They quickly gathered a few things for a fire and lit it when the night had already arrived, quicker than they had expected.

Meredith then went back to Derek, Arizona, and the pilot because she knew Lexie had both Cristina and Mark to protect her.

"Wait. Are there any more coats or blankets on the plane?" Mark asked.

The blonde thought about it for a second, then nodded and removed the one she was wearing to give it to him.

"I'll get a new one." with that, she was gone.

Mark carefully placed the coat on top of Lexie before he sat back down next to her, putting her hand back into his.

"You should get some sleep." Cristina advised him.

"I've gone longer without sleep. And I'm not gonna leave her to the wolves." he replied in a determined tone.

The female doctor had figured out by now that she had no chance fighting him on those things. He'd rather die than let her die.

"Whatever, I'm gonna go to sleep now because I am exhausted." she announced, and not long after, she had drifted off to sleep.

Mark didn't close one eye for the whole night. He was too scared to wake up to Lexie dead, either eaten by the wolves or because she had any trouble with her injuries and no one was awake to help her. It was too risky.

A couple hours later, Cristina was woken up by a loud propeller sound and a bright light shining directly into her eyes.

She had to orient herself, but she quickly remembered what happened and where they were.

"Oh my god." she said, looking over to her two friends next to her.

Lexie's condition hadn't changed much, but Mark looked way worse than when she went to sleep. He looked exhausted, like someone just ran him over with a truck.

"Mark!" she shouted, and he finally realised what was going on.

"Finally." he smiled.

"Hey! Hey! Here!" they both screamed as they waved their arms.

Then one of the two helicopters landed close to them.

"We tracked the last coordinates we had from the plane and flew over the area to find you. What's your status?" a man, coming out of the helicopter explained.

"Uh, we're all alive whatsoever, but Lexie over there is in a critical state. She was crushed by the wing of the plane and needs to get medical attention fast. We did everything we could do out here, but she needs surgery. Mark is... I'm pretty sure he's got some internal bleeding because he's not doing great; he's just running on adrenaline for now. I've got a dislocated shoulder. He popped it back in, but someone needs to take a proper look at it. There are three other surgeons and the pilot over there with the rest of the plane wreck." Cristina gave him a full report.

"Alright, we're going to get you all out of here. Don't worry." he told her reassuringly.

"We need a stretcher over here!" he yelled back to his colleagues, who soon appeared with one.

They wanted to put Lexie on it, but Mark wouldn't let go of her hand.

"Mark, they're going to help her, help us." Cristina snapped at him.

He hesitantly let go for now, and a few men put her on the stretcher and carried her to the helicopter. Cristina and Mark were instructed to sit down with her in the back, so he took her hand right back.

Cristina gave the paramedic a look, saying leave him be, when she shot her a questioning look.

Thankfully, it wasn't a long flight to the closest hospital.

When they arrived, they were immediately greeted with two additional stretchers for the other two, while Lexie was rushed into an OR.

"She's going to be fine now." Cristina told Mark comfortingly.

They were brought inside as well to determine their injuries.

As they removed Mark's shirt, the paramedic yelled for assistance. "We need to get him into surgery right now!"

"What? What's going on?" Cristina asked her.

"He's got a cardiac tamponade. How did he even manage to stay alive and conscious for this long?" She was confused.

"Adrenaline."

"That would've worn off after some time." she wondered.

"Not powered by love." she explained. She knew Mark still loved Lexie, even before they boarded that damn plane. It was obvious; the way he was talking to her, about her, or just how he looked at her, it was obvious to everyone but to Lexie.

The paramedic smiled. "I hope he doesn't die now."

"He's strong; he'll make it. As long as she does."

They spend hours in surgery for both of them, as well as Arizona and the pilot. Derek was quicker out because, despite the depth of his injury, it was only his hand.

Callie flew down to the hospital as soon as the news arrived at Seattle Grace. She even managed to be allowed to scrub in for Arizona's surgery. The injuries on her leg were really bad, and an infection had already spread, but they decided to watch it, hoping it would get better on its own.

She worried about Mark too, but she wasn't a cardiac surgeon, so she was of no use in his OR.

For Lexie, on the other hand, she could scrub in. Hers took the longest because she had the most injuries.

The attending orthopaedic surgeon of the hospital wanted to take off both her legs, but Callie convinced them not to.

"The nerves are in tact, and the bones will heal eventually." she argued.

"But the right one will look damaged like hell, and we can't tell if she will even be able to use it at all, not to mention the amount of pain it will cause her. With a prosthetic she'll be able to walk again much sooner." the other surgeon told her.

"That's a problem for later. She knows a good plastic surgeon who can easily fix this. But you can't take her ability to walk if she still has a chance to regain it." She knew that's what both Lexie and Mark would want to do.

After some thinking, she finally agreed. "That one's on you, Dr. Torres."

They then fixed the broken bone in the other leg and the severely broken arm. They spend many hours in the OR, having to operate smartly because Lexie kept coding. But eventually they got her steady enough to go to the ICU.

After the surgeries were finished, Callie went to Arizona and sat by her bed to wait for her to wake up. She told the nurses to page her if anyone else, especially Mark or Lexie, woke up.

Suddenly, the attending cardiac surgeon stood in the door frame.

"Dr. Torres? Can I speak to you about Dr. Sloan?"

"I'll be right back." she promised her wife, and followed him outside the room.

"Dr. Sloan suffered from a cardiac tamponade. A huge rush of adrenaline kept him on his feet for hours, which none of us can understand. But we drained the fluid, and he'll make a rather quick recovery. He was lucky that he was brought here so fast. One day longer out there, and his chances would have gone done rapidly." he explained.

"Oh god, okay, thank you." Callie smiled.

Then she glanced back into Arizona's room.

"She's not gonna wake up for at least two more hours." the doctor told her, then went away.

So she decided to make her way over to Cristina's room.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"How are you doing?" she asked her.

"I'm fine. Just my shoulder, but next to the other's, I was really lucky." she explained.

"Arizona's got a pretty bad infection in her leg. We might have to take it off if it doesn't get better." She sighted. "But Lexie is gonna make it. I convinced her surgeon not to take her legs off. It'll take some time, but she'll be alright. And Mark had a cardiac tamponade. How did he not die out there? They told me he was still conscious and responsive when you got here."

"He was running on adrenaline to save Lexie. He even gave her a blood transfusion. I mean, how did he do that in his condition?" Cristina told her, still not understanding it herself.

Callie smiled. "I've been telling him for the past few months to go get her back, but he wouldn't listen to me. He told me he was happy with Julia, and Lexie was happy with Jackson and a million other dumb excuses. God, they are both so stubborn."

"It's quite obvious. Even before the crash. Everyone knew they would eventually get back together. That's just how it's supposed to be." Cristina agreed. "You should've seen him; he basically lifted that damn wing off of her by himself. I doubt that Meredith helped much."

"The things love makes you do."

Just then, a nurse appeared to take her to Mark. She told her it was urgent.

She rushed to his room to see him awake and fighting two nurses trying to hold him down in his bed.

"Mark, Mark, stop it!" she told him.

He relaxed a little when he saw his best friend. "Lexie?" he asked her, praying to not hear bad news.

"She's fine. It's going to take a lot of time for her to recover, but she's fine." she calmed him down.

"Is she out of surgery?"

"Yeah, she's in the room next to you" but she wasn't even able to finish her sentence because Mark tried to get up again.

"For god's sake, Mark Everett Sloan, you need to rest! She's not even awake yet, and she won't be for a couple hours due to the anaesthesia. You know that. It won't help her if you get yourself killed by being reckless!" she yelled at him.

He was actually intimidated by her; she did scare him sometimes when she was this bossy, even if he didn't show it.

"Fine. Fine, I'll stay down." he brushed it off, annoyed.

She gave the two nurses a nod, and they left. Then she sat down next to his bed.

"You're crazy. You know that, right?"

"What? Why?" he acted offended.

"No one here can wrap their head around how you survived this long without any major symptoms. You had a cardiac tamponade, and you lift plane wings and give blood transfusions!"

"I needed to save her."

She understood that, and she probably would've acted the same way if it were Arizona.

"I scrubbed in on her surgery. Luckily, I did. The attending orthopaedic surgeon wanted to take off her legs because of the damage. But the nerves are still in tact and there wasn't an infection, so I argued with her till she finally gave in. Her arm was badly broken, but nothing that wasn't fixable. She's gonna need a lot of time, but she'll be back to her old self eventually." she informed him.

"Thank you." was everything he said. It was a genuine 'thank you'.

"I can fix her left leg myself. Orthopaedic surgeons don't know anything about plastics. No offence." he added.

"I know. That's why I fought so hard."

They smiled at each other.

Then, Callie decided to bring up the topic that Mark hadn't wasted one thought on yet. "Julia called me half an hour ago. She said she was flying in."

"Julia, right..." She has only now slipped his mind. He was way too focused on Lexie.

"Mark, you know it's okay if you love someone else. You just need to tell her. I think she deserves to know." she advised him, knowing the look on his face all too well.

"It's not that I never liked her. It's just... she's not Lexie." he admitted. Finally saying it out loud was freeing.

"I know. She'll probably be here soon, before Lexie's gonna wake up, so you can clear things up with her."

"Yeah." he agreed, a little lost in his thoughts.

"Alright, I'll get back to Arizona. Call me if you need anything." she told him, then went back to her wife.

Not long after, Julia showed up with a worried look on her face.

"Oh, thank God. You're alright. I heard what happened and called Callie to ask where you were, then I took the next flight." She smiled as she sat down beside his bed.

"It's not fair. You don't deserve... you deserve better." he cut her off.

"Shh. Stop it. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, Mark. I love you." she told him.

He sighed. "I love Lexie."

Her smile faded as quickly as it appeared. For a moment, she didn't say anything.

"It's okay," she started. "I think—I think I knew deep down. You never looked at me the way you look at her." she admitted sadly.

"I'm sorry." He really was sorry; she was a great woman, and he really liked her, but he didn't love her, not like he loved Lexie.

"I know." she gulped. She wasn't going to make a scene. She should've seen it coming, all those times she caught him starring at her, thinking she didn't notice, or when she interrupted them the other night, she heard what Lexie said, parts of it. And she knew Mark would've said something back if she hadn't interrupted them.

"Goodbye, Mark." she smiled. She wasn't even mad. "And thank you for being honest."

Then she left, after taking one last look back at him.