"Dr Hunt! We haven't seen you in ages!" One of Vanessa's long-term patient's parents greeted her and she hugged them gently before she walked into Rose's room.
"Well I'm back for a few months and then I'm being forced back into maternity leave." She joked and the parents laughed lightly as Vanessa pulled her stethoscope from around her neck and placed it to Rose's chest.
"Heart sounds healthy - looks like your body is healing well. How did your surgery go, Rose?" Vanessa asked as she placed the equipment around her neck and sitting on the end of her bed.
"Good. I think they said something about taking all of the tumor (i'll spell it this way now i guess) out and I feel a lot better." Rose nodded and Vanessa smiled and turned to the patient's parents.
"I have to go but I'll be back or I'll send someone else to check on you guys." I smiled and they waved me goodbye as I closed the door and walked away from the room.
"Dr Sl- Hunt?" Someone called and Vanessa laughed as she turned toward April who had just called her, "What do I call you now?"
"Dr Hunt - Mrs Sloan." Vanessa smiled and April nodded before handing her a chart.
"Dr Shepherd wants you in on this case." She informs Vanessa and Vanessa furrows her eyebrows as she takes the chart and looks through it.
"This isn't even a peds case?" Vanessa questioned, looking up at April who just shrugged and walked away.
Vanessa sighed and closed the chart, walking away to find wherever Derek was to ask him why he was putting her on cases that weren't even her specialty.
***
Vanessa turned the tap off and shook her hands out gently before drying them. She had scrubbed in with Derek on his surgery and it had been a success - her first surgery back and it went well.
Derek had just wanted the first surgery she did after her time off to be a big one - a great one - and that's what it was. She breathed out deeply and walked out of the scrub room, seeing Mark waiting for her outside, leaning against the opposite wall.
She smiled slightly as he started walking with her. Neither of them spoke - just walked together toward the cafeteria where they were going to meet the others for lunch.
---
"How's married life?" Derek asked the pair as everyone sat at the cafeteria table.
"The same as normal life." Vanessa shrugged and Mark shot her a glance from across the table. Cristina raised her eyebrows slightly, picking up on the tension between the two of them.
"Would be if you just-" Mark started to mumble.
"We're not doing this here." Vanessa hissed and everyone at the table's eyes widened slightly as they put their head down and focused on their food.
"Well, when are we gonna do it then because you're always making excuses." Mark fought back and everyone watched the two of them as if they were bombs about to explode.
"You could've chosen any time but you brought it up in front of our friends. You're forcing me to talk about it and I don't want to." Vanessa countered, dropping her fork in her food and looking at Mark across the table.
"Fine. Fine." Mark dropped his sandwich on the table and stormed off, leaving Vanessa at the table with everyone staring at her.
"What was that about?" Jackson piped up from where he had hidden himself behind Cristina.
"Mark wants me to change my name to Dr Sloan - I'm already Mrs Sloan. What else does he want from me? Having two Dr Sloan's is just gonna be confusing." Vanessa explained and Derek furrowed his eyebrows.
"There has to be something else going on," He commented and Vanessa shot him a warning glance that he missed, "Mark wouldn't get that angry over-"
Vanessa placed a hand over his mouth and stood up.
"Looks like I'll be seeing you later." She sighed as she walked away in search of her husband.
"Karev - what's going on?" Everyone turned to where Alex had been weirdly silent and he looked to the side, indicating that he knew something.
"Nothing." He says quickly and Cristina pinches his arm in an attempt to get him to spill.
"Out with it. What's going on with the happy couple?" She demands and Alex looks down before taking a deep breath in.
"She's having nightmares and panic attacks and Sloan wants her to go to therapy but she wont." He sighed and everyone shared a glance before quickly getting up and running to wherever the couple were fighting: this was one to watch.
***
"Let's just drop the Dr Sloan issue because that's not happening and you only picked that fight because I refused to talk about the other thing." Vanessa paced across the on call room as Mark sat on the bed.
"Fine. But we're talking about the other issue." Mark crosses his arms over his chest and Vanessa stops pacing, facing him.
"I went to therapy - I did it. I'm done." She reasoned but Mark just shook his head.
"The stress on your body - the panic attacks - they're not good for the baby." Mark was speaking quickly as if she were going to walk out of the room at any moment.
"The baby is fine." Vanessa was only just out of her first trimester and she only had the tiniest bump.
"You need to see a therapist!"
"I do not!"
"You have nightmares every night - about the war, about the shooting, about Will. You have panic attacks almost every day and you don't eat or drink after they happen - it's not healthy and you know it! You need to see the therapist."
Vanessa sat down on the couch that was in the room, placing her head in her hands, tired.
"You need help, V." His voice was softer as he looked over at her, she still had her head in her hands and she was running her fingers through her ginger hair.
"And I hate to have to force you into it but I promised you that I would do right by you and that's what I'm trying to do." He continued to speak when she didn't and she closed her eyes, realising just how much her well-being was affecting him. She let out a shaky breath and everything was silent for a few moments.
"Okay," She whispered and Mark stood up from the bed, walking closer to her, "Okay - I'll go back to the therapist."
Mark sat down next to her and she leaned her head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, keeping her close to him. He placed a soft kiss on the top of her head and she breathed out heavily.
"I'm sorry." She mumbled and he brought her closer toward him, if that was even possible.
"Me too - bringing it up in front of everyone...it wasn't the best decision." He responded and she hummed in agreement. They stayed like that for a while, looking at the wall opposite them and just leaning on each-other.
***
"So it's over just like that?" Cristina complained and Vanessa chuckled, nodding her head.
"Yeah - sorry you didn't get to see any of the fighting." She laughed and Cristina smiled, leaning back in her chair and taking a sip of her beer.
"Boards soon." Cristina acknowledged and Vanessa looked at the residents in front of her.
"You'll do fine - I've taken the boards more times than I can count and I passed every single time. You know, it's not as difficult as people make it out to be." She took a sip of her water as she heard her front door close.
"Boards are our whole future - they are going to be difficult." April pointed out and Vanessa shrugged her shoulders as Mark walked into the room, placing his jacket on the unoccupied sofa.
"What is this?" He smirked as he looked at the scene in front of him. Vanessa was sat on one of the sofa's with Cristina next to her as Meredith, Alex, April and Jackson sat on the floor. All of them were drinking apart from Vanessa obviously.
"They're talking about the boards." Vanessa explained and Mark took a seat next to her, placing a hand on her leg.
"Hardest thing I've ever had to do as a doctor." He commented and Vanessa watched everyone go from smiling to frowning in a matter of seconds.
"Take it back," She mumbled in his ear, "Take it back, now."
"Actually," He revised and everyone looked up at him, "They're not that hard, right, V?"
"Yeah - you guys are the best. You'll be fine." She agreed with Mark's lie and the residents seemed to relax slightly even though Mark's lie wasn't the most convincing thing ever.
"You guys haven't been...studying, for the boards, right?" Jackson asked, looking nervous.
"Well, duh. They're the biggest tests we'll ever take. I started studying weeks ago." Alex pointed out and Vanessa noticed that both Jackson and April, through how they were acting alone, hadn't been studying at all.
"It's getting late so you guys should probably go home," She watched as everyone stood up, "Study." She glanced over at Jackson who stuck his tongue out at her as he stood.
"Goodnight guys - I'm off tomorrow so have fun digging for surgeries." She called after them as they left and she heard a chorus of goodbyes as she closed the door behind them.
***
"And how does that make you feel?" Dr Wyatt asked Vanessa and she shrugged.
"I don't know."
"What about the shooting - how do you feel about that?"
"I feel...angry, sad," She acknowledged, "But that's normal. And before you ask I feel the same way about when Mark was stabbed." She added.
"What about the anxiety attacks?"
"I almost lost him - it hits me that I lost my ex fiance, I lost my sister, one of my best friends and it feels like I'm drowning in it - the grief. I wonder what my life would be like if Mark had died - I wouldn't be pregnant, I wouldn't be Mrs anything - I probably would have Owen and Alex looking after the twins all the time because they both look like him - bright blue eyes and dark hair. I imagine my life without him and I get so scared that my body doesn't know how to handle it and I have an attack."
***
"I hope it's a boy." Mark says and Vanessa thinks about it for a second before shrugging.
"I don't know...feels pretty girl-ish to me." She teased and he chuckles from next to her. Vanessa turns her head on her pillow to look over at him as he watched the twins play on the bedroom floor.
They had both been resting in bed when the twins started crying so they just brought the two of them into their room to watch them as they spoke to each-other about anything and everything.
He felt her eyes on him and turned around to face her as well, his smile from watching the twins that was still on his face dropped slightly when he saw her face and he laid down next to her, facing her just as she did him.
She reached her hand out and ran her fingers through his hair, a small smile on her face as she did so. Mark just allowed her to do whatever she wanted as he strained his eyes to look behind him, checking the twins were okay.
"The attacks," She started and Mark moved his eyes to look at her again, "Dr Wyatt said they stem from my PTSD - from the war but the trigger is...whenever I think about the past - which happens a lot - because it makes me think about what would have happened if something went differently...with Will." Her voice was soft as she brought her hand out of his hair and left it at her side as she looked down at the mattress.
"The very thought of losing you is enough to send my body into a fit of panic. So if we ever have a big fight then just remember that." She added and Mark smiled slightly, playing with the ends of her hair and twirling them around his fingers.
"I'm not going anywhere - you'll have to put up with me until we're old." He states and Vanessa smiles, still not looking up at him.
He takes his fingers and gently pushes her chin upward, forcing her to face him as he leans in and captures her lips in a soft kiss. They both felt a weight on the bed and pulled away from each other to see Charlie climbing up onto the bed.
Mark chuckled and lifted him up onto the bed while Vanessa grabbed Amelia and pulled her up as well. Mark and Vanessa looked at each-other as their children cuddled up in between them and fell asleep.
Neither of them could believe that they had been blessed with such a great family - such a great life. It was too good to be true and Vanessa knew she would wake up from her dream back in that on call room where Mark had first forced her to sleep.
Mark turned the lamp off and the room fell into a comfortable darkness and both Vanessa and Mark pulled the covers over themselves and the twins, enveloping everyone in a cocoon of warmth.
Mark reached his arm over the bed and Vanessa laced her fingers with his as they all fell asleep together, their hearts swelling with the love they felt for their little family.
**********************************************
A/N: Not the best chapter :/
didn't proofread so the grammar and spelling is probably horrible
Thanks for reading, however painful it is :))