AN: Special thanks to hopelessromantic0707, who has kindly offered to be my Beta reader. =)

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

Remembrance

Chapter Ten: Feels Like Home

When she woke next it was almost noon and Mark was still next to her, his breath steady as it fanned across the back of her neck. She stayed still for a few minutes, tracing the tendons across his hand while she savored the lazy respite.

Then she slid away from him, her left side immediately cool as she lost his heat. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she reached for his discarded shirt and slid it over her bare arms. It was the most natural thing in the world to bring the excess cloth covering her fingers to her face and inhale.

His scent, clean and evocative without being overwhelming, filled her nostrils. She sniffed the material again and had an image of Mark fiddling with a pan in their kitchen. She blinked, unwilling to lose the memory. The picture provoked a feeling low in her stomach that was nothing like the nausea the previous memories had induced.

Holding onto it, onto the warmth spreading in her abdomen as it fluttered, she concentrated.

"You can't cook," she said, padding into the kitchen on bare feet. She peered over him to look at the stove, but his body blocked her view and she gave up.

"Good morning to you, too." He kissed the top of her head before looking back at the pan. "I can so cook. A little birdie taught me."

"She must be a patient woman," Lexie mused, levering herself up on the counter opposite the stove. She swung her naked legs out in front of her, bringing her toes together. The polish glinted under the kitchen lights.

He let out an ungentlemanly guffaw. "I don't know about patient. But she's got one hell of an ass."

She extended one leg to boot him in the rear. He shot one arm out behind him without looking up from the stove and grabbed her ankle.

She tried to wriggle it free but he held fast until he was done. Only when he'd finished did he turn around to face her, his fingers still manacled around her foot.

Following her leg up to stand in front of her, he grinned. She was wearing the shirt he'd had on last night, the white material closed by only three buttons. The sleeves were so long on her it bordered on ridiculous and she'd rolled them up to her elbows.

He released her leg and maneuvered his way between her knees.

"What'd you make me?" she asked, leaning back on her arms. The movement stretched the material of his shirt and the tenuous buttons. He watched with undisguised interest at the exposed vee of her upper chest.

"You?" he repeated. "What makes you think it's for you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Fine. I'd like to avoid salmonellas anyway."

"Brat," he said, giving her inner thigh a quick pinch.

"Ouch."

She slouched and caught a glimpse of the pan from under his arm. "Pancakes," she declared triumphantly. "Ambitious."

Her seat on the counter boosted her height and they were eye-level as she spoke. "Are they chocolate chip?"

He grimaced. "I'd like to still have my teeth when I'm eighty."

The grin she gave him was impish. "Aw, you're already thinking about your next birthday?"

Scowling, he reached for her bare thigh again. She squirmed away, dodging the pinch. He changed tactics and grabbed her calves with both hands, pulling her to the edge of the counter as he stood between her legs.

Her laughter caught as she collided into his chest, their noses almost brushing.

"I'm entirely too old for you," he said.

She only nodded, staring at his mouth.

"You're entirely too young for me," he continued.

She agreed, her eyes steady on his lips. Weaving her lean limbs around his waist, she brought their lower bodies flush against each other.

The sudden contact knocked him into silence. Inhaling sharply, he angled into the counter and her, his arms finding her waist under the folds of his shirt.

"We could just stop," she suggested, avoiding his mouth by arching back.

"Not on your life."

"We may have to," she said, unhooking her ankles from around his hips. She checked the time on the stove in front of her. "I have to go home and change before work."

"You have some clothes here," he said, refusing to let her off the counter. All ten of his fingers dug into the soft skin below her hips.

"I do?"

He nodded. "Greta washed them last week. They're in my drawer."

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't know I'd left them here."

"Don't be sorry." He occupied himself by playing with the band of her underwear covered by his shirt. "Just don't go home now." He pulled back long enough to look at her. "Or ever."

She laughed. "What does that mean?"

"It means move your stuff from there to here." He tugged at the material near her neck for better access. The large collar slipped off her shoulder.

Her laughter died as she looked at him. "Did you just—are we…?"

"Move in with me."

She angled her head to the side, her loose hair spilling over her bare shoulder. "Are you sure?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, why not? O'Malley's leaving soon and Meredith's attic is hardly ideal."

"Okaaay," she drew out the word, her hesitation apparent.

"What?" he asked.

"We're living together? Just like that?"

"Why not?" he repeated.

She hesitated, "It's just…it seems too easy."

He smiled, the grooves near his mouth deepening. "I suppose we could make it melodramatic." He looked around the kitchen. "Should we fight and throw things before having some make-up sex?"

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around his neck to bring him back to her. Her thighs tightened around his hips.

"Good," he said, kissing her. "Then it's settled." He scooped her off the counter, his arms on her back to keep her against him.

"Your pancakes," she protested as he left the kitchen with her. "They'll burn."

"Let them," he said airily. "They taste like crap anyway."

She smiled as she pressed his shirt against her cheek. Four buttons had slid home when he stirred, his arm reaching out to meet rumpled sheets. When he turned his head to look at her, she was already staring at him.

The recent memory still fresh in her mind, she had a picture of him in the kitchen, trading jokes with her in an expression of affection and familiarity. And it was the same man in front of her, she realized, her spine tingling with the thought.

This man knew her. He knew she was allergic to eggs, he knew what parts of her were sensitive; he knew what made her laugh.

Her gaze must have been too intent because his eyes sharpened over her face. "What happened?" he asked.

His question only further proved her point. With one leg bent under her, she turned to face him. Her other leg was still over the edge of the bed, her toes grazing the floor.

"I just remembered something," she said softly, keeping his eyes. They were a vivid blue in the daylight, too bright to look away.

His upper body stiffened as he stopped halfway through a stretch. He waited and then relaxed. His voice was casual when he spoke, looking away to sit up properly. "Not Nick again, I hope."

She smiled. "No, something good."

He looked at her again. "Yeah?"

"Something very, very good." She hugged her arms around her midsection, the extra cloth of his shirt bunching around her.

"Dare I hope I'm involved?" he drawled.

"You may hope." She leaned in, kissing his forehead. "You'd be right."

He kept her to him when she moved to sit upright again. "That's my shirt."

"It looks better on me."

"Agreed." He paused, his eyes dropping down to where the first button started, halfway down her chest. It'd look better off."

She wriggled out of his grasp. "I need food," she said, her brows knitting in an expression of mock reprimand.

"Orange juice and French toast would be great. Thanks," he said, rolling over with the comforter as if to fall back asleep.

Her eyes widened. "Chauvinist," she muttered, leaving the bedroom.

On her way to the kitchen, she took a detour to the mantle above the fireplace. She overlooked the pictures of her as a teenager, going straight for the two of them. The details of that night still weren't hers, but Mark's face didn't belong to a stranger anymore.

The smile playing across her lips wouldn't have budged with botox. After the memory of them in the kitchen, it didn't seem so strange to stare at her playfully biting her boyfriend—would-be fiancé, even. It seemed…organic.

When she reached the empty space on the mantle, she felt the same absence she had her first day in the apartment. Only now, there was another piece in place. She knew she'd been the one to knock it down the night she'd confronted Mark about Addison. The knowledge of such a childish action filled her with only a modicum of shame, but more onerous than that was the habitual feeling of frustration. Even with that memory, she still didn't know what had been in the frame before she'd destroyed it in a moment of fury.

"French toast, woman!" Mark's voice called out from the bedroom and she turned away from the fireplace.

Of course he'd demand something with eggs. She rolled her eyes even though he couldn't see the action. "You'll get cereal and you'll like it," she retorted. As she walked to the kitchen, the blue material of his shirt swished around her upper thighs. She couldn't resist smelling the cloth once more.

When he finally made an appearance, she'd laid out two bowls of oatmeal and strawberries.

"This is not French toast," he grimaced, lifting a spoon and letting the thick cream slide off.

"It's good for you," she said, levering herself up on a stool.

He sat next to her. She offered him a strawberry. When all he did was stare at the fruit and then her face, she asked, "Do you like strawberries?"

He sighed and took one as if admitting defeat. "New development," he said under his breath.

After she'd finished her oatmeal and he'd shoved his around in a pretense of eating, she spun on the stool, her knees knocking against his.

He knocked back and she grinned, wondering why people ever went to work if they could just feel this giddy all day.

"I meant to tell you yesterday," he started and she flushed under his collar at the reminder of her belligerent warpath. "I talked to the Chief."

"Oh?" she asked with only mild interest.

"He said you can come back whenever you think you're up for it."

"Oh," she said again, fiddling with her spoon.

His brows rose. "Don't sound too enthused or anything. I thought you were dying to get back."

"Yeah…" she prevaricated. "About that. I was thinking maybe a few days off wouldn't be such a bad thing."

"It wouldn't," he echoed, watching her carefully.

"A vacation," she said.

"I see."

"With you."

"You don't say," he mused. Angling his chin, he gave her a sideways look.

"What?" Her tone was defensive.

"You don't fool me. You've fed the beast." Her mouth fell open. "And now the beast doesn't want surgeries." He grinned. "The beast wants sex."

She shoved his bare shoulder. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Days of uninterrupted sex," he continued.

"Rude," she accused, glaring at him.

He shook his head. "You always were an insatiable witch."

Her lips parted in part shock, part disgust. "Quit being a dumbass."

His voice turned dramatic. "You fractured my penis with your unrealistic demands."

Pink and flustered, she said, "Enough."

"I don't even know where I get the stamina—"

Reaching out, she tipped the spoon over to flick a gob of oatmeal in the air. It landed with exact precision on his cheekbone. Stunned, he was silent. With a calm that should have been worrisome, he lifted one hand to sweep the cream off his skin. Then, in one clean arc, he brought the warm bowl square against her chest.

Her lips formed a silent 'o' as she caught the bowl in her hands, pulling it away to reveal its entire contents on and under his shirt.

She nodded as she set down the bowl. Reaching down her shirt, she pulled out a palm full of oatmeal. He watched her hand warily, edging away on his stool as she extended her hand to put the contents back in the bowl.

He must have done something stupid like blink because her hand changed direction and then he was wearing an oatmeal mask that dripped from his eyes and lips.

Flicking out his tongue, he caught some of the mixture. "You make shitty oatmeal," he said.

"I do not."

"Try some." He swooped down to rub the side of his face across hers. She yelped and nearly fell back off the stool in an attempt to get away from him.

He caught her in time, keeping her place with a hand anchored across her thighs. By tacit agreement, there was a truce as they stood. The oatmeal cooled against her skin and she looked up at him. Pressing her lips together to keep from laughing at the paste covering his eyebrows and soul patch, she deadpanned, "If you're nice, I'll share my shower with you."

He gave the space between her shoulder blades a gentle shove in the direction of their room. "Insatiable witch."

AN: Please review!