Hello all! I want to thank everyone for your wonderful responses! I was smiling all day because of them. As promised, here is the next chapter. I want to once again thank Lattelady for her wonderful job as a beta! All mistakes and errors are mine.

Enjoy!

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Mark Sloan's whole body was shaking. It seemed to start at his chest and continue to his legs which were curled up against him, his eyes resting on the caps of his knees. As Derek watched him, he tried to remember the last time he had seen his friend cry. It wasn't something he could remember off hand and seeing it now, as his friend's chest heaved in spurts, made him feel very young again.

"Derek," Meredith said, coming up next to him as he stood in the hall watching Mark. Her banana bag was gone, and her face was red from the tears she had shed.

"Are you okay?" Derek asked, looking at her with concern.

"I'm fine," Meredith said, giving him a tremulous smile that made him want to grit his teeth.

"That was your sister on the table," Derek said.

"I hardly know her," Meredith replied, her words belying the way she had felt when she had seen Lexie.

Derek shook his head. "Meredith, I know you might not want to talk about it. I know you have already lost so many—"

"Did you know about them?" Meredith cut in, inclining her head towards Mark.

Derek turned to look at his friend, who was still sitting there crying. "Not that they were in love, no."

"But you knew they were together?" Meredith asked, her voice sounding betrayed.

"No, I knew he was living with someone…I found out tonight. I didn't know it was Lexie."

"Well, maybe it isn't Lexie he is living with," Meredith said quietly. "This is Mark Sloan, after all."

Derek turned to her with shock on his face, not noticing the utter hurt that had caused Meredith to say it. "How can you say that? After what we just saw?"

Meredith immediately regretted those words; she couldn't believe she had said them. She didn't even mean them. "Derek, I—"

"Save it," he snapped. "I have to go; my best friend needs me."

Meredith watched with tears in her eyes as Derek went and sat next to Mark, and she wondered how she had missed such an important event in her sister's life. Mark Sloan had fallen in love with her sister, and she hadn't even noticed.

***

There was no feeling in the world like this. The utter helplessness, the pain, the despair; it all seemed to wrap around him and squeeze him from the inside out. The way she had looked, the lifelessness of her body, it haunted him. Mark kept seeing it over and over, and hearing the shrieking sound of the monitors when her heart had stopped. How had this happened? It had been just hours ago that they had been wrapped up in each other's arms, safe and together. But now, that seemed like a lifetime ago.

Mark's tears soaked into his dark blue scrubs. His hands were holding tightly to his legs, and his fingers were digging into the skin of his calves, but he hardly noticed. His own pain did not even cross his mind as he thought of what he had seen.

That wasn't Lexie. There was no similarity in that lifeless body to the bright and happy woman who had stolen his heart. Perhaps that was what worried Mark most of all. If she woke up, no, when she woke up, there was a very real chance that she wouldn't be his Lexie any more. And that thought haunted him as he remembered a conversation he had with her.


"I am always your Lexie. At home, in the hospital, at Joe's, everywhere. I'll always be your Lexie."

"Always? You can't know that."

"I can."

Mark sobbed even harder now as he remembered her words. Lexie had been so certain, so positive that they would have a future together. She was like that, all eternal optimism and quiet conviction. She didn't deserve this. She had done nothing more than take a chance on him, even when all common logic said that he was a bad risk.

She was all loveliness and goodness, and Mark wished that he had been able to communicate that to her more.

He heard Derek sit down next to him, and when he did, he lifted his tear drenched eyes to look at his best friend. Mark had a stab of déjà vu in that moment, recalling when it had been Derek sitting on the floor and crying because of his Grey woman nearing death. The only difference was that Lexie's recovery was much less certain.

Mark felt his sobs begin to ease as Derek sat next to him, but the tears didn't stop. They ran unchecked down Mark's face as they sat there. Mark lifted his head from his knees and leaned it back against the wall, staring up at the lights in the ceiling.

"I don't know what to say," Derek murmured, his tone conveying his compassion.

There was nothing to say, that was the problem. There were no words of comfort that Mark wanted to hear. There was nothing that would ease the feeling of defeat in his heart, and there were no words that would chase away the time as he waited for Lexie to get out of surgery.

Mark's voice sounded rusty to his ears as he said, "Then don't say anything."

"Okay," Derek responded, just sitting there with him as he waited. They were silent for a while, letting the dull hum of the hospital take over.

Derek tried to think of a million things to say to make his friend feel better, but he came up with nothing. Mark, on the other hand, was silently finding a multitude of reasons that he was to blame for Lexie's accident. It curled up like a snake inside of him as he thought of all the ways he could have changed things so that this was not the outcome of the evening. Each possibility he played over and over in his mind. Just one alteration to the night, and how it could have spared Lexie the pain she was in now.

"This is all my fault," Mark finally burst out, sobs taking him over once more.

"What do you mean? A drunk driver hit her, Mark. You had nothing to do with that." Derek looked at him with confusion in his eyes.

"I should have stopped her. I should have gone to pick up Meredith in her place."

"What?" Derek said quietly. "She went to pick up Meredith?"

Mark nodded. "It was raining, and I shouldn't have let her go. I should have gone in her place or grabbed the phone and yelled at Yang to take her home herself. But I didn't. I was so obsessed with damn secrecy that…" His voice trembled as he struggled to speak. "Lexie is on that table in the OR because of me."

"No," Derek said firmly. "That is not true."

"It is," Mark said. "I wouldn't even kiss her goodbye. She…she might…die, and I didn't…kiss her goodbye." His voice broke on the last word and he couldn't say anymore.

Derek didn't know what his friend meant, but it was obvious to him that he loved Lexie. Why they had felt the need to keep this a secret was beyond Derek, but he didn't doubt the sincerity of what was felt. Derek could not see how his behavior had forced them to stay quiet, but he felt for his friend all the same. "Mark," Derek said quietly. "I am sure Lexie knew how you felt."

Mark nodded. "I know that, I know that…it is just hard to believe it at the moment. I tried, Derek. I tried so fucking hard not to be selfish with her, and the last thing I said, the last thing she remembers, is me being selfish."

"Did she say that?" Derek asked. "Did she say you were selfish? Did you fight?"

"No," Mark said, shaking his head. "She just laughed."

"You see?" Derek asked. "She didn't think you were being selfish."

"She just laughed," Mark repeated, speaking as though he hadn't heard Derek. "And she said 'See you soon.'"

Neither of them said anything, both staring straight ahead, their arms draped over their legs.

"Someone needs to call Thatcher," Mark finally said.

"I'll do it," Derek offered. "That is, if the nurses haven't already done it."

Mark nodded his thanks.

"It will be alright Mark."

"Don't say that," Mark responded.

"Why not?" Derek asked.

"Cause you and I both know that it might not be alright." He took a shuddering breath. "Just don't say that, okay?"

"Okay."

***

Derek sat with Mark for hours without speaking. They eventually moved into the waiting room, where they waited for periodic updates from Bailey. Initially, she came to tell them that Lexie was stable, and then she stopped coming for a while. Derek tried to tell Mark that it meant they were working hard, but Mark was a surgeon, and he convinced himself that it was a bad sign.

Thatcher had been notified, so had Molly, and they were going to be there as soon as they could. Molly had to wait for a sitter, and Thatcher couldn't come without her.

Derek finally got up from where he sat with his friend to go get them some coffee, and it was while he was gone that Bailey came out to talk to Mark.

Her step was heavy as she walked the short distance from the swinging doors to where Mark was sitting. He stood when he saw her, his mouth tense and his posture seeming as though he had prepared himself for the worse.

"How is she?" Mark asked, when Bailey came up.

Bailey held up her hand. "She's still intubated, so she went directly to the ICU." She paused, and Mark was quick to pick up on it.

"What aren't you telling me?" Mark could read it in her eyes, there was more and he knew he wasn't going to like it.

"We still can't figure out how it happened." Bailey said. "There were no tears on her clothes or skin, though she was plenty bruised. The Chief said he's seen it before when a patient takes the brunt of the impact just right. Lexie's was on her left side. That's where the broken ribs and dislocated shoulder were located." Bailey knew she'd lost her detachment when she couldn't just tell him the facts.

"Dr. Bailey, what are you trying to say?" Mark was quickly losing his patience.

She took a deep breath and said, "Somehow her left kidney was badly damaged. That was where all the bleeding was coming from... we ended up having to do a total nephrectomy on that side...she lost the kidney."

In his mind, Mark knew what this meant. Plenty of people walked around with only one kidney and led normal healthy lives, but he still asked, "Will she be okay?"

"She's in Cardiac ICU and the anesthesiologist doesn't want to attempt extubation until he is sure she's stable, so probably tomorrow morning or mid-day." Bailey's eyes showed the compassion that her brusque words did not. "She was down a long time, Dr. Sloan, but she's a Grey." Bailey knew Mark understood what she meant.

Mark nodded, tears pooling in his eyes again. "I want to see her."

"They're getting her settled in. She can have family visit in a couple of hours." Bailey's tone was apologetic.

"Dr. Bailey," Mark said, his voice trembling. "You saved Lexie's life, and I am grateful for that. So don't think I don't respect you when I ask if you are out of your mind?" Mark wiped his cheeks. "Nothing is going to keep me from seeing her, do you understand? Especially not some stupid rule that I know for a fact is crap."

Bailey nodded, not taking offense. "Give us an hour, and then you can see her."

As she walked away, Mark sank back into his chair and covered his face with his hands. For the second time that night, he thanked a God he did not believe in for saving Lexie's life.

***

The coffee was horrible, but that was no real surprise to Derek. He was used to drinking the sludge that they served at the hospital. He didn't really want coffee anyway, and he doubted that Mark did either. What he wanted was employment. Other than Izzie Stevens coming by at one point to tell him his patient's scans came back normal, Derek had done nothing. And that was not like him. He was a fixer; a man, by nature, who liked to correct things, to right imbalances. But there was nothing he could do to right this wrong.

Lexie's fate was left to someone else entirely.

So he was getting coffee. It was all he could do for Mark, but he was glad to do it.

"Hey."

Derek turned and saw Meredith standing there. "Hi," he said.

"I wanted to…apologize," Meredith said, finding the last word difficult to say.

"Okay."

"Okay, what?" Meredith said.

"Okay, apologize," Derek replied.

"I'm sorry I said that about Mark. He probably didn't deserve it."

Derek's eyebrows shot up. "Unbelievable. You can't even apologize without being…"

"Being what?" Meredith asked, stepping forward.

"Being disconnected. Being insulting."

"Why are you defending him?" Meredith asked. "I know I was out of line, but you must admit that the idea was not a crazy one."

"You are right," Derek said. "It was out of line. You know what I have spent the last five hours doing?"

She shook her head.

"I have been trying to remember the last time that I saw him cry." Derek shook his head, his voice getting thick. "Believe me, Meredith, Mark has had many reasons to cry over the years and yet I can't remember any time that he actually did. The only time I can actually remember is when he was smacked with a hockey stick on his nose when we were eight. And even that was only because he was surprised." Derek looked at her, willing her to understand. "But this? The way that he is over your sister? I have no idea what to even make of it. Nothing in our friendship has ever prepared me for it, and I feel useless right now. I have never seen Mark like this before, and that alone is enough of a reason for me to give him the benefit of the doubt."

Meredith had an inscrutable look on her face. "But they both lied to us."

"I can let that go for now." Derek sighed.

"How? It is just one more thing that he has lied to you about," Meredith said, her voice sounded as though she was trying to understand.

"That is between Mark and me. It has nothing to do with this, and nothing to do with you. I have forgiven him, really and truly, and if some petty part of me was holding onto any anger, it is gone after tonight. So if he lied to me about Lexie, yeah, I am okay with letting it go. Later, I will want to know all the details and why, but not now."

"Why?"

"Cause your sister is lying on a table right now!" Derek exclaimed, looking at her with incredulity.

Meredith stared at him. "Because they lied."

"Meredith, that is not what is important at the moment."

"It is important," Meredith cried, tears filling her eyes as she finally let go of the grief that had been trapped inside of her and building since Lexie had been rushed to surgery. "If they hadn't been lying this might not have happened."

Derek felt a sick feeling in his gut as he thought of the way Mark had said that exact thing. "You can't blame him for this. Why would you even want to?"

Tears were streaming down Meredith's face in earnest. She took a shuddering breath and said, "Because if I don't blame him, because if I don't take out all my pain on him, then there is only one person left to blame."

"Who?" Derek asked, not following.

"Me, Derek. I am to blame." Meredith's hands were clutching the front of his shirt. "I was the reason she was out in the night and the rain. She came for me, Derek. For me!" Meredith was crying into his chest then. "And all she wanted was for me to be her sister, and I couldn't even give her that! What kind of person am I? She just wanted me to see her; she just wanted me to try!"

Derek held Meredith to him, rubbing her back up and down. "It's not too late, at least not yet. If…when Lexie wakes up, she will need someone Meredith. She will need you." Derek didn't necessarily believe his words, but he wanted to offer her any comfort that he could.

Meredith just cried harder, thinking of all the lost time. When she had finally gained control of herself, she just stood in his arms letting him hold her.

"Derek…" She finally said, her voice trailing off.

"Yeah?"

"What happens if she doesn't make it?"

"I don't know," Derek replied. "I just don't know."

That was a possibility he didn't even want to contemplate.

*

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