Alice ✧ [a. karev]

5. consequences

Jade was bounding down the steps when she first spotted him, chart swinging in her hand at her side and her other hand balanced on the banister. She slowed as she descended, making sure it was him before a smile spread across her face.

"Mark!" She called, making her way down the rest of the steps.

He looked up, his eyes trailing off Meredith and towards Jade. She could see the beginnings of her name starting to form on his lips but a fist landing firmly on his cheek prevented him from finishing it.

Jade's eyes widened, a hand flying to her mouth as her eyes switched from him on the floor, to Derek shaking his hand out, to Addison watching from the hallway looking like a fish out of water.

Her first instinct was to go over to Addison but she shook her head at her, promptly turning and walking away as quickly as she came so she made her way over to the nurse's station instead.

Webber was on the scene quick, apologizing and reprimanding Derek before ushering Mark into an exam room.

Jade quickly put her chart down and followed him in ignoring the confused looks from her friends.

"Warm welcome, huh?" She asked, closing the door behind her.

"AJ," he smiled, wincing slightly when it stretched his cut.

"What are you doing here?" She asked lightly, putting a pair of gloves on and opening a suture kit.

"So, that's Meredith," he ignored her question, trying to look around her and through the window.

She followed his head with hers, blocking the view and shaking her head at him. "No," she said like she was reprimanding a child. "Seriously, don't."

"I'm not doing anything," he defended and she raised her eyebrows at him.

She started to clean his wound as he continued talking. "Isn't it interesting. Derek walks in on me naked with Addison, actually in the throes-"

"Ew."

"And he just turns around and walks away. But he seems me so much as talking to her, and I'm on the ground bleeding."

She shook her head at him laughing slightly. "I don't think it had so much to do with Meredith as it did just seeing you again. Like you said he just walked away the first time because Dereks not an angry guy but I'm sure seeing you for the first time since then brought some things up."

Mark tilted his chin down, giving her a look and she added. "But maybe I'm wrong," she admitted.

"Of all the ways I thought I'd be starting my morning stitching you up was not one of them," she continued as she placed a cloth on his shoulder.

"You're not stitching me up," he responded reaching for the supplies in her hand.

She pulled them back, slumping her shoulders and giving him a disappointed look. "C'mon, let me do it. I'm good."

"You should be good I taught you. But until you can do it without leaving a scar you don't touch the face. You hold the mirror."

She rolled her eyes handing them over and hastily grabbing the mirror from his hands and holding it up to his face.

"Don't pout."

"Shut up."

✧

"I asked you to just take him for an x-ray, can you not do a simple task?" Jade asked Alex as she rushed down the hall by his side on her way to make sure Mark didn't screw up the case Derek entrusted her with.