Counting To Fifteen [Grey's Anatomy]

chapter forty - sorry parents

Daisy was heavily on Mark's mind Sunday afternoon.

He wasn't sure when the right time was to have the conversation, or even how to have the conversation. He wasn't even really sure if Daisy would take him up on his offer, and the thought of rejection made Mark wince.

Mark was cursing, mentally, at the fact that he was scared to have a conversation with a thirteen-year-old. He wasn't sure how much lower he could get.

The day had gone by agonizingly slow. He didn't have any surgeries, there were no bodies to cut into—much to his dismay.

There was a certain lull to the day. An eerie quietness that Mark wasn't sure what to do with.

Mark was working in the ER suturing wounds. But even in the usually overflowing, action-packed, explosive emergency room, things were relatively calm.

Mark had finished suturing every minor cut in sight, and he genuinely didn't know what else to do.

The most intense case that had come into the pit today was a woman who had scalded herself with hot water attempting to make tea. The small wound had taken no more than a minute for Mark to dress.

Where were the crazy cases? The knives to the gut, the axes to the head, the occasional chopped off finger. Mark ached for some sort of action to wake him up.

Of course...perhaps it was a good thing that the ER was so slow. It meant that nobody was getting hurt, and people were being safe.

But still. There was nobody for Mark to help, and he let out a loud sigh from where he was standing at the ER desk. His eyes slowly raked over the flushed out pit.

Jackson was in the corner, trying to explain to a woman that the emergency room really was not the first place to go to for a stomachache. There was a man with some sort of bandage on his forehead, waiting to be discharged. There was a kid in a soccer uniform, her arm in a splint of sorts.

Mark was drawn back to reality when he felt a sharp prick of pain radiate through his arm as Callie came over and hit the man.

"Ow." Mark groaned, rubbing the sore spot on his muscle. He was used to Callie's playful punches, but this one felt particularly hostile. "What's wrong with you today?"

"You need to talk to Daisy."

"I'm going to. Eventually, I swear."

"You need to hurry it up." Callie snapped. "Because she thinks you're gonna throw her to the wolves and she's scared and it is sad to watch. Tell her."

"I'm going to, jeez." Mark mumbled.

Callie sighed out, tilting her head. "When?"

Mark wanted to say tonight.

Because that would be the right time.

But Mark was sort of scared he would get home tonight and chicken out of talking, and push the conversation off to another day.

"Why are you so scared to talk to her?" Callie groaned as she surveyed the man's face.

Mark was not scared to talk to Daisy.

But he was scared to have this particular conversation.

The weight of it just felt so heavy. Mark didn't know what he would do if Daisy turned him down. He'd need a back-up plan, and then it would be a whole messy thing, and...Mark didn't want that.

The conversation had felt so much easier to have with Calypso on account of the fact that she was merely seven. She didn't really understand the premise of what Mark was asking her. To Calypso, adoption was just sort of a really long extended vacation in which you never leave.