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ROMANTIC PSYCHODRAMA

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tw: PTSD and trauma!
a lot of v emotional messy things
please take care! you health is not more important
than you readership!
if you need to sit this one out dw!

NO. NO. NO.

Wait.

Lexie couldn't keep up.

Things had been moving too quickly. 

She couldn't explain how or why, but she knew that things were happening too fast. 

The world was spinning too quickly, the sun was rising too fast and the clocks were moving too— too fast. Too fast. 

Lexie was really struggling to keep up. 

People were walking too quickly, cars were passing too fast and god... she wished they'd just slow down.

Time was going and going and going and Lexie couldn't keep pace. Going, going, going—

How had two months passed? She felt like she was still stuck in the hospital counting down the minutes on the clock, waiting for someone to kick down the door. Didn't people know how to slow down? Two months didn't feel long enough. 

She'd spent an hour and a half with her knees in blood and her fingers trembling and that had felt so long to her; even when she'd had a gun in her face and a twitch in her eye that hadn't gone away— that had felt so long. 

Why didn't two months feel long? It'd been a blink of an eye (a repetitive twitch that really hadn't gone away).

Lexie hadn't left that boardroom. She hadn't left the hospital corridor. She hadn't left the supply closet or the surgical reception. She hadn't left that corner that she'd cowered behind as she watched Beth get shot in front of her eyes— 

Two months hadn't been long enough at all.

People were moving on and Lexie felt trapped. 

She watched people return to their lives and it felt like that day all over again; people were suddenly so normal, so calm, so composed and they were faster and quicker than her.

She'd left the building that day but half of her had been left behind; it was weird, out of all of the textbooks that she'd studied, all of the medicine she'd been taught, they'd never said that you can be somewhere physically but mentally somewhere else.

 Lexie hadn't even realised what was happening until it happened.

It wasn't as if she suddenly felt lighter the moment she'd stepped over the threshold of the hospital— half of your mind was heavy, right? 

But no, she felt heavier. She'd entered Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital empty and left with her boyfriend's dying body and enough thoughts to keep her head low for much longer than two months.

Things were moving so fast and Lexie felt as though she was constantly trying to catch her breath. While people sat at a dinner table and cursed each other out over greasy pizza, Lexie was still trying to sprint in their shadow. 

How could people go to dinner? Lexie couldn't think about anything but that day; she couldn't think about food, she couldn't think about dinner, she couldn't think about eating, she couldn't think about conversation—

She would've said that she was sleep walking, but Lexie just couldn't sleep. She'd stayed up for days on end. She'd been unable to do anything but think and feel. No time for anything but lying awake and staring at ceilings. No time for anything at all-- days felt so short now, they were passing by so quickly.

Before the therapy, before the medication, she hadn't slept at all. Lexie had been committed against her will to the Psychiatry department. She'd spent two days in a room with no door handle and no shoe laces. 

She'd spent a lot of time trying to pull apart the flashes that occurred whenever she blinked— once, when she looked down, she could see the familiar blood stains against her shin.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

There had been no clock in there. She hadn't been able to feel the passing of time, but she'd been able to tell that it had been too quick— why did time here feel so fast but time on that day had been so slow? 

In her memories, she was able to recount what had happened during every second of that day. 

Her eidetic memory had never been such a bane of her existence; it had helped her through medical school, gotten her onto surgical cases, but now, as she tried her best to keep up the rush of time, she couldn't help but feel the vivid recollection of that day, pull her down.

Her commitment had all been because of an incident that she couldn't even remember— Lexie had had it repeated back to her as she sat there, watching Dr Perkins and his brother, Andrew go over her medical notes. 

Apparently, she'd confronted a patient in the ER, eyes wild and hands trembling. It had been three weeks after the shooting.

"My patient didn't bring her meds," Lexie had said, although she wouldn't be able to recall what happened afterwards. She'd stood in the ER, addressing her boyfriend, Alex as they stood there in the middle of the room. "My patient..."

Her patient had been seated in the corner, watching her doctor with wide eyes as Lexie looked over at the woman. 

Lexie's face had been pale, eyes bugged and lip trembling as her mind went too quickly (too quick, too fast— slow down.) 

Alex had just stared at her, eyebrows raising as she started speaking so quickly that all her syllables, all her letters, all her words, they'd all merged into a single breath.

Mark had been sitting on the other side of the room, working on a patient. He hadn't noticed the two of them. He hadn't noticed how violently Lexie seemed to shake.

"She doesn't even know their names." Lexie's hands had trembled so badly. She'd been unable to keep still. "I... if I give her albuterol and she's on propanolol, then she'll stop breathing. If... if I give her warfarin and she's on ibuprofen, then she'll... then she'll bleed out. If I give her diphenhydramine and she's on doxepin, then she'll die..."

Lexie didn't like thinking about people bleeding out— whenever she did, she remembered how pale Beth had looked, lying on the floor in the boardroom. 

She remembered how Alex had appeared, half dead and half dry. It was then, as Lexie's head spun slightly and her voice had broken, that Mark had looked over at her, watching the blood drain out of her face. 

He had been busy, only able to take fleeting glances over at his ex-girlfriend as she turned her head back towards the patient.

"So do..." Lexie had licked her lips, swallowing thickly. "Do... do you think she wants to die?"

"Is she kidding?" 

Those words had been so desperate, so exhausted that the patient Mark was working on had looked over at her, face contorting. The alarm had infected them all. It was coming off of Lexie in waves. 

The nurses stood around Mark all had moved uneasily, the ER staff all shooting Lexie unnerved glances.

"Karev," Mark's voice had raised, eyes flickering over in their direction. He'd been able to tell that something was off. Between Lexie's wild eyes and her unsteady voice, he'd been able to pinpoint the moment that her PTSD had "What's going on over there?"

Lexie had been so lost. 

She hadn't slept in days. She hadn't been able to eat. She hadn't been able to breathe— she'd raised her voice over the sound of the ER and crumbled to pieces, begging for someone to help her with her patient. No one would do anything but stare-- why do people just stare? Why are they just staring? Staring doesn't help at all--

"I think that she wants to die." Her repeating words had drilled into their skin. She'd turned and looked at the patient, shaking her head. "I think she wants me to kill her." A few steps towards the patient— Mark had never seen anyone look so terrified of their doctor. "Do... do you... do you... do you want me to kill you?"

"Karev," Mark's voice grew more urgent. He was in the middle of a suture, unable to move as Lexie started crying. The resident across from him had showed no indication of moving. "Get her outta here—"

"Because you... you could just get a gun, and it would be a lot faster," It had chilled everyone to the bone how Lexie had crumpled and started wheeling around, glassy eyes grilling into the woman on the ER bed. "You know what? So why doesn't somebody find a gun... And we'll bring her a gun and just shoot her—"

She'd walked into a cart. She'd sent things flying to the floor. She'd caused so much chaos that Mark had repeated Alex's name with urgency. 

Staff and patient alike were so alarmed, so caught aback by her desperation. She'd been a flailing set of limbs, clearing carts as she tried to make something make sense to her— just one thing— just one moment where she could catch her breath—

"Karev, help her," Mark had repeated over and over, concern flashing in his eyes as he watched his ex-girlfriend flounder across the room in a panicked, traumatised daze. "I can't step away. Get her out of here!"

Alex hadn't helped.

Two days. Alex had walked away from her. 

They'd broken up. Mark had committed her to Psych against her will. She'd sat in that room for two days. They'd put her on so much medication that she'd slept for 50 hours straight. Two days. She'd slept for two days— time was going so quickly and Lexie had blackspot in her memory where she just couldn't remember...

A week later, she'd been signed off for surgery. Too fast--

"How has your day been today?"

She didn't know the man that was sat across from her. 

She did know that this definitely wasn't his office. She also did know that his name was Charles Perkins and he was the therapist that she'd been seeing for the past two months. 

She knew that he was nice and that he asked nice questions and had kind eyes— but she also knew that he was here because it was his job.

Lexie was also very, very aware that she'd found this man's fiancée bleeding out in the middle of the floor.

Lexie was in therapy. She was sat at a desk, watching the world slide by the window. 

It was the same day that Addison returned to Seattle. It was ten hours before Beth's evening meal and two hours before Beth came into the hospital for the first time since she'd come out on a gurney. Lexie blinked at Dr Perkins, watching as he gently tapped his pen against the desk and gave her an encouraging smile. 

They were sat across a desk from each other, a clock ticking in the background— Lexie wished that the clock would slow down for a second.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"Good," Lexie's response was quick. She nodded and her ponytail swung and she played with her fingers. "But this morning I didn't know whether to eat cereal or toast so I... just had an apple. I don't usually have an apple in the morning but this morning..." She chewed on her bottom lip, catching her breath as she stumbled over her words. "I had an apple."

If she could've chosen a word to summarise how the last two months had been... she would've chosen the word 'Disorientating'. 

Maybe she would have agreed with Beth and said 'Shit' if she knew her mind enough. She'd been getting dizzy because everything was spinning too quickly around her.

"You know what the say..." She continued mostly because she couldn't handle the brief silence. "An apple day keeps the doctors away."

Sometimes, Lexie spoke so quickly that she forgot to breathe. 

It was another thing that was going too fast: her brain, her train of thoughts. They tripped and stumbled and all merged into each other. 

A few times, when she'd opened her mouth, she'd been completely bewildered by the sounds that had fallen out— but Dr Perkins just smiled at her and chuckled, nodding his head.

She didn't know much about Charlie Perkins but she'd seen him around. She'd been to dinner in his apartment. She'd barely had a conversation with him outside of therapy. He seemed like a nice guy; he was handsome, a Psychiatrist and seemed to have his whole life together. 

She couldn't remember whether she'd seen him in the hospital before (walking into this office and seeing him sat there had caught her completely off-guard), she didn't know whether he was new or whether he'd been in the hospital the whole time and she'd just never noticed.

His brother was a psychiatrist too— Lexie found that funny, did people become legacy psychiatrists like surgeons did?— and the two of them were working together to keep everyone in place.

"Is there anything you'd like to talk about today?" He asked at the beginning of their session. He had a calm voice that Lexie could imagine had taken some practice. "I know that you asked to continue these sessions even though you've been signed back onto surgery—"

"I just... I have a lot of thoughts," Lexie answered quickly. 

She'd been allowed back into the OR a few weeks ago, but no one had put her on any solid cases. She'd spent that time working in the clinic and the ER, trying her best to keep her mind off of the things that made her head hurt. 

"It sounds really stupid but—"

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"Nothing is stupid," Dr Perkins interjected, shaking his head. "The only reason I'm here is to listen to any concerns or thoughts you have." She heaved a breath, realising that he was pretty much right. It wasn't as if she could talk to her boyfriend about these things anyway. "I'm here for whatever you need, Dr Grey. You've made incredible progress—"

Lexie didn't feel like she'd made good progress. 

Was this the point of therapy? To instil fake accomplishments so you feel better about yourself?

 She'd been in therapy once when she was a kid but she couldn't remember if that was what had happened. It was kind of working, it was getting her to focus on positive things— but whenever she'd exhausted the positives, the negative heavy weight on her shoulders threatened to fall again.

"Are you still sleeping well?" He asked.

"Yeah," Lexie said, "The medication really helps but sometimes... sometimes I just really distracted by, uh, my thoughts and my feelings and... I find it difficult to just, um, slow down... Make everything else slow down."

Charlie tilted his head to the side. If Lexie had been paying attention to anything over than her rush of thoughts, she would've noticed how he seemed to recognise the weight behind her words. It was very familiar to him. In fact, a lot this was very familiar to him-- she looked deeply traumatised and unsettled; it made Dr Perkins wonder what had happened in that boardroom all those weeks ago.

"Okay," He said evenly, dragging his eyes back down to the sheet of paper in front of him. "Tell me what's on your mind."

Mind.

Her mind was full of very messy thoughts. 

They were disorganised. They were jumbled. 

Sometimes she thought about something and it didn't make sense to her at all. In fact, more than often, Lexie struggled to make sense of them. Asking what she was thinking had developed into a very dangerous, often confusing question. 

She'd stare at whoever it was that was talking to her, in this instance, Dr Charlie Perkins, and just wait for her inner monologue to veer in a understandable direction.

"So many things," Lexie started, clearing her throat and bunching her fingers together tightly. "Not just the shooting— I mean, I don't think anyone can ever stop thinking about that right?" She looked over at him. He didn't respond. "It used to be only when I tried to sleep... but now with the medication... it's all the time."

"Okay," Dr Perkins said softly, "Do you want me to change your medication—"

"No," In all honesty, Lexie wasn't sure what she wanted anymore. She'd lost a lot over the past few weeks: sleep, peace of mind, her boyfriend— Lexie just needed everything to stop. "The medications fine... I just think I need a moment or something... just, uh, a chance to just make everything stop for a second..."

A moment.

"Okay," He repeated in a very calm, soothing voice that made Lexie drag her eyes up to him. "We can slow down. He gave her a winning smile that almost blinded her. There's no rush—"

"There is," Lexie interjected, hands trembling slightly. "Everyone just wants to get back to normal-- Everyone is pretending as if nothing happened and I just... I don't know how to do that..."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

There was a constant ringing in Lexie's ears and a constant chill on her skin. 

Whenever she swallowed, she felt as though her body was made of sand, as if one gust of wind could shift her a million miles from where she stood. She could feel her own heartbeat in every inch of her feeling, as if the fight or flight response had never gone away-- it was only at night, with a handful of sleeping medication that she could feel that pressure leave.

There was a pause. Within it, Dr Perkins seemed to wait for her to continue. He could tell that there was something Lexie needed to say. 

The way she was bunched in her chair, the way her jaw clenched and her shoulders hunched and her fingers played with the armrest on the chair— He could tell that those thoughts that swum around her mind were far more potent than he'd first believed.

"I think about Beth a lot."

She didn't miss how his chin lifted slightly at the mention of his fiancé. 

But, at that moment, it was the last thing on Lexie's mind. Instead, her photographic memory was dragging her, screaming and kicking, back into that boardroom, back to the expression on Mark's face as he stood over Beth's crumpled form. 

Lexie did miss how Dr Perkins lifted a hand, leaning against the desk with clasped hands and a slight weight in his eyes-- he had the feeling that this conversation was going to be a lot more than just a normal therapy session.

Lexie answered an unspoken prompt to continue. "Not just Beth-- but Alex and Derek too. Uh, I-I-- I think about how they all nearly died... How close everything got and I just-- I- I..." She paused, gripping the armrests tighter. "I watched Beth get shot right in front of me and then I-I watched her flatline--"

Neither of them liked the word flatline. It felt too final.

She really hadn't been lying when she said that she thought about Beth often. 

The woman had become a permanent fixture in her brain, a constant presence that she couldn't shake. Most nights, before the medication and before sleep, when Lexie closed her eyes she saw Beth staring back at her-- specifically, those alarmed eyes that met her as she peered around the corner of a corridor. 

She remembered it so vividly, could picture the moment that everything seemed to change.

Her PTSD and Beth Montgomery were so vividly linked that thinking (or speaking) about either of them just made Lexie's head explode.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Why? Lexie had asked herself too many times, Why is it Beth that haunts me and not my ex-boyfriend?

Alex had been shot too. He'd been in a bad condition, so bad that he'd teetered on the edge too. She'd been looking after him that whole time-- she'd spent so much more time with Alex in that boardroom-- Why not him?

"Beth's just..." Lexie exhaled loudly, trying her best to vocalise what was happening in her head. Across from her, Dr Perkins just stared at her, the pen in his hand wobbling from side to side. "I think she's stupid arrogant... like she just thinks she's better than everyone... constantly and it's exhausting."

Lexie was frustrated, mostly with the frustration she felt— frustrated with her own frustration, wasn't that wild? 

It reminded her of how she'd felt during the merger. There had this one intern, this one specific doctor: April. The girl had frustrated her so deeply and Lexie had been so baffled by it. With Beth it was the same— how quickly Beth had gone from someone Lexie liked to someone Lexie couldn't think about without scoffing.

"She makes me uncomfortable," Another inhale. Another thought that Lexie couldn't stop from falling through her lips. "There's something about her— it feels like she's constantly hiding things— like she's pretending to be something that she's not— I- I just—" Lexie was wringing her hands. She was talking too quickly again. Her words tripped over one another and Lexie just sighed to herself. "I can't trust her-- people shouldn't trust her."

There was no response from Dr Perkins. 

She supposed that this was the part where he was supposed to interject. Wasn't he supposed to say something? Prompt her to unpack her feelings. Instead, he seemed to just stare at her. He was very visible caught off-guard, mouth in a line as she talked and talked and-- She was far too caught up in the thrill of vocalising these thoughts (maybe after this, the ghost of Beth would leave her head? 

Maybe then she'd find some relief) to notice how he seemed to halt completely. She was far too self-involved, in that moment, to realise that this was definitely not the man to vocalist these thoughts too-- professionalism or not.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Lexie couldn't stop talking.

"Beth's more like her sister than she thinks she is," She continued, on and on and on. Going and going and going. "They're both in this elitist little New York group where they all exchange their stupid anecdotes and—It's like this mean girl clique with all of them... and I could never compete with that, right? I had no chance in this whole stupid—"

She couldn't slow down. Not for a moment. Not for a split second. The world was spinning fast, but Lexie Grey's head was spinning faster.

"And then I found out about New York and that everyone was just pretending that things were fine and--" Lexie swallowed. Her throat was dry, her eyes itched and her skin felt as though it was being peeled back very slowly and painfully. "I was paranoid. I felt like I was in some sort of Truman Show thing-- all where they were just..."

There had been a raw silence. 

The sort of pause that Lexie could physically feel. 

She could feel Dr Perkin's every inhale, she could feel the throb of her heart in her chest as the conversation moved away from her PTSD and into more forbidden territories. 

She was opening up on the pressing topics that filled what the shooting didn't: Mark, and his secrets that he had refused to tell her until it was his only hope at getting her to stay.

"I don't like her" Lexie said quietly, "I don't like how everyone was in on some joke at my expense and I-- I, uh-- I acted out and I feel bad that I hate her over it--" She shook her head and let out a long breath and continued again, undeterred by the expression on her therapists' eyes. "Am supposed to feel bad? Because I, uh, I don't think she's a good person."

At this point in Lexie's life, she was struggling to understand whether truly good people actually existed. Maybe that was one of the things that kept her up at night? 

The sheer realisation that no matter what you did in life, it could all end. Sure, there was religion, people believed that good intentions and actions could save you in the after life-- but it didn't exactly stop it from happening?

The one person who was close enough to being good had been George O'Malley. 

He'd been a good friend and an even better surgeon and then he'd died. What was the reasoning behind that? She had had good patients too, people who deserved a lot more than they'd been dealt, people who had died that didn't deserve it. That nurse that Lexie had seen die in front of her, Vivian, had been a good person-- as had the seventeen other people who died that day.

Good people get jack-shit.

"I was never jealous..." She didn't expand on what 'it' was referring to, but she could tell that he knew. Lexie dropped her eyes to her lap and crossed her ankles. "I just really don't like liars. Uh, I just-- it's the fact that no one bothered to tell me this... The fact that they have such a history and I didn't even know... I thought she was just some friend from New York--"

New York. Lexie was really beginning to hate that place. She'd never been. Hell, she'd never even left the East Coast. She just had a bad feeling about that city.

"—And I feel bad about hating her," Lexie said quietly, "I really do— but I don't think I could hate Mark--" It felt dumb saying it aloud. She felt like a kid who was having to justify themselves for doing some extremely irresponsible. "Beth is just... just a liar and I don't trust her."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Dr Perkin was watching Lexie, watching as she sat in her seat and fumbled over her own words, her own thoughts. He hadn't interjected once. He'd just listened, leaning heavily against the desk as if it was the one thing that was keeping him upright. Lexie didn't meet his eyes, she just puffed out her cheeks with a final breath of air and sighed.

"We hate each other," Lexie continued, undeterred by the look in her therapist eyes. "I feel bad that we hate each other... but we do. I just— I just can't get my head around it—"

Another pause. Lexie gnawed on her bottom lip.

"Why did she save my life?"

Beth had taken the bullet that was meant for her, Lexie knew that for definite. 

How could she deny it? Gary Clark had looked Beth Montgomery in the eye and asked where Lexie was, he'd confined his intention to murder Lexie and Beth had stopped that from happening. Sure, 'saving someone's life' was thrown around often in their careers; they'd all built careers in 'saving' them, giving people second chances-- but Beth had given the phrase a new definition.

She could tell from the look in her psychiatrist's eyes that this was something that he hadn't expected Lexie to ask. He inhaled sharply and ran a hand through his hair, as if shaken out of the stupor that her desperate, fast words had trapped him into. Lexie just watched with her doe, tormented eyes.

She'd become fixated on it. 

The vulnerability that Beth had brought into her life, the sense of insecurity and command that she balanced so effortlessly, the way that she'd looked so graceful even when she'd died. In the wake of all the carnage, the bloodshed and the tears, Lexie Grey had become fixated on the life of the woman who had managed to convince everyone in this hospital that she was something she wasn't.

"I need to know..." She said softly. "Do you know?"

Tick. Tick. Tick.

As she'd said before, asking about her thoughts had become a very dangerous question.

***

Lexie had always been good at puzzles.

She'd been particularly good at mathematics. In a way, that's what mathematics had always been, a set of puzzles for someone to solve using numbers and logic. 

She'd been good at adding things (Grief-based Trauma + Gun Liscene = [REDACTED]), better at dividing ([HOSPITAL INSURANCE SETTLEMENT] ÷ 18 = [REDACTED]) and a master of subtraction ([HOSPITAL STAFF MEMBER COUNT] - 18 = [REDACTED]). 

Maths had been her passion long before she'd even considered science. She'd been a child prodigy at it, she'd been a mathlete in High School and killed at state finals one year.

She'd been a professional when it came to Cluedo-- it was almost too easy when you had a memory like hers. With that game, the rules were simple: Find the answer, Find the killer. 

(Gary Clark with the Gun in the Central Surgical Corridor). 

She'd even been really good at a classic puzzle too. Lexie had had a panache for finding all the pieces and putting them together for the bigger picture (the pieces were coming together all across Seattle, building closer and closer towards the sort of person her exes' ex was turning out to be).

There were only two puzzles that Lexie could not solve.

One of them had begun ten minutes after she left the hospital that day.

It had begun with Lexie, Beth, Teddy and Mark in the back of an ambulance. 

It began with Mark being told to leave as Dr Altman seethed over Beth's condition, completely taken aback by the fact that a plastic surgeon had attempted a complicated cardiothoracic procedure. 

He'd been in the process of helping but had frozen, eyes raising to stare at the other surgeon as she said her words with firm, scathing intent-- His argument had caught at the back of his throat and his motivation to fight had died the moment that Beth's internals started to rapidly decline.

He'd had to get out. He couldn't be in the ambulance while she died. He just couldn't--

It had begun with Mark being shoved to the curb and replaced by a EMT, one who seemed to push through as if there was no one there in the first place.

It had also begin with Lexie panicking as the ambulance started leaving-- she'd been so scared, so worried about whether Alex would survive. He'd been placed in the second ambulance. 

Teddy had taken Beth, with an EMT following behind and Lexie hadn't been able to fully vocalise how badly Alex needed her help-- if she'd only listen to her for five minutes, Teddy would understand how he badly needed a surgeon in his ambulance, not a EMT---

She'd criticised Teddy and, before she'd even been able to fathom what was happening, the ambulance had stopped and Lexie had been kicked out too.

The ambulance had already driven a block. 

A shivering Lexie was all that was left of the carnage, stranded at the side of the road in the city and staring around at the world as it passed by-- that had been when the first puzzle had started.

There she was, stood in the middle of a busy street, staring around at everyone as she felt the first rush of despair and crisis, and yet no one looked at her. 

In fact, no one seemed to have turned a head towards the parade of screaming, urgent ambulances, no one had batted an eyelash at the chaos or the blood-- Lexie had folded her bloodstained arms over her chest and collapsed, sitting down on the curb and tugging on the roots of her hair until her scalp ached.

This moment birthed the same question that she'd ask to both Charlie and Andrew many times: How could things be normal? 

How could the world just move on so quickly, so effortlessly and act like nothing had happened at all? She'd sat on that street and fought to catch her breath as her colleagues fought for their lives-- and yet the woman five paces behind her was drinking a cappacino and reading the weekly news. 

A man walked his dog (pausing only to tug the small mutt away from Lexie's shaking form), a couple cooed over their newborn child and two sisters reconnected over a rainchecked, belated brunch.

It had felt like a wrinkle in time. Lexie had been unable to fathom it. Outside, the air was clean. Outside, there was no time to fester to-- there was only the bright, crystalline weather and the smell of the coffee cart behind her. 

There were no bodies on the floor, no blood on the tiles, no death lingering through the room; just the sound of friendly conversation, passing traffic and people who continued on with their lives, blissfully unaware of the bloodshed that had occurred only minutes down the street.

Was this real? She'd been so unsure-- Had that been real? Had the last two hours of her life been a terrible nightmare?

Lexie had questioned her reality as her body had crumpled in on itself, too drained to anything but allow the tears to fall. It felt like a parallel dimension. 

These two experiences were so different that Lexie hadn't been able to fathom them existing at the same time-- it felt like two timelines, too things that couldn't exist at once. 

The sun was so bright, the day was so hopeful... But Lexie was still wet with Beth's blood and her eyelashes were still heavy with Alex-centric tears--

She'd sat at the side of the road and pressed her head into her forearm and wondered, for the smallest moment, whether the world ever just stopped.

A hand had pressed very gently on her shoulder, startling her. 

For a second, she'd wondered that maybe the stupefied spell of the parallel universe had been broken-- maybe the man with the dog had returned to offer a tissue, maybe the first-time mother had grown concerned over her blood-soaked clothes? 

But then Lexie had looked up and recognised the face that stared down at her... She'd chewed on her bottom lip, frowned and tried her best to swallow a sob--

It hadn't worked.

Mark's touch had been fleeting. It'd ended as soon as it had started. 

She'd had to look away, head turning so she could hide the way her face contorted when she cried. 

Lexie had missed the way that Mark's head hung (She hadn't thought about the fact that he'd walked a block, as if knowing that she'd end up cast aside too) and he jumped off the curb, joining her by sitting alongside her.

They'd sat there side by side as traffic continued to drive by. Cars were passing quickly. Pedestrians were fast. Everyone was too caught up in how much of a beautiful day it was to notice the bloodstained surgeons on the sidewalk. 

The sunshine felt scathing on Lexie's face, the light had felt like too much-- she'd buried her head in her hands, surgical gloves reeling against her skin, and continued to sob quietly.

Mark had removed his gloves with a long sigh. He'd turned his head towards her, heaved a long breath, and then just lingered, as if he didn't have the energy to exist completely. There had been so much exhaustion in the way he'd stared at her, as if he couldn't afford to be left to his own thoughts. Lexie hadn't been able to look at him. 

She'd just clutched her forehead and given herself a single moment, a moment to remind herself that the world was still spinning and the sun was still shining and coffee was still--

It hadn't work.

"Karev's going to be okay," In retrospect, Lexie would remark how stupifying it was for Mark to attempt to comfort her after the last ten minutes of their lives. 

His voice was gruff, his syllables shook slightly and yet he was using all of his remaining energy to keep Lexie calm.

He'd gripped her shoulders, attempting to pull her into a comforting position. It was awkward, it was estranged, but it was a semblance of the relationship that they'd once had and Lexie had been so tempted to fall into it. It was the first time they'd touched since Mark had thrown her to the ground and out of the way of gunfire just two hours previously. 

She could feel the pressure of his fingers dragging into her skin, gentle but trembling slightly, just as they had when he'd driven that needle into Beth's heart.

"How do you know?" Lexie had thrown up her hands; her despair had solidified into something more active. Her head had turned to look at him-- she'd never seen him look so sad and afraid. "H-How can you be so sure?"

Mark had paused.

They'd just stared at each other; minds spinning as each one of them wondered what the other saw. Mark had been faced with a Lexie who looked too despaired to move, to breathe-- every muscle in her body was shaking, every tear that escaped her eye was infected with the same fear that dilated her eyes and quickened her heart. 

Meanwhile, Lexie had been confronted with a Mark who was nothing like the arrogant, quick-witted man she'd loved. He'd looked ashen, gaunt and, if Lexie stared long enough, she could see the guilt and regret at the bottom of his eyes.

He'd been so convinced he'd made the wrong call.

"Because a guy just shot up the hospital and I don't know whose okay and who's not..." Lexie had looked away at his words, turning her face away and staring up the street, back in the direction of the hospital. She hadn't liked how his voice had broken slightly. "And you and I are sat on a curb... and there's some dog crap over there.... Because the world's just a little messed up right now... And something good has to happen..."

Something good had felt like a plea. It had felt as though Mark was trying to manifest something. It felt as though he was trying to speak goodwill into existence. 

Lexie had tried her best to nod. She'd tried her best to try and pull herself together. His thumb had rubbed circles into her back. His free hand had gripped at his thigh so tightly, as if it was the only thing that was keeping the rest of him upright.

In retrospect, Lexie would wonder what 'good' Mark had meant. After all, Alex wasn't the only one who had been at death's door. 

She wasn't blind— she knew that Mark didn't like Alex at all. She knew that he didn't particularly care whether he lived or died. She also knew, with definitive certainty, that his words were far too strained for him to be talking about anyone but Beth.

"So... Karev's going to be okay."

Again, his tone had screamed Montgomery, not Karev. There was a different intention behind his words.

His heavy eyes and his strained expression had exclaimed it too. His words had caught at the back of his throat and he'd swiped at his eyes with his wrist-- It was as if, in convincing Lexie that the day wasn't going to get any worse, he'd been trying to convince himself too. 

Lexie had just squeezed her eyes closed and dragged her foot through the dirt in the gutter, suddenly made nauseous by the feeling of his arm wrapped tightly around her. Her sobs had continued and Mark had taken out his cell phone; he'd dialled a taxi ("I need a cab to Wilson Fourth... no, it's not a house, it's the curb") and, once it'd confirmed that it would be arriving soon, he'd taken a long deep breath.

"All right, so you and I are going to go down to Seattle Pres and we're going to sit and wait for news on Alex," His voice had been suddenly so calm, so contained and clear. It was as if he'd donned a professionalism, one that had slipped over the past few hours— Lexie had raised her head and stared at him, noticing the absence of a name in his words. He'd recognised that look in her face, between the tears and the panic, and he'd tried his best to ignore it. "...And while we wait we're going to pray because it's the only thing I can... think of to do right now."

Lexie had just stared at him. She'd stared and stared and stared. Her heart had been beating too fast. The tears had come too quickly and now Mark was trying to make everything so—

"Beth," The name had fallen out of her lips so suddenly that she'd watched the impact of it on the man beside her. His jaw had clenched, his gaze had averted and she'd felt his arm stiffen. More tears had fallen. "W-What ab-about Beth?"

Mark hadn't looked at her. 

He'd stared at the ground, his professionalism disappearing as quickly as it had appeared— she didn't miss that, the way that Beth's name seemed to push that barrier aside. 

What Lexie had missed had been the strain that it had taken for him to build it— just five minutes ago, Mark had sat on the curb outside the hospital, in between the police cars and the despaired patients, and he'd had his moment just like her. 

Now he was grasping onto any length of sanity he could find; it all crumbled away when Lexie set her eyes on him and said that fucking name—

Just as the outside world and the shooting couldn't harmoniously exist... a composed, dependable Mark Sloan and a dying Beth Montgomery couldn't exist either.

"W-We'll wait f-for Beth," Lexie had continued, voice shaking. "We'll pray for Beth— we-we'll make sure that she's okay— She has to be okay-- She- She-- She saved my life I—"

There had been a muscle jumping in Mark's jaw. 

\Sitting there, with his arm around her, Lexie had felt like she was beside a statue, one that was frozen in time as the world spun around them. 

Mark had blinked a few times, swallowing woodenly and trying his best to avoid looking upwards— but then a flash of pain had ricocheted across his face and Lexie has assumed the worst.

Mark had been so convinced that Beth was dead.

For a moment, so had Lexie. She'd looked away from him, pressed a hand to her mouth. That had been when the thoughts had started, the vivid recollections of every moment inside that room... and they didn't stop. 

She'd gone over every single medical decision they'd made in that room, every single stretch of packing gauze, every single heartbeat, every single call; everything up until that one single needle.

Mark and Lexie had side by side but they'd never been so far apart.

She hadn't been sure what would happen if Beth Montgomery died. 

Would the world just continue to spin the same? Sometimes, Lexie got distracted over how Beth seemed to consider herself the centre of the universe-- how she spoke, how she treated other people and seemed to act like the self-righteous main character of a shitty medical drama. Lexie had wondered what would happen if Beth just... died. 

If she truly was the centre of the universe, would things just continue the same, would Charlie disappear, would Mark--

"You still care about her, don't you?"

Lexie had not intended to ask that question. 

She hadn't intended for it to be the only sentence for her to say without a tremor or a pause. It was said suddenly and with crushing precision. 

Mark acted as though he'd been shot; he flinched slightly, acting as if it was the most painful thing that Lexie could say in that moment. 

For a second, she'd been completely bewildered by it, as if someone else had spoken entirely. But then reality had started moving again; her eyes had raised over to look at her ex-boyfriend, watched how his free hand sudden raised to rub at his jaw.

He hadn't met Lexie's eye. He hadn't spoken. He hadn't said yes. He hadn't said no.

He'd just smiled in a painful way that made Lexie's heart squeeze tight (later, she'd liken it to the feeling of a fist clenching it's way through bone and flesh and pinching her atriums between finger and thumb). 

She couldn't describe it. It flickered, a betrayal of his muscles that he didn't seem to notice, almost as if the smile was muscle memory from five years ago. It existed only for a second and, once it was gone, Lexie had a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

Somehow, a lack of answer had been worse than a verbal cue. Lexie's eyes burned into his profile and his arm burned into her skin-- it was times like this that she remembered how much she'd loved him, how many things were unsaid between them, and how, just two hours ago, Mark Sloan had told Lexie Grey that he missed her.

"Okay," Lexie had said, turning her head back towards the hospital. "Okay."

Maybe Beth wasn't the centre of the universe scientifically speaking, but Lexie was pretty sure that she was still the centre of Mark's.

***

In the therapy session, three hours before Beth would join Andrew for her first, Lexie paused. She was holding her breath from her question. 

She was gazing over at her therapist, willing him to say something, willing him to answer. Why had Beth saved her life? Why had a woman who Lexie was so hell bent on keeping at arms length been so eager to take a bullet for her? Lexie couldn't understand—

He didn't answer.

(He didn't know the answer to her question.)

"I feel like I hallucinated the whole thing," Her voice was raw, coupled with the weight of Dr Perkins' eyes on her. He'd been silent throughout the majority of the session, just listening to her expel whatever thoughts that tumbled through her disordered brain. "I-I feel like I'm the only person who-who is thinking about everything over and over..."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"You're not," Lexie had almost forgotten what Dr Perkins' voice sounded like. He spoke up tenderly, raising his chin as he dispelled her thoughts. She couldn't shake off how heavy his words felt. "People process trauma in very different ways. It's not always visible. I can assure you that you're not the only person—"

"Why can't I be invisible?" Her reply was patterned with desperation. "Because Alex— he was shot and he's fine... he just... he just went back to work so quickly and is fine— and Derek just turned up at work and got back to normal really quickly— and I just— why is everything so fast? Why do I have to scream at patients and sit in padded rooms?! I-I didn't even get shot."

Beth would do the same. 

Each one of them would continue with their lives as if nothing had happened; they'd pick themselves off of the floors they'd bled out on and dust themselves down. 

She'd watched Alex be fine for the past two months-- her ex-boyfriend was perfectly fine, good as new and it bewildered Lexie.

"We don't get to decide how these things happen, Lexie," His reply, on the other hand, was cool and calm. "We just get to decide how we handle them—"

His answer didn't satisfy her.

"It feels like everyone is lying all over again," She was talking fast again. Too quickly, too fast— "I just don't know what to do-- I feel like this is all the Beth crap all over again and I'm just- I-I'm just going to end up left behind and sad and unable to d-do anything other than wonder why my ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend d-decided to step in between me and—"

"Lexie."

Psychiatrists didn't interrupt. 

It was the golden rule of therapy. It would have been far more professional to let Lexie ramble herself into exhaustion, but Dr Perkins, Charlie, spoke quietly, attempting to slow her down.

"I-I just keep thinking," Lexie was ranting with passion. She appeared as if she was truly embedded in her own thoughts, rolling and rolling with whatever vein she'd tapped in her brain. "Over and over— Why? Why would she do that— is it seflessness? Is she just a really good person a-and I'm the one whose delusional? T-that everyone is just right about h-her being this amazing person--"

"Lexie."

"Or... or did she do it because she wants me to feel indebted to her?" She continued, undetered by the interjections. "M-Mark said she was manipulative b-but I don't— Would she do that? D-Do you think she'd do that?" Again, he didn't answer her question. He just stared at her, appearing uncomfortable. "I-Is this whole thing j-just a way to, uh, get in my head? Or d-did she want to die? Is she suicidal I d-don't— I've just really been struggling to-"

"Lexie, please-"

"I really don't know w-what to think anymore I-I think I just—"

"Doctor Grey."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Lexie fell silent.

Suddenly it hit her. 

The man across from her, Charlie, leant back in his chair. 

He heaved a long breath, turning his head away to look over at the far wall; amongst the conversation, amongst the therapy, he seemed to need his own moment. 

It was in this moment that Lexie realised her mistake-- sure, he was her psychiatrist, the doctor who had been assigned to listen to her whims and troubles but he was also very personally connected to... well... all of this. 

He was Charlie. 

She stared at him, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights, and watched as he rubbed at his forehead.

Her eyes stung slightly. Crap.

"I..."

 She didn't know what to say. For the first time since the shooting, the world seemed to slow the tiniest bit. It slowed for Lexie to notice the exact way Charlie wrangled his professional composure back into shape. 

It was a relatively quick process as if Charlie was used to suppressing his thoughts and emotions. 

"I'm so sorry I..."

"Don't apologise," He said, smiling gravely at her. There was less sparkle in his smile now; it felt rehearsed and Lexie felt bad. "This is about you, you're welcome to be honest about the way you feel."

Lexie wondered that if they hadn't been in a professional setting, would Charlie have hated her too? 

She didn't mean to make people hate her. She really hadn't meant to offend him either-- Lexie was beginning to hate the fact that she'd become the sort of person who spoke without thinking. She always had so many thoughts... why didn't she think about what she was going to say?

"I'm not a bad person," The worst felt redundant but Lexie said them anyway. Charlie had been writing on his sheet of paper, but looked up just in time to see the swirling turmoil in her eyes. "A-At least I don't think I am."

"You have been through a very traumatic experience," Charlie said softly, "Your experiences and the trauma... and the way that you process that trauma does not necessarily make you a bad person," Listening to his words, Lexie wondered whether Gary Clark was a bad person. He'd been bereaved and angry and he'd processed his trauma in a way that made Lexie feel physically sick. "And even then, I don't think bad people will apologise for... anything."

"I try to be a good person," Lexie said, "I try to be nice to people... a-and good at my job and... Over the past three months I-I just..."

Charlie was nodding softly, sympathetically, but Lexie knew that he didn't understand. 

She didn't like hurting people, she didn't like hating people-- there was just something very specific about Beth that didn't settle with her. Whenever she saw Beth, whenever the psychiatrist walked past her in the hall, all Lexie could do was think about what Mark had said when they'd broken up: the pain in his voice and the way that his whole body had bunched as if he was traumatised even before they'd watched everyone get shot. 

Lexie couldn't explain it but it was this feeling... this feeling that Beth was hiding so much more than she was saying... and the love that Lexie had left for Mark turned to spite towards that woman.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

In the pause between Lexie's words and the continuation in the therapy session, Lexie held her head in hands and just listened to the sound of the clock in the background.

Usually, it petrified her. Lately, she'd been so terrified of time passing, of being left behind while people just moved on with their lives. 

However, in this room, with a patient Charlie sitting at a desk that wasn't his, Lexie didn't feel the same fear. Instead, the Tick. Tick. Tick. of the clock felt like a reminder that she was alive, that she'd stood at the end of Gary Clark's gun and survived. 

It was a bizarre, new sensation that she didn't exactly hate. Lexie chalked the feeling up to the fact that the clock sounded as though it was broken-- even with timepieces broken, time still persisted.

"Okay," Charlie said quietly as if not to startle her. 

They were coming towards the end of the session and Lexie could hear the shift of paper as Charlie finished his page of notes. 

"What I think I'm going to do is suggest a revision of your sleep medication..." He spoke systemtatically and quietly. Lexie flinched. "What you're on now is very heavy and we aim to slowly reduce them until you're able to fall back into your own natural sleeping pattern..."

Lexie hadn't realised it before but she was fairly certain this was Beth's office. 

The space had been cleared over the past two months and repurposed for the counselling sessions. 

Lexie stared at the floor.

"I think it would also be best to refer you back to the other Doctor Perkins, I feel like it would be more beneficial for you to speak to Andrew. He'd be able to offer you a lot more insight over these thoughts you're having," His voice was calm and professional. "I know you wanted to be reconsidered for surgery and that you think that you might not be suited... but I think that at the moment continuing to come to work and focus your energy onto something would be very beneficial..."

Lexie didn't speak.

"Do you have any questions?"

His words caused Lexie to run a hand through her hair and let out a long sigh. 

She straightened in her chair, head still full of messy thoughts, and pressed a hand to her lips and look at Charlie. 

He was gazing at her, pen abandoned on the desk. 

She could tell he was thinking a lot. 

His hands were clapsed in front of him and his shoulders were henched slightly.

She was thinking a lot too. Specifically, about that day, sat on the curb beside Mark Sloan and watching the world continue, uninterrupted. 

She had so many questions but none that Charlie could answer. They were all about the same thing: Mark and Beth. Beth and Mark. 

What had their relationship been like? How desperately had they loved each other? How desperately had they held on? 

How naive had Lexie been not to notice the tension between them this whole time?

"Okay," Charlie repeated, sensing that there was nothing that Lexie had to say. He cleared his throat and pushed himself away from the desk. She wondered what he thought of her. He got to his feet and walked towards a filing cabinet in the corner, his back turned to her. "I'll talk to Andrew and we'll let you know when your next session is..."

And then the next words that came out of her mouth were catastrophic:

"I think Mark's still in love with Beth."

She didn't see his face, but she did see the way his shoulders tensed at those words. 

She'd said the words so slowly-- why was these things slow but everything else was so fast?-- and just watched the way that Charlie seemed to freeze in the process of filing. 

It was just like how Mark had reacted when she'd asked if he still cared; the movement was brief, if Lexie had blinked she would've missed it completely. 

Charlie faltered for a second but then he breezed onwards as if she hadn't said anything at all--

People were always pretending nothing happened.

"I t-think he, uh, I think he still cares," She was tripping over her words again. In all honesty, she was mortified over what she'd just said. With Charlie's back to her and the fingers trembling, Lexie felt like a bad person for saying that. "I-I'm scared that I was just a r-rebound and that he didn't really care... and that he still loves Beth... just a little bit and I..."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Visibly, Charlie paused. 

It was a long pause. It was too long to be casual, too long for Lexie to dismiss it. 

The way that his body seemed to stall and his head bowed for a second, Lexie could tell that these thoughts weren't alien to Charlie at all. 

That was the difference between Lexie and Charlie-- while Lexie had been so clueless about Mark and Beth's past, Charlie had known every step of the way.

"I... just..." Lexie didn't know what to say. She shouldn't have said anything at all. "I-I'm scared of that. I'm scared t-that this was all just a big joke-- a-and that people w-were laughing at me for trying to be there for Mark the whole time-- I want someone to care about me that much... I need something--"

She was cut short by the sound of Charlie closing the filing cabinet. It was a sharp sound, far more cutting than his soft interruptions. 

She flinched in her chair, time pausing for the second time in the session. There was a delay between the sound and Charlie moving; but then he did, he turned to face Lexie.

There was tension in his body, but his face was stoic. He glanced down at the floor, ran a hand through his hair and then let out a breath, it was long, exhausted and made Lexie stare at him as if he'd just spoken. But he didn't. He walked towards her, placed the file on the desk and chewed on the inside of his cheek.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was so small. 

Her thoughts were dangerous. Her anxieties, her trauma-- they were all extremely catastrophic for her to burden on him in particular. 

She was so sorry-

He just chuckled lightly to himself. "It's fine."

It didn't sound fine. 

It was a chuckle founded in the same expression that had flickered over Mark's face. It was tight and it sounded uncomfortable. It was unprofessional and it was a betrayal. 

It was the twitch in Charlie's face as he closed his eyes for a second and then, once the waters had settled, continued as if nothing had been said. He spoke about admin, asked Lexie about her plans for the day... and the whole time Lexie just found herself watching the world spin too quickly. 

He told her to have a good day and when she stood, it was if she could feel everything speed up again--

Maybe she wasn't the only one who was scared.

***

That second puzzle Lexie had spoken about before, that was Beth. 

There was something there, something that no one was able to figure out-- how badly Lexie wouldn't put all of the puzzle pieces together to build the bigger picture. But, she wasn't a Cluedo board, she wasn't a game of chess... She was this living, breathing person. 

A person who had made the decision to sacrifice her life for someone that had only caused her problems.

Lexie really, really didn't like Beth at all. She also really, really didn't like the fact that she felt like she'd never be able to repay Beth for the decision that she'd made.

***

Later that evening, just before Charlie Perkins left for his fiancé's dinner party, he received a visitor.

The visitor came with storm on their heels, entering the small office without knocking. He'd been in session with a patient, his last session of the day. 

Alex Karev filled the seat that Lexie Grey had left, denying that he had any emotional burdens at all-- but then the door had burst open and their heads had lifted to stare at the visitor in the doorway.

"You didn't take Lexie Grey off of surgery?"

Mark Sloan sounded incredulous. 

He walked into Beth's old office towards Charlie as if he'd done it a thousand times. He completely disregarded the patient sat opposite the psychiatrist, face contorting with frustration. Mark's fists were clenched and a vein popped in his forehead. 

Charlie just looked between Alex and the plastic surgeon, raising an eyebrow.

"Dr Sloan," Charlie sounded unbothered, completely unfazed by the amount of heat that burned in Mark's voice. "I'm currently in session—"

"I had to check her into psych," Mark's eyes blazed, glowering at Charlie as he struggled to understand what was going on. Charlie's jaw clenched. "I had to commit her against her will!"

"I understand that—"

"And even after everything you haven't taken her off of surgery?" He was on the verge of yelling. Charlie raised in his chair, his lips in a thin line as his words were just washed out over his loud, brass voice. "What the kind of doctor are you?"

A beat passed. 

They were staring at each other, tension ringing in the air as Mark's anger filled all of the free space in the room. Alex, who was still slumped in his chair, looked between the two doctors, recognising the strain in the small office. 

It was uncomfortable, it was almost explosive. Neither of them spoke, neither of them made any indication of wanting to be the first one to look away. A small voice at the back of Alex's head likened the sight to a stand-off in a Western movie. 

Something in his head, or maybe his gut, told him that this minor altercation had been a long time coming.

"I'll come back," Alex said. 

In all honesty, he couldn't be bothered to put up with this drama. He had rounds to complete, patients to look after and a career to put his energy into. He got to his feet, shooting a final look between the two men. 

Charlie opened his mouth to interject but, again, was drowned out by the angry plastic surgeon in the centre of the room.

Mark wheeled around to scoff at him. "Yeah, walk away. You're good at that."

The surgical resident showed no indication of hearing him; Charlie watched as Alex just walked straight out of the door, not slowing, even when the office door slammed behind him and caused the walls too shudder. 

The sound did nothing to dispel the tension in the room. As Mark crossed his arms over his chest, Charlie just heaved a large sigh, clasping his hands in front of him and pushing Alex's medical notes aside.

"I understand that you're concerned about Dr Grey-"

"She's a nervous wreck," Mark snapped. He took a few steps forwards, leaning heavily against the front of the desk and shaking his head at Charlie's audacity. "I asked your brother to review her because she's not okay—"

"Your concerns are appreciated," His replies were almost robotic (Mark wondered whether all psychiatrists just had a sheet of words that they could just read off of to answer every question (He could imagine Beth saying the same thing)). "Dr Perkins asked me to review Lexie and I concluded that she's perfectly able to working—"

"She's not!" Mark insisted, nostrils flaring. "The girls a goddamn mess!"

Charlie didn't respond. His eyes just stared at this man. 

It was the same man he'd spent the last five years hearing so much about. An angry, inconvenienced Mark Sloan who couldn't understand what was going on. Charlie swallowed and averted his eyes to the computer screen at his side.

"With all due respect, Doctor Sloan, you're not her doctor," He'd always been so good at keeping calm, but there was a tell-tale muscle twitching in his forehead. His right hand very subtly clenched into a fist. "In my expert opinion, Lexie Grey is completely fine for surgery. We will not change our decisions based upon external pressure—"

He'd never had to justify himself like this before.

"She was committed to psych for two days—"

"She got snowed," Charlie said tightly, "Psych put her on heavy doses of antipsychotics and benzos. And then she slept for almost 50 hours straight. When she woke up, she was no longer a risk to herself or others."

"But still she's not okay—"

"I mean, she has P.T.S.D. Most of the staff here do," Charlie continued, barely even faltering. "For her, it caused severe sleep deprivation and led to a breakdown. All she needed was sleep. So protocol is that she goes back to work."

It was Mark's turn to pause. He didn't speak; he just scoffed to himself, shaking his head (Charlie wouldn't understand, he hadn't been in that room, he hadn't been on that street). 

They were two contrasting figures. 

Mark: angry and inconvenienced. 

Charlie: collected and calm. 

The psychiatrist just watched from his seat, watched as Mark ran a hand over his face and just seethed silently.

Mark clearly cared about Lexie a lot.

"It's good that you care about her," Charlie's words were stoic, but his fingers twitched at the ghost of Lexie's earlier statement. Mark didn't meet his eye. "She needs someone to look out for her. Her recovery isn't going to be easy and she's going to need a lot of support—"

"I'm not her boyfriend."

He seemed to have hit a nerve.

Again, Charlie averted his eyes down onto the table. 

He kissed his teeth and watched Mark out of the corner of his eye. What a mysteriously complex man he was-- Charlie didn't exactly understand why people seemed to like him so much. Or maybe he understood exactly why people like Addison, Archer and Beth were so abhorrent towards him. He seemed to have tired himself out. 

Charlie watched as Mark's temper fizzled short, seeming to sense that there was no way that Charlie was going to change his mind.

Quickly, Mark turned to leave. 

He was going to leave as quickly as he'd appeared. He wasn't going to say sorry and he sure as hell wasn't going to say goodbye, however, just before he crossed the threshold, he paused and looked back. 

Charlie hadn't expected it; his eyebrows rose as he watched Mark exhaled as if he was about to speak.

Was he going to apologise?--

"Does Beth need anything for this dinner thing tonight?"

The split second after Mark's question was filled with bewilderment. 

Charlie didn't exactly know what he meant; the psychiatrist had just stared at him, head filled with static as he processed what was happening.

"I just thought that I should..." Mark responded to the confusion on Charlie's face, his voice noticeably less heated than it had been two minutes ago. "I should bring something... like a pie or something... I don't know—"

(Charlie didn't know that Mark had been invited.)

"Uh," Charlie cleared his throat, shaking his head. He'd blinked at the floor, surprise overwhelming him. "No, we're good thanks."

We're good.

Mark just nodded and turned on his heel and walked away. The psychiatrist couldn't help but just stare after him, directly through the door as if he could see Mark all the way down the corridor. He didn't look away until he'd managed to make his mind start moving again; Charlie let out a breath that he hadn't realised he was holding. 

He sat back in his chair, pushed back his hair and massaged his forehead.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

***

At dinner, it was something that Charlie hadn't been able to stop thinking about.

He'd looked between Mark and Beth as Addison revealed that things hadn't been exactly how everyone had thought they were-- he'd watched as Beth cursed out Addison and avoided everyone's eye and held onto Charlie's hand so tightly she'd cut off his blood circulation. 

He'd watched the way that Mark had seemed to become so uncomfortable, the way that Derek hadn't removed his eyes from his best-friend not once and the way that Archer seemed to drown everyone's words out with the bottom of the bottle of red wine.

Once all of the people had left, all conversation had ended and plates had been cleared away, Charlie held Beth in his arms and she'd raised an eyebrow up at him. 

He'd been so quiet, so introspective and kissed Beth that night so passionately that he hoped that she could hear everything that he couldn't say. 

The doctor-patient confidentiality was a constant cloud at the back of his head.

Secrets were the sort of thing that terrified Charlie. He'd been raised with too many half-truths and half-lies and the grey area between honest and not. As Charlie thought about what Lexie had said, he concluded that he didn't care if Beth was hiding things from him.

He had his lies and half-truths too.

"What was that for?"

It was a confused but delighted statement, one that punctuated Charlie pressing his forehead against hers. When he opened his eyes, her brown, sad eyes were gazing at him softly. They'd been in bed, sheets tousled and naked bodies pressed against each other. Her light fingers had ran through his hair. 

When he'd tilted his head to the side in confusion, she'd chuckled: "Was work okay?"

Charlie sighed lightly, causing goosebumps to raise on her skin. "It was a long day. It's just a bit-"

Her hands dropped to hold the side of her jaw and she'd stopped him from looking away from her; she turned his face back towards her and searched his eyes, lips parted slightly as she recognised the weight on his shoulders. She smiled at him sadly.

"Yeah," She said, and for a moment, Charlie could tell that she was not okay at all either. Lexie had been so wrong about people just being fine-- "It's been a very long day."

They'd laid there for a long time, soaking in the recollection of conversations they'd had over the past day. They hadn't spoken, they'd just left each other to their thoughts— Charlie was been able to sense that Beth didn't want to talk about dinner. 

After all of the conversations and the therapy and the drama... they'd just held each other and toyed with the idea of falling asleep. Beth was the first person to doze off. Charlie pressed his lips against the crown of her head.

"Beth?" He spoke very softly into her hair. For a second, he thought that she already asleep but then she hummed into his chest, the vibration of her voice causing goosebumps to raise on his skin. "I love you."

She smiled. He felt the expression against his chest.

They'd persist. Charlie was convinced of it. 

He was convinced that nothing worse could happen to them. It was something they'd all as a collective realised tonight anyway-- it was only a matter of time until the truth came out.