Come Back, Be Here
Seattle, Washington 2009 - S6E07
He kept telling himself that it was just for the weekend and she would be back on Monday. He felt like a child, surely he could go for a couple of days without seeing her. He could. He kept telling himself that. He asked the chief for an extra shift just to keep himself busy, chastising himself for every moment he missed her. Lexie had decided to go and see her sister, Molly, on the military base. It was normal. Well, it was normal for other people. Surgeons spent so long in the hospital that most of the time they saw each other everyday. They got used to paging each other at a moments notice. If he typed 711 into his pager and sent it, he knew sooner or later, she'd show up at an on-call room waiting for him. Yes, they had challenging jobs, but it was made easier by the constant access they had to each other. Physically and emotionally. He was there if she had a tough day, and vice versa. Without that, he felt alone again. That was the reason he got wrapped up around nurses and interns and attendings. Women. He got a leg over a woman. He didn't want to do that anymore. He just wanted Lexie to be here when he paged.
He went to lunch and poked at a salad with a plastic fork in the attendings' lounge. The room was almost empty, Callie had been here a while ago, then she left to go sit in the cafeteria. She was mumbling something about him being boring when he's in a mood. He was looking down at his sad, plastic bowl of leaves, then tossed it aside. It tasted like cardboard.
He was sitting at the bar with the drags of a beer between his fingers, his head bowed. He was debating calling her, it was between that and going home alone, but then he noticed Joe looking at him like he was a lost puppy. "Rough day?"
Mark shook his head and laughed. "I'm in deep, Joe. Better pour me another one." Joe almost turned on his heels to grab a new bottle from the refrigerator behind him, when he spotted her on the other side of the bar. All he had to do was point to explain his reaction.
Mark turned and took her in. The handle of her suitcase pulled up and resting just beneath her elbow, a light brown jacket covering her arms, her hair looping past her shoulders, and an expression on her face that melted him. "I er, came back early," she bit the edge of her thumb nail, "pleased?"
He got out of his stool and walked towards her, his hands cupping her cheeks and kissing her right in the middle of the bar. Not that he cared. His fingers threaded through the roots of her hair and she tried to restrain herself from moaning in the middle of the bar. "Very."