You Promised | Mark Sloan ✓

88┃you promised

S9 EP1&2

MARK LAID ON THE HOSPITAL bed, feeling... weak.

Staying awake, staying alive was exhausting beyond he ever thought of, and yet despite his determination to fight, he could feel his body weakening by the minute.

Stay strong. Please stay strong for them.

"Don't tell Callie. She's about to operate on Derek," he told Webber, who was lowering his bed. "Derek doesn't need to go in this surgery worried, so don't say anything to him."

"They can reschedule the surgery, Mark," Webber reasoned, "I'm sure they'd want to."

"No," the man on the bed cut him off. "That surgery's gonna get Derek back into the OR where he belongs. Nobody's got better hands than him... No, Norah's got better hands than him... Derek knows it, too. He just... has too big of an ego to admit it."

He chuckled slightly at the thought, "Have you looked at her hands? They're beautiful. And I'm going to... was going to... put a ring on that hand."

"You will," Webber spoke, sitting down beside his bed.

"She's perfect, you know? And gosh, she really doesn't even know how perfect she is. Sometimes you wish people... would just see themselves the way you do," Mark muttered and let out a long exhale. "And Kai, my little man, he's eight months old, but he already looks so big... H-He really is a Sloan...

"Listen to me," Mark panted, drawing a breath in as he looked at Webber. "This is surge talking?"

"No, this is you. This is all you," Webber reassured with a tight smile. "So keep going... 'Cause I'm not going anywhere."

❦ ❦ ❦

WEBBER SAT NEXT TO Mark, who breathed heavily; the latter could barely move his body now. He watched as the man on the bed struggled to fight, to live. "Norah would want to be here," Webber voiced out.

"She would... I know she would," Mark mustered a smile back at him, "But she is playing... with Kai right now... And Kai needs his mom... with him."

"Kai won't-"

"Kai won't go anywhere... I know... but I can't see her... breaking again," he admitted; the scream in the woods still haunted him. "I can't... because one thing t-that scares me more than dying... is not being able to hold her in my arms when she breaks... A-And she has to be strong for our son..."

He somewhat knew that she would not be able to forgive him. But for the first time, he understood how it felt to push the people you love away-in a wish that it would hurt less for yourself. He did not want her to watch as he would possibly leave her, too.

Webber sat silently with a face of empathy; Mark could feel his chest tightening and his lungs closing in-breathing was no longer as easy as it had been. He could hear his own labored breathing; the deep inhales he drew in, and the deep exhales he let out...

It was exhausting. Staying awake was exhausting.

The last thing he heard before the sounds went muffled was the rapid beeping of his heart monitor, followed by a voice shouting for a crash cart.

His last thought before he closed his eyes was his promise to her, the ring in the drawer, and the grin on his little man's face.

And then, he fell into a deep sleep.

❦

A PART OF HER WITHERED when Norah received the 9-1-1 page with his name and room number on it.