𝙇𝙑.
BLOOD DIAMOND.

──────

MARK DIDN'T KNOW for sure what was happening, but he figured it out pretty quickly:

He was dying.

He couldn't feel the pain but his subconscious was telling him that it was there. There was a little voice at the back of his head screaming at him: dying, dying, you're gonna die, this is it, this is how you go. 

There was a numbness in his body, a feeling of emptiness that he couldn't place. He was only able to properly gather his thoughts when he was lying on the floor, hands stuck to the bleeding wound on his side.

A faceless man had shot him and now he was dying.

Mark couldn't focus on anything but the feeling of numbness creeping over him. He couldn't see the stranger with the gun turning away and he didn't know how the fuck this had happened. 

One moment he was walking down the corridor, next minute the shooter was in front of him and he was watching a barrel turn towards him.

There'd been no conversation, there'd been no chance for him to beg or whatever the fuck people did in this situation. There was just Mark, the gun and the finger on the trigger and then BANG. He was on the floor, head reeling and room spinning.

"Mark?"

Mark wondered whether this was what had happened to Beth, to Derek. 

Had they just seen him and then BANG, they were on the verge of death? 

Was that how this situation went? Did he just bleed out on the floor and that was it? 

Mark wasn't sure what he'd expected, but he didn't feel any pain, he didn't feel anything. He just stared into a nonexistent space and wondered whether he was bleeding.

He couldn't see any blood but he was sure he was. He couldn't move his head. He was fixed in place as the shooter just walked away, leaving him on the floor. He must be bleeding. That's what happened, right? 

Blood and blood and blood, pain and pain and pain— where was it?

He couldn't even feel the floor under his head— he just felt the oncoming knowledge that he was going to die.

And what a shit feeling it was. Mark didn't even know whether he was breathing. He didn't even know whether this was what death actually felt like. Of course, he didn't, he'd never felt the flatline before. Sure, he'd seen it plenty of times but this was different—

"Mark?"

He didn't even know where he was— what was this place?

It felt like the hospital but it also didn't— Was it empty? Was it full— he was beginning to wish he'd just bleed out quicker— Holy shit, Death was taking it's sweet ass time— 

There was a faint beeping sound at the bottom of the hallway— was it a security door? It sounded more like a machine— Fuck where was that beeping coming from? Could he not die in peace?

What a joke it was: BANG and then you died.

How angry the thought of that made him. 

How dare he die so quietly. He was Mark fucking Sloan. Guys like him didn't just die like that. He deserved something more dramatic. Derek deserved something more dramatic. He deserved better. Derek deserved— Beth deserved better—

"Hey-"

...

He awoke with a start.

Mark's heart was beating a little too quickly for just a nap. He let out a sound that was not far from a death rattle. His body jerked halfway out of his chair, chin lifting at the sound of the voice that roused him. 

His eyes opened to the sight of the hospital room he'd been in a lot lately— the patient room materialised in front of him, the plain walls, the beeping machine telling him the patients heart rate, the coffee that was being thrust in front of his face. He knew this room well. 

He'd spent the last week roughing it and waiting for his life to snap back into shape.

He yawned, blinking away the dream he'd just been submerged in. 

Dream? It was probably a nightmare. 

It'd been a reoccurring thing for him lately. 

A gun, a BANG and then the rushing feeling of a death that was too soon.

Mark blinked at the coffee in front of him.

"Thanks." 

His voice was hoarse, catching at the back of his throat as he took the beverage. There was a brief pause, the woman who had woken him hesitated. Mark glanced up at her, brow furrowing as he realised that she was holding a newspaper.

Meredith Grey looked as though she hadn't slept in a long time. She moved too slowly, drawing the newspaper out and unfolding it. She paused, still hesitating. 

There were dark grooves under her eyes from where she had tossed sleeplessly in her empty double bed that she was supposed to share with Derek. Her chapped lips pursed and she seemed to debate with herself. 

Silently, she turned and tossed it in the trash can beside her husband's hospital bed.

"You should stop staying here all night." 

Meredith turned away from Mark, looking back towards Derek as he slept. The expression on the neurosurgeon's face was peaceful. Mark eyed him, watching as he blissfully slept under the weight of the painkillers they'd been pumping into him. He almost felt bad envying him— Mark hadn't had a good nights sleep for a few days. 

"You're going to get a cramp."

"I don't mind," He stretched against the uncomfortable chair. It was making his muscles cramp, wreaking havoc on every inch of him. He rubbed his neck and stifled a yawn. "I've been on-call all week. It's either this or a bed downstairs."

When he moved, he felt the small object against his thigh pocket dig into his leg, as if to remind him that it was still there. How dumb that thought was. 

Sometimes, Mark couldn't stop thinking about it.

There was a brief moment in which Meredith gazed over at him, an eyebrow gently raising. She tilted her head to the side, noticing the tiredness that still lingered in his eyes. He'd fallen asleep sat up, head slumped on his shoulders and ankles crossed. He was in his scrubs. 

Come to think of it, Meredith didn't think she'd seen him in anything other than scrubs. 

He only existed in scrubs now.

She hadn't seen him outside of Derek's hospital room either. He'd stuck to his best friend as soon as he'd seen Derek roll out of surgery. 

He'd begun only existing within visiting hours, but even then, they'd all managed to slip in between the cracks and set up a permanent residence at the foot of Derek's bed. He was a permanent fixture like any of the other furniture in this hospital. He'd claimed the chair that he'd ended up sleeping in every night for the past few days.

Meredith had, quite literally, had to orbit around Mark. It was as if she was married to the two of them. They always seemed to be in Derek's room at the same time. She was convinced that he hadn't been home since it had all happened. He lingered in this hospital like the feeling of death that was permanently in the air. 

She wondered that if he stepped out of this hospital, he'd disappear into thin air. The eldest Grey sister was concerned about him, but she hadn't found a way to voice that yet. She wasn't that good of a friend with the plastic surgeon. They were just two people with a mutual investment and interest in Derek staying alive.

"At least try to shower," Meredith said, not knowing how to voice that politely either. As the week progressed, she was becoming less and less concerned with politeness. Mark's eyebrows rose and she let out a breath, grimacing at herself. "Sorry."

There was a brief moment where Meredith almost told him that he looked like hell. He did. They all did.

"How's he been?" She asked, turning away and gently running a hand across Derek's leg. Behind her, Mark checked his pager, grimaced at the time and sat up a little straighter in his chair.

"Good," Mark said, "Hugh came in and checked his vitals three hours ago, he's... he's doing well."

"Good," Meredith repeated. "That's good."

He found himself absently glancing at the trash can beside Derek's bed, wondering what it was about that certain newspaper that had made her throw it away. She'd been picking them up a lot lately for Derek, giving him crosswords and sudoku to do while he sat through his intense bedrest. 

The Chief would get competitive over things and frustrated when he couldn't find the final word in his puzzle. Mark liked to watch Derek squirm and he liked the satisfaction of Derek finally, after two hours of stewing over the blank boxes, would ask him for help.

Mark was good at crosswords.

He swallowed his coffee and just watched as Meredith sat beside her husband and ate an apple. Mark had grown to recognise the ritual. 

She did it every morning before her therapy appointment, sat there, waited in case Derek woke up and then left. After her appointment, she'd start her rounds. It was a never-ending cycle— Mark wished that he had that sort of organisation to his day. Lately, he'd just been working tirelessly.

His on-call shift ended in an hour but he had a double-stacked in the OR right on top.

"Anything interesting happening in the outside world?" He asked.

It was another key aspect of their ritual. Small talk, awkward eye contact— it'd never struck Mark how little he'd spoken to Meredith. He'd been closer to Addison. He'd actually spoken to Addison. But then he figured that maybe the distance between Meredith and him was intentionally done by Derek for a very specific and clear reason.

"Not really," Meredith sighed, brushing some hair out of her face. "The only interesting thing is the staff meeting..." She turned her head and looked over at Derek, lips downturned. "He's going to be so disappointed when he finds out that they're going to be having a meeting without him—"

"There's going to be a lot of empty chairs."

He noticed how she tensed at his words. 

He regretted it as soon as he said it. It hit the air in an indifferent, numb way that caused goosebumps to rise on the sides of Meredith's arms. She shifted in her chair, paused her chewing and looked at him with her exhausted eyes. He was leaning against the back of the chair heavily, grasping onto the arms and holding his chin in a perfect posture— Meredith looked away. 

His eyes were too tortured for her to cope with.

No one had even bothered speaking about it. It was an unspoken whisper throughout the hospital.

She'd had to force herself to be fine with the fact that Derek had never left Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. Not once, throughout this whole situation, had Derek left this building. She'd had to force herself to be fine with the fact that Derek's surgeries had been while the surgeon was at the end of a gun barrel. 

She'd had to force herself to be fine with the fact that they'd had to fake Derek's death in order to all make it out alive. And now, a week on from what had happened, she had to force herself to be fine with the fact that they were currently sat in a hospital where so many of their colleagues had died.

Meredith turned her face away and exhaled out of her nostrils.

"It'll be good for Richard to speak to people," Her hand absently trailed across Derek's outstretched hand. Mark watched. He'd been doing that a lot lately, watching how they interacted. They were so different from how Addison and Derek had been. "I'm hoping that he can really help... smooth everything over..."

A muscle jumped in Mark's jaw as he ground his molars together. "I'm sure the fact that he's called in a bunch of psych nerds is far from helping."

Meredith let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a groan, "Tell me about it."

He'd gotten off easy. He'd sat down for ten minutes with a psychiatrist and they'd signed him off, told him that he was perfectly fine and perfectly capable of going into surgery. 

There were some other people, Meredith in particular, who were having a harder time getting back into the OR. She shot him a look that told Mark that she really wasn't enjoying her surgical suspension.

Then she paused.

"He said that he wants to do a memorial," She wasn't looking at Mark, but she could tell that he was shifting in his chair. He was moving a lot, a lot of energy that wouldn't stay contained in his body. Her eyes stayed stuck on the side of Derek's sleeping form but her attention roamed in her peripheral. "He asked me what I thought..."

"And?" Mark's voice was huskier then he'd intended it to be.

Absently, his hand drew down to his pocket, seeking out the object against his outer thigh.

Meredith smiled sadly, "It's a good idea."

Sometimes, Mark felt like he'd just hallucinated the whole thing. He'd gone back to his apartment once in the span of the last few days and he'd spent the whole night alone, staring at his ceiling and trying his best to not think about what happened. 

It hadn't worked. He could tell that Meredith was the same. She'd spent too many hours sat beside Derek while he slept, just staring blankly at a newspaper.

The staff meeting was down in the auditorium. The walk through the patients' lobby was done in silence. The whole building was still quiet, there was still a certain feeling in the air— Mark swallowed the lump in his throat as they waited for the elevator. 

Meredith seemed unable to look over towards the suspended walkway. Mark didn't comment.

The auditorium itself was quiet. The two of them sat separately, Mark catching the eye of Callie from across the room. He was right, there were a lot of empty seats. People had died, people were in recovery and even more had resigned. Not many people were talking and not people were in uniform either. 

He sat beside Callie and she smiled sadly. They didn't speak. There were people behind him, dotted through the seats, staring down at Richard Webber as he ordered his notes. A man in front (Mark vaguely recognised it as an MRI technician) was reading the local newspaper.

People were looking at Mark. He didn't notice it at first, but people were glancing over at him and talking under their breath. 

Two ER nurses were whispering a couple of rows down. He could see their faces leering at him in his peripheral. Mark didn't comment on it. He'd gotten used to people staring at him over the years. This, however, felt a bit different. He caught the expression on the face of a surgical intern as they noticed him: was that pity?

"Thank you for coming in today," Richard seemed to fit the podium. Mark rested his chin on his hand and watched as the interim chief cleared his throat and raised his eyes to survey the turnout. A sea of ashen faces met him. "As your stand-in Chief, while Doctor Shepherd recovers, I thought that it would be important to... uh, have a moment of togetherness..."

He kept looking down at his notes, gripping the podium tightly.

"As you're all aware, the events that happened a week ago have put an unimaginable toll on all of us," Beside Mark, Callie was staring absently at a blonde head a few rows in front. "But I would like to extend my greatest thanks to everyone who has pulled through, despite the odds to keep this hospital running. To everyone who has taken shifts and preserved against everything that has happened, we are eternally indebted to you."

Mark shifted slightly in his chair. This speech felt formal. He wondered how long it had taken Richard to write it. There was a lack of emotion in the way that he delivered his words. Mark didn't know what to make of it; they were all the same. 

The whole hospital crawled with the feeling of numbness. He got that feeling whenever he strayed a little close to the boardroom in the surgical department: the need to grit his teeth and ignore the goosebumps on his arms.

"Seattle Grace Mercy West is a hospital but it is also a home," He raised his chin, looking away from his notes. There was a little bit of static on the microphone and from all the way across the room, Mark could see Meredith wince. She was sat beside Cristina, shoulders tense and arms crossed firmly over her chest. "We, as a family to all of you, want to make sure that everyone is able to cope with what happened..."

"They're covering their ass..." Callie mumbled under her breath to Mark. He didn't make any indication that he'd heard her. He was too busy staring at a familiar brunette in front of them, sat beside Arizona. His face was blank. "None of this would have happened if it wasn't for the lawsuit..."

He'd thought about it a lot, the last few days but he couldn't bring himself to reply. Callie glanced at him, catching his impassive face, his clenched jaw. Her lips parted and she wondered very softly, what was happening in his head.

"So, in honour of that, I would like to introduce a new member of the Seattle Grace Mercy West team..."

There was another man on stage, he was sat to the side and watched Richard with intent. He hadn't been here like everyone else had, Mark could tell. 

He looked alert and awake, everyone else was just sleepwalking. It was a stand out energy, unlike anyone else in the place, but his knee was jumping slightly as if he wasn't completely alienated from the feeling of despair that hung over everything.

"I'm sure you're already familiar with him and his team. He's going to be working here for the foreseeable future and is dedicated to making sure that everyone approaches their work with a healthy attitude. I can safely say that this hospital has managed to hire the best grievance counsellor possible..."

Richard raised his hand and gestured towards the man.

"Doctor Andrew Perkins."

The applause that followed was nothing short from pathetic. There was no enthusiasm in the room, yet Andrew Perkins acted as if he was holding the floor of a TEDtalk. 

He rose to his feet, shook Richard's hand and donned a very empathetic but charming smile. He replaced the Chief at the podium, briefly trailing his eyes around the room.

Perkins. Mark felt his chest get a little tighter and his head slumped to the side, unable to muster the energy to do anything but stare down at the man with vague disinterest.

"Good Morning," He had a Boston accent. "Thank you to Doctor Webber for that kind introduction."

Andrew took his time to gaze around at all of the faces that met him. Everyone looked the same, slightly shadowed and drawn, as if they'd all never left that day. There was a lack of rapport, a lack of attention, too many people were just gazing absently at the wall behind him, or just blatantly looking in the opposite direction. 

He hesitated, drew in a breath and nodded to himself softly.

"Okay, I just want to begin by giving my condolences to everyone..."

Condolences, Mark was beginning to hate that word. It felt empty at this point. Everyone had heard it too much. There was a nurse a few rows along very subtly crying into a tissue. Andrew cleared his throat.

"I know that you're probably sick of the word, but unfortunately, there is no other way for us to reach out and relay our sympathy. Sometimes, words fail us sometimes to express what has happened." The lack of non-verbal response seemed to reaffirm this, "My team is here for you, we're here to listen and help you process what has happened. We're here to encourage you to find those words and move past the traumatic experience you all share."

He was good, Mark had to give him that. He was able to get people to watch, prying their attentions away from lighting fixtures, their cuticles and the hospital logo behind him. 

Andrew was well-spoken and was able to meet each face individually with a calm and even approachability. It was as if he wasn't stood in a room full of medical staff, a hundred people who were sceptical about the support that was being given to them.

Callie murmured again, "That's Charlie's brother, right?"

Mark didn't like thinking about Charles Perkins. 

He'd done his best to avoid any topic in that general direction. The surgeon beside him noted how Mark stiffened at the subject. Still, he wasn't looking at her, just staring holes in Andrew's perfectly tailored blazer and shiny hair. 

Andrew looked quite a fair bit like his brother, they carried themselves the same way. They both looked like squeaky clean pretty boys who would make good fiancés and cook at nice dinner parties.

Mark couldn't think about that for too long without his thoughts spiralling. He crossed leg over the other, the little object in his pocket scratching against his skin.

"...We know that the past week has been hard, for everyone," He spoke like a politician but with more conviction. Diplomatic but tender and charismatic. People were listening. "I'm aware that some of you may feel that it's impossible to go back to work, to spend time in this hospital. The place that you once considered your sanctuary is still here, we want you to know that it hasn't been caught in the crossfire."

What a load of bullshit, Mark thought to himself, people died. 

He was acting as if it was something they could all collectively just decide on. 

One day they'd just all wake up and decide that they were completely unaffected. Mark had tried that. It hadn't got him very far.

When the meeting finished, people left quicker than they had arrived. They fled, disappearing out of the doors and to their shifts. Mark lingered, listening to Callie tell him about how she'd been signed off for surgery this morning after having one of the psychiatry counsellors, brought in by Andrew, listen to her ramble about her relationship with Arizona. 

Mark told her, patiently, that he was glad to hear it, but his eyes were still stuck on Andrew and the Chief as Richard clapped him on the back and thanked him for his time.

Outside of the auditorium, people were trying their best to get on with their day. There weren't many surgeons who were able to get into the ORs, so Mark was getting all of the operations that people couldn't. He had a packed board, his name was in practically every square for the next two days. Callie commented on this, but then she paused.

She was looking down the hallway and Mark really regretted following her gaze.

Archer Montgomery was leaning against the reception, talking to one of the secretaries across their computer. At first, Mark thought it was a trick of the light. 

He didn't know that Archer was in Seattle. Under one arm, he was holding a cardboard box; the sight of it made Mark look away. The more he thought about it, the more he figured that maybe it wasn't a good omen.

"Oh," Callie breathed out quietly. She suddenly got very very sad, looking over towards the plastic surgeon as he averted his eyes to the floor. Her brow furrowed. "Did she...?"

He was so glad that she couldn't bring herself to finish her question.

Mark didn't answer. 

Before he even registered what was happening, he was walking towards Archer, feet unable to stop. He passed people who were looking at him again, whispering about him. A patient overtook him, a newspaper shoved under their armpit. The neurologist didn't even seem to notice him until he was stood in front of him.

The secretary fell silent when Mark appeared and Archer very slowly turned to look over at the plastic surgeon.

Mark couldn't read his facial expression. He tried his best to gauge what Archer was thinking, but his mystical deduction skills fell flat. The eldest Montgomery sibling had always been stone-cold towards him. 

He was fully prepared for Archer to yell at him, to give him the sort of ass-kicking he'd been promised— but Archer did nothing of the sort.

"Mark." Instead, Archer inclined his head in greeting. 

His voice was even and calm as if nothing was wrong. He turned towards him and Mark felt his stomach twist at the sight of a cactus at the bottom of the box. The little potted plant stared at him with a pair of vacant, drawn on eyes.

"Archer," His voice was breathless. "I wasn't expecting to see you..."

He let out a bottomless laugh. "I wasn't expecting to fly out to Seattle again..." He raised an arm and gestured towards the main reception of the hospital. "But here I am."

It was an empty laugh, the same laugh that Meredith had forced out as they sat over Derek's sleeping, machine-riddled form. If it had been any other time, any other place, Mark would've returned the laugh. 

Instead, the sound just made a very heavy weight appear on his lungs. Suddenly, breathing was a lot harder than it had been thirty seconds ago.

Mark glanced at the box again.

"Yeah," He said, mostly because he didn't know what else to say. "Yeah, um-"

"How are you holding up?"

Mark was caught off-guard by the question. His eyebrows rose and he frowned very slightly. Archer was looking at him as if he didn't have every reason in the universe to despise the ground he walked on. It confused him. 

He was sure that he was the one who should be asking Archer that, after everything that had happened.

"Good," His response was cautious. An uncomfortable breath and Mark allowed himself to ask a question that he'd been avoiding for the past few days. "How is—"

"I swung by to pick up some stuff," Archer wasn't looking at him anymore and it very slightly eased the stress on Mark's chest. He didn't even seem to realise that he'd spoken over Mark. Instead, he was holding the box in front of him and gazing down at the contents. "I figured that it would be best to clean the office out... get all this stuff out of the way as soon as possible—"

Mark couldn't bring himself to respond.

"It's a lot of junk, actually," Archer didn't notice how Mark's shoulders rolled as he began picking through the items. He shifted weight from one side of his body, unsettled by the fact that Archer regarded everything with a distanced impassiveness. "A lot of medical journals and coffee receipts. I didn't take her as the sort of person to be a hoarder but—" 

He paused as if distracted by a thought.

Mark didn't like the brief silence.

"Is Addison here?" Mark asked the question because he really didn't want to ask the other question. Actually, he really did but he really, really couldn't bring himself to.

"She's in Alaska at the moment," He shrugged. "She wanted to be here.... but... she's got a big surgery. I think she's planning on flying nearer to the... y'know," Archer jerked his head in an uncomfortable way and then let out a breath. "Addie really wants to be here but...."

"I get it," Mark breathed out, shoulders shifted.

There was always a but when it came to Addison.

"Yeah," Archer said and then there was a pause that seemed to sink into their pores and eat away at their brains.

Mark was about to apologise for everything. He actually opened his mouth and sucked in a big breath, ready to exhale some seriously rare syllables. But, he was interrupted by a familiar face that came strutting down the hallway, giving Archer a friendly smile. 

He was surprised, taken aback by the friendliness between the two of them. Archer seemed happy to see him, smiling back in a way that Mark knew he'd never, ever receive, not after everything that he'd done to Archer's family. 

Mark watched them greet each other with raised eyebrows; when he glanced backwards he realised that Callie had disappeared into the hospital. He was alone, stranded with two people who were practically strangers to him.

"Oh great," Andrew Perkins was talking to Archer as if they'd known each other their whole lives. He gestured towards the box Archer was holding. He only briefly paused to say goodbye to Richard as the interim Chief went to leave. When he turned back, Andrew seemed to notice Mark stood there, swaying slightly like a wanton spirit. "You got all the stuff then?"

"I managed to get in there before the vultures turned up," Archer said, "Charlie gave me the apartment key so I'm just going to drop it all off."

"That's good," He nodded and smiled, unaware of the way that Archer glanced at Mark out of the corner of his eye. "Did you manage to find the ring?"

"No," Archer said, sighing and shaking his head. He glanced at the box as if to show the lack of a diamond. The psychiatrist was visibly disappointed. "It wasn't in her office—"

The object in Mark's pocket got a little heavier. It was within a very peculiar beat in which Archer looked at Mark and Mark looked at Archer and Andrew looked at both of them.

"Andrew, this is Mark Sloan. He's an old family friend."

Mark didn't like how Andrew's eyebrows seemed to raise at the name. It was exactly the same reaction that Dominic Fox had when Derek had introduced them. The very subtle rise of their eyebrows, the way his eyes sparkled and head cocked very slightly to the side. 

It made Mark feel like Andrew knew everything about him, knew how he'd speak and how he'd move without even meeting him. It was times like these that Mark wished he hadn't met Addison Montgomery and the string of events hadn't occurred to make people shit-talk him behind his back.

"Hello, I'm Andrew." Mark eyed the hand that Andrew extended and hesitated. 

He was polite and cordial. His smile was wide and his teeth were very white. The shade reminded Mark of a clinical coat, of the doctor's coat like the one Derek had left, abandoned, on the back of his office door. He was sure that the coat must've been gathering dust by now. Derek had never retrieved it.

"I know," He said finally, shaking his hand and nodding. "Good speech in there," He gestured back towards the auditorium and Andrew sighed a sad smile on his face. "Great attempt to rally the troops."

"Yeah," The psychiatrist sighed softly. "I'm not exactly Uncle Sam. It kind of fell flat on its face didn't it."

There was a very precarious look in Andrew's eye as if he was used to this. Mark figured that it must be hard to do his job. He really didn't envy the man. He was a storm-chaser, but instead of hurricanes and hailstones, he raced after bloodshed and heartbreak. 

He found it a little bit funny; Mark had a pretty shit reputation for leaving that sort of stuff behind him. Although granted, he'd never run around a hospital shooting people. Andrew was just a glamorised janitor who cleaned up after assholes that liked to make people's lives very difficult.

Archer looked bewildered, "Tough crowd?"

"Something like that," Mark said. He was smiling but it didn't meet his eyes. "I can't imagine it's an easy job to do."

Andrew paused. He was looking at Mark in a way that made his skin itch. He didn't like psychiatrist much. They made him think that he was completely transparent, that they could read every thought as it floated across his head. 

He looked away, eyes withdrawing back to the little cactus. It looked sad and smudged. It had once had a smile but now appeared faded and dishevelled.

He could practically hear Andrew's thoughts.

Mark Sloan, the infamous Mark Sloan. The man who fucked over Elizabeth Montgomery and then proceeded to kill her out of his own ignorance. What a tool.

"It's not," Andrew said finally. His pause had made the hair raise on Mark's arms and a pressure build behind his eyes. He had a very sceptical gaze. "I can't say it's my favourite thing in the world but... it's part of the job."

"Yeah," Mark said, unable to really do or say anything else.

He didn't know why his day had spiralled into ass-kissing a psychiatrist and he didn't know why he'd chosen to speak to Archer, out of all of the people in the universe. He didn't really want to be here. In his head, he was in a room filled with white, blank walls. 

That's what all of his world was at the moment, a universe where he was so far disassociated from reality that he had tunnel-vision on small things. In this precise moment, it was the box. Specifically, the fact that Archer was hugging a box of Beth's belongings to his chest as if he was a Titanic survivor, using scraps to keep afloat. 

Mark didn't like that.

"Got any big surgeries?" It was said off-handedly by Archer, who seemed to notice the lull in the conversation. Mark blinked, looking up at him. "I heard that most of the cases got moved to Seattle Pres."

That was true. Over the past couple of days, Mark had been swamped by transfer requests. His secretary had repeatedly approached him with exasperation, showing him the mountain of documents that were waiting for him. He'd sat in the Attending's lounge on his first day back, two days after the incident, and had signed every single one. 

Usually, he procrastinated on that sort of paperwork, but the fear that was still embroiled in his secretaries eyes was enough for him to be motivated to help her finish her shift a little earlier. The transfer team had come and cleared out half of the burn unit in one sweep. All of his post-op patients were gone. Mark had stood in his department and watched them all leave.

He didn't blame them. He didn't really want to be here either anymore.

"We've still got some of them," He rubbed the back of his neck, working out the painful cramp that had set in from his rough sleeping. Maybe he should go see the chiropractor. Maybe you should go home. "They reopened the rest of the ER this morning so I've got a busy afternoon in the OR."

Mark didn't miss how Andrew looked very slightly surprised.

"You've been signed off for surgery?" The psychiatrist tilted his head to the side, hands in the pockets of his blazer. Mark didn't like his tone.

"Yeah," The word was constantly revolving around his mind. "They said I was fine so I've been picking up everyone's slack."

Admittedly, Mark didn't think that he was fine. He was beginning to think that maybe falling asleep in Derek's room every night was not a good thing to do. He was also beginning to think that he was growing paranoid— what was it with people and looking at him today? 

A passing janitor gave him a funny glance and then proceeded to very visibly talk about Mark to the person beside him. Mark noticed and he frowned. Now, come to think of it, this was getting a little weird.

"Uh-huh." Andrew appeared thoughtful. He nodded slowly and Mark wished that he would look away. His gaze was persistent and invasive. He didn't like it. "How many surgeries do you have scheduled?"

Mark paused. "Four."

"Okay."

He nodded again. Archer was looking at Mark too. 

The two of them seemed to share a thought and Mark's eye twitched. The feeling inside him was something not far from the crushing realisation that there are social plans happening and he wasn't invited. They were both on the same wavelength and Mark was lost.

"I'm hosting an open-door policy just to get some feedback on how my team has been doing so far," Andrew wiped his palms on his slacks and smiled encouragingly at him. Mark didn't like. He felt like a child being spoken to by his teacher. "We're hosting it in the Psychiatry Department from 4 pm until 9 pm. I'd appreciate it if you could make it."

Mark severely doubted that he'd make it, but he said "sure" anyway, because he was the sort of guy that instilled fake hope instead of saying no.

In his head, he was thinking about how pointless his therapy had turned out to be. They'd barely asked any questions, they'd just offered him a glass of water and asked what he'd experienced. ("I was responsible for triaging two GSWs and I saw a nurse get shot in front of me.") Then they'd asked him if he felt like he could go back to work. ("I couldn't imagine doing anything else") And then they'd asked him whether he'd been sleeping. 

He'd lied and said yes. He wasn't sleeping. Not really. He didn't consider just closing his eyes and staring at the inside of his eyelids sleeping.

Andrew and Archer left together and he watched them leave. 

They were joking quietly with each other and Mark couldn't help but wonder how ingrained the Perkins family were in the lives of the Montgomery family. It made his chest throb a little bit when he thought about it, but before he could concentrate on it fully, he was being paged to the OR to prepare for his first surgery. 

He left the patients reception and avoided walking anywhere near the boardroom. Through every corridor he walked, every elevator he lingered at the back of, he couldn't help remember how everyone seemed to be looking at him today.

He didn't like that either.

***

The OR nurse was scrubbing in as he entered the scrub room. 

He nodded politely, securing his scrub cap and beginning the long scrub at his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the nurse gave him fractured glances as if she wanted to say something. He tried his best to ignore her. Maybe he would've taken longer with his scrubbing in today, but he felt the need to get out of the room as quickly as possible— he didn't say anything, despite the inquisitive look in her eye, and just made a beeline for the patient.

"Hey Sloan," the anesthesiologist's greeting was a little too bright for the room. They were sat in the corner of the OR, flicking through a newspaper. "I'm surprised you're in and working."

"Gus, good to see you," Mark greeted. 

He was very slightly confused by the way that the anesthesiologist kept shooting him a very stilted smile. He was even more confused by his statement of surprise. He cleared his throat and decided against commenting on it, setting his eyes on his patient. 

"How's Tina doing?"

"She's ready and waiting," He spared a brief glance over at the stats on the screen in front of him and nodded. "I just put her under. Stats are all steady."

"Great," He said. "Let's get this over with."

It felt weird to him, standing in that room. It was the same room that Cristina Yang had stood in a week earlier. It was the same operating table that Derek Shepherd had laid on just a week earlier. It was the same floor that Gary Clark had stood on, pressing a gun to Cristina's temple and threatening to shoot if she didn't stop operating on the man he held responsible for killing his wife. It felt weird to him that it was as if nothing had ever happened. When he blinked, Tina wasn't Tina any more. 

The OR nurse stood opposite him wasn't the OR nurse anymore. He glanced towards the corner where he knew Owen Hunt had once laid, bleeding after threatening to kill Gary Clark for even looking at Cristina—

"Doctor Sloan?"

 Those looks had resumed. The assisting nurse was gazing over Tina's unconscious body at him. He could tell that she was frowning, even behind her face mask. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes were swirling as if she knew what was going on inside his head. Mark had spaced out without even realising— he cleared his throat.

Slowly, he held out a hand.

"Scalpel."

Throughout the whole surgery, Mark felt himself being watched. 

People were being careful around him, tiptoeing as he stared down at the graft in between his fingers. When he glanced up into the gallery, it was empty, but he couldn't shake the feeling of being observed. He bit his tongue and finished the graft within two hours. 

When he did finish, however, everyone was quiet, staring at him as if he'd just completed something impossible. Mark frowned, cleaned his hands and left the OR without a single word.

He wasn't the paranoid type. He didn't get like this. He didn't mind the attention. He didn't usually feel like surgery was something he needed to get over with. He never, ever felt like he needed to avoid people's eye. 

He certainly didn't mind people staring but this felt different. People's heads were turning to watch him as he walked through the OR floor, pausing only to go to the toilet and splash some water on his face. Even then, a technician walked out of a stall and seemed to freeze when he noticed that Mark was there— they met eyes in the mirror and Mark didn't hide the frown.

His second surgery was ready to go too. A repair with Callie that dragged him into. He stood across the operating table from her, listening to her make small talk about how her day was going with Arizona. Their patient was a car accident victim, with a lot of broken bones and a shard of glass buried in their face. 

The two of them worked comfortably together and Mark liked how, at least here with Callie, people didn't seem to be antsy with him.

"So," Callie let out a breath, eyes flickering up from the leg she was currently bolting back together. Mark watched the material of her mask shift with her sigh, eyebrows raising slightly as he continued to pick out shards of glass from the patient's face. "Have you seen today's Seattle Gazette?"

"No," Mark replied, far too distracted by his patient to gauge the responding expression on Callie's face. "I'm not really a newspaper guy."

"Ah, cool," She said, although she didn't sound like she thought it was cool at all.

He finished that surgery too. He was good at what he did. By the end of it, the patient was going to have a perfectly revised scar that wasn't going to ruin their life. Mark watched as the patient was rolled away. He couldn't describe the feeling that he was getting with every finished, successful surgery. 

There was a crushing weight on his chest. 

There was the thought that flickered as brief as a dwindling heartbeat. He'd been able to successfully save this life, but what about the one he hadn't?

What about the one he'd just screwed up?

"You've got a page into surgery with Teddy," It was Callie who spoke. 

She was checking her pager and glanced over at Mark as his vibrated against the table. They were still in the OR. Mark hadn't left as quickly out of this OR. The Head of Ortho looked over at him, face growing sad when she noticed how distracted he was as the patient was rolled out of the room and into post-op. 

She sighed. "Mark-"

"Yeah?"

He'd spaced out again. Mark blinked.

"Are you okay?" Callie sounded concerned. 

She sounded soft and worried. It made him feel itchy again. It was the same tone that Archer had used, the same way that Meredith had eyed him as she watched him sleep in Derek's room every night instead of going home.

He just nodded, lifting a bewildered eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

She was looking at him like everyone else was. Mark felt his heart fall— what was it with people today? It'd been a whole week and nothing like this had happened. 

They'd waited a week to look at him like this, to tiptoe around him like he truly deserved it. Mark didn't agree with their gentle voices and their soft concern.

He was fine. He was absolutely fine. He was going to be fine. He'd been doing a fantastic job of being fine. He'd been told he was fine. The therapist had told him he was better than fine. He hadn't been injured. He hadn't died. He, Mark Sloan, was perfectly fine. 

There were people who were so much worse off than he was.

The third surgery was a sudden surprise. Teddy met his eyes as he literally walked from one OR into the next. He left Callie in his wake, staring after him and exchanging an inconspicuous look with the assisting nurse. Mark didn't like the feeling he got when he saw the patient on the new operating table. 

She was pale and brunette and he didn't like the way Teddy did a double-take when she noticing him standing in the door. Her eyebrows bunched together as she finished scrubbing in. She turned her head away and looked over her OR, shaking her head slowly.

"I paged for a plastics assist."

That was code for: I paged for someone other than you.

"I'm the only surgeon that has clearance," Mark stood beside her, all too aware of the way that Teddy seemed to sigh. She didn't look up at him, just stared at the lathering bubbles on her hands. She seemed to be surprised that he had been told that he was good to work. Mark watched the side of her face. He watched as she grimaced to herself. "If it's going to be a problem you're welcome to complain to Psych who are holding all of our surgeries back."

Teddy exhaled through her nose. "It's not a problem. I don't have a problem."

She did. He could tell. They hadn't spoken to each her in a week. 

They'd gone from sleeping together to radio silence in the span of a week. Granted, Mark knew that they had no romantic feelings for each other but it still sucked to lose a friend. The thought of why they'd stopped speaking made his throat feel very tight. Teddy wasn't responding to any of his text messages and she wasn't happy to have him in an OR.

"You do," Mark said. She did. She really did. It was written all over her face. Her denial almost made him laugh. His lips twitched. "I know you do."

There was an unspoken tension between them. It'd had started the moment they'd come out of the hospital that day and Teddy had seen what chaos Mark had brought to her to fix. There was a brief pause. Bitterly, Teddy chuckled to herself, shaking her head again.

"You're right I do," She looked up at him and shut off the faucet. Her tone was cold. "Excuse me for not wanting to watch you kill another one of my patients."

It was a low blow.

Mark inhaled sharply. He stared at Teddy, watching the regret very slowly unfold in her eyes. There was a silence that seemed to stretch for a very long time. His mind was whirring over the memory of the expression on her face. She'd looked between him and the gurney that followed Alex Karev out of the hospital. 

She'd opened her mouth, pointedly asked what the hell he'd done and he'd been unable to stop his voice from shaking— Teddy looked away from him very quickly. She didn't apologise. She lifted her hands and walked into the OR, leaving him to fester in the emptiness that she'd opened up.

Fuck.

Mark closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was stood beside the operating table, watching Teddy slice a scalpel down the centre of this girls chest. 

She did it without hesitation, moved like a cardiothoracic surgeon should. He was supposed to be doing an ocular repair, but he was stuck watching as Teddy began cracking the chest, working her way towards the heart. 

His breathing hitched a little bit as Teddy acted as if it was the easiest thing in the world— he didn't realise that he hadn't started until the assisting nurse held out a scalpel.

"Doctor Sloan?"

He squinted at the little metal tool in the nurses' hand. It was such a sharp blade, capable of wreaking such havoc but achieving so much good, all at the same time. 

He'd held a scalpel a million times, he'd cut a million different incision, he'd spilt so much blood— and yet he could only stare at it as it was held out to him. He wasn't sure whether it was the scathing, surgical light or the crushing feeling on his shoulders, but the scalpel was... it was making him feel weird.

C'mon Sloan, just take the scalpel. He'd literally just set one down. He'd just saved that man from a hefty facial scar— Take the scalpel.

Andrew Perkins was sat in the surgical gallery. Mark had to do a double-take. He was the only person there. A pale face in an overcast room, appearing like some sort of shitty phantom in a Gothic novel. He was sat at the front of the seating gallery and he was staring at the way Mark visibly hesitated. 

Beat. 

No one else had noticed the stiffness in Mark's shoulders, the way that his jaw clenched and he drilled holes into the back of Andrew's eyes. The psychiatrist tilted his head to the side, brow furrowing as Mark didn't take the scalpel.

Take the scalpel. Fucking hell, take the scalpel.

"Mark?" 

Teddy was glancing up from her cracked chest. She hadn't noticed Andrew, instead just noticed how the atmosphere in the room seemed to turn unsteady. She registered the way that Mark looked down from the gallery and directly at the patient. Her eyes flickered to the pale skin, the gaunt look to the unconscious girl, the brunette hair— 

"Do you need—"

"Scalpel."

There was a very slight tremor in his hand as he waited for the nurse to pass it to him.

Everyone was looking at him again.

"Mark," Teddy wasn't looking at her chest anymore. She was looking over at him, watching as he very gently began to prep the incision. A muscle jumped in her jaw. "Mark-"

He ignored her.

When he blinked, the woman's face changed. When he blinked, the room changed. When he blinked, Teddy wasn't Teddy anymore. 

When he blinked, his hands were covered in blood and his ears were filled with static. It was creeping upon him, the same image that flickered through his head when he was in a room that was too quiet. The same image that had deterred him from going home and sleeping in his own bed— when he blinked, the woman on the operating table was on the floor of the boardroom, staring at him as she bled out. 

She was familiar, she was dying and she was holding his hand—

"Doctor Sloan."

He'd frozen again. 

His muscles felt stiff and uncooperative. His hand was holding the scalpel a little too tightly. His knuckles rose in sharp peaks underneath his surgical gloves. There was a throbbing pain at the back of his throat. A tight, almost anaphylactic numbness in his throat. 

He hadn't been breathing, he hadn't been moving-- his whole body had just stopped.

His eyes rose to see Teddy completely idle now. She'd put her scalpel down. 

She'd stopped just to stare at him. The whole OR was. Everyone had paused in their movements. The whole world had stopped just to watch the man who was barely holding on.

She didn't look angry anymore. She was looking at him in that way. He forced himself to hold her gaze. He could watch the thoughts as they glided through her subconscious, see the realisation, the doubt and the concern. Mark let out a very unsteady breath.

They were in that OR again. The same one where Derek had almost died. The same room where Cristina had sobbed and begged for her life at the end of Gary Clark's gun. 

Mark wondered if it would ever be a sanctuary for any of them ever again. He was stood there, imagining the feeling of Gary Clark's gun against his own temple and seeing Beth Montgomery on the operating table and wondering whether he would ever look at a scalpel the same way ever again--

He glanced at it now. Surprise and bewilderment filled him when he realised that his hand was shaking quite violently. He hadn't even noticed-- fuck, his whole body was trembling. 

There the scalpel was, just hovering over this girls skin.

Mark's eyes widened.

Teddy was staring at his hand too. She seemed to hold onto the silence that clung to them. She was watching his fingers twitch, waiting to see what he would do. 

Up in the gallery, the door swung behind Andrew as he left, turning his back on what was unfolding to be an absolute trainwreck. Mark glanced up, watching him disappear.

What a good call that was.

It took too much effort for him to place the scalpel down. He was carrying the weight of everyone's eyes as he did it-- the scalpel felt too heavy. The nurse took it from him, taken aback by the way Mark closed his eyes, adjusting himself. 

Teddy shifted from one foot to the other, avoiding the eyes that turned to her as people asked silently what was happening, what they should do. Mark was taking off his gloves, he was stepping back from the operating table and taking off his scrub cap-- the cardiothoracic surgeon nodded.

"I'll page Seattle Pres, see if they can send a surgeon over."

Mark didn't show any sign that he'd heard her. He just turned on his heel and walked straight out of the OR.

***

He knew that he was going to turn up.

Andrew watched the clock over the door tick over to 4 pm, watched the hand hit the number at the peak of the round face. He was sat at the desk they'd given to him, pen in his hand, leaning back in his chair and just waiting. 

He'd found a music disc in the box Archer had intended to take to the apartment. The room swelled with the sound of Debussy, making it feel a little less empty than it had before.

The desk was stacked with pamphlets. He knew the titles off by heart: How to Persist, How to Cope with Grief, How to Get Back to Work. He'd had a printing press outside of Boston churn a hundred out before he'd even boarded a plane to Seattle. 

They were all perfectly ordered and glossy, their cartoon faces looking pristine under the light.

He'd opened the window too. A light breeze played around the office, chasing away the stale air that had settled in the absence of its occupant. Absently, Andrew clicked the trigger on his pen.

He was sure that he was going to turn up. A book was in front of him. The office door was open. The floor was swept and a chair was ready and waiting. He was waiting in an empty room, all the windows open, all the doors open, perfectly at ease. It was just a question of when he was going to arrive--

There was a knock on the door frame.

"Doctor Sloan," Andrew's lips parted into a wide, accommodating smile. "Come in."

Mark looked hesitant. But Andrew got to his feet, gesturing to the seat across from him. He was smiling a lot, appearing perfectly friendly and approachable. Mark stared at him for a few moments and then, very slowly sat down. It wasn't a comfortable silence, but it was bearable. When Andrew sat down and placed his elbows on the table, Mark couldn't help but look around the room.

He recognised this office.

"I'm sorry about the room," Andrew began, noticing how Mark seemed distracted by his surroundings. 

He began writing already, before Mark had even opened his mouth. Mark watched the pen scratch against the page in his book, ears twitching with every scratch that filled the room. 

"It's not... appropriate," Andrew grimaced, "but unfortunately it's the only space they could give me— there's all sorts of things going on in this department at the moment."

He didn't tell Mark that he'd only been given this office to speak to Mark in particular and that usually, he took all of his appointments in the boardroom in the surgical department. Instead, he just waited to see if Mark was going to say anything. 

The surgeon across from him just blinked and nodded, eyes eventually resting on his face.

"Yeah," Mark's voice was husky. It sounded as if he was straining. "We're all busy at the moment."

A small, knowing and empathetic smile appeared on Andrew's face.

"How were your surgeries?" The question would have been innocent if it wasn't for the fact that Mark knew Andrew had witnessed what had happened an hour ago. There was a tentative sparkle in his eye, a tell-tale lift to his lips as he leant back and waited for Mark to respond. "Was it four surgeries that you had to do?"

"Yeah," Mark answered. He was sat in his chair, back straight and shoulders stiff. He itched the side of his nose, a very subtle grimace hidden behind the hand that crossed his face. "They were fine. I got the job done."

Technically, it wasn't a lie. They had gone fine, well, other than the ones he'd had to forfeit. He'd handed two of his patients over to the plastic surgeon at Seattle Pres Hospital. Teddy's patient and a scar revision surgery that he didn't trust himself to approach— Mark shifted slightly.

 Andrew's eyes were staring through him again, pushing an invisible scalpel deep against Mark's skin, waiting to draw blood. Mark had gotten the job done. He'd successfully done two surgeries. He'd actually done quite a few surgeries over the past few days. None of them had been particularly major, just little things here and there. He didn't understand what had affected him today.

He was fine.

"What do you want to know?" He let out a breath, one that caused Andrew to look up. Mark rubbed his left arm. "What feedback do you need for the therapy thing?"

"Ah," Andrew knew what he meant. He pushed up his sleeves and shrugged indifferently. "Well, it's simple. Do you think we made the right call?"

The Right Call.

Visibly, Mark paused. It was a far more dramatic pause than he'd intended. It was one that caused Andrew to raise his eyebrows very slightly and write two words that Mark couldn't read on his page. There was a lump accumulating at the bottom of his throat. He tried to swallow but he felt like he was going to choke— Mark averted his eyes, noticing the blanket that had been left behind, folded into a neat square on the couch in the corner. 

He noticed the music too. He knew the CD Andrew had chosen. He'd bought it what felt like a lifetime ago.

"I do."

Neither of them believed his answer. It was a suspension of belief. Andrew looked at Mark and Mark looked at Andrew and the two of them knew that Mark was lying. He couldn't afford to not lie. He couldn't be anything other than fine. 

To the human eye, Mark was impassive and unbothered, looking at Andrew as if he was just a stranger on the street, a passing person who didn't know how badly he'd trembled in that OR under an hour ago.

Mark couldn't survive another wrong call.

"Okay," Andrew said softly. 

Mark's eyes flickered over the pamphlets in front of him. A sea of cartoons, grinning faces and thumbs up met him. Again, he was riddled with the feeling of a pupil in a teachers office.

He hadn't been a bad student. He'd been a smart student. He'd always been top of his class. He'd been a jock too. He'd been popular. He'd always been perfectly fine. Then once he was out of high school he'd been a good college student. He'd played football until his studies had crossed over his extra-curricular activates. He'd aced his exams, he'd made all his friends. He hadn't been not fine, not even when his parents divorced and died and he had to live in that apartment in New York by himself. 

Mark didn't like how this felt like he'd been called to the chair in front of the principal's desk. He felt like he was about to get reprimanded for not being able to pick up that scalpel.

"As you're probably aware, I knew who you were before I came to Seattle," Andrew was flipping through his folder beside him. Mark was staring at the face on a pamphlet labelled 'How to Deal with Death: 5 Steps to Reviving Your Mood'. He didn't particularly like Andrew's nonchalant, off-hand tone. "I have to say, I hadn't heard good things— you have a bit of a reputation."

Mark chuckled but it wasn't a nice chuckle. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

It was Andrew's turn to pause. It marked a subtle change in the atmosphere. It was a flipped switch, the exact moment where Andrew got to his feet and carefully closed the door. It signalled the change in subject and the lurch of Mark's stomach as he realised that even with all the windows open, he was seized by the sensation of being backed into a corner. 

When Andrew returned to his seat, he wasn't smiling brightly anymore.

"Look, Mark..."

His voice was softer. It was a carbon copy of all of the other voices Mark had heard so far today. It was a reproduction of the way Callie had frowned gently, the way that Teddy had stopped her surgery completely, the pause as Meredith tossed the newspaper into the trash. Even Archer had looked at him in that way. 

Colleagues in the hallway— strangers that had completely halted and gawked at him. This time, different to all of the others, Mark flinched. The tone was able to elicit a physical response from him: his muscles tensed and he continued to burn holes into the pamphlet with the happy carefree cartoon face.

"I want to apologise," Andrew continued, unfazed by the way Mark refused to look at him. "I want to apologise on the behalf of the psychiatrist you spoke to last week. When I sent my team in, I advised them to try and get as many surgeons back into the ORs as possible. Webber needed someone to cover the Plastic Surgery cases." He paused, noticing how Mark shifted. "You shouldn't have been cleared. I'm sorry. We made the wrong call."

Mark shook his head, kissing his teeth. "No, you were right— I'm fine."

The psychiatrist sighed.

"You're not, Mark."

There was startling about hearing a stranger say that to him. 

Andrew Perkins had only been in Seattle for one day and yet he was looking at Mark in a way that was as if he'd known him his whole life. 

It was also almost too much to hear aloud. It caused a very deep stinging feeling to reverb through his chest. His skin glazed over with a ghostly chill and Mark tried his best to keep himself upright— he gripped the arms of his chair and spoke breathlessly as if he was sacrifice all the air he had left in him just to argue.

"I am."

"You're not," Andrew repeated. His gaze finally peeled away, allowing Mark to catch his breath. Instead, Andrew was reading the notes in his folder. "I see that you said that you witnessed someone die?" It was Mark's turn to notice how Andrew seemed to bristle at the topic of what he'd witnessed. Andrew knew already what had happened. Charlie would've told him. "It's okay to admit that you're affected by it—"

"I see people die all the time," Mark shrugged. "You win some, you lose some—"

"This isn't a surgery, Mark," Andrew said calmly. "It's different. Losing a patient and watching someone die— it's not the same."

Mark didn't respond.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to suspend your surgical privileges," He didn't sound very sorry. "I'm going to ask you to have some sessions with me, just so we can try and work towards getting you back into that OR—"

"I—" Mark was lost for words. "I don't—"

"I know," Andrew was writing again. "Believe me, you're not alone. I have so many people... just like you... and they think they're fine. But they need just some more time, okay?"

Okay? Mark didn't think this was okay at all. 

His hands balled into fists and he ground his teeth together. A surgical suspension. He thought he'd never see the day. As soon as Andrew had said those words he'd felt... weird. 

He felt as if Andrew had just peeled back a layer of his skin or robbed him of one of his limbs. For the last two decades, surgery had been Mark's identity. It'd been his life. The thought of being dragged away from it felt perverse and wrong.

"This is bullshit," He was beginning to get angry now. He was doing that a lot lately. He'd kicked a trashcan outside the hospital two days ago because he couldn't focus on updating a chart. Whenever he couldn't comprehend what was happening, Mark's body jumped to frustration. "I'm perfectly fine. I didn't get shot. I didn't—"

"What happened in the OR?"

Andrew's question made Mark falter.

"Nothing," Was his quick reply. It was choppy and a complete lie. Mark didn't know whether he had a giveaway when he lied, but he must've because Andrew didn't look as though he believed him. "I was just tired."

"Tired?" Andrew repeated, nodding slowly. "Are you sleeping well?"

Mark didn't respond.

"Okay," He took the lack of a reply into his stride. "Let's try another question— do you read the newspaper?"

Bewilderment filled him. Mark's brow furrowed.

"What?"

"The Seattle Gazette," Andrew said. He opened one of the draws in the desk and pulled out a copy of the newspaper Mark had seen people reading today. It was today's edition but Mark couldn't see the front page. The psychiatrist placed it face down and tilted his head to one side. "I have to say, I'm more of a Twitter guy myself— but I've heard that people in this hospital are still reading it."

"Uh," Mark cleared his throat. He was still confused. "No. I just watch the news when I'm home."

He hadn't been home to watch the news and Derek never watched TV in his hospital room. As far as Mark was concerned, existing inside Seattle Grace Hospital was a little secluded bubble where he could ignore everything that was happening outside. 

Of course, it came with the bonus features of having to watch the cleanup team scrub blood off of the walls, but Mark had gotten into the habit of not paying attention to that. His eyes fell down onto the newspaper on the desk in between them. 

He hadn't realised how many times he'd seen this newspaper today without even realising it. It seemed as though everyone in this building had read it but him.

"Turn it over," Andrew encouraged, "They published an article today, you might want to read it."

Mark wasn't a particularly stubborn person. He'd been a pretty easy kid to deal with. He'd always said 'okay' to completing his chores (although for a kid who had grown up on the Upper East Side into a very privileged and wealthy family, he'd never had to do things like make his bed and take out the trash), he'd never complained about having to eat his vegetables and he'd never had a tantrum over spilt milk. However, there was something about the way Andrew nodded towards the paper that made him not want to turn it over at all.

But he did, against his better judgement.

Today's headlines was big and bold: SEATTLE GRACE MERCY DEATH.

It was catchy.

What wasn't catchy was the photo underneath it. The moment Mark saw it, he suddenly understood why everyone had been just looking at him all day. 

Quickly, he was able to understand every time he'd caught a patient giving him a second, concerned glance, why Callie had been so worried when he'd stared after that patient in the OR— Meredith had chucked her copy of the paper in the trash after second-guessing letting him see it. He understood why Archer had been so tentative and interested in whether he was okay—

He wasn't fine.

The photograph had been taken across the street. He couldn't remember there being any photographers inside the police perimeter so they must have used one of those long lenses.

Jackass. What he could remember, however, was the moment that this photograph captured. He thought about it quite a fair bit and looking at it, it felt as though someone had just scooped out his brain and buttered it across the paper:

It was a picture of him, Mark Sloan, sat on the curb outside the hospital, head in his hands and covered head to toe in Beth Montgomery's blood.

Very carefully, he pushed the paper away from him, back across the desk towards Andrew. 

He didn't meet Andrew's eye, he didn't speak— he just gazed at that printed image.

He'd wanted a moment.

It'd been his brief lapse in time where he'd pulled himself together. He'd been alone, sat in the same scrubs that he'd worn through that whole day and he'd pressed his hands over his eyes so tightly that when he'd taken them off, the world had been fuzzy. 

It was the only moment he'd allowed himself to have. It'd been between the conversation with Teddy, the scathing look that she'd sent him once he'd told her everything that had happened and told her with a very tight chest that he needed her to right his wrongs, and the police telling him that he needed to get as far away from the building as possible.

"Charlie said that you were with Beth," Andrew's voice sounded far away, Mark almost had to strain to hear it. "He said that you and Doctor Grey were the ones who triaged her in the boardroom. He said that you tried everything you could to help her."

Breathing, suddenly, was getting very difficult.

Beth. 

Mark hadn't really allowed himself to think about Beth, but just as she always did, she seemed to creep up in conversations. She was embedded in the way Meredith didn't yell at him when she told him to shower, the way that Archer had caught a flight on such short notice from LA and the way that, if Mark got a fleeting glance of her, Lexie would turn away and not look back. 

Andrew didn't miss the way that Mark's shoulders slumped very slightly at the topic of her.

"I did," Mark said quietly, "I tried."

This time, Andrew's nod wasn't as polarising as it had been before.

"We really appreciate that," We. He was speaking on behalf of them all. Mark felt his eyes sting and he looked away. This time, he was staring out the window. He hadn't realised that Beth had had such a nice view. In the distance, you could see the Seattle skyline, the tower and the busier downtown district. "Charlie wanted to thank you for everything you've done."

"He shouldn't thank me," Mark denied, his voice oddly empty. There was a twitch in his finger and he had to squeeze his hands together to stop it from moving. "I just made everything worse."

"You tried everything you could—"

"I killed her."

It was the words that were on the edge of everyone's lips when they saw Mark walking towards them. It was what Teddy had thrown back in his face in the scrub room— Mark Sloan had taken a spinal needle and he'd stabbed her in the chest and caused her to flatline before she'd even arrived into surgery.

Andrew's eyes didn't move from his, even when Mark's shoulders wobbled a little bit and he had to rub at his jaw to keep himself together. 

It was that stupid newspaper articles fault. He'd been fine all week, blissfully ignorant to the memory that Beth had died in front of him, that he'd had to go home and shower off her blood— and then this stupid newspaper article had come out and people had realised that he wasn't as fine as they thought. Lexie had known all along but she wasn't fine either. But now the hospital had seen the picture, the picture of Mark having a moment to himself.

He'd just needed one single, private moment and they'd ruined it— they'd plastered his not fine all over every newspaper outlet in Seattle.

"Mark," Andrew sounded sad. "You—"

"I did," Mark just sounded numb. He was nodding and looking everywhere but the man sat opposite from him. "You should've seen the look on Teddy, the cardio surgeon's, face, as they loaded her into that ambulance— She was furious with me. I don't blame her. She said that I'd endangered her life— and then she died on the way to the hospital."

He could remember the conversation so vividly. The glare that Teddy Altman had thrown him. The sight of the paramedics rushing to get her to Seattle Presbyterian Hospital. His knees had been so tired so he'd sat down. He'd sat in the wake of the ambulances as they streaked off and watched as they tried to resuscitate her— and he'd been left behind to sit and try to gather himself. He'd sat down and he hadn't cried. 

He'd just thought over and over and over about how Lexie had begged him not to do it. She'd been so terrified at the thought of him doing something so out of protocol but he'd been so desperate— she'd warned him that it wasn't the right call and he hadn't believed her.

"I made the wrong call and I killed Beth."

The statement was so breathless that Andrew felt goosebumps raise up and down his arms.

"You didn't kill Beth," He said quietly. "Her heart bottomed out. There was too much pressure—"

"I missed the signs," Mark shook his head. His face was scrunched up. Andrew couldn't tell whether he was trying not to yell or cry, but either way, he was avoiding whatever it was that was threatening to break through. "Her chest tube was red. Her lung collapsed— I missed everything—"

"You did as much as you could—"

"It wasn't enough."

Mark had never been able to do enough. The odds had never been in their favour. If there was something he'd learnt about them, about Beth and Mark, it was that everything seemed to always go wrong, even if he was determined for it go right.

Hell, maybe, he'd never ever even been enough.

Andrew paused. There was an indistinguishable emotion behind Mark's voice that was enough to move him. In fact, he hadn't written any notes in the last five minutes. 

He'd been too caught up by the stark contrast between Mark's voice, body language and his eyes. He was stiff and rigid, sat upright in his chair as if he'd been placed and posed like a mannequin. Eventually, Andrew mustered a single word to write down on the notes in front of him.

"You didn't kill her," He could tell from the ticking muscle in Mark's jaw that the surgeon didn't believe him. "They resuscitated her."

Mark was still staring out of the window. Andrew continued.

"She didn't stay dead. I might not know her well, but I know that she wouldn't have given anyone the satisfaction of killing her. She'd want to die on her own terms." It was a fond joke that made Mark's chest feel a little bit tighter. "You did everything you could and it helped her survive."

Mark felt the need to question what his definition of survival was. Last he'd heard, eavesdropping on a conversation between Derek and Meredith, Beth was on a ventilator to make up for her collapsed lung. Archer had flown in too— they hadn't been enthusiastic that she was going to pull through. But then she had and Mark had allowed himself to feel a little less back about puncturing her heart.

He'd quite literally given a whole new definition to breaking Beth's heart.

"She's alive, Mark," Andrew said, "She's alive because of you."

Again, Mark felt the need to question him, to challenge that. He'd done nothing but make the mess like he always did when it came to Beth. Teddy had been the one who had cleaned it up. She'd wheeled Beth into an OR at the next hospital over with a general surgeon and they'd corrected the mess that he'd made.

"It was enough," He didn't believe Andrew's words. "You made the right call."

Then why did he feel like he hadn't?

***

Home was a concept that Mark found hard to think about.

He held his breath as he pressed his floor number, held it even further as he watched the numbers rise. The elevator was empty, his ears were filled with the sound of mechanical whirring.

He had his bag over his shoulder. His bag had been in his locker since the morning of the shooting. He had his jacket as well. 

It'd been hung on the door since that morning too. His apartment keys were in his hand. They'd been buried deep in his pocket since the last he'd used them-- staring at them in his palm, he realised that there was still a little line of dried blood from where he'd grasped it before taking a shower.

The apartment beside him was something he refused to look at. He avoided it at all costs, trying his best not to look one door up as he approached his own. He slid his key in the lock and fumbled slightly, trying to open it-- but then the sound of a door opening filled his ears.

He looked up out of habit.

Charlie was stood a couple of steps away, head bowed as he locked the door behind him. He was leaving, a bundle of mail in his hands. Quickly, Mark looked away-- from the brief glance he could get, he saw someone who had had such little sleep that he looked as though he couldn't keep his eyes open. He was wearing sunglasses indoors and his hair was messy. 

He was a complete contrast to his brother who seemed to appear like a pristine and angelic offering of psychiatry and good health.

Mark hoped that Charlie wouldn't notice him, but he did.

"Hey."

He'd hoped that they didn't have to speak, but Charlie turned his towards him and nodded in recognition. It wasn't a neighbourly nod, it was veiled and Mark's heartbeat stuttered a little bit in his chest. 

Mark didn't respond verbally, he just managed to pull a greeting smile out of his ass and return his eyes to his door as it swung open.

"How are you doing?"

The question made Mark wonder whether Charlie had seen the newspaper— Fuck, he didn't like how he was now paranoid that the whole world had him figured out. He felt like everyone in Seattle had been let into a secret that he'd been hiding behind his mountain of surgeries and sutures. 

It was a very painfully humiliating feeling that made going into his apartment and never resurfacing look really attractive.

"Good," Mark nodded. After his session from Andrew, he'd been able to steady himself again. He was on autopilot now, able to do all of the ventriloquist movements Andrew had uploaded him with again.

"I'm glad to hear that."

He'd only ever had one conversation with Charles Perkins before, and that had been about his daughter. Charlie had gotten along well with Sloan, Sloan had liked him. She'd spoken about him to Mark, talking about how he was nice to her when she saw him in the hallways. 

She said that he'd been genuinely interested in what was happening in her life, had offered to help her carry whatever shopping it was that she needed to get upstairs— and then he'd asked how she was, how the grandkid was when Mark had seen him in the hospital a few weeks ago.

"I met your brother," Mark didn't know why he continued the conversation, but he did. 

Maybe it was because he felt the need to understand why so many people liked him, how he managed to get Arizona and Callie to sing his praise, Archer to not hate him and Beth to agree to marry him— Mark chewed the inside of his cheek. 

"He's trying really hard to, uh, convince people to listen to him."

"Yeah," Charlie said breathily. He walked towards Mark and rolled out his shoulders. "I'm gonna join him in a few days, thought he would appreciate the help."

Mark didn't doubt that Andrew needed all the help he could get.

They were so similar, the two brothers, but what differences there were were clear. Mark could notice them now. They reminded him of the variations between Addison and Beth. One sibling was so unapologetically in control. The other was throwing their problems aside to help people. Charlie, in that equation, reminded him of Beth (Oh, what a perfect match) and he had to pause to stop himself from wondering how deep that resemblance went.

"How is she?"

He hadn't meant to ask that question. It'd just slipped out of his lips before he could stop it.

Charlie smiled slightly. "She's good." He let out a breath, talking as if he wasn't addressing the man who'd caused Beth to flatline for thirty seconds. "They actually took her off of the ventilator today. Everything's looking really good."

"Good," Mark said, although his voice cracked a little bit. "That's good."

"I actually wanted to thank you..."

There it was. Mark felt his body tense. It was one of the reasons he hadn't been able to bring himself to come home. He'd dreaded this conversation. It could've happened one of two ways. Charlie would've told him that Beth hadn't made it or he would have pinned Mark as one of the people who had saved Beth's life— Mark somehow, found the second option more painful than the first.

"I didn't do anything," was Mark's reply, he mustered a crooked grin that wasn't too far off from genuine. Andrew's words floated around his head as he watched Charlie open his mouth to interject. "It's Beth. She wouldn't have given anyone the satisfaction of killing her. She's too stubborn for that."

The laugh that escaped Charlie's lips was enough for Mark to feel as though he could breathe. There was a shooting pain across his chest as he noticed the way Charlie's eyes glazed over, mulling over Mark's words. He was smiling fondly, shaking his head as if he was all too familiar with Beth's stubbornness. 

Mark's grin wavered a little bit and he was reminded of how alienated he'd felt when Archer and Andrew had greeted each other in the lobby.

"She is," Charlie agreed finally. Then he seemed to trail off, appearing lost in thought. Mark couldn't see his eyes, but he didn't like how heavy they felt. It was as if the weight on his chest had returned, ready to crush him into a pulp. "You should come see her, when she wakes up."

Quietly, he snorted and shook his head. "Nah, I'm probably the last person she'll want to see."

"I don't know, maybe," Charlie shrugged. There was this light smile on his face. "But we both know Beth's gonna want to kick your ass at some point for the whole needle in the chest thing—"

Mark had to close his eyes very briefly.

"Yeah," His breathing hitched. "She will."

His fingers were pressed the object in his pocket tightly to his skin. He did that sometimes, allowing the dull, mounting pain to remind him that he was still alive. Sometimes, when Mark thought about it a lot, he wondered why Beth had been shot and he hadn't. He wondered whether he'd been able to save her if he'd left the room first instead of Lexie. 

Was that yet again, another wrong call that he'd made that day? The thudding pain in his leg was enough to remind him that Beth was alive and not dead like he'd spent so much time reliving her as in his head.

It wasn't the only reminder; there was something about the look on Charlie's face that made Mark reach into his pocket. 

He reached deep, to the bottom, fishing out the little object that he'd carried around with him for the past week, too unsteady to remove but too unsteady to ignore. It'd felt like a tumour, like an extra weight that Mark had felt like was an extension of him. But now, Mark was drawing it out of his pocket and letting it sit in the palm of his hand.

"I found this..."

He held out the ring and watched as Charlie seemed to freeze completely, taken off-guard by the sight of it. It looked strangely alien to him, sat in the palm of his fiancée's ex-boyfriend— But there it was. 

The ring that he'd searched the whole apartment for and had eventually had to just accept that it'd been lost in amongst the chaos of the hospital shooting. Charlie had had to accept that Beth had been right, she should have never worn her ring to work. She was the sort of person who thought about losing things all the time.

In reality, it'd fallen off of Beth's hand when she'd been moved out of the boardroom and Mark had been the only one to notice. He'd gently picked it out of a pool of her blood with the intention to return it to her— but then that had never happened. 

Instead, it'd become something that he'd carried alongside the heavy pressure behind his eyes. Staring at it now, the diamond still very slightly bloody, Mark realised that he hated the sight of it far more than he'd realised.

Gently, Charlie took it from him, his eyes unmoving from the diamond as it shone in the hallway light. The way he was staring at it... Mark could tell that it meant a lot to him.

"Thanks," His voice was unsteady. "I've been looking for this. I thought it'd just... gotten lost in the chaos."

Maybe it would have, but Mark had always paid close attention to Beth, whether he liked it or not. He just nodded. Despite the way that Charlie stared at the ring, as if trying to commit the sight of it to memory, he didn't feel bad about having held onto it for so long.

"No problem," Mark said, "Have a good night."

He didn't know how people usually felt when they had a tumour removed. Were people aware that they were lighter? Did they mourn the loss of that extension of themselves— Mark thought about it briefly as he closed his apartment door behind him. He'd carried the ring around for the past week, unable to part with it but aware that it'd slowly been tearing him up inside. 

And now, faced with an empty apartment cast in darkness, he was suddenly hit by the overwhelming feeling of loneliness. Ever since Sloan had left, this apartment had felt too big, already feeling empty with Lexie gone. He let out a shuddering breath and dropped his bag onto the dining table.

He wasn't fine. He hadn't been all along.

He felt like a kid again, going around and turning on every light in his apartment but fuck it, he had money to pay his electricity bill anyway. 

Here, in this fucking bachelors pad he had no parents to yell at him for wasting energy, no nanny to chase him to bed and no lover to ask him to turn them off so they could sleep. And now, he didn't have Beth's engagement ring in his pocket either— he had no excuse to visit her in the hospital.

It wasn't until he was sat on his couch with a beer in an extremely bright room, that he noticed the newspaper that had been wedged under his door. Mark didn't read it. He didn't need to. It didn't matter what was going on in the outside world.

He was going to sleep now, nightmare or not, Mark didn't care. He was exhausted. He was going to finally sleep in his own bed. He was going to be comfortable.

That sort of shit could wait until the morning.