Hi all! Well, we are getting to that point of the story that many of you knew was coming... Try to enjoy anyway!
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Both Lexie and Mark had been sleeping soundly when they were woken by a shrill ringing sound. "What the hell?" Mark growled as he bolted upright.
"What's going on?" Lexie muttered. She then realized what the sound was. "Oh, it's my phone." Lexie looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table, and realize it wasn't yet midnight. They had really worn each other out.
"Why the hell is your phone so annoying?" Mark muttered as he rolled over and covered his head with a pillow.
The shrill ringing came again, and Lexie hurried to the hall to find her purse. When she got to it, she quickly opened the phone and whispered, "Hello?"
"Lexie!" Was all she heard on the line.
"Who is this?"
"It's your sister. Well, your half sister…sometimes…when I feel like it."
"Meredith?" Lexie hissed into the phone. "Are you drunk?"
"Maybe?" She sounded as if she wasn't sure of that answer.
"And you called me because why?"
"Why wouldn't I call you?" Meredith said, slurring her words. "You're Lexie!"
"Yes, I am Lexie. But why did you call me, Meredith?" Lexie hopped from foot to foot, trying to keep the cold away. She resented standing naked in her own hallway when there was a warm bed and a warmer man waiting for her.
"Oh, I don't remember," Meredith said, when suddenly there was a scuffle in the background, and then Christina had taken Meredith's phone. "Three, you need to come to Joe's and get Meredith."
"What?" Lexie asked, still hopping. "Why me? What about Derek or her roommates? Why can't you do it?"
"Derek was called back to the hospital after a guy fell off his roof, Alex and Izzie are missing because Alex is trying to help Izzie with her tragic pain, and I can't do it cause…I can't."
Lexie stomped her foot in frustration. "Fine, I'll be there in ten minutes." She snapped the phone shut, and tossed it back in her purse.
"You'll be where in ten minutes?" Mark asked, leaning against the door to their bedroom.
"I have to go pick up my dark and twisty sister who couldn't be bothered to get a designated driver before getting drunk." Lexie walked past him into the bedroom. She pulled on her jeans in a hurry. "Where is my bra?" Lexie muttered to herself.
Mark yawned, and picked it up from where it was draping over the end of their bed. "You have to pick her up? In this rain?" What had started as a gentle drizzle in the early evening, was now a bona fide storm.
Lexie laughed. "It will be fine Mark. It's just a quick trip to Joe's. You won't even notice I am missing."
"I always notice when you're missing," Mark muttered. "Fine go; leave me alone in my big cold bed."
Lexie started laughing. "Oh, poor baby. I'll be back before you know it." She pulled on her coat and tipped her face up to his. "Give me a kiss."
"No," Mark said. "You don't get kisses when you leave me in the middle of the night. My kisses are for girlfriends who stay right here."
"Fine," Lexie said with a chuckle. "See you soon," She wiggled her fingers at him.
Mark muttered something, and then crawled back into bed.
***
By the time that Lexie reached the bar, she was ready to strangle Meredith. After sitting through awful traffic to drive five miles, the rain was really coming down when she reached the bar. Lexie made a run for it, and headed into the bar with her clothes soaked despite her efforts. She felt strange at the prospect of doing such a sisterly thing for Meredith.
Despite Mark's numerous requests, Lexie had never been able to properly broach the subject of their relationship with Meredith.
There always seemed to be some excuse, some reason why that day wasn't good enough. But then Mark and Lexie had been able to synchronize their schedules, and the urgency of being couple in the hospital had dissipated. Sure, there were moments when Lexie wished that people knew. Mostly when one of them lost a patient, and the other needed comfort. Many times Lexie had wanted Mark's arms around her, and his reassuring voice telling her that it would be okay. He was usually able to do just that later, when they were at home, or when he was able to meet her in an empty on call room. But it was never the same as it would have been if he had been able to come to her right away, within the immediacy of the moment.
Upon entering, she saw Christina flag her down and yell, "Three! Over here!"
Lexie made her way over to the table. "Hi," she said.
"Oh thank God," Christina said. "She's all your's Lexipedia." Christina all but shoved Meredith into Lexie's arms on her way out the door.
"Lexie, Lexie!" Meredith said. "You came!"
"As promised," Lexie said. She then helped Meredith out of the booth. "Let's get you home."
Once she had her in the car, Lexie began the drive to Meredith's house, annoyed at the long path she had to take without the help of ferries.
"You are so good to me," Meredith said after a while, her voice filled with a singsong quality. "A good sister."
"Sister…yeah, sure." Lexie's voice held no anger or judgment, just a wishful longing for a relationship that did not and never would exist.
Despite her drunken state, Meredith seemed to pick up on her tone, "Don't be sad, Lexie," she said, giggling. "I am a good sister to you too, but you can't know about it."
Lexie gripped the steering wheel tighter. "What do you mean?"
Meredith raised her hand to scratch her nose, but missed. "I protected you!" She sounded proud of herself. "I told Derek to tell Mark to stay away…from you!"
Lexie smiled sadly to herself. "Why did you do that?"
"Cause you are good, Lex, not like me. Not like McSteamy. You are better than him." Meredith sounded as though she was trying hard to concentrate.
"Maybe I don't want to be better," Lexie murmured.
She was amazed at this opportunity to see, really see, her sister. Meredith normally kept up so many walls, but none of them seemed to be up at the moment. "Why don't you like me, Meredith?" Lexie asked, her stomach tight as she waited for an answer.
"I do like you," Meredith said, "Your Lexie. Everyone likes Lexie."
"Then why don't you want to be my sister?"
Lexie stopped the car at a stoplight, and turned to look at Meredith. She was surprised to see her sister staring right at her, looking very sober. In a clear voice, Meredith said, "I don't know how to be a good sister to you, Lexie."
Lexie felt tears of rejection rising in her eyes. "You could try," she whispered. "I don't want much. Just recognition, you know? I would take any role in your life that you want to give me, Meredith."
"You had smiley face posters on your wall as a teenager, didn't you?" Meredith asked, still looking serious.
Lexie shook her head as she accelerated the car. "Nirvana. Why?" One of the things that few people knew about her was her secret love for 90s rock. It was something Mark had discovered with glee and proceeded to tease her about for days after.
Meredith giggled. "I can't see you rocking out to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'." Her voice slurred on the last word.
"Perhaps you don't know me as well as you think," Lexie said.
"True, true Little Grey."
Lexie looked at Meredith in surprise. It was so weird to hear that nickname coming out of her sister's mouth, especially when she was used to hearing Mark whisper it to her so tenderly.
Lexie bit her lip, and then looked at Meredith with fledgling hope in her eyes. "Maybe we could try being sisters." Her heart raced as she waited for Meredith's response.
"Ummm, okay," Meredith said, drawing out both words. She sounded as though she wasn't listening to closely.
Lexie sighed, and pulled up to the curb next to Meredith's house. "We're here," she said.
After she got Meredith into the house, Lexie pulled away from the curb thinking about the warm bed waiting for her.
It never occurred to her that she might not reach it.
***
Something was ringing. Mark rolled over in frustration, pulled by that annoying sound from the depths of sleep. He had finally been drifting off again, his thoughts of worry for Lexie fading to the back of his mind. Mark smacked his pillow and sat up with frustration. He suddenly realized that it wasn't Lexie's phone, it was the door.
Mark pulled on sweats and then walked quickly to the front door, wondering why Lexie was ringing the bell. "Did you forget your…" He trailed off when he saw Derek standing at the door.
"Did I forget my what?" Derek said, looking at him in confusion.
"Nothing," Mark said, shaking his head. "What are you doing here, Derek?"
"I thought I would come see your place," Derek said with a grin. "I just left the hospital, the patient coded, and Meredith is drinking with Christina, so I have some time…"
Mark sighed. This was something Derek had done when they were in college. Back then, it had been mostly because he knew that Mark didn't sleep well and he wanted to talk about girls over endless bottles of beer. Mark looked down at Derek's right hand, and sure enough, he was holding a case of Yuengling Premium.
He knew Derek was trying to reclaim the way their friendship had been once upon a time, but that simply wasn't possible. Over the last two months, he and Derek had seemed to form some kind of truce, if a tentative one at that. They met occasionally after work for a drink, often at Lexie's behind-the-scenes urging. But all of the freedom and honesty that had existed between them was gone.
Mark felt like he was once again having an affair behind Derek's back, only this time he wasn't willing to give it up. And it saddened him to know that if Derek ever found out about him and Lexie and forced him to make a choice, as Lexie once said he was, Mark would choose Lexie.
"Can I come in?" Derek asked, shifting his feet.
Mark stepped aside.
Derek whistled as he surveyed the apartment. It had changed greatly from the empty set of rooms with merely a bed and a couch that Lexie and Mark had first moved into.
Now, the kitchen was cluttered with pots hangings from the ceiling, and fresh herbs growing on the counter by the double sink. There were bar stools and flowers on the counter which Mark had brought home for Lexie the day before. Daisies, of course. And in the wide living room, there was still that first sofa and chaise, but they were joined by a leather chair and a table and a flat screen on the wall. In the library, Lexie's books were intermixed with Mark's, her textbooks and romance novels finding space by his encyclopedias and murder mysteries. There was also a heavy wood desk in there that had been Mark's grandfather's; it was the only family heirloom he had kept.
"Wow," Derek said, as he looked around. His eyes seemed to take in everything, but Mark wondered if he knew what he was seeing. There was so much of Lexie in every room. The soft yellow of the bedroom, the paintings on the wall. Derek seemed confused when he turned to his friend, "You live here?"
Mark nodded, conceding nothing. He was grateful the only picture of him and Lexie was on his bedside table, and out of Derek's view.
"It's…it's…" Derek trailed off. "Have you not had time to decorate?"
Mark shrugged, and walked into the kitchen. "Let's go in here." He padded over to the fridge and pulled out salsa and then took chips out of the cupboard. He and Derek then settled on the bar stools.
Derek handed him a beer while he continued to look around in confusion. "This place is so…"
Mark grimaced. He knew the apartment was more Lexie's style than his, but he liked that. He liked feeling like he was surrounded by her when he was here. But mostly, he loved the way that she puttered around and made it into a home. On their days off he would often find her humming to herself while she made cookies, or curled up in the library reading by the window. And every time he saw her doing something like that, he felt as though his heart was swelling with love. "I like it like this," he said to Derek, his voice low.
Derek paused, his bottle of beer half way to his mouth. "But it's not your style."
"No," Mark conceded. "It's not mine, it's…" He trailed off, realizing what he was about to reveal.
"Oh my God," Derek said, looking at his friend. "You are living with someone!"
Mark choked. "What?"
"You are! I don't know why I didn't see it sooner. You are living with a girl!" Derek looked as though he was amazed at his own brilliance. "Who is she? Anyone I know?"
Mark coughed and repeated, "What?"
"This is so huge!" Derek said, "You have to tell me everything!"
Mark opened his mouth to reply, when both of their pagers went off. They both said 911, causing Mark to breathe a sigh of relief. Not for the emergency, but rather for the reprieve he had just been given.
Little did he know that this was the page which would change his life forever.
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Review, for Slexie goodness!