piece of my heart
Grace gets homesick. She misses the feeling of being around her parents and her brother in the Rhode Island suburbs she once inhabited as a child. She is overwhelmed by the feeling sometimes. Other than holidays, she finds it hard to find an excuse to go back. Her brother helps that problem though. It seems like every five minutes Daniel and his wife, Katie pop out a baby (this is their third child, Grace just has delusional thinking that the couple is the Duggars or something).
So, after Grace and Mark had their "encounter" in the parking lot, the nurse found herself calling into work and taking a flight back to Jamestown to meet her newest nephew, Ethan. Since her week-long hometown visit, she had only spoken to Ruth to inform her of the arrival home (and Deana, to take her off the schedule, even though the woman shamed her for making life so hard for her).
Grace's return to work was met with Zibby squealing over the picture she provided of the newborn in the Poulsen family and Ruth rolling her eyes at Zibby's squeals. "So," Zibby's voice hit a new level of high, "Sloan has been asking a lot about you." That earned an eye roll from Grace. Zibby's face was asking for answers without even asking a question, yet.
Grace sighed, "That's nice."
Ruth turned, standing with one of her hands on her hip, "Is it?" Zibby and Ruth both point questioning looks at her.
"I'm not being quizzed by you two." Grace closes her locker and makes her way to the exit. "I have to go talk to Deana."
Both her friends voiced, "Ugh, good luck." Both expressing pain of talking to the unreasonable head of scheduling for the nurses.
Grace sent a smile towards them before wandering to Deana's office. "How was Rhode Island?" A voice asked from behind her.
Her mouth spread into a smile as she realized who gave her the question. She turned her attention to the nurses' station, Mark Sloan standing smug as ever. "It was nice seeing my family. A new nephew." He closes the chart he was previously writing in. The two just stare at each other for a couple of seconds before Grace finally says something, "So, how are you?"
Mark does his grin (the one reserved for Grace) and replies, "Growing skin." Grace raised an eyebrow, "Addison, you know Addison?" She nodded, "She's back from LA. Helping on the surgery for the baby with its heart on the outside of its body. I had to grow a skin flap for it. Like a god." She giggles at his ego for sure going to his head before a silence sits with them again. He fills it by telling her, "I missed you."
Grace smiled back up at him in appreciation, "I have to go talk to Deana about my schedule." She takes a step back.
"You want to join me later?" Mark asks.
She raised her eyebrow again, "You want me to help you grow skin."
He chuckled, "On the surgery." He clarified.
Grace nodded, "I'll see you then. Let me know."
—
Grace collapsed in her chair next to Ruth at the Nurses' Station. "Were you with her this whole time?" Ruth sat newspaper in lap and feet up on the desk. The blonde slowly nodded her head up and down. "Poor thing. Do you want some of my coffee?" Ruth's motherly instinct seeping out. Grace waved her off as she sat straight up. "That's where you and I differ." Ruth chugged the rest of the coffee in her mug.
"I-I, ugh, she's just so annoying!" Grace's fists shaking in the air in frustration. "And she threatened to fire me like twelve times." She complained pointing a finger in the air instead of fists as her anger began to come out.
Ruth sat calmly as ever, she looked up at her newspaper, "You know she can't do that right?"
"Of course I know, but she is technically my boss." Grace explained, her blood pressure lowering. She leaned back down in her chair.
The mother folded up her newspaper, removing her feet from the desk, leaning towards Grace, "This is your problem, Grace. You like to please people more than your own self. Maybe if you stood up for yourself then this wouldn't be an issue."
Grace placed the side of her head on her hand as she listened to the woman, "I do not. It's just I don't want to get fired." She defended herself.
Ruth quickly responded, "But you don't want to get walked all over too. Don't be a doormat."
—
The OR was stress-filled with the baby coding and the neonatal surgeon stuck with the child's mother. Once the scene calmed down, even with Dr. Montgomery not in the room, Mark placed the flap over the baby's chest. "Beating inside his chest for the very first time," Erika commented.
Mark replied, of course, with one of his ego-boosting statements, "And God admired His amazing skin flap...and He saw that it was good." Grace softly chuckled as she rolled her eyes.
The door to the OR opened as Addison asked, "How is he?" Erika responded to the surgeon's question as Mark's eyes moved over to Grace. He smiled through his mask at her. Her teeth shown through her lips unseen under her mask.
(After the surgery, he would ask her to go out with him. She would reply, "A date?" He nodded his head telling her if she would like it to be and the man standing before her seemed unrecognizable to the one she would stutter when talking to and shame Zibby for thinking that sleeping with him would lead to something more. So, she smiles and says, "Sure.")
—
"I did get you something while I was in Rhode Island," Grace told Mark as the walked side-by-side down the hall. She luckily avoided any questioning from Zibby and Ruth (that can be put off until tomorrow). Her coat hugged her body and her bag was slung over her shoulder, her left hand held onto the strap to keep it from falling.
Mark looked down at her, he now dressed in casual wear, "Really?"
She nodded, smiling, as the continued to walk. She zipped open her bag, digging in it. "Before I left, I asked my mom to go looking for it." She pulled out a small, wallet-sized photo.
Grace placed it in his hands, "Wow. I have been waiting for this." He commented as he peered down at the miniature blonde wearing the Clockwork Orange outfit. Sporting the eyeliner and all. "You really pulled it off." She giggled out a "thank you" before Mark handed it back to her. "I'd keep it to make fun of you, but you don't need a picture of you for that."
"Hey!" She playfully slapped his chest, "You know, there's a lot more I can say about you."
He held his hands up in defense before placing them in his jean pockets, "I can't believe your parents let you watch Clockwork Orange when you were 8."
"I don't think they knew until Halloween." She laughed, "My brother showed it to me and I didn't know what was going on half the time, but I really like his outfit." She pressed the down arrow button as both awaited the elevator. "And the eyeliner, especially the eyeliner."
The elevator doors dinged open revealing Derek and his women, Meredith, Addison, and Rose (the nurse that secludes herself from really getting to know any of the nurses, seriously, not even Deana knows her). Mark quickly burst out laughing and she smiles up at him as she followed him to stand behind Derek and Rose. She heard Mark whisper, "Bet you'd wish you'd taken the stairs by now" before leaning down to Grace's ear, "You get why this is funny, right?"
"I am a nurse, of course, I get why this is hilarious."
—
a/n: First off, happy birthday to the Dianna Agron! Also, I finished the chapter and was going to post it when I saw most of it was gone and I freaked out and then I just realized I was on the wrong page, so I'm dumb.