A/N:
Since I am on a roll, and basically also because I study during the day and write during the night, I managed to finish the second chapter. Also, I'm driven by just wanting Slexie to be alive so that can be a persistent need to write as well. I'mma apologize head on for any typos or grammatical mistakes since I have no Beta, however, I do hope you enjoy this chapter! And thank you for all the positive feedback I got! Feel free to send me any construnctive criticism. Enough with my rambling now~
When Mark woke up, he could hear the heart monitor's beeping too loudly beside him. His mind wasn't clear, possibly due to being still under the effect of anesthesia. Mark knew how it was like to be under the effect of anesthesia – he could recall the heaviness of his limbs and how unclear his mind was after he removed his tonsils; after all, he was only eight then. Carolyn Shepherd had stayed with him the whole night then. Mark smiled a little at the memory.
"Mark?"
Mark's eyes fluttered open and he glanced sideways. Derek was sitting at his bedside, a small smile on his face. Mark glanced around before the memory hit him like a truck. Mark closed his eyes and scowled, "The plane crash." Mark whispered. "Lexie?"
"Lexie's in a medically induced coma. Her injuries are too critical and the Boise doctors couldn't do much so they sent her back here. Bailey and Torres are doing their best." Derek answered him and reached over to pat his shoulder, "She will be fine, Mark." Derek nodded once assuring him, and Mark frowned but tried to nod as well, before he took a deep breath, "Your hand?" Mark asked and looked up at Derek, whose gaze followed to his own hand before he nodded slowly, "Callie fixed it." Derek answered briefly.
"Arizona? What about Arizona?" Mark asked again, his eyed piquing with concern for his child's mother. "Callie fixed her leg as well. There was minimal infection so she should be on her feet again in no time." Derek answered with a small smile on his face and Mark closed his eyes, relieved. "What about Meredith and Cristina?"
Derek's face turned solemn at the mention of the two and Mark lifted his head slowly, "Did something happen to Meredith?" He asked and pulled his brows into a frown. Derek shook his head, "No, no…Meredith's fine. She's…she's fine. It's Cristina." Derek let his shoulders slump, "Her PTSD put her in a catatonic state. She's up in psych." Derek explained and Mark frowned. "Yang? She's the one who practically fixed us all." Mark mused and let his head rest back into the pillows.
"That's probably it." Derek muttered grimly and leaned back into the seat. They both looked up when Teddy Altman walked, and she smiled briefly at Mark, "How are you feeling?"
"I'm…breathing." Mark answered and wrinkled his nose as he felt the tubes in his nose. Teddy nodded once, "We repaired the tamponade and the pericardium. Don't stress yourself. Give your heart some time to strengthen up." Teddy instructed as she went through his charts before she smiled at him, "It's glad to have you back, Mark." Teddy nodded once and left Mark's room. Mark sighed and closed his eyes.
"Can I see Lexie?" He asked as he opened his eyes again and lifted his brows as he stared at Derek. Derek pursed his lips for a moment, "Well, most of her lower body is in cast and metal to hold her bones together. Do you really want to see that?" Derek asked him hesitantly and Mark nodded once, "I dragged her from underneath plane debris, Derek. I held her hand and told her we're going to get married. She's basically my fiancée now. I have every right to see her." Mark answered sternly with a frown on his face.
"Alright, fine. Just…let me get a nurse in here so she can wheel you." Derek nodded once at Mark and patted his shoulder as he stood up and left the room, which wasn't exactly a room, but a bed in the ICU. Mark frowned as he glanced around. The scene was very different from the patient's bed. After all, Mark had little patients who had to be in the ICU, mostly because his specialty didn't include many risks as Derek's maybe or even Bailey's. However, Mark had had his fair share of ICU visits during his years in Seattle Grace Mercy West, so he didn't exactly miss having to treat patients in it.
Mark closed his eyes momentarily as he replayed the events of the past few days in his head – mainly the plane crash because everything else was a blur, starting from the moment they separated him and Lexie when they got off that helicopter. Mark reached with the hand that wasn't tied to the IV need and ran his fingers over his face – how had it come to this? A plane crash? The odds of one person being in a plane crash were barely over one percent, and yet, Mark Everett Sloan was in a plane crash. The woman he loved almost died, still possibly hanging over that cliff. His brother almost lost his hand. His daughter's mother almost lost a leg. Mark wasn't sure whether he was exaggerating or not; however, one thing he was sure about, he was never going to get on a plane anytime soon.
Derek walked in again, followed by none other than Meredith Grey who smiled at him, "I heard my partner in crime was awake so I had to be the one to wheel you myself." Meredith mumbled and smiled briefly at Mark, who laughed and shook his head. He could see her light limp, but when he opened his mouth to comment on it, she glared, so he stopped. Derek and Meredith helped Mark into the wheelchair and Meredith pushed him forward out of the ICU.
"How is she?" Mark asked slowly and Meredith let out a brief sigh, "Callie put her legs back together. Literally, her bones were shattered. She and Bailey took turns in one surgery to repair her pelvis and bowl. Teddy worked on the hemothorax, but said we've got most of it drained so all she had to do was find the bleeder. Then she and Jackson took turns to work on her arm though she still has one more surgery to go for her arm. And Shadow Shepherd found that bleed in her brain, so that's taken care of." Meredith started, and Mark could hear the tears in her voice. "But she's going to be fine. They're letting her body rest. It was a big trauma. And we hope that once the anesthetic is removed, she'll wake up and breathe on her own. So she's fine. She's going to be fine." Meredith whispered and Mark frowned, reaching with one hand to pat hers that settled over the wheelchairs handle.
Meredith stopped the wheelchair behind the glass of the ICU door. "We have to gown up if we're going in there and we can't do that now, so that's as close as we can get to her." Meredith whispered as she stepped in front of the glass.
Meredith Grey never thought in her life she'd care about someone like she cared about Derek and Zola, but she found herself pacing nervously after every surgery Lexie went into, and collapsing into sobs when she's told Lexie has made it past that surgery so her survival rate became higher. Lexie, her sister, had undergone so much trauma and pain. Meredith didn't know the little grey had so much strength in her to withstand all of this.
Sadly, Meredith and Derek were the only ones not put in a medically induced coma, so she could remember everything that happened – except for the flight back to Seattle, she asked to be sedated then. But even Arizona was asleep for a whole day before she woke up with the cast to her leg and her wife by her side. Mark was put to sleep for three days, and now that he was awake, then his heart was strong enough for him to be awake. That only left Lexie in a critical situation.
Meredith looked down at Mark who stared at the limp twenty-nine year old and tilted her head. At the beginning, after she heard Mark's story, she couldn't at all trust him – let alone trust him with her estranged half-sister. Meredith knew what background Lexie came from. She knew she couldn't handle Mark's ways. And most importantly, she knew Lexie had the Grey gene in her, so she took emotional trauma just as hard as Meredith does. And if letting herself drown wasn't enough to prove that, Meredith didn't know what will.
However, when she watched Mark's determination to get Lexie out from underneath that piece of metal – she knew that she could trust him. Even when Lexie has been rendered broken hearted and hung up on him twice, when she saw Mark doing the impossible when he probably wasn't capable of breathing himself to save Lexie's life confirmed the fact that Mark was willing to do anything to save Lexie's life, even if it were him dying instead. It simply reminded her of the shooting – when she'd stood there, offering to take the bullet for Derek.
"Mark, it's time to go back to your room. Watching her won't help you." Meredith muttered, looking over her shoulder at Derek, who too was eyeing Mark with concern. The man sighed and looked down, before he nodded slowly. Mark figured, the more he rested, the sooner he could get up, and the better his chances of being there when Lexie woke up would be. So he gave in to the instructions he was given and this time, didn't let Meredith wheel him back but called a nurse to do it instead.
As soon as he was rested back into his bed, Callie came around the door holding Sofia in her arms. Mark's face lit up as he smiled, "There's daddy's little girl!" He exclaimed and held his arms out for her. Callie eased Sofia into Mark's arms and pulled a chair to sit down beside Mark's bed, leaning against the railing. "How are you feeling?" Callie asked as she watched with a small smile how Sofia grabbed Mark's ear and tugged at it.
"I'm fine." Mark answered tersely, willing her to not ask about the plane crash. It wasn't an incident he was willing to discuss before he turned to Callie and smiled, "How's Robbins doing?"
Callie exhaled and shrugged once, "I managed to repair her femur perfectly, and now we just have to wait till the infections dies away so she could get on the physical therapy horse. Lexie is going to need a lot of that, by the way, when she wakes up. It's a miracle that most of her nerves were still intact, but she'll still need work with her hands and feet." Callie explained briefly and Mark sat Sofia in his lap, placing a small kiss on his daughter's forehead.
"I need you to walk through exactly everything that you've done the moment Lexie became your patient." Mark asked briefly and pulled his brows together. Callie stared at him momentarily, "I don't have to like it, just tell me." Callie took a deep breath and started talking as Sofia settled into Mark's arms and closed her eyes, deciding that since her Mami decided it was doctor time then it was nap time for her.
Mark was holding Lexie's hand now - it was the third day after her last surgery and he was examining Avery's work on Lexie arm, before he smiled to himself. He was right to have seen so much potential in Avery. He made the mutated arm Mark had seen back at the airplane look almost normal again, so part of him was proud and the other simply was grateful. He knew that once Lexie woke up, she wouldn't want to have a reminder of that horrendous incident. And even when they both will have scars on their chest, and Lexie will probably have scars here and there; the last thing she needed was for her to not be able to wear a sleeveless shirt just because she couldn't look at her arm and not shudder.
Callie, Bailey, and Altman agreed that Lexie should stay under for at least another week, give her bones a chance to mend, her chest a chance to heal. Mark yearned to see her chocolate eyes again and to hear her laugh, but if more time under anesthesia meant she'd be feeling less pain when she was awake then Mark wasn't going to disagree with that. Mark and Meredith were the ones doing the medical decisions, since all Thatcher did was look at his daughter and start sobbing.
So all Mark did in his days was get do the daily tests and hold Lexie's hand. His hand traced over the gauze wrapped around her head before his thumb trailed over her cheekbone and he sighed, leaning his head down to pillow his cheek against her hand, "I miss you, Lex. You gotta heal faster than this so they can bring you back to me." Mark muttered under his breath and closed his eyes, feeling himself drift off into his usual afternoon nap.
Because Callie was busy with work, Mark was usually the one supporting Arizona in on physical therapy. And he didn't mind – as a matter of fact, he pretended it was an orientation tour of what he'd be helping Lexie with. He knew Lexie would have a long road ahead of her to walk let alone run around like a mad fifth year resident she will be. Most of her fifth year will be lost into recovery, and Mark was basically willing to take a year leave just to stay by her side and help her get back up on her feet. He'd help her walk, and help her study for her boards, and if she had to repeat her last year of residency, he'd help her with that too. Mark had let go of Lexie far too many times with his stupid mistakes and this time, he wasn't going to let anything come between them. He really believed what he said back then. He really believed that they were meant to be. And if Lexie didn't believe it, then Mark was going to make her believe it because it was the truth and there was nothing else to it except that.
However, Mark did feel guilty for leading on Julia like that. After Callie left, taking Sofia with her back to day care, Julia had barged in tears and almost kissed him had it not been for Mark hand that came between them. Mark stared at Julia for the longest moment before he shook his head. And apparently Julia understood – he didn't even have to say anything because Julia simply said, "It's Lexie, isn't it?" And Mark nodded. He apologized for leading her on, for giving her hope that he should not have at all given her. But Julia nodded once, muttering something about a clean break, before she left. And Mark never saw or heard of her again.
The next week was a blur really – Meredith & Derek were discharged, and they both stayed home with Zola. Meredith would come by every day and check Lexie's stats, stay for a couple of hours, then just leave again. Arizona too picked up on her first steps after her third physical therapy session so she too was discharged, and she stayed home and practiced. Mark had attempted to talk to Cristina when Meredith couldn't bring herself to stand there and do nothing but sob, having been told that positive attitude was all she needed to snap out of the state she was in. However, Mark simply recited his chart and Lexie's to her, and soon enough, Meredith started bringing in charts and reading them out to Cristina like bedtime stories, except they were stories intended to wake her up.
Mark spent more time with Sofia than he had before. His daughter felt dearer to him than ever, and Mark could have sworn she'd grown in the three days he was out in. He would play with her as he stayed in Lexie room, walking with her through the hospital hallways then take her back to daycare or back to Callie and Arizona's apartment, which possibly was the only reason he may have left the hospital. He fed her and bathed her and played with her until she'd fall asleep, then ran back to the hospital and stay the rest of the night by Lexie's side.
The nurses stopped the anesthesia an hour ago now, and Mark was holding Lexie's hand as Meredith, Derek, and Arizona hovered around the bed. Thatcher was standing outside the room, still unable to bring himself to look at his daughter in such state. Callie and Bailey were waiting too for anything. They were all waiting.
It seemed like hours before Lexie started fighting the intubation. Mark heard Meredith's muffled cry of joy as Derek wrapped his arm around her and Mark stood up to brush Lexie's hair back as Bailey removed the tube to let the girl breathe on her own. Lexie's lips parted slightly as she took in her first breath alone for, then she exhaled, then she did it again. Now they simply had to wait for her to wake up.
Meredith, Derek, and Arizona dragged out chairs to sit beside Mark as Thatcher sat on the opposite side of the bed and they all waited very patiently. However, they didn't expect Cristina to stagger into the room in her patient gown. "Oh my god, Cristina!" Meredith exclaimed as she shot up to her feet and reached out for the woman, who stared at Meredith momentarily before she took her hand, "Is she awake?" Cristina whispered as Meredith sat Cristina down on her chair and patted her shoulder, "She's not under the medicines anymore and she fought the intubation so we're waiting for her to come around now." Meredith explained with a small smile on her face.
They were all here, everyone that in the crash – all of them were here, and they were alive and okay, and now they were all waiting for Lexie to wake up. To be okay, so they could all get some sort of closure. Mark held Lexie's hand close to his lips, "Wake up, wake up, wake up." He whispered against the back of her hand and stroked back her bangs repeatedly. He'd wanted to tell her how these bangs made her look adorable. He'd wanted to tell her that, and yet instead he was asking if he was the reason she and Jackson broke up. He'd wanted to tell her not to work herself down too hard on Derek's service, to tell her that she was going to be great and that she didn't need all of this, but all he could do was ask for her to be on his service instead.
Mark desperately needed her to wake up. He desperately needed that second chance to show her how much he loved her. He needed that second chance to worship her, to make her feel as loved and as happy as she made him feel. Because Mark loved her. Lexie Grey is, as a matter of fact, the only woman that Mark has ever loved. He'd thought he loved Addison. He'd though they had something together, but what he felt for Lexie annulled all those delirious thoughts. He knew now that what he thought to be real with Addison was simply nothing but Mark's desperation to settle down. And Mark had to admit it, he was desperate. He'd wasted much of his lifetime sleeping around when all he wanted was a woman to love and children to cherish. And whenever he'd gotten a chance at one, he knew he had to screw over the other – the other always being Lexie.
But now Mark was going to wait for her, wait until she's ready for him. Because she was the woman he wanted. She was the woman he wanted to make his wife and the mother to his children, so he'd wait as long as she needed. He'd wait.
The small twitch Lexie's fingers did in Mark's hand would have gone unnoticed had it not been for her nail scraping along his palm lightly, and Mark sucked in a sharp breath as he sat up straight and stood up again. Derek looked at him, confused, "Her fingers moved. I felt them move." Mark explained urgently as his hand trailed over Lexie's cheek, "Lex? Lexie? Can you hear me?"
Mark studied her face so intently that to anyone, the soft tremble of her lips or the weak flutter of her lashes would have gone unnoticed to them. "Yes, yes….it's me. It's Mark. You can do it. Just take all the time you need." Mark whispered as he brushed her hair back and watched her face again. He could sense that everyone was up on their feet, even Cristina, and he couldn't blame them.
Mark watched Lexie's lips part as she took in a deep breath through them and let out a soft hum. "There you go, easy…" Mark mumbled under his breath. Lexie's fingers tightened around his, and Mark's hand held hers close to his chest.
"We're all here, Lexie. You can do it." Meredith spoke up quickly and stepped beside Mark to hold onto their hands. Everyone echoed in the confirmation of their presence, and as if her curiosity took the better of her, Lexie whispered barely, "We're alive."
Derek sighed in relief and Mark smiled, "Yes, yes Lexie, we're all alive. We made it. Now we're just waiting for you." Mark nodded quickly at her as if she could see him. Lexie pursed her wet her lips a little before she squinted into the bright light above her, before she blinked furiously and opened her eyes. Her gaze focused on Mark's blurred face, and she took her time making out the contours and details of his face. Mark couldn't stop smiling at her. She now could see his face, his hair, his eyes…she could see him.
"Hey…fiancé." Lexie breathed out and a small smile graced her lips. Mark looked up at the ceiling, thanking whatever higher power that was keeping Lexie alive before he looked down at her again and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "Hey fiancée." Mark answered briefly and glanced around at everyone, who was all smiling, even Cristina. It was over. They were past it. The plane crash was just a fight they'd won now.