I'm so sorry that it took me so long to write this chapter! I was really looking forward to write a lot in my one week off but then I made the mistake on Monday of actually starting to watch 'Alias', a show I always wanted to watch, and now I am obsessed. I already have visions of Mark being Lexie's handler. Yeah, my muse never shuts up. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 4

The moment Lexie closed the door behind her she heard her laptop beeping, indicating a new message. She walked into the living room and slumped down onto the couch, giving herself a few seconds before she reached for the laptop on the table and propped it against her knees. As she'd expected the message was from Monroe, telling her to go online so that she could get debriefed.

"Good morning. Let me just get my coffee and then ..." Lexie began to speak the moment Monroe's face appeared on the screen.

"No one told you to fraternize with the FBI like that." Monroe barked.

"Are you sure we are on a secure line?" Lexie asked, slightly taking by surprise by Monroe's harsh tone.

"Grey, who do you think you are talking to?"

"Of course it's a secure line. Sorry, boss."

"I hope you still remember that this is an undercover mission, Grey." Monroe replied coldly. "You are on assignment. I hope you are not forgetting that."

"How the hell do you even know what just happened on the front lawn?" Lexie asked harshly, not liking to be getting accused of being unprofessional.

"I've honestly have to consider to pull you off the case."

"Why? I'm nothing than professional."

"So how could you forget about the security cameras we've installed all over the place?"

"Right. Security cameras." Lexie replied, cursing herself about forgetting all about the security cameras. "I guess I need a little more caffeine."

Monroe gave her a scrutinizing look but then just continued to debrief her, telling her how they should proceed the next few days, reluctantly acknowledging that Sloan had made the right move with inviting the neighbors for diner.

When Monroe left the place in front of the laptop, Lexie exhaled a deep breath, telling herself that she really needed to get a grip. The sexual tension, she was willing to acknowledge was obviously there between Sloan and her, could seriously damage the purpose of their assignment and she wasn't willing to do anything that could harm the mission.

"That was steamy." Scott's voice jerked her out of her reveries and Lexie furrowed her brows. "What was steamy?"

"Your performance on the front lawn." Scott replied with a big smirk on his face. "I had to fan myself."

"Scott, we are trying to work here." Lexie said exasperatedly.

"Lexie!"

"What?" Lexie snapped back.

"You sure you can do this?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The way I've seen it and believe me I've seen more than I wanted to see is that these were definitely no undercover kisses. Either you are both amazing actors or ..." Scott trailed off, waiting for Lexie to try to defend herself.

"Or what?"

"You weren't fake kissing at all." Scott elaborated.

"Scott, I don't like what you are implying." Lexie said sternly. "Sloan and I are supposed to be a newly married couple. I think our 'performance' on the front lawn, as you call it, was very convincing. Just helped to establish our cover story."

"Yeah, it did. But Lexie ..." Scott said calmly. "Be careful, okay?"

"I will, Scott." Lexie already wanted to shut down the connection before she suddenly blurted out. "Scott, wait a sec."

"Yes?"

"Are there any cameras in the bedroom?" The moment the words were out of her mouth she wished she'd never said them.

"Why do you wanna know?" Scott asked confused before it suddenly dawned on him why she'd asked. "Don't tell me you are going to ..."

"Just answer my question, Scott." Lexie interrupted him sharply.

"No, there are no cameras in the bedroom. But Lexie I ..."

Lexie pushed the button to disconnect the connection and pulled down the screen. She wasn't sure why she'd asked. She couldn't tell Scott the reason she wanted to know about the cameras because she didn't want him to know that she'd woken up in Mark's arms and wished for a brief second that she could act on the desire that had rushed through her body. She just wanted to make sure if she would decide to sleep with Mark that there would be no witnesses.

~M&L~

"So how did you two meet?" Mollie asked, not able to hide her excitement.

"I've worked in the … " Lexie paused briefly before she continued as if she needed to think about what she was going to say. " … entertainment business. I met Dylan in San Fransisco while we were both on a conference."

"What kind of entertainment business?" Greg, Mollie's husband, asked.

Mark suppressed a smirk upon hearing her job description. It was way better than to tell them that she'd been an erotic dancer and before she could say anything else, he jumped in. "Alexandra was a big star in Vegas. Behind the curtains of course."

Lexie could hardly avoid to roll her eyes. Now the techs would need to create traces so that if anyone would check it out they would find evidence that she'd actually worked at Vegas. But it was too late now to change it, so it was better to just roll with his story. "Yes, I was working in Vegas."

"Was?" Mollie asked. "Where do you work now?"

"Well, ..." Lexie turned towards Mark wrapping her arm around his shoulder, giving him a peck on the cheek. "I'm currently unemployed. Dylan swept me off my feet and I couldn't resist. I fell in love and when he asked me to marry him I just said yes and followed him to Washington."

Mark looked down into her face, pressing a kiss against her lips. "It was love at first sight."

"Ohh!" Mollie clapped her hands and smiled at them. "How romantic!"

"Yes." Lexie replied, laying her head on Mark's shoulder, intertwining their hands so that their matching wedding bands shimmered in the light. "Very romantic."

Two hours later Lexie closed the door behind the Grangers, sagging against the door in relief. "I thought they would never stop asking questions."

"Entertainment business?" Mark asked and Lexie felt the need to wipe the smug grin of his face. The grin that appeared way too often on his face for her liking.

"Should I have said I was an erotic dancer?"

"No. I like your job description better." Mark smirked. "And it's accurate. You did after all 'entertain'."

"You do realize that I actually didn't 'entertain' anyone."

"Yeah, that's a shame. I wouldn't mind getting 'entertained' by you."

"Sloan, ..." Lexie rubbed her forehead and walked past him without looking at him. "Just let's go to bed. I could feel a massive headache coming up."

"Am I going to get ..."

Lexie swirled around and pressed her hand against his chest before she hissed. "No! No entertainment in bed."

~M&L~

Three weeks later they didn't get any closer to Sutter. His wife barely left the house and even when they'd had a barbecue a week ago where they'd invited the whole street they didn't show up. Monroe and Shaw were already discussing to abort the mission because it was apparently fruitless and Lexie couldn't agree more.

She'd never looked forward to end an assignment as badly as this one. Playing Sloan's wife was driving her crazy. On the outside they were the perfect couple and she'd hoped that he would turn into a jerk the moment they were alone. But he didn't. He was as charming as he was in front of other people and his teasing was getting on her nerves.

Being forced to live with him had inevitably led to him changing clothes in front of her so she'd seen him shirtless quite a few times and she'd had to stop herself from actually drooling. He was extremely fit and she just had to admire his amazing physiques. But she was certain that there was no woman on earth who wouldn't enjoy looking at him.

She was driving him nuts. He actually almost blurted out a 'Thank God' when Shaw had told him that they were discussing to abort the mission. He was not sure how long he would be able to keep his hands off her. He knew it was his fault, but just the other day he'd walked into the bed room without knocking first and she was standing right in front of him with an excuse of a bra and panties that hardly covered anything and he'd wanted nothing more than to rush towards her and drag her to bed to rip the blue lace apart and bury himself deep into her. Of course he couldn't just smash her against a wall and go for it, so as sooner as they could go separate ways the better.

~M&L~

There were screams everywhere, piercing his ear drums. Explosions all around him. His face, his whole body was covered in dirt, the air was full of sand. He could feel it in his lungs. Every breath was full of sand and he was firing. Firing his gun until it was empty. Changing the magazine on autopilot, like he was trained to do.

The screams, they were ringing in his ears. The screams of pain, the screams of orders no one could follow. They were fighting for their lives, fighting to survive. They were just shooting at everything that moved and he felt detached from his own body. Looking through the scope was more clinical. The scope enabled him to concentrate only on his target.

But this? This was living hell. They tried to drill it into you. In boot camp. When they tried to prepare you. But nothing could prepare you for this. Nothing.

"Mark!" Lexie tried to shake him out of his nightmare. She could hear him whimper, his whole body tense as if he would shatter under her hands any second. "Mark, wake up!"

Mark jerked up, his breath came out in chopped hitches, his whole body was trembling and he could feel the cold sweat that covered his upper body. He could still here the screams and it took him a few seconds until he realized his surroundings.

Lexie's hand was pressed against his chest and he could feel her concern but he couldn't deal with her worry right now so he pushed off the covers and climbed out of bed.

"I'm fine, Grey. Just ..." Mark gulped hard, the remnants of his nightmare still clinging to his body. "Just go back to sleep."

"Mark, I ..." Lexie had slipped out of the bed, stepping towards him.

"Lexie!" Mark turned around, stopping her dead in her tracks. It was the first time he'd used her given name. "I need you to go back to bed and just leave me alone." As she didn't make a move back to the bed, Mark sighed heavily. "Lex, I don't wanna talk about it, okay? I don't want to analyze it. I can deal with it. I always have and I always will. Just go back to bed."

When Lexie slipped back under the covers and watched him walk out of the bedroom, she realized that no one ever had called her Lex before. No one ever had the idea to shorten her name like that and somehow hearing it from his lips made it his name for her. She didn't feel comfortable with that certain feeling, she didn't want to feel attached to him. But somehow over the last three weeks she learned more about him than she'd ever expected. More than she'd ever wanted to know.

~M&L~

"Lex, are you awake?"

Lexie's breath caught in her throat as his quiet voice reached her ear. This was the second time he'd called her Lex and she couldn't avoid to react to his soft voice. Her whole body screamed at her to just take what was right in front of her.

"Yes." She replied quietly. "I can't sleep."

"Me neither."

"Maybe it's the full moon."

"Yeah, maybe. Afraid I'm turning into a werewolf?"

Lexie turned around to face him before she answered him with a slight chuckle in her voice. "No. If you were a werewolf you would have turned into one already yesterday."

"And how do you know so much about werewolves?" Mark asked curiously.

"TV shows."

"So you are a TV junkie?"

"I actually don't have much time, but when I do have the time … yes, I love to watch TV. Mostly TV shows because I enjoy watching a story unfold. Movies are over much too fast in my opinion."

When he rolled over to lay on his back the sheet shifted to his hips and Lexie could see a scar shimmering in the pale light the moon provided.

"Tell me about it." Lexie said softly.

"Tell you about what?"

When Lexie's fingers trailed over the scar on his chest, Mark had to suppress a shiver.

"What happened?"

Mark closed his eyes and contemplated for a second if he should just lie or maybe just tell her to leave it alone. But he was in a strange mood and maybe it was because of the full moon. He actually didn't care. He wanted to tell her.

"We were on a mission and … you don't have to know the details but …" Mark held his breath for a second before he continued. "It sounds more heroic than it was. It's a bullet scar. I … I was nineteen and stupid. Jack just stood there while the bullets were blazing around him and he would have gotten hit any second, so I just jumped and wrestled him to the ground."

"Did you save him?"

"Yes." Mark replied quietly. "Yes, I did."

"So it wasn't stupid at all."

"No. Probably not."

"You saved a life, Mark." Lexie said firmly. "That's never stupid."

"I know."

Mark turned around to her and he couldn't help to reach for the tank top she was wearing. He pulled it up a few inches and traced his fingers over the scar on her stomach he'd seen when she'd been standing in front of him only in her underwear a few days ago. "What happened there?"

She hardly talked about it. Maybe it was kind of a defense mechanism. Like if she didn't talk about it it wasn't real. But she knew it was real. She just prefered to not talk about it. But being here with Mark lying in bed beside each other the room only being illuminated by moon light made it so much easier to talk about it.

"Sudan. It happened while I was on a mission in Sudan. I ..."

Mark waited patiently but when she didn't continue after a minute of silence he said. "You don't have to tell me, Lex. I'm the first who understands that you can't share some things with everyone."

Lexie put her hand over his and squeezed it slightly. "But I want to tell you."

Mark didn't remove his hand and somehow his fingers on her stomach made it easier to tell him. Maybe they connected her to the present so that she was aware that what she was going to tell him was the past and couldn't affect her anymore now.

"We had a leak and I got captured by a terrorist group. They …" Mark's hand tightened around her waist and gave her the strength to continue. "They tortured me for four days before the rescue team found me. It's a burn mark."

"Did they …" The words almost slipped out of his mouth but he could held them in. He hardly knew her but he knew there was no way that they didn't rape her. She was a woman who'd been held captive by men for four days. They would have considered it their right to rape her.

Lexie knew what he wanted to ask her and strangely she didn't feel as if he crossed a line he had no right to cross, so she rolled over to face him and stretched out her hand to lay it on his cheek. "Yes, yes they did. But it was a long time ago. It's in the past and I want it to stay in the past."

She couldn't see his eyes but suddenly Mark pulled her towards him so that her body was pressed into his and his lips hovered over hers as he whispered. "I'm sorry, Lex. I'm sorry that they hurt you like that."

His lips brushed over hers, she could feel his erection pressing into her and she opened her lips to let him in. But suddenly his body tensed and he went stock still.

"What?" Lexie asked silently.

"Shhh ..."

Mark turned his head, his hand around her arm tightened and Lexie immediately felt the adrenaline rushing through her body. Mark pulled back slowly, careful to make no sound as he slipped out of the bed, his hand automatically searching for his weapon on the night stand. Lexie didn't question him, didn't wait until she'd heard what he'd just heard. She trusted his instincts. He had been a sniper after all. She stepped out of the bed as quietly as he did, grabbing her weapon before she followed him to the door.

They walked silently down the stairs and Lexie strained her ears, trying to pick up any unusual sounds but all she could hear was the normal sounds of the house. The refrigerator humming from the kitchen. The clock ticking in the living room. Somewhere the dripping of a faucet.

Mark signaled her to go check out the back rooms while he was heading for the kitchen and she nodded her head in understanding as she crept towards the laundry room. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now and she could make out the washing machine and the dryer but no shadow that didn't belong there.

Then she heard gunshots from the living room and rushed towards the sound, pressing herself against the wall, forcing herself to wait before she entered the room. But she couldn't hear anything and when she took a quick look around the corner she could see the open terrace door and a figure lying on the ground in front of it. She jumped into the room, taking cover behind the couch but no shot was fired so she stood up quickly and rushed to the body on the floor.

"Damn it!" She could see the dark pool beside his body and she discarded her weapon, her fingers racing over his body to find the injury. "Mark? Hold on, okay? There are gonna be here in a minute." Lexie looked up into the corner where she knew there was a hidden camera. "Agent down. We need an ambulance. Now!"

"Lex? I ..."

"Don't speak, Mark." Lexie finally found the wound and put pressure on it. "You are doing great. Just hold on for a few more minutes. Everything's gonna be okay. Just try to relax. The ambulance is on its way. You are going to be just fine."

Lexie pressed her hands against the wound in his side, feeling his blood seeping through her fingers, so she pressed even harder, ignoring Mark's moans. She would net let him die. She would not let him bleed to death under her hands.