You Promised | Mark Sloan ✓

18┃not you, not her

S3 EP20

NORAH AND MARK walked alongside each other as they entered the hospital; coffees of the same order were in each of their hands. It was a few days after the ferryboat accident, and the patients who were admitted that day had slowly gotten discharged. The whole situation had started to quiet down.

"So, we know what triggers you to freeze," Mark spoke.

"Bloody left hand," Norah replied as they stepped into the elevator, "The red liquid covering each of my fingers. It's like I can almost feel it slowly running down my hand. Warm, but cold. Knowing that the owner of the blood could die out any minute."

He stared at her. "That was too detailed... And a bit dark," he commented with furrowed brows. "So, how do you plan to overcome that?"

She shrugged. "Don't look at my bloody hand when I can feel the liquid."

He raised a brow at her, and she looked back at him in confusion. "That's... that's not overcoming the problem-that's avoiding the damn problem."

"Hm... There's a difference?"

"Of course, there is a difference, Laurie," he shook his head as they stepped out of the elevator. "There has to be one day in the future that you'll need to look at the blood on your hand without freezing, you know?" he stated, "Could be a big trauma, accidents, more triage... Could even be your first solo surgery."

She casually sipped on her coffee while she continued listening to him. His eyebrows knitted together while he thought hard, her walking next to him with curious anticipation. "You can try tackling it," he suggested.

"Like... chopping off my hand?" she narrowed her eyes at him.

"What-no," he deadpanned. "More like... making your hand look bloody while you stare at it, something like that." She was about to speak when he cut her off. "And, before you say that we start stealing blood from the blood bank-no."

She sulked at the refusal of her idea. "What do you suggest, then?"

"Paint."

"Paint?"

"You know, the colourful tubes of things people use to colour an artwork-"

"I know what paint is, Sloan," she shot him a glare, "But how paint?"

He smirked. "We can try mixing the colours to make it look like blood, and then you dip your hand in it and... try not to freak out?"

Her eyes fixed at him for a long while, her mind still figuring whether he was serious about his words. "You're worse than my therapist."

"Oh. You're seeing a shrink? That's great."

"I'm not."

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TO NORAH'S SURPRISE, THE 'paint' idea was actually helping. Norah had to start keeping the other interns away from crashing in her apartment, just in case they somehow suspected that she was a psychopath preserving her victims' blood on metal trays.

"I look like a bloody psychopath," she stated as she lifted her hand from the paint, watching as the droplets of the cold colour slowly rolled down her forearm.

Mark shrugged as he leaned against her kitchen counter, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "We cut people open for a living," he said, "The only difference is the outcome-life or death."

She started wiping the paint over to her other hand, gently spreading the colour over her skin, watching as the fading red gradually covered up each inch of her skin.