Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟵𝟲 the stranger in the rain

𝙓𝘾𝙑𝙄.
THE STRANGER IN THE RAIN
ALTERNATIVE TITLE: BETH AND MARK (PART ONE)

i'm not even going to,,, no

this chapter destroyed me.
have fun with it for me! x

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I - DENIAL AND DISBELIEF

IF YOU ASKED Mark when things had gone wrong in his relationship with Beth, he would've been able to remember it more clearly than when things had gone right.

Both were definitive moments, the sort that would belong in a supercut. 

It'd flicker past his eyes like a film reel that was well-worn, a beginning to the end, snapshots in succession that would leave a lump at the back of his throat–– the end, ironically, began exactly where everything had started: a clinic opening's soirée and Mark standing on the threshold of the room holding a woman's hand and pretending he was happy.

For context, that was his first 'affair'.

If this whole thing were a movie, he was sure that would have been one of the most defining plot points. 

The months that they'd taken between the resignation hitting the Chief of Surgery's desk at Manhattan West Hospital to the grand opening of a private clinic, those had been patterned by the sort of silence that would happen between war fronts. 

A pause, everyone holding their breath, the two of them living around each other not knowing what would come next. Neither of them mentioned how Mark had given up his career for her, damning himself to a world of meetings that he could not have cared less for. 

(Mark, solely out of the fear that he'd say something he'd regret, and Beth, out of the fear that he'd say it wasn't worth it at all.) 

The tension lingered, words caught at the back of their throats and Mark began spending nights, more often than not, in his own apartment. 

Beth continued her slow downward spiral into the worst era of her life and Mark could only watch, slack jawed as his whole body urged him to do something—

She'd asked him to give up his whole career for her, and for what? 

For him to watch her get high every morning before she went to work, and risk everything she claimed to want to protect?

Fuck that. Mark had silently resented her for it. It became a moment that broke everything, a fever in his chest that he couldn't sweat out.

That didn't happen in movies, not in the movies that he watched. 

He couldn't imagine Maverick from Top Gun sitting here, in Seattle, and trying to unpack things in a silent room, jaw clenched and eyes unmoving from a poster on lung cancer. He couldn't imagine Tom Cruise with a dry mouth, trying to find that anger in him, that hatred that he'd once had–– anything, any negative emotion, anything better than––

Oh fuck.

The attending lounge was quiet, everyone doing their job as they were supposed to, but Mark found himself on his break, staring into the far corner with half a sandwich beside him and a medical journal he hadn't even bothered opening. 

He'd set his interns with all of his post ops and was aiming to have a peaceful day–– his brain was scattered as it was, he didn't need his job to help drag him down too. 

So, he sat in silence, listening to the thunderstorm as it pounded against the windows behind him and tried to find something rotten inside him. 

Maybe it was a single thought diseased by Manhattan or a just... God, he didn't really know.

Or he did... Well, all Mark knew was that he didn't exactly hate Beth anymore.

He didn't hate her at all, actually.

Instead, he understood her. He understood why she'd done everything she had–– He understood why she'd needed him to leave the hospital and he didn't hate her for it. He understood that the drugs and the spiral and the poor mental health wasn't something that she'd done just to smite him. He understood–– He just... he understood everything.

Okay, scratch everything.

If Mark's life was a movie, maybe it wasn't an action blockbuster, the sort with exploding cars and villains and heroes and everything working well out in the end–– maybe it was a Rom Com that gone horrendously bad.

(Or, alternatively, a slow burn comedy where everyone in the whole world was just waiting for the punchline.)

Growing up, that's how he'd learnt things. 

His whole understanding of life had been through the consumption of movies, of pop culture, of watching episodes of Kojak and the whole of The Spy Who Loved Me over and over, until his eyes were sore. He spent hours trying to find the real within it. 

How was it that a man like him had found his socialisation on a television screen? 

Easy: find absent parents who don't want to teach it themselves.

A year ago, Lexie had asked him how he'd learnt to smooth talk and he'd just laughed and shrugged, saying that experience really paid off. 

The honest response, however, would have been that he'd learnt through observation, specifically, James Bond movies. He'd watched one of the most iconic movie characters of all times and figured that it was an example to follow–– he'd learnt how to charm and be an asshole, all at once. 

He learnt how to treat women in a haze that Beth had had to knock him out of. She'd tried to remind him that movies weren't real life at all. His deprogramming had started from the moment she'd taken his hand with such delicacy and told him that there was love in the world for him, he just had to take it.

Oh Jesus, thinking about that hurt like a bitch.

Okay, yeah, he definitely knew that this was real life. 

He knew that this feeling in his bones was so, frighteningly real–– He knew that when he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, he played it over and over: standing in the doorway of the party for his own clinic two hours late, avoiding Beth's eye and pulling some revenge out of nowhere that he'd thought that she deserved. 

For months, all she'd talked about was how leaving the hospital was their best shot at being together, and yet, in all honesty, it'd just driven them apart. Walking into the opening party of his new clinic with some woman he'd picked out of a bar had stood for that.

It'd been an affair in the tradition that it'd been a stranger beside him, a lipstick print against his collar and a devastated pair of eyes following him across the clinic floor...The clinic, a place that Beth had given more attention than him. 

She'd worked more over the weeks leading up to the party instead of less. That's all his life had been; the clinic this, the clinic that and he'd been given no time to breathe–– it'd been so stifling and Beth had been so excited. 

She'd pressed kisses all over his face and said how the clinic was going to be the best thing that had happened to them. 

They were going to be in a room full of medical executives for the first since they'd charaded at fundraisers as a fake couple and they finally didn't have to worry about Beth losing everything.

(It was always everything. Her career, it was always everything. He'd so desperately wanted to be everything to her too.)

In his resentment, Mark had decided to shake things up a little. 

He hadn't wanted to be at this party. He hadn't really know this woman's name, and didn't particularly care. He'd wanted to make Beth jealous, he'd wanted Beth to remember that things were supposed to be different, that all of this sacrifice had been for the best and not just some sudden career move that had left Mark sick to the stomach.

I've played my move, he'd thought to himself as he'd introduced the woman to a room of apprehensive faces. Addison's head had turned to stare at the muscle jumping in Beth's jaw and Derek had just shaken his own very slowly in disappointment. Mark had just met his girlfriend's eye, his hand on the small of this woman's back. Now, you play yours.

(The truth was that Beth had made him feel vulnerable, love sick with no cure and excruciatingly weak. He'd made her feel like that kid that had only had the television for company, silently eating dinner alone in the centre of a empty apartment. He hadn't known how to communicate it, how to tell her that he was unhappy and just wanted her to kiss him and tell him how much he meant to her. Not how much his resignation had meant to her, not how sitting peacefully on the sidelines and watching her be perfectly fine without barely even needing him, meant to her. He'd wanted to be adored. So, he'd just made a half-ass pass at revenge instead.)

(But oh how it had worked.)

He'd never forget the look on her face when she'd noticed him standing there. Seven missed calls and Beth's eyes meeting him from across the room–– God, it'd burned itself into the back of his eyelids.

If life wasn't a movie, why did that moment have a soundtrack to it, the exact soundtrack that kept replaying over and over and in his head–– Mark, what the fuck is this? And then his candid introduction, This? This is Geraldine.

(His date had stared over him in disbelief, her forehead crinkling as she'd looked between the couple, realising that she was both way out of her depth and with a man who didn't even know her name: My name's Georgia.)

His revenge had been to take whatever freedom Beth had thought this clinic would give them.

 She'd heralded this whole party as some sort of big Rom-Com sequence, the perfect fairytale ending that was some bullshit of them finally coming together–– 

Fuck that. Fucking fuck that. Mark hadn't let her have her moment, he'd turned up two hours late, ignored her for half the night and told her that this was just what they had to do.

It was for the best.

He had to think of his career, of his image––

How would he look if he was dating the sister of the ex-partner of this clinic?

They'd think it was favoritism––!

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Thinking back on everything, Mark could only bury his face in the palm of his hand and groan.

 This empty attendings lounge wasn't big enough for all of the unpacking that that required. He left his sandwich sad and crumpled on the bench beside him and got to his feet, trying to restore sanity and blood flow into his limbs.

He really had been a particular flavour of jackass, hadn't he?

It made sense, really, that he'd never wanted Rom-Coms until he'd met Beth. 

He hadn't seen romance before, hadn't understood it. 

His parents, he was sure, had never showed love to him even once. The extent of his knowledge on anything close to it had been quick fucks at the back of bars and then silently walking away as if that was it. That was all the connection humans were programmed for: a handjob and then a nice knowing you that was only half true if it was a good once. 

Then the genre, he'd always just shrugged those kind of flicks off as some weird, crappily-made feminine sexualised fantasy about hunky, too shiny men. With those, he'd been able to call the bullshit as he saw it: Hollywood endings did not play out like that in the real world and that leading man right there has had two nosejobs, pec implants and a face lift!

But, then he'd watched them over date nights, with Beth giving him what little time she had left in her day, and he'd realised that that wasn't right at all. She'd bought romance into his life like it was a gift and he'd learnt to accept it. Rom-Coms had become less of a debate and more of a reflection. He became capable of so many thoughts and opinions about things that young Mark Sloan had scoffed at— 

For starters, these movies were actually pretty well written and he would happily give a thinkpiece on Patrick Swayze's multidimensional portrayal of Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing if asked. 

Second, they weren't crappily-made at all. Third, he supposed that, in a way, he liked them a whole lot more than the brutish nature of explosions and machine guns. And fourth, they weren't really weird at all. They weren't about all about sexual fantasy or weepy shit that made men emotionally displaced, about how much botox a actor has or how perfect their kiss could look on screen—

They were about hope.

It was that thought, in particular, that had had him pause in amongst his pacing.

Hope was a pretty fucking dangerous thing to have, espeically for a guy like him.

The Rare but Common Lesser Greater Asshole branch of homosapien, the sort that nature documentaries would film and only have douchebaggery to show for it. 

He couldn't have the sort of hope that Beth had had going into that clinic, that it would solve magically with some sort of Rom-Com perfect tie at the end.

But.

That pause.

He had had that hope, just fleetingly. 

He had had it just a few days ago. It had made Amelia Shepherd crack a smile and tell him was screwed, made Callie Torres blink at him as she sat a stool up from him at the bar, and it had made Lexie Grey stare at him with a slack jaw and a look of devastation in her eyes as she'd pieced it all together.

It was the sort of hope that had made him so sure that if he'd had to go back and do New York all over again, he would have done it differently. 

He would have been different. It was an excuse but it was a movement. Mark would have... he should've... yeah, this really wasn't the good time to have this kind of crisis––

He would have had hope too. He would've done what should have been done all that time ago. He would have been the man Beth had needed.

And maybe, maybe they would still be together.

Because that was the whole point of all of this, right?

The realisation that all along, it should have Beth and Mark, but everything had just gone wrong. Disastrously and humiliatingly wrong.

Mark stood with his silence and he found himself running dialogue over and over in his head. He paced a thin line, imaging himself as Dominic Fox trying to strategise the impossible. He knew what was going to happen today. 

He knew how this was going to end–– this wasn't a movie, or a film or even a long running medical drama television show on it's seventh season, but Mark Sloan just knew he didn't like the ending.

It would be another five years, he bet. Or maybe never again. Maybe he'd never even see her ever-fucking-again––

As if by divine intervention, the door opened.

Maybe, just maybe, this was a movie after all, for the next scene cut in with a slightly panicked looking Archer Montgomery as he peered around the room. 

Mark's immediate impression was how much it reminded him of Amelia appearing yesterday, a joke ready on her lips as she went on her search of the whole hospital. He'd been in this exact room too, only not alone and in a surprisingly less bone-crushing crisis. But, unlike Amy, Archer did not have a joke, only a question they'd all asked too many times over the past twenty-four hours.

"Have you seen Beth?"

Mark couldn't find an excuse within him to explain why his heart started beating erratically at the mention of her name. 

He just looked over at Archer and shook his head, worried that if he opened his mouth he'd say some dumb crap that he couldn't take back. The neurosurgeon seemed, surprisingly, not relieved by that at all. 

He, instead, looked over his shoulder, almost anxiously. 

After a very long pause, Mark found the wits about him to speak:

"I told her that you wanted to––"

"Yeah," Archer said, and his voice seemed to catch at the back of his throat, "We, uh, we had a good talk... thanks, I needed that, uh, pep talk but––"

"She might be in a meeting or––"

"Derek hasn't seen her either," was what Archer said, and Mark raised his eyebrows a fraction, at the implication that Archer had spoken to Derek and his knuckles weren't bloody. 

The neurosurgeon just rubbed a tired hand over his jaw and chuckled in a way that screamed I'm Stressed. 

"I found him in a very loud argument with Amelia..." Archer said, "She, uh, she hasn't seen Beth either."

Oh? Something jumped at the back of his brain, a tiny, tiny voice, that told him this was exactly what he thought it was.

"Oh," He vocalised it, trying to be an optimist for once. (She wouldn't... Beth couldn't... She wouldn't leave Archer behind. Not Archer.) "Have you tried Dominic? Her lawyer––?"

"I can't find him either," Archer said next and the voice got louder. 

Mark stared at him now, stared through him, his shoulders falling as it began to settle in. A realisation far more chaotic than any other thought he'd had today sunk into his every pore, a disease that had not left his cells, not once, not even after half a decade. 

"And Charlie... I haven't seen him since––"

Yeah, Mark dragged in a deep breath, This is bad.

"Did she say anything?"

A movie would have a change in music for this moment, a skewed camera angle or complete silence to pull focus to the way his heartbeat got a little faster. 

His sweaty palms, the feeling of a cold sweat as it forced its way across his skin, breath catching at the back of his––

"I..." 

It took a single glance at Archer to know that he was overwhelmed and completely out of his depth. His face contorted and he shook his head, as if he had no fucking idea what to do with himself. 

"No not really we uh... We were going to leave––"

"Leave?"

"Yeah, I, uh," Archer let out a shaky sigh, "I just handed in my resignation letter. She was supposed to meet me in the plaza. We were going to––"

Mark's chest seized almost painfully.

"When did you––?"

"Last see her?" He was almost two thoughts ahead of the plastic surgeon, clearing his throat with a hand still holding the door open, "Fifteen minutes ago."

Fifteen minutes ago.

Without hesitation, Mark turned around, grabbing his half-eaten sandwich and tossing it in the nearest trash can in the corner of the room. 

Hurried, sudden movements, actions that caught Archer off-guard.

 The neurosurgeon stared at him, wide-eyed as Mark let out a long, dreaded brief: it was a sordid sound, the type that prefaced something much more destructive than a storm–– or a break in what felt like a five year silence. 

He buried his pager as far in his pocket as it would go, and hoped, so deeply, that hope was enough, just this once.

Archer didn't ask what was happening until Mark was passing him in the doorway.

"What are you––"

Fifteen minutes, was all Mark repeated to himself.

(That's how much he'd missed Beth by, the first time.)

He didn't stop. He didn't turn.

He just ran.

It was still raining.

He saw it through one window.

A second, a third.

Seattle was still at war with the clouds, thunder and lightning overhead.

It had rained on that night too.

But he was fairly sure that this storm had a name.

It was the sort that should, he figured, it had hung around for a while now.

He also figured that sprinting, in theory, had been a good idea, but maybe not in execution.

Definitely not in execution.

His heart pounded against his chest as the sound of his footsteps filled the hallway.

Determined steps, the sort that had carried him across Manhattan nearly five years ago.

He hadn't moved so fast in years.

Clearing corridors, passing rooms, making eyebrows raise as he passed a crowded nurses' station.

Running for a surgery was one thing but this...

This was almost for survival.

But holy shit.

Holy shit.

This looked so much easier when Patrick Swayze did it.

He burst into a stairwell and took the steps in threes.

Long strides, determined strides, the sort that would hurt the morning after.

He held onto the railing for dear life and counted the floors as he passed them.

Five.

A bewildered radiologist almost flattened themselves against the wall as he passed.

He slid slightly, his shoes squealing.

Four.

Three.

He didn't bother to check whether Archer was behind him.

(Asthma.)

Two.

Two-and-a-half.

Maybe he really should start doing more cardio.

...

Holy crap.

Maybe he really, really should start doing more cardio.

One.

He'd never been so thankful to put his feet on solid ground.

With hell on his heels, he found himself outside of the ER.

Fuck it.

He shoved his way into the pit.

It was busy.

Fuck it.

He had to slow slightly, weaving through ER residents and patients like they were commuters on the midnight train across Manhattan.

(Fifteen minutes.)

He almost shoved over a surgical intern.

Fuck it.

He did shove over a surgical intern.

Accidentally.

He threw an apology over his shoulder as he continued.

He was fairly sure that was the sort of thing that would happen in some big movie final sequence.

The head nurse, Daphne, stared at him, her head following him as he made a break for the ambulance bay.

(Her head turned towards one of the trauma nurses, mouth in a thin line.)

(I've always thought he was a little bit weird, she said.)

It was cold outside.

Really cold.

He was greeted by a mouthful of rain and a chill that sunk straight into his bones.

He hadn't dressed for this.

His scrubs were drenched within moments.

The ground was slippery and he almost got hit by an incoming ambulance.

Last time, he'd almost got hit by a taxi cab. Nothing changed.

He persisted.

It was only a hunch, but he had to know.

He had a suspicion.

He had a voice at the back of his head that propelled him to go––

He couldn't stop.

He wouldn't.

Fifteen minutes.

Fifteen goddamn minutes––

The rain was so thick he could barely see.

For the love of something, anything! Just fucking let something go right for once––!

Then he saw Beth on the far side of the plaza.

Mark hadn't realised how dark it had gotten outside.

The sky had locked itself tightly, storm clouds drawing closed like curtains as if it'd decided the day was over. It felt like night. His eyes strained through the downpour and the precipitation mist but he could see her–– a slight figure underneath and umbrella, half way out of hospital grounds with her silhouette blazing against passing cars and their headlights.

It was the sort of sight that someone could so easily miss, but by now, Mark was so sure that he'd be able to find her in any crowd, anywhere, anytime.

He'd halted for just a second, chest heaving and his whole body aching. 

His arms braced himself on his waist, trying to hold himself together long enough for just those last few steps. 

As he stood there, he thought about the way adrenalin had rushed through him as he'd sprinted up stairs, clearing ticket barriers and pummelling subway station platforms and throwing himself across avenues–– he ignored the stitch in his side and began to move again, this time with hesitation.

"Beth!"

He hadn't thought this through.

(There was a fantasy he'd held onto for a few years, one that was far more innocent than anyone would think. It was simple and felt, uncannily, a lot like this. It went as so: Mark, in the centre of Manhattan, ribs aching and skin rubbed raw from the cold, and Beth, her head turning to look back at him as she stood beside a taxi. It was a thought that was locked so secretly at the back of his head, shoved at the back of his underwear drawer and never allowed the time of day.)

Her head turned. It was as if in slow motion. 

Mark knew that if his life were a movie, the peak of it would be this exact moment: A pair of wary, brown eyes gazed at him from underneath the brim of the umbrella. A slight dent appeared in between her eyebrows, she raised her umbrella slightly and squinted at him, straining through the rain. 

Her mouth quirked slightly, but he knew it was a frown. (Why wouldn't it be?) Mark just came to a sudden halt in front of her, struggling to catch his breath as she just stared.

He felt just as he had when he'd seen her for the first time since the shooting: he was hallucinating, he was seeing a ghost. 

When he blinked, this wasn't Seattle, it was New York, New York and it really was night time. 

It was midnight and he was thundering up the front stoop of her apartment, his fist pounding on the door.

BANG. BANG. BANG––

***

II - HIDING AND DESTROYING THE EVIDENCE

TEN MINUTES BEFORE

It was a shame really, Beth thought to herself, that she'd never become a professional escape artist.

She was damn good at it.

Disappearing without a trace... Taking off into the rain... 

She wasn't sure whether it'd fit on her work resume, but she considered it a very successful skill of hers. An escape was all about timing, about going when people's backs were turned and attention had been averted. 

She liked to think that she'd perfected it. She'd had a lot of practice, whether it had been sneaking around as a teenager or just keeping her head low in New York and boy, had practice made her method perfect.

It was textbook execution: sitting there with tears in her eyes as she watched Archer Montgomery leave the room, intent on catalyzing some master plan he'd theorised while holding her to his chest, and then getting to her feet. 

He'd looked back at her and given her this optimistic smile, one that with the words 'This is all gonna work out Beth, I promise' and then he'd passed Dom and disappeared out of sight. 

She'd swallowed the guilt of it, the heartbreak and the slight stammer in the centre of her chest, and then prepared to disappear and never be heard from again.

But even as she sat there, she could feel her whole body ache. 

As she lingered for just a moment, she entertained the idea of letting Archer hold her for longer, of fulfilling some fantasy that he hadn't been able to execute the first time. 

She could still feel the warmth of his body against hers, of how he'd held her so tightly, so protectively, as if the embrace itself had been a statement that Archer would never let go–– Beth was fairly sure she hadn't been hugged like that in years. 

She allowed herself to think about it for exactly fifteen seconds, felt her whole being yearn for a peaceful time with her family, but then cleared her throat and got to her feet.

As if reading her mind, Dom was already standing in the doorway. 

He'd appeared so soundlessly that she almost jumped. He looked up from his cell phone and smiled almost sadly as if he heard everything that had just happened;

"You still leaving, doll?"

Beth knew the hospital walls were thin, but she hadn't realised they'd be that thin. He walked in as she pressed a hand to her forehead and let out a reasonably shaky breath. 

She rubbed her tired skin, taking her blazer jacket from him and shrugging it over her shoulders–– he just waited for her very definitive nod of confirmation.

"Okay," He said lightly and looked back down at the screen in his hand, "Cal says the next flight to Boston is in an hour and ten. That gives us fifteen to get you packed––"

"I'm already packed," Beth's voice was breathless, not bothering to thank him as he held the door open for her. She pulled her hair out of her collar, heels clicking loudly against the floor as she tried her best to walk in a straight line. "Honeymoon, remember?"

God, why did the promise of a honeymoon feel as though it'd been a lifetime ago?

Over her shoulder, Dom grimaced, "Fifteen to go back to your apartment, half an hour for traffic, twenty-five for security. I'll have to grab my stuff and meet you at the airport––"

"Just tell me I can make it."

(Beside her, the lawyer seemed to bristle at her tone. He stared at the back of her head, trying to silently remind himself that she was allowed to be angry. But he could see it all in her, a dangerous cocktail or rage and hurt, one that he was all too familiar with. If he had to guess, he would've said that she was more sad and exhausted than she was pissed. Angry Beth was a much Louder Beth.)

(And god, wasn't she sad.)

"We can do it," He confirmed, and then, just as they reached the elevator, Dominic paused. He looked over at Beth's face, at how she held herself together. A brief moment of silence played between them. "You can go back and say goodbye, y'know that right?"

The sentiment made Beth's eyes water slightly.

"You don't have to just go," Dom pressed. (He noticed how a muscle jumped in her jaw, how she seemed to hold herself up a little taller.) "You don't have to just disappear like last time––"

"I'm not paying you to tell me what I already know."

(Ah. Dom bit down on the tip of his tongue. There was the anger that came with betrayal. He just averted his eyes to his binder and kept walking.)

The ugly truth of it, Beth supposed, was the fact that she was bad at farewells. 

She didn't do well with endings. Leaving and, in turn, leaving things unfinished was the only way she could move on. 

She couldn't do the tearful goodbyes with the bittersweet music, she hadn't been able to do them in years. She couldn't believe in those hopeful hugs with the big movie build-up and the watery smiles. She'd lost that inside her.

The reality of everything was that Beth did not want to leave Archer behind. 

There was a lot in this city she didn't want to abandon, but a lot she did, all at once. She knew that, inevitably, she'd leave Amelia behind (but Amy was the sort of person who would be fine under any sort of pressure) and that she'd get over it eventually. 

Eli, too, one of the only people Beth had afforded any form of closure, any form of goodbye. The only other name that crossed her mind, so briefly, was Mark. But, in a way, Beth felt as though she'd been saying goodbye to him from the moment they'd first said hello.

"I hugged my brother," was all Beth said in return, but she couldn't meet Dom's eye, "That was goodbye."

She did have to disappear like last time. 

It was the only way she could imagine doing it. It was the only fathomable cure to any of this. She didn't really see herself having any other choice–– this city was poison, she was sure of it. She'd stayed for Archer, but now she was leaving for herself; in all honesty, it was what she should've done eleven months ago. She should have never... Beth didn't know whether regret was the right word, but it sure as hell felt close to it.

People kept saying that this wasn't New York; and yet, why did it feel like it?

Leaving in the rain, an umbrella that she'd almost bent out of shape over the course of the day, and the thought of the unknown just a plane ticket away. 

Wasn't that deja vu? She watched Dominic disappear into the back of a taxi cab, promising to see him at the airport, and she wondered whether it would feel different, to actually leave with someone else. 

She'd always been so alone in these adventures. She'd always been so––

"Beth!"

Holy fuc––

For the second time in the past ten minutes, she almost jumped.

The umbrella wobbled in her hand, and she felt her heart leap into her throat. 

She knew that voice: an echo of something she'd once misheard on the Manhattan wind, a hallucination of a sweaty, out-of-breath, desperate man who had something to lose. 

She felt her whole body numb with either the suddenness of it or a particularly strong breeze–– her head turned and she found herself squinting through the gloom, straight at the plastic surgeon as he hurriedly made his way across the plaza.

It was so dark she could barely make out his face, just the slight stoop in his shoulders as he walked towards her. If she hadn't known better, she would've thought that he'd come straight out of a war zone, half-collapsed and heaving.

"Mark?" She said his name so hesitantly, so carefully, as if he'd appeared out of thin air––

Maybe he had, maybe the last three minutes of her life had been a terrible hallucination filled with half-truths? Beth wouldn't have been surprised. Her eyes, briefly, skirted over his shoulder.

She'd said his name expecting someone to be with him, and, also, had half expected her voice to get swept up in the passing traffic and the rain. But Mark still heard her. 

As he got closer his face was illuminated by a confused streetlight, flickering in the lack of light and allowing Beth to see the slightly strangled smile that appeared on his face. And then it was gone, he keeled over slightly, chest heaving.

"Y-yeah, just––"

(What he intended on saying was: it's just me. It's always only me.)

(What happened was a whole lot of wheezing, his lungs practically collapsing in his chest as he realised how many floors he had just cleared.) 

(With the realisation came the wave of very sudden fatigue; he stooped slightly, a stitch burning in his stomach. He'd always been reasonably physically fit, always prioritising a work out when he could–– but fucking hell, that had been a strenuous activity that no one could possibly prepare for.)

A dent ground it's way in between Beth's eyebrows as she realised what had happened.

"Just," He choked out again. (Mark wondered idly if he looked as dashing as he certainly did not feel. A very feeble hand appeared between them, his face contorted as he tried to level his breathing.) "J-Just give me a sec––"

"Jesus fuck," Beth said, always succinct. Her wide eyes watched this man crumple very slightly in front of her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Mark was fine. He was completely and totally fine, "I just––"

"Did you just...?" She looked over his shoulder back over towards the hospital, putting everything together. "How far did you run?"

"Just down from the surgical floor," His response was chipped out between his teeth and, in all it's tragedy, Beth was reminded of how Charlie has sprinted down stairwells and across floors to stop her from discharging herself. The memory made her molars lock and a cold shiver run down her spine. "It's fine... it's not––"

"You're just in your scrubs," Beth pointed out, and she looked him from head to toe. 

Those navy blue scrubs were bunched in the rain, a victim of the heavy downpour that had wet the tips of her shoes. She clutched the umbrella a little bit tighter, frowning as she watched Mark look down at himself, as if to realise it himself too. 

"Jesus, Mark, you're gonna freeze––"

"I'm fine," He repeated it, even though they both knew it was a lie. He was wet and looked as though he'd just battled his way through hell, and Beth knew his lying tell from a single muscle in the corner of his mouth. "I swear, Beth, I'm fine––"

"You look like crap," was her instinctual response.

Mark just laughed.

His laugh made a breath catch at her throat. 

It was such a contrasting sound to everything she'd become accustomed to today. 

She watched his twitchy, almost unruly smile, his hands on his hips and face full of rain, and was just bewildered by it–– something twinged in her chest and she felt Boston shine almost ominously in the distance.

He was still chuckling as he said it: "Fuck you."

It never surpassed her how transformative that word was. She'd once had Mark yell it out at her across Addison and Derek's brownstone, his whole body shaking with rage. 

She'd also, she was sure, had it mumbled against her neck with the lasting refrain of a hickey against a vein. But then there was this, the slight fondness that caught in his tone as he, finally, pieced himself back together. 

Beth didn't look away from him, not even once.

"How many steps?"

"It was a lot of stairs," Mark admitted, a hand still digging into his side as he squinted over at the woman in the rain. "I, uh, I don't think I broke Charlie's record––"

Her breathing hitched very slightly at the mention of his name. 

She had to move her chin to stop herself from feeling uncomfortable.

"You're a dumbass," Beth sighed.

She wasn't sure when Mark had decided to become the dangerously spontaneous type, but she knew that this wasn't in character for him. 

Sure, he'd always been impulsive and spontaneous, but that had been of the douche variety, of the dumb-with-his-brain-in-his-dick branch of spontaneity. But he always thought of the small things, of umbrellas, of condoms, of jackets and leave-in conditioner after shampoo.

"And you're leaving," Mark noted back.

That made Beth pause. It was a freeze that was far more invasive than what was just skin deep. That word got caught in her ears. 

Leaving. He said it so loudly, over the wind, over the rain, and Beth had to shake her head with a numb face, dismissing what they both knew was undoubtedly true.

"I'm not––"

"You are," Mark said, and there was no hesitation in the assertion. Beth halted half way through her lie, brow furrowed as she just stared and stared and stared. "You're going to go back to your apartment, get your suitcase and you're going to leave to Boston, to Charlie."

There that name was again. 

Beth felt her heart skip a beat and a lump congeal at the back of her throat. 

It hadn't hit until now, how bitter it sounded on his lips; it was the last twenty-four hours, the way that Charlie had transformed in their minds. 

He'd once been such a symbol of softness, of peace, and now Beth found herself unable to breathe as Mark looked at her expectantly–– she wasn't sure whether he'd expected some sort of confirmation, but she couldn't give it to him. She just stared at him until his pallid, rain-stricken face was burnt into her retinas.

"Beth."

He said her name so gently, so hushed, and goosebumps raised on the back of her neck. 

She was still half turned away from him, her right foot betraying how badly she wanted to be done of this place, washed clean of every event that had happened within that hospital. 

She wondered whether he could feel it too, Beth's whole life purging Seattle from it's system like an immune system fending back a disease.

"You don't have to g––"

Mark sounded like Dom. 

It made a muscle twinge within her, one had it's finger delicately hovering on whatever patience she had left. 

That's why she scoffed again–– it was her patience and the tiny part of her that wished people would stop asking so much from her. She was sick and tired of people trying to control what she did, so tired of people trying to control her whole existence. 

First Addison, then Derek and now––

"This is about Archer, isn't it?" 

Her response was tireder than she'd intended it to be. She sounded far more exhausted than she was pissed. 

A slow sigh paired with a head shake. "Look–– I know he sent you after me because of his asthma but––?"

"He's worried about you, Beth."

Now, Mark just sounded like Derek. 

It was as if he was flipping through some sort of rolodex of people Beth had in her life, trying to fit himself into a role like a puzzle piece chopping off it's own edges. 

She didn't like that either. God, she really didn't like it. 

She didn't like his earnest facial expression and the way that he seemed to talk too maturely for a man who had once been so erratic and immature.

(He, Mark noted to himself, wasn't the only one.)

She really wished people would stop being worried about her too. 

She appreciated that it came with the territory of being her, but she really didn't need to be treated like glass. Sure, her world was upside down right now, but, surprisingly, it wasn't all her doing.

"Everyone's worried about me," was her deadpan response, "I'm sure Derek is in there somewhere setting up some support group for it––"

"You should've seen the look on his face," Mark said, almost as if he was reading it all from a script that Derek had written. They were so distinctively not his, almost as if they were penned for a different character in this shitshow performance Beth called life. She watched his chest heave slightly and his face slacken. "You should've seen him, Beth––"

"Yeah," Beth said again, voice curbed by sarcasm, "Me being me... I'm pretty accustomed to seeing disappointment on my family's faces––"

"He's still upstairs––"

"If you squint, he kinda looks like Addison," She continued, suddenly grasped by the impulse to light a cigarette and croon like she was making her big Hollywood exit in a silver-screen drama. "With my family, it really is once you've seen one, you've seen 'em all."

Beth knew this was where Mark and Derek differed, at least now. 

She watched the way that Mark's lips pressed together, as if he was thinking over what she'd said a hundred times. 

Her eyebrows raised, watching his facial expression.

 By now, Derek would've made some offhand comment about how difficult she was, about how he couldn't just be concerned without her making a 'big deal' of it; it was, by far, his most charming trait. Always the one to throw things back in her face and make her feel bad... and Mark had been that way too, once. 

Beth couldn't help but cross-compare them quietly, thoughtfully, watching as he tried to restrain the slight smile that broke through.

(Crap, Mark thought to himself. This was harder than he'd thought.)

"I see it," He said honestly, and she just shrugged, "It's the nose."

"It is the nose," Beth confirmed, "With greatest compliments from Theodora Montgomery." She hadn't genuinely smiled in days, didn't exactly see the point in changing that now. "But, sadly, I got the name and not the facial features."

And then he stared at her, as if he was trying to recognise it in her. What did he see? Did he see the Montgomery blood simmering in her veins? Did he see the Forbes? 

(It was a question that Beth had asked herself over the past five years, one that she'd never exactly had the guts to ask: When you were screwing Addison, did you see me when you closed your eyes or searched hers? Was it me you'd rather have been kissing?) 

With questions unanswered, Beth just had to wonder; was she just a walking genetic time bomb? 

Rigged to blow at any moment with the fatal demise every Montgomery seemed to face?

 Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn't pretty. She was sure this face, this cracked makeup and this woman on a very thin edge, was no Megan Fox.

(Mark, meanwhile, was just concentrating on trying to get his heart to stop beating out of his chest.)

(His mouth was dry and there was a slight tremor in his hand, one that betrayed how wildly his thoughts had strayed today.)

(It reminded him of how desperately he'd tried to keep that scalpel still... of how he'd felt the blood rush in his ears... of how everyone had stared at him like they all knew what was going in on his head... that's how Amelia had looked at him too–– and now Beth was looking at him too.)

(She was looking at him head on like he was a deer caught in headlights and, suddenly, the words were robbed from his lungs.)

"It's a nice name," Mark said after a beat (mostly out of the desperate impulse to fill silence and not watch her walk away.) "And you have a nice nose, too. I think you won in that department."

(This was filler conversation, this was so painfully filler conversation. It was an awkward misdirection that left Beth's brow furrowing slightly.)

(He'd socialised himself to be good at this, to communicate adequately with. He hadn't watched hours of Roger Moore smooth-talking on a screen for this. He was usually so succinct, so well-spoken and thought out—but fuck. Beth.)

(His head filled with static, with dead-end avenues and radio silence. With her eyes on him, he'd never felt so small. Lost in his own head, leaving him stranded in a train of thought that he knew was going off the tracks in the complete wrong direction––)

"Don't say that to Arch, he'll probably cry about it," She said almost mechanically. 

She took it as a wry joke, the sort that happened between two people who were dryly just tolerating each other. Then she looked over his shoulder again and nodded towards the hospital. 

"You should head back––"

"Beth."

"Go back inside, Mark," She tried her best to ignore how he said her name. It made the hairs stand on the backs of her arms. When he didn't move an inch, Beth just sighed. "Whatever he... Whatever Archer offered you to do this big speech... it's not worth it––"

"Archer didn't––"

"Fine, then Derek," Beth corrected, "It's not worth it. I'm not worth it. Turn around, go back to that hospital and do your damn job... You're gonna catch a cold."

She wasn't worth it, Beth knew that. 

She wasn't worth standing out in the rain for, she'd come to peace with that a while ago. 

(That was the last thing Mark was thinking about.)

"And then what?" Mark asked, and she could see something shift inside of him, as if there was a clock ticking over at the back of his head, "And then what happens––?"

"Hypothermia, probably."

"What about Archer?"

"Archer's a big boy," She said, and she felt grief once again. 

It was the powerful type, the sort that she couldn't name or even locate in her chest. 

(Maybe the floors had been thin too? Maybe the whole hospital had been able to hear her brother as he pleaded with her to let him have his redemption.) 

"He's better than I am," She shrugged, "He'll get over it, okay? He actually does forgive and forget––"

For the record, she believed that wholeheartedly. 

She believed that if one of them deserved something good, it was her big brother. He was the only person in this family who seemed honest, the only person that Beth could ever imagine loving her unconditionally–– and that was because he did. 

She'd been able to see it in his eyes, felt it as he hugged her, heard it in his voice; Archer wouldn't hate her for leaving him behind, he'd just understand. Understanding was rare for a woman like her.

(On the other side of things, Mark was just listless. He felt as though he was grabbing at words at the back of his throat and unable to execute them. There were so many things that he wanted to say... God, why was he so bad at this–– he wasn't a leading man, he really wasn't... this wasn't... No... Fuck––)

"And so you just go back to Boston?" She watched his brow furrow slightly. It was as if the thought completely perplexed him. "You're just going to go back to... to your old life?"

(He figured that, in a way, he'd always been able to tell exactly what Beth was going to do.)

(She was a creature of habit with internal wiring that Mark had learnt a very long time ago–– he knew when she paused for a little too long, body already half-turned to leave, that he was right. Of course he was right. He knew this all like he knew the back of his hand.)

(He knew the rain, he knew the weight in his chest and he knew the way her jaw clenched and she looked away. But that didn't mean that it didn't deeply confuse him. After everything she was just go to...?)

"I didn't say Boston—"

"Where else would it be?"

"Anywhere in the United States," Beth lied. Lying was too easier, she didn't even hesitate. Despite her light and casual tone, she still felt a muscle tremble in her jaw, "I'm free to go. Just keep within the country and find some in-patient programs that'll have me... I don't know where I'll end up. I might–– I might just, I don't know... go find some free-spirit program in the desert or something... become one with nature or all that crap."

"No," Mark denied, shaking his head, "You're going back to Charlie. I know you."

I know you, that felt like an accusation too.

I know you, he'd said, as if he was so sure of it.

Beth almost felt like challenging him. He knew her? Well, wasn't that magical–– if the last twenty-four hours had taught Beth anything, it was that she didn't know anything at all!

(Mark had to give it to her, she'd always been a very good liar.)

(It was so natural and simple with her, just a tilt of her head and a flash of her teeth with this sparkling socialite's smile–– he'd fallen for it a lot over the years, but trial and error had led to education.)

(But, there was something different about this time; as much as Mark knew she was lying, Beth knew that he knew that she was lying too. It sounded complex, but it was so simple. In fact, it was all patterned in her gaze.)

She couldn't find it within her to answer him. She just sighed and shook her head, a slightly perturbed laugh falling out in between.

"Goodbye, Mark."

And then she turned away.

"Have you even heard from him?"

Beth started walking. She turned her back on Mark and adjusted her umbrella, ignoring his call through the rain–– it was frighteningly easy to walk away from all of this, the last eleven months that had been nothing but hell and the rain-spotted man in the navy blue scrubs that raised his voice over the sound of her heels clicking through puddles.

"Have you heard from Charlie?"

She ignored him. For the record, she hadn't heard from Charlie at all. She'd figured that that was a good thing, it meant Andrew had him safe somewhere, somewhere where Charlie couldn't be self-destructive and drag them all down even more.

"Beth, has he even answered a damn call?"

Silence.

"You're really telling me that––?"

"I mean it," Beth called over her shoulder, as her fiancé's name practically chased her off the hospital plaza, "I'm leaving––"

"Has he apologised to you?"

"Go away, Mark."

"Wait."

And then a hand caught her wrist.

***

III - BREAKING POINT

There weren't many moments where Mark Sloan wished he could be someone else, and yet, he'd found that all of them all occurred in the past two weeks.

He'd stood here before. 

Not just in the rain and the desperation, but holding her wrist too. 

It'd occurred just yesterday, back when Beth had been leaving (as was her tradition) to go marry the man she loved and Mark had caught her just as stepped out of the elevator. 

He'd been curt but gentle, and had tensed as if it had electrocuted him–– but now, as Beth halted in her step, he found that his grasp was a little tighter and far more reluctant to let her go.

He wished he wasn't the sort of guy that had to just reach out and catch her by the hand. He was supposed to be better than that. 

When he'd, very briefly, thought about this on his sprint down from the surgical department, he'd been so empowered by the belief that yes, this was a good decision. Yes, he was Mark Sloan. Yes, he was this charming guy who had the world in the palm of his hand––– 

Yet here he was, with the only thing in his hand being a woman who was destined to leave just like the planet was destined to turn.

For a moment, Mark got caught up on it. The sensation of holding, of grasping, of physically stopping her from straying any further. The word 'Wait' had barely left his lips before he was staring down at where they met. 

Beth seemed to wobble on her heel, almost stumbling before Mark was able to tug her still.

(In his fantasy of what New York could have been, Mark had found solace in this sort of moment: a slight smile would flicker onto her lips despite the tears in her eyes and she'd sigh to herself, softly, quietly, as if everything would be okay. She'd stand there and he'd reach for her and he'd be filled with the overwhelming sense that it would be–– that everything would be okay–– that everything in the whole universe would just be––)

"Mark."

He hated how his whole life paused for a second whenever she said his name. 

It was like an itch he couldn't scratch. What little coherent thoughts he could muster all seemed to congeal at the back of his mind, like blood clotting over a wound. 

He felt it specifically in that second too, the way she sighed it out as if he was signing himself up for something he would regret, of how it came with equal parts exhaustion and equal parts 'We both know how this will end.'

Then, something caught his attention on her finger.

"You're still wearing his ring."

Not a question, a statement. 

He looked down at the diamond as it sparkled in the bewildered streetlight. 

If Beth had been frozen before, this was another level–– her head didn't even turn back to stare at him, but he felt her tremor softly, as if just the mention of this ring was enough to make her frail. He wondered if she even knew it was there; that's why he proclaimed it. 

A third out of surprise, a third out of rage and a third out of divine intervention.

The ring just caught the light, as if to spite him. 

This ring, the one he'd fished out of a pool of Beth's own blood and pressed into Charlie's palm like an omen of good-faith–– the ring that had hung with him like a tumour that he couldn't cut off. He didn't react as Beth almost snatched back her hand, flinching as if Mark's whole being was poison. 

She seemed to cradle it, she knew it was there, she knew exactly what she was doing... She knew exactly how––

"You are," Mark said, speaking it through as he struggled to process it, "You're going back to Charlie."

The thought confounded him. 

Sure, his head was messy but one thought stood out amongst the rest: Why? 

It was the question he'd asked himself over and over and over, just over the duration of most of his life. Why was the sky blue? Why did cats and dogs hate each other? Why was Beth Montgomery still wearing her engagement ring? Why was Charlie Perkins still a part of her, in a stone that, too, had a wicked smile?

His anger was a funny thing. He'd last felt the burn of it as he'd sat beside Beth, beside himself with the impulse to crucify her for what Derek had let slip. 

He'd sat there and he'd struggled with it, knowing that when Beth thought of him, she probably thought of the asshole that couldn't keep his temper straight; that's what he'd been thinking about as Beth had cried into his chest–– he was trying not to be so angry, so furious, so loud. 

Yet, something about how Beth refused to look back at him made his chest cave in.

"What the fuck Beth?"

He'd never been methodical in his emotions, only ever feeling. 

His disbelief and distress spiralled into the slight hitch in his tone, an octave higher than they both definitely noticed. His brow scrunched too, hand still grasping the air where she had once lingered.

"Charlie's the reason you're in this mess," He felt as though mess was putting it lightly. She just ignored him, her face hidden as he listened to her heels click their way through the puddles. Mark just kept up, desperate for her to see how insane everything had gotten. "He's the one who wrote those prescriptions. He's the one who got you all into this shit, Charlie's the one who––"

She just kept walking.

"––lied to you, right?" Mark kept talking, trying to get through to this woman who had always been as stubborn as she had been resilient. "He's put your whole career on the line here... He's left you to deal with all this crap... pretended to be someone else. Some squeaky clean nice guy with that whole good person act. Charlie's the problem, here, Beth. If it wasn't for him, you wouldn't have to be fighting everything right now––!"

"You think I don't know that?"

Oh, there was a deja vu here. Mark could feel it: Beth walking away from him, exclaiming something over her shoulder as he almost tripped over himself to keep up with her. 

They'd done all this before, they'd been here before so many times that Mark could almost play it all out like its own feature on the back of his eyelids. If this was a movie, he was sure this would be called a motif.

(Everything he had to say, to Beth, was completely unoriginal. Every word he was throwing at her, every sentence that was filled the air, of course, she fucking knew it. She couldn't stop thinking about it. It's as if he'd cracked her skull in half like he was making an omelette, spooned her brains out and spat them right back at her. The chill that ran down her spine could not be explained by the weather.

"You're just throwing back shit I've already heard, at least be original," Beth said, seemingly eager to keep their every exchange short and brief. "I mean it. I'm leaving. I don't have to argue with you. I'm leaving––"

Meanwhile, Mark figured there wasn't much plaza left for him to yell across.

"What the hell have you got waiting for you?"

"Peace and quiet!"

"In Boston?"

"No, in my asshole."

"You really think life will be peaceful with Charlie after this?"

"Give it up, Mark!"

"A guy like that?" Mark corrected. 

He felt as though now was probably the best time to let the world know exactly how much he thought Charlie sucked. 

"A guy who took advantage of you when you were in a hospital bed unable to even breathe on your own, Beth," He sounded as exasperated as he felt, "You were on a ventilator and he was learning how to forge your signature! I mean think about it. Think about what he's done... He doesn't give a damn that he hurt you––"

"Makes sense," was Beth's response, he almost caught her bitter smile as she tossed it over her shoulder like spare change, "Makes sense coming from the world-leading authority on it, huh?"

That, he couldn't exactly argue with. 

As he kept in her wake, skirting the foundation and past bollards, Mark's head was stuffed with every argument they'd ever had. 

It wasn't consciously, it was just the sound of her bitter voice that drew it out of him; it was all he could hear, smell and see. When he blinked, he saw the twist of Beth's face as she'd watched him wrap his arm around Geraldine's (Georgia's) waist and pull her into him as if they'd known each other for years. 

He saw the hurt and anger in her face that had surfaced when they'd strayed into a quiet corner and argued through hoarse whispers.

(What the fuck is going on, Mark? You said we had to make it until the end of your internship, remember baby? You fucking jackass.)

He had a strategy now. If he kept her arguing, if he kept her snapping back over her shoulder, he knew he had her. 

He knew that she could never leave a confrontation well enough alone... that she wouldn't leave Seattle without this being finished. That's where they'd gone wrong the last time; they hadn't argued, she'd just gone in silence, in grief and sadness. 

They'd deserved a final scene in New York, they'd deserved the closing sequence–– he knew this wasn't the sort of ending one of her movies usually got, but god, it was the closest they were gonna get.

Mark knew that only two things had been successful in their whole relationship, and that had been arguing and sex. And god, hadn't they been so fucking good at both of those things, all of that other crap had just been collateral.

"At least I'm not getting you fired, remember?" Mark called out. 

He didn't need to pretend to be pissed, he was actually pissed. He was angry at her for turning her back on everything for a man who had done nothing but fuck her over. He wasn't sure how good of a lay Charlie was or whether it was because the guy acted the sun shone out of her ass on the weekdays, but either way, Mark was mad about it. 

"I've got that, at least, huh?" He said, "That was all on Derek. You really wanna cross-compare?"

Hell, if Beth wanted someone to worship her, Mark would've been happy to put in his application. He wasn't particularly bothered about religion, but he would have worshipped her all over again if he was given the chance.

"Congratulations, Doctor Sloan!" Beth responded, sharp and quick. Her sarcasm was more scathing than the wind. "You're a saint! But then you fucked my sister so––"

"What?" Mark said back, feeling very slightly wicked. "Addison not his type?"

(There you are, Beth thought to herself. Not Dom, not Derek... There you are Mark Sloan.)

"Somehow the red hair just didn't do it for him."

He'd forgotten how much adrenalin arguing like this gave him–– it was the give and take of frustration, of how Beth could divet between deadpan and fury as if it was nothing. 

She'd taught him that too. He took a breather just to laugh silently into the wind and shake his head. God, she was so good at it. As good as she was at leaving and making him feel such twisted shit in his chest, Beth's greatest weapon was her ability to bite back.

He found himself almost intrigued and excited at her every answer.

"C'mon," He said as if she'd look back at him. She didn't. "We both know Addie's not a natural redhead––"

"Why don't you tell me, asshat?" Beth sounded more fed up than she did pissed, "You know if the carpets match the drapes––"

"Can you stop walking away from me?"

Okay, now all this cardio was beginning to become a real problem. 

The last time he'd checked, Beth's lungs were shot, she was working with whatever Teddy Altman had been able to scrape together–– but she had no issue in powering her way all the way across the plaza to the road. 

She took to the sidewalk like she'd been training for it her whole life, strutting in heels to the point where Mark had lost his breath before he could even properly catch it again. He just wished she'd stop, for once in her life–– stop walking, stop leaving and just look at him.

"Beth, please."

"Mark."

"Just stop for one minute–"

"Go do your job, Mark."

"I'm not leaving until––"

"Well, I'm not stopping, either," He could hear her chip it between her teeth, "I'm not stopping, Mark––"

(I don't think I can stop, Beth silently finished in a head that was only full of pain and regret.)

"Charlie isn't worth all of this."

Mark was sure that saying that sentence felt a whole lot like soldier's did deploying biological warfare. 

Both were intended for harm, the sort that would disarm someone and edge them towards surrender. It worked, but only slightly; Beth's pace faltered but he wasn't sure whether it was just because she'd caught her heel on a grate.

Good, he knew that'd at least make her consider stepping on the brakes. 

For every inflexion he knew, for every raindrop and every scowl, he knew how her heart broke too. It was such a distinctive sound–– he knew the sound of every crack, of every tiny fissure that occurred under even the lightest pressure. 

If he knew how he'd felt every time Beth's name had come up in conversation, he knew how Beth's organs twisted at the mention of her fiancé's.

"It's not worth it just for that ring––"

"Oh fuck you, Mark."

This time, she almost sounded deadly.

"Believe me, Beth, it's not––"

She just shook her head. Silent. An umbrella twirling in the wind.

"Don't leave for him, Beth... Don't leave... Don't leave Archer behind..."

She sped up a little bit.

"Eli... Don't leave m––"

A passing taxi almost caught them with a stray puddle, water exploding across the sidewalk as Beth tried so desperately to lose Mark in what little crowd was on the Seattle streets during the storm. A homeless man swung a cup for spare change at Mark as he attempted to weave around him.

"All of this covering up... All of this sacrifice..."

So, maybe he sounded a little desperate.

"I'm not sacrificing anything, I'm in the love with the bastard, remember? It's an act of love, those happen you know that right?"

"You think you love him but just––"

Okay, maybe he sounded pretty fucking desperate.

A choked sound echoed out from the woman in front of him. He wasn't sure if it was a scoff or a battle cry. (Or just a plain, standard cry.)

All Mark knew was that, if he let Beth leave this city, they'd never hear from her ever again. He'd never hear from her again. That wasn't something he was particularly willing to risk.

"That whole life you were talking about last night... It's not there, okay? Not with him..."

Mark continued despite everything, lungs heaving and throat stricken from the cold and the rain. He prevailed despite the woman who wouldn't look back at him and the weather that wrestled with his every impulse to do the right thing. No matter what, he knew the universe had never been on his side. 

Why couldn't it be nicer weather? Why couldn't Beth choose to leave in a heatwave or a responsibly mild spring morning––?

"Charlie won't be worth it, okay?" Scraps of words that Mark didn't know whether she'd even pay attention to. "He's not a good guy, Beth. You can't throw everything away for him. He's not a nice guy like he made everyone think he is. He's not the type of guy that things work out well with. He's not a liar... He's not–– he's just––"

"An addict, right?"

Beth stopped.

Beth stopped so suddenly that he nearly collided with her. 

She stopped with a violent turn, the sort that allowed her to stare directly into his soul with a fury brighter than the sun. Mark hadn't realised they were at a crosswalk until he noticed the traffic passing so tightly beyond her elbow. 

For the briefest second, she was so close–– he was dry under the umbrella, his nostrils were full of her perfume and he was almost warm––

He stumbled with a step backwards, finding the suddenness of it all so overwhelming.

(A slight smile would flicker onto her lips despite the tears in her eyes and she'd sigh to herself, softly, quietly, as if everything would be okay. She'd stand there and he'd reach for her and he'd be filled with the overwhelming sense that it would be–– that everything would be okay–– that everything in the whole universe would just be––)

Everything was anything but okay.

"It's okay," Beth said, and her lip curled, "I know you want to say it."

It wasn't okay. It wasn't okay at all.

"Say what you're thinking," How could things be okay when she was coiled tightly, like a cobra ready to strike. He watched with misty eyes as her hair caught on the wind, tossing around like the dance of flames. "Speak your fucking mind, Sloan. No one will fucking say it. He's an addict. It's not a dirty word. Say it."

He just stared at her.

She was trying to lure him into some hole, he could tell. Her anger had come so suddenly and he guessed he'd just pushed the wrong buttons. 

He'd always been good at that. He'd always been too good at it, always able to fuck up without even meaning to. This time, unlike the clinic opening party, Mark did not take pleasure from her reaction.

Beth's eyes almost flashed.

"Say how Charlie's just some trashy junkie who cares fuck all about the people around him, right?" It was too specific to be something she'd just thought up on the spot. Mark had to wonder, with a cold sweat, whether these were all things he'd said to her before. "Tell me how he's just another washed-up shitbag that's unworthy of love! That I'm completely insane to love him–– that no guy like that deserves any compassion... any help–– Tell me what you want to say!"

That caught him off-guard.

No, this wasn't where the conversation was supposed to go. 

He'd had a direction here, he'd wanted to say things that now sunk to the bottom of his stomach like a coin going to the bottom of a well. He didn't even have it within himself to make a wish.

Just... Just Holy crap. 

He looked into her eyes and he saw so much fury.

 She was so much more alive than he'd ever seen her, standing in the ashes of the last twenty-four hours. There was so much rage in her. He could see in the way her face paled, lips pulled in a sneer and her whole body... 

God, her whole body was trembling. 

She was so enraged that Mark just stared at her, his breath caught at the back of his throat.

Beth Montgomery was on fire in downtown Seattle. 

He supposed it was fitting, really. She'd joked that she'd commit arson at least in her life. Knowing her, too, she'd burn the rest of the city down with her. That would have made one hell of an ending to the story of their movie, don't you think?

Rendered mute, he could only watch, drenched to the skin by a rainstorm that seemed endless.

"C'mon Mark," She scoffed, shaking her head and practically spitting every word. Her face was twisted with mirth, with bloodthirst. "I know what you've said about me... I know what everyone thinks–– You, Derek, Addison... Hell, even Dom–– You have never looked at me the same. Never. Not fucking once. I know what shit you said about me–– all those things you said to Lexie... all of those things people judge me for–– whatever you say about Charlie, you say about me––"

He couldn't speak.

"I feel it, okay?" Her voice sounded painful. It sounded physically painful for her to say every word. "I feel every single thing–– You think I'm mad for wanting to be there–– well, that's what you do when you love someone, Mark. You move heaven and fucking earth for them––"

"You shouldn't..." Mark murmured almost under his breath, but she heard him all the same. Her nostrils flared and her eyes seemed water slightly, her mouth opening to interrupt before he'd even finished, "Beth, you can't––"

It was almost a plea.

Don't do this for him.

Don't... 

Don't go.

"Of course," Now she just sounded venomous, "Because he's the scum of the earth, right? Because no addict deserves love... no addict deserves the benefit of the doubt––"

"No," Mark denied, his voice steady and unwavering, "Because he hurt you, Beth."

Mark hadn't wanted to bring up the drugs at all. He didn't have to. He didn't know how to say it to her... He didn't know how to tell her that he understood now. It sounded horribly cliche, horribly fake, but it was true. 

It'd taken 5 years for Mark to understand it, but he did: He didn't hate Charlie because he was an addict, he hated Charlie because of what he'd done to her.

Mark hated Charles Perkins because Beth had spent so much time fighting to be sober, fighting to find a new career, a new calling and now here she was, trying her best not to cry in the rain. After everything they'd been through, Mark didn't think he was capable of hating someone for something they couldn't control anymore.

He just thought she deserved so much better.

She deserved someone who just wanted her to be okay.

His chest tightened a little.

Then, he watched the bitter smile that flickered onto her lips.

"Yeah, well," Her tone was dry. It almost scalded him. She cleared her throat and wiped at under her eyes. "So did you."

That, he couldn't argue with.

"I know you all think I'm insane for protecting him," Beth continued, barely even taking a breath. "I'm not dumb, I know that Dom thinks I'm crazy and even Amy keeps looking at me like she's expecting me to laugh and say this is all one big joke–– that it's a practical joke–– but no, this isn't a joke, it's my life. Like I said last night, Mark, I'm trying to do for Charlie what I wished someone would've done for me––"

A small voice tumbled through numb lips: "Beth, Charlie's not you––"

He believed it. He believed it so deeply. If only she'd just listen to him! He would tell her exactly who she was, he'd studied her long enough, listened to her, learnt her pain. Mark was sure that he could tell her exactly who she was but he also knew that she would die before giving him the time of day.

"Fuck off," She snapped, and for a moment, Mark saw tears underneath the brim of that umbrella, "Fuck off with that shitty mantra––"

"I mean it––"

"I don't care."

"You're not Charlie."

"I don't fucking care, Mark."

"You're so much more than just––"

"Shut up––"

"He's not the one––"

She didn't respond to that, just scoffed angrily up at the sky. 

That, in his understanding of Beth Montgomery, was a bad sign. Her silence during an argument was deadly, it was the sort of thing that could make or break a whole night or even a whole relationship. He didn't dare look at her face.

(But if he had, he would have watched the deep devastation as crept over her. Her eye twitched and her bottom lip wobbled as she fought to keep her composure.)

"I know you think he loves you," Mark said, and he spoke so quietly as if he was caught up in much more than a storm. He didn't care about the rain or the shivers that made his words clash, he just cares that she was listening to him. "Beth, I know you think he loves you but believe me... Love... That's not—"

"Mark."

His name was said lowly as if to dissuade him from continuing. He ignored it.

"If he loved you," He continued on, taking a step toward her. "If he really loved you he would be here, Beth. He would be taking his punishment. If he was the good guy he'd be—"

Beth just shook her head. (She felt too much... This was... No, she couldn't get a lecture from Mark. Not on love... Not on.... Not on Charlie. Not on this.)

Mark took another step towards her but she took three back.

"That's not love," Mark said, and he wished that she knew how much he believed every word. He was slowly fighting to get this conversation back to where he needed it to be. The big ending, the resolution, the fine. "I promise you, Beth, that's not... That's not love—"

"Charlie loves me."

Mark was fairly sure that was a sob.

He watched it crumple her like a discarded manuscript; clenched in a fist and then tossed aside–– her body folded slightly, shoulders sagging as she said it so definitively, but so broken. Syllables chopped too short and letters strewn into the heavens. 

The break in her voice seemed to alarm her too; Mark just bit down on his tongue so hard that, for a moment, he was so sure it'd draw blood. As Beth let a silence play out between them, attempting to catch her own breath and settle her composure, he just watched–– he could only watch her, like he was frozen behind glass. 

He was like the rest of their past, so distant but so present, all at once. 

A statue in the storm, a familiar stranger who was watching Beth explode into ashes––

She wasn't angry, she was destroyed.

"Charlie loves me," She repeated it, lips trembling slightly as she wiped at her face, "He loves me. Me, Mark. Out of all of the people in this universe! Charlie loves me and it's a goddamn miracle!"

Mark didn't speak.

"You wouldn't understand it..."

He didn't say a goddamn word.

"But you should," Beth said so loudly, her lip caught in between a tremor and a scowl. "You of all people know how hard it is to stick around when it comes to me–– but Charlie was there, he saw me... he... He loved me. He fucking loves me! Unconditionally! To him, it has always been me. Always. He never judged me... He never made me feel crap about the things I had to do–– He just... He just loved me!"

He lied every damn second of every day.

Mark's body felt cold. He felt a level of cold that was far different from hypothermia or deep cutting frostbite–– he felt deadly cold, the sort of chill that would plague a corpse on a slab in the morgue. His mind was full of echoes. His veins were full of ice. 

Whenever Mark breathed in, all he could do was think about how much he wished everything had been different; how much they'd deserved better.

He found himself incapable of looking at her, so he studied her instead. He observed all of the sharp edges, all of the rugged parts she'd tried to smooth over with makeup and the pantsuit. 

She'd tried so hard, but it all shone throne–– like the early morning sun through a stain glass window, shining red on time-worn church pews. Nothing could hide in the way she looked at him. He'd heard of someone wearing their heart on their sleeve, but Beth's was bloody and beating, an organ thrust between them for a sterilised but brutal viewing.

"It sure as hell is love," Beth said, and she said it with glassy eyes that almost reflected the way Mark was helplessly stuck in place. "I don't have a doubt in... in my whole withdrawing fucking body that that man loves me–– and that, that... that is pretty fucking rare. People don't love me... not me... they don't beg to stay–– they don't propose and they do not love me, Mark. They just... They don't––"

That's when the fever started.

"They don't choose me, Mark, they don't––"

He could feel it in his bones, in every muscle and every breath.

"They don't sit at my bedside in the hospital without some fucked agenda––"

He could feel the ice melt and his body stiffen and his heart ricochet in his ears.

Such a hot burning sensation, so deep and so intense him that he felt it take to his flesh like a forest fire.

No, this wasn't anger. Mark knew this wasn't anger.

"You didn't see me after New York. I wasn't lovable–"

He'd caught on fire too.

(Beth felt every word leave her in a rush, the sort that would leave her feeling hungover for hours afterwards.)

(There was a crack at the dam in the back of her head and, whatever flames she'd had in her was snuffed out–– all that came were tears, the heartbroken admission of a woman who had lost everything she had fought so hard to build. She was back on that stoop, on that window ledge with Mark shoulder-to-shoulder, trying to think about her future without spiralling into the dark.)

"But Charlie loved, he saw something in me... and I can't... and even if it's hard..."

He couldn't stop staring at her. Mark's jaw clenched and his heart rate doubled and his mouth went drier than any desert in the world. For a split second, he was in New York, dodging taxi cabs, jumping ticket barriers and doing anything just so he could reach her–– that midnight train all the way out to Connecticut–– burning, just burn right out––

Tension was building in his chest, something so excruciating that Mark thought his heart would burst.

"He's the only person I've got left."

No, Mark's mind thought; she had Archer, she had Amy, she had Eli. She had him, too. Take Mark or leave him, he was hers somewhere.––

"I have to try for him... I have to..."

She had so many people if she only opened her fucking eyes––

"I should have helped him more––"

If she only fucking looked at him––

"He didn't just give me a goddamn ring, Mark––"

If she only took a goddamn minute––

"He loved me when no else would."

There truly was a lump at the back of his throat that Mark couldn't swallow, despite how hard he tried. 

If he wasn't mistaken, the stinging in his eyes was an indicator that he almost couldn't stand this conversation anymore–– he knew it wasn't the cardio that made him so low and exhausted, but this woman–– he was in an obscene amount of pain, his face contorting as he looked down at his feet.

"You didn't love me," Beth said, and she spoke as if she'd been holding her breath for months, "You didn't... you weren't there... I said you shouldn't feel guilty but... but you weren't there, Mark. You weren't."

He took in a long breath that sounded like a gasp and stared at his shoes. His wet, ruined shoes that seeped to soak in the puddle he was standing in. (What a terrible day it had been to wear Crocs.)

"Beth," He warned softly.

"I will never hold it against you," She said, but it felt like she was. 

Just mentioning it, Mark felt like a weight had been dumped on top of him. He felt it crush every bone, tear muscle and flatten his whole life to a disc with no happy ending in it's video file.

"I never told you about the pregnancy because I didn't want you to think I was trying to ruin your life––" She said in one long, painful breath, "...but you weren't there, you gave up and you left me, you left me to deal with all of the crap that came afterwards–– and Charlie... don't say it's not love, because I fucking know what love feels like..."

(She was so gripped by her sadness that she barely breathe. Was this what drowning felt like? For the second time in twenty-four hours, it was all hitting her. Everything she'd lost, the man who turned out to be a stranger to her–– as she spoke kind words about Charlie Perkins, she couldn't help but feel dishonest–– this was a eulogy, a spoken word lament for the man she'd loved––)

A hand raised and she gestured to him, to the familiar stranger in the rain.

"I loved you, Mark," A confession rushed between clashing teeth, both bitter, grieving and hopeless. "I never stopped loving you–– not even when I was leaving the country to get away from you. Not even when I thought you'd ruined my whole fucking life–– All I had was love for you."

Fuck. This wasn't a Hollywood ending, this was just torture.

His eyes seemed to refocus, through all of the memories, all of the heat and the terror and the pain and exhaustion–– he saw Beth. 

He saw her for what she was, and she looked him dead in the eye with cheeks that were wet and eyes slightly red. 

He let out a breath and looked down at the sidewalk, letting her finish whatever Oscar-worthy speech this was going to amount to–– He blinked, trying to rush the precipitation out of his eyes.

Love was a frighteningly dangerous topic to open to the floor.

His chest seized. It was like a second of a heart attack. Dry mouth, clammy palms and the squelch of water underfoot as his whole body just screamed. He wanted to scream–– he wanted to proclaim it into the rain, into the night––

"I wanted to kill you," She said, "I wanted to kill you and I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to kill you with my bare hands and I wanted you to be mine... only mine... I wanted to never see you again and I wanted to come back from that stupid airport and for everything to be okay."

His brow furrowed and, for a moment, Mark had to try really hard not to cry. 

There it was again, his fantasy: She'd stand there and he'd reach for her and he'd be filled with the overwhelming sense that it would be–– that everything would be okay–– that everything in the whole universe would just be fine. Everything would be completely and utterly fine. Besides the homicide and the kiss with an open palm across his cheek––

He rocked on his feet, uncomfortable and suddenly raw. 

He was fairly sure you weren't supposed to feel your heartbeat in every part of your body, but he was full of it. His ears, his tongue, his toes, his fingers. 

Every single part of him thudded as if to remind him how brutally alive he was, how brutally real life was–– this wasn't a movie, this was him and this woman––

Two people who had almost loved each other to death.

"And I know, I know, this is love," He wasn't sure why the universe had led him to listening to her defend Charles Perkins, but whatever it was, he'd be sure to send them a fuck you before he went to bed tonight, "Don't say it's not–– because right now I feel the exact same way I'd felt in New York. I feel for him what I felt for you for a long time–– I feel I'm at war with myself... all because I would put myself through so much pain just for a man that I love... a man that I love that has hurt me so badly––"

A slight flinch rocked Mark's body. It was like a preliminary tremble to an earthquake.

"Beth..."

"And I feel hopeless," She confessed it all like it was a relief like everything was going to be fine once this was all said, "I feel like my life is fucked forever and I have no idea what's going to happen by tomorrow morning–– but if I think, for even a second, that he doesn't love me, then I'm screwed–– if I think that he was just some guy that came in when I was vulnerable then what the fuck else have I got––"

"You said you couldn't do it..."

He needed her to stop talking.

"But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try," Whatever crisis she'd had last night seemed to translate into the slight slump in her shoulders, the tear that escaped her as she avoided his eye. "I know that I can't be that person... but I make myself that person... just like he did for me–– I can–– I can't wonder what-if, I can't––"

"Beth that's not––"

"I'm not going to spend another four years of my life wondering what-if about another relationship, Mark, I can't. Not again."

She met his eyes so fleetingly, like a school nurse trying to rip off a band aid... fast but painful beyond belief.

What-if.

What if Mark had made it to her apartment before she'd left? 

What if he'd chosen another night and Derek hadn't caught them in bed? 

What if Mark hadn't moonlit the street corner of Addison's street like a lonely dog waiting to be let in by it's owner? 

What if he hadn't followed her at all? What if they'd never kissed in the elevator ride down from Beth's hospital room? 

What if Addison hadn't met his eye across a dark room and smiled in a way that had got him caught up on how similar the two sisters appeared in an overcast light––? 

What if Mark had just turned up to that clinic opening and proposed to her, giving her the sort of Romantic display she'd always dreamed over?

In his pocket, his fist clenched in an attempt to hold back his grief for a life he'd never lived. Longing wasn't exactly the right word. He was starving. He was thirsty. He was aching. He was feeling the whole universe collapse in on him, all in the span of seconds.

"I didn't stay," Beth said, and this time she sounded so small. He met her eyes and he saw right into the heart of her: big brown eyes swimming with tears. "I used to wonder whether that would have changed anything... I wondered if... What if things had been okay––"

Suddenly, his gaze was blurry. 

He had tears in his eyes too. A lot of them. 

The stinging grew through his face. He knew it wasn't the rain. His jaw was clenched and he couldn't afford to move an inch–– he forced her name out, a low warning.

"Beth."

He was warning her before he did something he'd regret.

"I can't do that with Charlie," She wasn't paying attention to him. She didn't see how he was holding his breath, tensing in a moment that left him bruised and his heart racing. "I can't just hold onto to good moments and watch some supercut over and over while I dry out in some rehab... I have to try for him. I can't..." And then she let out a slightly heartbroken laugh. "Every time someone loves me, I just get this deep dread that it's gonna be the last time..."

He couldn't describe how he felt about that statement.

He wouldn't.

"What if it is?" Beth asked, and it was rhetorical. (She didn't want a reply. She was so glad when all that met her was silence.) She spoke to the sky, biting on the inside of her cheek to hold onto whatever she had left. "What if... What if it's like this job and after Charlie no one will ever love me again? I'm damaged goods... People aren't exactly lining up..."

(Beth, meanwhile, was just so sure there could be some psychiatric study on it, a whole deep dive into what it really meant to love a woman like her. She should've seen the signs, she should've... Beth was fairly fucking convincing the loving here wasn't just something on it's own. It was a symptom, it was one hell of a red flag.)

He had to, very, briefly, squeeze his eyes closed just to bring himself back to the present.

"Look at me, Mark."

He did.

His chin raised to look at her, and he didn't like what he saw. No, he didn't like this women, but he didn't hate her... he didn't dislike her... it was all just––

She was the same woman he'd loved in New York. The same brown hair, the same tired eyes, the same tears, the stubborn to her chin. They were the same, nothing had changed. But then there were the tiny details, the engagement ring that winked at him as if Charlie was taunting him from Boston, the heels that he was so sure weren't hers–– and then the way she was looking at him, like a soldier who was so close to giving up, but just wanted to see everything through so they could just go home.

If you leave, Mark silently said to her, I think you're taking my home with you.

But Beth dragged in a long breath and, amongst the fury and the devastation, she gave him a soft smile. It wobbled, it trembled, and it made him realise that he was going to ruin everything if she said what he thought she was going to say.

A light sigh fell past her lip and she tried her best to stand tall.

"I'm a nervous fucking wreck," She breathed it out and he watched the umbrella wobble, a lonely figure that would be burned into his retina's for years to come. A laugh and a half hearted shrug. "It was never about the ring. It was about love. Who could love this... If not Charlie who. Who the fuck would be stupid eno––?"

Beth's sentence was cut short.

(It wasn't by aimless thought.)

(She'd known what she was going to say. Beth had always known what she needed to say. She didn't pause because of the weather, grapple with her words or lose her footing.)

(But, she didn't stumble, her heels made an unpleasant sound against the sidewalk and her grip loosened on the umbrella so rapidly that it nearly blew away.) 

(She skittered backwards but was caught––)

Her sentence cut short in a matter of seconds. It was a sudden movement, the sort that would sweep someone off their feet. It wasn't cinematic but it was messy and left them both blue––

For Mark stepped forwards and, in one short and passionate stride, took her head into his hands and kissed her.

***

IV - RECKONING

Maybe Beth had had the wrong idea about classing her life in the cities she lived in.

For years, she'd considered her whole existence as Before New York and After, like chapters in the Bible. BNY, ANY, she'd silently label the chapters with a breath that couldn't quite settle.

There had been the Before: Riverside, the private school in Pennsylvania, New Haven and then New York (the smudge on the record, the ground zero). 

The during, her childhood there was a succession of events that had led to that train ride into Manhattan, she was sure of it. 

She'd only lived to stand in that city and watch it break around her; only grown-up to stand in a room of socialites and feel the intense paranoia that they all knew how much she loved the man another woman was smiling at.

And then just the After: the after, Toronto, the sunshine in Saint Tropez and the gentle smile of a Boston apartment and all of the other crisis zones that had come next.

But she'd been wrong, she knew it in that moment. She'd been oh so very wrong––

It would have been so much better to class the acts of her life by the kisses she'd had.

Kiss by kiss, year by year––

Her first kiss had been bashful, fearful. 

High school had been sloppy and awkward, a shaky palm pressed on her cheeks and her having to break to take gaping gulps of air. 

College had been drunk, mostly, incoherent and wistful and a lot of random boys in the backs of dark rooms.

Calum had been a soft kisser, the sort that was so delicate that she'd thought he'd write a thinkpiece about it afterwards. He'd always kissed with some sort of poetry, pushing her hair behind her ear and smiling through it, as if she was his hobby, some sort of muse. 

Then, that guy from Brown, Dan, well, they only really kissed when he was high. He'd been so cold about physical affection, always wanting to appear so cool and bothered–– but drunk he'd been a whole different story. 

He'd been handsy, incapable of keeping his hands off her. His kisses had been sloppy, incoherent and harsh. He'd ripped her lips and tugged at the roots of her hair. She'd enjoyed it for a while, allowed herself to get caught up in the moment, but the bruises had gotten old.

Charlie, he'd been a good kisser. He'd been the sort that would make her smile. Fresh, chaste and perfect, clean-cut and without hesitation. Eager thumbs on her hip bone. 

He'd never been shy with them, always used them as some form of communication in itself; for years, they'd be reassurances that he was there, that he cared, that he loved her–– they'd had their first kiss in the back of his office with his hand on her ass and hers on his heart.

And then there was Mark.

She knew there had been some kisses in between. Shapeless, faceless, aimless men with overshadowed features (probably some women too, if Beth really thought about it). 

Dark corners in nightclubs, wandering hands and the taste of liquor—

But then there was Mark.

Mark.

He'd been the sort of kiss that had left Beth breathless every time. He kissed and made her believe she'd been kissing wrong her whole life. Even when they hadn't meant anything to each other. It was just Mark. 

Electric lips and fingertips, trailing shapes down her spine, making her bones shake. Stealing her breath and then giving back to her as if it was an act of mercy. Precise, passionate and a biological weapon, the sort that would level a city—

Familiar, too. So painfully familiar.

Fuck. What a wonder it was for a man to kiss her, and for their last to feel like it was yesterday.

Mark.

He appeared like a ghost of lover's past.

He loomed so quick, so narrow as if he was about to steal her sanity from her aching bones.

A kiss.

He took her jaw in between his fingers.

Carefully. Gently. Expertly, as if she was made of glass.

A rush of air that fell past his mouth and glazed her face,

Mark.

Her pain in the palm of his freezing hand.

A raindrop on her chin.

He wiped it away with the pad of his thumb, across her bottom lip––

A surprised breath catching at the back of her throat.

He pressed his lips against hers.

Half a decade later.

Sealing her pain behind a startling silence.

Bewilderment that made her knees shake.

Then, the flush of his body against hers.

...

Mark.

That's all she could think. 

That's all her mind allowed her to do. 

She repeated his name over and over like a silent plea: Mark. Mark. Mark. Mark. 

For hours, she'd hope that it was a plea for him to stop–– but for seconds, for at least five or six or seven, she'd know it was a beg to never let her go.

2024: two years later, i've still got nothing. nothing. nada. them just them. them them them Them THEM