Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟳𝟮 this is me trying ¹

𝙇𝙓𝙓𝙄𝙄.
THIS IS ME TRYING / PART ONE

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okay so to set this chapter with a lil bit of context,
the dinner takes place on the evening before the hospital scenes,
so the hospital parts are the morning after.

if u need help for clarity pls just yell for me.
i can be summoned like a v low budget genie free of charge.

this is also split into two parts because it's obnoxiously long
but i have three words for you:

✧ mark in therapy ✧

HAVE FUN!

SEATTLE

THE DINNER

HE COULDN'T REMEMBER the last time he'd been on a date.

A date. An actual date. 

He supposed he'd had them once. 

That sort of a date. Sweaty-palms slick against dress pants, bashful glances, too much cologne and a reservation in a restaurant downtown. Of course, he'd had them. 

He'd learnt to small-talk and smile somewhere, right? 

He'd learnt to charm and seduce and sweet talk-- but he couldn't give a specific when or where.

He, however, definitely had a who in mind.

When he did think about dates, he thought about a time in particular: of swinging out of liquor stores in the West Village and the car engine still running. 

He thought of the little black dresses and the way he'd avoid drinking and driving, booking it over the Brooklyn Bridge to go show her some off-the-cuff park, the sort they didn't have back in suburban Connecticut. He thought of long nights, guessing the cases in ambulances as they passed down the street and sticking to street corner lamp posts like moths, hungry for bare skin to touch bare skin. 

He thought of nightclubs, of how he'd never really liked them and preferred to make conversation within clouds of nefarious smoke. With a smile, thought of that one time that his car had gotten broken into just down from Bedford-Stuyvesant and someone had stolen fifty bucks and a lighter from his glove box-- she'd turned to him, gave him a wicked smile and said, just like a true New Yorker, "We're half a block from Marcy Houses. What would Jay-Z do?"

Seattle wasn't like New York. 

He couldn't remember a city that had felt so different; he didn't bounce out of bodegas and he sure as hell didn't break the speed limit. 

Maybe he could remember the last time he'd felt that particular way, nervous and bashful like a kid holding a Valentine's favour. 

His past two relationships had been very reminiscent of that: he'd actually felt things. He'd been nervous, he'd had clammy palms and he'd actually allowed himself, for a second in time, to feel something other than the righteous burn of his ego.

(It seemed to flare through him like hellfire itself in the worst of times. Sometimes he loved it, sometimes he didn't. Mark knew that he took after his father in that way.)

But now, Mark felt oddly empty sitting there.

He was making polite conversation. On a date.

It seemed as though half of Seattle had decided to go out on dates all at once. 

The restaurant was busy and they'd just ordered drinks. It wasn't a fancy restaurant but it wasn't rough either, he was wearing slacks but his palms were far from sweaty. Instead, he felt cold. He felt unusually stiff in his chair, like a mannequin that hadn't been posed properly. 

When he went to speak, it felt as though his teeth were stuck together. His jaw ached from the effort of parting it. Ever so often, he'd look over at the woman sitting across from him and wonder whether she had goosebumps too. 

He wasn't exactly sure what it was per se, but in regular sweeping intervals, it felt as though someone was walking over his grave.

His date cleared her throat, "I'm thinking of ordering the crab."

Bethenny Ballard sat in the chair as if she was in an office, sat behind a desk. 

She held the menu as if it was a medical chart, studying it with an intensity that made Mark's mouth twitch. Vaguely hearing her words, he nodded along, eyes trailing across the printed words. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of her red lips as she smiled to herself, brushing her hair behind her ear. Like him, she was dressed with a slight grasp of neatness; in all honesty, Mark wouldn't have been surprised if she'd been going to a business conference.

"I, uh," He tilted his head to the side, looking down the list of foods, "I might go for the salmon."

She let out a sound of approval, nodding her head as he set the menu down and adjusted himself in his seat. 

Idly, he wondered whether she could feel it too, the very faint pressure that was shallowing out the conversation. As aforementioned, Mark couldn't exactly remember the last time he'd been on a date (if he had to estimate, he would've said an outing with Lexie pre-Sloan, before the waters had been disturbed by his surprise pregnant daughter and she'd decided that he wasn't worth it anymore) but he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to feel this level of awkward. 

He hadn't felt like this for a long time, that was for sure.

From what he'd gathered, Bethenny was a very nice girl. 

She made good conversation and had a nice sense of humour, had a good taste in seafood restaurants and didn't question him when he'd asked her, out of the blue, to get dinner with him. 

Instead, she'd just smiled and commented on how she'd been here a week and she still hadn't found the best bluefin tuna on the West Coast. That, somehow, had led them to this.

They'd already made the niche small talk. The weather was nice, the day had been noticeably busy and Bethenny was respectively well settled into the city. Mark couldn't, for the life of him, remember what else there was to say. 

He was trying his best to survive through entrees but fully expected to ask his secretary to send him a fake page halfway through the main.

"I have to say," Bethenny began as the waiter left with their orders. She sat back in her chair and pushed her hair behind her shoulder. "I was surprised when you asked me out tonight."

He shifted in his chair, brow furrowing, "Really?"

"Yeah," She hummed lightly, clasping her hands in front of her and smiling. "Well, when you stood me up the other night at Joe's I figured you were not that interested..." 

Mark's composure slipped a little bit and he bowed his head in recognition. He had, indeed, stood her up. He wasn't particularly proud of it either. 

Despite her words, Bethenny's smile didn't waver; she chuckled to herself, shaking her head slowly. "There's something really charming about sitting at a bar waiting for someone who's never going to show..."

On the next table over, a couple were holding hands across the table; his fingers twitched and he leant back in his chair.

"Sorry about that," Mark rubbed at the back of his neck, averting his gaze so he gazed over her shoulder.  "Something came up--"

"I figured," Bethenny replied, nodding. 

She was so nonchalant in her nod that, for a moment, Mark wasn't sure whether she'd picked up on his blatant lie. 

(Nothing had come up at all. In fact, Mark had spent the first lonely evening in a month, watching Judge Judy reruns and wondering whether his neighbours could hear his very silent existential crisis.) 

"For the record... " She said, "This is a nice surprise."

"Good," He said, letting out a long breath, "Great."

Full disclosure: Mark had no idea why he was here.

He didn't know why he'd asked Bethenny Ballard out to dinner... or maybe he knew exactly why but just didn't want to address it. His plan for the evening was to nurse one single scotch and to brown-nose his way through the next two courses; Bethenny was nice enough, but he really did not know why he'd turned up. 

It wasn't that he didn't enjoy small talk and seafood, it was just that for some reason his whole body seemed to itch at the thought of doing it with her in particular.

She looked up at him and quirked a brow, "Everything alright?"

(No, you remind me of my ex-girlfriend and I feel like I'm having a bad trip down memory lane.)

"Yeah," Mark cleared his throat and leant forwards in his chair, trying his best to appear eager. 

He paused for a second, running through his rolodex of conversation topics. It was extensive, the tool of the trade for a guy like him. 

"It's just been a long day," He said.

"It has," She agreed with a small nod, "One thing I forgot about working in the middle of nowhere is how heated things can get... it's definitely going to be a lot of work for me to take on." With a polite smile, Mark asked her whether she'd accepted the job offer. "I'm doing a trial run for now, getting a feel of things. I'll see how I get on and if it's a perfect fit then... it looks like I'll be moving here to Seattle. What do you think, this place hold a light to the Big Apple?"

He didn't miss how her eyes sparkled slightly at the thought of staying in Seattle. She was flirting, cocking a suggestive eyebrow as they received their drinks. It amused him more than anything. 

He smiled to himself and chuckled to himself-- presently, Mark couldn't imagine anyone willingly coming to Seattle. It seemed as though everyone who started working at Seattle Grace just ended up either dying or very near to it. 

He wasn't sure whether to encourage her to take the job or just tell her to save herself and stay on the East Coast. Mark stayed silent. 

He figured that he didn't need to barge his way into another Beth's life.

"It's not a bad place," Mark commented idly. "It rains a lot more than back home but--"

"Oh," Bethenny raised a hand and waved it dismissively, "That's no problem. I love the rain."

It struck Mark, in that moment, how long it had been since he'd been back to New York. 

It'd been a couple of years since he'd sold the practice and moved out to Seattle and he had yet to decide whether that had been a good call or not. He didn't mind the rain. What he did mind, however, was his complicated love life. 

That and the fact that Seattle Grace Mercy Death seemed to be an infinite omen of bad luck. Instead of chasing away the imperfect, the imperfect seemed to constantly chase him.

How did Seattle compare? He wasn't exactly sure.

He also wasn't exactly sure if he missed New York either. 

It was just a place where things had happened, things that Mark was still struggling to process even five years later.

Instead of confirming whether Seattle 'held a light' to his hometown, Mark went for a very indifferent shrug and took a long mouthful of scotch, letting it simmer and burn at the back of his mouth. He adjusted his posture and engaged in a conversation about the hospital, one that felt a little bit too much like a Q&A: yes, the hospital parking is okay, yes, traffic can be a nightmare, no, Mark isn't familiar with the public transport and he can't really comment on the local art scene either--

Then the inevitable happened. Bethenny swung into the touchy territory, the sort of words that no one in the hospital really said; she looked over at him, tilted her head to the side and said those words. They were said nonchalantly as if it hadn't been a storm cloud that was constantly looming over their heads, as if Mark could have possibly forgotten about it in his own time as if he needed reminding.

Across the table, Mark's shoulders tensed as he sensed the change in topic.

"You know, I wish that I was getting this trial under better circumstances," She spoke while observing her cuticles, sighing through her nose.  She ran a finger around the rim of her dry white wine and frowned to herself. "It's awful what happened... I can't imagine what it must've..."

There was a pause. 

A shift in the ambience at the table. From here, Mark could see the goosebumps that raised on her arms. 

She shook her head and glanced up at him. 

Their eyes very briefly met before Mark had to quickly look away.

(Mark really wished that he couldn't imagine it.)

"Did you know anyone that..."

Mark just nodded. "Yeah, yeah I did."

She nodded back at him, appearing momentarily distracted. What did dating and Mark's therapy sessions have in common? Answer: this conversation topic. 

Mark didn't like this similarity. He wished that she'd just stop talking or that his secretary would page him and get him out of this second of time-- his chest burned with the same sensation that had gripped him when he'd been in that OR with Teddy. 

He kissed his teeth and took another large mouthful of scotch.

"Did you know Doctor Wyatt?" When Mark didn't recognise the name, Bethenny let out a short breath. "The woman I'm... I'm replacing. Did you know her?"

"Ah," His voice caught at the back of his throat. 

He didn't like to think about that sort of stuff. The list of people that were affected by that day was far too long. He cracked a very dry smile and tried to avoid thinking about it for longer than two seconds. 

"I try to avoid working with psychiatrists," He said.

Thankfully, the conversation moved onwards, away from the hospital shooting and more into their lives. She spoke about Rhode Island, of Brown University, of Riverwalk and summers in Providence. 

She seemed very enthusiastic about things, talking so fondly about her hometown and the place where she grew up. She asked him too, about Seattle, about New York, about Plastic Surgery and his department. 

As much as Mark was reluctant to admit it, in all fairness, they got along well.

(Maybe that was the problem? He got along with 'Beth's' a little too well.)

At some point in the conversation, he said her name. Bethenny. (God, it was weird saying that name. It almost made his skin crawl while his head was stuffed with these sort of thoughts.) Her head lifted and she seemed to blanch, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

"Please, not the full name," His eyebrows raised as she chuckled long and hard as if he'd inadvertently insulted her. Mark, for a second, was caught off-guard. He'd heard that before and it rang in his ears almost like a distant memory-- "It makes me feel like I'm a kid getting told off... Call me Beth if you have to."

He must've pulled a face. He must've. 

Mark didn't realise it but it was definitely a face. It was subtle, the sort of twitch in his face that was completely subconscious and couldn't be stopped. 

He lowered his head as it happened, averting the expression at the tablecloth and the shiny cutlery, but Bethenny caught it. 

She leant forwards, placing her elbows on the table, eyes gleaming with interest.

"Oh." 

When Mark looked up, he was taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm that shined on her face. She was staring at him as if he'd just shared the most interesting thought she'd ever heard. He blinked at her, completely confused. He even glanced over his shoulder for good measure. 

"Oh."

"What?"

"I forgot about this whole thing..."

 She waved a hand at him as if she was gesturing to something that neither of them could see (but they could definitely feel.) 

Still confused, Mark encouraged her to continue but had to wait for her to take a long drag of her white wine before she started speaking again. 

"This Beth thing," She said, "You pulled a face just then and you did the other morning."

"I didn't make a face," He said, "I don't have a 'thing'."

"I don't believe you," Their food had been delivered so she stared at him from across a boiled crab, eyes rolling in her head as Mark feigned a very solemn bewilderment. She let out a long chuckle and shook her head, very clearly amused. "Who is she? An ex?--"

(He grimaced again.)

"--So an ex?" She blinked at him, head bobbing nonchalantly. Mark, again, didn't speak. A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. "I'm sensing an ex." (A further frown.) "Messy breakup?"

It took everything within him not to sigh. 

She was looking at him expectantly as if he was about to launch into some fantastic story. Mark wasn't exactly sure if it was a very interesting story-- if it was, by all means, he'd have sold it to some movie executive by now. 

Maybe his concept of being a poor man's Hugh Grant would come full circle.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Can we not..." He sounded tired. He shook his head. "I don't want to--"

It was a date. Mark knew that he hadn't been on one for a hot minute, but he was pretty sure that the 'ex-partner' talk wasn't a first-date sort of conversation. 

He watched her reaction, watched the way she inhaled sharply as if his words were almost a physical, very violent attack. She drew back in her chair, held her glass tightly and nodded very slowly. 

He wasn't sure whether it was a recoil or a way to regain her balance. She appeared thoughtful for a moment, lips drawing into a line; a beat passed and she let out a sigh.

"That was inappropriate, my apologies." 

It was a surprisingly mature and articulate response. Mark's chin raised. She rolled her eyes at herself and chuckled dryly. 

"I have like a sixth sense when it comes to relationships and stuff... " Now it was almost his turn to be intrigued; he looked over at Bethenny, cocking his head to the side. Another sigh. "I used to be a couples therapist. I can tell when people have history, y'know... I mean... of course, it was a messy breakup if you won't talk about--"

"A couples therapist?"

"Yeah," Bethenny seemed a little too invested in the bottom of her wine glass. 

She watched the liquid swirl around a bit, shrugging haphazardly. "I used to deal with a lot of broken homes, married couples that really shouldn't have been married in the first place, repetitive cheaters and alcoholics..." Mark made a noise at the back of his throat and she raised her head, suddenly fixing two very bright eyes on him. "You and your ex ever go to therapy together?"

He chuckled, grimacing to himself as he lifted his scotch to his lips. "No." (He wasn't exactly sure whether Beth's Guerilla session with Laurel Hargreeves counted. He guessed it didn't.) "But it probably would've solved a lot of problems--"

"Let me guess," She said, looking at him with a crooked grin. Briefly, Bethenny looked him up and down, narrowing her eyes as if she was trying to read him like a book. "You don't believe in therapy?"

Mark just shrugged, "Now I do... but back in New York?"

(Sometimes, Mark found it bizarre how different he was to the man who had existed back in Manhattan.) 

Instead of answering his own question, Mark just shook his head silently. His train of thought had left him weary.

"Hm," Bethenny seemed to mull over his answer. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, resting her chin on her clasped hands. "So how long have you guys been broken up?--"

(Mark shot her a look.)

"--I know, I know," She waved a hand dismissively, sighing in irritation. "You don't want to talk about it. But I'm thinking if you associate me with her it's probably not a very healthy mindset to have and if you're hung up over some ex-girlfriend then I don't want to get caught up in all this--"

"Five years," Mark interjected, cutting her rambling short. 

It reminded him of how she'd spoken so much in so little time while chasing her underwear around his bedroom floor. She stopped talking immediately, blinking at him as he avoided her eye, continuing with his food. 

"It's been five years," He said, "And let's get this clear... I'm not hung up over her, okay?"

Mark was fairly sure he wasn't hung up over her. At least, not anymore. 

He'd had Lexie, who was a little more dignified than a rebound, (he was too exhausted to figure out whether Addison had, technically, been his rebound) not to mention every woman he'd slept with since he'd come to Seattle. 

He'd moved on, he'd loved Lexie, he'd seen a life with Lexie-- he was definitely not hung up over Elizabeth Montgomery.

"Okay," She responded, but she didn't nod nor did she elaborate whether she believed him or not. "Five years is quite a long time--"

He sighed. "I don't want to talk about--"

"You're the one answering the questions," She said indifferently, just gazing at him as if she wasn't currently quizzing him on his dating history on their first date. He stared back and then, after a brief pause, she continued as if nothing had happened. "So, messy breakup?"

It almost irritated him, how casually she just addressed something that had been such a problem in his life for so long. 

She ate her food and blinked at him, waiting for something to happen. 

He wondered if this was what she was like when it came to her patients? Did she go for some shitty emersion therapy? Where everything was so sudden and in your face and made his chest ache? Mark cleared his throat.

"I don't talk about it," He said, very reluctant to answer her question. 

(Of course, the answer was yes.) 

Instead, he went for a very tight, almost professional response, one that caught at the back of his throat. 

Bethenny's head very slowly tilted to the side. 

"About Beth about..." A groove worked its way between his eyebrows, "It wasn't... it's not... I just don't talk about it."

"Why?"

It was such a simple question and yet it had Mark reeling as if she'd just asked him what the meaning of life was. 

Why? One word. 

It carried a lot of weight with it. He was caught completely blind. 

She chewed on a lettuce leaf and watched the cogs as they jammed in his brain-- one thought, another thought, the next-- Mark looked down at his plate.

Why didn't he talk about Beth? 

It was a good question. 

He hadn't mentioned her to anyone until she'd appeared like a ghost of Christmases' Past. She tended to do that: appear again and again until Mark felt as though he was the protagonist of a very low budget slasher cult movie. 

Maybe it was like Beetlejuice, say her name thrice and there she is-- maybe he was just constantly hoping that people forgot that New York ever happened? Maybe he was included in said 'people'? 

Maybe he was trying to avoid talking about what happened so he could avoid addressing everything that had been lost?

Mark didn't exactly have an answer.

"I get it," Bethenny said when the silence got a little too awkward. 

He severely doubted that she did, but he let her continue. 

"Sorry, that's not... I'm being too forward, aren't I?" 

He shrugged, filling his mouth with food so he didn't have to speak. 

"It's just if my name gives you PTSD then..." She pulled a face and sighed, "I think you might need to talk about it."

***

THE MORNING AFTER

Archer had few passions in life.

And what passions he had were very simple: he liked fast cars, he liked a cold beer at the end of the day and he really liked the bruise on Derek Shepherd's face.

It was a masterpiece. He found himself staring at it as the Chief of Surgery walked down the hallway. It made him wonder whether Beth had ever considered becoming a painter; he'd never seen such an art piece that had evoked such a deeply emotional response out of him. 

It made him want to sit down and write a very passionate review for the Seattle Tribune. Maybe he had a budding career in journalism ahead of him whenever he decided to step away from medicine? 

What a beautiful combination of purples, blacks and blues. What a thought-provoking pattern. What a finesse to the shape and the curve at the-- it left a wide, shit-eating grin plastered across his face all morning.

Oh, today was a good day.

What was even better was what came out of the back of that ambulance as it swung into the ER.

 He'd been in the middle of slapping on his gloves and making cheerful small talk with one of the interns as Daphne, the Head Nurse, came cantering past. 

She turned to him, noticed his wild smile and sceptically eyed the way he seemed to happily bounce on the balls of his feet. She'd even shot a questioning glance over towards his intern, a less bright-looking Lexie as she the surgical intern tied up the back of her trauma gown. 

Between the grimace on the youngest Grey's face and the grin on the eldest Montgomery's, it was safe to say that there were some very mixed messages about how this was going to go.

"Today's a good day!"

He called to Daphne as she assigned him to the incoming trauma. 

She just hummed non descriptively, heading off in the direction of the next case that needed to be assigned. That left Archer and Lexie caught in their first introductions, Lexie not having worked with the neurosurgeon before. 

Her doe-eyes turned to him, fingers quivering a little bit as she swallowed a lump at the back of her throat.

"Uh, Doctor Montgomery..."

She started off in a small voice, all too aware of what had happened the last time she'd said that name. Archer looked back over at her, his eyebrow raised at her tender tone. 

She blinked, seeming to struggle to find the right words to say. "I just wanted to say that it's a privilege to work with you and that I'm excited to--"

"Okay," Archer said warily, pulling a face, "Let's not go that far. Don't kiss my ass."

Without another word, he turned on his heel and caught the edge of the patient bed as it was heeled through by the paramedics. 

Flustered, Lexie followed behind, accepting the chart as the paramedic started reading out the patient's information (Nick Gonzalez, forty-five, editor at a publishing firm downtown, passed out a brunch for his latest book release, gained a head laceration that will need stitches). The man in question just stared around at everyone as they wheeled him into a trauma room, his glassy eyes following Archer as the brain expert's eyes lit up at a very specific phrase:

"Frontal lobe disinhibition," He read those three words off of the extended chart as Lexie passed it over to him, testing each syllable on the tip of his tongue. 

He flipped through the sheets, noticing how the paramedic seemed to grimace at it. 

Archer shot her a wide grin, "That sounds like fun."

"Patient has had the disinhibition for the past week, multiple episodes just like these..." The paramedic continued, allowing Archer to look over the hospital's newest admittance. 

The man in question, Nick, definitely looked worse for wear, his bloodshot eyes trailing over all of these new faces with a senselessness disengage; yeah, Archer thought, that needs a MRI. 

"His wife said that he's been to multiple doctors but they haven't been able to find the cause of it--"

"Grey," Archer interjected, his eyes still trailing over the contents of Nick's medical file. The surgical intern looked up suddenly, her eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. "What does frontal lobe disinhibition mean?"

Panicked, her eyes flashed in between the paramedic and her Attending.

"An injury to the frontal lobe resulting in altered inhibition, usually caused by trauma and causing socially undesirable behaviours and impaired judgement," Lexie's recital caused everyone in the room to pause, taken off-guard by how she reeled off an entry from a medical textbook without a moment of hesitation. Slowly, Archer's eyes flickered up over towards her, his brow furrowing slightly. "Can also affect insight and foresight--"

"But no trauma?" 

Archer glazed over her completely, instead turning back over towards the paramedic. The woman just shook her head, gesturing to the medical record as it balanced in his hands. 

He hummed, "I love a good puzzle. Okay, let's get an MRI on that head lac just to be safe, a page to Plastics and a page to Psych..."

He didn't miss how Lexie's eyes seemed to widen at that direction. 

(Admittedly, Archer wasn't fully up to date with the drama of Seattle Mercy West. All he knew was that he needed a Psych consult before making any medical assessments and he needed a Plastics doctor to have a look at Nick's forehead. He was completely oblivious to the way that the surgical intern's heart skipped a beat and her cheeks flushed as if she'd just heard that Archer was signing her death wish.) 

He swung out of the room as his patient was picked up for transport, still flicking through Nick's chart as he leant across the nurses' station and addressed a still very sceptic Daphne.

"You're in a good mood," She said almost wearily, head cocked to the side as she pressed a phone to her ear.

 Archer grinned to himself, watching as passing patients as they were brought in by a second paramedic team. Her eyes bounced between his wide smile and the way his eyes glittered almost menacingly. There was a pause, in which it was implied that she was almost tempted to ask, but she didn't. 

She shook her head, "I don't want to know."

"It's just a good day," Archer mused lightly, setting the chart down and watching as she rolled her eyes. "I need you to page Psych and get a Plastics consultation on my patient in Room Four."

"Do you want Doctor Montgomery?"

His brow furrowed, "Beth's working?"

"She's on the rota," Daphne shrugged, inclining her head towards a piece of paper that sat on the edge of her desk. 

His eyes flickered towards it, catching how her name had been hastily scribbled in a box as if it was some painstakingly last-minute decision. It caught Archer off-guard. 

The dent between his eyebrows wavered and he nodded, feeling his shoulders fall as he realised maybe this day was so much better than he'd ever imagined. 

He'd been right, today was a really good day. 

He was going to work with his sister.

Across the hospital bed, Lexie was clearing the dried blood from his head laceration, her back turned from the door as Archer watched the patient's pupils bounce towards him. He was receptive, that was a good sign. 

"My name's Doctor Montgomery," Archer said to the patient as he rolled out of the MRI, "You're at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. You had a fall. We've got in contact with your wife... she's on the way."

"Mercy Death?" The patient exhaled, sighing as his face twisted in agitation as Lexie cleaned what looked like a very painful laceration. "This is the hospital that got shot up right?"

Out of the corner of Archer's eye, he caught how his surgical intern froze at the mention of something that had left PTSD in most of the doctors in this place. 

He didn't respond, just watched how Nick's lack of inhibition robbed him of any tenderness. 

This was going to be an interesting case that was for sure-- he had a patient who, for some undiagnosed medical reason, was completely unable to filter himself. He was medically inclined to tell the truth at all times.

"Your MRI came back clear," He continued as if Nick hadn't even spoken in the first place. Lexie seemed to hum back to life, restarting her movements with a muscle twitching in her jaw. "We want to run some diagnostic tes--"

"Is it bad that I kinda want to be moved to another hospital?" Nick interjected, looking over the neurosurgeon. Archer just blinked at him, wary of where exactly this was going. The patient let out a light laugh, his frontal lobe disinhibition making for a very interesting conversation. "Just... just one that I know I'm not gonna get shot at--"

After a pause, he grimaced to himself.

"Sorry, I just keep saying things..."

"It's okay. You're perfectly safe here," was all that Archer said. 

It wasn't the guys fault, there was something in his brain that was twisting his thought pattern and making his filter crumble. Archer couldn't imagine the sort of shit that would start if the same happened to him. 

He turned, glancing over at Lexie as she tensed, but gestured to a device that he had beside him. "I'm sorry but we're going to have to run some more tests--"

"You don't look sorry," Nick retorted, but then seemed to pick up on his slip again, "Um, no offence. Although you do look kind of cheerful. It's a little creepy. Should I want a doctor who's excited about how sick I am?"

He'd almost chuckled at that one.

"I'm not," Archer lied.

He was very excited. He hadn't had a case like this in Seattle yet, a case that he could really sink his teeth into. He was beyond excited. 

The surgical cases here had been painstakingly dry and uneventful, most of them being just routine surgeries that had made him really wish he was back in LA. 

People seemed to just be more fun back in California, the cases were harder and he really liked the beach-- but he wasn't going anywhere until he felt as though his time here was done.

(It was either a prison sentence or a charity case. He hadn't quite decided which one yet.)

Archer stood aside as Nick's wife arrived, following them into a hospital room as Nick was officially admitted-- his wife, a mousy woman who introduced herself as Maja, seemed to sigh at the sight of her husband still vaguely bloodied. 

She set their child down at the foot of the bed and immediately stood on the phone, organising childcare and his sick leave. It appeared, from the way that Maja appeared almost exasperated by her husband's hospitalisation, that this had been happening a lot lately.

What also seemed to be happening a lot lately, was Archer being surprised by the appearance of his sister. 

The familiar click of heels against tile was what alerted him; it was the soundtrack to her every movement, it made his head rise and his eyes search her out as she stopped in front of him. 

His lips twitched into a smile. He inclined his head.

"Welcome back, kid."

She returned his smile. It was faint. "Thank you."

And then she accepted the medical chart as it was handed to her.

"What have you got for me?"

As he briefed her on his patient, he couldn't help but wonder what was happening in that brain of hers-- here they were, stood in the very department that she'd nearly died in and there was barely any sign of tension in her shoulders. 

In fact, she seemed completely at ease. 

It was as if nothing had even happened. It was as if Archer wasn't needed here at all.

"This seems like a pretty obvious Neuro case," Beth's brow furrowed as she glanced through the medical file. Her eyes scanned over the text, engagement ring glimmering as she turned the page. "Sounds like a tumour."

"MRI was clear, nothing to indicate the usual suspects--"

"Okay," She said slowly, a dent appearing between her eyebrows, "So the tumour isn't in the head... maybe it's in the nasal passage? Makes sense if he had a nose bleed before he passed out. A well-placed tumour in the nasal cavity eroding into the brain could do the damage."

He blinked at her. She was right. It could. It was such an abstract thought, but it could work-- he found himself staring at her as she just continued perusing around the medical chart, completely oblivious to the fact that Archer felt as though he was having an out of body experience. 

"Why are you more use than my intern?" 

As he looked back down at the file, he couldn't help but smile. She'd been a terrific surgical intern. He almost missed it, the way that she'd been so eager to pick up a scalpel and just dive into any surgery. Beth just chuckled, her eyes glimmering as she glanced up at him. 

"Been reading any journals over your break any chance?" Archer asked lightly.

"Just touching up my knowledge," was her reply, paired with another smile. She glanced down at her pager, running her thumb down its length. "So... still think you need me?"

He nodded. He needed to cover all of his bases, if he knew anything about these sort of cases, it was that sometimes they surprised him too. 

Sometimes, what he thought was the right diagnosis happened to be completely incorrect, it was what he loved about medicine. Everything was a big puzzle and he had so many pieces to fill.

Archer sighed lightly, tugging the medical chart out of her fingers and rolling his eyes as if she was the most annoying person on the planet; "Always. I'll have him ready for you in twenty minutes."

Beth just chuckled, "Aye sir."

His faux annoyed expression faded into a fond smile.

"Good to have you back, kid."

"Stop it," She teased as the pager in her hand buzzed to life. She read it, her grin lingering as she brushed her hair over her shoulder, squinting down at the small text. "You're gonna make me blush, Arch."

With a parting wink, Beth went to turn away, no doubt already extremely busy with different patients she needed to see, but there seemed something that halted her-- that happened often, a thought would arise and she'd stop and she'd slowly turn back and meet her brothers gaze. 

There was a brief pause, in which a dent appeared in between her eyebrows and then, very gradually, she decided to say what was on her mind:

"We moved the wedding." 

Her words made Archer's eyebrows raise expectantly. It was needless to say that it was the last thing he'd expected Beth to talk about. Even more unexpected was the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips, the happy glimmer in her eye that told him this was finally some good news. 

She couldn't fight off her grin as she thought about it. 

"It's in two days-- well, two and a half technically now but...." A pause. "I'm getting married."

He couldn't exactly explain the expression on her face. He almost didn't recognise it. 

It was something that was so different to the look she'd had in that bridal store. It was unfamiliar to him, so long forgotten and desperately found-- but holy shit, happiness looked beautiful on her.

"I want you to be there," She breathed it out so lightly, through a smile that made him smile back. Archer felt his heart swell and warmth flood his body. "We're just going to go to the courthouse and... and we're just gonna do it... and I know it's not as glamorous as walking me down the aisle... but I'd love you to be a witness."

To say Archer was happy for his sister was an understatement. 

He could see it in her eyes and her smile and the way that she looked at him. 

He'd never thought he'd see her this happy in her life.

"It'd be my honour."

***

THE DINNER

He didn't exactly know where to start.

Talk about it. 

That was a pretty shitty instruction. 

Bethenny blinked at him and said it as if it was something he just talk about, that he could just improv on and unpack without much effort. 

He hesitated, grimacing at the thought of dominating the conversation with his failed romantic endeavours-- he hadn't been on a first date like this before, he could say that with confidence. Maybe it was because he'd never been on a date with a psychiatrist before. 

She gestured to the space between them as if to give him the floor. 

He took a mouthful of scotch and grimaced.

"You want me to--?"

"If you want to talk to someone might as well be me," She responded dryly, shrugging as if she was discussing talking about the weather. "I spent eight years as a relationship therapist in the middle of suburbia. I think I'm more than qualified to help you work through your Beth thing--"

"I don't have a Beth thing."

"---your Beth thing," The psychiatrist repeated, tilting her head to the side. Mark looked away, back down towards his glass. He pressed his lips into a thin line. "Y'know, if it's really a problem you're welcome to use my last name--"

"Again," Mark said evenly, although he was staring at the bottom of his scotch glass as he spoke. "I don't have a Beth thing. It's been five years and I don't really think--"

"You have a thing," She interjected, clasping her hands under her chin and smiling at him. He felt his chest grow tighter at the insistence. "Ever since I told you my name you look at me funny. I don't know whether I've got something in teeth or you're trying to see something in me... or see someone else... Don't worry, I'm not taking it personally."

Mark paused.

Did he have a 'Beth thing'? He wasn't exactly sure what that meant. 

Did it mean that he was attracted to Beth's exclusively? (he was fairly sure that wasn't true at all, after all, he'd enjoyed his time with Lexie) Or did it mean that he just couldn't look at people with that name the same anymore? (to that, Mark just had to say: it's not that deep. This wasn't that serious. It was just a name. What's in a name?) He didn't have a 'Beth thing', he was just weirded out, that was all.

"If you want to talk, talk." 

It was almost a dangerous invitation. Take the floor, talk this 'thing' out. She looked interested again as if whatever Mark was about to say was far more enthralling than any small talk he had pre-programmed into his sociable being. 

"Patients usually find it therapeutic to just lay things out in the open--"

"Well, the last time I talked about it I hurt people," Mark cleared his throat, averting his gaze away from the woman opposite him. 

He would've been lying if he said that he didn't think about that a lot. He'd begun to fester in his guilt over the whole situation. 

"Well, about her," Mark shrugged,  almost indifferently, "She got hurt last time. Talking about it is not a good idea.. It's not just my business. It's not just mine to share. I don't want to hurt her again."

"Is that why you don't talk about it at all?" Her question made him sigh through his nose. "I can sense there's a lot of animosity--"

"I've learnt that me talking is usually a bad idea," He cracked a sharp but slightly weathered smile. "I'm an asshole. I don't do things right. I say the wrong things to the wrong people. Not just with this, but with other things too. For a guy that everyone considers so charming, I'm pretty crap with my bedside manners. I told my ex-girlfriend what happened with Beth and it did more bad than good. It's not worth talking about."

"Hm," Bethenny shrugged. "Sounds worth it to me."

(Mark couldn't exactly decide whether it was worth it to dwell on the past, per se, but at this point, he'd realised that he didn't have a point. He'd been living in the past for the past two months and showed no sign of resurfacing.)

"I think I'm done with causing people pain," Mark added with another serrated smile. 

For good measure, he leant over and finished the rest of his scotch, touching the glass back down on the table. Bethenny barely blinked as she watched the frustration in the way he moved so suddenly. Her eyes followed his movements, chin still cradled in her palm. 

"It's not good for my street cred," He added, after a beat.

"Mm," She agreed with a gentle nod, "But from my experience, I find that asshole don't... generally... care about other people. You, on the other hand, you seem to care a lot." Mark's jaw clenched slightly and he leant back in his chair, staring over at her as she smiled. "You seem to care a lot about people. This Beth in particular."

He was suddenly reminded of that moment with Lexie on the curbside just ten minutes after the world had gotten a bit emptier. She'd asked if he cared. He hadn't been able to formulate a response. He'd just stared at the ground and tried to tether himself to something, dug his fingers into the tarmac and hold on for dear life-- 

Caring, he concluded, was quite possibly his downfall when it came to his past relationships.

"Call it nostalgia," was all Mark could manage in response.

It struck him, at that moment, that no one had ever asked him how he felt about New York. No one had ever thought 'Oh does Mark want to talk about it? Does he have anything he wants to get off of his chest?'. 

Beth had, but only fleetingly as if she was very hesitant to pull off that bandaid and acknowledge that they'd both been so deeply affected. 

She'd sat in that therapy session after Lexie had confronted her, and watched him with hooded eyelids, expressed her own frustration and cursed him out-- he'd not wanted to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about it at all.

How could things that happened five years ago feel so fresh?

(Cheat Answer: when you have ignored and repressed it for all of that time.)

Maybe, Mark realised as Bethenny gave him a knowing smile, that was the problem with 'talking about it'. 

It opened wounds that he hadn't healed but that he'd covered with pretty bandages that had eidetic memories, cute button noses and the tendency to eat excessively when stressed. He'd felt those stitches lift, his prize sutures unloop one by one with the way Beth had just appeared back into his life and told him that she missed him too (sometimes) without understanding how much weight those words actually held--

Bethenny tilted her head to the side, "If you don't want to talk about it, I won't push you, but if you do, I can guarantee that I'll treat you like any one of my patients... I'll keep everything confidential and will even sign an agreement if that makes you comfortable. You don't have to... but I think it'll help you."

He didn't answer immediately but dropped his attention back down to his pager. 

It was sat on the edge of the table, lingering in a constant reminder that Mark hadn't wanted to stay. The small device stared back at him. He paused, ordered a refill of his scotch and then set his eyes on the woman across from him.

He wanted to talk about it. He really, really wanted to talk about it. He wanted to wash clean of it.

"What's the catch?"

Bethenny smiled. It was a slow expression, her lips twitched and she chuckled to herself, looking down at the plate in front of her. 

The glass of wine lingered in her hand and, for the hundredth time tonight, Mark felt a third person at the table. He felt her too often as if she was constantly just out of sight out of the corner of his eye.

"No catch," She was amused. "Although, it would morally dubious for us to have sex after this... but something tells me that wasn't on your mind anyway."

"So you're just going to give me a free therapy session?" Mark mused, leaning back in his seat and cocking his head to the side. He watched her second chuckle, it glittered in her eyes and she set her glass back on the table. "I have to say, that's good service--"

"Oh no," Bethenny cut him off with a scoff and pointed to the table, "You're paying for dinner."

***

THE HOSPITAL

"Oh of course."

That was the reaction to Mark walking into the patient's room. 

No oh thank you so much for responding to the page, no thank you for coming, Doctor Sloan-- just the scoff that fell past Archer's lips. 

It was slightly exasperated as if Archer didn't exactly know why he'd expected any different, which, in all honesty, wasn't too far off. From the moment that Mark entered Nick's room, Archer found himself realising quite exactly why today was good. 

(He really loved working cases with Mark, it always gave him a good perspective on the better things in life. Funnily enough, it filled him with the same sensation that he was blessed with when he saw the bruise on his ex-brother-in-law's face. It gave Archer a sense of purpose.)

(He also really liked watching the asshole squirm.)

The other person in the room, the doe-eyed surgical intern with a selective mean streak, heaved a breath as she prepped equipment for one of the hundreds of tests that Archer was planning on running today. 

The neurosurgeon looked between the two of them, slowly fishing out a memory that was half-submerged: Oh, he realised, remembering how Eli had filled him in with what he'd missed while they'd waited for Beth to try on dresses...

Oh, this was going to be even more fun once Beth turned up.

"Okay Nick,' Archer said, not really bothered about giving Mark any airtime. 

He didn't bother with introductions either. 

His patient was sat in his bed, his daughter sat on his lap as they slapped cards on a lunch tray in between them. The wife paced circles in the background, still stuck to her cell phone. "We've got another test to run--"

"Okay," He repeated lowly, shifting uncomfortably as their last card game came to an end. The little kid on his lap squealed as he jostled her, tickling her sides. "Looks like I'm a loser-ooser--"

"Daddy!" The little girl cried out as their card game ended, "I'm always gonna win if you keep telling me what your cards are." Her face scrunched in disarray as Nick shook his head, a guilty expression stretching across his face as he chuckled to himself. "It's no fun!"

Archer chuckled; on the contrary, he thought today was a lot of fun. 

He thought the way that Mark seemed to tense around him was fun. He thought the way that Lexie seemed to cringe as soon as Mark opened his mouth to introduce himself, was fun too. He let Mark do his little charming smile, his little handshake and the explanation that he was basically god's gift to humanity-- Archer watched him, his lips twitching as he noticed how Mark seemed to constantly glance at him out of the corner of his eye. 

It made him wonder what exactly had happened since they'd last seen each other; had his words hit home? Or had Beth delivered some sort of deafening blow? 

Whatever it was, it was just adding to the sun.

"Hi," Archer cleared his throat and stepped forwards, becoming Lexie to the front with the equipment for their next test. His patient looked over warily, watching as they loomed at the foot of his bed. "We're going to put this up your nose, scan for any problems." Then he paused when he saw the dent between Nick's eyebrows. "And I can assure you that we are completely unexcited about that."

"Excuse me, sweetie," Lexie said tenderly towards the little girl on Nick's lap. 

The girl didn't seem to pay any attention as the surgeons attempted to move her out of the way. In the background, Maja leant forwards, her hand cupping the screen of her phone as she spoke.

"Hold on," She spoke to whoever was on the other side, before nodding in her daughter's direction. "She has an auditory processing disorder."

The doctors all looked back at the child. Her eyes following all of them as they blinked back at her. Archer nodded slowly and, Nick with a bright smile gently hoisted her down off the hospital bed 

"Marika-beleeka, you have to get off the bed."

Immediately, the kid, Marirka, beelined for her mother, leaving Lexie and nurse to start prepping for the procedure-- as they waited, Archer noticed how Mark seemed to avoid his eye.

"This might be slightly uncomfortable," Lexie warned gently, causing Nick's face to twist in distaste. 

He glanced over at the nurse on the other side, his eyes bouncing between the two of them as they held it closer and closer to his face.

"Honey, do you mind if I step out?" Maja called from the back of the room, still holding the phone tightly to her ear. With her free hand, she squeezed Marika's shoulder, already steering the child towards the door. "I have to make sure the final arrangements are in place for the breast cancer walk."

"Yeah," Nick raised his voice uneasily as she edged nearer and nearer the door. "You do that. I'll pretend to be macho while a guy stuffs three feet of plastic up my nose." 

After a beat, he glanced over towards the neurosurgeon, an impulse causing his lips to loosen.

 "It's too bad it's not your nose," Nick said, "Lots more room to manoeuvre."

Archer's eye twitched. 

In his peripheral, he saw how Mark seemed to hide a smile.

In the background, Maja paused, sharing the slight amusement at the offhand comment, "I guess the walk can wait ten minutes."

"Or, in a sensible world, even longer," His eyes wandered across the ceiling as his wife frowned. "Just how does tying up traffic for six hours stop breast cancer?"

"You know how it works," Maja began, seemingly completely bewildered by his sudden words, "People donate--"

"Why not spend six hours building houses for habitat for humanity?" He mused out loud, causing Archer to glance over towards his surgical intern. Lexie seemed to look over at the married couple warily. "Or is it wrong to help two groups of people at once? I bet there are those who have breast cancer and no home."

He could tell, from the look on Maja's face, that this was definitely the first time that it had come up in conversation. 

(The delights of marriage, Archer thought to himself as their kid sat amongst it all, serenely oblivious to the stormy look on her mother's face, You only tell the truth when you're medically inclined to.) 

Nick seemed to realise that he'd misspoken and grimaced to himself, but he didn't correct himself at all. Instead, he just avoided his wife's eye, leaning back on the bed and allowing Lexie to lay a line of disinfected paper across his chest.

"It's my job, Nick," Maja said tightly, her brow furrowed as she stared over at her husband. She still held her cell phone in her hand, the phone call long forgotten as her mouth pressed into a thin line. "You walked yourself last year--"

"To be supportive," He answered thickly as Mark slapped on a pair of surgical gloves. 

In the far corner of the room, Maja scoffed loudly, picking up her purse from the floor. On the bed, Nick seemed to get caught in another impulsive thought that came tumbling out of his lips before he could stop it: 

"And because I knew you wouldn't have sex with me if I didn't."

Oh.

Archer's eyebrows raised on their own accord, his head turning to look over at the other people in the room. His surgical intern lowered her head, cheeks turning pink as a very tense pause played out between the married couple. 

Maja, herself, was staring at her husband with a completely blank, almost lifeless facial expression, her lips pinched as if she was trying not to say anything she'd regret. 

Mark, meanwhile, was smiling slightly at the floor, clearly finding the whole situation extremely hilarious.

Jackass.

"I'm going to go take that call now," Maja's tone was clipped, movements oddly robotic and disembodied. 

She hoisted her purse up her shoulder and, while all of their gazes were averted, shepherded her child out of the room. They all waited for the click of the hospital room door, their shoulders falling the moment that the scorned woman had left the room. 

There was a brief pause and then Nick's eyes sought theirs.

"Make this stop," It was a very quiet beg, one that resonated with all of them. 

Wordlessly, they all nodded a silent agreement that told him that they would try their best to find the root of this problem. 

Nick nodded in response, resting his head back on the bed. "The walks are a waste of time. They would raise more money doing charity drives or a bake sale. I hate doing them and I think she obsesses over organising them because she has a god complex and likes to be in charge--"

He broke himself off.

"They make her happy," Nick said, his voice was strained as if he was trying very hard not to let his brain make him an ass. (As Mark prepared the scan, he faltered slightly, recognising the words as if they were an echo of something far forgotten in the past.) "I like making her happy."

Huh, maybe marriage wasn't that bad after all.

***

THE DINNER

Her words caught him off-guard.

He fully paused, staring at her as she smiled lightly, the light in her eyes sparkling almost mischievously. 

Bethenny-- No... Ballard, he made the resolution to do as she'd suggested, and make things a little bit easier to organise in his mind. 

Ballard seemed to wait for him to mull things over in his mind, and once it became very clear that he wasn't going to refuse her offer, she folded her arms over her chest and cleared her throat.

"So..." 

She trailed off, watching him intently in a way that Mark so strongly recognised. It was the shift that made things suddenly professional-- it happened so effortlessly that if he hadn't spent so much time observing Beth doing the same, he would've missed it completely. It was as if this, very suddenly, was no longer a date. It was a meeting of business, of strictly therapy. 

"Beth."

"This isn't a Beth thing," Aimlessly, he wondered how many times he'd said her name in his lifetime. Probably not as many times as he would've liked. "It's not just... I'm not--"

"You're not hung up over her," Ballard finished his sentence for him, punctuating her sentence with a mouthful of dry white wine. She flashed him a smile. "I think that's been established."

He couldn't tell whether she was mocking him. 

He didn't know where this paranoia had come from. He quirked his head to the side, smiling a very strained grin and clearing his throat. His muscles all felt very stiff, as if he was constantly on the verge of saying something that wasn't well thought out. 

Slowly, Mark fidgeted with the tablecloth and pretended to be deep in thought.

"You're not a very nice shrink," He said the words warily, raising an eyebrow over at the woman as she chuckled. She nodded in agreement. ("I'm not.") Mark seemed to pause, thinking over his words before he spoke. 

He took the time and care this time-- he'd meant what he said before, he was done causing harm out of his own carelessness. "I'm flattered, I really am... You're a really nice girl and everything but I don't think--"

"Oh god," It was Ballard's turn to pull a face. She grimaced into her wine glass. "You don't have to break up with me." 

(He paused, blinking at her.) 

Ballard just sighed and inclined her head in the direction of his pager. "When a surgeon has his pager on the table, it usually means that they don't want to be here...I've dated enough doctors to know that you've probably asked a tech to page you before dessert..."

(Mark didn't speak.)

"It's okay," She continued, barely even batting an eyelash. 

On the contrary, she looked vaguely amused, as if she'd been in this situation many times. 

Meanwhile, Mark was very confused: he hadn't quite had a breakup go like this before. 

He snorted.

Mark thanked the waiter as he was served his refill of scotch, avoiding the eyes of the psychiatrist opposite him as she watched him.

(What changed? Mark didn't really want to answer that question.)

"I usually end up sleeping with my shrinks eventually," Mark said offhandedly. 

It was not a lie. He wasn't sure whether he wished that it wasn't a lie or not. He wasn't sure what he felt about a lot of things anymore. Across from him, Ballard made a noise at the back of her throat that sounded like an 'of course', as if she had expected nothing else. 

"At least we got that all over with before I started talking about my dreams and inkblots on pieces of cardboard..."

"I'm sure I joined a gilded legacy," Ballard nodded, lips flickering with the tease of a smile.

"Sure," He chuckled, pausing for a second to falter. 

There was a slight slip in his blasé grin and, gently, he rested his knuckles against the tabletop and gathered his thoughts. His fingers lightly skimmed the cloth, thumb clumsily glazing his knife. 

His next statement felt out of the blue:

"I think I sleep around too much."

It was clear from Ballard's reaction that she really had not anticipated that self-observation. 

It was only miniature, but it was there-- maybe Mark had gotten so good at reading female behaviour that no amount of psychiatry training could have skewed the micro-movements and their translation. 

Her eyebrow quirked slightly and she clasped her hands under her chin, encouraging him to expand.

"Okay..."

Mark just nodded, as if that was all he had to say. 

Maybe it was? Maybe Mark didn't know what he wanted to say anymore at all?

He just pressed his lips together and poked at his food and wondered, what in the universe, had brought him to this sort of moment in his life. 

He smiled to himself in that long exasperated way that just seemed to pick at the back of his brain. 

A long sigh.

He paused, lip between his teeth as Ballard just stared at his thoughtful expression.

"Is there a diagnosis for that?" Mark felt the need to joke lightly, feeling uncomfortable with the sudden shift in tone. He, very awkwardly, leant over and took a mouthful of his scotch, feeling comfort in the way that Ballard's eye twitched slightly. "There's gotta be something listed somewhere--"

The therapist across from him just watched him, her eyebrow bouncing slightly. 

When she didn't respond, Mark just cleared his throat and his smile withered into a distant, dimmed look of displeasure. He averted his eyes back down to the table and sighed through his nose.

"I'm kinda hoping that it's something that can be diagnosed," He murmured, mostly to himself as he brought the scotch back to his lips once again. "Otherwise I'm just an asshole."

(Please let it be some sort of personality disorder or something that Mark hadn't believed in until two months ago when the whole world had turned itself over. It would've been so much easier for him to deal with--)

"This is interesting," Ballard said smoothly, her eyebrows raising as she chewed on a stray olive that she'd spent a while chasing across her plate. Her eyes flickered between the beverage clutched in his hand and the way that Mark grimaced to himself. Interesting, sure. "I don't think there is, unfortunately. But having multiple one-night stands can tell a lot about a bigger picture--"

"A bigger picture?" He echoed, his brow bunching as he watched the woman try to psychoanalyse him. 

How fun this was turning out to be.

"It says a lot about a person," She nodded, waving a hand at him, "It shows a desire for intimacy that's physical but not emotional... suggesting maybe a degree of emotional immaturity or a discomfort with the emotions associated with a simple love affair or a relationship--" Mark's eye twitched, just as Ballard's had a few moments ago. She lowered her chin and gazed at him, a beat passed. "Just to name a few--"

Mark found himself suspended in thought. 

How bizarre it was for someone to speak and for him to listen, usually he just dismissed this all as complete crap and moved his attention onto more important things to fill his time-- but Ballard was looking at him pointedly, her eyes catching every single micromovement in his face. He swallowed another mouthful of scotch, holding it in his mouth until his eyes began to water.

"You want a relationship?" Ballard questioned. 

It wasn't pitched in the same way that Mark was used to having it thrown his way: in the open, hopeful delivery that had an empty ending that he was expected to fill in like a kid with a colouring book and crayons. 

This time, it was a professional pitch, Ballard just waiting for him to take a swing at it.

"I don't know," He dismissed with a light shrug. (True. He didn't really know what he wanted anymore and being so unsure of himself was beginning to freak him out.) Then he paused. "I don't exactly know what is happening half the time."

"Okay," She said, nodding her head slowly despite the fact that he was being no help at all. "But you want to stop sleeping around? You want to stop having one night stands--" (His only response was a frown and a furrowed brow.) "--So you don't want to stop having one night--?"

"I don't know," He repeated, noticing how her lips twitched very slightly as if his indecision amused her. 

Mark didn't particularly like that. He didn't like how his ongoing crises seemed to be so amusing. It didn't feel very amusing. He shifted in his chair, discomfort settling into his bones. 

He cleared his throat. "My last breakup wasn't fun..."

"How so?"

Oh, how to define exactly how Lexie Grey had left his life.

"I..." 

Why was he talking about this? God, he felt so deeply uncomfortable but so deeply desperate to speak. 

"She broke up with me." A pause. "That doesn't happen often." 

(It sounded egotistical but it was true, wasn't it? The two relationships that Mark had actually valued and neither of them had ended by his choosing.) 

And then Mark hesitated: "There's something about the end that makes you really fucking sick of beginnings."

Ballard paused.

"And can I ask why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did she break up with you?"

Mark trapped his tongue between his teeth.

In true Mark Sloan fashion, he found himself avoiding thinking about Lexie Grey; she existed at the back of his head alongside his other ex-girlfriend, exchanging pleasantries that felt a lot more like military strikes. 

He was still very much processing how things had ended-- she'd refused to be put second to Sloan, who had run away out of his life anyway. Two losses wrapped in one, and then the sight of her bloodstained and wide-eyed in the doorway, tugging Beth's body on a sheet-- yep, those sort of images left a lasting impression.

"She wasn't happy."

"Happy?"

"Yeah," He said, feeling his chest ache a little too much; his eyes dropped down onto the table as he exhaled tiredly. "She wanted someone who would put her first and I dragged her into a very unfair and difficult situation--"

A pause.

(That sounded familiar.)

"Beth?"

(He also really needed to stop getting chills at the mention of her name.)

He shook his head, "No."

"Ah." 

Ballard seemed to run her tongue over her bottom lip, inhaling a long breath as if Mark was some sort of puzzle that she'd been slaving over through this conversation. (Were his pieces chipped? He was fairly sure that he'd lost parts of himself here and there. Maybe that's why he couldn't see the bigger picture?) 

"Can I ask what--?"

"I cheated."

After nine months of Beth constantly repeating those words and having everything thrown back at him over the past five years, that word had lost its effect on him. He murmured it with indifference and a slight shrug, a sigh catching at the back of the throat as Ballard just gazed at him-- there was no surprise in the way she blinked at him, there was no shock or horror or even a microscopic falter. 

She gazed back at him with the same impassiveness, her eyes gently bouncing from one pupil to the other.

"With her sister," He continued, for reasons that he didn't exactly understand. 

He leant back in his chair and practically breathed those words out. He had to give it to her, Ballard was good. She barely even batted an eyelash at that. 

"I had an affair with her sister for six months, who, at the time, was married to my best friend," Mark said,  "She found out and she left me."

It sounded a lot simple than it felt. Actions and consequences. 

Why did it feel so much more complicated than it sounded? 

He found it so interesting to put it all out on the table in front of his new shrink. 

He hadn't been able to bring this up to Andrew, god knows what he'd have made of it-- Bethenny Ballard, however, just perused over the idea, her brow furrowed very slightly as she wrapped her head around the whole concept. 

There was a slight slip in her composure, Mark watching as she heaved a breath.

Yeah, he wanted to say, tell me about it.

"So you... you slept with your girlfriend's sister?"

"Yeah."

"Who was also your best friend's wife?"

"Yeah," He repeated, his tongue burning as he sunk his teeth into it. 

That's what it boiled down to, right? That was what had been so detrimental to this whole situation. 

Ballard clasped her hands under her chair, chewing on her bottom lip as she mulled it over. The woman sat across from him seemed to take her time-- they'd all been taking their time, after all. They'd drawn this all out over the past five years, why not over a handful of extra seconds at the hands of a couples therapist? 

Mark pursed his lips. "What does that say about me?"

She hummed to herself.

"What do you want it to say?"

What an odd question. 

He stared at her, jaw slack and the tips of his ears red from the effort of saying things that he wouldn't usually say. 

Did she not realise that he didn't speak about this? He was talking about one of the subjects that made him feel like he was burning alive. 

There was something about how she played it off so nonchalantly that made his skin bristle-- did she not realise how fucked that was? What did she fucking mean what did he want it to say?

Mark made a slightly affronted sound, "Well, I don't know?"

"You don't know?"

"That's what I said." 

His brow furrowed and he stared at her, not exactly sure whether this was some sort of alternative therapy thing (well, to begin with, there was nothing normal about this session at all: they were sat at a dining table and they'd seen each other naked.) 

He paused, kissing his teeth and shifting in his chair. "I don't talk about it."

"Why not?"

"Because then people think I'm..." He trailed off, scrunching his nose. "I just--"

"Why did you do it?"

Ah.

That made Mark's jaw lock in an awkward way. 

His chest was caught in a rise, shoulders awkwardly placed with his awkward hand formation on his knees-- he felt awkward and stuck, hanging in between the past and the future like a marionette doll on a string. 

Ballard was looking at him again (Doesn't she ever blink?) and he was pretty sure that she was the closest thing that the world had to a human MRI; why did he feel like she could see every thought that was flickering through his subconscious? 

Why did he feel like she knew what he was going to say before he even did-- is this therapy?

"C'mon," She chuckled, and Mark had to remind himself that this was far from a conventional therapy session. Ballard's eyes sparkled over the rim of her wine glass. "I was good at Cluedo as a kid... I loved murder mysteries. I know how this goes... there's always a motive and a weapon and... and more or less it's always Miss Scarlett in the Drawing Room with the Revolver--"

Try Gary Clark in the Surgical Department with the Pistol.

Why'd you do it, Mark?

They all knew why Addie had done it: her marriage had been in pieces and she'd been jealous. Jealous. She'd been itching for as much of a high as Beth had, but hers had been found with Mark's hands on her hips and his lips-- Yeah, she'd found her high. 

She'd done it because she could, because Mark was the guy that everyone went to for that sort of thing. He was pretty sure that she'd loved the idea of him rather than him himself--

Mark shrugged.

Ballard just stared at him.

"Okay," She nodded, visibly dissatisfied at the lack of an answer. 

The way she was looking at him, it was as if she could tell that there was an answer hidden in there somewhere, lurking at the back of his head. It was as if she was certain Mark knew exactly why he'd fallen down that hole with Addison. 

She was so confident he had an answer, "That'll be a dessert conversation, hm?"

(Mark had a reason. He'd always had a reason.)

It was bold for her to assume that they were going to last until dessert. 

From Mark's track record (which included one (1) guerrilla session with Doctor Laurel Hargreeves) it was clear that he had a tendency to bolt when things got rough. He and Beth had that in common.

"I apologised for it," Mark said it off-handedly as if his reason didn't even matter in the first place. It made Ballard's eyebrow bounce slightly, her eyes lighting up in interest as he heaved a sigh and sat back in his chair.

"You apologised?"

"Yeah," He said, his brow furrowing slightly at the faint trace of surprise in her voice, "I'm not that much of an asshole."

"Why?" 

Ballard's question made him recoil in almost offence. 

He wished she'd stop saying that.

His face contorted and a light chuckle fell past his lips as he held onto his scotch a little too tightly. 

She seemed unfazed, her gaze focused and posture rigid and professional. If it wasn't for the light chatter in the restaurant and the occasional passing of a attentive waiter, Mark would've thought they were sat in a office with a desk in between the two of them. 

"Why did you apologise?"

"Because I'm not that much of an asshole," He repeated almost sharply, his lips curving downwards. "Why does it matter why I apologised? Isn't what matter's the fact I did?"

Ballard didn't respond immediately. 

She seemed to stare at him with those bottomless brown eyes that felt almost a little too familiar-- she bit down on her tongue, thinking with a focused twitch in the corner of her eye. 

In his peripheral, he noticed movement, and that's why he realised that she'd been taking absent notes on the back of a napkin with a biro from her jacket pocket.

Why did he feel like a kid that was so desperately seeking some sort of assurance? His parents hadn't taught him this crap. He hadn't been taught how to say sorry or how to patch up broken relationships. 

He felt like some kid who desperately wanted to know that they were doing the right thing-- Mark was convinced that every move he made was wrong, but jesus christ, he was trying.

He watched her underline something, a muscle in his jaw clenching.

"You said it's been five years," Ballard said finally, her eyes following the way it took a little too much effort for Mark to swallow his scotch. His Adams apple bobbed uncomfortably, his skin prickling with the weight of her words. "Five years is a long time for an apology."

It was. Mark agreed with her. It was half a decade. It was 1825 days. 43800 hours. 

It was a very long time and, sometimes, Mark could feel every second of it.

"She deserved an apology," His response was so off-handed, paired with another shrug for good measure. However, there was a tight muscle in his jaw, one that wouldn't relax no matter how hard Mark tried to appear so cavalier. "I don't know what other answer you want from me. I just hurt her and then I apologised... it's not that hard to understand."

Her lips twitched.

"Do you still care about her?"

Mark paused. Every time, that specific question seemed to catch him off guard. 

Why did it make him think about Lexie? Why did it make him think of blood-soaked knees, low curbs and the front of that newspaper? Why did it make him feel as though the room was a lot smaller than it actually was--?

"I'm not that much of an asshole," Mark repeated it so firmly, shaking his head to a question that he wouldn't definitively answer. He spoke quickly, his eyebrows drawn as he tried to piece a sentence together that made sense. "If anything, I apologised to clean my conscience. She hates me for it so... I just wanted to make sure that I'd covered all my bases--"

"Right," Ballard hummed lightly, her eyes flickering down to the notes on her napkin, "That sounds a bit asshole-like if you ask me," Her break in professionalism made Mark wonder whether this was a good idea. They were talking about his feelings and his shrink had seen him naked. She seemed to second-guess her response, wincing slightly. "Sorry. But I think that if you're trying to show that you're not an asshole... you should probably avoid saying things like that."

She was right.

Mark drew in a long sigh, "Sorry."

She paused, "You apologise often?"

That made him roll his eyes.

(He didn't. But he had been lately.)

"I'm not hung up over Beth," Mark wasn't exactly sure why he felt like that needed to be put out in the universe again, but he said it firmly and tensely. He needed Ballard to understand that. "If anything, I'm probably hung up over Lexie."

"Okay," She said lightly, nodding. "Lexie is your last girlfriend, right? Is that your first relationship after Beth?" With another sigh, Mark nodded back. "The one that ended in difficult circumstances?"

"Yeah," He rubbed at his jaw, "That break up..." He paused, "That one hurt."

God, that was fucking hard to say. 

Why was it so hard for Mark to admit that Lexie walking away like that had hurt? He was so estranged with his feelings, they felt so unfamiliar to him, as if he'd been stuck with someone else's emotions for so long that he didn't know how his own worked. 

"Right," Ballard tilted her head to the side, the single word causing Mark to inhale very sharply. "What do you mean by hurt?"

"It's the first time I've felt it," He repeated, rewording it very slightly.

"It?" She prompted.

"Heartbreak," His face felt numb at that admission, "I was sad for a while. I missed her. It was the first time I noticed that straight away-- last time it took... it took a long time--" Mark paused. "I was distracted by the last one. I got tangled up in another relationship straight away and... and Beth went away for a very long time... This time I had to see Lexie straight away... I have to work with her all the time--"

He cut himself off.

"And you're happy to talk about Lexie," Ballard said calmly, her eyebrow bouncing upwards as if she was about to ask a very interesting question. "But not Beth? Why is that?"

Her tone made him deeply regret agreeing to this.

"Because I'm not proud of it," Wasn't it obvious? Mark squinted over at her. He thought it was pretty obvious. "Of the whole... Of how things went... I think it's the shittiest thing I've ever done and believe me... I've done a lot--" He halted in mid-sentence and shook his head. "I hurt two people who were... were important to me."

"Were?"

It was such a light prompt, one that went tragically well with the glimmer in the psychiatrist's eyes. 

She lifted her glass of white wine and held his gaze, waiting for him to respond. Mark stared, not quite understanding the whirl of thoughts that fell through his mind-- after a few moments, he just lifted his own beverage, tilting it to her as if in some deeply morbid toast.

"Like I said," was what he drawled, with a long sigh. "I don't know what's going on anymore."

***

THE HOSPITAL

Beth's timing, as always, was impeccable.

She'd walked into the room just as Mark and Lexie helped Nick into the MRI machine; they were on the other side of the glass wall, separated from Archer as he lingered beside the technician. 

The sound of the door closing made him look over, seeing his sister there with a mystified expression as she gauged the sight of them all together in one space (it was, needless to say, a very interesting mixture of people.) 

She looked over at Archer, her jaw taut as she silently considered whether to write herself off this patient--

(It all honesty, after her last conversation with Mark, she'd been determined to never see him again.)

But, then she saw the way that Archer's eyes sparkled with mischief.

"God," Beth's exhale was caught with a slight laugh. She shook her head. "Let me guess, Eli's gossip has inspired you to get creative--"

"I told you I'd torture him one way or another," The older brother just said lightly, his lips twitching as he averted his gaze back through the glass wall. 

Beth's dread at the thought of being on a case with the other two doctors wavered a little bit; maybe this could be fun? She chewed on her bottom lip and shook her head almost fondly.

 "There's no harm in making him sweat," Archer said.

"Hmm," Beth's brow creased as she glanced over at the monitors, realising the time. "You did say twenty minutes, right?"

"Oh crap, yeah," Archer's nose scrunched as he inclined his head through the window. "We had to order a second scan. You were wrong. No nasal tumour. This all points to something a bit more psychological--"

"Damn," Beth breathed out, "I was proud of that one."

He looked over at her, smiling slightly as if to say that he was proud too. "No nasal cancer. And no marriage either if our patient keeps saying everything that comes into his head without regard for the consequences."

"Everything?"

"He can't lie," Archer stated, his tone curving up slightly as if he found it so exciting as a concept. He didn't, however, miss how Beth seemed to frown at the thought of it. "He's biologically unable to lie. He's completely honest to a fault--"

"Do you understand?"

Beth heaved a breath as Mark's voice filtered through the speakers, his words getting picked up by the intercom system into the little radiation-proof bubble. 

The two doctors were stood on opposite sides of the room, Lexie doing her best to avoid her ex-boyfriend at all costs. Mark directed his full attention to Nick as he slowly got out of his wheelchair, sitting down onto the MRI bed.

"No, I'm lying," Nick deadpanned back to the Plastic Surgeon, "Except I can't. You ask questions. While I talk, you look at my brain activity to see where it's screwed up. Then you're gonna cut the screwed up part out to test it. It's depressing, but it's not rocket science."

His tone made Lexie visibly blanch as she adjusted the machine.

Back in the room, Archer chuckled to himself, "I think he understands."

"I don't mean to be abrasive," Nick said quietly as Lexie held him get comfortable. 

She smiled haphazardly at him, clearly still uneasy with his repetitive shooting-jokes that had been a running punchline throughout this consultation. His eyes followed her as she walked around him, checking that everything was operating correctly. 

"I mean it," Nick said to the brunette beside him, "especially as you're such a pleasure to imagine naked."

The youngest Grey sister froze in her tracks, a very audible pause filling the space. 

Her back was turned from the control room, but Archer could see the way the tips of her ears burned in mortification. What he also caught, was the strangled look on Mark's face as he rubbed at his jaw, no longer finding this quite as amusing as he had twenty minutes ago.

Outside of the room, the radiology technician cleared his throat awkwardly.

"It's okay," Lexie responded in a very small voice, moving a little bit quicker once the dust had settled. 

Even from here, Archer could hear Nick's groan of regret as he realised what he'd said.

"Thank you for understanding," His voice was equally small, face lined with agitation as he laid back on the bed. "I do, you know-- Apologies, really. My apologies. This stuff just comes out--"

"It's okay," Lexie repeated, but the way she seemed to speed up even further caused Archer to think that wasn't the case at all.

"That's gotta be a shitty draw," Beth murmured to herself as Archer glanced over at her. She had her arms crossed tightly over her chest, head tilted to the side as she looked down at the medical file as it was open on the computer. "If you think it's neurological, do you still need my consultation or can I go back to chasing the DEA?"

"He has a kid that has an auditory processing disorder," was all he said in response. "It's possible that this might be connected to something genetic and something that might need a little bit of psychoanalysis." Beth turned her head to look over at him, raising an eyebrow. "What?"

"You need a trauma psychologist to consult on APD?" She sounded skeptical, a slightly teasing smile playing on her lips. "Are you sure you're not just trying to torture Romeo and Juliet over there?"

"Torture?" Archer repeated, his voice hitching slightly, "Not at all."

"Sure." She didn't look nor sound convinced at all.

"You got anything better to do?" 

His question made Beth pause, her head turning back to stare out of the glass window. 

She watched Mark and Lexie do their best to avoid the other, each of them orbiting awkwardly, like magnets that were retracting from each other. 

"Well," She breathed out, "I've spent the whole morning on hold with the DEA, trying to get them to reissue me a new prescription pad," His brow furrowed as she ran a hand through her hair, clearly bothered by the mixup. "Don't worry. I misplaced it and apparently trying to give an ex-addict a new prescription pad involves a whole lot of people asking questions." The smile Archer gave her was sad. "But it's fine... I guess this is more fun, for sure."

There was a pause and, as if Beth had just noticed something, she leant forwards. 

Her eyes narrowed as she peered through the window, leaning across the monitors and apologising in an undertone to the technician as she nearly hit him across the head. Archer just watched, bewildered by the urgency in which Beth looked back at him.

"You said he was married, right?" He nodded in response to her question, "Do you remember removing his wedding ring?"

Oh crap.

Archer's expression's answered her question. 

With a roll of her eyes, she leant towards the microphone, fully prepared to press the button to speak into the room, but Archer cut her short. He caught her hand as she reached out. 

The frown on her face caused him to shake his head.

"What--?"

"Go in there."

Beth blinked at him.

"Are you kidding?"

She said it as if walking into a room with Lexie Grey and Mark Sloan was like getting into a swimming pool full of sharks. 

The look she shot Archer was alarmed, eyes wide and eyebrows raised so high up her forehead that even the radiology technician seemed to take interest in the conversation.

He wasn't kidding.

"You're impossible," Beth grilled out after a short silent conversation with her brother. 

They were good at that, it was like a language between siblings using their eyes. Or maybe she just knew Archer well enough to know that he was the sort of person who would really like to watch Mark Sloan burn. 

"I'm not going in there--"

"What did you say to Mark?" 

Her desperation to stay away was a little too thick. He'd been right before, he could feel it. Beth had said something to Mark and now she really didn't want to face him. She sighed loudly, shaking her head again.

"What didn't I say to that jackass--"

 And then she paused. Her brow furrowed as if she could pick up on something that was very vaguely present. 

"What did you say to Mark?"

There was a pause.

"Don't deflect--"

"I'm not going in there."

"You owe me," Archer said quickly, "I hate to pull the owe card but I'm your witness--"

"I owe you for inviting you to my wedding?"

"I could have said no," He replied, lying out of his ass.

Technically, yes, he could have rejected her invitation, but Archer would never have said no and Beth knew that. He knew she knew that. But even so, he knew how much the phrase 'you owe me' weighed on her. 

Their world, once upon a time, had run solely on favours and debts. He watched Beth sigh to herself, squeezing her eyes tightly as she snatched her hand back from him.

"You want the magnet in that machine to mangle his fingers?"

"You're an ass, you know that Arch?"

"Well, this patient will be an ass and a cripple so I think his life is a bit more depressing--"

"I don't know why I put up with this shit."

"I love you too," He said to her as she turned away, her shoulders hunching as the automatic doors released her into the hallway. 

(He wasn't exactly sure why she was going into a pit of vipers, but he had a feeling it was indicative of old, bad behaviours. At her heart, Beth was still a shameless people pleaser who would move the earth if asked.)

"I should have never introduced you to Eli," Beth called back over her shoulder, leaving her brother to chuckle lightly. "He's a bad influence!"

Sure, Archer grinned to himself, turning back to watch the show. Let's go with that.

How serene the MRI machine suddenly looked with Beth absent. 

He found himself almost giddy with it, excited to see whatever shit show was about to unfold. 

With the same slightly mad smile that had made Daphne so deeply uneasy last week, Archer clapped the radiology technician on the shoulder. The technician just looked over at him, blinking blankly as if he had no idea what the hell was about to happen.

In the next room, the door opened.

Beth appeared in the window, the click of her heels echoing over the intercom system. 

Her arrival caused everyone to look over; she came with a lowered head, hand moving hair out of her face as she donned her most pristine and professional smile.

It was as if Archer had just detonated a bomb in the next room; everyone was frozen, their eyes following Beth as she breezed across the room, unbothered by the weight of everyone's stares.

 (Mark was stuck to the spot, his mouth dry as just the sight of her reminded him of their last conversation, of apologies, of the way she'd just abandoned him in the centre of that corridor. Meanwhile, Lexie's flight impulse kicked up a gear.)

"Hi, Nick," Beth looked down at Nick, ignoring the way that the two doctors both stared at her out of the corner of her eye. The patient's eyes were wide, looking up at her as she started to introduce herself. "I'm Doctor Montg--"

"I would do her in a minute with fudge and a cherry on top."

Oh crap, Archer thought to himself. 

Maybe he hadn't exactly thought this through.

It was exactly what he'd wanted to watch today, a disinhibited patient hitting on his sister while hooked up to a microphone. 

He could see the way that Beth's body seemed to tense and, in the far corner of the room, Mark seemed to die a little inside. 

Well. 

Archer supposed that maybe somewhere here there was a silver lining.

Nick was staring at Beth, the words falling through his lips so quickly that they almost fell into each other. They exploded out of him, as if he'd been trying his hardest to hold them back-- the results were extremely slight. 

Beth's lip twitched slightly (having prepared herself for some lewd, uncontrollable commentary in her brief recess in the hallway) and she inclined her head as if to stop herself from chuckling.

(Meanwhile, Mark very sharply turned his attention to the far corner, his face twisting even further into a look of distaste.)

"Would someone please explain to this woman?" 

Nick recovered quickly, his tone dipping into one of despair as he desperately looked over at Lexie. The surgical intern seemed to blanch under Beth's gaze, the psychiatrist just watching as Nick tried to get someone to save his ass. 

"There's only so many apologies —"

"Mr West has frontal lobe--"

"Disinhibition," Beth cut Lexie short, continuing her smile as she nodded. "I'm aware. I've been asked by Doctor Montgomery to join your case. Don't worry, I understand that it's completely involuntary--"

"Thank god," Nick sighed, "I've already embarrassed myself with one doctor, whom I am at this moment imagining, with you in a king-sized bed, with a mirror on the ceiling and really nice quality silk sheets--"

He cut himself off.

(Holy crap, this was awkward.)

(Beth couldn't quite restrain the chuckle as it fell past her lips.)

(A glance through the window into the control room told her that her brother was deeply regretting making her go in here. A glance at Lexie's face told her that the surgical intern was heavily considering burying herself alive and a glance at Mark-- 

(Well. Beth looked over at him, her lips twitching into a smile as she saw the way he strained. His brow was furrowed and he looked as though this conversation was extremely physically painful.)

Archer, meanwhile, was fully prepared to diagnose himself with a brain haemorrhage. 

He stared over at his sister as she channelled all of her years working with some of the slimiest scumbags Manhattan had to offer-- he could tell from the way she chuckled to herself that she'd grown a thick skin, made from hours of sexual innuendos from Calvin Navarro and even the Plastic Surgeon at the back of the room.

"I am so, so sorry," Nick said quietly, as embarrassed as everyone else. "I don't mean to be a creep--"

"It's okay," Beth said lightly. 

Her dismissal was so much more convincing than Lexie's, of whom still looked as though she was prepared to sprint out of the room. Archer watched as his sister looked up at the youngest Grey, a slightly malicious smile tugging at her lips. 

"I'm sure it's not the first time someone's thought about the two of us in bed, is it Doctor Grey?" 

Well fuck.

In the background, Mark seemed to accidentally slam his head on the back of a fixture, swearing under his breath as the loud jolt echoed through the small room. 

All eyes flew to him, all aside from Nick, who seemed complete enraptured in the spiteful glimmer in Beth's eyes. Lexie, just trembled very slightly, a vein throbbing in her forehead as she held Beth's gaze-- the two women stared at each other for a prolonged, very tense beat.

"But if I couldn't have both of you together," Nick continued, barely missing how both Lexie and Mark had flinched at Beth's comment. His eyes zeroed in on Beth, unwavering as she looked down at his left hand. "You would definitely be my first choice."

(Huh, Beth supposed it was kind of a compliment.) 

(She chewed on the inside of her cheek and ignored the way that Lexie seemed to fume very silently, clearly not appreciating the small dig that Beth had thrown in her direction. It made Beth want to chuckle to herself; Lexie had had her fun? Why couldn't she have hers?)

She gestured towards the wedding band on his finger, "I'm here for this."

Archer couldn't help but watch Mark as he busied himself with some pointless shit that he couldn't quite make out from the next room. 

The plastic surgeon looked as though he was a good few seconds away from a myocardial infarction. He kept glancing back over towards Beth as she gently pulled the wedding ring off of NIck's finger-- Archer hummed to himself lightly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Your hands are really soft... I won't tell if you won't," Nick flirted, his brain causing him to slowly spiral. Beth chuckled again, shaking her head as she turned his ring in his palm. "It's like trying not to think of an elephant. Not that you're an elephant. Your breasts, in fact, are all homo sapiens---"

(She stared at the ring, at the small band of gold that symbolised so much.)

(How bitter it tasted on her tongue to have a married man impulsively flirting with her, just two days away from her own wedding.)

"It was nice to meet you, Nick," Beth breezed and Archer could see the muscle tense in her neck, signifying that she was slowly coming to the end of her tether. She looked between the two other doctors, still abject with her selective professionalism. She inclined her head to each of them, her smile strained. "Doctor Grey. Doctor Sloan."

As she turned to leave the room, Archer was delighted by the way that everyone completely avoided her gaze. 

Well, not everyone. Nick's head raised, his eyes following Beth as she exited. Archer's delight slowly faded: Oh if he even thinks--

Nick's voice caused Beth to pause. "Your tush is like the pistons in a Ferrari."

This time, the only person who could see Beth's reaction was the neurosurgeon. 

Her eyes fixed on him through the window, lips pulling into a bitter smile as if to say 'fuck you' with a silent pointedness. but Archer got momentarily sidetracked by the suddenness of Mark starting the MRI machine. 

The neurosurgeon's eyebrows raised considerably, watching as Mark forced Nick back into the machine, his actions a little more forceful than they had been before.

"Satisfied, Doctor Montgomery?"

Beth looked at him through the window, head tilted to the side as the room gently hummed with the sound of the machine coming to life. 

There was a pause, Beth tilted her to the side while waiting for a response-- Archer, however, couldn't quite find one. He stood there, watching as every person looked over at him, albeit Nick who was halfway into the MRI machine, getting ready for his scan. A pause passed. Beth cocked an eyebrow.

Slowly, Archer pressed down on the microphone, clearing his throat before he spoke, "Yep."

Her lips twitched and she shook her head slowly and, with an audible sigh, left the room. 

Archer, however, did not miss how Mark's eyes seemed to follow his sister out of the room, only looking away once she'd disappeared completely. 

There seemed to be a progression of Mark's expression, one which made Archer wonder, for the third time in the past ten minutes, what exactly Beth had said to the plastic surgeon to make him look so...?

Archer didn't exactly have a word in mind for the expression on Mark's face, but he knew that he loved it.

With a lingering smile, the neurosurgeon gently pressed back down onto the intercom system.

"Do you want some ice for your head, Doctor Sloan?" 

His question was met with no response. Across the room, Lexie seemed to make a very haste exit, practically scrambling out of the room as soon as she was finished with her task. Mark, on the other hand, continued to massage his head, trying his best to ignore Archer. 

"It looked as though you hit it pretty hard... Everything okay in there, Mark?"

"Just peachy."

In the distance, they heard the faded sound of Nick's voice as he delved into the machine, "Pistons, actually."

***

THE DINNER

Sometimes, Mark saw what other people saw.

In an argument, Beth had once told him that he was a twisted sadist who had very little regard for the lives of other people, nevermind his patients. 

She'd said it to him so pointedly, her finger in his face as she juggled a cocktail of alcohol and drugs in her system, some that were supposed to make her happy and some to make her sad-- that's what Mark's days felt like now, like he was constantly receiving mixed signals on how to feel and what to do.

"Today," Mark looked over at Ballard as she gazed around the restaurant, her eyes running over every passing worker and every passing patron. "Today Beth accepted my apology."

The psychiatrist's head turned to gaze at him with the same expression: a wandering one, one that made him wonder whether she was even here with him in the room. 

It was as if she was deeply entrenched in thought, her mind running listlessly in some aimless direction that Mark couldn't foresee. He watched her gradually come to the surface, her lips parting as she tuned into the right reality that correlated to his quiet voice.

"She told me that she was sorry," Mark continued, feeling his chest constrict at the weight of unpacking the thoughts that had been building up at the back of his head for the past few hours. "She apologised for... for her part in everything and she said that she had to clean herself of me--"

His voice came to a halt as he thought about it. 

There was something deep within him, that was relieved that Ballard wanted to listen, even if it was as a professional. He'd yet to really bring this all to Callie, all too aware of how much her and Arizona had taken to Charlie. He wasn't interested in building rifts. 

Charlie was (despite Mark's best efforts to reinforce the bad feeling he had about the guy) a good man. Mark had no intention of ruining things for either of them. He hadn't intended on pulling Lexie into everything either. 

But he had, he'd fucked things up, more than he'd like to have admitted--

Mark wasn't the same as he'd been in New York, much like Beth wasn't the same woman who he'd held in freezing, uncertain hands. 

He thought about that too often, how Beth was probably stuck with the impression of the twisted sadist who would sleep with her sister in a heartbeat-- that's not who Mark felt like. In all honesty, he'd never felt like that at all--

"When you say, her part, what do you mean?" 

Ballard's brow furrowed inquisitively as she looked over at her newest patient. She assumed the familiar position, hands folded against the table as she leant forwards in her chair. In one hand, she gently twirled her pen, occasionally tapping it against the folded napkin. 

"Earlier, you said that your split was due to the affair with her sister--"

Oh god, Mark felt like sighing, there truly wasn't enough time in the universe to unpack that.

"Beth..." His face creased as he tried to find the right wording, "Beth had her problems too."

"What kind of problems?" The psychiatrist gently pushed, causing Mark's brow to fold as he recognised the dangerous territory they were swaying into. (He was more than aware that this was Beth's new boss he was talking to. Confidentiality or not, this sort of conversation was going to be disastrous.) "Financial? Familial--?"

"Look," Mark began, fully determined to avoid a reprise of the Lexie situation. "This isn't mine to tell."

"It's clearly extremely integral to whatever it is you're struggling with," Ballard responded. 

His eye twitched at that word. Struggling. He wished she'd throw that word out completely. He wasn't struggling with anything. 

"If this is keeping you from achieving personal growth or perusing a healthy relationship then it could be extremely helpful for you to talk through..." Ballard waved a hand, "And I'm more than happy to help you work through it."

Mark almost wanted to scoff-- he wasn't being kept from anything. Beth did not impact his ability to achieve a healthy relationship or personal growth. What complete crap. 

At this point, the only thing she did impact was his ability to get blindsided and confused. He definitely wasn't struggling with it. If there was anything he was struggling with, it was his food-- his salmon was a little bit tough.

"You don't need to protect her," Ballard continued, taking his miffed silence as a prompt to continue. "I understand that it might be hard for you to--"

"I'm not protecting her," Mark interjected tightly.

Beth didn't need anything from him, certainly not his protection. 

She'd made that perfectly clear a few hours ago when she'd walked away from him in the middle of that hallway. She didn't need him anymore, she didn't need to pretend that they could be friends, she didn't need to pretend that she liked Seattle. 

She didn't need to do anything anymore.

"I'm not protecting her," He repeated, shaking his head at the thought that he could do anything for Beth anymore, anything at least, that she'd ever thank him for. "I just think we should talk about me, right? Isn't this where you're supposed to psychoanalyse some crap out of me about how I was probably abused as a kid or something?"

What a fucking absurd world he was living in-- a world where he'd rather unpack his childhood trauma than a love affair gone wrong.

Ballard stared at him.

Fuck, he was being defensive, now that was something that even Mark could tell. 

His sudden rise in tone was directly linked to the topic of Beth's discretions, Mark knew that Ballard could make that link with her eyes closed. 

What was she going to say next? Was she going to say that that was exactly what someone who was protecting someone would say? Because it did. It really did--

Fuck it, sure, maybe he was trying to protect Beth? 

Maybe he was trying to make up for all of those times he'd failed her?

"She's an employee at the hospital." 

It really wasn't that deep. This was mostly founded out of professional decency and the rumour that Beth was going around serving out legal threats these days. Who knew what she'd throw his way if she found out he'd been talking to the Head of Psychiatry. 

"I think it's inappropriate," Mark said, "It's inappropriate to discuss her personal life with something in a senior position in the hospital."

His response felt so robotic. It felt as though it was preprogrammed inside him, but why did it feel so exhausting and groundbreaking?

"Mark," Ballard said tenderly, "When I said that I'd honour doctor-patient confidentiality... I meant it."

"That's not the problem," He said, feeling the impulse to groan. He also didn't like how she'd said his name-- things got problematic when people used his tone like that. It began to touch on the sort of emotions that he'd rather not think about. "It's a conflict of interest. I don't want a repeat of last time."

"With Lexie?"

"Yeah."

"You told Lexie about her problems?" 

Mark wasn't exactly sure how to answer that question. Why did it feel like he was having to repeat himself? He just nodded, slightly exhausted at the thought of going in circles. 

"And how did she react to this information?"

"Well," Mark cleared his throat, "She went after Beth. She yelled at her in the middle of the cafeteria. She hurt Beth and... and it sucked."

"Did you want to provoke that reaction out of Lexie?"

That was a question. 

His eyes dropped to the table as he internalised that question: what had he intended to achieve by telling Lexie his history with Beth? He knew why he'd done it, but what had he wanted to achieve? What had he thought was going to happen?

Lexie was so different to Beth. She'd been so resilient and young, the sort of person who had looked him with doe eyes that didn't quite match her sultry smile. She'd stood in front of him and asked him to teach her-- teach her what? He'd strained himself so much over that direction. 

What had Lexie wanted to learn from me? How to drive all of the people you cared about away from you? How to fuck every good thing you've ever had?

"I didn't want her to hurt Beth," He said, his voice faltering a little bit as he seriously considered ordering another scotch. 

He was nearly at the bottom of his glass and it struck him, in that minute, how easy it would've been to bulk order until he was unable to physically answer these questions. (Mark wasn't sure what was keeping him from leaving.) 

"I wanted her to understand," Mark said, "I wanted her to understand what was--"

Mark had lied to Beth.

He'd told her that his breakup with Lexie had had nothing to do with her. 

That had been a lie. If he had to do the mathematics behind it, he would've said that it was perfect halves. 

It'd been equal parts Sloan Riley and Elizabeth Forbes Montgomery. In the recipe they'd been half a cup of the same flour, the same sugar and the same butter. 

She was implicit in a crime that she wasn't even aware of.

He knew why Lexie had acted as she had. 

She'd been hurt. Not just because Beth was his ex-girlfriend, but for another reason too. A reason that neither of them had addressed since it had happened. He hadn't spoken to Lexie about it and he sure as hell hadn't told Beth--

The thought of Beth finding out made his heart wrench.

He held Ballard's gaze with such determination, his skin prickling as she tilted her head so slightly to the side.

"I didn't think she'd go and corner her, okay?" Mark said those words so firmly, his brain in a completely different hemisphere to his mouth.  "I didn't want Lexie to go and make Beth feel like a terrible person... because she's not--"

A pause.

"I used to hate her," He said in a long breath, feeling, oddly, as if there wasn't enough air in the world to keep his words afloat. "I used to think she was selfish and that she didn't give a damn about anything other than getting her next high-- which, I think was true for a while. I used to think she was a bitch and a liar and a complete sociopath..." He paused. "She's not any of those things."

There was such a weight under the revelation.

"Well," Mark added after a moment of revelation, "She's still a bit of a bitch, but I think that's genetic. That's just who Beth is."

"I'm not going to push," Ballard began hesitantly.

"Isn't that what you've been doing?" Mark snapped, a sharpness in his tone that seemed to catch her off-guard. 

She stared at him and, for a split second, Mark was unapologetic about his response; a moment passed and he faltered very slightly. (Oh fuck.) He shifted in his chair and took a long mouthful of his scotch. 

"Like I said... her problems and hers and they're private. I don't want to..."

"It's okay," Ballard said. She was leaning against the back of her chair, her leg awkwardly bouncing as if, in fact, things weren't okay at all. Mark swallowed unevenly, leaning back in his chair and running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry if you feel like I'm pressuring you speak--"

"No one ever asks me, y'know?"

His brow was furrowed as he spoke, his elbows leaning on the table as a muscle jumped tirelessly in his jaw. It felt as though every muscle in his body was tensed in preparation for something-- but for what? 

Mark felt as though he'd spent the last two months awaiting something that was never going to come.

Ballard just watched.

"No one asks me what I think." 

Why was he saying these things? Mark didn't understand what had changed. He was saying this shit to some stranger over dinner. 

Sure, he'd seen this stranger naked, but he'd seen a lot of them naked and hadn't told them private thoughts like these. 

"I don't... No one asks."

It made him feel small.

For the record, he didn't usually feel like that. It was the biological rhythm that time (or, at least, his body) forgot. 

He was Mark Sloan; he didn't get worried about what people thought about him, he didn't think about first impressions or trying to come across as the nice guy. 

Their opinion of him was their problem.

Sure, he had a very carefully controlled smile and a persona that sometimes felt constructed and very ingenuine: someone who was unbothered and carefree and went with everything as it happened, but despite all that, he was still human. 

He'd been allotted a very specific character trope. He was the narcissistic asshole who slept with you and never called you back, the sort of guy who was immediately blamed for something going wrong--

Addison had used him as the guy who she could use to make her husband pay attention to her. Addison had also used him as a scapegoat, and so, Mark guessed, had Derek. 

There had been a lot of pointed fingers after New York, a lot of shit-talking and a lot of glares. Coming to Seattle had come at the price of having everyone turn towards him and blame him for everything that had gone wrong. Two days into his stay and Derek had said those words: "It's your fault Beth's not here."

As for his ex... Well, Mark didn't exactly know what they'd been for each other. 

She hadn't used him as a scapegoat and she hadn't pinned the blame solely on him either. 

Even so, he figured that whatever it was it hadn't been good for either of them.

But, there were moments where he did (or at least he guessed, technically, he did, for he'd never actually admit it out loud) and there were people who coaxed that feeling out of him. 

They hadn't been good for each other, but holy fuck it had felt good. It had been good. 

In retrospect, Mark realised that he had had it good. 

It was that sort of feeling, the one that had bloomed in that apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, that he thought about often.

Mark cleared his throat.

"I don't talk about it because people don't ask," It was simple. Don't ask don't tell. Sometimes, Mark feared that the old pattern of Church and State had transferred onto far more than his love life. "I don't know... since Lexie left I kinda feel..."

How did he feel? How to say--

"I don't know," Mark shrugged. 

He'd always been sure of everything. 

That's what a platinum deluxe ego bought him; it meant that he was so confident and so sure of everything-- but then there were the grey areas. Grey. Literally. 

"She asked," He said simply, "She asked me about Beth and the last time anyone asked me how I'd felt about it all, I didn't know. Now I know. I knew then and I told her."

"And what is that?" Ballard asked quietly, her eyes following the way that Mark's chin dipped slightly. "How do you feel about Beth? About the breakup?"

"I think," He averted his gaze over her shoulder, a dent between his eyebrows as he stared off into the distance. "I think I wish things could have gone differently."

***

THE HOSPITAL

Oh, wasn't this fun?

Archer took great glee in slowly swaying from side to side in his chair, eyes flickering over the brain scan as it slowly rendered on the screen in front of them. 

He lounged back, chin in his palm as he took a little bit too much glee in the awkward silence-- Lexie was beside him, the intern practically wilting as Mark stood in the doorway. He was there on Archer's insistence.

Why did a plastic surgeon need to be here for a neurology examination? 

So he didn't miss out on all of the fun, of course.

From here, through the glass panelling, they could see Beth slowly pacing a line up and down the hallway outside. 

Her cell phone was pressed to her ear as she spoke passionately with her hands. 

It appeared as if she was arguing with someone, eyes rolling as she turned and turned and turned-- Archer's gaze flickered between her and the screen. He happened to catch Mark's face as the plastic surgeon looked away from the psychiatrist. 

They met eyes.

Archer's lips twitched into a smirk.

"Starting baseline activation," The technician mumbled, calling their attentions back to their work. 

Through the glass, Archer caught Beth's eye and waved her back into the room; he watched as she nodded, speaking in undertone to whoever was on the other side of the line. 

She seemed to take a moment before rejoining them.

"Important call?" Archer asked, watching as Beth skillfully skirted around her ex-boyfriend. 

She sighed to herself, leaning against the desk.

"Amy," Beth said off-handedly, as if it wasn't too important.

"About the--"

"Yeah," Beth sighed, cutting him short as she inclined her head back to the console, as if to encourage him to pay attention to his patient. Archer just raised an eyebrow, his head turning back to the technician. "Are we going to get this started or--"

"Slight elevation at transaxial 60," Archer's surgical intern interjected, causing Beth to cast a glance over in her direction. 

(The two women seemed to stare at each other, just as they had over that MRI machine. A pause. This time, Lexie looked away first.) 

The neurosurgeon heaved a breath and nodded, pressing his finger down on the familiar button to the intercom.

"Everything okay, Nick?"

His question was met with an indifferent groan.

"I'm in a machine and I can't stop hitting on hot women," was Nick's disgruntled response. In Archer's peripheral, he caught how Beth sighed to herself, tilting her head to the side as if she was too tired to keep it upright. "I'm going to die from radiation but I'm slightly optimistic that I might get laid."

(It took everything within Beth to not roll her eyes.)

"We're going to ask you some questions to track your brain activity," Archer continued, trying his best to ignore Nick's delirious comments. 

His voice strained, his shoulders tensing as he cautioned Nick to wait a few more moments before the they began. As soon as his finger slid off the button, he looked over at his sister, desperate to do anything but address the fact that Nick seemed to have inserted the two women into some sort of sexual fantasy-- 

"So, Amy?"

"Yeah," Beth breathed out, "Amelia."

"Is she okay?"

"Seems like it," was the psychiatrist's response. 

She was stood awkwardly, arms wrapped across her torso as if she was trying her best not to twitch-- he couldn't tell whether it was something innate or whether it was because of the lingering presence behind her.

There was an elephant in the room, one that had very strong cologne and a PHD in cheating bastard.

"Good," Archer nodded, "Did you tell her about the--?"

"Yeah," Beth said a little too quickly, itching absently at her elbow. 

Archer's eye got caught on the movement; it felt familiar to him, as if he'd seen her do it before. He, also, didn't miss how her eye twitched slightly.

"Great," He responded back, still stuck in the same robotic to and fro within the conversation. This time, Beth nodded back to him, clearing her throat as she looked down at the brain scan. "Do you have everything prepared?"

"Hm?"

"Do you have everything you need for the--"

"Okay, we're good to go," The technician looked between the two siblings, seeming to bring them back to the ground. He seemed to blink, as if he didn't really read the room. "We have enough for the baseline..."

No one responded. It was as if they were all completely stuck to the spot. 

Everyone seemed deeply uncomfortable-- what a sight it was. Archer, Lexie, Beth and Mark, all stood in a small room all together. What words had been exchanged between them, what blows--

"Mr Gonzalez," Lexie broke the silence, leaning down on the button and causing Archer to shuffle to the side in his chair. He teetered closer to the psychiatrist, pulling a face as he almost cantered into her. Beth rolled her eyes, stopping his chair with her foot. "Do you vote the same way as your wife?"

(Wife. Beth's breathing hitched slightly at that word. She was going to be Charlie's wife. She was going to a woman that had a husband. She was going to be a wife in a marriage to Charlie. A wife in a house with a husband and a marriage and a--)

Nick's response was an indignant scoff, "God, no."

"Good," Archer hummed lightly, his eyes following the activity on the screen, "He's spiking at 30."

(Beth was momentarily distracted by the sound of footsteps behind her and the shuffle of scrub fabric.) 

(She could feel the movement, feel the way that the air shifted in the room. She was oh so aware of the fact that he was standing so close behind her. It made her wonder how far-- was it feet? Was it inches? Was it far enough for her to reach out a hand and brush against the fabric of his clothes? She could smell his cologne. It almost made her eyes water.)

(There was a split second in which she almost thought Mark was going to touch her-- she could've sworn that she felt his hand glace her forearm.) 

(It was such a delicate almost-contact, the sort that made goosebumps gather on the back of her neck. She was sure she'd imagined it. Whatever it was-- it never came to fruition. She raised her arm upwards and dug her nails in her skin, breath catching at the back of her throat as if someone had just walked over her grave.)

"She believes I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary and Obama in the General..." 

Nick was still talking even after Archer had prompted Lexie to move onwards. His rambling caused the neurosurgeon's eyebrow to lift as he glanced over at his sister. The distracted, almost pale flush to her cheeks caught him off-guard. 

"You're thinking I'm secretly a Republican, right? Wrong. I secretly don't vote. Ever."

Archer watched as Beth's brow furrowed and, before anyone could say anything further, she was leant over the intercom button.

"Wait, you're 46, and you've never voted?"

Her words were hitched in disbelief as if she couldn't believe he was telling the truth. 

Mark, who was lingering behind them like a phantom menace, just let out a slightly strangled, but breathy chuckle. 

His eyes were stuck to the back of Beth's head.

"Your voice is no longer attractive to me with that note of disapproval..." 

Archer didn't know what he'd expected for a response from Nick, but it was clear from the look on Beth's face she'd been prepared for that. 

She rolled her eyes this time, lips twitching as Archer grimaced. 

"Although I'm sure that will pass."

"Look at that," Lexie drew their attention to the screen, gesturing towards a small spot on the scan. "There's a spot in the cingulate gyrus that's not lighting up."

Archer moved his chair back into position, this time, almost bumping into his surgical intern as he scrolled in closer on Nick's scan. 

She was right, there was a clear space in his brain that wasn't responding like the others; he studied it, all too aware of the way that everyone seemed to lean in to follow his directive. His brow furrowed as the sound of Nick rambling in the distance filled their ears.

"One vote makes a difference?" The patient drawled onwards, "Not mathematically true. You have to take into account the role of the electoral college and I live in California anyway so it's pretty point--"

"Okay, Nick," Archer quickly pressed down on the intercom, cutting him short as he leant back in his chair. "We've got what we need."

He turned back towards his mismatch team; what a crowd he'd put together. 

A neurosurgeon, a plastic surgeon, a psychiatrist and a surgical intern, all gazing at him as if he was the captain of some wild adventure. 

The technician, meanwhile, hummed around in the background, closing off things and ending the test.

"We can't biopsy that," Lexie began, her doe eyes stuck on Archer and Archer only. She seemed completely reluctant to look anywhere else. "It's too close to the brainstem."

"It could be neurosarcoidosis?"

Beth's suggestion seemed to take everyone in the room by surprise-- well, everyone from Archer who had already had his dose of shock for today. 

She said it so simply, as if the sudden reemergence of her surgical knowledge wasn't like some very bewildering blast from the past.

 In particular, Archer picked up on the way that Mark paused, seemingly lost in thought as he watched Beth revisit the information at the back of her brain.

In the corner of the room, Lexie seemed to wilt slightly.

"Do you agree with her assessment, Doctor Grey?" 

Archer tilted in his chair towards the surgical intern, noticing how she flushed under the attention. The youngest Grey sister raised her chin, eyes bouncing (very reluctantly) between the psychiatrist and the Neuro Attending. 

"Would you agree with Doctor Montgomery's suggestion?"

Slowly, Lexie nodded, "It's possible--"

"Great," The neurosurgeon chipped back, although it didn't sound as though it was great at all. He got up from his seat, slapping the medical file down onto the desk. "Get him out of the machine and start him on steroids, and if we're right, we should start seeing his symptoms improve within half a day."

In a way, Archer was disappointed. 

He agreed with both Lexie and Beth, it looked like a possible chronic disease in the central nervous system which, notably, was as far from surgical as physically possible-- how disappointing. 

He'd wanted an interesting case and, now, there was a chance that his Nick's problems were all going to disappear with a handful of steroids.

Even so, Archer paused, turning towards his sister and wiggling a finger at her.

"You're giving my surgical intern a run for her money today."

Beth's lips twitched, but she did not speak.

Instead, it was her cell phone that exploded into song-- she grimaced at it, apologising under her breath and immediately making a beeline for the door. She went at the same time as Lexie, who, begrudgingly, scooted around her at the exit. 

And then there were three: Archer, Mark and the radiologist, who seemed far more immersed in his work to notice the slight shift of tone in the room.

"We're going to get you out of there, Nick," Archer said through the speaker, gazing at the legs that were visible out the bottom fo the machine, "Good job."

"Can I request a change of doctor?" was all that came back. 

In the background, Archer could hear Mark sigh to himself, the two of them both knowing exactly where this was going. 

"I want the hot one. I was right... it's passed and now I really, really want the hot one with the great breasts and the--"

"Do you still need me, Doctor Montgomery?"

At the same time as the speaker was disengaged, Mark's voice cut through, his tone almost strangled as he stood there. 

It made Archer smile to himself; of course, he liked this dynamic. Mark couldn't leave until he was dismissed and holy crap, it was a wonderful feeling.

 He turned his head, looking over at the man who had fucked over both of his sisters (and clearly had so much fun while doing so) and flashed a smirk that was so deeply self-indulgent.

"Oh, I'm not quite done with you yet, Doctor Sloan."

A pause filled the room, one in which Mark seemed to debate whether to say anything. 

There was something lingering behind his eyes, something that Archer really, really wanted to identify-- what was it? There were words on the tip of his tongue-- what were they? Archer watched him with the same eyes as Beth, quirking an eyebrow when the silence began to sour.

"Sorry about that..."

Beth broke the silence again, appearing through the doorway with her cell phone clutched tightly in her fist. The two surgeons looked over at her in sync, causing her to halt completely in mid-step; her brow furrowed slightly as she glanced between them, visibly jolted by Mark's stare. 

"What did I miss?"

Archer bit his tongue. "Nick requested you as his doctor."

He watched the sigh as it travelled through her body.

"Of course he did," With a roll of her eyes, Beth turned her head to watch Nick as Lexie gently helped him out of the MRI machine, lowering him back into a wheelchair. 

From here, Archer could only imagine what sort of shit was coming out of that man's mouth; he could see the way Lexie's cheeks tinted as the technician got to his feet to help her. 

"I'm sure he gets a lot of women by comparing them to cars."

"Pistons," Archer mused lightly, "Pistons."

"I've had worse, surprisingly," She murmured, shaking her head at the thought of all of the shit she'd had to put up with over the years. Ignoring the presence at the back of the room, Beth chuckled. "There was this guy in the rehab in Canada that used just cat call everyone from across the room-- apparently I was Giselle fucking Budchen while I was going through detox."

"It's not the greatest compliment--"

A muscle hitched in Beth's jaw, "I mean, Nick didn't even compliment me, he just cast me in his mental porno with Lexie Grey of all people--"

At that thought, Archer winced slightly.

"And he's married!" She shook her head, seemingly exasperated and a bit bothered about it. Ah, that was what she was hung up on; Archer's head dipped to stare at the wedding ring she'd removed earlier, the small golden band that was sat on the top. "He's married and he's being forced to cheat on his wife by some biological impulse."

A pause ensued, one in which no one really knew what to say.

(Especially not Mark who, for intents and purposes, had been rendered mute.)

"I'm so glad I'm not single," Beth exhaled lightly, pinching the bridge of her nose as she laboured over the shameless and tragic flirting. "I think I'd die if I had to date around again--"

"Well," Archer heaved a sigh, "At least you'll have a wedding ring to flash at them soon."

Beth paused (as did her shadow.)

She shrugged, "From what I've learnt about the scumbags of this earth, it's that being married isn't exactly a deterrent."

(Fuck. Yeah, Mark felt that one too.)

But, before she could revel in her jab Mark's affair any longer, she turned on her heel and exited the room a third time, stating that she was going to go check on a patient and then come back to see how Nick was doing-- both Archer and Mark watched her leave, both for very different reasons, however. 

When Beth was gone and Lexie was in the distance, Archer caught the expression on Mark's face in the corner of his eye, seeing the way his gaze dipped a little bit lower than the back of Beth's head--

"I don't really want to ask," Archer began. (So don't.) "But, from the way you seem to pay very close attention, you seem very invested in the answer..."

Mark looked over at him, his brow furrowing as the eldest Montgomery sighed to himself and shook his head.

"What's your verdict?"

It was all that Archer chipped out between his front teeth, reminding himself that fucking with this man was far greater than the amount of disgust he felt at this particular topic. 

He would do anything to make this man's life hell. 

Even so, it took a lot of effort to finish his question so casually:

"Piston or peach?"

But boy did he enjoy the expression on Mark's face.