The Supergirl team was at the hospital because Winn had gotten himself hurt on the first day of his new job at the DEO. He was almost shot in the head, but the bullet missed him so closely that it only went through his ear. He would be fine in no time, but he would need surgery.

Alex was annoyed and bitched about how he never should've gotten the job in the first place. "I mean, whose glorious idea was it to offer Winn a job at the DEO, huh? I told y'all he'd get himself killed, but you wouldn't listen."

"He's alive. And he's gonna be good, I know it." Kara assured her.

Alex scoffed. "You know what? If he dies, it's not my problem."

Both J'onn and Kara shot her a look of disbelief.

But she was not going to take the blame for an agent's death under her watch because they were not fit for the job.

She sighed, annoyed when they wouldn't stop their judgy looks.

"I need something to eat." she declared, and she went to find the next vending machine. She was stressed, and when she was stressed, she felt the urge to eat everything in sight. She was in desperate need of some peanut butter cups, her favourite. And she prayed that they weren't out because it might be enough to push her over the edge and cause her to lose her temper today.

As she turned around the corner, trying to keep herself together, she suddenly spotted a man in the hallway, standing in front of the vending machine she was headed to.

She quickly turned around and hid in the next open room she found. It was a small supply closet.

She lurked through the small, darkened window in the door, watching him.

He had gotten a coke and was now talking to another doctor as they were standing in the hallway.

She was trapped. If she left the room now, he'd see her.

She searched her pockets for her phone and was relieved to find it. She texted Kara to come and not draw much attention.

A few seconds later, the blonde opened the door hesitantly, still unsure if her sister had actually been serious about hiding in a supply closet.

Alex immediately closed the door once she was inside.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kara laughed, amused at her behaviour.

But she just put her hand on her head and sighed, frustrated. Why was this happening? And why now?

"There are two hot doctors standing outside that door, and they stared at me like I was a lunatic." the blonde added.

"This is not funny, Kara. It's a disaster! This is not supposed to happen! He can't be here." She kept freaking out.

Kara noticed that she was serious and quickly snapped out of her amusement. "What are you talking about? Who's here?"

The brunette sighed. Should she tell her? She knew a couple of things, but not the whole story.

"Mark. Mark's here! And I can't go out there because he can't know I'm alive. It's gonna kill him."

She felt so guilty about leaving him behind. And now he was a few feet away from her, and she couldn't even go see him.

"Oh." Kara understood. She didn't know much about Alex's life before the DEO, but when that girl got drunk, she wouldn't shut up about Mark Sloan.

"Maybe this is a chance for you. You can see him and tell him that you're not dead." she thought.

"No. No, he's gonna hate me. And J'onn wouldn't allow it anyway."

"I'm sure he won't hate you. From what you've told me, I think he'll only care that you're alive. And about J'onn, he won't find out." Kara tried. She saw how much it hurt her to see him and not be able to do anything about it. It's been three years, and he was still the man she talked about when she had a couple too many drinks. It was truly both admirable and heartbreaking to see how unconditional her love for him was.

"N-No, I can't." The brunette was fighting back her tears. "What would I even say to him?"

"I don't know. Maybe start with 'Hey'?"

Alex shook her head. She couldn't do this.

She looked through the window and saw that they weren't standing there anymore. She went out the door and ran to hide in a dark corner, where she would hopefully not encounter anyone. She had gotten away, or maybe she had missed a chance.

Mark and Dr. Abrams were on their way to a patient. They were old friends from medical school, and Mark was in town for a conference, so he decided to visit him. He gladly took every chance he got to stay away from Seattle for a little longer. Everything there reminded him of her constantly. But he couldn't move away because his friends and family were there, and Sofia was there. So it didn't hurt to at least get away sometimes.

They walked into the room. There was a young man sitting in the hospital bed, and a blonde woman was with him.

Dr. Abrams quickly eyed her up and down from outside the room.

"She's hot." he whispered to his friend.

Mark didn't even bother to look closely. He just shrugged, uninterested. "Sure"

He received a slap on the arm for that.

"What happened to you? You were the king of women. You were a literal man whore, and I'm saying that with huge respect, but you don't even look at that hot thing in there."

Mark sighed. He didn't want to sleep around, and he didn't want to look at any hot women. He only wanted one woman, but he couldn't have her.

"Can we just focus on the patient?" he insisted, going ahead into the room.

"Mr." he checked the chart he had received before and hadn't read yet "Shot. I understand you've suffered an injury to your ear."

He felt the eyes of the blonde woman pinned to his back. But she wasn't staring at him the way women usually stare at him. It was different. It felt odd.

"Is there a problem?" he asked her, not turning around.

She awkwardly cleared her throat. "No. Not at all."

"Mr. Shot, Dr. Sloan's an ENT and one of the best plastic surgeons in the country. He's going to fix your ear, and you won't even know anything ever happened." Dr. Abrams promised him. He had treated people related to the DEO before. He didn't know what exactly they were doing, but he had an agreement with J'onn not to ask questions.

Mark sat down to examine the ear and quickly noticed how the injury was actually sustained.

"This is clearly a gunshot wound. In the report you gave the nurse, you told her that you fell."

Winn laughed nervously.

"Well, then there must've been a mistake." Dr. Abrams told Mark, shooting him a serious look to tell him to just go along with it.

He didn't like it, but he listened to his friend.

"Whatever. I can take you up to the OR in an hour; you'll only get local anaesthesia." he told him.

"Okay. Sure." Winn agreed. He wasn't fond of not getting general anaesthesia, but at least he would be out of there sooner.

Then the two doctors left the room to prepare for the surgery.

"I don't know what you have going on here, but I won't do anything illegal." Mark stated once that they were out of reach.

"Nothing illegal, I promise. There are just a bunch of people who come here from time to time with questionable injuries. And I have an agreement with that intimidating tall man who seems to be working for the government or something to not ask them any questions and treat them under the radar." he explained.

Now Mark was suspicious. He wanted to know more about it. He would be operating on one of those people in an hour, and he would prefer to know if they were a government agent.

"What do you know about them? How many have you treated?" he asked, interested.

Dr. Abrams walked him over to a cabinet and pulled a stack of files out of a drawer.

"That's all I know."

Mark opened a couple of the files and was indeed a little confused about some of the weird injuries those people had come in with.

"And you never asked any of them how they got hurt? Has anyone ever talked?" he questioned. He was invested now.

"Nope." he replied, when he remembered something. "Wait, there was this one woman. She had a variety of those weird injuries. And I remember the first time that she was brought in..." He searched for the file. "She had a fever of 60 degrees, and the government man had told me that she was hallucinating really badly." he read.

"Hallucinations aren't uncommon for a fever that high."

"Yeah. But the weird thing about the whole situation was that we did some tests on her to find out what's wrong because nothing seemed to help with the fever and the condition in which her body was; she should've been dead. She had a massive hemothorax and fatal bone breaks. I didn't write it down in the chart, and it was like three years ago, but if I remember correctly, we kept her here for a week, and then she was fine. Her fever was gone, her lungs were somehow healed, and she didn't have any broken bones. It freaks me out to this day, thinking about how that was possible. I'm thinking maybe the tests were wrong. Maybe someone accidentally swapped them or something? I don't know." he told him. "And the stuff she was mumbling about was weird. It was like she didn't even know those other agents back then."

Mark grabbed the chart from his hand, wanting to know more. He flipped through the documents until he came across a copy of the woman's insurance card.

He froze and just stared blankly at the page. This wasn't possible, was it? It looked too much like her. But he watched her die, right? He held her hand as she took her last breath. And he held it for hours after.

But then he thought about the conversation they had just had. Her strange case happened three years ago. The plane crash occurred three years ago. She had a hemothorax and severely broken bones. Lexie told Cristina that she had a massive hemothorax and her body had been crushed under a plane. It all fit like a perfect puzzle, even though the picture would've been enough for him already.

"Mark?" Abrams snapped his fingers in front of his face, trying to get his attention.

"Huh?"

"What are you thinking? Did you figure something out or what?"

Mark sighed. "Yeah, I did."

"So?"

"How- Do you know where I can find this woman?" He just ignored his question. His head was completely empty, unable to think. It was just screaming at him to go find her.

"I don't know. I think I've seen her together with the blonde from earlier a couple times. They're pretty close, I guess." he shrugged.

"Thanks." Mark patted his shoulder and then headed back to the blonde, determined to find out where he could find her.

He stormed inside the room, holding up the file, and the page with the photo opened. "Where can I find her?" He was direct, but it didn't matter. He had this tunnel vision that only seemed to care about her.

The blonde had to catch up with what was even happening at first. Then she realised that she had to do something. "I, uh, I'm not sure, actually. But she's still in the building, probably hiding somewhere."

He gave her a thankful nod and hurried out of the room again.

A couple of places where she might be immediately came into his mind.

He went to the elevators and then all the way up to the roof.

He stopped before opening the door. What was he even going to say to her? He would definitely demand some answers. But at the same time, he had the desire to just kiss her and then hold her in his arms forever.

She probably didn't even want to see him. She ran away from him, so what would be different now?

But the only way to find out was to ask her.

So he pressed down on the handle and stepped onto the roof.

And there she was, sitting on the edge and looking into the sky. It was a clear night, and trillions of stars were shining brightly next to the new moon, which didn't have much light yet.

The view from up there was incredible. They could see over the whole of National City.

She must not have noticed him because she didn't seem to move. Her almost shoulder-length curls were flying in the wind, and she seemed unreal.

Mark slowly made his way over to her, careful to only make quiet steps.

When he was close enough, he called out for her. "Lexie?"

It almost seemed like a dream. But this couldn't be a dream again. He couldn't take that.

"Lexie?" she heard him call her name.

She was busted. There was no turning back now. He was so close, and he was looking directly at her, waiting for her to react in some way.

She slowly stood up and turned around, then walked in his direction. She couldn't bring herself to make the last few steps to him, and she couldn't bring herself to look him in the eyes. Those icy blue eyes would be the death of her one day.

He hated her. She told herself this again and again as she was walking towards him. He was looking at her with hate in his eyes, where once there was love right now. She was sure that this would be what she'd see if she looked up.

But because she hadn't looked up, she also hadn't seen that he had made a few steps himself. And now he was standing directly in front of her, gently bringing up her chin with just two fingers, so she'd look at him.

And when she did, she expected to be yelled at, to be called a coward and a liar, and to hear that she broke his heart and left him because she was too weak to face the whole situation. And he would be right; that was exactly how she felt about herself.

However, once her eyes met his, she saw a look of relief in them, a look of happiness, and maybe even of joy. Wait, he was happy to see her?

And instead of hurtful words coming out of his mouth, there was just an almost inaudible sigh of relief as he pulled her into his arms.

At first, she was unable to react. She had been so sure that he hated her with every fibre in his body. But he didn't. And she wasn't prepared for that.

When she realised that she had been standing there like a damp sack, she quickly put her arms up to his back and leaned into him.

She wanted to say something, but as she opened her mouth, only a muffled sound came out. She wasn't thinking. Her head was completely empty. She felt free. No worries, no responsibilities, no fear. Just him, Mark Sloan.

Mark held her tightly, fearing that she might disappear into thin air, being only a hallucination or a daydream.

But he felt her heartbeat on his chest as her body was pressed against his, like they were trying to become one.

He closed his eyes and took in her scent. It was still the same that it had always been; vanilla and her hair also had a bit of coconut accompanying it. Her perfume, which you were only able to smell if you got close enough to her, was the same one. He remembered buying it for her once for her birthday.

Even though her hair was shorter and he had no clue what the hell she had been through, she was still his Lexie. The same woman he fell in love with years ago and couldn't stop thinking about even now.

They had been standing there for quite some time, just hugging. But they couldn't bring themselves to pull apart. Neither of them had any idea what to say first. And they really needed to be close to one another right now, just taking in each other's presence.

However, he did want answers. He needed answers.

So he slowly pulled away, but only so much that he could see her face. He had one arm resting on her waist, and with his other hand, he tucked a lock behind her ear and cupped her cheek.

She closed her eyes as she took his touch in deeply.

They pressed their foreheads together and closed their eyes, desperately wanting to avoid talking.

"We need to talk." Mark whispered.

She nodded slightly. "I know."

It took another minute until they were able to pull apart and sit back down near the edge of the roof. That way, they could just stare into space if they had trouble talking.

He didn't even know how to start. What should he ask her first? How was she alive? What was she doing in National City? Why didn't she tell anyone that she didn't die? How could she let her family and friends believe that she was dead? How could she just leave him after their conversation when she supposedly died?

The questions were endless, and it was overwhelming to have to pick one to ask first.

Luckily, she was the one to start. "I'm sorry."

She was facing the floor, trying to fight back her tears.

He didn't reply to her. What was he supposed to say? He didn't know anything that had happened.

"How?" was what he finally came up with. That one simple word came out in a hurt tone, his voice almost breaking.

She was speechless for a moment, unable to come up with an answer that would satisfy him.

Desperately trying to find the right words in her suddenly blank mind, a sob escaped her mouth, and directly after, tears followed. She had told herself that she wasn't going to cry because she wasn't entitled to be the hurt one. But she couldn't help it. It was just all too much.

Mark wasn't sure how to react. His first instinct was to comfort her and hold her till she'd be alright. But somehow, it didn't feel like something he could do.

"I'm sorry. I know you hate me." She sobbed while trying to wipe away her tears the second they escaped her eyes.

He sighed and laid one hand on top of hers comfortingly. "I don't hate you." He paused. "But you gotta talk to me. I need an explanation. I deserve an explanation."

He was right; he did deserve to know what happened.

"I don't even... I don't even know where to start."

He could see that she was struggling, and she was already overwhelmed. He knew that he had to be gentle with her because she was close to a breakdown.

"Just take a breath and then start at the beginning."

She did what he had told her and then started talking. "I thought that I was dead. It felt like dying, and I'm pretty sure I was really close to the edge. I can't remember much from those days in the woods. I was out almost the whole time. And, I think it was the second night, a team of agents freed me from under the plane and took me away. They brought me to a government bunker in the middle of the desert, so no one would know I was alive. And they faked my death. It wasn't hard for them because everyone already believed that I had died. They just had to place a fake body in the woods with some DNA of mine." She trailed off a little.

"But why were they even there in the middle of the night?" Mark cut in. He knew that she tended to ramble and normally he liked it because he thought it was cute, but right now he really needed answers from her.

"They were the reason that our plane went down. They had been doing some missile testing, thinking that the woods were a clear area, but then they hit one of the engines, and it was too late. They had been secretly searching for us to do damage repair, and when they saw that I was still somewhat alive, they saved me. The director of the agency felt guilty because he had given the commands to fire those training missiles, so he made it his job to fix me." she explained to him.

He was listening to her attentively, trying to process everything that she told him.

"But how?" He could've elaborated, but she knew what he meant, and they both didn't have to go over that again.

'How did you survive?' was his question. Her injuries had been fatal, and even if she hadn't died immediately when he thought she did, there was no way she had made it long enough and survived a surgery that major.

"There's no medical explanation." she replied, as she remembered what happened.

She didn't remember much about that time, but she remembered that it was the worst pain that she felt in her life, even worse than being crushed by the plane. They had injected her with some glowy substance, and then she started burning up rapidly. She had been hallucinating and lived through her worst memories again and again, her photographic memory providing her with a vivid image.

She shuttered, trying to push the memory aside.

Mark saw that she didn't want to talk about it anymore than she had to, so he decided to let it be. He'd ask her another time.

"What happened after?" he asked. It had been two years, and she never thought of contacting him. At least let him know she wasn't dead.

"It took some time for me to recover fully—not the time it would have taken if they had fixed me medically, but still. The director kind of took me in and made sure that I was okay. At first, it was just the guilt, but over time, he became sort of a father to me. And Kara..." She stopped when she saw a confused look on his face. "The blonde that always has a smile on her face." she explained, and he remembered her from the case earlier.

"She's like another sister to me." she finished.

Mark sighed. He wanted to hold his anger back, even though he was rather hurt than angry, but he couldn't contain himself anymore as she kept on talking about the all-so-perfect life she had here.

"You have a sister. And a father. And they both think that you're dead. How can you just move on like this? You left your family and friends behind. You left me behind!" His voice got louder towards the end, and his eyes were shining as he held back tears.

She swallowed hard. He was right. And she knew that. It was not like she lived one day without thinking about the people she left behind. But it was all so much more complicated than he saw it.

"I'm sorry!" And then the tears started rolling as if a damn broke. Even if she had expected him to hate her, his words cut deeper than a knife. "I-I..."

She was at a loss for words. Her mind went blank, and she felt like she was going to throw up. This was just all too much.

Her flight instinct set in, and she backed away from him, her body pulling towards the exit. She just wanted to run away to somewhere where no one would find her.

That look in his eyes was pain; she had hurt him so deeply. And it broke her to see it. She had hurt the person that she loved more than anything.

She turned around and walked to the door, but Mark grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.

"No. You don't get to walk away. I have let you walk out on me too many times. I'm not gonna let you do it anymore." he told her, determined.

Tears were streaming down her face. She didn't even try to fight herself free from his grip. Deep down, she wanted to stay. But it was just so hard and so complicated.

"I'm sorry. I know that you hate me. And you have every right to do so."

The expression on his face softened, as did his grip. "I don't hate you. I could never hate you."

His hand travelled down to hers, and he gently pulled her with him and led her to sit back down.

She moved with him swiftly. Their bodies were still so in sync after all this time, like they had never been apart.

"I just need you to explain it to me. I need you to give me a reason why you just build yourself a new life and forgot about us." he added, trying to keep his voice calm.

"It's not that simple. I... At first, I didn't know how to tell you that I was alive. It had been three months since the crash, and I thought that you had already moved on, and then I'd just show up and make everything messy. I was not in a good place, and... I don't even know what I was scared of. I mean, I couldn't even explain what happened to me. And then, the more time passed, the more difficult it got. I mean, Meredith and Derek have each other... you have Julia... and if I had come back after months... I didn't want to hurt you, and I thought that you were better off without me. You had moved on, and I wanted you to be happy."

She wiped her tears away, but it was no use since they just kept coming.

Mark sighed. He shouldn't have been surprised to hear her say something like that, because Lexie Grey would rather assume she was a burden to people than think that they loved her, which was probably her father's fault and maybe also Meredith's. She had been through a lot and hurt by so many people that she gave nothing more than unconditional love in her life, even before the plane crash. But to think that she actually believed that was still like a punch in the gut.

She was worth so much, and he had always hated that he couldn't make her see that, that he couldn't make her see herself the way he saw her.

"Lex, no one's happier and certainly not better off without you. Meredith is crying every time she looks at a picture of you that she set up on her cupboard. Derek's trying to shape every intern or resident who's interested in neuro into you. And I- I'm waking up every morning, still praying that it's all been just a nightmare, and then I go to work and just hope that anything happens to me in that cursed hospital because, for god's sake, I can't live without you!" he stated, getting emotional as he kept talking. He had already said it. He might as well just get it all out now. "And don't bring up Julia. I broke up with her the second that she came to see me after the crash. Because I can't imagine building a life with any other woman than you!"

Her head shot up as she heard him say that. Did he really still feel that way about her?

"I'm sitting here, sobbing." She spoke, and he shot her a confused look, so she went on, "Ever since I've been here, I have tried to change myself. I've built up that wall, and I've pushed my feelings deep, deep down inside me. I told myself that I needed to toughen up and not care so much. Because if I had let myself feel, I would've drowned in my sadness and frustration. So I made up that image of myself. I became tough and hardcore, and I buried my softness inside of me. I actually took inspiration from how Mer used to be." She paused, thinking about her sister for a second.

"But then you show up, and in minutes, I'm sitting on a roof, sobbing." She chuckled sarcastically. "God, what are you doing to me?"

Mark knew it was more of a rhetorical question, so he didn't answer her.

Instead, he pulled her closer as he laid an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

Lexie closed her eyes, taking in his touch with every fibre in her body. Oh, how much she had missed this.

Meredith had Cristina, who was her person, and Derek, who was her soulmate or something, but Lexie only had Mark; he was her everything, her soulmate, her person, and the love of her life.