A/N: And . . . Shonda Rhimes still owns everything! Surprise! No. Probably not. :)

When Mark heard the gentle knocking on his apartment door, he quietly moved from the couch to the lock with speed. He knew who it was, and he knew that she probably would know better than to knock a second time. It wasn't worth the risk though. Riley had cried for twenty minutes solid before finally tiring himself out and crashing.

Mark was just becoming accustomed to having another person with him in the house all hours of the day, never mind having to be up all hours of the night and remembering what temperature to warm up what size of bottle. Everything was beginning to seem impossible.

The woman on the opposite side of the door greeted him with an expression that he couldn't discern. That worried him, because he could always tell what Callie Torres was thinking.

"What's the matter?" he had questioned before she could get a single word out.

"Arizona's moving to Africa to help her little humans. She's going with or without me, but I can't let her go alone."

"You're leaving?" An instant sense of shock overtook him. He absolutely, positively, could not raise a baby by himself. Hell, he could barely manage to make Kraft Dinner by himself. But it wasn't just that. Callie couldn't leave. His best friend couldn't leave. His . . . she just couldn't leave.

"I'm sorry Mark. I am so, so sorry. But I can't let the woman I love move to Africa without me."

"Neither can I!" He was desperate, and it took him a moment to realize what he had just told her.

Shit.

They stood in silence for a long moment. Both of them slowly registering what he had just admitted. Mark hadn't intended to tell her that. Ever. He'd known it for longer than he could remember, but he wouldn't take the chance of endangering their friendship. It was far from worth it.

"I'm . . . I'm a lesbian." That was how she broke the moment?

"You're bisexual. There's a difference."

"I . . . I like women, Mark. You're far from having a vagina."

This wasn't going as planned.

Without the slightest hint of warning, Mark took a step forward and closed the distance between their bodies, capturing Callie's face between his hands. He crushed her lips with his own. It wasn't a violent kiss, though. It was a pleading kiss. It was a kiss that said so many unsaid things and begged for everything that he couldn't ask with words.

Eyes closed and lips quivering, she pulled from his grasp, shaking her head. "Mark . . . I - we can't. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

Despite her objections, he was clear on the fact that she kissed him back. "Give me one night. Just one."

"One night," she repeated. It couldn't hurt anything, right?

Nodding, Mark pushed the door to his apartment closed as Callie found the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head.

He had truly believed that one night couldn't hurt anything at the time. It hadn't, exactly, hurt anything. But that one night had most definitely done damage. Damage to their friendship. Damage to her relationship. Damage to him.

And now, as he stood in shock with her before him, he couldn't separate all of the emotions tangled within. He was hurt and happy and angry and broken all at the same time. His voice wouldn't work. His words were caught in his chest along with his pounding heart.

"You're . . . here." he finally managed to stammer.

"I didn't know where else to go."

"I mean here. In Seattle."

Callie nodded, slowly taking all of him in. In the last three years, he hadn't changed much at all. Maybe a few barely noticeable lines had popped up around his eyes and mouth, but nothing to be concerned about. He was still well built, if not even more so than he had been before. She liked to think that she hadn't changed much either. In Africa, it had been easier to maintain her hair when it was shorter, so she'd kept it that way. Her skin was probably a shade darker, but nothing had really drastic.

"Arizona and I broke up five months ago. I tried to keep working with her, but I couldn't."

Oh.

"You never called. You never wrote. You didn't send me one goddamn email, Callie. Now you show up at my door expecting what? A place to stay? A good night? I have a son. I have a four-year-old son and you can't walk in and out of here complicating my life and his."

"I'm not expecting anything. I thought that I could show up at a friend's door and catch up or . . . or something."

"Well you-"

"Daddy, she's pretty." Mark turned to see his little boy examining their visitor. Riley evidently hadn't been asleep yet, or had been awoken by the noisy adults.

When nobody objected to his doing so, the child moved up beside his father and looked up to Callie with familiar blue eyes, "I'm Riley, who are you?"

"My name's Callie. And you're pretty cute, yourself."

"I have a girlfriend."

"Oh?"

"But my Daddy doesn't. You can come in and have some juice or some water or some milk, maybe." He took the stranger by the hand and pulled her through the door as Mark stood back and watched. It was quickly becoming obvious who the man of the house was.

Swooping in to make things right again, Daddy took Riley by the waist and hoisted him up into his arms, "Why aren't you in bed, Mister?"

"You forgetted to turn on my night light." The statement came out so matter-of-factly that Mark couldn't be bothered to correct the grammatical mistake.

"Alright. Let's get you back in bed, then."

"Goodnight, Callie," the Little Sloan waved as he was carried away.

Mark emerged from the bedroom moments later to find Callie sitting on his couch. Before he could say anything, she was rambling on, "I got my job back at the hospital. I just need a place to stay for a little while. If you don't want me here, I can stay with Alex or Cristina or someone. I don't know why I came here. Look, I'll just go. I can see you've got your hands full and . . . I'll just go."

She was getting up from the couch, moving to the door. Mark's train of thought finally caught up with the situation and he intercepted her course, blocking her from the door. "Stay," he told her, "I overreacted. I've spent the last three years waiting for . . . something, and if this is it, I'll take it."

"You don't have to do this out of pity. Clearly, you're angry."

"Of course I'm angry. My best friend left for Africa with her girlfriend after I told her I loved her and then she never contacted me. You can't expect me to be happy about that."

"I thought that if I let go it would be easier."

"You were wrong."

Callie stayed. They talked nearly all night, catching up on their lives and the lives of those around them. This new, grown up Mark was hard to get used to, but she liked it. He was a dad. He was a mature, fatherly man. When she finally fell asleep on the couch, he covered her and slept in his own bed, one small fact lingering in his thoughts.

He still loved her.

Alright, maybe it wasn't so small after all.

A/N: Please review! Love to hear the feedback. :D