To when I return

10. Dr. Grey part 2

Mark finds Lexie sitting in research lab. She doesn't notice him before a granola bar is laying in front of her eyes. "You need to eat." he murmurs to her ear as he hugs her from behind.

"Thanks." she answers laying her head on his shoulder. They stay there for a while till she breaks the silence "What if I can't do it?"

"Do what?" He asks confused.

"The surgery. I've done 17 surgeries since my crash. 15 of them not even being neuro. Now I'm supposed to fix a spine of a 16-year-old, that is told to never walk again." She tells him.

"Lexie-" He sighs but she cuts him off. "And the fact that I'm known for doing the impossible doesn't make things any easier." The silence fell. "Would you love me if I quit surgery?"

"I've loved you since forever. I loved you before I knew you would become surgeon. So why would I stop now? The question is would you be okay with not being a surgeon?"

"Bit corny don't you think?"

"But I have a point, Lex. You can't deny it."

"I don't know what I would do if it wasn't surgery."

"I know. I don't know ether." Mark says and buries his face to her neck.

When Lexie walks to their patients, Nick Cruz, 16, the boy' first reaction was "Iridium"

Lexie's smile grew as the boy looked at her and she says "Ir, 77, group 9, preriod 6 and the mole mass is 192.22."

"I still don't get how you do that." Nick sighs.

"Magician never relives their secret."

"It's not magic. You just have some weird memory trick."

"Maybe I'll tell you when you're not my patient anymore."

"When will that be?"

"Hopefully, by the end of the week. Where are your parents? I need them to be here so we can discuss the surgical plan."

"They went to get coffee. They'll be back any minute now."

As Nick's parents returned they discussed the plan. Lexie told them that the surgery would start at 7 am and would last at least 24 hours. Most likely longer. After that Lexie left and went home to sleep. She really needed to sleep.

The next morning around 7 am Lexie and Jeremiah were scrubbing in. "You look little worried." Jer says looking at Lexie.

"I'm fine." Lexie sighs still not changing her expression. "It's going to be a long surgery."

"It's weird to see you this worried. Aren't you supposed to be the confident one of us." He tells.

"I'm not worried. I'm terrified. This surgery will be the first real neuro case I've worked in over year and a half. Yeah. I've done research but I've not done any surgeries. What if I screw up?" Lexie ends her rant before she gets the change to start.

"You have no reason to be terrified. And how is this case real? I'm serious. Nothing in this surgery makes sense but you want to do it. You don't get to back out now. Now, we will have delight full 24 hours and more in OR, in hospital that neither one of us works, with totally unfamiliar surgical team." He stops to think for a moment. "Why did I agree on this again?"

"Because I'm me?"

"So why don't you believe that yourself too? Let's go make history."

They walk into the OR and after couple of minutes Nick is asleep. Lexie takes a deep breath and looks one last time at her colleague. She looks back down at the patients back. "Scalpel."

(We are going to skip the whole surgery because I'm terrible at medical terms and stuff like that...)

26 hours. They were on that OR for 26 hours and she is exhausted. But she is Lexie Grey, and she knows how to put smile back on. She learned that long time ago. That is why she is smiling when they go and tell that surgery went well and that Nick would be taken to ICU. Then nurse would take them to see their son.

"Welcome back to the game, Little Grey" Jer says as they walk towards on call room. There was no way Lexie was going to drive home to sleep after being awake for 27 hours.

"Back to the game? Now that I'm back in the game I don't have a job." Lexie laughs.

"Hey. Mayer is always ready to give your job back." He tells her.

"As much as staying at Boston sounds tempting, I think I should stop running." She sighs.

"What are you actually running away from?" Jer asks. Even after 13 years Lexie never had told what she was so terrified about her past.

"Life. Family. Expectations. Always coming second to other people." She answers leaning to a wall. She won't say it out loud but her legs are killing her.

"You need a wheelchair?" Jer asks seeing Lexie's trouble.

"No. I'm just waiting Mark to bring me something to eat and my meds."

"Speaking of the devil." Jeremiah says as he sees Mark walking towards them.

"Here. I didn't find anything better you could eat but at least you won't take these pills to an empty stomach." Mark says handing her two granola bars. After she ate those he hands her bottle of water and the meds for the pain, for organ transplant rejection and for PTSD.

"Thanks" Lexie smiles at him.

"So... How did the surgery go?" Mark then asks.

"I think someone is back in the game." Jer tells. "I mean, nothing went wrong but we still don't know if it really worked."

"So we wait." Lexie says.

"Dr. Sloan. I need a plastics consult." They heard sharp female voice call.

"What kind of consult. I don't see how general and plastics collide." Mark asks. turning towards the woman. His smile a little too wide. Ellis Grey.

"I need an ENT to be exact." She answered.

"Well as much as I want to know how this is going to end I want to get to sleep now." Jeremiah informs.

"And who do you two might be?" Ellis asks looking towards the man who just spoke and the blonde who avoided looking up.

"Dr. Jeremiah Willow, Ortho attending, Mass Gen. We were doing the spinal surgery." He says pointing between him and Lexie.

"So this one can't talk?" Ellis asks.

"No, Dr. Grey. I can talk. Just don't feel like it." Lexie says, voice full of sarcasm.

"Excuse me?" Ellis asks hearing the tone of voice "You clearly know who I am. Have some respect"

"I'm sorry. Let's do this again. Hi. Alexandra Grey." Lexie says offering her hand. "All though you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Lexie?" She starts shocked. She doesn't have time to finish when Lexie already cuts her off.

"But you needed a consult, and we need to sleep. We got to go." Lexie says and drags Jer with her. When they are at the on call room she sighs. "Mostly I've been running away form that."

"You're Ellis Grey's daughter." Jer says. It's not a question. It's statement.

"I'm Ellis Grey's Daughter." She tells. "I ran away from home when I was 17. I ran away from the expectations of my mother. I ran away from problems."

"What kind of expectations?"

"She wanted straight A's. I was B minus average."

"You? B minus? Woman with photographic memory?"

"From every single exam. I got B minus. Except SATs. I had two mistakes in whole exam. That should've been first warning sign."

"Okay... I'm going to need the whole story." Jer says.

"Then I'll tell you the whole story." Lexie sighs.

I'm nice and won't leave you with this cliff hanger.