Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟲𝟳 mens rea

𝙇𝙓𝙑𝙄𝙄.
MENS REA

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an: hahahaah buckle in folks
this is a wild one
it's what you've all been waiting for

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SEATTLE

IT WAS NEEDLESS to say that this was definitely not what Charlie had expected.

He found himself pausing in the doorway of the apartment, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly ajar. He didn't quite know what to think or what to say-- the two people in the centre of the room seemed to pause in unison. 

There was a definite halt, the sort of frozen moment in which he struggled to accept what he was seeing. 

His eyes bounced from one person to the other and a very slow, unsure smile unfurled across his face.

"Hi."

He sounded hesitant. 

Of course, he was hesitant. Beth and Addison were sat at the dining table and his first instinct was to check that they were both completely intact. After a few moments of accounting for all of their limbs, Charlie realised that they were. 

There was no blood, no sign of any physical altercation or injury. He took a few slow steps across the floor, closed the door behind him and blinked as if he expected the image in front of him to disappear as soon as he reopened his eyes (it didn't). 

Charlie found himself staring at reality: Beth and Addison drinking coffee and talking tulle.

"Hi," He lingered behind Beth's chair, trailing a hand down her shoulders as he passed and glancing over at what she was reading. 

The dining table was stacked with wedding magazines, the most that he'd ever seen in this apartment at once. There was a bright look on Beth's face as she smiled at him, a pen twirling in her hand and a chuckle brewing at the back of her throat. 

"How was work?"

"Good," He breathed out, still completely taken aback by the sight of Addison Montgomery in their apartment. 

She sat in the exact same dining chair that she'd sat in at the dinner party. She was dressed as if she'd just come from work, one leg folded over the other and a purse leaning against the table leg by her foot. 

Charlie nodded in her direction. "Addison."

The Neonatal surgeon looked up and gave him a wide smile in greeting, "Charlie."

He wasn't sure whether he'd accidentally walked into the wrong apartment building and thus into a whole different dimension. He was seeing things correctly, right? Here they were, acting as if he hadn't watched Beth attempt to burn Addison at the stake-- what had happened to the witch hunt? 

The simple thought of them being in the same space together was enough for him to want to wince. He kept looking between the two of them as if he was watching a tennis match: back and forth, back and forth, back and--

Maybe it was just an exhaustion induced hallucination? He'd just finished a night shift, blinking through his sunglasses as his eyes throbbed in the morning sunlight. 

He'd spent the whole night on-call running around the hospital trying to fix everything and anything-- now, as he stood at the head of the dining table, he wasn't sure what to do.