Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟱𝟲 two ghosts

𝙇𝙑𝙄.
TWO GHOSTS / 𝘞𝘌 '𝘙𝘌 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘞𝘏𝘖 𝘞𝘌 𝘜𝘚𝘌𝘋 𝘛𝘖 𝘉𝘌

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IF YOU ASKED Mark Sloan what he was thinking about during therapy, he would've said one of two things:

1. Something that Andrew liked to call survivors guilt, in which he struggled to comprehend that he, out of the 18 people that died that day, had survived after being so close to what had happened.

2. The day he dumped Elizabeth Montgomery, simply because she told him that she loved him.

Apparently, Beth bringing it up while they were in that boardroom, while she was hanging on for dear life, was enough to make his head spin with the memory of it. It wasn't one of his proudest moments. It made him feel bad again, it made his skin crawl and his heart squeeze very slightly.

He could still remember the look of hope in her eyes, the way she'd been completely caught off-guard by it too-- she'd said it so indifferently, so matter-of-fact that they'd both faltered.

She'd paused. He'd paused.

Mark would be lying if he said he hadn't heard that before. He'd had it said to him by infatuated lovers, by high school sweethearts who had last longer than a month-- but he'd never heard it from Beth. Not from the alarmed looking girl that stood across from him, looking as if she definitely hadn't planned on letting that slip.

But then she'd look at him, her eyes round and full of a very vulnerable, shaking emotion. She'd held her breath, opened her mouth as if to correct herself-- he'd stared back at her. Mark had watched as her head wheeled.

She'd looked so disorientated in that moment, as if she hadn't even thought about it before and then, he watched 'oh crap' expression dawn across her face.

"I-" Beth had cut herself off, as if completely baffled.

He hadn't been able to move. She hadn't been even able to breathe properly. Beth seemed to balance herself and then give up, closing her mouth and then running a hand through her hair. They'd been on the street in New York, they'd been five minutes from her apartment and they'd both stopped dead in their tracks.

The world paused and Beth seemed to reanimate very softly.

"Well, fuck," She'd said, clearing her throat. Beth shrugged, her shoulders rose and fell and she exhaled loudly, as if she didn't have the energy to deny it. "I guess I'm in love with you."

He didn't tell this to Andrew. He hadn't even told it to Beth.

But, even so, he was thinking about it a lot. He was thinking about how startled and uncomfortable he'd been. How his chest had tightened and his mouth had gone dry and he'd been able to speak to her.

How he'd cut their evening short and gotten into his car and spent half an hour wondering if this was something he wanted.

His skin had itched. His skin had crawled and he'd tapped out a text message that he'd figured was the best-- he only had a small amount of time before Beth came to her senses before she realised that he wasn't worth that.

He couldn't-- he wouldn't-- she's Addisons sister. It'd been a mistake to even think--

He'd let her go.

***

Who is this girl?

That was the first question Mark Sloan had ever asked himself about Elizabeth Montgomery.