Standard disclaimers apply and, despite due diligence, the inevitable mistakes are my fault.
Chapter Eighteen: Emotional Lexie-con
She trudged up the steps, her bag in hand. By the time she rang the doorbell, she was already regretting her decision. Options, however, weren't exactly running aplenty, she acknowledged grimly, her finger hovering over the button as she debated whether to ring it again.
The door swung open and her sister stared back at her, the corners of her mouth puckered in what Lexie could only assume was sympathy.
"Your room's all made up," she said, gesturing her inside.
That was surprising. "The attic?" she asked, craning her neck around so she'd see Derek before he saw her. Preparation never hurt anyone.
"No, a real room." They locked eyes. "Alex's old one."
Lexie managed a small smile. "Upgrade."
"Yeah, Derek even put on the guest linen. It's classy."
They smiled for as long as they could fake it. Meredith was the first to break. "Are you okay?" she sighed.
Lexie nodded. "Yeah, yeah." She kept nodding. "Yes. I think so." Meredith kept staring. "Probably not." Lexie shook her head, looking at her shoes. "No."
They walked up the stairs together. "Are you sure about this?"
There was no point in asking about what. Lexie wasn't dumb and she was in no mood to play it. "I can't stay there."
Meredith still looked doubtful. "He loves you," she said.
"And I love him."
When her sister stared at her as if she were challenged, Lexie shrugged. "It'll pass."
Meredith nodded slowly. "Right."
Lexie wanted to scream. Wasn't it enough that she breathed fear every moment, terrified that Mark had ruined her for any man, any love, any chance at happiness without him? Did everyone else have to belief she was making a huge mistake as well?
Instead she exhaled. "Thank you for letting me stay here," she said, standing near the bed of Alex's old room. She remembered the first she'd seen it, drunk with the intoxication of beer and being wanted. It was laughable now, that excursion with Alex. A detour. A pebble. For both of them. Mark had been a boulder.
"Anytime," Meredith said from the doorway.
"Is—is Derek okay?"
"With you staying here?" Lexie nodded and Meredith waved a dismissive hand. "Of course. He generally takes your side. Against Mark." Meredith gave her a half-smile. "Against me."
Lexie returned the gesture, but there was one more thing she had to say. "Thank you."
"You already said that."
Lexie shook her dark head. "Not for this, but for being there back then." She waited a beat before clarifying. "When we lost the baby."
Meredith nodded, the movement awkward and hurried. Lexie realized she'd probably made the other woman uncomfortable. Giving her a small smile, she remained quiet, granting Meredith a cued exit.
Like clockwork, Meredith turned to leave. She paused in the doorway, however, and said, "I'm glad you know you can come here." She shifted for a moment, shaking the fringe out of her eyes. "After you told us—about you and Mark—it got…it got messy."
Lexie's eyes crinkled in a genuine smile. "Water. Bridge. All that," she quoted.
Meredith grinned. "Dinner in a hour." Giving the panel a pat with her palm, she moved into the hallway.
Lexie called after her, "No eggs," at the exact moment Meredith popped her head back to reassure her: "No eggs."
Their laugher echoed in the house.
*******
Lexie set the table while Derek paid careful attention to the chicken. Meredith was on the phone, pacing in the living room. Snippets of her conversation wafted into the kitchen and none of it sounded good.
"…believe this happened again," she said as she walked by the doorway. "…..Seriously?.....asking for trouble…."
Lexie and Derek exchanged a look over the kitchen counter before turning back to their respective jobs.
When Meredith ran into the kitchen a minute later, she was already pulling on her jacket.
Derek set the chicken on the table and took in her purse and shoes. "Everything all right?"
Meredith waved a hand in the air. " Cristina. Hunt. Drama."
Derek nodded once, his gaze flickering down to the steaming meat and vegetables. Lexie knew his pain and felt distinctly out of place. She sat down, hands in her lap, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.
"We were supposed to go over house plans after dinner," he said, his voice not unkind.
"I know," Meredith sighed, flipping her hair out of her collar. "But Cristina—"
"Needs you," Derek supplied.
Meredith leaned over to kiss him quickly. "Yes."
"Go, go," Derek said, taking his seat.
Meredith hesitated for a moment, her cell phone clasped in her palm. "You sure?"
Derek looked at her, the grooves around the corner of his mouth deepening as he looked at her anxious face. Two years ago she wouldn't have asked. "Always." She smiled back at him. "We have tomorrow."
Lexie watched her sister's back as she strode out of the kitchen. The front door closed a moment later. She turned back to Derek, who was busy cutting the chicken into sections with the precision of a surgeon.
Despite tact warning her it could be a sore spot, curiosity got the better of her and she asked, "How long have you been working on that house?"
He shrugged distractedly. "In my head? Forever. With Meredith? About two years."
Lexie gaped at him. Then, realizing she was being rude and about ten kinds of judgmental, she schooled her expression into one of unbiased observance. "Oh. I see."
She didn't fool him. Derek smiled patiently, his voice tolerant. "You think I'm crazy."
"No."
"Yes, you do. That's all right, I thought I was for a long time, too."
She moved her chicken around with her fork. "But not anymore?"
He looked at the door Meredith had vacated minutes before as if her presence still lingered. "No, not anymore."
"What changed?"
He shrugged. "Because I can't hold Meredith to the same timetable as others. She's different and it's unfair of me to love her for being different and then condemn her for not being like other women." He took a bite of chicken and swallowed. "She's made huge steps to change herself for me, for us. And I celebrate those instead of looking at what we don't have yet."
Lexie met his gaze for a while before looking down at her plate. She cleared her throat. "I think that says a lot about you."
"What do you mean?" He took a sip of his wine.
She shook her head. "I don't think a lot of people would be willing to stick it out."
He looked amused. Leaning back in his chair, he peered at her and she had a prickling feeling she was being studied. "I think it's selfish of me."
"Selfish?"
"I could make it easier for both of us. I could go find someone without commitment issues; I could do the picket fence and 2.4 kids thing. I could let Meredith do her surgery and bed-hopping thing—no pressure, no future."
Lexie frowned. "But…" she prompted.
Derek smiled. "But that picket fence and 2.4 kids thing wouldn't compare to the feeling I get just talking to Meredith about how much she hates picket fences."
Lexie gave up the pretense of eating. She set her fork down and reached for the wine. "Because she's it for you."
Derek helped himself to more chicken. "Because she's it for me."
********
Over the next two days, Lexie went after Mark like a bounty hunter. She left messages, she checked the board for his surgeries, she went to his apartment. But the messages went unheard, he managed to avoid her around the OR and he was never home.
When she finally laid eyes on him, ironically enough, it was by accident. She had just finished a conversation with two of his scrub nurses. Though she'd stressed it wasn't possible for him to have already left when his surgery wasn't scheduled to be completed for another two hours, the nurses had been adamant that he'd left already. Resigning herself to leaving another fruitless message, she'd then jogged down the stairs and promptly seen him exiting the elevator.
When her feet hit the landing, she halted to a jerking stop. His shoulders were bunched under his jacket and his hands were shoved into his jeans. She simply stared for a long moment, her eyes taking in as much of him as possible.
"Mark!" she finally called, her strides eating up the distance between them.
He turned on instinct rather than by the sound of her voice. That much was evident by the look on his face when he saw her. His brows rose and then fell again, his eyes clouding over. Boredom crossed his features and he looked over her head in a gesture so dismissive, it would have hurt her feelings if it hadn't been so infuriating.
"Where the hell have you been?" she demanded. "I've been going crazy trying to reach you."
"Yeah," he said, rocking back on his heels. "Right. So I can have your stuff sent to you."
She gaped at him. "What?"
He frowned. "Your clothes, books. Your stuff."
Thrown, she just stared. Unfortunately, that gave him time to escape. He turned and left her in the lobby staring at the gleam of his retreating back.
The next day she cornered him the stairwell. She'd given up leaving messages or calling. They only left a trail. And information like that, she'd learned during her limited time as a stalker, only gave targets avenues to avoid you. The better way was to let information come to you and use it to your advantage. Rather than looking at the board, she heard the nurses talking and knew when Dr. Sloan's cleft palate was done for the day.
From there, it was easy to remain hidden while he scrubbed out and headed for the staircases rather than the elevator. She had been ready to hijack him in either.
Running past him down the stairs, she stopped on the step right below him and turned, her arm on the railing. His body instinctively stopped to prevent mowing down the blur in front of him.
"You have to listen to me," she said, the sentence coming out in a rushed string of words.
"I have a meeting," he said, moving to the side.
She anticipated the move and blocked him. "We have to talk."
Mark moved the right once more. So did she. "I don't think we do."
"Yes, yes, we do. About us."
Mark glared at her. "I think you made it pretty clear there is no us."
She sighed. "Would you hear me out? Please?"
He faked left and she fell for it. He slid past her body on the right and left the stairwell. Groaning her frustration, she leaned against the railing before sliding down to sit on the stairs. With her forehead pressed against her knees, she tried not to think of the possibility that her recently returned memories of Mark Sloan could be all that she had left of him.
AN: Please review!