AN: I absolutely loved what the writers did with Lexie and Mark's respective characters. I was so happy they didn't make Lexie simper, beg, or trail around. AND they made Mark adorably awkward and tortured. Plus, he called her fantastic, mind-blowing AND admitted to being "obsessed". All in all, a good Thursday night!
"Fine, but you're not touching anything, get it? No touching."
"Sexed up stalkers."
Standard disclaimers apply and, despite due diligence, the inevitable mistakes are my fault.
Remembrance
Chapter Three: Relativity
During the first two days of her hospital stay, she studied. As if afraid everything in her brain had fallen out, or would fall out, Lexie begged, borrowed, and stole medical textbooks.
Mark stopped by her room every hour, each time hellbent on telling her who he was, who she was. And each time, he saw her pouring over the books, worrying her lower lip with her teeth as she quizzed herself, and his resolve melted.
He had never seen her study like that—not even when preparing for her intern exam. Of course, back then, she'd had him to distract her. Repeatedly. He'd made a noble effort to help her study. But invariably, what started out as noble ended up as naked.
"This would go a lot faster if you'd stop doing that," she said, tapping a yellow flashcard against her forehead as though she'd learn via osmosis.
He lifted his head from her neck. "This would go a lot faster," he corrected, "if you'd put down the cards and work with me here."
"You're just mad because you're losing."
"It's not really losing if I don't have to take the exam."
"Well, I do. And if I fail, I don't get to be a resident and thus, slightly higher than a grunt." Smacking her mouth against his, she pushed him to his side of the couch.
"Junior residents are still grunts," he said. "And idiots."
She stared at him. "You realize that you were once an intern, right? That you weren't just born an omnipotent attending."
He snorted, taking a swig of his beer. Pulling a pile of cards out from under him, he tossed them on the coffee table. "Of course I was."
Tilting her head, she looked as if she were about to say something. Then, shaking her head instead, she handed him some flashcards.
He sighed and took them from her. Leaning back, he read it to her. Then said, "I don't understand, I got you Callie's cards, can't you just take photographs of them with your head?"
"I'm going to know it and know it cold. I'm not going to be in that test trying to remember pictures of colored squares. Now repeat the question." She leaned against one of the couch's armrests. Their legs tangled somewhere around the middle sofa seat.
"Signs of residual eye infection," he said, watching the way her toes wiggled against his. The polish on her nails glinted under the light.
She snapped three times. "Pus, fever, and redness."
He let his head fall back against the armrest.
"Ha!" she shouted. "In your face. Take off the shirt, pretty boy."
After he wiggled out of it, he let it drop to join the socks and belt he'd already discarded.
Two cards later, he was naked. They never made it to be bedroom, only managing to roll onto the living room floor and take half the stack of cards with them.
Callie hadn't wanted them back.
In the end, she was the one who initiated their confrontation. He shouldn't have been surprised. For a slip of a girl, Lexie was stubborn as hell and surprisingly good at getting what she wanted.
"Dr. Sloan," she called out as he passed by the open door to her room. He stopped and backtracked until he was in the doorway. She remained silent, staring at him with brown eyes that took up half her face. Conceding some war he didn't know they were engaged in, he stepped in the room.
Taking it as the triumph it was, she smiled. "Sorry, I know you must be busy. But—well—I have some questions." She closed the medical journal in her lap and sat up straighter.
He nodded once, rocking back on his heels as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. Hoping the vein in his neck wasn't thrumming to give away his erratic pulse, he strove for nonchalance.
"Here's the thing," she started, squinting one eye as she angled her head. The gesture was achingly familiar. "I didn't have any personal effects on me; no ID or wallet or anything. And my chart was originally for a Jane Doe. But people call me Lexie—they won't tell me anything else, but they call me Lexie or Dr. Grey."
He remained silent.
Exasperated, she pressed. "You don't find that strange?" Without waiting for an answer, possibly realizing, on some level, she wasn't going to receive one, she continued, "Fine. It's not strange that people know me here because I…"
Nothing. She threw her hands up. "…work here." She paused for a beat. "Right?" For the first time, her voice showed some uncertainty.
He looked at the journal in her lap instead of her eyes. "Right."
She visibly brightened. "Great. So you can help me—"
He cleared his throat. Time. He needed more time. "You know," he said, "we should probably wait on Dr. Shepherd. Your memory could return on its own soon and we don't want to do more damage in the mean time."
She was about to protest, he could see that, and so he left the room before she could convince him to stay.
The perfect opportunity, the one he'd been waiting for, had just presented itself and he'd left track marks making his getaway. Because maybe, he realized, maybe Lexie's condition was a gift. One he'd be a fool not to accept. There were things he did his damnedest to forget everyday. Things she didn't need to remember. Things she'd be happier forgetting. Forgetting led to forgiving and—he swallowed—he could use some of that.
There was a small part of him, a part that hadn't existed before Lexie—or at least hadn't been so vocal—that told him it amounted to lying. But there was a bigger part of him—one that also hadn't existed before Lexie—a part born of fierce protectiveness that told him it was for the best.
******
Meredith stopped by to have lunch with her that day. Lexie watched the other girl balance the cafeteria tray on her lap as she sat.
"I'm going crazy," she announced.
"Join the club," Meredith muttered.
"Clearly I know you, clearly we work together. You wouldn't be here if we didn't. Could you just tell me something, anything?" Lexie stabbed a potato with a vicious jerk of her wrist. Hospital food was worth forgetting. Twice. "Are we friends?"
Meredith let out an indelicate snort. "Not exactly."
Irritation swept through Lexie and she let her fork drop. "Then why are you here?"
"I'm your boss. Kind of."
"Dr. Yang is—was—my resident."
Meredith looked up, surprise evident on her pale features. "Cristina came to see you?"
"Yeah, long enough to tell me the amnesia story wasn't going to get me out of charting."
That brought a smile to both their lips. They stared at each other for a moment before Meredith sighed, putting down her uneaten sandwich.
"We have the same father."
"So we're…"
"Sisters," Meredith supplied. "Half-sisters."
Lexie nodded. Here voice was dry when she said, "Don't look so happy about it. I might cry."
Whatever reaction Meredith had been expecting, Lexie hadn't delivered because her sister just looked stunned. Then she laughed, the sound high and girly. Lexie simply stared, wondering how such a light sound could come from someone who always looked so solemn. The contradiction alone was enough to make Lexie laugh as well.
When the sounds in the room ceased and they were back to silence, Lexie said, "Our father, is he…here?"
Meredith hesitated, the bangs framing her face falling forward as she looked down at her locked hands. "We don't—I mean, neither of us really keep in touch with him. But he did come to see you, we just figured you wouldn't want to see him." Meredith waved a hand around, as if encompassing Lexie's entire condition. "But then, you woke up and we realized—"
"You keep saying 'we'. Who's 'we'?" She resumed eating, foraging through peas to find more carrots.
Meredith blew out her breath; this was clearly something she didn't consider her territory. "I should call Dr.—"
"No," Lexie interrupted. "Someone has to tell me. You can't all keep foisting me off on someone else." When Meredith remained quiet, she continued coaxing. "I'll give you my pudding if you tell me something juicy."
Meredith looked at the tray. "What kind?"
Lexie picked it up and waved it around. "Chocolate."
Meredith reached for the cup, but Lexie snatched it back. "You first."
Crossing her arms over her scrub top, Meredith glared. "You live with your boyfriend." Then she grabbed the pudding out of Lexie's then slack arm.
"Boyfriend?" Lexie looked around the hospital as if expecting him to appear. "Here? At the hospital? Who? Why hasn't he visited?"
Meredith was quiet. Lexie narrowed her eyes and picked something off her hospital tray. "Talk or no spoon."
Meredith sighed, tossing the pudding cup back onto Lexie's tray. "I'm sure he wants to be the one to tell you…and he's kind of my boss so I don't need him making my life miserable." She grimaced. "More miserable."
Lexie ripped into the pudding cup. "Evidently, talking to me isn't a priority." She licked the lid before discarding it. "Would you just give me a name?"
A pager went off and though Lexie instinctively reached for her waist, Meredith actually had one on her. She hopped up and made her way to the door.
"Meredith!"
She turned, watching Lexie shovel in a forkful of pudding. "McSteamy," she said.
Lexie stared back at her, her spoon froze in midair. Around a mouthful of pudding, she managed out, "I live with a man named McSteamy?"
Meredith shrugged, closing the door on her way out.
*******
"Dr. Shepherd?" she asked, blinking as he flashed light into her eyes.
"Hmm?" He moved around to check the other eye. She followed his movements before shifting to look at Meredith, who stood near the wall with an armful of charts.
"I hear I have a boyfriend."
He coughed. "I see."
"One who hasn't been here to introduce himself."
"Ah—well…"
Lexie moved her head back to look at him. Taking in his hair and his dark scrubs and her sister in the corner, she interrupted, "Wait, you're not McSteamy, are you?"
"Ah, no, I'm McDreamy," he said quickly. Then he had the grace to look chagrined when Meredith glared at him. Lexie's eyes bounced between the two of them. "I mean, they call me McDreamy."
"Do you know McSteamy?"
"Unfortunately," he sighed.
"Do you know why he hasn't stopped by?" When no one said anything, she attempted levity. "I mean, I'm not high maintenance—at least, I don't think I am—but if a girl can't expect a visit after cracking her head open, when can she, right?"
The valiant stab at humor fell flat when the two people with working memories just avoided looking at her.
She felt prickly then, uncomfortable. The memory thing hadn't really bothered her yet, strangely enough. That is, not until now, when she felt excluded from a secret to which the entire world was privy.
"What? Did he dump me or something? It's okay, I mean…I can't remember so no big loss."
Another doctor entered then, closing the door behind him as he sensed the tension in the room. The silence continued, but when both her sister and doctor looked at the new man and then her, she knew.
"Dr. Sloan?" she asked.
Mark opened his mouth to answer and then realized Lexie wasn't looking at him, but at her sister.
Meredith grabbed her silent pager. "Oh, crap. Look at that. I gotta—I have a patient." She nearly tripped over her own feet on her way out.
Derek followed suit, backing out of the room. "It's my patient, too, so…" With one final look at both of them, he left.
Alone, they stared at each other. Lexie knew an argument was no way to begin a second start. She tried to tell herself as much as he came closer, but it was no use; anger, arriving with a fluid ease that bespoke of precedent, churned in her gut and pushed through her tongue.
"You could have said something," she said, her voice tight.
"I know," he sighed, taking her hand. She slid it out from under his and used it to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear. "But the first time I came in, I didn't know and then…"
"Then it just became easier to lie to me." She nodded.
"Lexie...." His face stretched into an expression of pain and she felt something tug inside her. Anger dissolved into empathy so quickly she knew a moment of shame for being so fickle.
"Yes?"
He moved closer, as if to kiss her and then reversed, thinking better of it. "I'm so, so, so—" his voice grew gruff, "glad you're here."
The raw emotion, even from someone she could only call a stranger, drew a lump in her throat. Her eyes grew bright, which, she told herself, was completely uncalled for. Blinking, she lowered her eyes and watched as her hand slid under his on the hospital bed. His fingers gripped hers in an embrace that bordered on pain.
"I have some questions."
He hesitated, before nodding. His voice, however, was still wary when he said, "I may have some answers."
"My parents."
Something in her told her it was relief that blanketed his eyes. He shifted, looking behind him for the chair. Taking her cue, she scooted over on the bed and he sat down. Their hips brushed and neither of them moved. She could feel the heat from his skin radiating into her own.
He seemed to be taking time to collect his thoughts and she knew from his face, with an intuition that was somewhat disconcerting, that it would be bad news. "First you should know your parents love you—"
"I'm not twelve," she said. "Don't treat me like I am."
He wanted to tell her she shouldn't have to know, that she should just let him protect her because it was better for them all this way. But he just nodded instead, because refusing Lexie had always been like climbing Everest. Something he couldn't do even if he'd wanted to.
"You," he started again, his hand never leaving hers, "are the child of a mother who shouldn't have died and an alcoholic father who's too weak to stop missing her long enough to realize he has children."
She sucked in a deep breath and he could have kicked himself. "Thank you," she said, the words so genuine they made him feel about ten times worse. She looked around the room, her eyes falling down to her textbooks. "Well, that nixes my second question, so let me think for a second."
"What was your second question?"
She gave him a watery smile. "When do I get to go home?"
He frowned. "Lexie," he said, trying to go slow, not wanting to scare her. "We share an apartment."
She surprised him by nodding. "I know, but I—considering the circumstances, I figured it might be easier to stay…" she faltered, before finishing with, "…elsewhere."
He was prepared to be lenient, to go easy on her. But there were issues on which he wouldn't budge. "Why?" Blunt came naturally; it was the walking on eggshells that made him feel out of his element.
Thrown, she flailed for a way to explain. "It's just—that you—and me…"
"Yes?"
She sawed a hand back and forth in the space between them. "We are—well, we were, and you would expect, quite naturally, and I'm not sure I could—"
He stood up. "You think I'm going to demand sex from you the minute you arrive?"
Color flushed her cheeks and for a moment he was taken back to how she'd looked against the gurney, blood haloing her head and draining her face. The image was so vivid his arm almost jerked out to touch her skin and test its warmth.
"No, of course not!" How had she ended up sounding so crass? Not to mention rude and ungrateful.
"Good," he said, all umbrage gone. She had the sneaking suspicion she'd just been played. "Then there's no problem. Derek says you'll probably be discharged Friday. I'll drive you."
Then he smiled, his lips breaking from the stern line to reveal a row of even, white teeth.
And Lexie had time to look at him. Really look at him. His face was a series of harshly cut angles and slants that somehow managed to be beautiful. Closely trimmed hair lined the slash of his jaw and, as her eyes lifted up, she took in the gray peppering his temples.
"How old are you?" she asked abruptly, too busy staring to finesse any subtlety.
His jaw clenched and she had a feeling he didn't like the question. At all. "Thirty-seven," he answered.
"How old am I?"
"Twenty-five." There was such forced casualty in his reply, she knew the issue was a sore one.
She nodded then because there was no verbal response that could make their situation less awkward.
"You should rest," he said, moving away.
"No!" It was automatic and not a little bit desperate. "All I've done is rest. I'm done resting. I'm all rested. I'm ready to do."
His brows rose and she flushed again at what her words had implied. Heat suffused her body and though she wasn't quite sure of what she wanted, there was an overwhelming awareness that made her shift under the hospital sheet.
"I'm going to rest," she muttered, willing him to leave and take his smoldering eyes with him.
No wonder they called him McSteamy.
AN: Please review! It's my sustenance.