based around a hundred other reasons.

A baby with Addison, he thought, would be especially great right now. Things would probably be a whole lot easier for him right now if it were Addison pregnant instead of Lexie. He could divorce Lexie and stay with Addison and their perfect, red-haired, blue-eyed baby. Although a boy would be nice, in his mind what he saw is a girl… Elle, maybe, or something like that.

"Mark? You're here?"

While Mark had been thinking of babies and all that girly stuff (ignoring key flaws in his thoughts such as that Addison wasn't talking to him, Addison currently hated him, and Lexie's baby could be his even if he did hate the idea of it), Lexie had managed to sit up and was now looking at him through red eyes, an arm curled protectively around her pregnant stomach. The sedatives they gave her a while ago, already watered down, must have worn off.

"You're pregnant," he said gruffly, not in the mood to be anything but blunt and direct.

Lexie smiled nervously. "Uh, yeah," she said, sounding awkward and maybe even scared. "It's not like I have a tapeworm or anything. I'm seven months along."

It was probably meant as a joke – the tapeworm part – but Lexie was never a comic and Mark wasn't going to humour her this time so he didn't laugh, didn't crack a smile. He cut straight to the chase, because the question he was about to ask was one of the very few reasons as to why he was still hanging around here and not trying to explain himself to Addison.

"Is it my baby?" Mark asked.

During the remaining few hours of her shift, a repeating mantra of don'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry seemed to fill her head. Crying, she had learnt at a young age, meant weakness, it meant hurt; if they couldn't see you crying, a person couldn't have the satisfaction of knowing they'd caused you pain.

So Addison took all her feelings – those horrible, stifling feelings of betrayal and anger and hurt – and stuffed them all in a tiny, little box in the back of her head. And then she worked, because work provided many distractions and little hurt. She performed ultrasounds and filled out forms and ordered around interns, and she tried to feel as normal as possible because she wasn't supposed to feel anything other than that; she'd only known Mark for six months, probably a fraction of how long his wife had known him, and she wasn't supposed to feel miserable just because some no-good low-life of a man had revealed his true nature.

With her next surgery, the one at six o'clock, marking the end of her day, Addison was just about to leave the NICU in order to prepare for surgery. She was finishing up evening rounds by spending some time with little Leah Knowles – born at 28 weeks, mother coded on the table, father out of the picture – when she jumped upon feeling somebody place their hand on her shoulder.

Remaining mindful of the fact that Leah's tiny hand was still wrapped around her finger, Addison spun half-way around so she could see who was bothering her, and found herself face to face with Mark. Lip-level thanks to her new heels, which would have been a good thing earlier today but now only made her resentful.

"Dr. Sloan," Addison said, courteous because he was still her colleague and she had always prided herself on being able to behave professionally, but cold because this man was still a major asshole and his lips were way too enticing for that right now. She carefully prised her finger out of Leah's grip, and stepped away from Mark to avoid the temptation of kissing him.

"Red. Addie," Mark said as he stepped closer and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, the pad of his thumb skating along the line of her jaw on the way back. "I'm sorry, baby. So, so sorry."

She wanted to yell at him. Yell and shout at him and throw things. But the last thing she needed was to embarrass herself further by losing yet more of her dignity, so instead she stuck her chin in the air and pulled her face out of his hands' gentle cradle. She wasn't just some cheap mistress he could lie to like this. "If this is about your wife, Dr. Sloan," she said, "I think you'll want to know that although her case has been passed on to Dr. Blythe as per request, I find no indicators as to why we shouldn't be able to discharge her tomorrow. Now goodbye."

She tried to leave, but he caught her by the elbow and pulled her closer. He still smelt like leather and cologne, and his voice was low and husky, and all that only made it harder to leave.

"Red," he repeated, an urgency in his tone. "Please don't leave me." His voice cracked as he said it. "Please."

She stopped trying to tug herself away from him, stepped closer, and looked deep into his eyes. "I never want to see you again, Mark Sloan," she hissed in his face. "Go back to your wife and child."

She walked away, heels click-clacking against the floor, blinking back her tears and thinking of the way his had been running down his face – Mark didn't cry a lot, so it was hard to.

If there was anything Addison was good at, besides surgery, it was being a cold-blooded bitch.

Her surgery went swimmingly; no complications, completely textbook. She reassured the patient's worried husband, signed off on the chart, and left the hospital with a heavy heart and, unsurprisingly, none of the high that usually accompanied cutting.

At home, the lights were off and the low sound of the TV was audible. She found Amelia and Callie sprawled out over the couch with a bowl of popcorn, making fun of the models on Top Model. It was a familiar picture, and for a second it almost bought a smile to her face.

"Hey!" Callie greeted her cheerfully with a full mouth as Addison dumped her purse on the floor and grabbed the biggest bottle of wine she could see. "I thought you and Mark had plans."

"The plans," Addison said with what she was sure must be a grim face, "are cancelled."

"Why?" Amelia asked. "Is he working late, or something?" They'd had the night shift last night, so they weren't at the hospital and thus probably hadn't heard yet.

"No," Addison said sourly. "He's just an ass."

Then, before either Callie or Amelia could say anything else, she put the bottle of wine back down and almost ran – she was glad she'd already taken her heels off - to the toilet, where she promptly threw up.

Today was really not her day.

"You drunk already?" Amelia drawled as she entered the room, closely followed by Callie.

"Shut up," Addison croaked, flushing the toilet and leaning back against the cool wallpaper of the bathroom wall. Callie sat herself down beside her, putting an arm around Addison's shoulder.

Although she was perfectly sober, Addison was willing to bet her eyes were pretty bloodshot right now. She probably looked a mess.

"Addie, what's wrong?" Callie asked. She looked worried.

There was little Addison wanted to do more than tell her the whole story, and talk crap about Mark, and then cry herself to sleep. But that wouldn't exactly be very strong, would it? Bizzy would be disgusted. Especially given Addison wasn't even alone right now.

So she took a deep breath, so her voice wouldn't catch when she spoke, and said as calmly as she could, "Mark is married. His wife is called Alexandra Sloan - she's roughly some seven months pregnant, and is suffering placenta previa. Her blood type is A positive. She's, if I remember correctly, twenty-three years old, and is a med. school student at Harvard. I don't know how that worked out, given Mark lived in New York. Then again, for all I know, that was also a lie."

"You know a lot about her," Amelia stated from where she was still stood in the doorway, after which she tossed Addison a bottle of vodka she must have grabbed earlier.

Addison caught it. With no glasses in sight, and only so much WASPy dignity she could show at once, Addison just drank it straight from the bottle. Her first swig from the bottle was long, as though it was water and she'd just spent three months in the desert without it.

When she finally set the bottle back down, at least a quarter of its contents – although it looked closer to half – was gone. There weren't all that many good things Addison could say about her family, but one was that the Montgomeries had always had a high tolerance for alcohol.

"She was my patient," Addison told her friends. "Briefly. That's how I found out about her. Apparently, Mark didn't care enough to share the truth with me."

"Oh, Addie," Callie said sympathetically. "You wanna talk about it?"

She blinked back tears, and found herself actually sticking her bottom lip out in what may have been a pout (God, that was pathetic, isn't it? She'd become pathetic!) "No," she mumbled. "Just get me drunk. Please? I just… need to forget. For a little while. I'll be okay, I promise."

The hospital room was quiet, little noise other than the gentle bleeping and whirring of machines, and the low murmur of the TV.

Dr. Sloan had fallen asleep in the corner, in the chair he dragged away from his wife's bedside. He had been pouting all afternoon and now, even in his slumber, he continued to pout. Like a puppy. Although really, all this was his fault for not telling anybody about his wife. Even if she did cheat on him, which was only a rumour for now, but rumours usually held some degree of truth, however tiny.

Dr. Sloan's wife, however, was not asleep.

If you weren't looking carefully, as Meredith was, you would not notice this, because Dr. Sloan's wife was lying back in her hospital bed and looking very still. Thankfully, as you could tell from her heart monitor and the slight rise and fall of her chest, as well as her blinking every few seconds, she was not dead.

Dr. Sloan's wife must have been perceptive, or maybe she could feel Meredith staring, because she sat up a little. "Can I help you?" she asked, but not in a rude way. In that almost-annoying, really sweet kind of way. She was the kind of person you'd expect to eat an omelette you made her even if she was lactose intolerant, just because she didn't want to hurt your feelings.

She was very bright. And shiny. Especially for somebody wrapped up in this kind of mess.

"I'm, uh, Meredith," Meredith introduced herself, before correcting herself with, "Dr. Grey."

"Grey?" Dr. Sloan's wife said. She smiled. "That's funny. That was my maiden name, you see."

Meredith's arm twitched. She didn't like the sound of that. Sure, Grey was a reasonably common surname, but George pointed out just a few minutes ago how similar she and Dr. Sloan's wife – Alexandra, if Meredith remembered correctly – were, and her father had been at the hospital recently when her half-sister Molly was admitted (pregnant with baby Laura, who had a diaphragmatic hernia), and he'd said very proudly that he had another daughter attending Harvard, and lo-and-behold, Nurse Rachel said that Dr. Sloan's wife was a Harvard student.

"Yeah, funny," Meredith echoed, sounding hollow even to her own ears.

She was trying to be nice, she really was. It was just that Dr. Sloan's wife- Meredith was on Dr. Montgomery's service today, and she was the one put in charge of contacting Dr. Sloan's wife's emergency contact.

And while Dr. Sloan was her first emergency contact, the back-up was a Mr. Thatcher Grey, and under his name was that of Susan, with the same surname.

That could be a coincidence. But unfortunately, little seemed to be coincidence for Meredith lately. And she had come to learn that Seattle Grace Hospital was a place where Murphy's law very much applied.

"I still sometimes forget," Dr. Sloan's wife continued to talk, in a nervous kind of babble. "That I'm Sloan now. I'll start to say that I'm Lexie Grey and I'll have to correct myself." She called herself Lexie? How… unbelievably… to avoid using mean adjectives, bright and shiny. "Which can be embarrassing, to say the least, because who doesn't know their own name? And-"

"I'm… the intern on your case," Meredith said, interrupting her. She twisted a lock of her hair nervously. "And, uh, I was going through your emergency contacts and… it says Thatcher Grey, on there. And, I'm assuming Thatcher Grey is your father-" although she would be so, so unbelievably grateful if 'Lexie's' Thatcher Grey was some distant or maybe disowned uncle "- except… well, my dad is Thatcher Grey, too?"

She was about to continue talking but she stopped herself. Nervous babbling could not be a family trait. There would be no family traits. Because this was not Meredith's sister, this was a coincidence.

"Well…" Lexie said. "That depends. I do have a half-sister I never met. And my Dad was married once before he married my mother. But the woman my Dad used to be married to was called Ellis Grey and that's not your-"

Meredith didn't need to say anything. Lexie seemed to be able to read it in her face before she could.

"Oh," Lexie said, quietly.

They both stared at each other for a moment, quiet.

"Hi," Lexie finally said in that same tiny voice – was that just her normal voice? "My name is Alexandra Caroline Grey. Lexie. Meredith Grey, I'm your sister."

Meredith turned around on her heel and hastily fled the room.

There was a hammering on the front door which awoke Addison, who'd fallen asleep on the couch in an uncomfortable position and awoke that way with a headache and a crick in her neck. She must have gotten pretty blackout drunk – she thought this partly because she was actually feeling hungover, and she rarely felt hungover, and also because she couldn't remember exactly what had happened towards the end of the night when she'd had the wonderful decision to go to sleep on the couch in an uncomfortable position.

She opened the door, not having seen herself in the mirror but knowing yesterday's makeup was probably a mess and her hair must look awful, and came face to face with Mark. She tried to slam it in his face, but he managed to wedge his foot into the doorway and stop it before it could close. He winced noticeably as the door, which she'd attempted to slam with quite a bit of force, hit his foot, but he didn't remove it. He knew she would slam the door again once he did.

"Mark, go away," she said in a tired voice. She was tired of this now. She was tired of him.

Instead, he slipped his hand in through the doorway as well and gently tugged at a lock of her hair. "You haven't straightened your hair today," he remarked. It hadn't been enough time since she last did for it to have gone back to its naturally curly state, but she'd have wagered it was at least wavy by now.

"No, I haven't," she agreed, finally finding the strength within herself to sound cold – like ice, strong and powerful – instead of tired, which was admittedly all she felt now, apart from 'hurting' and 'heartbroken' which sounded even more pathetic.

"I like it this way," Mark told her. "It's nice."

There was no way he meant that. It did not make her blush a tiny, little bit because Mark was in a tiny, little box in her head and it most certainly did not make her feel butterflies in her stomach.

"You like bedhead?" She asked him cryptically, one eyebrow raised. "Really."

He smiled. Didn't say anything in reply – no smart comment, no innuendo – just that perfect lopsided smile which made her weak in the knees.

Right now it made her want to punch him in the face.

"What do you want Mark?" she asked him.

"I want to talk to you, Red," he said. "I want to explain, to- to tell you what happened. She cheated on me, Addie! She cheated on me! With my best friend!"

A part of her felt sorry for him. It wasn't that she didn't feel sorry for him, empathise or understand. It was just that he cheated, too. And he made her an accomplice in that. He made her the dirty mistress.

"You didn't come here to kiss and make up," she told him. "Why did you really come here, Mark?"

He sighed, his breath turning to mist in the frosty weather. "Lexie's pregnant," he announced.

She couldn't deny that it hurt, to find out that he really did have other reasons for coming to her this morning. But they were only together six months, she reminded herself. Not something big like ten, eleven years.

"I already know that," she told him, though, instead of voicing her feelings (because there would be no point in that, really - she'd made it clear she didn't want to reconcile with him, after all). "I was her doctor, remember?"

"Lexie's pregnant," Mark said, "and she says the baby is mine. But I don't think it's mine. I don't want it to be mine, bad as that may sound. You treated her… you know how far along she is, where that would put conception at?"

"Lexie's seven months pregnant," Addison told him. "That's thirty-three weeks, now. That puts her due date on the 24th February. It would put conception at…" she does some quick math in her head, "somewhere in mid-May, give or take a few days around the 20th."

"You worked that out pretty fast," Mark said, sounding fairly impressed.

"Yeah, well, I was a mathlete in high school," she said. "Is that everything?"

"I don't think it's mine," Mark said. "The baby. I'm pretty sure I was at a conference in New Jersey around the 20th."

"It's not my problem, and I don't care," she replied, taking the wounded look in his face as an opportunity to finally close the goddamn door and ignoring the resulting feeling of guilt.

Would it be different? She wondered. If Lexie wasn't pregnant, if the baby wasn't his?

It didn't matter. She refused to be the dirty mistress. Her whole childhood was based around the comings and goings of dirty mistresses in the forms of tennis instructors and French tutors and nannies and governesses until her mother finally made a good decision and put down the glass of martini always in her hand to arrange a mostly male staff.

She wouldn't do that to the poor baby girl Lexie was carrying. She wouldn't do that to Lexie. Both of them deserved better than that. Addison deserved better than that.

She just hoped that Lexie didn't call the baby Ella, in the end. She hadn't minded before, but now… there was a part of her which, just a few weeks ago before all this chaos occurred, was somewhat comfortable with the dream she sometimes had, of the dream where she and Mark sat in their garden and watched a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes run around pretending to be a fairy. A little girl named Ella.

Ella Sloan always did have a very nice ring to it, but when she thought about it, and tried to cheer herself up, she decided that Ella Montgomery probably sounded a whole lot better.

Apologies for any mistakes I made regarding the tense this was written in. I somehow managed to write the whole thing in present tense, only to realise that I've written the story so far in the past tense.

TeddyBearsLover27 - you're welcome! The father of Lexie's baby being Sam was never really a question, for me, because whilst Mark being the father could be a good plot twist, it would mean Mark had responsibilities and Mark had to play the Daddy and- you know, actually, this is a pretty good opportunity to write deadbeat Dad Mark. That would be interesting, but then would Addison take him back after that?... so, uh, no, yeah, Sam is definitely the baby's father. Given so many people are against it, I guess I won't call the baby Ella :) although part of me is still considering Emma or Emily or Emilia. I don't see how Maddison can't be someone's OTP with how amazing they are, and it's so sad there aren't nearly as many stories for them as there are for MerDer or (ugh) Slexie or anything… anyway, thanks for reviewing!

JustAnotherIntern14 - I'm not exactly sure how to write WASPy Addison's actual dialogue, so thanks! I've always thought that, as bad a mother as she was, Bizzy did have a big impact on Addison and her personality and life and stuff, so I'm trying to portray that. I suppose I won't be naming the baby Ella (and I guess I do say this a little reluctantly) but doing so would put a bit of a flaw into something else for a ridiculously faraway future chapter, so that makes sense. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

Hushedgreylily – I know, wouldn't the twisted irony of Lexie's baby being a girl called Ella be great? I love twisted irony. Sadly, the majority do seem to disagree and I do understand that – Ella has almost always been a strictly Maddison name. I find myself somehow managing to write Lexie sympathetically, and I honestly don't know why because I've held a deep hatred of her ever since she made Slexie a thing (and maybe even before that) despite having originally almost liked her a little (although I always did think she was a bit of a cliché, with the whole 'secret half-sister' thing), but I don't really want to outright slander her character because that isn't really how she is. Thanks for your review!

Pasty – the review problem has been corrected! Yay! Lexie will inevitably become caught up in her lies eventually anyway, when the baby pops out looking like a mini-Sam. There'll be more of Meredith's reaction later – I was planning to fit in some MerDer about it this chapter, but it slipped my mind and I don't really want to add it now because it would feel hurried. Given nobody likes the idea of Ella Grey-Sloan and Margaret might be a bit weird what with Maggie being yet another half-sister, I think I may just go with Susannah Pearl, although I'm almost definitely going to end up shortening it to some kind of nickname. Thanks! :)

Irony-FLD - I'm glad you love this chapter! I could not have Mark interact with Addison somehow, in the end. I'm hoping to have some b*tchy Addison next chapter, actually… but anyway, I'm glad you like this so much and thanks for the review!

Kae – you're welcome! Thank you! I'm glad you love this! Given the amount of complaints I've received about it, I'm almost definitely not going to name Lexie's baby Ella. And the Possible Eventual Maddison Baby, well…. I have plans. That's about all I can say. Except maybe that you'll hate me or you'll love me or you'll hate and love me. Thank you, thank you for the review!

Wow, I really do use lots of exclamation marks in these review reply thingies, don't I? Anyway, thank you everybody for the reviews – seriously, they make me swoon. They're great. You're great. Even the non-reviewers are amazing.