Chapter 18: The party's just begun

Derek was sitting outside Lexie's room at one of the nurse's desks a few feet away from the doorway. He'd already told Mark the good news about the guard dropping the lawsuit he was filing against him and that the police had already left, so he was back to studying his notes without cease. His eyes were starting to go fuzzy from all the reading he'd been doing. He set the board down for a minute to rub them back to life and then continued his working. Meredith had gone down to the cafeteria with Zola to get something to eat. Derek had declined though to stay on guard of Lexie. He was completely exhausted by now. It'd been two days since he'd gotten a good night's sleep. He'd barely taken any breaks either. He'd taken the day off from the rest of his patients to solely focus on being with Lexie and his wife and of course Mark, to help them through this. He wanted so badly to fix every problem, but he was only one man. He hoped everything would go well and that her vision would correct itself eventually, but what if it didn't? Would she forever be sightless? And if so how could she continue with her career? Mark was right when he said you can't operate on what you can't see. No one would allow a blind surgeon to operate on them. That would be ludicrous.

As Derek sat back in the wheelie chair with his feet up on the desk he noticed a figure walk up to the window of Lexie's room and peer in. As it clicked whom that figure belonged to he immediately fumbled up from his chair making a cacophony as he clumsily tried to get up from his seat. After escaping from the tight area he ran over to her.

"THE PATIENT IS LEXIE?" She screamed furiously upon Derek's arrival.

"Julia wait. NO. don't go in there. I told you not to come. Please don't disrupt the patient, she's been through hell and back in these past few hours." Derek tried to coax her out of it.

"All this time I was worrying so much about Mark to find out that he's weeping over his EX- girlfriend. This is ridiculous! Are you kidding me?" She shouted, pushing past Derek who kept following her trying to talk her down, but there was no stopping her now. She was infuriated. She was a volcano ready to blow.

"MARK!" She screamed as she stepped into the room.

Mark had started to drift off alongside Lexie and was now startled awake from his name being violently called out. As he looked out and saw his current girlfriend, who'd just caught him snuggling up to his past girlfriend, he knew he was in some deep shit now. He really couldn't catch a break could he?

"Wait! Please not here!" Mark held his hand out to her, trying to keep her from exploding inside the room while Lexie was trying to rest.

"Oh I'm so sorry for disturbing you in your little love fest here. Shall I come back later when you're ready?" Julia said sarcastically.

Mark began to carefully move Lexie off of him, speaking very quietly and hand-gesturing Julia to stay calm. "Please SHHHHHH. She just fell asleep. Don't wake her again."

"Of course. Anything for your precious little sweetheart." She continued her sardonic rage.

"Just stop." Mark grabbed Julia by the wrist as she persisted to stridently lecture and pushed her back into the hallway. All the while Derek just stood and waited.

"Why don't you explain what's going on here? Huh? What is this? Do…Do you still love her? Would you rather go back to her than be with me? Cause from what I've heard, you two never work out so you'll be wasting your time." Julia annoyingly pestered.

"NO. NO. NO. Let me talk for once!" Mark interjected. "Yes I love her. That'll never change. It doesn't mean I was doing anything more than just…Being there for her. She'd done the same thing for me when I was hurt, even when she was dating Jackson."

"This is just too much! You were too upset to call your own girlfriend and tell her if you were alive or dead? You didn't care about that, now did you? You didn't give a damn that I was scared shitless? Or that I had to go through a full day of work wondering what the hell was going on with my boyfriend?" She cried.

"I'm sorry. It just wasn't something I was thinking about."

"Oh…Well that's perfect, I'm so glad that you weren't thinking about me at all while you were cuddling up to your slut ex-girlfriend." Julia repeated her cynical wrath.

"HEY, DON'T YOU SAY A SINGLE BAD THING ABOUT HER. SHE IS NOT A SLUT. SHE IS ONE OF THE KINDEST, SMARTEST, AND MOST WONDERFUL PEOPLE I KNOW." Mark angrily shouted back from frustration. "SHE DOESN'T DESERVE ANY OF THIS. SHE DESERVES TO BE HAPPY ALL THE TIME BUT THEN SHIT LIKE THIS ALWAYS HAS TO HAPPEN IN THIS DAMNED HOSPITAL,"

"Wow you sure know how to defend her. Well, what about me?" Julia lowered her voice to ask.

"It's not always about you. Maybe it's time you realize that. Because while you're perfectly fine, she's in a hospital. She just had two surgeries and coded twice. That is scary stuff. She can't even see because her father nearly bludgeoned her with a glass bottle and she has blunt force trauma to the head and now she has vision loss. She might never see again .Her career could be over. And all you're worried about is yourself. That's low. And coming from me, that's saying something."Mark stared her down. As soon as he saw tears breaking through in Julia's eyes he muttered, "Yeah I thought so," and then stormed away.

Derek walked up to Julia who was now breaking down into a sopping cry. "Try to calm down. Go find a place to sit down for awhile. He just needs his time."

Julia nodded and then walked off in the other direction. Derek watched her amble away and the turned when he heard Meredith calling out to him, "Derek. What's up with Mark? I tried to talk to him and he just kept stomping away and didn't even look up at me."

Derek looked at his confused wife and happy baby girl. He hoped nothing would ever tear them apart or cause drama like Mark was having right now. "Um, well Julia showed up and she was not too happy with what she saw. They had a big show down and then stormed away. He's just mad. Don't take it personally." Derek walked up and kissed Meredith on the lips.

"She didn't regain full consciousness yet?"

"Uh no. She said a few words to Mark but she quickly dozed off again. She surprisingly slept through their entire fight too. It was pretty loud." Derek explained.

"Well…I called Jackson. I figured he'd want to see her too. And Alex knows. I also got a hold of our sister Molly to let her know what happened. Everyone knows now basically. She's going to have a good support group." Meredith informed.

"That's good. She's going to need it. She's gonna have a hard time adjusting to this lifestyle. No surgery. No work. Just alotta rest. You'd think it'd be easy but it really isn't."

"I remember from my liver transplant surgery. God, what I'd do to take that liver back now. That bastard doesn't deserve a chunk of my liver." Meredith ranted jokingly. They both laughed at this. Even Zola joined in the laughter.

As Derek spotted Jackson Avery strutting down the hallway in his casual clothes he mumbled to his wife, "The party's just begun,"