Come lie with me

Chapter 15

He didn't just love her, he was in love with her.

His love for her had deepened to such a point that he could hardly remember what it had been like before she stepped into his life. All of the many women who had come before her faded, and became almost like distant memories of another life and another time.

Of another man.

Mark could never have believed that he had much to learn about women, or love, but he had been so wrong. All he knew, all he had believed, Lexie tore down and showed him what he was missing. And all her patience, all her affection, all her love, only made him more and more in love with her. It was so strange to go to the hospital and to talk to Derek, and realize that his best friend in the whole world had no idea who he was anymore. That guy, the one who Derek saw him as, he simply didn't exist anymore.

Sure, he was still an ass. He harassed the interns, and he snapped at the residents when they interfered with his surgeries. But he was so much more than that now. There was so much more to him, more than even he could have known.

And it was all because of her.

The one he had almost let get away.

When Mark thought about it, he wondered what would have happened if he had swept her up the moment she came to Seattle Grace. All those wasted months ate at him now as he thought about all he had missed. All those smiles and tears which she had shared with others, all of those amazing turns of her mind, and all those nights she had slept without him. He only wished that he had known sooner.

That he had known this kind of happiness was possible.

For Lexie it was different though. For her, it wasn't about the utter happiness she was feeling, nor for the wonderful man she was slowly uncovering, but rather it was this sense that something had brought her to this place. Though Mark had shot down the idea, Lexie still believed that this was part of some greater plan. There was simply no other explanation.

It was just too perfect. They fit each other too well. Fate had to have had a part in bringing them together. Lexie believed that there was a reason she met him when she had.

It was her mother.

That was what Lexie believed. When she had a chance to think about it, Lexie realized that the signs were there all along. Something, or someone, had been pushing her towards Mark Sloan from the beginning of her internship. The fact that she was always assigned to his service; the fact that while she was shy with other men, her tongue hadn't frozen up when talking to Mark; the fact that he had seen her, when no other man did; the fact that she met him when he was finally ready for a real relationship; the fact that he came along exactly when she needed him.

She had been meant for Mark Sloan, and it was her mother who had made her realize it.

Lexie had never told anyone, but she had almost not come to Seattle Grace. Everyone knew she was supposed to intern at Mass. General, but few knew that she had still meant to take it, even after her mother died. She had been all set to tell Molly that she was on her own. She had even picked up the phone to make her reservation to return to Massachusetts after the funeral, but something had stopped her. A feeling of calm had come over her, and she had put down the phone.

Yes, something had stopped her. Something, or someone. The only way Lexie could make sense of her own life was to believe that it had been her mother. Her mother, guiding her to this man. Sure she had made mistakes along the way, Alex and George, but she had ended up in the right spot.

With the right man.

Mark Sloan was her Mr. Right. Who would have thought?

The others didn't see it. Sadie only wanted to know about the sex, and would then launch into a description of the torrid relationship she shared with Torres. Callie would nod at her in the elevators, or occasionally let her set a really cool bone, but she seemed to see Lexie as a scientific experiment that Mark was conducting.