Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟱𝟯 beth

𝙇𝙄𝙄𝙄.
"BETH"

──────

um a big trigger warning

a lot of death, a lot blood, a lot of angst
would not recommend reading it honestly

MARK HAD WATCHED her die before.

Back then it had been slow. 

As subtle and silent as closing your eyes and simply drifting to sleep. He'd watched her slice herself into little cuttings like a flower that was too pretty to be alone. 

She'd wilted and withered and he'd watched it happen. 

He hadn't been able to look away. 

He'd been too close to it, too intimately linked to the way that the light seemed to dwindle in her eyes and her shoulders slowly sagged.

She'd teetered and fell and fell hard. He'd been there, he'd witnessed it.

Death had started the day he'd found the bottle of pills at the bottom of her purse. She'd asked him to find her apartment keys. He'd rifled through and pulled them out, that little screw cap with that little label. 

She'd walked in and caught him frowning at them. She'd very noticeably halted.

"Adderall," Beth had said. 

It was said very quietly, casually and with a shrug of her shoulders, but she hadn't been able to meet his eyes. There'd been a brief pause and she'd kept walking. 

She'd skirted around him, pulled her purse out of his hands and taken the pills too. "I've been having some trouble focusing at work— it's no big deal."

He'd stood there and just stared at her. "Where did you get them from?"

"A doctor in Brooklyn," She'd shrugged. Again. "It's really no big deal— they just help me keep up with everything. Juggling all of this work is getting a bit," A brief grimace as she stuffed the bottle to the bottom of her bag again and shoved it on a hanger, "A bit... heavy."

No big deal had spiralled. It'd become a very big deal. It'd become the biggest deal in Beth's life. It'd consumed her and he'd just stood and watched. He'd watched that happen and now, now he was watching this.

Heavy. What felt heavy was the feeling that Mark had just watching Lexie's face.

He had to look at the floor. He couldn't bring himself to look anywhere else.

But then he couldn't look anywhere at all— he squeezed his eyes closed, tried to organise his thoughts and tried to ground himself. His hands were shaking very slightly. 

A telltale tremor like the beginning of an earthquake. 

He licked his lips, he opened his mouth and then he closed it. When he opened his eyes, he only allowed himself to look at Alex.

The surgical resident was gazing back at him. 

His head was propped on the pillow. His eyes were dark, watery and wary. He was still bleeding, he was still suffering— and he was staring at the look on Mark's face. 

Everyone was. 

Mark could feel all of them just staring at him.

Beth wasn't looking. Her eyes were shut. Her eyes were closed as if she was lying in an open casket. She wasn't looking but they were— Two was a crowd. 

They were waiting for him, waiting for him to tell them what to do. He was stock still.

"Mark."

Lexie was still covered in blood. 

No matter how hard Mark tried to avoid it, she was still on her knees, looking at him with her doe eyes and her concerned frown. Looking— he wished she'd stop looking. 

She was in the process of replacing her gloves but tears still tracked their way down her porcelain cheeks. But she was staring at him— Stop staring. He wished she'd stop staring.

"Yes?" His voice was breathy but it was still there. 

He couldn't— He wouldn't— he didn't want to risk anything else.

He bowed his head. His hands were trembling. He was a surgeon. 

His hands didn't shake. His hands had never shook like this before.

"What should I do?" She sounded small. 

It was as if her voice was coming out of a child. A very scared and shaken child. 

But, she was moving. He was still. 

She was moving and picking up things, trying to stop the bleeding. His mind wasn't moving. 

Lexie was moving. Lexie was trying. Mark was stuck. 

Lexie spoke: "I-I don't know what to do."

Mark couldn't find his voice.

That man on the sidewalk in Brooklyn. Mark had known what to do then. He'd barked orders at Beth as if he was a Trauma surgeon and she was his intern. They'd triaged and worked as hard as they could. They'd packed his chest, they'd found the bleeder, they'd pressed and pressed and pressed. The man had groaned, the man had passed out, the man had bled and bled and bled. The man had died. They'd sat there until the paramedics had come so that his corpse didn't feel lonely.

I don't know.

"What should I do?" Lexie repeated. 

She was still moving. She wouldn't stop. 

"I need to know what to do I—"

I don't know.

Mark couldn't remember the last time he didn't know. He'd gotten used to just knowing. 

Of course, there had been bumps in the road. Lexie, Addison, Sloan, Beth. 

His bumps had never felt like mountains. He knew everything, his ego demanded that of him. He'd spent half his childhood memorising biology textbooks so he could just look that effortlessly smart. 

He knew. He knew it all— but now, he didn't know what he needed to know—

I don't—

"Mark," Lexie's voice rose, "Look at me— Please— Please just look at me—"

He looked at her. His head rose at the sound of her tender, quite begging. 

There she was, blood red and pale. 

Her eyes were pleading. Her hands were still moving. 

She could see the strain in him, the effort it was taking him to wilt over like a bud with a snapped stalk. He was completely pale. His shoulders were hunched. She could tell that he was avoiding looking down. He could have seen her if he wanted to, but he couldn't bring himself to.

I don't— I won't—

"Look at me."

He was looking at her. He couldn't afford not to. 

At this precise moment, he didn't know what to do. 

He didn't know whether to blink or breathe, to panic or just... he couldn't think of an alternative.

"This is not Beth okay— it's anyone but Beth, you need to help me, Mark— this is not Beth. Imagine it's not Beth."

It is Beth. It is Beth. 

It's Beth. Beth. Beth. 

Not New York Beth but this New Beth that gets Psychology degrees and gets engaged to nice Boston boys. Seattle Beth who doesn't drink and doesn't smoke (much) and doesn't look at him funny. The New Beth that tells him that he doesn't need to apologise for leaving her for her sister. The Different Beth that gets shot by a fucking psychopath in the middle of a corridor.

What the fuck am I supposed to do?

They didn't have time for this. 

They didn't have time for Mark to falter, to hesitate or to stop completely. He needed to move— Beth needed him to move. There was so much blood and so little time. 

Lexie had thought that Alex was in a bad shape but Beth—

They'd switched.

Lexie had been a mess, she'd been shaking and crying and begging Mark to move Alex out of this stupid boardroom. Now, she was biting her emotions, reading the room. She was pressing gauze against Beth's chest and staring up at her ex-boyfriend. She could tell he wasn't okay. 

She knew him well enough to know that this was not okay— Mark was far from okay. But she was convincing him otherwise.

He started moving. A slow swallow. A very brief nod. He could almost feel his brain rattle around his skull with that movement.

Lexie's words seemed to trigger some sort of auto-pilot. His gloves were off, new gloves were on, he was taking steps forwards, steps over two legs, back turned away from Alex, eyes dead set on Lexie. She was nodding at him, encouraged by the fact that he'd done something other than freeze. 

She held gauze out to him.

Mark hesitated.

She looked back up, brow furrowing as the gauze just hung in between them. He wasn't taking it. Instead, he was just staring at it.

"Mark—"

"We'll need more than that," His voice was low. It was as if he was a video on a television that had been turned to near-mute. Lexie blinked, realisation filling her. The supplies were still outside, abandoned in the hallway. She stared at the bundle they had left. She inhaled sharply through her nose. "Start the transfusion on Karev— I'll sort—"

"No I—"

"I'll do it." She was struck by the insistence in his voice. 

Lexie moved out of the way, she swivelled and stepped across him. She watched as he gathered himself briefly and then looked down at the newest patient. She couldn't read his expression. 

He cleared his throat. "If she... if she crashes, just..."

Lexie nodded, even though he didn't finish.

If she crashes don't let her die.

***

She wasn't answering his calls.

He'd gone through three months of radio silence but this didn't compare to the last ten minutes.

There was a perimeter. There was a van labelled SWAT. There was the distinct feeling of bile at the back of his throat as he went through to answerphone again— it'd always very slightly annoyed him that Beth had never set up a message. 

He pressed the cell phone tightly against his ear, one hand on his hip and the other yanking at the roots of his hair.

"Pick up," He muttered under his breath. "Pick up, pick up, pick up—"

She didn't pick up. She hadn't picked up his last ten calls. At some point, Charlie was going to fill her voicemail and then he wouldn't have the comfort of her dial tone to hold him upright. He wasn't prepared for that moment. 

Andrew was phoning too, ever so often he'd get that 'line busy' notification and he'd feel his heart in his chest— but he couldn't stop phoning, just out of the purple e chance that she'd pick up.

Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.

"Doctor Perkins?" Someone was calling his name. He swivelled on his heel faster than he'd ever known was humanly possible. A familiar face was stood there, looking gravely concerned and bewildered. They were moving towards a police officer— "What's the situation?"

Charlie didn't know whether to be relieved as he saw Richard Webber approach the officer. 

The police officer held up his hands, stopping the ex-Chief of Surgery from getting any closer. Charlie's first instinct was to fall in step behind him. He flanked the surgeon as he attempted to look past the police tape and through at his hospital.

"Sir, you've got to step back—"

"Look, I'm Richard Webber. I'm-I'm the chief-" There was a brief falter. "I'm the former- Look, this is my hospital. What's going on?"

Charlie had only worked in this hospital once. His single patient that he'd worked on with had been with Richard. They'd officially met and shaken hands while Richard thanked him for his time, thanked him for coming into the hospital on short notice. 

He'd spent long enough with the man to know that he was fairly determined when he needed to be— the police officer must've been able to sense that too. They opened their mouth, shot a glance over their shoulder and then sighed.

"A shooter took down one of the doctors—" 

Richard's eyes widened and he looked over at Charlie. The psychiatrist just let out a very long, almost pained breath and turned on his heel, trying another call. He'd long abandoned trying to make sense of anything. 

"And we're not sure whether or not he's still inside."

He wasn't looking when Richard attempted to shove his way through, but, when he did notice, he was pleasantly surprised.

"No, sir, sir, sir—" The officer stepped in the way. "No one in, no one out. The S.W.A.T team is currently trying to get inside—"

"No one in, no one out?" Charlie's attention piqued at their words. He turned back around, shaking his head wildly and gesturing over at the idle ambulances. "Are you evacuating people? Are you getting them out of there?"

He'd never felt so helpless. Out of all of the years of sweeping up messes and building people's minds back up, he'd never thought that he would be watching one in real-time. It was a first that Charlie was not enjoying. It was making him antsy. 

He hadn't felt this little in a long time.

"The department policy is a lockdown—"

"I know that," Richard said sharply, "I wrote the damn policy—"

"Until we know who the shooter is, Where the shooter is, everyone stays in the same place. It's safer that way—"

Another call that didn't go through. Charlie felt like throwing his phone at the floor. There was a weight on his chest, one that told him that was something wrong and he couldn't shake it off.

"Those are my people in there..." Richard seemed to sense the danger in the air too. Everyone looked terrified. The people who'd managed to slip out in the chaos were now wide-eyed and pale, trembling on the curb. "If someone is shooting I'd—"

"My guys have this," The officer's voice was calm and metered. He forced the two doctors to look at him, trying his best to keep them calm. The air was filled with tension and neither of them were helping. "We do— We're going to take care of it. Okay?"

They exchanged a look. Richard's shoulders fell. Charlie could tell that the ex-Chief wanted to do something. Fuck, he wanted to do something too. 

They were so accustomed to being superheroes in their careers, saving the day and making everything better, that standing aside and just watching had never been their forte. Begrudgingly, Richard nodded.

"Okay."

But it wasn't okay. Charlie knew it wasn't okay. There was nothing okay about this situation. Richard seemed to notice the brief slip of composure on Charlie's face. He turned towards the younger man and let out a long breath, glancing upwards as a helicopter swung across the building.

There was nothing either of them could do. Neither of them even knew where to start. But there was something Charlie could do— he lifted the phone to his ear and tried again, pressing his lips into a thin line and trying his best to stay positive even when the dial tone filled his ears.

Pick up, he begged, pick up, pick up, pick up.

***

Beth looked as though she was sleeping.

She'd been shot in the chest. A perfect shot. Centre of her torso. Lexie couldn't tell how bad it was but she knew it was bad. Very bad. 

Bad enough for Beth to look pale and barely pieced together, almost like a shattered china doll. She felt so fragile— despite what Mark had said, Lexie couldn't bring herself to just leave her on the floor. 

Mark wasn't thinking right. Lexie resumed the assessment.

She tried to imagine that Beth was a patient who had come into the ER. She was nothing different from the man who'd been shot after his car accident this morning. So Lexie mimicked exactly what they'd done before.

Alex watched from the desk, his head moving to the side, watching as Lexie started stripping Beth down, exactly how they'd undressed Alex. She winced at the sound of the shirt ripping, it was surprisingly easy to rip when wet. She supposed that it had been white once, but now it was dark and clotted like everything else. 

She found the entrance wound, she pressed as much gauze as she could against the bare skin. It was just in the middle of her chest, a hole in her skin, a gaping reminder of what had just happened— Lexie glanced at her face.

In the background, Alex let out a groan, "She looks dead."

"Stop," Lexie shook her head, almost crying, "She's not dead."

He didn't reply.

She felt her eyes burn with tears again. He wasn't wrong. She was deathly pale and covered in so much blood that on a first glance, Lexie had thought that she was dead. 

When she'd seen Beth, lying in that corridor— Lexie had completely forgotten the hate between them. She'd choked on a sob, dropped to her knees with urgency and completely forgotten about the threat that loomed over this hospital like a storm cloud.

Her first instinct had been to help.

"Beth," Lexie had said, making eye contact with the psychiatrist as she took in long, pained breaths. Beth;s eyes had been wide then. "It's me— It-It's Lexie— I'm going to help—"

 She wanted to tell her that it was going to be okay. She was going to help. Beth hadn't replied, just stared at her with those shocked brown eyes. 

"I'm going to help—"

I'm going to help. I'm going to help. I've got to help--

She didn't know when Beth lost consciousness but she did know the panic she'd felt noticing it. She'd had to stop and check her pulse. Dead people didn't have heartbeats— and there it was. Beth wasn't dead, despite how convinced Alex was. She was holding on.

Lexie started grabbing things, retracing the exact steps that they'd taken with Alex. She prepped a chest tube, cleared as much of her skin as she could, sanitised everything she could see. The IV was inserted and hung. Her back was checked for an exit wound— there wasn't one. 

Ever so often, Alex would say something, remind her something that she needed to do in his pained haze. In return, she'd give him a watery, grateful smile.

Then Mark was back. 

The look on his face told her that he'd gathered himself in the brief time it'd taken him to locate the cart. 

She asked him whether he'd seen the man. He shook his head.

"Good thing too," Mark muttered, replacing his surgical gloves for the third time. 

His mood was stormier now. He wasn't calm. He was the hazy middle ground between together and not.

 "I would've given him a piece of my mind—" Then he jerked his head in the direction of their patient. "Is she...?"

Lexie exhaled, feeling the thrum of Beth's heartbeat under her fingers. "She's alive." He nodded. His lips were pressed in a thin line. "GSW to the chest, no exit wound. She's tacky at 120, 100 over 68... respirations at 16—"

Lexie watched his face as he took the chest tube that she'd prepared. She'd said all of the stats she'd collected with a nervous jump in her voice, one that wouldn't settle no matter what.

There was no comment on the way that Mark knelt down and seemed to flinch as he felt his pant leg wet with the blood that had sunk into the sheet. 

They needed to insert it just like they'd inserted Alex's. Mark seemed to hesitate, a scalpel in his hands and a slight hitch in his breath— Lexie inclined her head.

"It's not Beth," she said again. Her voice was firm. "It's not Beth."

But it is Beth, Mark wanted to say. She looked dead. It was Beth and she looked dead.

Mark had never envisioned himself having to insert a chest tube into her chest. Whenever he blinked he saw her pale face on the inside of his eyelids. 

It was Beth. It was Beth. It wasn't not Beth. 

No matter how many times Lexie said it, it was still her skin he was cutting and her blood staining his scrubs—

A low moan of pain escaped her lips and Mark found himself momentarily distracted by the movement of her lips. 

It was a brief sound but it filled him with an emotion that seemed between relief and despair— he took the surgical pads from Lexie and bit down hard on his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood. A thrust and he was pushing the chest tube inside.

Beth writhed slightly.

"Beth— we're putting a chest tube inside you," Lexie seemed the only one capable of speaking. She held onto her shoulder, watching as the gunshot victim seemed to dip in and out of consciousness. "It's only going to hurt for a bit, I promise—"

A grumbled wince, one that Beth appeared to choke on. Her muscles moved aimlessly. 

Lexie had to tighten her hold to stop Beth from jolting the precise angle of the tube.

Beth had never been good with pain. Mark knew that possibly better than anyone else on the planet. She'd once broken her nose while drunk. She'd fallen flat on her ass in the middle of an alleyway in downtown Manhattan. She'd turned up in the ER during one of his shifts and he'd exhaled and shook his head at the sight of her. 

Bloodstained face, tipsy sadness in her eyes. He'd found them a trauma room and he'd closed the door behind them, forever aware of prying eyes. She'd sat on that hospital bed and he'd made her sit still. She'd flinched at the sight of the needle in his hand. It'd never left him how absurd it was for a doctor like her to dread needles.

But that just was Beth.

She'd given him a look, exhaled through her nose and closed her eyes, wincing. "Are you sure you can't just kiss it better or some shit?"

He'd just shook his head with a laugh, "That would be a nice superpower."

It would have been a handy superpower.

The sound Beth let out as Mark forced a tube into her body made his eyes water. He blinked wildly, avoiding Lexie as she checked Beth's stats the whole time.

Lexie had packed the chest wound well, it didn't look like Beth was bleeding anymore. She'd even sealed it too, a further precaution to make sure that she didn't suffer a collapsed lung. 

She'd done a good job and now, knowing that Mark had it somewhat under control— she was rifling through the cart, looking for things to treat the two patients they'd unknowingly admitted. 

As Lexie administered some pain medication to her boyfriend, Mark let out a breath, his shoulders sagging.

Any surgeon knew that a gunshot between the breast and the pelvis needed surgery. She was lucky it hadn't been an inch higher, the chances of a good outcome started to get hazy the closer it inched to the heart. 

Both Alex and Beth were precarious; they would both need surgery at some point.

Now, the job fell to him and Lexie. They needed to keep them alive long enough for them to get the hell out of this place.

"There's enough for Beth," Lexie noted, jerking her head in the direction of the cart. He looked over, eyes trailing across the cart he'd just risked his life to retrieve. "The cabinet at the nurses' station was fully stocked— I managed to grab a bit of everything. I figured that they wouldn't yell at me for not signing them out—"

A thought swum across his head and he cleared his throat.

"She can't have it." He sounded tired. "She can't have any opioids."

"Oh," Lexie faltered. "I mean—"

"She's an addict, Lexie," He turned his head to the side. Lexie couldn't read his expression. She pressed her lips together and inhaled sharply. "We're going to have to— I don't know what we can do— I—" A pause. He seemed to reorganise his thoughts. "She'll need a transfusion."

"Okay," Lexie said quickly. Two transfusions. That sounded like a lot but they could manage— they'd manage. Honestly, she knew that couldn't afford to not manage. "I'll sort the blood out— we can just—"

"This is fucked."

The younger surgeon fell silent. 

The atmosphere in the room seemed to shift. Mark was staring at the floor, staring at the amount of blood that seemed to swim around him. He was avoiding looking at the sight of his ex-girlfriend, a woman he'd loved and hurt both so violently, bloody and dying on the floor. 

He was avoiding looking at the expression on Lexie's face as she halted, visibly affected by his tone.

He was frowning. She felt her chest tighten.

"Mark—"

"No this is... this is..." He trailed off. "What sort of jackass shoots doctors? What sort of sick man stands in front of someone and just—" He cleared his throat. His voice cracked. He shook his head. "These aren't patients... these are our colleagues— our people—"

"Mark," Lexie felt her heart cracked a little bit. "I know— I wish that it could be okay— I wish that everyone was fine— but they're not—"

No one had wanted anyone to get hurt other than the man who did all of this. But then in that moment, Lexie felt her heart tremor under the pressure of Mark's words. As much as she'd willed herself to despise the man in front of her for the position he'd put her in, she wished that she could taken this burden from him. 

Their eyes met and Lexie got to her feet, taking a few steps towards him. She held her hands out in front of her, approaching him as if he was a animal that was on the verge of fleeing. 

Each step was careful.

Lexie had spent a lot of time, over the past month, wishing that she was Elizabeth Montgomery.

She'd spent a lot of time completely mystified over the hold that the psychiatrist seemed to have over Mark. She'd, also, spent a lot of time disgusted at herself for not realising it. Now, her shattered relationship pushed aside, she wished that she had Beth's ability to make everything okay. That woman seemed to know what to say and at what time. Lexie had been trying this whole time and yet she'd failed, miserably.

"It's not okay," He said, shaking his head and clenching his jaw. "It's not okay—"

"I know—"

"No matter how many times... no matter how many times you say it's not Beth... it is."

Lexie seemed to flinch very slightly at his words. 

She couldn't comprehend the amount of strain that was in his voice as he said her name. She knew that Mark didn't particularly give a shit whether Alex lived or died. He was doing this for her, for the person he apparently missed. And yet, there he was, caring so much about his ex-girlfriend. 

So much for a grand gesture.

If this was Mark trying to convince her to get back with him, he was not doing a great job at it.

Behind them, Alex was easing into a pain-free sleep, the painkillers Lexie had administered allowing him to slowly relax. His sluggish eyes followed the two of them as Mark turned away, back towards Beth.

It was funny, really. Lexie had considered her relationship perfect until she'd started noticing the cracks. Beth had been a really big one, the sort of cracks in the sidewalk that you'd step over to avoid bad luck. Then Mark had started lying about things and Lexie had fallen in between the concrete slabs. She'd gotten stuck on the little look in his eyes when he juggled his past, present and future.

There are no feelings there anymore, my ass.

"I know," Lexie repeated, nodding. She didn't know what else to say. She did know, however. She knew, she empathised, she could see the overwhelmed look in his eye. Her eyes flickered down towards Beth, watching as the psychiatrist stirred. "I know, Mark."

He just sighed, bowing his head and trying to compose himself.

***

The police officer returned to them, looking between the two men as they paced their way up and down the sidewalk. 

Richard had developed an anxious little twitch in his jaw, but Charlie had just resolved to staring at his cell phone with a feeling of dread in his face. He caught the movement of the officer approaching out of the corner of his eye.

"Does the name Gary Clark mean anything to either of you?"

Gary Clark. Charlie felt his stomach twist. Beside him, Richard's brow furrowed and he twisted his head to the side, failing to put two and two together. Charlie, on the other hand, knew exactly where this was going. His shoulders fell.

"Gary Clark's wife was a patient here," He spoke quietly, almost scared of what the officer would tell him in return. "She passed away a few weeks ago. We were working on grief counselling—"

Grief. Charlie had known that he was suffering but he'd never pegged him as someone who would—

"He's suing the hospital," Richard interjected, a frown still on his face. "Why?"

The look on the officer's face was far from encouraging.

Charlie swore under his breath.

***

"Fuck."

She was awake.

By some sort of miracle, Beth roused as they finished Alex's blood transfusion. 

Her blurred eyes opened to look around at them. 

The word slipped through her lips with a shaky, laboured breath. Suddenly, she was awake— their heads snapped over to stare at her as her head moved, eyes finding the two of them from across the room.

"Oh fuck," She repeated, voice weak and slightly choked.

Her brown eyes shone with disbelief, cracked lips parting to wheeze out air.

"Beth." Mark didn't sound like himself.

He'd taken a few moments to collect himself, caught off-guard by the sound of her voice. His movements came second, quick, measured steps until he was above her. He stared at her chest, at the piles of gauze and plastic. 

He couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze. 

Mark's face twisted into a look of strained impassiveness.

To their surprise, she looked vaguely amused. Beth's face creased with a slightly stunned smile, one that was only made ominous by the red tint to her teeth. Despite this, her eyes seemed to water, as if she was trying her best not to cry. 

Making out the two of them, two faces that she really didn't feel like being locked in a room with, she rested her head against the pillow Lexie had grabbed from the reception. She closed her eyes and let out a long dry chuckle.

Mark knelt beside her, "You've been shot-"

"Yeah," She swallowed but seemed to choke, coughing loudly. "I guessed."

She could tell. Her body felt like it was on fire. She tried to move but found that she couldn't, pain filled her torso and it took everything within her to not yell out. 

Her face contorted and she found herself staring up at her ex-boyfriend, trying to distract herself. 

He was avoiding her eye, looking everywhere but her face.

"Is it bad?"

Quickly, Mark pressed his lips together and shook his head.

Beth would've raised her eyebrows if she had the energy. It felt bad. Everything just felt sluggish. Smiling had drained all of the energy she'd had left. She didn't like it. 

When she looked down, all she could see was red. There was red everywhere. She'd started today with a white shirt and bra on— now she was shirtless and her bra was red. 

She let out a breath, wincing as her head dropped back down onto the pillow.

Beth hadn't realised she'd had that much blood inside of her.

To make matters worse, he was being very quiet. She didn't like it that he wouldn't make eye contact with her. Mark had always been the loud one but now he seemed to be reluctant to even say a word.

"Mark."

"You're okay," He said it tightly with no room for negotiation. What little smile Beth had left seemed to wither. Her eyes searched his face, not having the energy to lift her chin. "You're going to be okay—"

She's okay. She's okay. She's okay.

"Mark," He didn't like the way she breathed his name out like that. She said it pleadingly. She said it softly. "Look at me."

"We're going to do a blood transfusion and we're going to get you out of here," Suddenly he was talking and not listening. Beth felt him press more gauze to her chest— she didn't realise it but she'd been bleeding through it. Lexie's packing wasn't holding like they'd thought it was. Her blood was beginning to peek through the layers. "You're okay—"

"Mark."

Again, he didn't like the sound of her voice. 

He stalled. 

Her head was twisted to the side and she was looking at him with those brown eyes, lips parted to let a whistle of of breath through. He flinched at the sound of it. It almost sounded like a death rattle.

She's okay.

She's going to be okay. She's going to be okay.

"You're okay."

Beth let out a dry, empty chuckle.

"You've always been a good liar." Mark's jaw clenched and he turned his head away, averting his attention towards the door. When he didn't look back, Beth just sighed. "But I've always been really good at telling when you lie."

He squeezed his eyes shut. His tear ducts were screaming at him. His body was trying to get him to cry, to lose some degree of composure, but he really couldn't afford to do anything but look away and compose himself. 

Mark didn't like it. He really, really didn't like it—

"Mark—" 

She tried again. Soft, tender and calm. He wouldn't look her in the eye and that wasn't good enough for her. Beth needed him to look at her. She needed him to see the expression on her face, read the look in her eyes. 

"Please, look at me—"

He did.

His eyes rose to watch the way Beth blinked back tears. 

It struck him how little times he'd seen her cry. She was never quick to cry. She always had to be deeply rattled by something. Then again, a bullet could truly work wonders.

Mark was also struck by the way she seemed to just stare right through him. He was trying his best to hide how his hands were trembling. 

His nose had been twitching, his eyes had burned— he'd successfully camouflaged it this whole time (or so he thought), but one look from Beth and he felt his resolves shudder.

Now she had his full attention, she licked her lips. "What's the situation? Just— J-Just imagine I'm just a trauma patient."

It was 'not Beth' part two. 

She was a normal patient that was being wheeled through the hospital doors. He could see it in her eyes: Treat me like a normal patient. I'm not your ex-girlfriend. You're not my ex-boyfriend. I'm not Beth. You're not Mark. We didn't once mean something to each other. I'm your patient. You're my doctor.

There was a brief moment in which Mark was reminded of ManWest, of plucking up cases in the early noughties with her by his side and a paramedic reeling off stats from a field chart. 

They'd both treated their fair share of gunshot victims but neither of them were trauma surgeons. They were both very aware that Mark couldn't help as much as Owen or Teddy would've been able to.

He took a breath. "GSW to the chest, on the left... under your tattoo."

"Okay," Beth would've nodded if she could. Instead, she just watched how his hands twitched above her, stained with her blood. "Is there an exit wound?"

"No," Mark shook his head.

"Stats?"

He hesitated.

"Mark—"

"Tacky at 120," Mark's voice caught a little bit and he watched the optimism dwindle in Beth's eyes. "100 over 68... respirations at 16—"

She grimaced. "That's not good."

It wasn't. It was far from good. Her words caused Mark to close his eyes for a while, head-spinning as the phrase echoed around his head. 

That's not good. That's not good. That's not good. That's not good. 

When Mark opened his eyes, his breathing was fraught, there was tension in his shoulders and he was close to storming out of the boardroom and throwing a punch at the first gun-wielding-maniac he saw.

He shook his head again. "No— you're going to be fine—"

Beth didn't reply. She was too busy thinking about all of the GSW's she'd treated back in New York. They'd taken a lot of patients from the more conflicted areas of the city, she'd seen some awful cases and some easy cases too— Beth knew from experience that she was lingering in between the two. 

Things could either go really well or really bad.

"You're going to be fine," Mark repeated. Her eyes caught his for a split second and he felt his ears burn from the intensity of her gaze. "We put in a chest tube and we're relieving the pressure on your chest and we're going to do a blood transfusion to make up for the blood loss— we're going to get you out of here. "

She took the time to look around the room, suddenly realising where they were. As her eyes trailed around the space, Mark averted his attention back to the packing in her chest. 

Unknowingly, she'd bled through three layers of gauze and a plastic seal— he tried to signal to Lexie inconspicuously, doing his best not to raise any alarms.

"If I die in this dumb boardroom I'm going to be pissed off."

"You're not going to die," Mark said firmly as Lexie handed him more gauze. Beth gazed up at her as the youngest Grey sister avoided her eye, lips pressed in a very thin line. It took everything within Beth not to laugh.

"Whatever— just if it's going to happen— please don't let me die in this room."

Mark just scowled.

"Hey Lexie," Beth said, watching the surgical intern hover over her.

"Beth," Lexie's lip wobbled a bit but she glanced downwards. 

They were removing the packing, exposing the gauge in her skin. It wasn't a pretty sight— that was a part of the job Lexie thought that she was never going to get over. Seeing someone's skin torn was not an easily digestible sight. 

"I just wanted to—"

"If you apologise I'm going to..." Beth trailed off, wincing as Mark, with determination, started repacking the wound. She looked down but couldn't see anything other than the stained material of her bra. "Don't apologise or yell at me or whatever— just don't." 

She exhaled out heavily, face contorting in pain.

Lexie bit down on her bottom lip, figuring that it was probably bad taste to argue. Her hand trembled as she held out the plastic sheet to Mark, watching as the plastic surgeon pressed it against Beth's skin. 

They sat there in a brief silence, the sound of Beth's laboured breathing filling the air. 

Ever so often, Lexie would have to close her eyes tightly, ushering her tears back and forcing herself to stay focused.

Mark wasn't doing much better. Neither of them had seen him like this before.

"Okay," Beth breathed out, "I would not recommend getting shot. It really fucking hurts."

"I can't say it's on my bucket list." His deadpan was second nature. It conflicted with the pained look in his eye as he grasped onto all of his trauma training. 

Beth seemed to enjoy it, her lips twitched and she chuckled. 

Beside him, Lexie just kept her lips in a firm line.

"I have to say...." Another wince as Mark applied more pressure. "It was bound to happen to me at some point."

"I don't believe you." That was a blatant lie but Beth didn't sense it this time.

"With my track record?" Beth attempted a wisecrack but it fell flat as everyone just frowned. "A GSW is probably the last stamp on my card to get into the Hall of Fame of Bad Decisions."

Lexie got to her feet to check on Alex again, leaving Mark to finish the dressing. He was trying everything to seal the wound, to stop the bleeding and prevent her lung from collapsing. Beth's breathing was strained, despite the breathing tube Lexie had inserted. 

She watched his face, searching his expression as he sat back, gloves glossy from her blood.

"What's the time?"

Mark looked up at the clock over the presentation board. It was the same clock they'd used to take minutes for the lawsuit meeting. They were on the same floor they'd walked across— his back was pressed against the same table they'd sat at— he cleared his throat.

"Twelve thirty."

Beth let out a breath. "I'm late for lunch."

"Really?"

"Yeah," She closed her eyes and seemed to fight back tears yet again. "I'm late for lunch."

He studied her face, how her eyelids fluttered as she took in long, strained breath. 

He found himself staring at her lips, watching as they seemed to mumble words that were inaudible. He hadn't noticed it before, but it seemed as though she'd coughed up a little bit of blood. There was a tale-tale hue framing the bottom of her face, dried blood on her chin— he took a long, shuddering breath. 

It was not a good sign.

Mark's eyes flickered over to Lexie. 

She was sat on the desk beside Alex, hand on his arm. 

Her eyes met his— she'd noticed too. The look they exchanged spoke a thousand words.

It was worse than they'd thought.

He sucked in a breath and pressed a hand to his forehead.

Beth hadn't noticed. Her hands were at her sides. Her fingers were pale and there was dried blood underneath her fingernails as if her first instinct had been to clutch the GSW as soon as if had happened. He stared at the ring on her finger, he'd found himself doing that a lot lately. It seemed to be his favourite method of torture. 

Today, it gave a whole new meaning to blood diamond.

"We're going to do the transfusion, okay?" 

He hated how his voice shook slightly as he spoke. He hated how his eyes burned when Beth looked at him, reading him like a book. She interpreted the way he ground his molars and looked away. She knew exactly what he wanted to say.

"Okay." 

Mark had never heard her sound so small. Not even when she'd nearly died the first time.

Back then, she'd given up. He'd watched her give up. She'd had no fight. She'd had nothing to fight for: he, Mark Sloan, had been a shitty thing to fight for. 

But now— he could see it in her eyes. There was a fire burning at the bottom of her soul, a willingness to fight and pull through. Despite her deadpans and her bitter laughs, she didn't want to die.

And he was pretty sure it was all because of the ring on her finger.

He went to move away, but, Beth's weak hand snaked it's way onto his wrist. He looked back, eyebrows aloof at the feeling of her fingers on his skin—

Mark wished that he hadn't looked back.

When he looked back, he saw someone who looked like his Beth, or at least the Beth that had existed in New York once she'd shattered into a thousand pieces. She was in so much pain, it was written all over her. She was suffering so intensely, yet she was looking at him. 

She was holding onto him with all the strength that she had left. Her lips opened and she spoke with a terrifying calm clarity:

"It's bad, isn't it?"

He couldn't bring himself to lie now. 

His voice bore the weight of the last hour of their lives. 

Mark allowed his eyes to sting and his throat to close in that tell-tale forecast of tears.

"It's bad."

***

They'd started receiving 911 calls from inside the hospital.

They could hear them from a distance. First came the hurried voice of a nurse on the second floor: a security guard was dead. Then came a surgical technician: a nurse had been shot inside a supplies cupboard. 

A surgical resident: they were trying to save a surgical attending who had taken a bullet to the head. A patient: their doctor had been shot right in front of them. 

Then a phone call they hadn't anticipated at all: he shot the Chief— he shot Derek Shepherd.

Charlie stood beside the dispatch radio, feeling his world spin very slightly. He was waiting for a phone call that would tell him that his fiancée and her friends were okay. He knew that Derek Shepherd with a bullet in his chest would tear Beth apart, no matter how estranged their friendship was getting. 

He held onto the wall outside of the hospital and waited.

He waited. He waited. He couldn't bring himself to not wait. It's all he could do. He'd given up phoning her long ago.

There's a GSW in the stairwell.... hiding under the desk in the nurses' station... crying children in the rec room... critical situation in Psychiatry... blood in the atrium... GSW in the leg... bleeding out in the elevator—

A single phone call stood out to him.

"This is Mark Sloan, the head of Plastic Surgery," Charlie had never thought that there would be a situation in which he'd like the sound of his voice. "I have two critical patients— we're in the boardroom in the surgical department— we need some extra hands— we need all the help we can get. It's not looking good—"

It was a hopeless phone call. 

Charlie could see the switchboard in the police van, see how it lit up with a hundred different calls for help. Mark sounded desperate. He sounded as if he wasn't the hotshot, confident surgeon that Beth had made him out to be. 

Charlie averted his eyes back down his phone.

If there was one thing he could be sure of it was that Beth wasn't anywhere near that guy.

***

Mark had asked her for the passcode on her cell phone.

She was the only person who still had their phone on them. 

It was slightly damp but still worked— her voice was cracked as she murmured the numbers '3406' to him and watched as he tapped in 911. What Beth didn't see was the overwhelming number of missed calls that Mark seemed to look over as he dialled the police.

The only thing he did a double-take at was the familiar-looking text message he'd sent just an hour before. (SHOOTER IN HOSPITAL!!! DON'T COME INTO WORK!!!) It'd been a futile attempt and seemed to be under the contact name Asshat.

He would've laughed if it wasn't for the tight composure he couldn't afford to crack. Instead, once the phone call was over and the police had given them a twenty to thirty-minute time frame for help, he deleted the message from Asshat in her inbox.

It'd been useless anyway.

"What did they say?" Lexie asked breathlessly from her perch on the table. 

Mark had taken the call with as much privacy as he could, voice lowered and back turned to them. He placed Beth's cell phone onto the table and sighed.

"They've got people in the building."

It was a relief to all of them. Alex's medication was starting to wear off but it still wasn't looking great. Like Beth, he'd bled through his packing and seemed to be on a downwards decline. Mark stared at Lexie as she dutifully replaced the gauze, tears beginning to slide down her cheeks.

"How long?"

It was Beth who asked. 

Her voice was croaky, lips dry and eyes closed as she focused all of her energy on not flinching away from the needle in her arm. She looked a state: hair matted with blood, a tube hanging out of her chest and transfusion bad and IV fluid both being pumped into her. She'd flat out refused an Oxygen mask, instead insisting it on Alex, who now seemed to be struggling even more to breathe.

Mark ran a hand through his hair. "Thirty minutes tops."

Ah. Beth opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling with a faraway expression on her face. He watched her, wondering what was happening in her head. She hadn't complained since she'd woken up. 

He had no idea what sort of pain she was in, no idea what was going on in that brain of hers— her eyes had this glossy look to them, as if she couldn't bring herself to cry or even to blink.

It was her turn to avoid his eye.

They all knew that neither of them had thirty minutes to spare.

"I need more gauze," Lexie said suddenly, sliding off of the desk and attempting to speak to Mark.

He'd taken to sitting on a chair by Beth's feet, arms folded over his chest and eyes unmoving from her wound. He didn't even look up as she grimaced, noticing that they'd used it all— the floor was scattered with blood-soaked stretches of gauze and surgical packing. They'd used it all.

Mark looked up, brow furrowing when Lexie seemed to burst into tears suddenly. "What?"

"We're out," Her face twisted in despair. "I'm going to—"

He shook his head. "I'll get it—"

"No," She was as firm and concrete as she'd been the first time. Lexie shook her head, attracting the curious attention of Beth as the psychiatrist tilted her head towards her. "I'll go. I know what we need. I— I can get it—"

"Lexie."

"Let her," Beth said. It was quiet but it was audible. Lexie looked down at the woman on the floor. Beth attempted to crack a grin but all the muscles in her body were beginning to ache. "Go on, hero."

"I—"

"Go."

Mark didn't think he could stomach an argument and Lexie didn't like the look on his face as he sunk lower in his chair. With a quick nod, she turned back to her boyfriend, pressing her lips against her forehead. 

Beth couldn't help but notice how Mark averted his eyes quickly, as if the gesture physically hurt him.

"Alex..." 

Beth wondered whether Lexie did this every time now, a big showy goodbye that made her realise that movies weren't too far off when it came to romance. She couldn't see Lexie, but she could see the muscle jumping in Mark's jaw as he stared down at the floor. 

"Please don't die. Alex— please just— hang on for me, okay?"

Beth wondered whether anyone would ask her to hang on for them. It ushered a very dark and invasive mental debate about who would care if she died— Charlie, she hoped. Then there was Addison and Archer, knowing her sister, she'd find a way to make it all about her. 

Her parents possibly (maybe her Mom would even cry if she'd missed her latest botox appointment). Maybe Amy would go to the funeral. Maybe Calum would. Maybe even Dom— she stared at Mark as he listened to Lexie's faint words and wondered whether Mark would even care if she died right here, right in front of him.

She wasn't sure.

"Please don't die," Lexie pressed her forehead against Alex's arm, lips trembling. "I love you— please don't die."

Beth didn't expect the look of agony that flashed across Mark's face. She kind of, in a twisted way, enjoyed it. But it also left a heavy shadow in her heart. 

Come to think of it, however— her body was beginning to feel numb.

Lexie left behind a silent, tense room filled with Mark's glare. He was looking over at the far wall, shoulders set and fists clenched. Alex seemed to be perfectly happy stewing in his own revelation, eyes only wandering over to watch the way that Mark systematically pressed his palms into his thighs. 

The only sound was the low chuckle that fell out between Beth's lips.

"How romantic," Mark didn't look at her.

It wasn't romantic at all.

"Do you remember that time I dropped the big L word?" Beth's words made Mark's day get infinitely worse. He bowed his head, eyebrows raising as she brought back a very distant memory that he'd tried his best to bury at the back of his head.

That was the last thing Mark wanted to think about. He risked a glance over at her, looking at her pallid face and amused eyes. She was grinning weakly. It was bait, he knew it, he could tell— he shook his head from side to side but the corner of his lips twitched. He knew where this was going.

"Alex," She called out, attracting the attention of the resident on the table. "What sort of jackass breaks up with his girlfriend after she tells him she loves him?"

He took a while to answer, voice croaky and weak, but sounded amused. 

"Let me guess?" A brief pause. Mark didn't know whether it was because of his gunshot wound or for comedic effect. "Starts with S and ends with Loan."

Beth chuckled. "You're good at guessing."

Mark just stared at her.

Of course he remembered. Maybe that was what this whole situation reminded him of. It was the shaky, shocked feeling, the head reeling and the unstable hands. When Mark blinked he could feel the shudder of his chest as Beth said those words to him, a decade ago. It felt weird to reminisce, especially in this room, in this situation.

Beth was smiling over at him.

"Alex," She said again. The resident let out a very quiet "Yeah?" and she cleared her throat. "Don't be a jackass and break up with Lexie just because she said the L-word."

It'd been their first breakup. Mark remembered it. He remembered the expression on Beth's face. He remembered the way her whole body had recoiled at his words, the way he'd thrown her feelings back at her and watched her crumble into dust. 

Remembering left a sour taste in this mouth, it made him want to turn himself inside out, go out and punch something— it made him fill with regret.

They'd been apart for six months before Mark had hunted her down and told her that he loved her back.

It'd taken him so long that Beth had almost lost a part of her while waiting.

Beth watched the reminiscing look on his face. She looked sad, her lips pressed together. There was a lot happening in that head of hers, he could tell. They were staring at each other, so many words filling the space in between them. It was a familiar feeling. It was the feeling they'd had on Meredith's deck, what felt like a lifetime ago.

"You're a jackass, Mark." He didn't have a reply to that. Beth sounded so sure, she sounded so grounded in that belief. He inclined his head. "But thank you for being my jackass, even if we hated each other by the end of it."

He didn't like her tone. It felt like a goodbye. He didn't like goodbyes.

Mark's face twisted. "Don't say that-"

"Why?" Beth shook her head, licking her lips. "Not romantic enough for you? I thought it would be nice-- some big movie monologue to end everything, y'know?"

It was said sarcastically. It made Mark's chest seize and he felt his hands start to tremble again. The hilarity in her eyes and the brief groan of pain that escaped her was beginning to make him feel sick. He leant heavily against his legs and massaged his forehead. 

If he'd have been even a tiny bit religious he would've prayed then. He would've thrown a message into the universe, asking someone out there to direct that S.W.A.T time right to their door.

"I know what your problem is," His head turned over towards Alex as the surgical resident sniffed loudly. Even Beth tried to raise her chin to look over at him. "You gotta eat more... bacon."

"What?" Mark was caught off-guard.

"You stop yourself from doing a lot of crap," Alex continued, unfazed by the brief look Mark shot Beth. "You stop yourself from doing stuff you want to do. I mean— I'm probably dying now, and I'm telling you— you gotta eat more bacon."

"You're not dying—"

"He's right," Beth said softly. "Eat more bacon— and have more sex."

"Neither of you are dying—"

"Sex!" Alex repeated, "So much more sex!"

"What—"

"I had bacon yesterday," She murmured, hands raising to settle on her chest. Her chest felt wet— Beth grimaced, pulling them back. She was still bleeding. The packing still wasn't holding. "Charlie made me bacon— fuck, I should phone Charlie—"

"Okay, I will," Mark gave in, exhaling tiredly. "I'll eat more bacon. But you gotta hang in there because we'll be out in a few minutes and Lexie'll be back any minute—"

He was lying. He didn't know when they'd be out of here and Beth could tell. She eyed him and told him with her eyes. She was completely convinced that she was going to die. She was beginning to give up— Mark didn't like that. He shook his head, leaning towards her.

"No, don't look at me like that—"

"Like what, Mark?" She sighed.

"Like that."

It was the sort of look Beth had given him back in New York. The one that told him that she'd done something bad, that something had happened— it was when she'd been too ashamed to tell him that she'd relapsed, that she'd trembled and fallen, hard. It was the same sort of look that Lexie had given him when they'd broken up. 

He hated that look. 

He'd been programmed to bunch up whenever it surfaced.

Beth just lifted her pallid arms, showing him the blood that had transferred onto her hands.

"I'm bleeding faster than the transfusion," Her eyes rose to look at the blood bag over her head. She made an out-of-taste note to linger on the way the blood seemed to drain out of Mark's face as he realised she was right. "I'm wasting away a perfectly good donor bag."

"You're not wasting it—"

His voice broke slightly. Beth just looked at him with sad, round eyes.

"I am."

"You're not—"

"Mark—"

"Don't," He sounded angry. She sighed and closed her eyes. "This is not a waste. That is not a waste. You are not a waste."

Beth paused.

"I think this is a little bit of karma," The emotion in her voice didn't settle well with Mark. He got to his knees beside her and started working on repacking with whatever he could utilise. She groaned a loud noise that made Mark shiver. "For all of the shit I've done through the years-- I thought that I struck lucky with Charlie-- but now I'm going to die on the floor of this dumb fucking boardroom surrounded by people who hate me."

He shook his head. "You're not going to die."

He'd said those words so many times that he was beginning to believe them. They were going to get out of here. Lexie was going to turn up. They were going to pack Beth's chest and she was going to come out alive. They were words that he was repeating over and over in his head like a mantra. Beth won't die. Alex won't die-- no one in this room is going to die.

"I am," She said quietly. "I'm going to die."

"No," Mark insisted. "I won't let you die."

Beth was staring at him. He stared back. They stared at each other long and hard.

It was the most they'd looked at each other since Beth had arrived in Seattle. They seemed to just drink each other in, memorise each other's faces. For a long time, Mark just stared at her lips. 

He could remember how painful it had been to love how, how he'd held onto her so tightly and refused to let go, even when he didn't deserve her. She was gazing into his eyes, teeth stained with blood and irises swirling with sixteen years of stolen touches, tongue in cheek flirting, heartbreak and tears.

When she blinked, Mark felt his eyes well with tears.

"Mark, I think I'm dying," She was on the verge of tears too.

He hadn't seen her cry in six years. He hadn't seen her the night she'd left New York. Had she cried? Or had she just left and never looked back? He had so many questions to ask her, so many questions that he'd never asked.

"I—" His voice broke completely this time. "I can't let you die."

"Oh, I know," A tear fell and she tried to hold her voice together. "I'm not the only one with a hero complex, asshole."

Alex watched from the top of the desk, watched as Mark sat beside her, back turned away from him. He could, however, see the delicate expression on Beth's face as Mark wiped away her tears with his hand. They'd run out of supplies, the only thing currently stopping her from bleeding out was a thin sheet of what they had left, a plastic cover and a handful of pads. 

Even so-- she was smiling vaguely, eyelashes clumped from moisture and breaths slow.

"You're not allowed to die," His voice was as weak as the rest of them. Beth just snorted faintly, fixing him with an incredulous glance.

"Since when did the whole 'people not allowing me to do things' thing stop me?"

Since me, Mark wanted to say, but he knew that was a lie. Beth had never listened to anyone but the voice in her head. She'd always marched to the beat of her own drum. Mark had been foolish to ever think she'd sacrifice her individuality for anyone. But, this time, he really hoped that she'd listen.

"Since I said so."

Beth lifted an eyebrow. "You sound like Addie."

He had a half a mind to ask why that was so bad. Addison had always been the sensible one. They both knew it. Of course, she wasn't always consistently sensible, but they both knew that she would have never, in a million years, found herself at the end of a gun. 

He felt her words slip under his skin, bury themselves into his pores and into his bones. She watched as he took their last blood bad out from the cart and hung it above Beth. She met his eye as he switched the blood bags, transfusing more blood into her system.

"I'm not going to let you die," He said each word with conviction, so much that Beth's eyes welled again, tears threatening to spill. "I am not phoning up Addison and telling her that you died. I am not going to your funeral, Elizabeth."

Beth found herself speechless for a few moments. It was a rare moment. S/

he wasn't speechless often. Her mouth opened and then closed and then she seemed to pause. For a split second, Mark wondered whether she was going to say something heartfelt. But no—

"You think you'd be invited to my funeral? That's cute."

Despite everything, Mark rolled his eyes.

"It is even worth me surviving this?" Beth muttered under her breath, "I mean, think about the opioids I'm not going to be allowed— recovering from this without any painkillers sounds like hell."

"Stop— If you die, I'm going to kick your ass," He was speaking directly to her, shaking his head. She let out a laugh, choking on it as it became increasingly harder to breathe. "If you survive, I'm probably going to kick your ass too, for putting me through all of this stress. I'll kick your ass so hard that you won't even need painkillers because that will numb it enough for you—"

"If I die, Archer's going to kick your ass."

He chuckled, but it clashed horrendously with the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. "Yeah, yeah he would, wouldn't he."

"I miss him," This time, Beth's voice did grow soft and vulnerable. Her eyes moved away from his, fixing on her hand as it laid limply beside her. From here, she could just about see the sparkle of her engagement ring. Mark followed her gaze. "I miss my family. I should've spoken to them more—"

"Beth-"

"I haven't spoken to my parents since 2004," She let out a watery chuckle, "How fucked is that? They don't even know I'm engaged. I didn't even tell Addie or Archie— I haven't seen my parents since.. since 2003— Imagine their surprise when they find out that I'm in Seattle— Imagine their faces when they found out I got shot and all I could think about was how I didn't tell them about Charlie— that I died— I—"

Beth broke off. Mark didn't like the swirling silence she left behind. He heaved a sigh and then he spoke.

"I visited them."

Through tears, Beth stared at him, watching as Mark dedicated his attention to his hands. He saw her bewildered expression out of the corner of her eye. He saw the way her eyebrows rose and her lips parted and she stared at him in unabashed shock.

"What?"

"I, uh," Mark exhaled through his nose. He'd never told anyone this. "After you left— uh— left New York, I thought you went home so I— I got a train out to your parent's house. I went after you."

"You went after me?" It felt as if they'd gone back an hour in time. Mark was avoiding her eye again. "Mark—"

"Yeah," He had.

He'd gone after her. 

He'd never told anyone that. 

He'd gone straight from her apartment to Grand Central Station with nothing but his wallet and his jacket and he'd gone to suburbia. When Addison had asked him about it, he'd told her that he'd gone for a walk, a long walk that had taken six hours of his time. In reality, he'd hauled his ass to the Montgomery home and asked Beth's parents if they'd heard anything from her.

"You weren't there," She could tell how uncomfortable he was. He cleared his throat, he rubbed his neck and he shook his head. "You weren't there so-"

"I went to Calums," Beth hadn't told him that either. Mark nodded up and down. It looked mechanically, it looked preprogrammed. "I flew to Canada. He helped me--- I owe everything to him."

She felt cold. Mark hadn't realised how cold she was. A gentle hand came up to grasp his. He stared at her pale, curled fingers. It felt fragile. Beth had never felt so gentle to him.

She'd always been a storm. A force of her own. The girl who could go through hell and back and come out better than ever. New York had killed her, it'd stripped her and left her blue and bare. It'd been a blunt force trauma to the system, a cocktail of drugs and failure that had sent her head spinning and heart splintering. But Seattle was different. 

Seattle was bleeding her out slowly, allowing her to say stupid things and feel a slow sense of bittersweet mortality.

Bacon, she thought to herself. Bacon was a stupid thing to think about before a flatline.

Mark wanted to know what was going on in her head.

Lexie had been gone for a while and Mark kept saying Alex's name, just to make sure he was still alive. He replied in intervals, raising his head and describing how he felt. Mark nodded, but never once did he leave Beth's side. His eyes didn't leave her as she closed her eyes and relaxed back into the pillow, hand still in his.

He couldn't bring himself to let go.

"Charlie's a good guy," he said quietly. Beth didn't stir, but he saw her lips twitch slightly. "You can't die. Charlie will kill me."

"He's harmless," Beth was quiet too. "He can't hurt a fly."

"He's a good guy."

"So's Lexie," Her reply caused his chest to constrict. "You miss her, don't you?"

He did. But he felt like he needed to say something. Something honest. He hadn't been honest with her much. He owed this to her. Mark chose his words carefully.

"I miss you too, sometimes."

He didn't know why he said it, but it felt right.

He noticed how Beth's fingers seemed to tense in his. Up close, her engagement ring looked ghastly. It was speckled with blood, shining red and ghostly against her skin. His mouth was dry, his throat was sore, his eyes burned a little bit as he stared at it. From her silence, he could tell that it wasn't what she'd needed to hear. 

She was doing just fine on her own, she didn't need little consolidations like that. She didn't need to hear that he missed her. She didn't need Mark anymore. She just mulled over his words, leaving him quiet and pensive.

I miss you too, sometimes.

On second thought, Mark thought it sounded dumb. What a dumb thing to say to someone on the brink of death.

Mark wished that it was better. He wished that he was capable of movie monologues like Lexie was. He wished that he'd been better at romance. He was good at flirting. He was good at sex. No, he was excellent at sex. He was excellent at flirting, at smiling, at making everything seem like it was okay-- He was good at everything but what came after. He wasn't good at the relationship. He wasn't good at this--

Suddenly, very softly, she smiled.

"I miss you sometimes, too."

It took him off-guard, but Beth always had. It was who she was. It was the storm inside her, tossing him around and keeping him on his toes. He blinked, he opened his mouth and then he closed it.

He didn't know what to say.

He just squeezed her fingers a little tighter.

***

They were beginning to bring people out.

A wave of SWAT officers and civilians came flooding through the doors. They walked quickly, some turning back just to stare at the building as they left it. Ambulances streaked down the road behind them, filling the car parks furthest from the hospital. Overhead, the helicopter dipped and dived.

Charlie watched every head. Every brunette that passed, he felt his heart skip a beat. There were so many people. So many patients, so many staff— he was trying his best to keep up with the crowds, but in the seat of faces, he found it impossible to see the one he wanted. With every unfamiliar face, he felt his heart clench. 

There were injured people too— gurneys, hospital beds and wheelchairs pushed by ashen-faced staff who had seen things he could never have dreamed of experiencing—

Then a familiar face— "Eli!"

He saw the nurse as he limped alongside a couple of kids, holding their hands and escorting them towards a makeshift area. They crossed the police boundary and Charlie hurried towards him. Eli hadn't heard him call his name. 

He lifted his head, saw the look on Charlie's face and felt his heart drop.

"Tell me Beth made it to lunch," He said it so quietly, so pleadingly that Charlie felt awful when he shook his head. Eli's shoulders fell and he shook his head, looking back at the building. "Charlie— she went up into the surgical department I—"

"She—"

"There was a lost kid... she went up there to go find him," He let out a breath, realisation filling him that Beth was still inside, stuck on the floor where Gary Clark had decided to unload his ammunition. "Charlie— I'm so sorry—"

He stared at Eli, not quite able to process the words that had just escaped his lips. At first, Charlie thought he was joking. He thought that this was some elaborate prank that was all at his expense-- but then Eli reached out, placing a hand on his arm and he knew exactly what Eli was thinking.

"You think--"

"It's Beth," Eli said softly.

***

She'd never entered a room so quickly.

Eyes wide, heartbeat thrumming against her chest and tears streaming down her face. She'd opened the door with such urgency that she'd taken everyone by surprise.

"Lexie?"

Her first instinct was zero in on Mark like a bloodhound tracking a deer. Her eyes found him, the plastic surgeon soaked in blood sat on the floor. 

Her eyes searched him, catching Beth's hand in his lap and the slight red tint to his eyes— she opened her mouth and then closed it— she gestured over her shoulder.

"They're on the floor— they're here to get us out."

She'd never run so fast.

She'd almost hesitated to mention how she'd had her own brief brush with death. It'd been so close to Beth's, it'd caused chills to run across her skin and her throat to close in horror. She'd shivered at the end of Gary Clark's gun, watching as he thumbed the trigger and played with the idea of ending her life. 

It'd been thirty seconds that she'd been utterly convinced was her last. Every breath she'd taken, she'd choked on. Every blink she'd taken had robbed her of what time she'd had left.

But Lexie was luckier than Beth. As soon as Gary Clark had gone to fire the trigger, they'd arrived. The SWAT team had arrived, shot him and kept his bullet in the chamber. 

They'd read her trembling energy, seen the fear and saw the blood on her clothing. She'd held up the gauzes, said between sobs about how there were people dying that needed her help.

Run, they'd said, We'll come get you.

"Hear that?!" The light seemed to explode in Mark's eyes. He got to his feet, a grin unfurling across his face. "They're coming to get us— it's your lucky day!"

"Define lucky," Beth mumbled from the floor, voice barely audible. "I'm definitely not feeling lucky."

Lexie split the pads, giving half to Mark so he could replace Beth's bandages. She did the same for Alex, gently wiping away the blood from his chest. They worked in silence, Alex just staring at her behind his oxygen mask. 

She gave him a wide, wet smile, pushing away her tears with the back of her hand. Ever so often, Mark would glance over at her, jostled by her silence and the way she continued to cry despite being so close to the end of this nightmare.

"Lexie, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," She insisted. "I just want to get out of here."

She wasn't fine. Lexie didn't like the way Alex gazed at her. 

He was staring at her as if he didn't recognise her. The shock of the whole situation was really messing with him. Her brow furrowed. She leant over, pushing back his mask and stroking his cheek.

"We're going to get out of here, Alex." She'd never had to soothe someone like this before. Never, in her wildest dreams, had she thought that she'd have to withstand a mass shooting in a room with these three other people. "We're going to be okay."

"Izzie?"

Her lips parted.

"Alex... It's Lexie. Alex."

"Iz..." His voice broke her heart. Lexie felt her chest tighten and her lips droop as he weakly reached for her hand, squeezing it with all the strength he had left. "I'm sorry. Don't go. We got married. Please don't go."

She bit back a sob, shaking her head. Lexie didn't have the heart to correct him.

"I'm not going anywhere."

She held him as he cried. She wasn't sure whether he was mourning his marriage or completely overwhelmed, either way, her lip trembled as she watched him sob into her scrubs.

"You came back for me, Iz." He sounded so small, so weak, so close to death. Her heart clenched.

Lexie nodded. "I came back."

"Don't ever leave me. Don't ever leave me again."

On the other side of the room, Beth was staring up at Mark as he made sure that she was ready for transfer. She stared through every single one of his movements. She stared as he grimaced at the sight of her wound, she stared as he changed his gloves and got to his feet.

"We've figured out how to get you on a gurney," He pressed his lips together, looking around the room. "How do you feel about getting dragged out on another bedsheet?"

A quiet snort. "Go to hell."

"I'm working on it." Mark turned his back on her, looking towards Lexie who seemed be preoccupied. Alex was hanging off of her desperately, the painkillers mixed with the trauma causing reality to swirl and alter. A pair of bloodshot eyes met him as she spoke to Alex quietly, privately. He averted his gaze. "I told you, Beth, I told you that you wouldn't die—I'm going to keep this promise, okay?"

He turned back to see her just looking at him,

"Any objections?" He challenged.

"Is that what they say at a wedding?" Beth asked.

"Well," He swallowed uncomfortably. "You're the one who's got an aisle waiting for them— so you should know all about that—" She didn't chuckle, she didn't really make any sound. She was lethargic. She was finding it really hard to keep her eyes open. "Okay— so let's try getting you up onto the table, it might make it easier—"

Mark tried. It was a precious job. She'd always been so slim. He'd lifted her before. She was light, it wasn't hard— but this, this was different. He placed his arms around her and tried to gently lift her upwards. Lexie assisted, she held Beth's legs. 

They tried their best to lift her off of the ground— but then Beth started crying in pain.

"Don't—" She bared her teeth, eyes watering as she felt her torso shift and her muscles clench. "That hurts like a motherfucker—"

"Beth," Lexie's doe eyes swum across her vision. "We have to— we need to get you out of here—"

The psychiatrist shook her head, breathing laboured as she was lowered back to the floor.

"Beth-"

"It hurts." She said, face contorted. "I can't—"

I can't. Mark wasn't used to hearing her say that word. She wasn't an optimist by any means, but the word can't had always been her definition of a challenge. 

He exchanged a look with Lexie. The surgical intern was just staring down at her, watching as tears trekked down her cheeks and her eyes stayed firmly closed.

"Please-"

"I promise you, Beth," Mark knelt down beside her, brow furrowing as she squirmed away from his touch. "I promise you that this will only hurt for a second—"

"Mark, you know me," Beth grilled out between gritted teeth. "I would only say that if I meant it."

He hung his head, knowing that she was right. It was another situation as earlier. Alex had put up a fight against his chest tube and he'd disregarded it. Mark had continued just because he knew that it was the best thing for him. 

But Beth—he knew Beth better than he knew Alex. He knew her so well. He still knew her so fucking well.

She didn't often have good judgement, but he knew that he didn't have the heart to put her willingly through so much pain.

"Okay," He said quietly. "Okay, okay— we'll figure out something else—"

"Mark," Lexie hissed. "We don't have anything else."

"We'll figure something out!" Mark exclaimed, feeling his temper rumble. "We'll fucking figure something out— okay!"

"Mark— I don't think"

"No!" He said quickly, "No one is getting left behind and no one is dying."

"Mark-"

"Anyone that dies is going to get fucking sued to the ground, okay?"

"Mark-"

"Beth's going to make it out alive or god help me—"

"Mark."

Lexie had repeated his name so many times that her lips were going numb. He wheeled on his heel with a pointed "What?", annoyed that his rant had been cut short. 

Mark was fully prepared for some sort of argument. He'd pre-hunched his shoulders and preloaded a handful of phrases that were ready to fire at a moments notice— but then he saw the look on Lexie Grey's face and he realised that something was very wrong.

She pointed at the chest tube attached to Beth's chest, horror painted across her face.

Mark felt his heart shatter.

He checked her fluid— it was red.

There was blood in her chest cavity. There was blood where blood shouldn't have been. She was pale. She looked worse than she had two minutes ago. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open slightly as if she'd fallen asleep— Mark leaned forwards, gently shaking her shoulder.

"Beth?"

No response.

"Beth?"

No response.

"Elizabeth?"

Beside him, Lexie let out a sob.

"Get me that stethoscope." His demand was met with the medical supply getting thrown at him from across the room. He dropped to his knees. He pressed the device to Beth's chest and searched. He searched and he searched. "No, no— Her heart rates rising. Her heart's muffled— Fucking pericardial effusion—"

"There's fluid around her heart," Lexie said quickly, eyes wide. "She's bleeding out internally— not just— The bullet must've moved when we moved her—"

"Fuck!" Mark seethed, stepping back and tossing the stethoscope to the floor. "Heart rate's gone up to 160. She's burning out— If we don't do a pericardiocentesis soon, her BP will bottom out— we need Teddy."

That was a risky procedure. Putting a needle into someone's chest, draining the fluid that the chest tube couldn't get— Mark was making a very risky call. He really did need Teddy Altman.

Teddy. Teddy— the woman he was currently sleeping with. The cardiothoracic surgeon who'd put him in his place and crept into his bed. He was drawn to the audacity of her, the fire and drive that was behind everything she said and did. She was so different from Lexie and so similar to Beth.

"It's just us!" Lexie said, shaking her head. "I know nothing about cardio— I've never even seen her do one—"

He'd seen Beth die before and he'd swore that he'd never watch that happen again.

His mind was racing. He felt the world grind to a halt again, just as it had when Beth had been dragged through that door. His hands were trembling. He was a surgeon. His hands didn't shake. His hands, before this day, had never shaken like this before. His chest heaved as he fought to remember what he'd learnt in Med School. 

Beth had made so many jokes about it when they'd been together. She'd joked about how much older he'd been, how long it'd been since he'd gone to school— but she was right. It'd been a long time since he'd even glanced at cardiothoracic surgery.

"I'll do it."

The alarm on Lexie's face spoke volumes.

"Mark I don't think—"

"We don't have any other choice," His voice was trembling too. He sounded far from confident. He avoided her eye and held out his hand. "Get me an 18-gauge spinal needle and a 20-cc syringe."

It was dangerous. It was a dangerous procedure and he was going in blindly. He'd only done a single pericardiocentesis and that'd been nearly two decades ago. When Lexie handed him the needle, he had to bite into his cheek to stop himself from shaking.

"It's against protocol," Lexie said quietly, watching as he pushed down Beth's bra, exposing the stretch of skin he needed. A muscle jumped in his jaw. His whole body was tensed into a stillness that was unnatural and uncomfortable.

"What do you want me to do, Lexie?" He asked, voice tight. "I can't just let her die."

"I-"

"It's Beth," Mark's voice wavered. "It's Beth, Lexie— I can't let her die. She can't die."

Beth. Beth. Beth. Lexie shut her eyes and nodded. 

This was going to be a mistake. It might've been Beth, but Mark was not Teddy Altman. He was a plastic surgeon about to do an extremely risky cardio procedure, one that had a higher chance of killing her then saving her.

Beth. Beth. Beth.

Lexie was beginning to really hate that name.

"Should I just wait until she flatlines and call time of death?"

Mark sounded angry. He sounded hurt. He sounded as if all of his emotions were crashing at once. Lexie kept her mouth tightly closed and just stared at him, watched as his eyes swum and his breathing grew laboured.

"This is not—"

"Do it," She said. "Just..." Lexie wiped away a tear. "Do it."

They had no alternative. There was no ability to page in a cardio surgeon. This was beginning to feel less and less like a hospital and more and more like a minefield. They couldn't afford to wait for Beth to get all the way to another hospital and into surgery. They were running out of time.

The sanitation pad did its best to wipe away the blood that was speckled across Beth's chest. Begrudgingly, Lexie did her best to help. 

It was less out of the reluctance to help Beth live and more out of the fear that Mark was about to skewer Beth's heart on a needle. Her hands were shaking too. 

She didn't like Beth's odds as she watched Mark's hand trembled as he positioned the needle.

"Steady," Mark said, trying his best to still his hands.

"I really—"

"Steady," He said sharply.

Lexie fell silent and just watched.

The needle went in. As soon as it entered, Mark regretted making the call. He had no idea what he was searching for. If he went in too deep, the syringe was going to fill with blood. If he didn't go too far, this was all going to be a waste of time. 

Beside him, he felt Lexie hold her breath, waiting for the telltale sign that everything was going to be okay— she checked Beth's pulse, pressing her fingers against her wrist.

"BP's 180."

"Steady."

She glanced over at him, eyebrows furrowing as she watched the needle go deeper and deeper.

"Mark I—"

"Not yet." He said. He was staring at Beth's face. His eyes were burning holes into her chin, into her closed eyes and ajar mouth. He was waiting for a sign, waiting to something to tell him to stop. He wasn't sure what it was— holy crap, this had been a bad idea.

"Mark—"

"Wait—"

"It's too deep--"

"Let me--"

And then it happened.

 A flush of blood that exploded out the bottom of the syringe. A tidal wave of red, just when they'd thought that Beth had bled too much already. It was like some sort of foundation— Mark's skin crawled and he realised that he'd done the unthinkable.

"You're in the heart!"

Lexie threw herself forwards, drawing the needle out of Beth's chest. She shot Mark an alarmed look, face overwhelmed with horror. 

He was just staring. 

That's all he been able to do all day. 

Stand and stare. 

Staring as Lexie pressed all of the leftover gauzes they had on top of Beth's chest.

Blood. More Blood. Lots of Blood. 

Lexie hadn't realised that Beth had this much blood left in her body.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Holy fuck. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm-

And then, the commotion started.

The door exploded open, people started to pile into the room. 

Darkly dressed people with guns and helmets, taken aback as they watched the two surgeons scramble over a pale and lifeless looking body. 

The SWAT team were forced to stare as Mark tried his best to fix his mistake— his face gaunt and panic seizing his whole body.

A mistake. A big mistake. A life-ending mistake.

But this amount of blood. It didn't come from a sudden slip of a bullet-- she'd been bleeding out slowly without them even realising it. 

She must've been bleeding internally through every conversation, every smile and every joke that had fallen past her chapped lips. 

The thought of her dying so quietly and silently made Lexie want to hurl.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Whenever Mark blinked, he saw her dead, unmoving face.

"I'm sorry Beth," He said, looking at the growing puddle of blood on the floor. "I'm so, so fucking sorry."

He'd made the wrong call.