Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟭𝟯 the monster under the bed

𝙓𝙄𝙄𝙄.
THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED.

──────

SEATTLE

I STARED AT HER, wide eyed and suspended somewhere in the gap between shocked and horrified.

The silence played between us, the tall-tale sign of the very tense game of cat-and-mouse that the past half hour had been. Everything had been building up, leading to this exact moment: me, stood in the doorway with disbelief in my eyes and every belonging I'd dragged into this home all bundled in my arms. 

Opposite me, Meredith Grey, the woman who was currently reminding me how easily it would be to pull the rug from under my feet, crossed her arms over her chest.

I couldn't believe her.

Looking at everything from this angle, the amount of belongings I'd carried with me from Indonesia seemed so sad. I only had my rugged suitcase and the handful of things that came with it: old medical journals that I'd honestly forgotten were there, heels with cracked soles and assorted clothing that still smelt musty from mosquito repellant. 

(Amongst everything, too, I'd found an old Boston Patriots jersey that had gotten caught up in the chaos. It smelt of Charlie and reminded me of him to the point where my stomach tended to twist painfully.) 

Everything could've fit into a knapsack tied to a stick and thrown over my shoulder, just like the true drifter I was proving to be.

I'd never been evicted before, but I had evicted other people. Maybe this was karma. Maybe I could feel this like a sick and twisted deja vu; me, stood in the Manhattan downpour on my apartment doorstep, screaming my lungs raw as I threw Mark's belongings into the street–– one wretched Gucci shoe after the other. 

I'd said so many profanities, some drunk and incoherent, some others very good and logical points that I'd rephrase while sober in the morning. It'd been a scene, it'd been a mess. I could still feel that rain on my skin and the sensation of watching that cheater's temper flare in the rain.

Yeah, I thought to myself, This was karma.

"No," I said.

If this was karma, I wasn't going out without a fight.

Meredith let in a very long breath, one that told me she was severely regretting ever agreeing to letting me stay. Again, it was very familiar to me–– I like to call this one the Montgomery turn around. 

I likened it to the puppy cycle of Christmas: getting so wrapped up in how cute it was and promising it the world but then realising, within the span of a week, how much of a mistake this was. Everyone went through it. People tended to realise I wasn't as cute and shiny as I appeared fairly quickly–– 

And, unlike a puppy, I was fairly sure there was no one exactly fighting for my honour. Her sigh did not waver me. I was in a big scary new city and her house was one of the places that I'd felt comfortable enough in to somewhat call home.

"Beth."

"No," I said, cutting her second sigh off short. I shook my head. "I'm not going to leave. Not right now."

What was the crime that fit this punishment? I didn't even know. 

If I had to list a crime, I guessed it would've been calling her fiancé (or whatever Derek was at this point, I wasn't exactly keeping up) a dick and telling him to get his shit together. Or, then again, there was the fact that I was her sister's current boyfriend's Ex. 

I'd probably caused some tension, rustled some feathers and really caused problems in the household. I knew that Lexie was living here too but I hadn't seen her. All I knew was that Mark probably didn't want the two of us in such a close proximity with each other.

Yeah, it was probably Mark, it was always Mark. Five years later and here I was, still being screwed over by the man who I'd put all of my energy into hating––

I watched Meredith's brow crumple very slightly as I stood tall. I figured that if her past experiences with Montgomery women had taught her anything, it must've been that we were very stubborn when it came to standing our ground. 

I wasn't sure why she was confused by it; if I knew anything about Addison, it was that she could be a real bitch when she wanted to be. Just like me she could really dig her heels in and refused to budge––

"What?"

Her bewilderment just made me sigh.

"Look," I began, feeling my stomach twist with the sensation of being unwanted. "I can pay rent. I'm still trying to sort out some stuff, but I'll have money, okay? If I have to go, at least please, just give me some time to sort something out–"

(Again, my memory resigned me to New York. Standing on the side of the road, staring over at a closed door as I was left in the road like trash out for collection. A door slammed in my face as an end to an argument, my body shaking from withdrawl and the cold, incapable of truly understanding what was happening to me––)

"Beth."

Meredith gritted her teeth. 

I knew that tone well- Beth was when I was being problematic; Beth was what I heard all the time. Although, in this scenario, when I'd come home from work to find all of my belongings, as scarce as they happened to be, tossed in the centre of the foyer, I thought that I had the right to be problematic.

"I like living here," I spoke over her, determined to make my point before I was inevitably rejected, "I mean... it's weird having to share a bathroom with a guy that I'm currently giving therapy sessions to but... but it's okay. I clean up after myself and I just... I can do your laundry? Wash your car? ––"

"I'm not kicking you out."

Oh?

I took her bewilderment and mirrored it back to her, a dent appearing between my eyebrows as I stared at her. My brain struggled with that sentence, turning it over and over in my head and breaking it down into tiny syllables, big enough to eat. A beat passed. My thoughts took a stuttered leap.

"What?"

"I'm not asking you to leave."

I stared.

It was almost bittersweet that I truly hadn't anticipated those words coming from her.

I knew that Meredith did not enjoy having her Mother's old house full of strays. It was something she would comment dryly on a regular basis; she had Izzie, Alex, George and Lexie all stowed away into various rooms (although, Izzie currently was occupying a hospital bed at Seattle Grace.) 

She'd told me about how many people had lived here in the past, of how she really had had too many people to count. It was a halfway house for people who didn't have anywhere else to go, and I was the perfect fit.

"I want you to stay," Meredith rephased her sentence as if I hadn't understood her the first and second time. In reality, I was just stuck to the spot, allowing the words to run through my mind over and over. "I don't want you to leave, Beth. I was going to ask if you wanted to move up into Izzie's room while she's in hospital."

Oh.

I couldn't remember the last time someone had wanted me to stay.

(Well, other than Charlie. But he didn't count. It'd been written into his kisses and his goodbyes, in the way that he'd squeezed onto my hand before he let me go in that airport. He'd asked me to stay in his silence and his patience and his time. But I hadn't been capable of it.)

I wasn't the sort of girl people wanted to stick around.

"Izzie's...?"

"Her bedroom."

"I couldn't–"

"It's a free room," Meredith said, barely bothered by the fact that, for a woman who was so determined to stay, I was being pretty difficult about it. "It's a free room and it's got a bed, not a couch. An actual bed."

"It's Izzie's–"

"She's not here."

"I don't–"

"Izzie was the one who suggested it," Meredith recited calmly and, without warning, I watched her hoist up a bag full of my belongings and start up the stairs as if she really wasn't going to take no for an answer. Still vaguely shell-shocked, I followed, my brow still furrowed. "And I agreed with her that it would be a good idea."

Izzie's room was fairly central to the house. 

Situated strategically between Meredith's bedroom and the restroom, it was prime real estate as far as this property was concerned. Meredith's frogmarch up the stairs lead us to it, my sneaker scuffing the threshold of the room as I hesitated. 

Everything of Izzie's had been removed and transferred into her hospital room, as if she couldn't bear to be without it. A square space with striped wallpaper, wooden floors and a small double bed in the centre, it looked both like heaven to me and hell. The lack of Izzie here felt almost disorientating. 

Her absence had left a very noticeable imprint in its wake, a crater that I'd caught Alex staring at forlornly, as if she'd died and he was sad over the memory of her. But she was alive, very much alive––

"Isn't it just... just complicated?" I asked, my nose wrinkling slightly as I looked over at Meredith. She put my bag on the bed and looked over at me. "Izzie's technically one of my patients––"

"She's fine with it," Meredith said, "Sounds pretty easy to me...unless you've got something better planned?"

I didn't. It wasn't as if people were lining up around the corner to take me in as a stray. Hospitality was completely different to selflessness. 

The only person (other than Charlie) that I could imagine doing something like for me was Derek, but I knew that Derek tended to bounce between staying here and in his trailer. I was, by all means, stuck. I didn't have the money live out of a hotel and I didn't have the guts to ask Charlie for more help, he'd already done too much and I was so wary of being a burden.

So I sighed.

"Thank you."

God, I really wasn't joking when I said being wanted somewhere was a foreign concept to me. I'd become so accustomed to being a pest that people wanted rid of, a burden that was carried from one home to the next–– but the smile that Meredith gave me in response to my gratitude didn't feel like an exterminator ready to spray. It felt familial, it felt warm. I smiled back.

This almost too good to be tru––

And then a thought tickled my mind.

"Does Mark live here?"

I'd always wondered how Addison had reacted to talking about my own relationship with Mark. I'd spent years wondering how it felt to talk about your little sisters romance with a man that had such a jilted reputation; I never thought I'd witness it right in front of my eyes. I could see the slight shadow that appeared at the mention of his name, confirming to me that Meredith was now very much aware of her sister's relationship. I watched her shoulders well with the exasperated breath as it built within her.

"No," Meredith said and I felt a muscle unlock in my chest, tense from the suspense of my ex-boyfriend disturbing the peace that I so desperately needed. "You two had that in common, actually, he's been living out of hotels." But then she paused, "I figured it out a few weeks ago that Lexie was sneaking him in, though. You probably got woken up by it––"

I shrugged.

I didn't really sleep well, it was a given for an addict who had spent years over stimulating her brain chemically. I didn't fair well with the quiet or with solitude, so I tended to listen to music when it was quiet. 

My idea of comfortable silence at least included an overture or a Bach reprise. That extended to sleeping, too. Odds were, that as Lexie snuck past with her scandalous beau, I was slowing my breathing to an aria, attempting to shake off whatever stress I'd been internalising all day.

I hoped that had bothered him. I hoped that he'd tried to peacefully spend a night with his girlfriend and shivered at the aspect of creeping past me to get out the door in the morning. I hoped that it'd really caused his blood pressure to rise––

Jesus, I thought to myself, noticing how fire and brimstone overcame my thoughts when I thought of that man, I really need to stop being so hateful.

"I swear," My attention moved back to the present as Meredith grabbed a comforter off the bed and rolled it across, sending small dust particles spinning through the room. She sighed and chuckled dryly. "I feel like I've got a teenage daughter... sneaking guys in and dating douchebags––"

"Yeah," I said, "I can imagine."

I could imagine. Well, at least from Lexie's perspective. I'd never had to sneak Mark into any buildings, but I had dated him in secret for a while. I'd hidden my relationship with him from most people in my life, not out of embarrassment as Mark had liked to believe, but out of fear of the repercussions. 

It'd taken time for me to love that man so wildly that I hadn't cared about the judgement and the chaos that would come with it. But I'd tiptoed around in conversations, I'd shot glances across the room and secret smiles.

As if she realised the similarity, Meredith paused. She looked over at me and it was if, for the first time, she was really looking at me.

"I share too many life experiences with your sister."

I almost felt bad that I laughed.

"Do I need to be worried?"

"Well, I get the impression that Addison kind of has her shit sorted out now, so if you're worried about completely following in her footsteps––"

"About Lexie."

Meredith's clarification made me pause. 

My dry deadpan got stuck in my throat and I was suddenly overcome by the impulse to cough and clear it away. Maybe it wasn't that. Maybe it was the dust? Or just maybe it was the suddenness of being asked advice about Mark Sloan in regards to his new romance.

"I mean, she's just a kid," Meredith continued, and I could tell that she didn't know what to do with her concern. She fumbled with it, as if she still wasn't used to being a sibling, as if she didn't want to carry this weight with her to begin with. "I haven't heard good things about Mark and I know that what he did to you was really bad. Derek's said some things but I know that the affair with Addison wasn't even touching it––"

"Yeah," I said. My voice sounded strained.

 I spoke mostly because I didn't want her to say anything else. In all honesty, half the time, I felt like saying Mark's name and talking about the things we did to each other was the equivalent of saying Macbeth in a theatre. Nothing good would follow. 

I managed more: "It was bad."

Bad, more often than not, felt like an understatement.

"I don't want her to get hurt," was what the eldest Grey sibling said next. My chest tightened. "I know that she thinks she knows what she's doing and she really likes him... but do I need to be worried? Do I need to... does she need someone to look out for her?"

Did Lexie need someone to look out for her?

That was a question I almost didn't know how to approach. There felt like there was so many difficult layers to it, eat one causing my muscles to ache and my bones to splinter. My jaw clenched with an uncomfortable swallow–– I digested that question as if it was poison.

Had I needed someone to look out for me?

"Yeah," I said gently.

I really had needed someone to look out for me. 

Montgomery stubbornness had built me a coffin that Mark had dug for and placed underground himself. Addison had tried her best, reeling off speeches that she'd ghost wrote and given to Derek too. They'd tried to look out for me, but I'd been in love. I'd been reckless, not just with drugs and alcohol, but with my heart too–– and now look at me, I was a bitter bitch that wanted nothing but the corpse that the grave had been promised.

I would've been worried. 

If I was Meredith, I would be worried. 

Addison was worried. 

Mark was the sort of guy who made people worried. 

He wasn't a sleazy creep but he was too charming, he was too rehearsed and too sly. He could charm anyone and anything, in the tradition of a white, straight rich man that believed the world was their oyster. I was so used to seeing the bad in him that it was so alienating to imagine a single reason why Meredith shouldn't be worried––

Wasn't it startling? I found it almost terrifying. Yesterday, I'd spoken at length about how easy it would've been to set fire to Mark's whole fantasy, this life that he'd filled with people who were apprehensive about being worried when it came to him. 

I could see it Meredith's eyes, the very vague and dwindling hope that Mark wasn't as bad as people said.

But, I was honest.

"I would be worried."

Meredith nodded. She didn't look relieved. In fact, she didn't look anything but exhausted. 

It had been a long couple of weeks for all of us, in between Archer's illness, my appearance and reunion, Derek's spiral, Lexie's new relationship and Izzie's illness. I gave her a very soft smile, one that told her that I was tired too. I didn't want to deal with any of this either. If it my decision, I really would have had nothing to do with Mark Sloan ever again.

"Okay," Meredith said evenly. Her brow scrunched and this conversation suddenly, felt too serious for comfort. My mouth dried and I distracted myself by staring at my belongings. "Okay, thank you–– I'll, uh, I'll talk to her––"

"Just don't sleep with Mark," I interjected, trying to bring some humor into this space. Meredith's eyes stuck to me like a moth to a flame, momentarily confounded by my breathy smile and chuckle. "The sister affair is not the best call."

A beat passed.

Meredith rolled her eyes.

"McSteamy?" She asked, her nose wrinkling, "Wouldn't McDream of it."

My head twisted to the side.

"You call him McSteamy?"

"Yeah," Meredith said, and just like that, it was as if the conversation had never happened. She shot me an amused smile as she tossed me a pillow and it's case. My eyebrows raised and, as if she read my mind, she grimaced and chuckled. "God no, not to his face."

***

────── I could not thank Meredith enough for her hospitality.

It was the shelter I needed, somewhere to recuperate as I figured out exactly what the fuck I was doing in this city. I knew I didn't belong here, but it was nice to have four walls that I could recognise, very vaugely, as my own. That's what I thought of as I sat in Izzie's room. Temporarily mine. Temporarily somewhere for me to call my own.

Living with so many other people wasn't as chaotic as I'd anticipated. My experience with roommates was limited to the two or three I'd had during college and beyond. In Manhattan I tended to have a few once, just to even out the rent costs. 

In Toronto, I'd had Rose, Calum and Theo. And then after that, I'd just had Charlie. 

We'd lived together for so long that it'd taken me a while, since arriving in Seattle, to get used to not waking up with him beside me. It'd taken a while to adjust, but now, I was more than excited to stretch across a bed and have a whole comforter to myself.

George O'Malley helped me unpack. He appeared with curiosity and helped me make this space feel a little bit more like myself. I appreciated it. 

As we unpacked, we spoke about the hospital and about how I felt about my job. It was polite conversation but George was friendly; he told me about the nurses to avoid on bad days and which time to go to the cafeteria to avoid the lunch rush. In return, I told him about Derek, how to survive on his service and how to not step on any toes.

"I'm already 007," George joked as we finished and decided to order takeout for dinner, "I don't think it can get much worse."

I didn't ask for the context of that one, but I appreciated it all the same.

We hadn't spoken much but he seemed friendly. He reminded me so much of the friends I'd had and lost back in New York. Everyone in this city seemed to have a very dry humour that I could work with and George was no exception. 

I was pleasantly surprised when I realised he could keep up with me, take every joke on the chin and roll with them. I knew I was polarising, people tended to either hate me or love me, George seemed to like me fine.

We split takeout with Meredith, each of us sat in the kitchen, exhausted and drained from our long day at work. I sat, cross legged, on the counter top in my sweats and watched as Meredith and George shared a bottle of wine. 

Alex was at the hospital with Izzie and Lexie was no where to be found, so our evening was predominantly. We spent the time talking about movies (with a very passionate detour on my behalf about how Dirty Dancing was a pillar stone of civilisation) and trading stories about my sister–– much like George and I exchanging tips, me and Meredith swapped tales of Addison in New York and her sudden arrival in Seattle.

"That's how she introduced herself?" I half-exclaimed as Meredith recounted it. She painted a picture of her, stood beside Derek staring, shell-shocked, at Addison's unwavering, extended hand. I could imagine it, all the way down to the specific shade of 'oh shit' on Derek's face. "My sister?"

"You must be the woman who has been screwing my husband," Meredith recited intently, and from just the conviction on her face, I knew that it was ingrained deeply in her brain. "I swear on my Mom's ashes."

Oh no, I believed her. This was Addison. 

Archer hadn't been lying when he'd said hell truly hath no fury like a Montgomery scorned. I had no idea what she had wedged up her ass, seeing as all of this was of her own doing, but I was pretty sure she thought she was the victim. 

It was Addison, she thought that everything was just continuously against her.

"Dramatic Bitch," I mumbled to myself with a chuckle.

There was something so distinctively domestic about ordering takeout and sitting in the kitchen. It fulfilled the disconnect I'd felt with travelling constantly between my brother's hospital room and designated living spaces. 

I'd been living off of hospital food and sub sandwiches, but this? Sitting down and using actual cutlery? This was actually needed. I didn't realise how much I'd missed this sort of an evening until it was dwindling.

Maybe this would actually work out––

...

...

Yeah, I spoke too soon.

I guessed the problem with evenings was that they brought mornings along with them.

I was fine with the mornings themselves. I'd risen early a thousand times before. Back during my surgical residency, I'd always the first person there. Even now, I was always the first up, no matter which city I was in, and the first ready to go. 

Some things just didn't change. My routine was the same too, a mixture of getting myself ready and making coffee that was strong enough to keep my enthusiasm for the early hours going.

I was used to a quiet house. Neither Meredith nor George were particularly early risers and Alex hadn't come back from the hospital. I'd grown accustomed to making my own way through the house, eating whatever cereal I could find and peacefully reading a paperback I'd stolen from Charlie back in Boston. 

I'd listen to music, get up to date with my emails and just, generally, enjoy the solitude while I had it. It was so refreshing to be alone when my job was so people orientated––

Mark was in the kitchen.

Seeing him there was a jump scare; I dryly asked myself whether I'd ever get over the sight of seeing him. It was stupid, really, but everytime I saw his stupid face, it felt like the first time, seeing him in Joe's Bar. 

And now, there he was, sat at the dining table at 6am, shirtless and eating cereal from a bowl I'd jokingly designated as mine.

I really should've thought this through. 

Now everyone knew that Lexie and Mark were dating, there was no reason for them to hide. There was no sneaking in and out of the house or sneaking snacks, now they could just do whatever the fuck they wanted. And that, somehow, included sitting in the Grey household kitchen, minding their own business.

The fucking audacity of this man.

My hesitation in the doorway was not long enough for Mark to realise the internal struggle I was having. In fact, he didn't even notice me at all. His back was turned, neck stooped very slightly as he read the morning news. 

My eyes, very briefly, ran along his toned back, the stretch of skin they I, regrettably, recognised like the back of my hand–– my gaze warped into that of confusion. Mark hated early mornings. He'd openly protested against it every time I'd gotten up early to go to work or to some questionable part of the city with questionable intentions.

Huh, I thought to myself, as I realised that my morning couldn't stop for any man, much less him, I guess some things really do change.

Somehow, this situation was familiar. I'd lost count of how many times we'd slept on an argument and one of us had had to walk past the other during breakfast. It almost felt like a ritual. I walked past him without speaking, letting the silence fill the space between us–– 

I hated that I could hear the moment he clocked me, his chewing slowing and attention flickering in my direction. I could feel the burn of his gaze as it shifted to me, burning through the fabric of my shirt and meeting skin.

I could always fucking feel him. It was like we were attached, like his limbs were an extension of my own–– I hated it. I hated every single moment of standing there, knowing what he was doing. There was no doubt in my mind that he was vaguely alarmed at the sight of me but was doing a good job of pretending otherwise. 

He was good at that, his indifference. Mark was only ever but I knew the smaller signs of it–– the tension in his brows and his jaw. I could feel it in the room, the way that he watched me like I couldn't be trusted as just a phantom in the corner of his eye. I could feel his discomfort––

I could feel my own.

How to navigate a silent room with your douchebag cheating ex? Pretend that you don't feel as crappy as you do. Make your coffee in peace and take your time with it. 

Appear unbothered and at ease. Pretend as if everything is fine and eventually you'll feel that way too. Pretend as if you're not remembering every bastard thing he'd ever done to you. 

Pretend as if you didn't feel sick to the bone at the prospect of facing him. Pretend as if you're not very graphically imagining yourself causing some very grievous bodily harm to a certain baby blue eyed charmer.

When it came to Mark, silence said a lot. 

He loved the sound of his own voice and yet, for the briefest window of time, Mark was deathly quiet as if his life depended on it. 

Smart boy. Maybe he could tell that starting a conversation was not the best idea? Maybe he'd finally gotten the memo from the amount of times I'd shut conversation down?

Or maybe this really was the morning after an argument in my apartment back of the Upper West Side, the two of us tiptoeing around each other until the detonator between us blew up–– until one person sighed and made coffee in place of an apology or another argument came storming up in the other's wake. 

Silence was a buffer in between the thoughts in both of our heads, a battleground that neither of us particularly wanted to step into. There was so many things I could've said, so many things I could have done... so many things to make the sick bastard sitting behind me deeply regret ever staying over in his girlfriend's house.

My lip twitched.

"Coffee?" I asked.

Mark didn't respond.

Smart boy (x2).

This really did feel a little too close to Manhattan for comfort. When I turned around to face him, a mug in my hand and a blistering smile that was all too happy to tell him exactly what I thought of him, Mark's eyes had no one where to go but collide with mine.

The breath caught in the back of my throat, just as it did everytime. Again, all I could think about was Joe's, the release of seeing his stupid face for the first time in four years. 

I raised my eyebrows at him at the lack of his answer, a mug ready in my hand as Mark just stared listlessly at me–– I didn't shy away from a stand off and was amused with what I saw there. Just at the back of those eyes, a deep distaste and discomfort that he really couldn't hide.

He was looking at me weirdly, as if something had happened. His eyes burned straight through me, catching skin and bone and everything in between. I felt startlingly thin, as if the curtains had been thrown back and this room was suddenly filled with so much light–– but it wasn't. 

It was dark, spotted with the trace of a morning that was still beginning. As Mark stared at me like I was a phantom from the past, I placed the mug on the countertop between us.

"No?" My head titled to the side and I saw his eye twitch very slightly at the sound of my voice. I smiled wider ands shrugged,"Your loss."

Mark didn't look away, even as those words sun deeper and deeper into the space between us. I wondered, if I stepped across the room towards him, would it take me four and a half years to get to him? Would it take me as long as it felt?

The smile on my face dwindled into something bitter and I allowed Mark to still the mirth that still lingered beneath.

Your loss, you fucking asshole.

And then we weren't alone.

We could both hear the distant sound of footsteps against the staircase, alerting the two of us to an approaching contendor for this very tense atmosphere. By the time the person had entered the room, it was as if nothing had happened; Mark's chin dropped back down to his breakfast and I averted my attention down to my paperback. 

Before he looked away, he seemed to stare a hole into my torso, as if he was glaring directly into my heart as a way of killing me quick. He would only be so lucky. Behind us, the toaster popped with my food and I noticed how Mark jumped slightly, a chuckle falling past my lips as Lexie appeared in the doorway.

Mark didn't look up as his girlfriend entered, but I did. I raised my eyebrows in greeting, recieving her very cheerful 'good morning' with mirth in my chest. 

My eyes trailed after Lexie as she walked to her boyfriend, placing a hand on his shoulder and a kiss on his cheek. Mark just hummed lightly in response, not looking up from his newspaper.

"You're always up so early," Lexie said to him. Oh? She sounded breathless, as if it was a topic that had come up more than a few times, "You realise you can wake me up too, right? I don't mind getting up an hour early."

An hour early? My, my, my.

As if he could know exactly what was going through my head, Mark gave no vocal response. What a miracle it was, to sit in a room with Mark Sloan and to have peace and quiet. My eyes strained against it, picking out the sound of butter sliding against bread as I prepared myself food. Lexie walked around me, starting up light conversation about the day she had ahead. 

She asked Mark a handful of questions about his timetable, about his surgeries, but he responded in very indifferent sounds–– ever so often, I'd glance over at him, lip curled as I watched this man put a lot of effort into pretending he wasn't here. Once, he met my gaze in response and his eyes flew away as quickly as humanly possible.

I hoped sitting in a room with his ex and his current girlfriend was a very specific ring of hell for him. I hoped he felt like he was burning––

"––with Izzie."

"Hm?"

Lexie's voice, and a sentence that I hadn't realised was directed at me, shook me straight out a very self-indulgent ritual of grievance I was having. 

My attention flew to her, to the this woman who had been so quiet and gentle with me, the first face I'd seen since landing in Seattle. Her doe eyes shone as she realised that I hadn't been paying attention. 

As I waited for her to say it again, I felt my stomach twist–– this was Mark's new girlfriend. Out of everyone in the world, it was Lexie Grey.

"I said, it's nice that you're working with Izzie now," She said, and it took me a while to realise what she was talking about. Oh, right. "It must be scary for her, I'm glad she's got someone to talk to."

"Oh, yeah," I said, my brow crumpling as I was suddenly reminding of what Meredith had asked me last night. (Does she need someone to look out for her? Does Meredith need to be worried?) As I stood in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew, I could only feel like I was in some sort of very sick Twilight Zone. "I'm just glad I can help out."

Just for the record, I did not want to be here. I had a thousand other things that I'd rather do that stand here in a room with Mark and Lexie. I always, very specifically, didn't want to be talking to Lexie either–– as much as Mark clearly didn't want me near Lexie, I didn't particularly want to be near her either. 

A brain that was so plagued by bitter thoughts was so ready to hate the woman despite the fact that she'd been nothing but nice to me. I knew it was wrong, but that sure as hell didn't stop my skin from crawling as she gave me a warm, friendly smile––

My eye twitched very slightly as I realised how fucked I was. Mark seemed to notice.

Thanks Mark, really, thanks for all this.

"How was your first night in Izzie's room?"

It mystified me, really, how easily Lexie could just make polite, blissful conversation with me. She glided around the kitchen without a care in the world, pouring herself cereal and starting her day. She spoke to me as if we'd been friends for years, as if she was completely oblivious to the way that her boyfriend avoided the sight of me like I was Medusa, and the whole time, my chest just throbbed. 

My smile was strained and my brain played a cocktail of dislike and disdain.

Get me out of here. Get me out of here.

I cleared my throat.

"It was good," I said, and because I was so preprogrammed for the sort of small talk that made you curl your toes, I kept talking. It was a survival instinct fresh off of event season in New York. "It's nice to have a bed instead of a hospital cot."

It was the thought it that struck me as I stood there, watching Mark's muscles clench at the thought of us all under one roof. That's what I'd walked into, right? Their attempt at domesticity. The beginning of normality in their relationship. 

I would bet that they'd looked forward to this, their peace, finally not having to hide their love for one another. I bet Mark had really wanted this–– only for me to take the bedroom downstairs from Lexie's attic penthouse. I was neither a wanton spirit of memory nor a shadow in the corner of the room, I was the physical monster under their bed, just one floor down.

"That's good–– Oh, How is your brother?"

"He's doing really well," I said and in the corner of my eye, I saw Mark's lip twitch.

Bastard. He could probably tell exactly what was going on in my head. Sometimes, I forgot that he knew me as well as I knew him–– I was using my socialite voice, the polite but cordial and borderline professional tone that creeped in when I had very little interest in the conversation.

 While Lexie seemed completely oblivious to my reluctance, Mark could hear it loud and clear. I shot a very discreet glare at him from out of the corner of my eye.

"That's really good," Lexie said with another rush of warmth and sunshine. I offered her another strained smile. I didn't know what to do with her warmth. It burned me more than it fufilled me and I didn't think that Lexie realised that. "I'm really glad... I know that you were really worried when we met in the airport..."

(I felt it again, as she said it. The feeling of being stranded in the middle of situation like that, completely unsure whether Archer would make it. )

(Fuck, it made me suddenly feel so drained, as if just the thought of it made all of my energy dissipate into thin air. Suddenly, my early morning rush was reduced to a lump at the back of my throat and my gaze stuck on the empty coffee mug in front of me.)

"Yeah," I said, my stomach dipping at the thought of something so vulnerable being aired in front of Mark, "He really had us on our toes there... for a bit."

"Well, I'm glad that it all ended up okay," Lexie repeated, very briefly actually picking up on the dip in my manner. I cleared my throat and nodded, thanking her for it. "If you need anything... please just let me know," and then she glanced over at her boyfriend, as if suddenly, remembering that he was there. She smiled. "Let us know."

Us. I looked between the couple for the thousandth time, watching how Lexie seemed to glow at the prospect of it. The two of them, helping me together. 

Wasn't it cute? The height of romance happening directly in front of me in suburban Seattle.

I know Lexie was just trying to be nice. I was so sure that it was just who she was as a person, the sort of person who offered their help or came to get you from the airport without any issue. She was the sort of person who would do the most for a stranger she'd barely spoken to, smile at someone as if they were a friend. 

She reminded me of George, in that nature, friendly and gentle, and too pure for a person like me. She was kind, but I wasn't.

My thoughts were bitter and they were jilted: Maybe I'd be their passion project, their charity work as a couple? 

A snort got caught at the back of my throat, a sound that would never make an appearance–– didn't that sound familiar? Didn't that sound like how it should've been last time? Addison and Mark? Helping me together? Helping me piece myself back together all while fucking behind my back?

Yeah, that sounded more familiar than Lexie realised.

As I swallowed my contempt, I felt my shoulders rise.

"Yeah," I said. My pause had felt like centuries, but in reality it was only a single second, barely enough to even catch anyone off guard. My smile was getting harder to fake. "I will, thank you."

"It's no problem," She said, and I wished she hadn't.

I wished she'd been cruel to me, joined Mark in his resentful silence and fixed me with a harsh, unwavering gaze. I wanted her to be awful to me, to make me regret setting foot in this city. I wanted her to make my whole body burn with mortification, for my whole being to boil at the thought of her and the way she treated me. 

I wanted to see that fire in her, the same that kept her boyfriend ablaze. I wanted the venom, the grit, the unjustified hatred that I could so easily return.

But no, all she gave me was that little angelic smile, one that just made me think about the conversation I'd had with Archer. Nice was not Mark's type. 

I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I poured my coffee, inhaling the smell of it like it was one of my only vices left. She was so alike anyone I'd ever seen Mark go for, the women I'd watched him flirt and smile with both before and during me. 

She was so distinctively good, I'd been able to tell that from the first conversation with her. Her eyes told me that she had a fire about her but her manner was so gentle. Her smile was soft, like a thoughtful crinkle that was perfectly subconscious. It was even in the way she walked, the way she spoke––

Or maybe it was—somewhere in that blithering mess, I saw foundations of what I'd been back when I'd first started dating Mark. But it was a long shot; back when she'd won Izzie's contest, I'd seen it loud and clear, the same enthusiasm that I'd shown when I'd thrown everything I'd had into that surgeon internship and opportunity to learn in the midst of some of the greatest in the world.

Maybe that was Mark's type? Tainting little girls with big dreams and big enthusiasm, Mark Sloan preyed on the innocent and fleeting. Maybe he liked dragging them into their own personal hell?

"Do you want some coffee, Mark?"

Lexie's question came after I insisted to her that she take the rest of my coffee pot. I always tended to do too much, all too accustomed to making it for me and Charlie–– and, I guessed Mark once upon a time too. 

My head turned to watch his response; his eyes flickered between the pot in her hand and the attentive expression on her face. I rested my back against the counter, crossing an arm over my chest as I raised my eyebrows, mid gulp.

Mark glanced, so fleetingly, at me before replying.

"Thought you'd never ask."

Dick.

He looked so happy with himself. My lip twitched at the sight of the light dancing in his eyes as his girlfriend fell into an unassuming pattern of behaviour that was so clearly in spite of me. I watched him, hoping that he felt my crushing presence, my every breath.

Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfuck–

"So how long are you staying in Seattle?"

The groan that threatened to rise out of me was swallowed with another mouthful of coffee. In a very short amount of time, I debated whether it was humanly possible to drown myself with this little cup–– it didn't seem impossible did it? 

What did seem impossible, on the other hand, was getting through this morning without losing my sanity.

I hated the fact that she seemed genuinely interested in my plans. My mind was asking whether she had ulterior motives, whether she was the sort of girl who made an extra effort with their boyfriend's ex just out of awareness. 

Maybe she wanted to befriend me to state some sort of distance between me and Mark, maybe it was the equivalent of pissing on something to show that you owned it–– maybe Lexie was trying to make it so clear how nice of a person she was? Maybe she was trying to make me feel bad–?

I cleared my throat.

"Uh," I avoided Mark, as I looked over at the brunette, "I'm staying here indefinitely."

I expected something. I expected some shift in her, at the back of her yes, the little telltale sign that she wasn't as squeaky clean as she seemed. There was no such thing as a perfect person. There was no such thing as a non-jealous, perfectly unbothered girlfriend–– I knew that, I'd tried to be that. I'd tried to be the cool girl that could handle indiscretion. 

I'd tried to smile through everything and pretend that I didn't see the way Mark's hand would dip a little too low on the backs of other women, as if he just wanted to get a rise out of me. I couldn't imagine how I would've felt standing in a room, knowing that the woman standing opposite me was a woman my ex-boyfriend had once claimed to love.

But no, Lexie just looked delighted. While her boyfriend's head raised to stare at me as if I'd just confessed to a murder, Lexie began rattling off pleasantries about how she was glad to have another woman in the house... about how between George, Derek and Alex, things had gotten a bit masculine. 

She even stopped and laughed and looked at Mark and commented about how he, being around more too, was adding to it, that she needed more women to keep her sane–– her laugh was nervous but she seemed so genuine.

I blinked.

Fuck, my stomach dipped as my smiled wavered even more.

Was this some sort of long-haul psychological game? I hated that I couldn't tell. I didn't want her just to be nice. I wanted her to give me a reason to hate her. It would be so much easier that way.

I looked over at Mark.

A muscle was tensed in his jaw, I could see it tremble as Lexie's rambling about how I'd love this city, faded into background music. I didn't shy away from his stare, I faced it, watching as the man realised that I wasn't just going to disappear off of the face of the earth like I'd told him I would. 

I hadn't gone with Addison and I hadn't gone on my own volition–– I'd stayed, even though Mark so clearly didn't want me here.

He didn't dictate what I did. He couldn't scare me out of Seattle, He couldn't make me run like he had back in New York. What was he gonna do? Sleep with Addison? Drop me off at a rehab clinic and make them hold me like a prisoner until I broke in half? Yeah, his hand was pretty limited.

But mine wasn't.

Lexie walked around me as I held Mark's gaze, lip on my mug as I could distantly hear every single thought that went through that mans head. 

He was the first person to look away, his face twisting with slight annoyance as he got to his feet. As I thought about all of the wonderful things I could do to him, make his life beyond difficult and stormy, Seattle seemed to have another silver lining. Of course, this breakfast had been torture and Lexie Grey was like an exhausting puzzle that I couldn't understand for the life of me–– but by god, I knew that me turning up in this city, me standing in this kitchen and making him and his girlfriend coffee, was the worst thing that Mark had ever witnessed.

Mark kept a perimeter around me, skirting around the edge of the kitchen to dump his bowl under the faucet. 

His girlfriend hummed lightly and happily, her arms wrapping around him as he stood, back turned to me as he rinsed out the remnants of his breakfast. He seemed so hyper aware of my presence and that made me smile–– 

I didn't miss the slight flinch in his muscles as Lexie pressed a kiss to his cheek, her good mood not meeting the vague hostility of the space between us.

I didn't speak. I just walked past them, taking my coffee and my toast and my little paperback scattered with little notes Charlie had left in the margin. It was a thriller, an interesting read about a woman killing her husband with a leg of lamb and cooking the murder weapon as dinner for the detectives on the case.

Of course, I thought to myself as I sat down in the chair Mark had only just vacated, the seat still warm from a man whose body I had once had memorised, There was no such thing as a perfect person, but just maybe there was such thing as a perfect crime.

When Mark turned back around to face the dining table, he was faced with the sight of me sat there, chin dipped and eyes lazily roaming the newspaper he'd just left behind. I'd assumed his role so quietly and unanimously and didn't even bother to look up as he passed, his girlfriend trailing behind him as I settled in for what I was so sure, now was going to be a very peaceful morning.

"Have a good day," Lexie chirped with all of the sunshine of a summer's morning.

My lip twitched as Mark avoided my prying gaze.

"You too."

***

────── By the time I'd gotten to the Psychiatry department, there was someone sat inside my office, impatiently waiting for me.

I was nonchalant. Purse over my shoulder, phone in my hand. I was texting Charlie, but as I went to unlock my door, I realised that it was already open. My first thought was how sure I was that I'd locked it. My second was that Mark Sloan was a slippery bastard.

I groaned at the sight of him. "What do you want?"

Mark was sitting in my chair, his arms crossed over his chest and body language clean and rather blasé. He was dressed in his dark blue scrubs, with his lab-coat strung over the chair that I'd spent my session with Alex in, making me think that he fancied it for himself. In front of him, in between a stack of neatly pressed papers and a tape dispenser, was two cups of coffee from the hospital coffee cart, making me raise an eyebrow. 

He met my eye, giving me a tight smile as I kept my distance, not quite sure what he was doing here.

What I was sure of, however, was the fact that the nearer I got to him, the stronger the urge was to pick up the second chair and whack him across the head with it, grew. 

My footsteps were carefully placed, my heeled shoes giving me a slightly height advantage as Mark was sat down in quite a low chair; he'd always been the taller one out of the two of us, although I just about met his chin with the top of my head. I lingered on that thought, imagining how satisfying it would be to throw my head back and make contact with his stellar jawline.

"I bought you coffee."

He sounded optimistic, but the expression withered away slowly as I held up my Starbucks cup wordlessly, shaking it to emphasise the slosh of the liquid. I blinked at him, stuck on the threshold, tempted just to turn around and leave.

"You still take your coffee black, don't you?" His brow creased with a moment of insecurity. He wasn't sure about me anymore. I didn't reply. "One sugar?"

I did.

He'd made himself at home possibly before I even had in this office. The paint was still fresh and here he was, sitting there as if he'd fit perfectly into any office. I looked away as he lifted the second coffee to his lips, taking a loud sip and giving me a wide, cheerful smile.

This wasn't right.

"Mark." His name was harder to say than I'd anticipated, "What do you want?"

"I want to talk." He said finally, picking up the coffee in front of him and holding it out to me. I was practically on the other side of the room from him, just like I'd been in the elevator. I didn't want to be near him, I didn't want to smell his cologne and listen to his voice, I didn't want to talk. "I brought coffee as a peace-offering, I guess."

"Not going to happen," I stated monotonously and turned away, tempted to just turn and leave. But I couldn't--- Mark was standing right in front of a load of paper-work which I needed to get done by the end of the hour. "Coffee is not the way that you're going dupe me into forgiving you for cheating on me with my own sister--"

He went to interrupt.

"Don't be naive," I said quietly, hanging my coat on the back of my door and fully intending on getting him to leave as soon as possible. "You're not naive, you're Mark Sloan."

"And you're Elizabeth Montgomery." I didn't like the way he said my full name, I'd never liked the way he'd been able to say my full name so perfectly that the syllables seemed to melt off his tongue. I bowed my head as I placed my handbag alongside my food and my room-keys on an end table by the door. "I'm not naive, I know what you're like. You're not naive too, right?"

My skin prickled with dislike.

"You don't know anything about me." I said quickly, my eyes narrowing as I turned my head to glower at him heatedly. Mark barely batted an eyelash as I revved up suddenly. "Not anymore Mark, don't act like you know me."

"But I do know you, Beth." Mark said, completely calm. "I knew you for fifteen years, that's a long time isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is." I replied. "And all that time-- that six years of a... whatever relationship we had... didn't stop you from fucking Addie, did it?"

Mark didn't react to the bait, instead, he just lifted his coffee back to his lips and took a long drag of caffeine. He hadn't changed, just one glance at him and I knew that he was exactly the same he had been back in New York, self-obsessed and consumed by his desires. 

If I was right and he hadn't changed, I also knew what was in his coffee cup was a Caramel Macchiato. He leant back on my chair, giving me a long look which burnt through every inch of me as I folded my arms over my chest chastely. I met his gaze in a challenge.

"I like the new office," Mark said after a pregnant pause, his eyes finally tearing away from me and wandering around the room. I pretended to ignore me, checking my phone instead. "It's a little dingy, the colour scheme's off but it's cosy."

I had 14 messages and 5 missed calls. They were from assorted co-workers and friends. 5 of the messages and 4 of the missed calls were from Charlie. I almost considered listening to the messages he'd left on my voicemail. But I refrained, letting a slight frown heavy down the lower proportion of my face. Mark paused in between his ramblings.

"You good?" He actually sounded slightly concerned, but I looked upwards, taking a deep breath and switching that frown for a scowl. He noticed my change in expression and turned his attention to the light fixings. "You know- I have a friend in LA who could install a nice mood lighting to really pull this room together."

"Mark, stop rambling." I grilled out woodenly. "You're full of crap."

I put my phone down back into my bag and walked towards him. Mark looked up at me, watching as I leant over and took the coffee he'd bought for me, holding it in my fingers and feeling the warmth seep through the cup. It wasn't as hot as I'd expected, which suggested that Mark had been sat in here for some time, waiting for me to appear. I raised it to my lips with a very grim smile.

He might've been a cheating bastard, but he wasn't a homicidal cheating bastard.

"I'd like to correct you," Mark commented suavely, his eyes glimmering with mischief. "That crap is all charm. East-coast, stellar charm. Maybe you don't have that sort of stuff back in Connecticut, but I've been told its very effective." I rolled my eyes, a look of clear disgust written across my face.

"Oh I know," I muttered grimly. "I'm very familiar-- it's not going to work on me... but it worked on Addison didn't it?"

I brought the coffee Mark had purchased to my lips and swashed the drink about in my mouth. It wasn't bad coffee, I'd give him that, but it wasn't the warmest of drinks. It was even nicer coupled with the look on his face; I watched it sour very slowly as I brought forwards the elephant in the room. 

It was Addison shaped and dimmed the joke that he was about to fire out from his rolodex of 'East-coast stellar charm'. I met his eyes and just smiled, the expression causing my cheeks to twitch.

Mark sighed. "Can you not bring up Addison like that... I just want to talk--"

"I thought we weren't talking." My voice was hard, fringed by the irritation that I was reluctant to show. I didn't like being agitated all the time, and every time I opened my mouth and Mark was there, all I wanted to was scream at him. "Because I like not talking."

"We need to talk," Mark sighed, shaking his head as I raised a single eyebrow. "About New York, about you being here and about you causing mayhem-" I opened my mouth to retort, but Mark cut me short. "I know you. Beth. You say I don't but I do-- You seem to forget that I know you as well as you know me."

A beat passed. One that was filled with a heated glare on my side. He held my gaze without any fear-- oh fuck you, I was saying inwardly. But outwardly, I just turned my back on him and flipped my hair over my shoulder.

Begrudgingly, I sat down. It was less out of respect for my asshat of an ex-boyfriend and more due to the fact that the heels on my feet were causing immense pain. Mark didn't even raise an eyebrow when I kicked my heels off. He seemed more surprised that I'd actually listened to him and sat down. 

When I looked up at him he was grinning; it was in an almost patronising way, as if he was a principal about to tell off a misbehaving student. The fact that I was sat opposite my own desk didn't help either. He lounged in my chair as if he owned the whole place.

Bastard.

"I'm going to give out a few disclaimers," I said tiredly, throwing out a hand as if he was going to have a few things to argue about. "One, I don't give a shit about anything you have to say. Two, this coffee is absolute shit and it's really not helping my mood."

"Okay." He said it slowly, nodding his head as if they were things he could deal with.

"Oh, I'm not finished," I said very quickly, "I'm also grouchy. I'm sitting because my feet hurt, not because you want me to."

"And yet you haven't called me an asshole yet." Mark joked, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. "I think that's a record."

"Don't make me out to be a brat." I narrowed my eyes. "I'm not a brat."

Mark held up his hands, almost in defence, but I could tell that he was being sarcastic. If there was one trait that we shared equally, it was the fact that we were both sarcastic assholes that could pull a witty one-liner out of thin air. He let out a laugh. I couldn't tell whether it was miffed or not.

"C'mon Beth, can't you at least appreciate the fact that I'm here, ready to talk about this?" I raised my head and looked at him for a while, my eyes running over every plane of his face. His eyes were steely, mouth in a thin line as his pale skin shifted with every movement of the muscles underneath. "Like I said, we're going to sit here and talk about this like adults."

"What am I to you, exactly?" I asked, my tone curt. Here goes the fuse. He frowned at me. "Some sort of... damage control?"

"I don't--"

"No, really," I said tightly. "What did you expect? Did you think that I'd just turn up here and we'd be best friends? Is that really what you think is going to happen?"

He seemed to pause, thinking for a second, his jaw clenching. I watched the thoughts spin around his head, ricocheting off of whatever other delusions he had crammed in there. I took a lengthy sip of my coffee, finding his silence quite nice, admittedly. 

Mark had always been a conversation dominator; this window of quiet was very welcome. It also answered my question.

"In all honesty," Mark's face contorted a little bit. He wiped his palms on his thighs and shook his head. "I don't know what I expected-- this isn't exactly something you just know how to deal with--"

My eyes narrowed. "I thought you would be very familiar with this situation." There was a lot of heat behind the way I smiled at him, watching the sigh rip its way out of his body. "I'm just one woman in the legacy of people you've fucked over, right?"

There was no give away that any of my words had particularly resonated with him. It was almost disappointing-- back in New York we'd been really good at arguing with each other. It'd been almost like a sport or a challenge. 

We'd gotten so good at hurting each other (alongside the extremely angry sex afterwards) that anything else had fallen short. But no, staring at Mark was like watching a wall dry. There was no anger, no passion, nothing--

I'll take the easy victory.

"Like I said before," I shifted into a more comfortable position on my chair. "I like not talking. It allows me to ignore you, which I'm perfectly happy to do... by the way. I don't particularly feel like taking a walk down memory lane--"

Mark scoffed lightly. "Right, okay."

I didn't like his tone. I'd handled this with grace and decorum (or so I was convinced, in all honesty, I didn't know how the hell to do things gracefully) and he was just scoffing at me. It made me wonder whether he'd completely forgotten, throughout the last five years, that we were both equally difficult to reason with. 

I'd really believed that offering to just ignore him was a favour, a blessing to say the least-- Mark was acting as if I'd just slammed a door in his face.

"What?" I raised an eyebrow, folding my arms over my chest.

"You want to just ignore me?" He repeated, rubbing a hand over his chin. His eyes burned holes in my nonchalant nod. "That's very mature."

"Mature?" It was my turn to parrot his words, head twisting to the side as he assumed the slow nods. He was still chuckling at me, chuckling at me as I kissed my teeth. "You want to talk about maturity... you want to talk like adults?" My eyebrows raised higher and higher with every syllable. "Was Addie more mature than me? Is that why you liked her?"

The sigh that left his body could've easily powered a machine straight out of the industrial revolution. It was heavy, carrying the weight of the last five years of unspoken conflict. I raised my chin, eyes sparkling as I watched his shoulders sag slightly.

Out of the corner of my eye, my phone buzzed with a call.

"Beth."

He said it in an annoyed way. It was the equivalent of Addison's 'you're being difficult Beth'. My jaw clenched as he massaged his forehead, shoulders hunching in my chair. I wanted to be difficult. I wanted to make sure that he understood that while he was off parading the world, I'd spent the last five years desperately rebuilding myself from the person he'd thrown out of his apartment.

"Was she pretty?" I decided to push on it. I couldn't help myself. It was like pressing against a bruise. It gave me a mixture of pain and sadistic joy watching the vein in Mark's forehead throb. "Was she beautiful? Was she your perfect woman? Was she a really good kisser? A good lay? Did she... I don't know... maturely file your taxes?"

"Really?" He cut me off, shaking his head slowly and running his hands through his hair. "I'm trying to have an adult conversation here."

"Maybe you should have it with Addie then," I shrugged, gazing down at the coffee in my hands and trying to shut out the icy feeling in my chest. It still lingered, even after all this time. "People tend to choose her... over me anyway so-"

"Can we just move on from that and focus on now?"

Move on? At this moment, he appeared extremely agitated, far more than I was. I had a notoriously short fuse, but even he was beating me to the big angry emotion first. I blinked at him, took a very nonchalant drag of coffee and chuckled.

"Mark, this isn't just... a forgotten anniversary or something," I said matter-of-factly. "You had an affair while I was in rehab. You slept with my sister for six months, allowed her to fuck me over-- and then left me for her." My words were punctuated with a slightly unhinged giggle. "You left me for Addie."

He stared at me.

"I know that," His voice seemed to catch a little bit at the back of his throat. "I know you're upset--"

"Upset?" I chuckled, eyebrows raising. "Okay."

"Beth I don't think--"

"Am I not allowed to be upset?

I couldn't exactly wrap my head around what he was implying. I squinted over at him as he just stared and stared and stared. There were words on the edge of my tongue that fell into a very emotional angry category. My head was spinning over all of the things that I'd always wished I'd said to his dumb face.

He wanted to move on? He wanted to focus on the now? Who the fuck was this guy? 

The Mark I knew was probably one of the most spiteful bastards I'd ever known. He didn't forget things, he didn't push them aside, he was as equally as bad as me at this whole forgiveness thing. That was why he didn't meet my eye as I touched on some of the really shit times; they were times that we'd both done and said some very, very fucked up things.

"It's been five years-"

"I'm aware," I said coolly. "Five years... It must have been nice for you. Did you and Addison get everything you hoped for?"

"Beth-"

"No, I'm serious."

The humour dropped form my voice and I cocked my head to the side. The power-balance had been off from the start; Mark sat behind my desk like a conceited asshole had set us off on the wrong foot. But now I leant towards him, watching the temper simmer in his eyes. I didn't need a desk to make myself look big.

"I assume it must've all been worth it, right?" I threw in a condescending smile for good measure, "Screwing over both me and Derek must have been so worth it... all for Addison, wow."

He didn't say anything.

So I resumed my questions: "Was it romantic? Did you guys get off on it? I'm sure it must have been a lovely aphrodisiac."

Again, radio silence.

"Was she everything you dreamed of and more?"

I watched a muscle jump in his jump.

"Beth I don't think-"

"I mean... I knew you had a thing for mature women after the whole Petunia thing," My voice was bitter, shaking my head ruthlessly as I realised, truly, how fucked this whole situation was. "But Addie... I did not see that coming--"

"Elizabeth."

The full name. Wow. 

I raised my eyes to stare at him. I hadn't noticed the way that every single muscle in his body seemed to clench. That was the exact moment that I realised he probably wasn't going to say anything about Addison at all. 

I wasn't particularly surprised. His definition of an adult, mature conversation probably didn't even touch on important things at all. 

I didn't miss the way that he only cut me short (with clear and palpable warning) when Petunia's name came into conversation. It came hand-in-hand with a dark look of torn realisation in his eye, as if he was remembering how much we did know about each other.

"What?" I asked plainly, despite the fact we both knew exactly how far I'd tunnelled under his skin. I held the coffee in my hand as if it was a glass of wine from Manhattan ten years ago. "You're pretty quiet for someone who wants to talk."

Briefly, he closed his eyes. He rubbed at his temple, long and hard.

"I almost forgot how much of a pain in the ass you can be," Mark said those words as if they were supposed to raise something out of me. Unluckily for him, I'd been dealt much worse over the years; the numb chuckle that tumbled out of me caused him to shake his head.

"I almost forgot that you're an insensitive asshole but..." I raised my coffee as if in a toast. "Here we are, babe."

Babe.

"There's the asshole." He noted, calling back to what he'd said a couple of moments previously. I just grinned shamelessly. He wasn't wrong. We knew each other more than we knew ourselves-- but we knew the people we'd been half a decade ago. Were we the same people? I doubted it. "I've been waiting five years for you to call me that again."

My lips twitched. "I didn't want to disappoint."

Disappointment was definitely a topic we were going to bring up later. I had every conversation topic listed as if in a glossary of the last ten years of my life. 

Addison was in there; as was betrayal, my failed surgical career and the fact that he'd completely ruined the island of Manhattan for me. It was as if I was constantly carrying around a dictionary of Beth and Mark's Greatest Hits (note the sarcasm) on my shoulders. There were a lot of entries. A lot of conversations we'd never had...

"Let me guess," I said, using a window of silence in which Mark seemed to regret even attempting to have an 'adult' conversation. "You want to talk about your new girlfriend... Lexie, right?"

Was it crazy to say I deeply enjoyed the way Mark seemed to tense at the sound of her name? I did. It filled my with a deep sense of amusement and pleasure. 

It was the sort of rush I hadn't felt since my drug misuse days. The knotting of his muscles, the way he suddenly look far too small for my desk chair-- oh, I revelled in the way I caught him right before he'd even had the chance to speak.

"Like I said," My words seemed to cause a chill to run across his skin. I thoroughly enjoyed that too. "Damage control."

I had a sneaky suspicion that Mark's definition of 'focusing on [the] now' was far more invested in self-preservation than it was clearing the air. If he wanted a peace treaty he would've tried harder years ago. He would've stuck around and actually faced me when I'd given him the chance-- but no, he'd trailed off back into Addison's bed like a goddamn coward. 

This conversation was damage control, I could've been able to tell anyone that from the moment he'd tried to speak to me in that bar. He'd always been far too self involved to avoid prioritising himself over everyone else... and, in this situation Lexie too. 

It made me think about that morning, how he'd tensed at breakfast and how I'd lingered in the background like a wanton puzzle piece that didn't fit anywhere in the Grey household.

"I almost feel bad for you both," My tone caused his head to tilt to the side. "It must not be easy for you to live in the same house as your ex-girlfriend? It must be so hard for Lexie..." I trailed off once I saw the twist of his face. "Oh, she doesn't know?"

"Leave her out of this."

I pressed my lips together, trying my best not to chuckle. It was quite bizarre, watching a protective moment piece itself together amongst the hole that everything had left behind. I found it amusing, but also bittersweet. It left me wondering whether Mark had ever cared enough about me to act like this; he sure as hell hadn't when everything had fallen apart. He seemed so triggered by the mention of her name. It was as if it'd set off some sort of emergency response-- he hadn't even let me finish my sentence.

It also made me wonder what this was? Hadn't he received the memo? Had the five years of complete radio silence and then my insistence to keep our distances said anything at all? 

The thought of there being anything for Lexie Grey to caught up with genuinely broke me out in hives. I really did not want anything to do with this man; all I really wanted was him to get the hell out of my office.

"I'm not my sister, I don't play dirty," I said tightly. I felt defensive where his voice became clipped. I squeezed the sides of the coffee cup in front of me and kissed my teeth. "I'm not here to return the favour and ruin your life, Mark-"

"So you just stayed in Seattle for a vacation?"

He sounded skeptical. I didn't exactly blame him. He said the word 'vacation' with a scoff. We both knew that I never took vacations; back in New York I'd never given myself a single chance to breathe. We'd never had time to ourselves as I'd constantly been drowning in my career, really redefining the word 'workaholic' and pushing it to it's extreme. He was making fun of me, making fun of the fact that I'd ended up in the exact same hospital that he'd been working in for (apparently) the past year or so.

I laughed. "I stayed because, we both know, I'm not exactly employable material. I take what I can get. People take one look at the big blind spot in my resume and think bad news."

He knew exactly what I was referring to. I could see it in the way his shoulders seemed to bunch. I was referring to the fall out, to the years following New York where I'd really been put through the ringer-- I'd gone through a lot more shit than he gave me credit for, most of which I was planning on hiding from him for as long as humanly possible.

"I'm here because I have a job-- It's not personal."

It's not personal. Everything with Mark had always felt very personal. It's what he'd said to me once after he'd slept with some random wide-eyed barfly. It's not personal. It's not personal. Everything had always felt more than personal.

I stated it as it was. I'd been hired now. I'd seen Seattle as some sort of golden beacon where I could finally push New York behind me and actually start gaining traction in my career. A temporary contract suited me well. No ties. Nothing to keep me here if, for any reason, I needed to up and leave ASAP.

"Psychiatry," Mark jerked his head around the room almost thoughtfully. "When Derek mentioned it I thought he was joking--"

"Yeah well," I blinked at him, my smile wide and plastic. "Surgery wasn't exactly an option for me...no thanks to you, of course."

I wondered whether he ever regretted the mess he'd made of my life? Probably not, I concluded as I watched the time tick over in his eyes. Sometimes it felt like all of Mark's emotions were some practiced lines fed to him by his own narcissism and sociopathy.

I knew from the look on his face that we weren't going to talk about the complete dissolution of my surgical career today. Another bookmark in my dictionary of argument topics, saved for a later date. So I decided to go for the second best thing to stoke up an argument:

"Lexie's cute."

Again, the physical response was incredible. It felt as though I was a scientist in an early psychology experiment prodding a small mammals with tasers. 

Mark's face twisted considerably and a low storm cloud seemed to brew across his head. He must've been really into her. He must've really, really liked this girl. Honestly, the look in his eyes almost impressed me; she had this guy whipped. How nice that must be to experience.

"I mean it," I leant back in my chair and tilted my head to the side. "She's got this whole... innocent doe eye thing going on. It's almost angelic... a breath of fresh air--"

"Beth," Again, the warning flashed. I found it almost exciting. I'd always liked to play with fire. "I meant it too when I said leave her out of this. I thought you weren't going to play dirty?"

A mouthful of coffee and then I grinned, nothing but pure distaste and hatred bubbling up inside me. "You and I have very different definitions of dirty."

"I don't know why I'm even surprised," Mark seemed to talk mostly to himself, rubbing a tired palm across his face as I just watched, deeply amused. "You and Addie are exactly the same--"

"Oh," I said spitefully. "Yeah, I've heard that it's an easy mixup to make-- it's apparently extremely easy to stick your dick into the wrong sister--"

"No, I'm wrong," He seemed to shake his head at me. My lips flickered into yet another smile. His expression was stoney and his eyes were narrowed. I chuckled to myself. "You were always just a tinier bit bitchier than she was."

"I always loved it when you talked dirty to me, Mark."

I took every comment without even batting an eyelash. Mark frowned deeply as I got to my feet, deciding that my thought of being able to sit and look all nice and obedient was not going to work. I stood from the chair and spinned my office keys on my forefinger, wondering whether I should just leave the office and come back later. 

I left the lukewarm coffee on the desk. I could feel his eyes heavy on my back as I unlocked one of my filing cabinets, grabbing the files for one of my upcoming patients.

I could tell that he was thinking about asking a question. He'd always been such a loud thinker; the thought of someone's thoughts being loud sounded so dumb, but Mark's speaking voice was loud too, it was only natural for his train of thought to be too. I could hear them clashing around in his dumb fat head. He wasn't often indecisive or hesitant, and it gave me good reason to anticipate what he wanted to say next.

"I didn't come to Seattle for you."

I spoke with my back turned to him. I was earnestly actually trying to make up for the lost time (and the lost brain cells) that I'd lost during this tragic conversation. I flipped through a patient's file, feeling the dynamic in the room shift as Mark let out a long breath. I could almost feel the way my words crawled under his skin and settled there, answering the question that he couldn't find the balls to say.

I'd always been the one who said the unsaid in the relationship.

When I faced him, Mark was staring at the clock above the door.

"I don't give a rats ass what you do with your shitty love life, Mark," I spoke with intent, hoping to high heavens that he actually listened to what I had to say. "I did not come here for you and I sure as hell did not stay. 

This is not New York. I am not here bearing forgiveness or an attempt to rekindle some bullshit infatuation from six years ago. If you expect that then yes, I'm going to disappoint. And I really do intend to disappoint."

I had enough shit to deal with. I had my own love life. I had a guy back in Indonesia who had thought that proposing to a girl with commitment issues was a very sensible decision to make. (Whenever I thought about Charlie I just was filled with a deep sense of anxiety, anxiety centred around loving and being loved far too much).

I slapped the medical file down onto my desk, causing Mark to flinch as if he'd forgotten that I was in the room. This time, he met my eyes head on and we stared at each other-- tense and extremely volatile. I watched the mirth bubble it's way up his throat.

"Does that answer your question?" I raised an eyebrow at him, my words appearing extremely patronising and condescending. I could practically pinpoint the moment his ego decided to double in size.

"Not exactly-"

I blinked at him.

"Wow, I really did forget how much of an conceited ass you are," The words fell out in a miffed laugh. "You really are a fucking piece of work, aren't you?"

"I know you," Mark grilled out between slightly gritted teeth. He shook his head from side to side as if I was the most tiresome person on the planet. My response was just incredulousness. "You can be very difficult when you want to be."

Difficult? I felt like laughing.

"Are we missing the whole part where you ended our relationship so you could fuck my sister, or is addiction the only thing that falls under difficult, Mark?" I couldn't really believe what he was thinking. I blinked at him and wondered what was going on in that head of his. "Or am I difficult because I'm not passive and letting you walk all over me? Which one is it?"

He sighed angrily.

"You don't listen."

"And you don't talk," I answered quickly, face twitching as I thought about the shit show our relationship had been towards the end. "I thought you wanted a conversation today and all you have been is silent. Says it all, really, doesn't it? So much for an adult."

We stared at each other in a stretch of silence that felt too invasive. The space in between us felt extremely unfamiliar and not too far off from a nomads land. His hand gripped his chin tightly and his eyes drilled into mine with a intensity that made my skin crawl.

I'd forgotten how dangerous Mark thinking was.

Maybe he was thinking about how we'd done this before. I'd ran away from this relationship three times. The third time I'd been determined to make it permanent. Derek Shepherd, overcome by emotion and powering through a thunderstorm, telling me down the landline that he'd just found his wife and my boyfriend in bed.

This wasn't like the times I'd ran away, it was different and Mark could see that now. I'd come back those times, I'd turned up on his doorstep with tears in my eyes and an opportunity for forgiveness on my shoulders. I'd been welcomed with open arms both times.

Maybe that was what Mark couldn't get his mind around. I'd come to Seattle but not for him. I didn't need anything from him. 

I didn't want anything from him at all-- I hadn't stayed with the intention of revenge... However, the longer I sat here and festered in his silence, the more and more I remembered the pep talk I'd given myself when I'd first discovered Mark was here.

Difficult? I could give him difficult.

"Great," I said in response to his lack of words. "Great talk. Very mature... Can I have my office back now, Mark?"

I was fully prepared to walk out if he didn't feel like moving. I leant against the desk and smiled condescendingly at him, hoping that he'd get the hint and leave before my temper flared up too much. I didn't like getting angry, I didn't like feeling so much hatred towards this man... but I did. I hoped that he could sense that.

"You can't just avoid me..." Mark said tightly, his jaw clenched. He didn't show any signs of leaving. "Beth, we need to handle this like adults--"

"Stop firing off crap about being adults," I interjected, "I'm not avoiding you, I'm working. You of all people can understand how work gets in the way of personal matters."

The proximity between me and Mark had my stomach tumbling, with illness and reminisce of all of those times we'd been so close and intimate. I pulled away as soon as my fingers had sought out the stash of documents I needed to fill out and I plucked the biro from my pocket. Taking a few steps back, I shook my head slowly as Mark looked up at me with his heated, blue eyes.

"Why?" I asked in a small voice. "Why now? Why do you want to talk about this now that I'm here in Seattle? I gave you ample chance to talk about this back in New York. Fuck-- I don't want to talk about this now, maybe not ever- I'm here to work, Mark, not figure some petty shit out."

"Petty?"

"Yes, petty." I grilled out, putting on emphasis on the fact that I was completely done with his nonsense. "It's petty for you to think that we could figure this out so easily. It's petty for someone to sleep with two sisters and continue to tell one of them that they love them for all that time."

"Derek forgave Addison." Mark countered, sounding as if he'd completely figured this whole thing out. "They were able to figure this out, it might have taken a while, but now they're okay."

I took a deep breath.

"Well, I don't want to be okay, okay?" I rolled my eyes at him. My tone was matter-of-fact and very petty. I was feeling petty. I wanted to be petty. I wanted to tell Mark to shove his adult talk up his ass and choke on it.

"Little Montgomery-"

"Don't call me that," I said suddenly. For a moment, Mark's face contorted. It was quick, an almost a flash, but I could see that he saw my anger behind the slightly jittery girl in front of him.

Leaving sounded like a brilliant idea.

"I'm going to take these documents and do something actually beneficial for my life." I turned my back on Mark, slipping back into my heels despite how much my feet protested. "I won't lock the door but when I return, I damn well hope that you've left or so help me, Sloan."

And then I left, just like that.