A/N Firstly, has anyone heard the news about Chyler Leigh being pregnant? The universe works in mysterious ways. Secondly - thank you to those who reviewed!! You guys rock :) Thirdly, if you find any mistakes please tell me because my editing is a little rushed - I'm trying to get this up before my Dad gets home and monopolises the computer. Anyway, enjoy and tell me what you think as always :D
Chapter Four – Can't Stop This Thing We Started
Lexie Grey was pissed beyond belief.
Not drunk pissed. Along with humiliation and self hatred, carrying Mark Sloan's baby resulted in abstaining from drinking alcoholic beverages. Which was really just another reason to hate Mark Sloan – in any other situation she would have got over her anger with the wonder liquid vodka. Now all she could do was sit in her crapartment alone, growing increasingly furious by the minute at the fact that she had no one to rant to about it all. Mark Sloan was a commitment phobic bastard who tried to tell her that he hadn't conceived her child. George O'Malley was a babbling idiot who couldn't keep hold of his balls long enough to come home and face her. Alex Karev was just… An arsehole. He was a guy. It was given.
Boys were stupid.
She glared petulantly at the grimy wall in front of her. A year ago she'd been in Harvard med. She'd been looking forward to the high flying life of a surgical residenct and being an Aunt. She'd had a perfectly happy family to go home to whenever she wanted and she'd even had a pretty nice boyfriend.
Now she was knocked up and alone. Her mother was dead, her sister was avoiding their family home and everything to do with it (Lexie included), her father was a raging alcoholic who couldn't remember his own name let alone how many daughters he had and she was sitting in possibly the worst accommodation in Seattle on her own. She knew she was complaining. She knew she was complaining bitterly and that nothing would come from sitting in her apartment complaining bitterly except more anger but she really couldn't find it in herself to stop.
Fuck Mark Sloan. She thought furiously. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him.
Lexie wasn't usually one to curse but she was pissed off, and when one was completely and utterly consumed by their rage they had the right to rant and say fuck. A lot.
She knew there was a good chance that her rage was only partly justified. Some of it was probably just her hormones acting up. A PMS effect of sorts except five thousand times worse.
And the shittiest part of it all – the thing that really made her want to just fucking murder Mark Sloan – was that no matter how hard she tried she couldn't get his face out of her head. Or his denial; "Of course it wasn't!"
There was no truth there. Only some arrogant arsehole trying to save face. He didn't care that she was pregnant. He just wanted to go back to avoiding her and pretending they had never had sex.
And then, at the injustice of it all, Lexie Grey started bawling.
She tried to convince herself it was hormones. And some of that convincing worked because even though she enjoyed a good cry every now and then – it was healthy – she didn't bawl. But it took so long for her to get all the tears out that she knew something else was behind it. Everything. It wasn't just about the baby. That was just the icing on a perfect year. It was having nobody. Not one person.
Except, a voice said meekly, maybe the baby.
She stopped crying abruptly, sniffing slightly and glancing down at her abdomen. What was she doing? She was a surgical intern. She had nobody and very little money. Why was she still here crying? Crying wasn't solving anything!
She grabbed a sweater and stormed out of the apartment determinedly. It wouldn't take her long to drive to Meredith's. She knew she was still alone – Meredith wasn't family of any kind – but she was the only person who came even remotely close. Lexie couldn't understand how it had come to this; from having two wonderful parents and a sister she loved dearly to one half sister who hated her guts. She shook her head. Exactly why you can't go through this.
Meredith's neighbourhood was a lot prettier than Lexie's – there was an abundance of large houses surrounded by flowery gardens glittering from the dew and frost. Lexie ignored all that keeping her eyes to the slippery road. The last thing she needed on her mind was a comparison between this street and her street.
She knew she was pushing her luck by approaching Meredith again so soon. Their relationship was improving but there were limits. Lexie didn't want to give the impression that she was a stupid little twat who didn't have anyone else to depend on (although, that wasn't entirely untrue) but she was desperate. She knew the rules and regulations surrounding abortion – for a few brief days Molly had considered it and dragged Lexie along for emotional support. The clinic demanded that you have somebody there to take care of you afterwards. And, even though it was pushing the boundaries, Meredith was the only one left who was close to fitting the bill.
"Lexie." She answered the door with the same bewildered frown as she had only hours before.
"Hi." Lexie said lamely. She had prepared a whole speech about how once Meredith had done her this favour she would disappear from her life for good. That if she was her proper big sister just once she never had to do it again. But that went out the window when she saw the expression and the frown.
"You okay?" Meredith asked guardedly. She was trying hard not to show how irritated she was that Lexie was on her front step again. She tried to remind herself that Lexie was pregnant and alone. She tried to be sisterly. But the act was going to wear off fast if Lexie kept coming around unannounced like this.
"Uh yeah…" Lexie looked down at her feet and tried to summon all the pent up anger she'd felt in the car. It was only thing energised enough to propel her into speech.
"I told Mark about the… Well you know."
"Right." Meredith nodded still looking bewildered and trying hard not to imagine Derek sitting in front of the TV two rooms away and how much she wanted to rejoin him. "Do you want to…?" She gestured towards the swing chair on the veranda vaguely.
Lexie nodded with a smile, glad Meredith was finally offering her an opening. She sat down and continued; "He was less than excited." She laughed at herself; "Guess that was kind of expected."
Meredith nodded, trying to think of something to say. She didn't want to sound too nosy but the question of the future seemed too tempting to pass up; "So what are you going to do?"
Lexie hesitated. Half an hour ago the answer had been obvious. In her spout of anger the whole thing had appeared to her like a vision. She had nobody and people who had nobody didn't raise kids. So she was going to get it taken care of and go back to ignoring Mark Sloan. The only thing missing that she'd needed was Meredith Grey, and that was why she was here right?
But now doubts were starting to creep back into her thoughts, clouding her clarity. They were like little clumps of bacteria forming around the edges of a perfectly healthy wound. She'd never really believed in abortions. She didn't disrespect any woman who chose to get one but she'd never imagined herself making the decision. Was her solution just the result of her hormone swings and temper tantrum? Did she maybe want to keep the baby?
She groaned in frustration. The whole thing was too confusing for her. It was too overwhelming. All she wanted to do was crawl under the bed sheets and bawl for nine months. She knew it was immature but for the second time that night she couldn't find it in herself not to be.
"Meredith, can I please stay here for the night? I don't want to be a burden but… I can't make a decision tonight about anything. And I'm emotional and Mark Sloan... It's all just taken it out of me."
Meredith looked her over in concern. A part of her (the part that was unsupportive and scared shitless of Lexie Grey's need for closeness) wanted to explain politely that for the first twenty eight years of her life she had been an only child and very much wanted to stay that way. But the other part, (the one that didn't get much say very often) felt sorry for her. It had taken a while for Meredith to ask herself the question: 'would it be so bad having Lexie as my real sister?' But once she had asked it, she'd found herself repeating it frequently, especially at times like this. Lexie wasn't so different to her. She didn't have any reliable family and she had boy problems. Meredith had so much experience in those areas it wasn't funny. Maybe she could help Lexie with the pregnancy – maybe it would be the only way the two could form a relationship. They had to do it slowly; ease out of their awkwardness with care; one step at a time. Surely letting her stay when she so miserable and alone was a step.
"Yeah, you can stay." She said softly, offering a tentative smile.
Lexie smiled back. She knew one thing; she was too immature for this. She had to tell Meredith what she wanted in the morning. She had to set things in motion.
Mark had searched everywhere and was now sitting in the reception area of the hotel in exhaustion. Of course, 'everywhere' for Mark had included the hospital and Joe's bar. But really, where else could he look? He didn't have a clue where Lexie lived.
So he'd come back to the hotel and flopped on the reception couches instead, totally unenthusiastic about the prospect of his hotel room. All that was waiting for him up there was a big bed to lay in. He wouldn't sleep, not with so many thoughts and worries running around in his head.
About an hour before the end of his shift he'd considered the fact that responsibility and support meant a lot of different things and he wasn't quite sure which ones he was supposed to offer. And then a realisation had hit him; it was Addison all over again.
He'd never been good with kids and he'd never particularly liked them. When Addison had told him she was pregnant at first he'd expected to feel crap about it all. But there had been this unexpected emancipation that had come with her revelation that had completely knocked him off his feet. He had a family who loved him. He belonged somewhere. They were going to have a kid who belonged to them and who they belonged to. It was a pretty simple idea but deceptively powerful.
The abortion of course had knocked that belonging on the head. He couldn't have supported Addison in her decision and because of that he couldn't support Lexie either.
But the problem was that he and Lexie weren't a couple. They'd made a massive mistake involving a hotel room and several weeks of pent up attraction. But it had been a mistake. Lexie wasn't mature and learned like Addison. She didn't deserve his hurtful relationship tactics. Despite having put her in such a difficult situation he was adverse to hurting her further. His promise to Derek (or more to himself now really) was wound around his feelings for her so deep he wasn't sure he could even consider offering her anything more than money.
The thought of Lexie as a single mother and surgical resident shot through his mind like an electric shock. His cheating aside, anything would be less hurtful than that. He couldn't leave her alone.
But what then? He thought furiously. Another even more electrifying thought shook him. It was he, Lexie and their baby walking through a park. It was corny but it was utterly intoxicating. Lexie was the first woman he'd had serious feelings about in a while. The first woman ever he'd described as intoxicating. And the image was so... Not even intoxicating really covered it.
The promise ropes around his feelings pulled tighter and he reminded himself quickly that he didn't want to hurt Lexie further. Mushroom cloud.
He wasn't husband material, that much he knew. He wasn't going to risk loading Lexie with a pregnancy and a broken heart too. It was too much, no matter how appealing the image of their family looked.
But he wasn't sure that he wasn't father material. Addison had told him he'd be a terrible father but there was something in his bones, deeper than promises and feelings that knew she was wrong. Mark didn't know much about parenting but he thought if you knew you were or weren't up for it then you knew it, either way. He was certainly like that. At the age of twelve he'd known he had it in him to be a doctor. At the age of fourteen he'd known he didn't have it in him to be a decent boyfriend. And now at the age of thirty five, he knew he had it in him to be a good Dad. A kid couldn't hate him like a woman could. A kid couldn't hate him enough to drive him away. When everything else failed, he'd always have that love and there was nothing anyone could do to take it away. And because of that love he knew he could force himself to raise a kid. He knew.
But where did Lexie fit into that? He couldn't be a good father and a bad husband. It wasn't fair to Lexie. So what could he do instead?
Inspiration hit in the form of a third electric shock and it brought a genuine smile to Mark's face.
Lexie squeezed her eyes shut tight. She thought if she held them tight enough for long enough eventually fatigue would seep in. It had to. She'd never spent an entire night awake in worry. The latest she'd been up from anxiety had been about three but it was now - she checked her watch quickly - 4:07 and she still hadn't had a moment of shut eye.
With a frustrated sigh she rolled over. She was uncomfortable and hot. She was worried about trying to explain her plans to Meredith. She was worried about her plans period.
She couldn't find peace with herself. She didn't know what she wanted. She didn't want to get an abortion, but she didn't want to be her age, immature, alone and pregnant either. She didn't want Meredith to think she was a charity case, but she didn't want to go through with what she was planning without her.
She pushed the covers away from her slim form roughly and stumbled to the kitchen. Throughout the whole ordeal she was glad about one thing; she hadn't had any morning sickness.
She didn't turn any lights on but the street lights filtering through the windows were enough for her to find her away around easily. A banana and a cup of tea in hand she made her way out to the veranda to cool down. It was still only February but pregnancy while not affecting her stomach had greatly affected her temperature.
She placed her tea carefully next to the step and fell into it with a huff. She would have perked herself up with coffee but she'd always found the strong taste too much for her straight out of bed. She needed at least an hour to adjust to coffee.
It didn't take her long to eat her banana – it was gone in a few fretful bites. The tea was scalding hot but she sculled it almost instantly anyway, trying to calm down from the night of worrying. Her burnt tongue did at least take her mind off the baby for a few minutes. She rubbed it against the roof of her mouth trying to bring some feeling back. She knew it wouldn't help but she continued to rub it anyway, maybe just to reassure it was still there and it wasn't about to drop off from the burn.
She was a learned worrier about such things as her tongue dropping off. She'd read some pretty frightening magazine articles as a child about hot beverages and mouth cancer and of course, she hadn't forgotten any of them. She could recite every item of food that was likely to cause heart attack (sourced from an article in one of her Mother's natural medicine magazines – none of them were high in salt but she'd avoided eating too much of them anyway, just in case) and she knew all the sleeping positions that could put her back into disarray later in life (she avoided those too.) She'd also read one about the effect of worrying on unborn babies and immediately began fretting that her fretting was giving the baby a higher chance of deformity.
This is why you shouldn't be having a baby. She reminded herself, as well as being too young, immature and alone, you're a total nut case.
The worries still plagued her though. No matter how frequently she reminded herself she was getting an – she couldn't think the word comfortably – she still worried incessantly. It shouldn't have mattered but for some reason it did.
She frowned a little and let her hand drop to her belly. There wasn't a bulge there but something was different. Maybe it was her imagination but the area was more sensitive to her touch. She caressed it softly still thinking critically about all those magazine articles.
It struck her suddenly that her baby might know what she was planning. That somehow sharing the one body they knew the other's thought and needs. She knew she was being ridiculous but the thought was the most worrying yet – what separated a human being from a foetus?
Nothing. She thought in a panic. Except the uterine wall and skin. That's the only difference. One lives on Earth and one lives inside someone.
The thought terrified her. Sweat beads began to form around her hair line as she thought of it; that little tiny thing she'd seen at the OB/GYN's. It hadn't really affected her that day but it was affecting her now. Her baby was living. Actually living. She didn't know if that meant it had a conscience or not but it would one day.
She knew with that thought permanently etched into her scull she would never be able to go through with an abortion. Perhaps if she had a normal memory like everybody else she would have pushed it aside – made it go away. But she didn't and that thought had rendered her incapable. She'd over thought it and now she had to go through with it. She had a person growing inside her, a person that probably didn't want to stop existing just so she could go back to normal.
She buried her head in her hands. Now everything really was a mess. What would she do with a baby? She was a surgeon with very little money and as she'd established the night before; nobody. Somehow the thought didn't have the same power in the face of the person growing inside her. It actually seemed rather feeble and petty now. It had been such a forbidding propellant the night before.
The sunlight had begun to creep over the hills in the distance before Lexie heard the sounds of human life inside the house. Izzie was the first – obvious by the sound of pots and pans being dislodged in their cupboards. A toilet flushing and the following clumsy footsteps - obviously Alex. And then shortly after there was genuine laughter from upstairs – Derek and Meredith.
She smoothed back her hair and glanced ahead with a sigh.
"Hey."
She knocked her mug over in shock. Mark Sloan was standing in front of her.
"Uh… What… How… What are you doing here?"
"That's not what a guy likes to hear in the morning." He said with a smile trying to coax her out of shock.
Her expression didn't change. It occurred to her again that Mark Sloan was standing in front of her at five in the morning and she was wearing a flimsy robe.
"I thought you might be here." He said with a shrug, "You are."
She stared at him perplexed.
"Mind if I sit down?"
Uh… Yes.
"How did you know I'd be here?" She asked despite herself.
"Made sense." He said gruffly lowering himself onto the step, "Figured you'd want to be with Meredith."
"Meredith and I don't exactly have a sisterly relationship." She said looking away. She didn't trust the way he looked at her.
"It's more sisterly than you think." He said, "She let you stay here didn't she? She wanted to protect you from me. Sounds pretty sisterly."
She snorted underneath her breath, looking straight ahead at the increasingly energised neighbourhood. It surprised her how many people were up and about at five in the morning. If she hadn't been a surgeon she wouldn't have bothered getting up before seven.
"I wasn't trying to pass the blame off yesterday." He said softly. She barely had time to register that he was talking about the baby before he continued on quickly; "I was just trying to make sure I had all my facts right."
She nodded, perhaps even more shocked than she had been moments before hand; "Well… You do."
"Good." He said with another smile.
They sat in silence for a few moments. Lexie wondered if this was just a little bit strange or if it was her imagination. Somehow she figured it was the first. There was something absurd about them talking in such a blasé tone about her pregnancy at five in the morning on Meredith Grey's front door step.
"Are you okay?"
She looked up at him properly for the first time and the genuine concern in his eyes – so real and so caring – made her want to start crying again. She shook her head and tried to blink away the tears without him seeing.
"I just… Don't know what to do. You have this idea of what person you're going to be when you grow up and… I'm just not that person anymore." She let a few tears roll down her cheeks; "And I'm so sick of crying!" She added, laughing at herself.
He laughed too putting an arm around her shoulder. It felt nice and for a moment Lexie thought that things might turn out okay. For a moment she made herself forget what the nurses and – well everyone – said about Mark Sloan. She made herself remember what she'd seen in him that night she'd gone to his hotel room. Goodness. Because people who weren't good didn't bother being nice to you for weeks. They didn't make people speak for the first time in years. They didn't care about you at five in the morning.
"So do you know what you're going to do?" He asked gently.
She shrugged; "I'm not really in the right place in my life to raise a baby but… I don't see any alternatives. And I have no idea how I'm going to manage."
She looked up at him again and added softly; "Plus, I never really wanted to raise a child who didn't have a father."
Her words had spurred some deep emotion within him, she could see that. She had the urge to press on and find out what it was but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
"You don't have to… If you don't want to."
She stared at him in surprise, a furrow forming between her eyebrows.
"What do you mean you'd…?"
"I don't want to hurt you Little Grey. I've hurt you enough already. But I'm an attending. I have enough money for a decent place and all the practical stuff."
"So you're offering me money?" She asked, understanding dawning.
"Yes but not only money." He said looking away; "I don't think I'm husband material Lexie but I'd like to be around. I don't think a kid should be shoved between Mom and Dad every weekend. We could… We could get the apartment together."
She frowned again. What did that stipulate for their relationship exactly? He didn't want to marry her but…
"So you want to be there but you don't want to…"
"Be together." He finished slowly.
Hurt pulsed through her like poison. She hadn't thought about Mark like that since the morning he had said they shouldn't have sex again but that didn't mean the thought hadn't briefly flittered through her mind at words like 'apartment' and 'together.' She had liked Mark a lot before – it was kind of given. He was dangerously good looking and charming but it was his kindness and sense of humour that had hooked her. The same way it had hooked her with George. Only Mark had been more callous with her feelings; he'd given her hope and snatched t away again. At least George had been straight with her. Or as staight about things as George could be anyway.
Mark could sense that she was disheartened at his words and he back tracked fast horrified that she truly believed he didn't want to be with her; "Not that I don't… I'm not good for you Little Grey. Like I said, I'm not husband material. And – being together – it'll only complicate things. You'd end up hating me and not wanting to live with me. I don't want to mess things up. If we're friends we'll always be friends and that'd be the best for the kid right?"
She hadn't thought of if like that before. It did seem rather logical. Being Mark's friend meant she didn't have to divorce him. It meant the baby would always have a peaceful childhood, just like the one she'd had.
"So… Friends then?"
"With benefits." He said with a wink.
Her mouth dropped in shock.
"Joke! Joke!" He exclaimed quickly, laughing. "Jeez woman you're going to have to do some serious readjusting to your sense of humour if we're going to live together."
"Are you going to be an arse the whole time?" She asked trying to contain a smile, "Because if you are then you can forget it."
"How about every second Sunday?"
"You'll be an arse?"
"No a decent human being. I'm not perfect! Now can we get breakfast here or what? I'm starving."
With a smile she lead him inside. He had to pause briefly at the door and remind himself.
Mushroom cloud.
He figured he would become very accustomed to those two words over the next few months.
Anyone want to make a wager on how long Big Sloan will want to be 'just friends' with Little Grey? :D Reviewers get a 'friend with benefits' in the form of Mark Sloan. Of course ;)