All I Want Is This

8

Nervously, Mark stuck the key in latch while holding his briefcase between legs and the mobile phone at ear. "You damn woman!" Mark cursed and pushed the door open. As he walked inside, Mark heard a ring coming from another phone. He walked in living room and identified the sound coming from a bag on couch.

Angrier than seconds ago, Mark closed his phone and opened the bag he knew it belong to Meredith. Taking her phone out, he flipped it open and saw the 12 missing calls; he read them 11 from Sloan and one from Christina.

Mark threw Meredith's phone on couch and looked around him. A complete silence was dominating the whole apartment. "Ally?" He called Alicia's name first as he started to walk around the apartment. For the first time, he noticed the boxes from all around the place. He looked in one of it curious and saw some of Alicia's toys. "Al!" Mark called her again sneaking his head in Alicia's room. The room was empty and messy. The furniture had been moved a little and covered with sheets, while the floor was dirty with purple and pink paint. Stepping inside, Mark took a closer look at that mess. Only half of wall had been painted in a tone of color obtained probably from pink and purple. Now everything regarding that disaster had an explication, but now all that Mark needed to know was where his daughter and her nanny were.

Mark walked out of Alicia's room and crossed the small hall to his bedroom. The door was closed and something made him think that he should open it slowly. As he did that and looked inside, his face expression froze.

His daughter was sleeping in the middle of his bed covered by one of Meredith's arm. Meredith's face was almost sunken in Alicia's hair while Alicia was expressing a content smile facing Meredith.

That scene made something stir inside him. He approached their bed in silence and sat down on Alicia's side of bed making his presence there unobserved by any of the sleeping forms. Mark put his hand down on Alicia's stomach, only an inch away from Meredith's arm. Caressing gently Alicia's t-shirt soft material, Mark's eyes were on Meredith's sleeping face. For a second, the image of mother and daughter showed up in his mind; there wasn't only the mother and daughter image in his mind, there was also the image of the woman he hated the most. He needed to break it immediately. He took his hand off Alicia and shoved gently Meredith's shoulder. The mother and daughter image was something unbearable in that moment as Natasha's image was about to start haunting him again.

Mark shoved her harder as he saw her waking up. Opening her eyes, Meredith met his strained face again. She sighed discreetly, already knowing what was to come next.

Mark stood up as slowly as he sat down and made her a gesture from head to follow him outside. Reluctantly, Meredith slid out of the bed and followed him outside.

Walking together in living room, Mark also made her a gesture to sit down on couch. Meredith complied and Mark followed her, sitting on the opposite side from her. Meredith saw her phone and taking it, her suspicions about what was to come next were confirmed. "I know and I'm sorry!" She spoke fast before Mark could open the mouth to say something. "Alicia fell asleep and couldn't resist longer either." She explained dryly wiping the display screen of her phone to avoid an eye contact with Mark that might make her burst angry.

"You should have called me before." Mark replied with the same dry voice as Meredith's had been, rubbing the face to avoid an angry burst as her.

"I'm sorry." Meredith answered silently, still playing with her phone.

Mark sighed frustrated. He had a hard day at work and apparently, Meredith and Alicia just loved to make it worse. What was making him more frustrated was the fact that he didn't have any justified reason to yell at Meredith. It was frustrating because everything that Meredith had done until then with his daughter was well done, but it was also frustrating because Meredith was heading to a direction where Mark didn't want her to go: to Alicia's heart and his life.