1
The amber liquid swirled towards the centre of the glass tumbler as Mark played with it on top of the bar's countertop with his hands. It wasn't his first drink of the evening. It wasn't his second or third drink either. After his shift at the hospital wrapped up for the day an hour ago, Mark walked over to the Emerald City Bar, or Joe's as it was also affectionally called. Upon arrival, he took a seat on one of the highchairs by the bar and ordered a drink. He had not moved from said chair since.
Mark let a frustrated sigh escape past his lips as he continued to watch the dim light play against the glass he was holding. How had the situation spiralled so completely out of hand? When he left New York, his objective had been crystal clear. He was going to go to Seattle to get back together with the woman he loved and mend his friendship with his best friend so he could have the man he considered a brother back in his life. It had not mattered to Mark one bit that it was he himself who had taken a sledgehammer to both of those relationships in the first place, causing the damage he was now going to try and repair.
It turned out to be harder to make amends for his past transgressions than he originally thought. Six months had passed, and Derek was just starting to talk to him without glaring in his general direction. Addison kept him at a distance even after she and Derek finally called it quits on their marriage. He has jumped through every hoop she has thrown his way so far to prove his commitment, but Mark was starting to wonder if it would ever be good enough or if it was all worth it.
"Rough day, Doc?" the bartender, Joe, appeared in front of him and wiped down the bar with his standard white cloth.
The man gave Mark a friendly smile, but Mark couldn't find it in him to move his facial muscles in any way to respond. Usually, he would gladly exchange friendly conversation with Joe. Talk about sports or his latest dating escapades. But not today. Today he wanted to be mad at the world and drink himself into oblivion.
"Something like that, Joe." Mark responded before he brought the glass tumbler up to his lips and took a heavy sip, draining it. With a silent gesture, Mark asked Joe for another drink before the bartender left him to commiserate in peace.
According to his rather expensive shrink, his pathological self-loathing and self-destructive ways are the reason for his unhappiness. Mark wrecks everything that is good in his life simply because he deems himself unworthy. Good things didn't happen to him. He was not a person who got a happily ever after. Therefor he wrecked anything resembling permanence to prove that the illusion wasn't real or avoided anything that could result in permanence.
Mark didn't exactly disagree with the doc. The few times he attempted permanence, he got burnt. How could that not prove that having a family, a house with a white picket fence and a dog was not something Mark was ever going to have? Yet here he was, chasing feelings he swore off a long time ago. Something had been missing in New York and that something caused him to close his practice and move across the country.
The doc was convinced that Mark simply used the past as an excuse to protect himself. He didn't know him very well thought Mark. Mark was selfish and relentless. Saying that he couldn't do or have something was like waving a red flag in front of a bull or dangle a carrot in front of his face. He loved a challenge and the impossible. To him, those weren't redeemable qualities.
Lately though he had started to question whether the carrot was Addison or Derek. Or perhaps something or someone else entirely. Before today, that was a thought he had not dared to admit even to himself. But after today's event and the inevitable chain of reactions it became impossible to ignore the doubts that had started to form.
"Drinking on your own? Isn't that a bit pathetic even for you Sloan?" a familiar, accented voice spoke from beside him.
Internally, Mark groaned. He would know that voice anywhere. Not only because he didn't know many people with a British accent, but because that voice had been haunting him for weeks now. Dr Carolina Andrews was that other "something" and another contributing factor to his frustration and current state of mind. Why did she have to be here?
He could feel how his blood started to boil up towards the surface. All the pent-up frustration and conflicting emotions started to whirl around. A storm was brewing up inside of him. It would be so easy for him to put all the blame on the woman beside him. If she wasn't in the picture, he would not be having these problems. In his confused mind, if it weren't for her his convictions would remain unquestioned. No doubts meant no problems. So, he did it. He let Nina become the target of his anger and frustration.
"If I am pathetic, then what does that make you?" he sneered.
"Who peed in your cheerios'?" Nina joked. But she broke off when she spotted the empty glasses that he had placed in front of him on the bar. "You've been busy."
Mark chuckled at the intern's observation. But unlike his usual, carefree laugh, Nina could detect a dark undertone. It took her back slightly. This was not what she had expected to find when she spotted Mark upon her arrival. Maybe approaching the attending had not been such a great idea after all.
"I really don't need a lecture right now. Especially not from some insignificant intern."
He hated that he could detect a flash of hurt in her eyes at his words. The knowledge that he was the one who caused it, the one that hurt her, made him want to take them back immediately. Maybe even plead for forgiveness. To say something funny or kind. Anything that could put his favourite smile back on her face. Nina had this smile and he found it irresistible. It was a smile that he could recognise from across the operating table in the OR despite the mask covering her face, simply by the look in her eyes.
The hurt he detected was there one second and then gone the next without a trace. Her mask fell back into place. Which ultimately only caused to irritate Mark further. She was hiding and he instinctively didn't like it.
"Insignificant intern? Really?!" Nina pushed. "What's going on Mark? And don't tell me that you're fine. I know you, something's bothering you."
"Know me?! You think you know me because we've shared drinks on occasion? Sweetheart, you're not the first girl I have shared a drink with, and you certainly won't be the last. You think you know me because I'm forced to shepherd you around the hospital? You are my best friend's mistress's friend. That doesn't make us friends. That doesn't make us anything. Now do me a favour and run along and leave me alone."
Mark looked down at his drink again and waited until he could no longer feel her presence anymore. As he sensed that he was alone again, he brought the glass up to his lips and downed the entirety. The scotch left a burning trail in its wake down his throat and relished it. He welcomed it with open arms. The pain allowed him to ignore his behaviour.
He told himself that he wanted to be left alone. Yet he had chosen to wallow in a public place where people that knew him could find him. He could have gone anywhere else or chosen to stay and get drunk in his hotel room that would have guaranteed him the privacy he claimed to want. Joe's was not a valid choice.
The minute Nina walked away, part of him wished for her to stay. He genuinely enjoyed her company. Most people irritated him on some level, and he could barely tolerate their presence for an extended period of time unless they were close friends. Sometimes even that was a challenge. With Nina it was different. He didn't mind having her as a shadow during the day or spend hours on end in the OR with her. To share a drink with her was as close to pleasure a drink could be. Her company was interesting, entertaining, light, and surprisingly real.
But he had reacted instinctively, and he was a proud person. There was no way he was about to ask her to return and concede to her assumptions. Instead, he swallowed his desire along with the scotch and to the dark thoughts that occupied his mind.
He should have known better than to think that this time would somehow be different. Just because they lived in a new city didn't mean they weren't the same people. They were the same people with the same issues. A different outcome from the same components weren't very likely. Which is exactly why he was currently sat here, cursing his own foolishness.
Earlier today his thesis became reality and knocked him flat on his ass. He caught a glimpse of the fiery red mane that matched the temper of its owner through the blinds of the examination room, and something twisted painfully inside his chest. Yet only for a second. Then the rage set in. The revelation in itself wasn't what caused him the pain, it was the lack of emotional reaction that caused him pain. The knowledge that all the guilt and all the heartache, it had turned out to have been all for nothing.
To his surprise a slender, dainty hand entered his field of vision and placed a filled tumbler with a familiar golden liquid in front of him on the bar. Then that alluring, accented voice spoke closely by his ear in a low but firm tone.
"Just so you know, I wasn't going to give you a lecture." a short pause. "Don't choke on it!" Before he had the time to react, she was gone again. This time she left the bar.