Come lie with me

Chapter 20

Mark Sloan's whole body was shaking. It seemed to start at his chest and continue to his legs which were curled up against him, his eyes resting on the caps of his knees. As Derek watched him, he tried to remember the last time he had seen his friend cry. It wasn't something he could remember off hand and seeing it now, as his friend's chest heaved in spurts, made him feel very young again.

"Derek," Meredith said, coming up next to him as he stood in the hall watching Mark. Her banana bag was gone, and her face was red from the tears she had shed.

"Are you okay?" Derek asked, looking at her with concern.

"I'm fine," Meredith said, giving him a tremulous smile that made him want to grit his teeth.

"That was your sister on the table," Derek said.

"I hardly know her," Meredith replied, her words belying the way she had felt when she had seen Lexie.

Derek shook his head. "Meredith, I know you might not want to talk about it. I know you have already lost so many—"

"Did you know about them?" Meredith cut in, inclining her head towards Mark.

Derek turned to look at his friend, who was still sitting there crying. "Not that they were in love, no."

"But you knew they were together?" Meredith asked, her voice sounding betrayed.

"No, I knew he was living with someone…I found out tonight. I didn't know it was Lexie."

"Well, maybe it isn't Lexie he is living with," Meredith said quietly. "This is Mark Sloan, after all."

Derek turned to her with shock on his face, not noticing the utter hurt that had caused Meredith to say it. "How can you say that? After what we just saw?"

Meredith immediately regretted those words; she couldn't believe she had said them. She didn't even mean them. "Derek, I—"

"Save it," he snapped. "I have to go; my best friend needs me."

Meredith watched with tears in her eyes as Derek went and sat next to Mark, and she wondered how she had missed such an important event in her sister's life. Mark Sloan had fallen in love with her sister, and she hadn't even noticed.

***

There was no feeling in the world like this. The utter helplessness, the pain, the despair; it all seemed to wrap around him and squeeze him from the inside out. The way she had looked, the lifelessness of her body, it haunted him. Mark kept seeing it over and over, and hearing the shrieking sound of the monitors when her heart had stopped. How had this happened? It had been just hours ago that they had been wrapped up in each other's arms, safe and together. But now, that seemed like a lifetime ago.

Mark's tears soaked into his dark blue scrubs. His hands were holding tightly to his legs, and his fingers were digging into the skin of his calves, but he hardly noticed. His own pain did not even cross his mind as he thought of what he had seen.

That wasn't Lexie. There was no similarity in that lifeless body to the bright and happy woman who had stolen his heart. Perhaps that was what worried Mark most of all. If she woke up, no, when she woke up, there was a very real chance that she wouldn't be his Lexie any more. And that thought haunted him as he remembered a conversation he had with her.

"I am always your Lexie. At home, in the hospital, at Joe's, everywhere. I'll always be your Lexie."

"Always? You can't know that."

"I can."

Mark sobbed even harder now as he remembered her words. Lexie had been so certain, so positive that they would have a future together. She was like that, all eternal optimism and quiet conviction. She didn't deserve this. She had done nothing more than take a chance on him, even when all common logic said that he was a bad risk.