AN: Hey guys! NZ was fabulous, I went sky diving and still can't believe I managed to jump out of a plane. =) This chapter is dark, but I loved writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it, intensity aside. Love it or hate it, do let me know what you think!
Standard disclaimers apply and, despite due diligence, the inevitable mistakes are my fault.
Remembrance
Imagine a star so luminous it attracts the very light it emits, rendering it invisible.
"The largest luminous bodies in the universe may, through this cause, be invisible." – Pierre LaPlace(1798)
Chapter Thirteen: Black Holes
The ring was off and back on the nightstand before he returned, the scent of soap lingering on his skin. Nose pressed against the smooth skin of his shoulder, she leaned into him as he read. Long before he'd returned, she'd decided not to mention the recollection of the engagement that never was. Despite the fact every nerve cell in her body was screaming at her to apologize and find some segue to him proposing again, she focused instead on more neutral topics.
"I start work tomorrow," she said.
He made a noise of distracted agreement. "Mmm."
She toyed with a loose thread on the comforter. Neutral be damned. "Things have to be different this time."
He set his book down and looked at her. "They are different."
"I mean at work." She pressed her lips together. "You have to be fair."
He frowned. "I've never favored you."
"That's not what I meant." It was hard to look him in the eye and her cheeks were on fire, but she pressed on. "You can't treat me like crap just to prove I'm not getting special treatment. That's everyone else's job."
His posture grew defensive. He looked at the wall. "I've never treated you like crap," he scoffed.
She bobbed her head. "Yes," she said. "Yes, you have. In fact, you were kind of a tool."
He sat up straighter against the pillows. "You remember?"
She shook her head, her hair swinging over his shoulder. "No, not everything…just bits."
His back relaxed. He waited a moment, hesitating over his next words, before saying, "You never said anything."
"I know," she sighed. "I should have. I just—I was just…"
"Just…"he coaxed.
She shrugged. "Scared, I guess." It was a cop-out, but he let it slide. She cleared her throat. "But I'm telling you now."
He peered at her, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "Is this you communicating?"
She nodded primly. "Thank you for noticing."
His eyes never leaving hers, he said, "Okay, tomorrow I'll try not to be a…" He squinted one eye while tilting his head to the side. "What was that again?"
Her mouth broke into a smile. "A tool," she supplied.
"A tool," he repeated. He picked up his book and she did the same, using his shoulder as a pillow as she read.
*****
Thus far they'd trusted her to do patient histories. Lots and lots of patient histories. Patient histories and shadowing until she got back into the swing of how things were done at Seattle Grace. Doctor Webber's orders.
Her interns had been split amongst the other residents while she'd been gone and the Chief said it would stay that way until further notice. Sadie, whom she recognized from her visits while she was in the hospital, pointed each of them out to her in the cafeteria. They'd looked terrified, darting furtive looks at their table every few minutes.
"Are they always that scared?"
Sadie laughed as she bit into a carrot. "They weren't before. Before they had you making cupcakes and redoing their charts."
Lexie choked. "Are you kidding me?"
Sadie shrugged. "It may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight."
"So what happened?"
She grinned, pulling a blonde curl behind her ear. "Sloan. And Yang. But mainly Sloan."
Lexie motioned for her to continue, her salad forgotten. "He said if they couldn't figure out basic respect, they sure as hell couldn't figure out which end of a scalpel to cut with. Then he made them wash your car."
"Mark did that?" Lexie couldn't help but smile.
Sadie nodded. "Then he yelled at you."
"Me?" Her questions were getting tedious, but Lexie couldn't have helped it if she tried. Shock pulled her brows up to her hairline.
"Said if you couldn't get a few moronic cubs in line, you had no business calling yourself a surgeon."
Lexie swallowed. "And you know this how?"
Sadie's kewpie mouth pursed. "Because he did it in front of the entire cafeteria."
Lexie nodded slowly, letting out a long breath. "Wow," was all she could manage. "And Yang?"
"Sloan told Yang to show you how it's done."
"Did she?"
Sadie jerked her head in the direction of the four interns gaping at them. When Lexie looked, they all stared at their trays, intent on acting nonchalant. "What do you think?"
"Did I name them?"
Sadie's carrot paused in front of her lips. "Yes," she said, surprised.
"You, you're now Pickles because you smell like one. You're Cheese because I hate cheese and I hate you." She moved down the line. "You're Nugget because that's the size of your brain…and I'm being generous there." She smirked as she approached the last intern. He'd messed up her post-of charts five weeks in a row, making them not only delinquent, but also just plain wrong. "And you're Barbie. Can you tell me why?"
His eyes on the floor, he muttered, "Because I'm the free toy that comes with every meal?"
She ruffled his hair. "Good, Barbie," she cooed.
"Pickles, Cheese, Nugget, and Barbie," she recited in the cafeteria with Sadie smiling at her. "Because they're a few fries—"
"—short of a Happy Meal," Sadie chimed in.
"What about your interns?"
Waving a dismissive hand, Sadie grinned. "They're around. I just decimate one every few days."
"Brutal, but effective," she quoted. They shared another smile.
*********
Concentration didn't come easily, not when Lexie was in the halls, left to her own devices. He'd managed to leave her to it throughout most of the morning, stemming the urge to check up on her every twenty minutes. At lunchtime he'd broke down and manufactured a casual errand to run by the cafeteria. Safe and laughing, she was looking at Sadie as if she hadn't sliced her open for sport.
Shaking his head, he reserved judgment. If Derek could forgive him for Addison, maybe Sadie acting as if the unnecessary extraction of an organ wasn't a big deal really wasn't a conundrum.
Seven hours, he counted. Seven hours and they'd be home again. There'd be no hospital, no interns, no traumas, just him, Lexie, and a huge bed. And maybe some ice cream.
It was surprising how something that seemed mundane to most could be the highlight of his life. But when it was true, it was true, he thought once more, remembering him and Derek among mountains of roses and candles.
The resurrection of his relationship with Lexie was a dawning light, and the presence of light created shadows. Every morning that Lexie smiled and looked up at him, all trust and warm guile, he was given a reprieve from the shadows. He waited with bated breath, so desensitized to the fist of apprehension around his chest, he'd forgotten what it felt like to live without it.
Their last vacation day together, when she'd inhaled in that way she did when she was about to unload something big off her chest, the fist had squeezed a bit tighter. When she'd called him out on being an unfair ass at work, he was sure it was a test and that she remembered. But her request had been genuine, not a caustic throwback to the night she'd confronted him months ago.
Had it been months? He walked along the corridors, his mouth tightening into a grim line. Felt like years. But that was the funny thing about altering events; they made everything in the before seem like it happened to a different person.
He knew more than just a fleeting gnaw of guilt at the lie he'd told. But if she could forget, he should be afforded the same indulgence. Indulgence and the delusion that if they both didn't address the past, the words they'd exchanged back then would just dissolve and lose all relevance.
As if punishing him both for the lie he'd told last night and the selfishness of wanting to forget, his memory took him back. And this time, it refused to yield to the careful discipline of suppression.
****
His keys pinged in the dish they kept by the front door.
"Lexie?" he called as he walked through the hallway, his jacket halfway off by the time he saw her sitting at the kitchen table, a banana occupying her full attention.
Her hands busy, he came up behind her and planted a perfunctory kiss on her head. She acknowledged it with a murmur, her eyes trained on the fruit.
His eyes flickered over to the line of neat sutures on the banana.
"Running whipstitch," he said. "I didn't know you'd learned that."
She was silent for a long moment and he saw the curve of her jaw clench as if she was swallowing words with considerable effort. "That's not surprising," she finally said. The words were meant to be airy, but there was steel behind them. Steel that caused him to pause on his way to the kitchen.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"When was the last time you saw me in an OR? Or when you even let me in on a case with you?" she threw back.
Surprised, he unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water and shrugged. "I'm not sure, last week maybe."
She snorted in derision. "Try Mrs. Patterson's surgery."
He frowned. Had it been that long? "I—" he started.
He shouldn't have bothered because apparently she wasn't looking for explanations. "You've done your damnedest to make sure I forget what the inside of an OR even looks like."
There was such rancor in her voice, his brows shot up. "That's bullshit," he said, his temper rankled by hers.
"Then why has every single one of Yang's interns scrubbed in with you this month but me?" He had no answer. She gave him a humorless smile. "So either you're compromising my education or you think I'm stupid. Which is it, Mark? Are you a crappy teacher or am I a moron?"
While talking, she'd abandoned the banana, standing up next to the chair and crossing her arms over her chest.
His jaw set, he finally spoke. "I've taught you, Lexie."
She let out a bark of laughter. "Seriously? No one teaches us." Her eyes squinted at him as she shook her head, her ponytail swishing, echoing her adamant movements. "Why do you think we starting that club? It wasn't because we're sadistic sociopaths, it was because all we wanted to do was learn."
"And that worked out really well," he bit out. "I seem to remember you earning yourself a nice, long probation full of learning with that stunt."
She glared at him. "I know how to do a running whipstitch. You wanna know why?"
He gave her a look that told her could care less. She pressed on. "Yang. Yang taught me. Yang taught me while my own boyfriend doesn't give a damn about my skills as a surgeon."
"That's bullshit."
"You're bullshit," she snapped, apathetic to the childishness of such a comeback. "You and the entire program."
"What do you want, Lexie?" He threw up his hands in a gesture of exasperation. "You want me to reform the entire program because my girlfriend doesn't feel adequate?"
"No, of course not," she rushed, her voice placating before the venom returned. "That would entail you actually acknowledging me as your girlfriend, wouldn't it?"
They were quiet then, glaring at each other across the dining table.
She was the first to speak, her words quiet, each one deliberate and slow. "Everything I am as a doctor, every stitch I know, every procedure I've mastered, it's all in spite of you."
His chin tipped up as if she'd struck him. He looked at her, his nostrils flaring slightly as he inhaled. "I have taught you, Lexie," he repeated quietly. "Even if you're too damned childish to admit it."
"Childish? Oh, I get it, just because I'm younger than you, I'm automatically immature while you're the paragon of all that is wise." She rolled her eyes as she turned away from him.
"Age has nothing to do with this." His voice gained volume with each passing word.
"No, it's about the fact that you taught me back when you wanted to get in my pants and after that mission was accomplished, you couldn't be bothered."
"Damn you!" he yelled, slamming his fist on the table. The banana jumped before shuddering to a stop. "Do you want people second guessing every accomplishment you achieve? Do you want your peers thinking you screwed your way up?" His eyes flashed blue fire down at her and though he told himself that it was enough, that he'd made his point, he continued on, his voice lowering to a silky taunt. "Or maybe you just don't care if people think you whore yourself out to attendings."
She blinked at the attack before narrowing her eyes and responding in kind. "Maybe I should whore myself to another one and actually get in on a surgery."
He looked at her for a long moment. Her face was cold, her features set into a mask of distaste. Even the pink hue that normally tinged her cheeks was gone, her skin pale and icy. "Is that why you're with me?" he finally asked, the words quiet.
If there was vulnerability in the question, she either missed it or chose to ignore it. Her eyes flickered down to his belt and then lower before twisting her lips up. "No, I'm with you because the nurses talk and you're good at using what God gave you."
His jaw clenched at the words, but his eyes remained trained on her, his gaze steady and stoic. When he spoke, it was with a sneer. His eyes travelled down her chest to rest between her thighs before moving up again. "Well, then I guess have taught you a thing or two, haven't I?"
He made a neat pivot on his heel, leaving her and the apartment for the relative peace of Joe's. After debating whether or not spending the night in Derek's trailer would raise too many questions, he finally went home.
The fight out of her, she looked up from her seat on the couch, dried tracks of tears adding no color to her face. Small hands tucked under her chin, her eyes followed his movements into the living room.
He sat down across from her, one hand rubbing across his jaw just for the sake of moving.
"I don't know what's happened to us," she whispered, the words raspy.
He looked at her over the ridge of his brows. Elbow bent on the arm of the leather chair, he was silent for a long moment. The four fingers of his hand jerked toward his palm twice, the gesture beckoning.
He was cradling her in his lap the next moment, his fingers buried in her hair.
"I had no idea you resented me so much," he said after a long while.
She waited so long before replying, he thought she must have fallen asleep. Then she answered, her voice thin and barely audible. "Neither did I."
AN: Please review!