AN: Hope you enjoy!

Standard disclaimers apply and, despite due diligence, the inevitable mistakes are my fault.

Remembrance

Chapter Two: Strangers

She awoke twenty-eight hours after he sutured her wounds closed. He spent over an hour stitching, moving slower than he had ever done. His gloved hands worked in a deliberate dance as he weaved the thread and needle driver to make a series of perfect lines and knots. His hands never wavered, but, then again, he never allowed himself to look at her face. The resolve not to look faltered when he tended to the cut near her temple. It wasn't a result of the bat, this cut was too clean.

Maybe glass, he thought, valiantly trying to remain detached. Maybe there was glass on the ground when she had fallen after—

He swallowed the lump in his throat and averted his eyes back to her scalp instead of her nose, her cheekbones, the almost imperceptible cleft in her chin.

He decided not to stitch the wounds higher on her scalp. He wouldn't let them shave her hair; when she woke up she'd been good and pissed if he had. Vanity alone didn't compel him, he knew it would hurt and even if she wasn't awake, she could feel pain. Instead he twisted her hair around the lacerations, planting droplets of adhesive as he went.

After he finished, he stepped out to call a nurse for a chair. Thatcher stood in the hallway talking to a nurse, twitchy and nervous as always.

"No," he said, though no one was around to hear. The door shut behind him as he stepped into the hall. He strode toward Lexie's father, who looked up.

Arms crossed over his chest, he repeated himself. "No."

"Is she—"

"Dead? No."

The older man nodded, rubbing his palm over his mouth. "Can I—"

"See her? No."

Derek came to stand next to him. "She's in ICU," he explained, his voice kinder than Mark's. "She won't be able to have visitors for a while."

"But I'm family."

Mark snorted. Derek gave him a quelling look. "Thatcher, we can call if there's any change. Just leave your number at the desk."

Thatcher shook his head, the skin under his eyes puffy. Mark didn't smell any alcohol on him, but his eyes were wary as he took in the older man's bloodshot eyes. "I'll wait."

"You'll be waiting forever."

"Mark." Derek put an arm on his shoulder to guide him back to Lexie's room.

"I just—I just want to know what happened."

Thatcher's voice, victimized and thready, stopped him. Back stiff, he spun on his heels and out of Derek's grasp. Stalking up to the other man, he didn't stop until they were practically nose-to-nose. He had to bend his head, but Mark made sure they held eye contact.

"You want to know what happened? Here: First you left one daughter, then you left another and now you don't get to be sorry."

Derek remained silent as Mark stepped back to stand with him. Thatcher divided a look between them, his eyes bouncing from the disdain on their faces to the walls to the nurse's station. Once his gaze settled on the ceiling, he said, "She's still my daughter."

Mark nodded. "Maybe. But you also have a third daughter. Can you go infect her with Daddy issues and leave Lexie alone?"

As if hoping to appeal to Derek, Thatcher looked at him. Derek lifted one shoulder before letting it fall, the action mutely eloquent. "We kind of have our hands full with your work already."

They turned away from the other man together. On the way back to Lexie's room, Mark asked, "Does Meredith know?"

Derek shook his head. "She's been in surgery for the past four hours."

"You'll tell her when she comes out?"

Derek nodded and Mark mimicked the action. Chair in hand, he opened the door. "Hopefully Thatcher will have left by then."

"Yeah," Derek said, running a hand through his disheveled hair. Mark noticed the uneven stubble marring his lower face. "Hopefully."

Two hours later, Mark was still by her bedside, fingers pressed against his lips, when Meredith arrived. He looked up to see her, her slender figure barely darkening the doorway. The sun had awakened and rays of cold light crept into the room, illuminating Lexie's pallor. Meredith stood there for a long moment, as if debating whether to enter.

The choice was hers, which he conveyed by returning his gaze to Lexie. Decision made, Meredith stepped into the room, one hand reaching up to pull off her scrub cap in deference.

"How—" Mark saw her throat bob as she swallowed. "How is she?"

"Stable."

The question was whispered, as was his answer. There was a hushed reverence in the room that neither wished to violate. He had learned to drown out the intermittent beeps from the monitors long ago.

"Dr. Sloan—Mark, I am so sorry." She stood on the other side of Lexie's bed, looking over her body to his seated form.

He took the platitude in stride, added it to the collection he'd heard since visitors had been allowed. Hers was a slight variation; it was intended for him and not her unconscious sister.

"Have you seen your father?" he asked, his voice husky from disuse.

She looked surprised, her eyes flickering back to Lexie. "He's here?"

Mark shrugged. "He was."

Her eyes went to the door as if expecting Thatcher to appear. "Derek didn't say."

"Maybe he didn't think he was worth mentioning."

Meredith hesitated before asking, "Was he…I mean, had he been…"

"Drinking?" Mark let his ankle drop from his knee and rose. He smoothed Lexie's hair back, taking care not to disrupt the healing wounds. "Didn't look like it."

She nodded at the information. It served to fill the space. Thatcher's status on or off the wagon had had nothing to do with her for a long time now.

In the spirit of saying something, anything, she tried, "You should eat something."

"I'm fine."

Having expected as much, she nodded even though he wasn't looking at her. She backed out into the hall, where Derek was waiting for her, probably afraid she'd fall apart at the prospect of losing someone yet again.

"I'm glad you went inside," he said, taking her hand. "You okay?"

She let his fingers slide through her own. "I'm just trying to remember the last thing I said to her."

His hand gave hers a squeeze. They turned to look through the open blinds of Lexie's room. Mark had resumed his vigil in the chair.

"Mark doing any better?"

"Of course not," she said, their hands still attached. "She's his person."

*********

In the twenty-seventh hour, Derek came in with a sandwich from the deli Mark hated only a bit less than the cafeteria. Mark thanked him and put the bag next to him.

Derek watched and let out a heavy sigh. "Fine. Don't eat. But shower. You stink and when she wakes up she won't want to be anywhere near you."

That pulled a noise out of him that was strangely reminiscent of a chuckle. It seemed to echo in the room. He ran a hand across his jaw while he stood. "Okay. I'll be in the locker room. Find me if something happens."

Derek nodded. "I'll stay with her until you get back."

That mattered. There was import in not leaving her alone; she shouldn't have to be alone.

So he turned on the way to the door and said over his shoulder: "Thanks."

While he brushed his teeth over the sink he caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked like he had lived every single one of his years. Grim, he turned away to strip and stand under the showerhead. Ducking his head under the hot spray, he raised a forearm to the tile and pressed his head against it.

When things ended, he realized, you started thinking about the beginning. His mind showed him a reel of when he'd first seen her. Burke's bachelor party, the night before the wedding that never was. She'd been a girl in a bar wearing what he later found out was a funeral dress. She had talked to Derek first, because women…they all saw goodness in Derek, even when they later ended up sleeping with his jerk of a best friend.

At the time, he'd seen her short hair and slim figure and hoped that Derek would take the stranger home, if only to get Meredith out of his mind. That's what best friends did—they wished good sex on each other. And now, under the shower, Mark's gut clenched to think about what would have happened had Derek been as big of a manwhore as he himself had been.

Then there was the time he'd actually seen her. Standing across a gurney with a face too shiny and fresh to believe, she'd demanded kindness. That she had bothered to request it from him, that she hadn't automatically known to just expect less from him as a human being—it stood for something, even then.

His eyes closed. For a moment, for an eternity. When they jerked open, he felt a sense of displacement that told him he'd fallen asleep. Cursing, he sluiced the water off his body and dressed in a pair of cerulean scrubs without bothering to towel off.

He saw his lab coat hanging in his locker and, out of sheer habit, he pulled it on as he left the room.

Derek was just leaving her room as he approached. His face was wary. "Mark—"

"Has there been any change?"

"She's awake, but—"

"Awake," he repeated as if the word had lost meaning. Rivulets of water ran from his wet hair down his neck. His scrub top absorbed the moisture. Despite himself, he shivered. "When?"

"Fifteen minutes ago."

He suppressed the urge to yell. "Is she talking?"

Here Derek's face twisted into an expression he couldn't read. It almost looked like pity. "Yes." Mark felt an irrational stab of jealousy that he wasn't there to share that moment. It should have been his. "Mark, there's something you need to know."

"Later," he said, brushing past him to get into the room.

The top of the hospital bed had been lifted so she was semi-sitting. Her eyes tracked his movements into the room. She avoided his eyes, staring at down at the lapel of his coat instead. There was a fresh bandage on and around her head, but she looked alive. Color had infused her cheeks and lips.

"Lexie," he breathed, walking closer.

She gave a tentative smile. "Dr. Sloan."

His feet faltered at the greeting. It wasn't that she called him Dr. Sloan, she'd done that plenty of times, even when they were alone, even after they'd moved in together.

It was the way she said it. Before, it had always been playful, mocking on occasion. Now her voice was friendly, kind—one couldn't expect less from Lexie—but it was formal. As if their clothing didn't fall into the same laundry basket each day or they had never moved against each other on sticky sheets after eating ice cream in bed.

The final steps to her bedside were hesitant. He didn't say anything for a long time, staring intently into her eyes until he could see himself reflected in them.

She shifted under his scrutiny, the fine bones and veins in the back of her hand rising. "I already met with the neurosurgeon, er—Dr. Shephard?" There was a lilt at the end of her sentence, giving him a segue to speak up if he knew to whom she was referring.

"Derek," he said, as if on automaton. Unable to tear his eyes off of her, he scanned her features for a hint of their history and came up empty.

"Right."

Silence. He was making her uncomfortable; that was apparent with the way she struggled for something to say. "I—So are you here to…."

He cleared his throat, still stunned. "I'm here to see you."

She nodded. "Yes. I…" She laughed then, the sound so familiar he knew, he just knew he had to have imagined the entire awkward conversation thus far. "Is there something else wrong with me? Other than my head, I mean." Her slender fingers lifted to gesture to her bandaged head.

As he stood in silence, she grew increasingly worried. "You're not from Cardio, are you? Tell me there isn't anything wrong with my heart." When he didn't answer, she fiddled with the sheet in her lap. "I mean, I looked at my chart. I know I'm not supposed to, but I'm a doctor, too, I think. And I couldn't not look. Anyway, I didn't see any—"

He found his voice and croaked, "I'm the head of Plastics."

She blinked. "Plastics?" She smiled, the gesture good-natured. "No, thanks. I mean I'm sure you're great, but I like my face." Her smile died. "I think." Her hands flew up to pat her features. "Oh, my god." She looked at him with panic that mirrored his own, only his was firmly tucked inside. "Do I need a Reconstruction? Did the—accident or whatever, did it—"

He cleared his throat to interrupt her. "No, uh—Ms. Grey." Then brusque, he said, "Your face is fine." When she didn't look satisfied, he amended, "It's good, great. It's a—a great face." He backed out of the room as he spoke and she no longer looked frightened, just confused.

"Okay. Well, thank you, ah—" Here her eyes flitted down to his lab coat once again and he knew earlier she hadn't been avoiding his eyes. "Dr. Sloan."

Outside the room, Derek was waiting. His arms crossed over his chest, he looked up. Mark ran a hand over his face; he felt sick.

"It could be temporary," he said quietly.

Mark nodded without agreeing. "It could not be."

AN: Please review! It's my sustenance.