Here it is, finally! It's been a nightmare writing this to be honest but this is what I came up with. Again thanks to ML3MeantToBe because this chapter would definitely not have occured if not for the constant prodding because I kept wanting to give up on it but you wouldn't let me :)
And thanks to all who review - it means alot to know what you think. And I apologise for Mark in that last chapter because he wasn't supposed to end up being a complete twat, I didn't realise that it would come out the way it did - but it did so now I have to work with it. But he always makes stupid decisions so I guess it's not too out there for him to act like that.
"Seriously Mark?" Derek asked as his friend grabbed the next scotch off the bar and downed it.
"What the hell do you want Shepherd, and don't you dare look at me with those judging eyes and the superiority complex, it gets old" He shouted, still worked up from the scene that had just occurred.
"You know, it's a good job I've been your friend for a lot of years, because otherwise I would walk away right now"
"Well why don't you, no one is asking you to stay, I certainly aren't"
"Because you have just pressed the self destruct button." Derek explained easily, unfazed by the bitterness in Mark's voice. "I know you wish you hadn't just said that to her. I know you know it isn't even true."
"Oh really, because the way I see it, it's very much true. She packs her bags, she leaves me because what? Because I'm trying to be a good dad. She walks out on me and straight into Karev's bed. And then she walks out on me again and the next thing I know she disappearing into on-call rooms with Avery. So what the hell would you call it?"
"I would call that sleeping with two people" Derek rationalised. "If I recall, while she was sleeping with Karev, You slept with Addie again. Then you came back to the hospital and had sex with any female you passed, so time for judging is over Mark."
Even through the alcohol Mark knew he had a point, but he couldn't leave it. "Yeah well what the hell was Jackson then? I wasn't sleeping with anyone then."
Derek sighed "Except you slept with Callie, who by the way, you told Lexie was ancient history, got her pregnant and then told Lexie another baby was about to enter her life, so what did you really expect her to do Mark, you were moving on with your life, she was only trying to do the same."
Mark hated the exceptional reasoning his two best friends kept giving for Lexie's actions. They were supposed to be on his side weren't they? He turned back to the bar and signalled for another drink.
"No more Mark, we're leaving" Derek told him sternly.
"You're not the boss of me Shep."
"Except I am, because you are drunk. You need to fix this and alcohol won't help"
"I don't need to fix anything" Mark replied confused.
"You just told the whole hospital you cheated on your girlfriend" Derek stated looking round the bar at the many familiar faces. "So you should really talk to Julia before she finds out from somebody else, which she will. Then there is Lexie, who is in love with you and you just seriously hurt and humiliated her in front of her peers and fellows, so yeah Mark I would definitely say that some fixing is in order."
"She told you that too did she, that she still loved me?" Mark sneered. "Because what she says and what she does are generally two different things."
"No she didn't tell me that, she didn't have to. Ever since that stupid baseball game and you flaunting your girlfriend in front of her she has cried herself to sleep every night, and yeah that includes when she was still going out with Jackson, I heard her. Why the hell do you think she threw the baseball, because I know you know why she did that!" Derek now shouted at Mark, he was getting fed up of the whole Mark and Lexie saga and just wanted to see them both happy.
Mark remained quiet and Derek knew that what someone had said had finally sunk in. "Come on, I'm taking you home" He told his friend.
As Mark began to walk towards the door one of Tom's band mates grabbed Derek's attention. "I don't know what's going on with that guy and Lexie but I just thought you should know, Tom…he won't sleep with her, that's not what they are about." Derek looked at him confused but he just nodded and turned back to his friends.
As Lexie struggled to work out how to get the key in the keyhole, Tom took it from her hands and opened it in one go.
"Wow, how did you do that?" She asked, genuinely surprised.
"It's amazing how far sobriety gets you" he replied with a smirk. No, that's not a smirk, only Mark can pull off a smirk.
"I need my bed" She decided, walking towards the staircase before veering for the sofa. Tom wasn't sure if it was because it was closer or because that is what she considered a straight line, but he let out a small laugh anyway.
"I'll get you some water, I think you should drink some before you go to sleep."
Before she could sit down, she carried on in a wobbly line towards the kitchen. "Food is this way"
He quickly grabbed a hold of her before she toppled over and sat her on the sofa.
"Come on Lexie, sit down I'll get you a glass of water and I'll make you some food okay?"
"But I don't know what I want…."
"How about a ham, banana and hot sauce sandwich?" He asked with a massive grin on his face.
"OMG YES!" Lexie shouted before she began a fit of laughter. "I can't believe you remember that! I haven't thought about that in forever."
"I remember all your quirks" He told her with a sad smile.
A few minutes later they were sat of the sofa, Lexie tucking into her sandwich
"I can't believe you're actually eating that!"
"What? It's delicious! You should try some" She told him pushing it towards his face.
"I didn't try it when I was 18, what makes you think I'm any stupider now?" He laughed as he pushed it back towards her.
"Do you ever think about that summer?" She asked him as she sat back putting the food aside.
"Yeah from time to time" He answered carefully.
"I've been thinking about it a lot recently" She admitted. "Sometimes I just wish I could go back, maybe things would have worked out differently if I'd just…"
"I know, but things happen, you can't change the past, it doesn't do to dwell on it. I mean you're becoming a surgical god and I'm becoming a rock god." He chuckled. "This is what we wanted isn't it?"
"I just thought I'd be happier"
"What's going on with you Lexie? You don't seem like yourself. Drinking on your own, shouting at people in bars, sleeping with someone else's guy, trying to make that guy jealous?"
"I'm not the same girl that left for Boston, Tom. A lot has happened since then." She sighed as she laid her head on his shoulder, folding her feet under her.
"Yeah like what?" He asked as he put his arm around her pulling her into a hug.
"Well Molly got married and lives on an army base with her husband and 5 year old daughter Laura" She informed. "We don't see her much since…well, my mum died"
"Oh Lexie, I'm sorry, I know how close you two were."
"Yeah, well my dad didn't take it too well and he started drinking and forgot to stop. So I had to come back to Seattle. Meredith had to give him part of her liver and now he's living with a tattooed 20 year old."
"Wait what? who's Meredith?"
"Oh yeah, that another thing. Turns out I have a half-sister that I never knew. I live with her now, she's really nice once she lets you know her, but it took a while, she hated me for a long time"
"Wow, things have changed. I remember thinking back then that you had the perfect family." Tom admitted
"I thought I did too"
He hugged her tighter. "Well what about being a surgeon, that must be pretty amazing right?"
She shrugged. "Yeah when you actually get to do something and people don't think you're going to go crazy on them."
"Lexie, you've been known to be a little neurotic at times but I'd hardly call you crazy."
Lexie laughed . "Yeah well when I was an intern we were all practicing stitches and things on each other and then I came up with the great idea that we could take an appendix out. I nearly killed my friend and was put on probation."
"Wow, Alexandra Caroline Grey, I always knew you had bad-ass in you. I knew all that rule following would get to you eventually!"
"Then there was the time that a guy came and shot up the hospital killing a load of innocent people when he only wanted to kill three doctors, one of which was me. He told me that as he pointed the gun at my head. I had a breakdown after that, and was screaming at a patient how she wanted me to kill her and I got committed to the psych ward. So yeah, people think I'm crazy."
"And the guy at the bar, where does he come into this?"
"I'm not talking about Mark" She replied putting an end to the matter.
"Okay" He knew when not to press the matter. "You know Lexie, I should probably get going…"
"No, stay please. We can spend tomorrow together, that's if you're not busy"
"I'm not, but I heard you say you had work." He reminded her.
"Oh, I'm sure Derek won't mind, it's not like he likes teaching anyway" She looked at him, pleading with those big brown eyes. He knew he couldn't say no.
"Fine but I'm putting you to bed, you'll be thankful for the quilt when you're hung-over in the morning"
When he had finally got her to her room, which consisted of him carrying her as she couldn't even cope with three steps, he placed her in the bed and took her shoes off her feet before throwing the cover over her.
"I'm sorry Tom" she told him sleepily, she could feel the tiredness kicking in at the softness of her bed.
"What for?"
"For leaving the way I did, for not staying in touch. You were always there for me, when I needed you most, you were there and I just went to Boston and never looked back. You didn't deserve it."
"It's fine, it's all in the past"
"No, it's not fine, but thank you for saying that anyway. And thank you for looking after me tonight."
"It was my pleasure. I'm going to go back to the couch now and let you sleep."
"Stay" She murmured as softly patted the bed as she began to succumb to sleep.
He sighed briefly before climbing into the other side of the bed and turning off the light. Lexie turned over and snuggled into his side.
"mmm…Mark" Lexie sighed contently, feeling the warm body next to hers as she began to stir.
"Guess again" Tom shook his head smiling, his mission today, he decided, was finding out exactly who this Mark guy was to Lexie. Because he was obviously more than her boss.
She actually jumped which caused him to laugh and she opened her eyes before the brightness forced her to shut them tight again.
"Tom? Oh God, my head. What time is it?"
He turned and looked at the clock on her bedside table "6:30"
"Oh crap! I should have been in work an hour ago" She exclaimed, jumping out of bed. She stopped suddenly as the vertigo hit her. The room was spinning and she felt like she was swaying from side to side. "Oh I don't feel so…" Her hand flying to her mouth stopped her sentence as she made a rapid dash for the bathroom.
He got out of bed and ran after her, able to grab her hair before she began to empty the contents of the stomach into the toilet bowl.
They stayed there for a while, Lexie throwing up every now and then until she couldn't anymore.
"Come on Lexie, you should got back to bed, get some sleep."
"No, I've got work"
"Well throw a sickie" he suggested. "You said Derek wouldn't mind"
"When did I say that? He'll have a right go at me. I'll go to the hospital and put in a banana bag, I'll be fine to work this afternoon, people do it all the time"
He could see he wasn't going to win this argument, he couldn't remember a time when he ever had. "Fine, but I'm driving you in and making sure you're okay. Then you can tell me what's going on between you and that boss of yours" he smiled sweetly.
"Fine, whatever" Lexie replied as she got up off the bathroom floor and made her way back to her room to get changed.
They were in the car on the way to the hospital 15 minutes later, when Lexie's pager beeped. "That'll be Derek wondering where I am, he's totally going to kill me"
She checked her pager. "Oh for God's sake, why does the universe hate me?" she groaned.
"What's wrong?"
"I forgot to ask Steve if I could swap services with him, now I've got to spend the day with Mark freaking Sloan and I really can't be bothered with his crap today" she sighed, resigned to the fact that today was going to be no better than yesterday.
"Okay that's it, stop skirting around the issue and tell me why you hate this guy so much when it seems that that really isn't the case."
"I don't know-"
"LEXIE"
"Ugh! Fine. I slept with him, well a few times…well we were dating…kind of, I mean…I moved in with him"
"So you were in love with him. What happened?"
"His 18 year old daughter showed up and he just decides she can live with us. Then we find out she's pregnant. I started to freak out you know. I couldn't cope with it. Then he decided that we would all live together and be this happy family, he never asked me once. I didn't want to be a 26 year old grandmother. So I left. But then that didn't work out for him anyway, Sloane went back to her mum and the baby was put up for adoption. He came to me, asked me for another chance. Eventually we got back together and then suddenly he's telling me he slept with his lesbian bff whilst we were broken up and now she was pregnant and having his baby and I had to accept that he was going to practically be a full-time dad and he left me behind again. So we were done. I still love him, but I didn't say anything because he has a girlfriend and he has his daughter and I don't know if I can handle it. But yesterday morning he was at the house and I bumped into him and I, well, we…well you heard."
He knew once she snapped she wouldn't stop talking till it was all out in the open. But he didn't expect quite so much drama. "So is this about him or is it the baby issue?"
"All of it" Lexie told him quickly, hoping to stop the conversation there.
"Well have you talked to him about the baby thing?"
"He knew I wasn't ready for babies"
"That's not what I asked. Have you talked to him about…"
"NO! I'm not talking about that, I can't, Can we just drop it please!"
The rest of the car journey was silent and they remained that way as they walked into the hospital. Lexie gathered the supplies she needed and headed for an empty room.
"I'll be there in a sec" Tom told her before turning to the nurses station. "Hey can you page a Dr. Mark…Sloan? I think it is. Tell him his resident that he's looking for is in exam room 3. Cheers"
"Ow, ow, ouch!" Lexie was saying each time she tried and failed to insert the IV into her arm.
"Lexie, don't you think we should get someone to help?" Tom asked.
"No I can do this" She answered, more determined than ever as she once more failed in her task.
"What the hell are you doing?" A voice came from outside the room as the door swung open.
"None of your business" She replied as he advanced into the room and grabbed hold of the IV.
"Jesus Lex! You smell like a distillery"
"Yeah well you smell like…like…" She couldn't come up with a decent reply as she made a scene of taking in his scent. Damn, why did he have to be wearing that particular aftershave at this precise moment in time, the one that made her body tingle all over.
Mark smirked as he saw he eyes darken with desire, desire for him. He had dug the bottle out from it's hidden place purposely, knowing that she was more likely to accept his apology if he wore it. He may have been playing dirty but after what Derek had said to him last night, it was important to him for Lexie not to hate him.
He inserted the IV into her arm in one go. "I'm really sorry about what I said last night, it was unkind and untrue."
"Yeah because I've slept with like seven people in my whole life, you've slept with seven before lunch, you're the resident man-whore so you have no right to judge me" She tried to sound angry, she was angry with him but being in close proximity she was struggling to think straight.
That hurt him, he knew he deserved it, he had been a man-whore, but not since the last time Lexie left, she changed him and he couldn't do it anymore, he didn't want to. "I know, I'm sorry. I wish I could take it back."
"And what about announcing to the whole bar that we had sex? Because by now it'll be all over the hospital."
"Yeah it is, I'm sorry. There is no excuse for it. I was drunk and jealous"
They both stared at each other at that statement. Neither could believe he'd actually said it. Tom took this moment to slip out of the room and close the door, guarding it. This moment couldn't be interrupted. He'd only seen Mark twice but drunk or sober he saw the desire in his eyes as he looked at Lexie.
"J-Jealous?" Lexie finally managed to whisper.
At that moment things began clicking into place for Mark. The reason for many things over the past few months. The longing looks. Taking Jackson under his wing to drive a wedge in their relationship. Flaunting Julia in front of Lexie at every given opportunity to make her jealous. The reason he offered to make Jackson leave when she turned up on his doorstep on valentines day. The reason he cheated on his girlfriend to be with her. He just couldn't say those words to her again just yet, they had fallen on deaf ears too many times already.
"The thought of anybody else touching you, kissing you, seeing you naked, having their name pass your lips as you climax; it makes my blood boil." He growled.
Lexie blushed slightly and opened her mouth to reply, but closed it again when no words came out.
"And I know that we've…that I've made mistakes in the past and you insist that we don't work, but what if we could make it work Lex? You and me? I'm not saying we rush things, I tried to make you go at a faster pace than you were comfortable with before and I promise, we can go slow. You know…date, there doesn't even have to be sex, I just don't want to spend another minute without you being part of my life. I know I don't deserve another chance and I certainly don't deserve you but what do you say? Please give me another shot, I'll prove to you that we can be happy Lex." He pleaded, looking into her eyes the whole time. And even though he daren't say the words, even though he was terrified she would reject him he couldn't stop them spilling from his lips.
"I love you"
Sorry, had to leave it there. Couldn't resist. So I tried to raise some questions in this chapter about Tom and Lexie and the past but I dont think I did a great job of it, so any advice on how to mention something without actually saying anything about it would be welcomed (if that even made sense?) :)
As always, Reviews are like ice-cream on a hot summers day.