𝙇𝙓𝙑𝙄𝙄.
MENS REA

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an: hahahaah buckle in folks
this is a wild one
it's what you've all been waiting for

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SEATTLE

IT WAS NEEDLESS to say that this was definitely not what Charlie had expected.

He found himself pausing in the doorway of the apartment, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly ajar. He didn't quite know what to think or what to say-- the two people in the centre of the room seemed to pause in unison. 

There was a definite halt, the sort of frozen moment in which he struggled to accept what he was seeing. 

His eyes bounced from one person to the other and a very slow, unsure smile unfurled across his face.

"Hi."

He sounded hesitant. 

Of course, he was hesitant. Beth and Addison were sat at the dining table and his first instinct was to check that they were both completely intact. After a few moments of accounting for all of their limbs, Charlie realised that they were. 

There was no blood, no sign of any physical altercation or injury. He took a few slow steps across the floor, closed the door behind him and blinked as if he expected the image in front of him to disappear as soon as he reopened his eyes (it didn't). 

Charlie found himself staring at reality: Beth and Addison drinking coffee and talking tulle.

"Hi," He lingered behind Beth's chair, trailing a hand down her shoulders as he passed and glancing over at what she was reading. 

The dining table was stacked with wedding magazines, the most that he'd ever seen in this apartment at once. There was a bright look on Beth's face as she smiled at him, a pen twirling in her hand and a chuckle brewing at the back of her throat. 

"How was work?"

"Good," He breathed out, still completely taken aback by the sight of Addison Montgomery in their apartment. 

She sat in the exact same dining chair that she'd sat in at the dinner party. She was dressed as if she'd just come from work, one leg folded over the other and a purse leaning against the table leg by her foot. 

Charlie nodded in her direction. "Addison."

The Neonatal surgeon looked up and gave him a wide smile in greeting, "Charlie."

He wasn't sure whether he'd accidentally walked into the wrong apartment building and thus into a whole different dimension. He was seeing things correctly, right? Here they were, acting as if he hadn't watched Beth attempt to burn Addison at the stake-- what had happened to the witch hunt? 

The simple thought of them being in the same space together was enough for him to want to wince. He kept looking between the two of them as if he was watching a tennis match: back and forth, back and forth, back and--

Maybe it was just an exhaustion induced hallucination? He'd just finished a night shift, blinking through his sunglasses as his eyes throbbed in the morning sunlight. 

He'd spent the whole night on-call running around the hospital trying to fix everything and anything-- now, as he stood at the head of the dining table, he wasn't sure what to do.

"Addison's helping me organise things," Beth said lightly. 

After dropping his bag on the counter, he found himself drifting to her, peering down at the printed pictures of bouquets. Her manner and smile immediately struck him as concerning; she spoke with an enthusiasm that didn't suit her. He squinted down at his fianceé and gently rested his hand against her shoulder. 

"We're getting a lot done, aren't we Addie?"

"We are," Addison agreed, not looking up from a list that was in front of her.

From here, Charlie could see that they'd thrown together some sort of planner and mood board (by 'they', he very much assumed that it had been Addie's idea and Addie's execution) covered in assorted pictures. 

Much like Beth, Addison seemed to glimmer with an unnaturally bright enthusiasm, one that caused Charlie's skin to prickle.

He wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but whatever it was it felt vaguely political. Beth leant back against him, smiling pristinely over at her sister, face barely even twitching. He wondered whether this is how it felt to stand in a room with two opposing politicians.

 Here he was, lingering between Barack Obama and John McCain, wondering what the hell was going on in Beth's head.

"Well," Charlie cleared his throat and rubbed at his face, feeling the exhaustion bubble over inside of him. His skin throbbed and itched, his chest felt tight and there was a slight tremor in his fingers as he squeezed Beth's shoulder. "It's good to see you, Addison."

He felt Beth chuckle against him, sensing his awkwardness-- how the hell was she so collected? Not even a week ago he'd watched Beth tear this woman to shreds... and now suddenly they were bonding over flower arrangements and canapes. 

He glanced between them for a fifth, a sixth, a seventh time. He opened his mouth to speak, but thought against it, instead, opting to turn and slowly make his way into the kitchen.

"It's nearly time to go," Addison's statement made Charlie look back over at them, throwing a glance over her shoulder. 

Go where? 

She was staring at the watch on her wrist, warning Beth of the time-- To Charlie's surprise, Beth nodded, starting to clear the table as they both got to their feet. 

"I want to get there a bit early so I can meet with the patient," Addison said, "Complete some last-minute prep."

"Okay," Beth hummed lightly, checking her phone as she shoved in her chair. "I called Portage Bay Cafe and they said they can do brunch just before 11 am, does that sound good?"

Oh lord, brunch. 

Charlie caught Beth's eye as Addison confirmed that the time worked for her. Subtly, he quirked an eyebrow, questioning exactly what was going on-- for a split second, Beth's pristine smile wavered. 

It was a very small twitch, the sort of microexpression that Charlie wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been sensitive to her every gesture. Carefully, he inclined his head in the direction of the bedroom and disappeared into the back room of the apartment. 

Beth followed a few minutes behind.

"Is this some sort of trap?" He mused as he changed out of his work shirt and Beth closed the door behind them, making sure her sister couldn't overhear. She hummed lightly, running a hand through her hair. "Is this some sort of a sneak attack where you're going to end up asking me to help you hide a body?"

Beth snorted.

"No," She said, rolling her eyes and disappearing into the closet. 

When she reappeared, she was holding a jacket and her bag, a light smile on her face. He watched as she came towards him, gently taking his chin and pressing her lips to his. 

She patted his cheek. "You'd be crap at hiding a body, baby. My first call would be Eli."

He laughed, but couldn't shake the sense of suspicion out of his bones. 

He resurfaced from the neck of his shirt, catching the mischievous smile that flickered across her face. She leant against the dresser, tilting her head to the side and watching him as he tried to unwind from his long shift. Idly, he wondered whether it felt as weird to her as it did to him. Just over the span of a few months, their roles had been completely reversed. 

Charlie had been the one unemployed and aimless and Beth had been working tirelessly. Now, Beth was holding a wedding magazine as she watched him dress. She was in jeans and one of his old college shirts, hair slightly unruly. Her smile seemed genuine as he turned and looked at her.

He liked this. He liked seeing her smile.

The last few months had been so dark. They'd been filled with Beth barely pulling through, needing all of the patience and the composure that either of them could muster. Sometimes, when Charlie blinked, all he could see was her ventilated body in that Seattle Pres hospital bed.

He really liked seeing her smile.

"Sure," Charlie responded, half-agreeing that he would be pretty useless. He was slightly distracted, clearing his throat as he continued. "Do I need to expect a call from the county jail later?"

She chuckled.

"No, Addison's letting me sit in the gallery of a big surgery she has today," Ah. That was where the good mood was coming from today. Her smile got wider and she flipped through her purse, setting it on the bed. "I'm not saying murder is off the table but when there's a patient out there being prepped for a surgery they've flown all the way from LA for..." Beth shrugged. "I think that'd be a little bit rude--"

"So?" He interjected. "Does this mean you're friends again?"

The reaction from Beth was expected. 

The word friends seemed to cause her to chuckle. She grimaced very slightly, stepped towards him and threw a weary glance towards the door. Once she was sure Addison wouldn't overhear, Charlie was subjected to a very slight scoff. 

He watched her closely, seeing the miffed look stretch across her face and the way her her lip curled almost bitterly. She sat down on the bed and rolled her eyes.

"I want nothing more than to slap the stupid smirk off of her face," was her very democratic reply. 

It was enough for him to chuckle mostly out of surprise, taken off-guard by the frankness of her words. Charlie stood in front of her, crossing his arms over his chest. 

She reached out and grabbed his hands, briefly pausing so she could play with his fingers, "I don't trust her and I don't particularly like her either. But Archer needs me to play nice... so I'm playing nice."

He raised an eyebrow, "You? Nice? Never."

"I have my moments," Beth said lightly. 

She dropped her eyes to his hand, running her fingertip over the scar that was left after the great pumpkin carving incident-- Charlie felt a shiver run down his spine. His thumb twitched and he tried his best to stop himself from exposing the slight tremor that constantly ran through his body. 

She paused and then laughed to herself, too lost in thought to convince the trembling of his hand. 

"Is it normal to hate your sibling?"

"I'd say it's more than normal. When I was five I told Andy I'd never speak to him again because he tore up my favourite stuffed toy by accident," Charlie mused in response, his lips twitching with a smile. Beth's head raised at his word, unable to stop her eyebrows from rising. He chuckled. "I guess your situation is a little different, huh?"

"Mhmm," She hummed, nodding along to the pace of her words, "Yeah, I'm sure she accidentally decided to tear apart my relationship. I'm sure Addison accidentally decided to gaslight me. I'm sure she accidentally--"

"Okay," Charlie nodded, realising his mistake. "Really different."

"Well," Beth pulled a face, "I'm sure they're almost equal--"

He chuckled, "I'm sensing some sarcasm."

"Me? Sarcastic?" Beth got to her feet and flashed a crooked grin, "Never."

He stepped back, letting her pass, and busied himself with unpacking his work bag, sorting through what was leftover from his shift.

 As he headed into the bathroom, Beth called over her shoulder, spritzing herself with perfume and shrugging on her jacket.

"Have you spoken to Andrew yet?"

Her question was innocent on the surface but made his chest get considerably tighter. Charlie stared at his reflection as she spoke, gently rubbing at his chin and removing his sunglasses-- a pair of bloodshot eyes met him with pinpoint pupils that seemed to scream discomfort. 

He blinked as he struggled to adjust to the light, and massaged his eyelids. When he opened them again, there were little white spots cluttering his vision like little stars that had fallen a little too low into a restroom in Central Seattle.

"I did last night," He called back, his voice cracking slightly as he continued what he'd come inside to do. 

He ran the faucet and splashed water on his face, inhaling deeply as the cold liquid made his warm skin tremble. In the next room, he could faintly hear Beth ask a very pointed 'And?', encouraging him to continue. 

"I'm sorry, B," Charlie cleared his throat, shaking his head to a woman who couldn't see him: "I don't think I can convince him--"

"I swear to god," Beth interrupted him, rushing into the bathroom with the urgency of a woman who was slowly losing patience. He almost jumped at her sudden appearance, still half-blinded by the water in the sink. "I know I said that I wouldn't murder anyone today, but your brother is really just begging--"

"Okay," Charlie interjected for the second time in the past five minutes. He waved a hand, trying to calm her tirade down," Maybe we should stop talking about murder this early in the morning..."

She stared at him as if finally noticing how rough he looked. He looked as though he'd had a very, very long night and that he really desperately needed some sleep. 

Charlie's bloodshot eyes and shrunken pupils made Beth's face slacken. She searched his face, let out a long sigh and shook her head. Gently, Beth let against the bathtub, scrunching her brow.

"Long night? You seem very jumpy--"

"Yeah," He said, nodding solemnly and averting his eyes. He itched at his arms, digging his trimmed nails into his prickling skin. Suddenly, Charlie felt the need to change the subject. He cleared his throat. "I tried to talk to Andrew but he's just... he's sticking it out."

Beth grimaced, "I know." 

The sparkle disappeared from her eye and she seemed to languish over it for a few, passing seconds. She squeezed her eyes closed and pinched the bridge of her nose. 

"And I appreciate it so much that you keep asking and fighting for me to get back to work..."

He spent a long moment just staring at her, watching as her hands dropped to her sides and she seemed to let out the longest breath humanly possible-- for a split moment, Beth collapsed in on herself like a funhouse that was slowly being deflated. 

All of the air and the oomph seemed to been squeezed clean from her as if Charlie had put his arms around her and just crushed her like orange pulp in her hand. It was fleeting. She always had been good at building herself back together quickly.

"He's stubborn, that one," was what she said eventually, shoulders raising and chin tilting upwards. 

She gave him a breathy smile as if nothing had happened and pushed away from the bathtub with a sharp pep in her step. The smile that Beth shot him over her shoulder was slightly strained. 

"I guess it's a thing for the older siblings huh?" She suggested, "They can't be swayed?"

Charlie felt his heartthrob a little bit in his chest and his stinging eyes diligently fell to the floor. She disappeared out of sight and he returned to staring at his reflection. 

A beat passed. Charlie just leant against the basin, bracing his hands on either side of the sink. He hung his head, closing his eyes for a split second.

"...Maybe everyone's right?" Beth continued, her voice distant in the next room. Charlie didn't look up, just imagined her packing her bag and flailing her arms around. She sounded exasperated as if she'd suddenly just been hit with a very troubling train of thought. "This isn't healthy, is it?" A pause. "God, I really am some obsessive workaholic like Derek, aren't I?"

Charlie didn't exactly know how to respond to that one. He so desperately hoped that it was a rhetorical question. With a slight sigh, he reached up towards the bathroom cabinet, his reflection disappearing from his train of thought. He moved a few objects across the interior shelves and frowned lightly to himself, suddenly very aware that he couldn't find what he was looking for. A sharp flash of panic ran through him and he swore quietly to himself, stepping backwards and getting onto his knees to check under the sink.

"Beth, we're gonna be late!"

Addison called out through the bedroom door, startling Charlie as he rooted through the bottom cabinet-- he jerked upwards, catching his head on the top of the shelving unit. 

Bang. He swore, loudly, drawing backwards and pressing against his skull with a grimace on his face. Immediately, Beth appeared in the doorway, staring at him with raised eyebrows.

"You okay?" She asked, eyes flickering between him, his throbbing skull and the open bathroom cabinets. The bathroom mirror was cocked outwards, reflected the way her head cocked in questioning as she stepped towards him. Charlie chuckled to himself, still rubbing the crown of his head. "What were you doing?"

"I was trying to find the toilet paper," He said without a moment's hesitation. He even inclined his chin in the direction of the empty holder. His tone was so natural, so easy that Beth didn't sense anything was wrong. "I think the cabinet fought back--"

"Wow," A light laugh fell through her lips and she gestured for him to lower down so she could check the back of his head. He did so, allowing her to gently part his hair and check his scalp. "My brave little adventurer... luckily it looks like it wasn't too bad of an attack--"

"You should see the other guy," Charlie joked. 

She snorted to herself, tapping on his chin for him to straighten. He did so, pausing as their faces loomed in front of each other. They were so close. He realised that they hadn't really had the time to really be with each other lately. She searched his face. He wondered what she saw because a dent appeared between her eyebrows. He cleared his throat and gestured towards the cabinet-- he took a step back. 

"I might have to go round two for some double-ply--"

"It really has been a long night, huh?" She asked, tilting her head to the side. He just blinked at her, not quite understanding what she meant. Beth chuckled slightly, placing her hands on her hips. "Babe-- it's in the kitchen. Just like it always is--"

"Of course," Charlie felt his stomach twist and he immediately pulled a face, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. "Yeah, okay. I think I should probably sleep. I'm feeling a little, uh--"

(Offhandedly, Beth was wondering whether this was some sort of definitive crossroads moment. Stood in front of her was an exhausted man who was working himself to the bone. Her heart almost bled at the sight of him. She almost never saw him without those sunglasses, even now they swung from the collar of his t-shirt. Tired and drained and clearly completely disoriented.)

(Was this what she'd appeared like? Was this a glimpse into the past? Had she manifested something so prophetic in her leave? It was almost uncanny to experience-- No wonder things had ended as they had. She felt great sadness swell in her at such a sight.)

Beth chewed on the inside of her cheek and smiled at him gently, resting her hands on his shoulder, pulling him closer to her. 

She kissed him sweetly and ruffled his hair, smiling when he feigned a wince. "I'll leave you to rest. I think my sister's gonna lose her shit if I keep her any longer--"

Charlie wished she'd stay.

He watched her walk away. As she left, a muscle twitched in his jaw; he rubbed at it tirelessly, averting his eyes back to the cabinet under the sink. 

With a slight moment of hesitation, Charlie closed the door with his foot and headed out after her. In the bedroom, Beth was still going through her work bag, sighing as if she'd misplaced something.

"Everything okay?"

"Not really," Beth didn't look up. 

Instead, she turned to the bedside end table and started pulling out the bottom draw. He watched, brow furrowing just as hers had a few minutes ago. 

"I can't find my stupid--" 

She cut herself off, letting out a breath of relief as if she'd found what she was looking for. She drew out a notebook, one that looked as though it had been purchased but never used. 

Beth cursed to herself. "No! Dammit--"

"What have you lost?" 

Charlie's first impulse was to help, but there was a tightness in his chest and a distant ringing in his ears. He looked down onto the bedspread, spying Beth's purse and cheque book just lying on the comforter.

"Well," Beth said with a slightly uneasy laugh, "Other than my goddamn mind? Apparently, everything that's of even the slightest importance to me."

Immediately, Charlie's eyes flew to her hand. 

It was the first logical inference for him to make. His eyes sought out the ring on her ring finger and he felt a familiar sharp stab of panic run through him when he realised it wasn't there. 

(He'd felt this before. Again, his mind strayed to Beth in that hospital bed. Charlie hadn't noticed it at first... but then a visiting Arizona had mentioned it. Where was it? Where had it gone? Had it been caught up in the chaos? Had it fallen off in the ambulance or in the hallway where Beth had been shot?-- Or had it been pawned into the pocket of a pair of scrubs, bloody and heavy to whoever bore it?) 

As if sensing the sudden attention, Beth's finger twitched and she looked upwards.

"Do you know where you last had it?"

"I have no idea," Beth admitted slowly, straightening from her stoop and running her fingers through her hair. "I can't remember. I feel like it was such a long time since I last had it-- Jeff said that there wasn't any sign of it in my office and I thought it would be at the bottom of my work bag but I don't--"

"Ah," Charlie sighed. 

He looked around the room, grimacing as he thought about how awkward it had been to find the first time it'd been misplaced-- his skin prickled at the thought of Mark Sloan stood in that hallway, blue eyes stormy and hand holding out the diamond ring (or maybe he was uncomfortable because, these days, he seemed to be plagued with a constant itch that couldn't be ever satisfied.) 

"Were you planning on telling me?--"

"I've kind of been preoccupied with trying to find it," Beth said as she rummaged through the bottom of her work bag for the thousandth time. She practically had her head inside it, eyes desperately searching to see whether it had gotten trapped in the lining. "I know it's quite a big deal but I was hoping that I'd just be able to resolve it really quickly--"

"Well," Charlie was slightly distracted. He itched at his neck and grimaced lightly to himself, looking around the room. "It's not the end of the world if you can't find it. I guess a ring like that isn't too hard to replace--"

"What do you mean-- Oh," Beth's head popped up and she blinked at him, realisation filling her. Her eyes travelled to her ring finger, then back up to her fiancé. There was a beat and then, very slowly, she chuckled to herself, shoulders falling. "I haven't lost the ring."

"Oh?"

"It's over there," She gestured over towards the dresser. He spied it out of the corner of his eye, sparkling maliciously as if taunting the two of them. When he looked back at Beth, she was chuckling, shaking her head slowly. She seemed to blanch at the thought of it. "Oh my god, if I'd lost that I'd be, y'know... I bit more––"

"It's best to be careful--"

"I'm talking about some work stuff," Beth cleared her throat, continuing to blitz through the room, tossing aside wedding magazines that were stacked at the foot of the bed. In the next room, they heard Addison calling her name, saying that she needed to go prep for her surgery. "I've misplaced some of my stuff from my office. Just some document pads-- I needed to sign a prescription but I couldn't find my pad--"

"Oh," Charlie said, looking around the room. His tongue, suddenly, felt too big for his mouth. His words felt clunky and awkward. "I didn't see it on your desk. Did Archer pack it away?"

"I don't know," Beth repeated, letting out an annoyed smile. "I wanted to drop it off in my office while I was in the hospital today. It's against company policy for me to have it outside of the hospital while I'm on leave. Andrew got a bit weird about it so--"

"Beth!"

"Ah, forget it! I've got to go," She said quickly, as Addison called through the door. 

She stooped, grabbing her purse and fixing her hair. The smile she shot in his direction was hurried. 

She pointed at him and kissed him of the cheek, gently squeezing his shoulder. "You. Sleep."

"Yes ma'am," Charlie feigned a smile, watching as she hurried in the direction of the bedroom door. She caught his eye as she closed it behind her, mouthing a few words as Addison stressed faintly in the distance. "Enjoy the surgery!"

And then she was gone. He was stuck to the spot until he heard the far away snap of the front door. Suddenly, the whole apartment was stiff with silence, the sort of emptiness and solitude that Charlie knew drove Beth crazy. 

His shoulders fell, his smile faded a little bit, and he threw a glance in the direction of the bed. Charlie dragged in a long breath; the air was cold and it rattled his lungs like the last breath of someone on the verge of death-- Slowly, he turned his back on the bedroom and wandered back into the bathroom.

Standing, once again, in front of the mirror, Charlie felt his head throb and his arms ache. 

Even his gums had the same dull pain as if his body was constantly on the verge of inflammation or shattering into several Charlie-shaped pieces. He massaged his forehead and let out a very long breath.

This was going to be a long day.

***

"Mark, do you have a second to talk?"

The question came as he left the elevator, quickly picking up his pace in the direction of the ER. In his pocket, his pager was still buzzing against his thigh, reminding him that he had a patient down in the ambulance bay waiting for him-- he looked over towards Derek and the Chief of Surgery appeared out of nowhere, seeming to have been searching for him. 

Mark's brow furrowed.

"I'm being paged to the pit."

"Urgently?"

"Seeing as it's been screaming at me for the past three minutes, I'm guessing so. It says multiple casualties. Sounds like a lot of fun," There was something vaguely desperate about the way Derek fell in step with him, following his quick pace. It made Mark frown, unease settling into him as he frowned over at his best friend. "Is this urgent?"

Derek seemed to hesitate for a second. 

There was something very, very off about him; he ran a hand through his hair as if by a nervous tick and seemed to twitch in agitation. There was something very clearly on his mind-- immediately, Mark figured that it must have something to do with the fact that he'd slept with Derek's newest hire. 

It must have been urgent, but Derek let out a breath, his words contradicting how he seemed to tense.

"It can wait," He said after a pause that was a little bit too long. 

Mark, again, got the impression that it definitely could not wait at all. He knew Derek well enough to know that there was something on the tip of his tongue. Mark halted in the middle of the hallway, causing Derek to raise his eyebrows in surprise.

"You sure?"

From the twist of Derek's face and the furrow of the ex-surgeon's brow, Mark could tell that the answer to that question was definitely 'No'. 

But again, instead, Derek just rubbed at his jaw and jerked his head in the direction of the ER at the bottom of the hallway.

"Page me when you're free."

Mark watched him turn on his heel and disappear back into the chaos of the busy hospital. He let himself just have a few seconds of confusion and then continued his frogmarch to the pit, passing an outgoing Callie with a gurney. 

They exchanged smiles in greeting, Mark eying the pained patient who looked as though they were about to have a very fun four hours on the OR table.

That's exactly what he needs today, Mark concluded as he responded to his page, A nice straight-forward surgery.

Daphne, the Head Trauma Nurse gestured in the direction of an oncoming ambulance in the bay. He skirted around Owen, who was in the middle of resuscitating a patient, and briefly caught Lexie's eye as she assisted. 

The very short glance made Mark's chest ache-- he cleared his throat and stepped into the chilly Seattle air.

"What have we got?"

Now that was something he hadn't anticipated: he met the eye of Archer Montgomery as the neurosurgeon received the incoming trauma, helping hold back the ambulance doors as a handful of people stepped out of the back. 

The two of them watched the patient bed descend, catching sight of a rush of white fabric speckled with blood. Mark's eyebrows raised and he stepped backwards, watching as a second patient bed followed, seeming to hold tightly to the first, fist thrust in the wave of white tulle. There was a moment of intense squabbling in which they realised that there were two women buried amongst what appeared to be the skirt of some sort of dress. 

The two patients yelled at each other, their voices muffled but overwhelmingly angry and loud.

Simultaneously, Archer and Mark's eyes both raised to watch the exhausted-looking paramedic grimace in their direction, followed closely by two panicked men. 

They blinked, completely lost on what was going on--

"Jackie Escott, 25 years old, she had a fall and took a bad blow to the head, burn to her upper left thigh, vital signs are stable," She gestured to the first bed, walking the patients through the door and into the hospital. Her head inclined to the one behind, "And Helena Boyd, 26 years old...also stable with obvious nasal fracture, facial lacs and a chunk of missing scalp."

"She ripped out my hair!" A face appeared in the second bed, the woman identified as Helena scowling in pain as she continued to hang onto the dress. 

From here, Mark could see the flash of the bald patch just by the crown of her head; he inwardly winced.

"She tried to kill me by pushing me off the platform!" was Jackie's response, her sharp glare cutting through the mass of fabric. 

Both women were bloodied and bruised and were contorted in pain, their faces scrunched as Daphne assigned them to the same room. 

Mark trailed behind, completely caught off-guard by the way they clung to each other as if neither of them could afford to let go.

"Who let go of the dress?" One of the men from before interjected desperately, eyes flickering between the two women. He craned his head, checking that Helena's hands were still clutching the fabric. "Did anybody let go of the dress?!"

"Hang in there honey," said the second man, slowing down to speak to Jackie. She looked over at him, wincing at the movement, but nodded, taking his words with great determination. He shot a serrated glance in the direction of, what Mark assumed was, the other couple. "Don't let her psych you out, all right?"

"Okay!" The Plastic Surgeon raised his voice, staring between all of the people. On the other side of, what was beginning to feel like, a procession, Archer met his eye, seeming to appreciate Mark getting everyone's attention. "What the hell is going on?"

The paramedic just sighed to herself, seeming completely reluctant to answer-- it was only then that they realised that there was another man following them. 

Unlike the others, he was dressed professionally and held a clipboard to his chest. His head popped up amongst the chaos and he spoke before anyone else could.

"It's a store contest. I'm the judge," As he spoke, Helena gave a long, sharp tug on the dress, causing Jackie to yell out in both pain and anger. Immediately, one of the trauma nurses stepped in between the two of them, relieving the tension of the dress. "The last one to let go of the wedding dress--"

"Wins the wedding of my dreams," Helena finished with a serrated glare in Jackie's direction.

"Of my dreams," corrected the other bride.

"All right," Mark interjected as Jackie attempted to rip the dress from Helena's hands. He gestured for her to stop, his brow furrowed as he looked between the two of them. "You two are injured, okay? You need to get your priorities straight and let go...." He caught Helena tensing to attempt a kick in Jackie's direction. "Let go of the dress so we can treat you."

In the background, Archer seemed to chuckle to himself, shaking his head. He glanced down at the bloodied, torn wedding dress and seemed to smile to himself, turning to talk to the trauma nurse beside him. 

Mark recognised him as Eli, a trauma nurse he tended to avoid just through the nurses' association with Archer's sister.

"Yeah," Helena scoffed; the man, who Mark assumed was her fiancé, shared the sentiment. They both looked at Mark as if he was mad. She shook her head, tightening her hold on the skirt. "That's not going to happen--"

"Okay, okay," Archer interrupted, shooting Mark a look out of the corner of his eye. 

The Plastic Surgeon could taste the exasperation in his tone. He wasn't sure whether it was directed towards the patients or the fact that he was going to have to work with his sister's ex-boyfriend and the man who had broken up his sister's marriage. 

"Fine," The neurosurgeon waved a hand, "Just make sure you don't strain yourselves! Let's move!"

It didn't hit Mark until they were trying to manoeuvre the squabbling couples into a trauma room, that this was the first time he'd worked with Archer since they'd all fallen apart. 

They'd worked together a few times back in Archer's Manhattan clinic, and Mark knew enough to know that Archer was very specific and stubborn in the way he worked. He wasn't dumb, he knew that Archer hadn't liked him even before he'd messed around with both of his sisters. If Mark had been the slightest bit religious, he would've murmured a prayer under his breath as he stepped into the room.

Mark's brow furrowed as he looked at the setup. Unable to separate the two beds, Eli did his best to make everything accessible, trying to move the dress around and make it less obstructive. Meanwhile, Archer was trying to get the fiancés out of the way, trying to calmly explain that, with all of the incoming trauma nurses, there was going to be little space for them-- they both shook their heads and stood their grounds. 

There was no chance of either one of them leaving while there was still a prize on the horizon.

Jesus, Mark thought to himself as he slapped on a pair of gloves, Weddings drive people crazy.

"Right," He started, attempting to assess what was going on, "Eli, can you page my intern, Avery. Get him down here so we can start looking at this burn and nasal fracture--" The nurse in question shot a look in Archer's direction but nodded, following instructions and disappearing to go contact Daphne. "Okay, where do you want to start, Doctor Montgomery?"

(Archer, who was facing the opposite direction, rolled his eyes.)

"I'm going to order an MRI on Jackie and I think that's my main concern here. How about you, Doctor Sloan?" He said, his tone clipped and his question very clearly rhetorical. 

He was already on the phone with radiology, tapping his foot against the floor in an impatient twitch. He shot a glance over his shoulder back towards Mark, who was grimacing at the sight of the wedding dress. 

Archer's eyes locked on the familiar mass of fabric. "You guys realise you're bleeding all over this dress, right?"

"It's not about the dress," Helena barked loudly, looking red in the face as Archer just sighed to himself. 

Beside her, her fiancé nodded, sniffing as if he couldn't believe the neurosurgeon would suggest otherwise. (In response, Archer just murmured to himself, relieved when the MRI coordinator picked up so he could stop thinking about wedding dresses. Again.)

"Okay," Mark breathed out, after struggling to assess the burn at the bottom of Jackie's leg. He was trying to find the burn but was startled at the amount of blood that was pooling around her and wetting the dress. "There's too much blood down there for me to see. Which one of your legs is bleeding, is it the burn?"

The bride in question just shrugged, "I don't know. I can't really feel anything anymore."

Great.

The judge seemed to linger in the corner of the room like a persistent storm cloud, making the hairs rise on the back of Mark's neck. Eli returned to the room, continuing to fight with the masses of tulle and silk-- Mark stepped back, looking over at the competition judge with a frown.

"It would be so much easier if we could just separate the two of them--"

"No!" All four competitors yelled out in unison. 

Suddenly, the room felt very hostile and, to Mark's surprise, Archer was not, yet, the source of said hostility. He was subject to burning glares and a very audible wince from the competition judge, who seemed to have been subjected to this all day.

Jeez.

"Can't they..." He was completely bewildered and miffed, not exactly understanding why the hell anyone would go through all of this just for a wedding. Mark's exasperation seemed to be shared by the judge, who grimaced and hugged the clipboard a little bit tighter to his chest. "Can't they just split the prize?"

"I offered," The judge said glumly. His eye twitched slightly, "I offered that 14 hours ago."

"It is a $100,000 wedding package," Jackie said tightly, looking over at fiancé. There was a flash of a silent conversation, an understanding between the two of them as Jackie metaphorically dug her heels into the ground, standing tall. "I'm not splitting that with anyone."

It wasn't a surprise that Mark was confused-- he'd been to weddings before, he'd been to a lot of weddings before, and he didn't exactly understand what was so intense about them. These people were acting as though it was life or death, which it very well could have been if there were any major injuries. It was just a wedding package. 

Mark couldn't quite get his head around the whole situation; why were they acting as if letting go meant certain death?

"Doctor Sloan..."

Archer caught Mark's attention from across the two women. His lips were in a thin line and he gestured towards the door, very visibly signalling for the two of them to step outside. 

Reluctantly, Mark followed the direction, fully aware that the last thing he wanted today was to spend time with a man who had a very obvious (and justified) deep loathing of him. It took everything within Mark to not shrink back out of anticipation of what Archer would do to him. The two of them stood outside, waiting for Eli to appear from between the doors, ready to note down whatever Archer needed.

And thus began the segment Mark liked to call: How Long Will It Be Before Archer Forbes Montgomery Commits First Degree Murder?

He expected a lot of Beth-esque comments. He expected a lot of side-eye and a lot of jokes that would slowly escalate from maim to kill. 

Mark braced himself for the first time he'd been alone with Archer (while in the right mind) since New York and fully expected it to be a highly unenjoyable experience. 

Suddenly, he felt a lot of pressure to set himself a bit more; he straightened his back and crossed his arms over his chest, hoping that he looked the opposite of what he felt.

(The truth? Mark was scared shitless.)

"Okay," Archer began, looking between the two men. "Jackie being unable to feel anything is a red flag. MRI is booked in five minutes time... I'm going to look at her scans and then I'm going to work from there. I'll assess what's next when we get there. As for the other patient, I'll get my intern to do a routine check. Doctor Sloan?"

He looked over at Mark expectantly and the plastic surgeon tried very hard not to squirm. The oldest Montgomery sibling had the same eyes as Beth, dark and critical, appearing to sear through Mark's skin and leave a nasty burn. 

He cleared his throat, realising that he didn't yet have a game plan-- Jesus Christ, Archer was fast.

"Well, I haven't had a chance to assess the burn or the nasal fracture, but I can get that done within the next five minutes... then, I'll do the same. I'll work from there."

He felt a little less professional than he should have. God, this was all so weird. Archer held his gaze for a few moments and then nodded, his lip twitching slightly as Eli repeated all of the steps back to him. Mark felt goosebumps raise on the backs of his arms, his throat suddenly feeling very dry. 

"We need to figure out how to separate the patients then... I have the feeling that they're not going to split easily."

"I can try and find some scissors or something?" Eli suggested, glancing back towards the room. They all paused to watch the two women wrestle with it, directly going against their orders. Archer let out a sigh, very quickly massaging his forehead. "If they're determined to hold onto it, what difference does it make if it's half a dress?"

"The judge already made it clear that the dress needs to stay intact," was Archer's response, "My suggestion is finding a proxy for each of them. After the week I've had just staring at ballgowns and shiny shoes, the last thing I want for either of them is to be disappointed on their wedding day..."

Eli chuckled as if it was some sort of inside joke. Meanwhile, Mark was completely lost. He didn't particularly like feeling lost either.

"Maybe the guys will step in?" He said instead, trying the ignore the look Archer and Eli exchanged. "Put the grooms to work?"

The two men looked over at him, raising their eyebrows slightly as if they hadn't expected a helpful contribution from Mark. 

Archer seemed to think it over for a few moments, long enough for Mark to feel tempted to remind him that in fact, no matter their personal lives and problems, he was still Archer's senior in this hospital and the head of his department-- but before anything came of it, the neurosurgeon just nodded his head and agreed to go with that option.

Wow, Mark thought to himself, Maybe this isn't going to be as hard as I thought--

The tension was there, it was undeniable. As they worked around that small trauma room, having convinced the Judge and grooms (with the bloodied dress in toe) to go outside, there were a few moments where Mark became very, very aware of how much Archer disliked him. 

He was curt, with the sort of steely professional that almost felt cold. As long as they were in front of patients, Archer was nothing but cordial, talking through their patient's medical maladies and giving Mark plenty of space as he assessed Helena's broken nose. 

However, Mark did not miss the way that Archer would murmur under his breath whenever he strayed too close.

Even when Jackson Avery arrived, the surgical intern approaching plastic surgery with a vague grimace plastered across his face and apprehension over being Doctor Sloan's lackey for the day, nothing managed to temper the waters between them. 

For some reason, Mark felt as though, the moment he was to step away from these patients and out of this room, Archer would find an opportunity to deck him across the face.

(Again, Mark was truly terrified.)

"You think this is crazy, don't you?" 

Helena made eye contact with him as he gently cleaned the blood that had run from her nose; her bright eyes followed him as he shrugged haphazardly, ready to say that it was not in his place to say. On the other side of the room, Archer was preparing Jackie for transport, helping the transfer team and Eli move Jackie onto a bed. 

"If I were you, I'd think this was really crazy," She said.

"Well," Mark said indifferently, "I've never been married or engaged myself, so I'm not one to judge."

She just stared at his face, wincing slightly as he gently prodded the area around her broken nose. He worked as carefully as possible, listening to Jackson as the surgical intern did his best to clean Jackie's legs and locate the burn. 

It was an arduous process and Mark's best guess was that she'd managed to both burn herself and get a pretty deep lac at the same time. He instructed him on how to pack and clean the laceration, nodding in satisfaction when Jackson showed him the finished results.

"If anything wedding planning has taught me it's that you have to be a little crazy otherwise there's no progress at all," Archer said from across the room, aware of how Mark seemed to glance over at him. Helena tried to move her head to the side but Mark caught the movement with her hand, asking her to stay still. "It's too much work. I think a little bit of crazy is allowed--"

"You're married?" The second patient, Jackie, asked almost excitedly, sensing an opportunity to talk weddings. There was a brief pause in which Archer was caught completely off-guard by the assertion-- with his back turned to the neurosurgeon, Mark chuckled to himself.

Archer was almost as bad as he was.

"No," Archer said, letting out an uneasy chuckle, "But, my little sister's getting married."

Almost.

He wasn't sure what it was about weddings-- was it the mere mention of them or was it Beth's in particular, Mark couldn't exactly tell? But either way, they seemed to make his body tense and his jaw lock as if he was trying to hold back a flinch. 

Helena must've been able to sense his sudden pause; her eyes flickered towards him, brows bunching as he averted his eyes. Eli, who'd resorted to reluctantly assisting Mark after completing the transfer, stood across Helena, staring at the plastic surgeon and holding out the local anaesthetic.

"That's so exciting!" Jackie continued, sounding far more excited than Archer did. He let out a faint some of agreement and Mark could picture his nonchalant nod. "I bet she's so excited. Being engaged has been one of the best experiences of my life--"

"I'm excited about my honeymoon," Helena cut in, making Mark pause as he went to inject into her nose. She stared deep into her soul, mouth splitting in a delighted smile. "When we win the competition, we're going to go to Mykonos and just take so many pictures--"

"When we win we're going to Indonesia," Jackie raised her voice, drowning out the sound of Helena's dreamy getaway.  "I've always wanted to go and this competition seems like a perfect opportunity--"

"I want something romantic," Helena continued as Mark drew backwards and the needle was tossed aside. She pitched her voice even higher than Jackie's and out of the corner of Mark's he caught Eli's grimace. "Does that sound romantic?"

Eli definitely had the right idea.

"Well I--" Mark began, but he was interrupted by a man who he supposed damn well was nearly his brother-in-law.

"Oh, Mark here knows all about romance, don't you Doctor Sloan?" The comment was designed to chip away at Mark slightly, and it did. It made a muscle lock-in Mark's jaw and nerve twitch by his eye. Archer didn't hesitate to continue. "In fact, we like to consider him our relationship guru in the hospital. If you have any problems just ask him, he's actually really helped to bring people together--"

Good lord.

"It sounds really romantic," Mark spoke through his teeth, giving Helena a reassuring smile as she stared at him with round eyes. The only person in the room who didn't seem to be suffering in the slightest was Eli-- the trauma nurse's whole face was lit up as if he was enjoying every second of what was happening. "I've heard good things about Mykonos and about Indonesia too--"

"They seem like good choices," Archer mused quietly, finally instructing the transfer team to go up and wait for the MRI. He walked out alongside the bed, his voice growing fainter. "My sister, the one that's engaged, actually worked out in Indonesia for a while. Maybe she'd be able to give you some recommendations."

"That sounds amazing actually--"

Then he was gone. 

Mark let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. His shoulders sagged as if the past ten minutes had been physically painful; as he finessed Helena's nose back into position, he couldn't help but notice how the nurse across from him was trying to hold his smile. His head raised, blue eyes fixating on Eli-- the trauma nurse chuckled lowly.

"Enjoying the show, Lloyd?" was all Mark said as he turned to his intern. 

Silently, Jackson just glanced between the two of them, as bewildered as the patient propped up on the bed. Over Eli's shoulder, Mark could see the two grooms still outside, looking very serious as they gripped the bloodstained wedding dress in clenched fists.

"Something like that," was Eli's very nonchalant response. "Just realising how lucky I am to get front-row seats, Doctor Sloan."

Mark didn't like his tone. 

Of course, Eli didn't like him. He was beginning to think that he had more enemies than friends these days. 

Mark heaved a long breath and felt his muscles twitch awkwardly. Between Jackson's raised eyebrows, Helena's wide eyes and the smirk that lingered on Eli's lips, Mark realised that this definitely wasn't going to be as straight-forward as he'd hoped.

With a burst of agitation and frustration all wrapped into one, he raised his eyes to his surgical intern. The legacy surgeon was just looking between everyone, miffed and slightly caught off-guard all in one. 

Mark scowled to himself.

"Why are you just standing there?" He said, with a little more grit than before, "Go make yourself useful and get me a coffee, Avery."

***

She'd never been to Disneyland as a kid.

Her parents hadn't believed in stuff like that. 

They'd never gone to amusement parks, never rode the train into Manhattan to Coney Island or flown down south to the 'Happiest Place on Earth'. Their family vacations had been trips over into the Hamptons or to their grandparents on the other side of their town. Yet she'd never had that intense stab of excitement, the rush of adrenalin that had a kid pulling tirelessly on the arm of an adult. 

Her childhood equivalent, she supposed, had been trips to an ice cream parlour or the toy aisle of the local store. but she'd always figured that Disneyland would've been so much more--

The OR gallery was Beth's Disneyland.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been this excited. She followed the surgical intern through the OR floor and into the staff section, unable to keep the grin off of her face as she passed the familiar OR board. From a brief glance, she could see it written on there: Montgomery, OR 2. 

The sight of it was enough for her lungs to ache with that familiar hunger she'd felt all those years ago. It was a sting at the back of her torso, somewhere just between her heart and her soul. The same bite that had dug its teeth so deep inside her back in New York: the need for that Montgomery to be hers.

Addison was waiting at the end of the hallway, hands on her hips as she talked to one of the scrub nurses. She was already dressed, fully equipped to step into that surgery and begin, but she was waiting. The surgical intern gave very brief directions on how to get to the gallery (which Beth already faintly remembered from Sloan's surgery) and Beth couldn't resist remarking about how they weren't the first surgical intern from this hospital to babysit her. 

There was a brief pause in which the intern questioned who-- Beth's step faltered a little bit.

(Maybe talking about George and Izzie wasn't the best way to start today.)

"Beth!"

They'd been parted for only an hour and yet Addison seemed to act as if it had been half a lifetime. Beth had spent that window of time pursuing around her old office, trying to see whether she could locate the things that seemingly had disappeared into thin air. Briefly, Beth had run into Meredith in the reception and the general surgeon had had a very pointed accusation. 

She'd stood there and told Beth that she'd just walked into Andrew Perkins' office, only to find him making out with Teddy Altman on the conference desk-- she'd very curtly asked whether she needed to do the same to get back to work, seeing as she was still on surgical suspension. Beth had only been able to laugh--

("If that's the case," She'd said, thinking of her own suspension. Teddy had definitely found a very interesting way to get back into surgery, one that Beth hadn't really considered before now. "I'm going to need to have a very interesting conversation with my fiancé.")

"You ready?" Her question was slightly strained as Addison flashed her a bright, enthusiastic smile, seeming to practically bounce with excitement that she was here.

"Yep, we're all ready to go," Addison confirmed with an enthusiastic nod. 

(Addison, Beth realised, didn't share the same issue of lacking excitement. In fact, ever since Beth had made the 'decision' (for the record: she was forced for the greater good) to try and work things out between them, Addison had been nothing but excited.) 

"I just wanted to see you before I went in--"

"Great," Beth commented off-handedly. The word felt clunky in her mouth as if it didn't belong or fit. She felt the lick of fire at the bottom of her stomach, the same heat that had burned its way through her dinner party. "Great. Well--"

"I also just wanted to say thank you," Beth knew that tone. She didn't want that tone. Her face wanted to contort into a look of discomfort-- Addison had that look in her eye, that little soppy sparkle that made Beth's hands twist into fists at the bottom of her pockets. "I know that I've been a nightmare to deal with lately but I really, really appreciate you giving me this opportunity to make things okay."

They'd had brunch. A week ago, they'd had brunch and Beth had spent the whole time biting her tongue, trying to stop herself from saying something brash. 

Addison had approached the whole thing with the same charisma as a delighted puppy, seeming completely happy to throw herself into both wedding planning and 'building a relationship back up' with her sister. Beth, on the other hand, didn't hold the same sentiment. Every conversation they had was dominated by Addison steaming ahead, excited to share everything with her sister as if they were back in New York, bonding over a bottle of wine. 

But, meanwhile, Beth was wondering whether her own performance (her smiling, her nonchalance, her playing nice) was Oscar-worthy.

Ever since their 'reunion', Addison had insisted on spending as much time with her as possible. 

It was funny to Beth, after all of the woe she'd gone through in her recovery, here Addie was, trying to make up for an absence she wouldn't even whole-heartedly apologise for. Sometimes, that's all Beth could think about-- when Addison smiled and laughed and rattled on about how glad she was that they could do this, all Beth could think about was how Addison had tried to fuck her over by telling Mark she'd stayed.

"Thanks for letting me watch," was all Beth could bring herself to say in response. 

She'd said better things in conversations over the past week, she'd really been nice, just as Archer had asked. But this particular exchange was making her very uncomfortable. Her whole body twitched and she found herself looking back at that OR board. 

She cleared her throat. "Break a leg I guess--"

There was a commotion at the end of the corridor, one which made both Addison and Beth look over, their conversation cut short. The security door to the OR floor was thrown open and a gurney rushed through, signalling that an emergency surgery was on its way in.

For a split moment, Beth felt the bite of it again.

 Excitement. The energy of an emergency surgery-- now that was the sort of rush her body begged for. Her eyes flickered through the wave of staff that filled the corridor, the mayhem and the sea of hurried limbs. An order there, an empty OR here, an anesthesiologist paged there--

 Beth felt her heartbeat pick up on her chest and her face lit up with the familiarity of it all. There was so much ordered chaos that she almost completely missed the face in the centre of it all--

Archer caught sight of the two of them as he passed, already donning his scrub cap as his patient was lead into what was now, very clearly, his OR. 

From here, Beth could see the look of surprise that appeared on his face, eyes flickering between the two of them. She craned her neck further and further until his patient had disappeared behind the OR doors. He paused in his step, tightening cap and appearing to mentally do the mathematics: Beth + Addison + Noticeable Lack of Bloodshed = [N/A]. It was an almost impossible equation and Beth could see his brain doing summersaults trying to figure out the answer.

"I shouldn't be surprised that you're breaking hospital priority, should I?" Archer said, jerking his head at the non-surgical staff member standing in the centre of the corridor. 

His tone was slightly breathless as if he'd hurried all the way from another floor. Beth just chuckled, still slightly high off of the first rush of surgical hype that she'd had in half a decade. Archer looked over at Addie, eyebrows raised. 

"I assume you're responsible?"

"I have surgery in five," She said, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. 

Quietly, Beth hung between the two of them, feeling awkwardly like she had when they were kids; the big kids were talking, discussing something Beth didn't feel equipped to provide commentary for. 

"I thought it would be nice for Beth to watch... What have you got?"

"Patient suffered a haemorrhage while they were in the MRI," Archer said with a grimace. He looked over at his little sister and nodded his head towards her. A smile lingered at the corner of his mouth. "Nice to see you're both getting along."

They met eyes for a prolonged moment of time; it wasn't too long, but long enough for a very subtle and silent conversation. Archer's pupils darted over towards Addison in a short enquiry. Beth's head tilted just a fraction. 

The smile on his lips bloomed into something a bit more hopeful. She tried her best to swallow her sigh.

"It's been nice catching up," Addison spoke for her, her voice light and bright and completely oblivious from the short debriefing that had happened in between the two of them. Beth looked away from Archer and instead, tried to focus on the positives of her day. "We're going to go to brunch after this, aren't we Beth?"

"Yep," Beth said airily. She wondered whether Addison noticed how much more cheerful she was when Archer was one of the audience members of this great performance. "Table for two. Really looking forward to it--"

As if caught in a repeating cycle, Archer looked back over at his little sister, eyebrow-raising slightly-- his eyes consumed hers: Do better, it said, I'm not convinced. 

So much for an award-winning performance, the king of the court wasn't impressed with the jester. It made Beth's shoulders fall a little bit and, with a silent sigh that came out camouflage as a prolonged exhale, she wondered what it would take to please him-- he wanted her to play nice but all Beth was interested in was playing with Addison's sanity.

Was it so bad to just want to watch the whole world burn?

"Hey, before you leave--" 

She cut in as Archer went to turn away. He was a busy man, just like Charlie, just like Addison, just like Derek-- just like everyone in the hospital but her. Her brother halted, his emergency surgery not as emergent as the hand that Beth waved in his direction. 

"When you were packing up my office... I think you might've misplaced some stuff--"

"Like what?" Archer appeared miffed.

"Some documents, a copy of my license..." Beth strained to remember everything she hadn't been able to account for, searching her mind for what was nearly impossible to replace. "Some legal pads... like um, my prescription booklet and my official letterhead--"

"I don't remember anything specifically," He replied with a furrowed brow, slowly backing towards the OR door. "You have a lot of crap in such a tiny room. I do remember finding a binder in your desk and putting it in one of the boxes-- I think it was in the same one as the cactus."

"Okay," Beth breathed, nodding slowly as she struggled to recount the boxes she'd piled through over the morning. "Thanks-- uh, have a good surgery--"

"Thanks," Archer said with a smile. 

It was then that Beth realised Addison had disappeared, squeezing her sister's shoulder as she left to go begin her starting prep. That left Archer standing in the doorway of the scrub room, grinning at Beth as he paused to talk to a passing scrub nurse 

(Can you page Doctor Sloan. Tell him Jackie had a haemorrhage and I'm going into try and control the bleeding.) 

Beth tilted her head to the side, amused at the thought of the two of them working together. He caught the look on her face and rolled his eyes, making an expression that clearly begged Beth not to ask-- instead, he inclined his chin in the direction of the viewing gallery. 

"Have a good surgery too."

Beth wasn't exactly sure whether she was expecting a good surgery, per se, but she was definitely expecting something more than the gripping excitement of twenty pages of Town & Country Weddings. 

She watched Archer disappear and decided to disappear too, climbing the stairs into the surgical gallery and making sure she found the right OR. As she ascended, she felt the pull of it: that excitement, that Disneyland flush to her cheeks-- Okay, this was going to be a good surgery, that was for sure.

The gallery was half deserted. It was early in the day and the prime for surgical rounds meant that not many people were free to laze around and observe Addison Montgomery's first procedure of the day. Beth didn't really pay attention to the crowd (or the lack of, in this case) but was drawn forwards like a moth to a flame. 

The window was lit already. There were people moving, a patient prepped on the table and the doors were already sealed-- Addison walked into the centre of the OR, looked upwards and found her face.

She smiled. Her eyes crinkled behind her mask and Beth could envision the curve of her sister's lips. 

She'd seen Addison's smile so many times in this lifetime, but from the way her eyes sparkled and her head inclined almost in respect, that caught the youngest Montgomery off-guard.

Beth, still reeling from the sentimentality of a regained sister, just nodded, very hesitantly, back.

She'd never forgotten what the inside of an operating room looked like, not even after all this time. She'd forgotten so many things about New York, so many things that a brain full of drug-induced holes and glitches had just failed to keep hold of, but this was one of the ones that had stuck. 

She sat three rows from the back, not too far forwards but not too far back, and felt oddly like a spectator sitting down for a Broadway show.

If playing nice was Beth's performance, surgery was Addison's encore. It was no wonder why other countries called OR's theatres-- the stage was set, the props were prepared and Addison took her place in the centre, calling out to all of the scrub nurses and signalling the first incision. 

Beth drew forwards in anticipation, eyes hungrily searching for that telltale flash of metal and the draw of blood.

"The time is 8:23 am," Addison called out, in the way that she always did each time. She flashed another grin up at Beth, eyes glittering from behind her tightly fastened surgical mask. "Let's do this."

As the surgery started, Beth's mind couldn't help but wonder to the thought that Archer was one OR over, neighbouring this one. Her head spun with the image of being in either one of their places, hand within a skull or slowly moving its way into a woman's womb. 

It was times like these that Beth felt like dressing in black just out of mourning.

She would've been a damn good surgeon.

She would've been lying if she'd said that she didn't think about it often. 

Lately, with all the free time and the free space in her brain, it was almost the only thing she was allowed to think about. She thought about New York a lot, about how many hopes she'd had, how many dreams, how many hours she'd dedicated to her blooming surgical career--

"I've lost count of how many surgeries I've seen her do..."

She hadn't expected anyone to speak to her during Addison's surgery. As Addison started her laborious procedure, officially making the first incision, Beth found it within herself to tear her eyes away. 

She didn't know many staff in the surgical department, despite the fact that she'd almost died on their floor, so she hadn't prepared any small-talk. No, instead, she found herself blinking across the surgical gallery over towards who happened to be the only other observer.

Derek was sat on the opposite end of the gallery, chin resting in his hand and eyes fixed on the surgery beyond the window. He didn't look up as Beth noticed him, nor did he seem to give any indication that he knew she was there at all-- for a split second, Beth wondered whether he was just a bad hallucination from some bad Thai food she'd eaten the night before. 

But then she made the executive decision to clear her throat and reply.

"Thousands, probably," was Beth's tired response. 

She wasn't exactly sure whether she should have replied in the first place. It was bizarre to think that the two of them hadn't talked since way before the shooting; their last conversation had been at Derek's party, where Beth had shot his offer of a wedding venue down flat without a second of hesitation. 

"I bet she did C-Sections in her sleep."

It felt odd. This felt weird. 

Beth couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so far away from someone who was so close. She looked over towards her ex-brother-in-law, chest still heavy from her reminisce of New York, and saw one of the people who had once been her person. Although, this person was staring straight ahead, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand and refusing to glance over in her direction-- 

Beth was suddenly reminded of why she'd been so angry at him for such a long time. She remembered why she'd invited him to the dinner party through Archer, why she'd never addressed him nor ever initiated contact.

Her eyes flickered back to the OR, to the bright lights and the way that Addison smoothly navigated through surgery as she had a thousand times before. 

She thought about how Archer was one OR over with her ex-boyfriend, damn well saving a woman's life. And then that lovely train of thought brought her back to Derek--

He'd gotten her fired.

"She used to get nervous."

 In all honesty, Beth hadn't expected Derek to continue speaking, but he did. In fact, she'd almost hoped that that would be it. He avoided her eye and just stared down at his ex-wife, watching Addison's expert movements. 

"I remember in Med School she'd get really nervous before the practice procedures," Derek's head tilted slowly, "Her hands would shake sometimes and she used to drink green tea to try and--"

Beth wasn't sure why she believed Mark. 

God, why would she believe that stupid son of a bitch? What good had it ever gotten her? She really had no idea why she believed him, but she did.

"We all did. Still do," Beth interjected, a muscle catching in her jaw as she nodded slowly. 

This time, Derek actually glanced over at her and Beth caught it in her peripheral. She couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze. Instead, she just watched what she'd come to see, Addison exceeding expectations as usual. 

"Surgery is terrifying," She said, "Nerves are part of the job."

There was a pause and, as if Derek had never thought about it before, he nodded thoughtfully. He seemed to mull that concept over, taking time to let her words settle into his brain-- it was in that time that Beth inwardly remarked how bizarre it was for him to be here. 

Wasn't he still the Chief of Surgery? Didn't he have better things to do than sit through his ex-wife's routine surgery? It wasn't as if she was breaking boundaries so monumental that it warranted a visit from Chief Shepherd.

"Addie doesn't get nervous," Derek said after his prolonged pause. He inclined his head pointedly down at her. "Not anymore."

"Well," Beth breathed out, silently willing the conversation to stop immediately. 

Suddenly, this wasn't as exciting as it had been before. She was exhausted, she didn't want to have this conversation. She hadn't signed up to play nice with Derek too-- she'd never been inherently nice. She was preprogrammed to be a cold stone bitch. Being nice took a lot of her energy. 

"Maybe she has a reason not to be?" She asked, "She's a good surgeon. She knows what she's doing--"

"Are you friends now?"

His question threw Beth off her game by a fraction. 

There was something so familiar about it. It reminded her of how Mark had referred to her as a friend, implied some sort of companionship or friendship between them. 

Beth could feel Derek looking at her, but she couldn't bring herself to give him the satisfaction of looking back. She pressed her lips together and sighed through her nose, leaning her head against her hand.

She'd always been selective with her friends. 

Beth wasn't sure whether it was because she'd spent her whole childhood surrounded by stuffy, preppy private school girls that would ostracise anyone who wasn't devoted to their code of conduct, or the fact that she'd convinced herself so long ago that she was just naturally unlikeable-- but she was picky. She was very picky about the people that she surrounded herself with, very selective when it came to who stuck around. 

Sure, Beth could talk to anyone about anything, but she'd always been very strict about who she would actively go to in times of need.

Come to think of it, it kind of hurt her that she didn't feel that way about many people now. She wasn't friends with Mark. She sure as hell wasn't friends with Addison and she doubted that they would ever be friends like that ever again. 

As for Derek... Well, Beth glanced over at him, very briefly meeting his eye, as she thought about how scared she'd been for him when Gary Clark had shot him. And yet there he was, looking over at her with that same stupid face and that stupid inflated, fat head of his. She let out a sigh.

Beth got the immediate impression that he was stalling something. Something she didn't know what--- Oh? Maybe he knew that she knew? Had Mark let it slip? Secretly, Beth really hoped that he had.

"She's trying to make it up to me," was Beth's response. It felt diplomatic. "And besides, it's been a long time since I've seen the inside of an OR."

She held his gaze for a split second longer than she intended, before looking away. She hoped that the prolonged eye contact really grilled those words deep into her skin.

"I didn't get a chance to say it over dinner," He spoke with the same almost awkwardly cordial delivery as if he was uncomfortable too. "But I'm glad you're not dead."

She almost laughed.

It felt so out of place. Here she was, lamenting over the fact that she'd lost all of the people that had once meant so much to her, and Derek was telling her that he was glad she hadn't died. 

Why did it feel almost funny? Beth looked down into her lap and smiled to herself; she wondered whether Derek noticed her grin, the way her shoulders shook slightly as she tried to hold back laughter. It was shit like this that made her feel as though, one day, her first nervous breakdown was going to get the greatest encore the world had ever seen.

"Same to you," Beth responded, feeling her skin prickle, as it did whenever anyone brought it up. 

At least here she felt as though she was being honest; as much as she disliked what Derek had done to her, she did not wish death on him. (Maybe, just like Addison, because no matter how hard she tried to ice him out, Derek was family too.) 

"I heard you had one hell of a day."

She saw his wry, weak smile out of the corner of her eye, "You could say that."

Sometimes, that scene played over and over in Beth's head. She remembered the way her chest had seized when Gary Clark had confessed to attacking her ex-brother-in-law. She remembered how, on that day, the problems she had with people seemed to just fade away-- she'd been prepared to mourn this man, hell, she'd told Mark Sloan she missed him and she'd been prepared to die while holding his hand. 

Death made things black and white, but Beth felt as though, over the past few weeks, she'd been tuning her television to see colours that not many others could see.

She paused, looking over at the man she'd once considered one of the most important people in the world to her. It was uncanny, the fact that the four of them had once been it, they'd been all they had. They all looked the same and two out of four even acted the exact same-- Beth was sure that Derek hadn't changed in five years. He looked exactly as he had in Manhattan. 

Or maybe not exactly the same now; he appeared more tired and older, as if getting shot and getting his job had aged him so terribly in such a short amount of time.

He met her gaze and Beth could see the bruises under his eyes from the lack of sleep. She could see the weight that this had settled on his shoulders, the stress that had built up so suddenly and overwhelmingly-- Beth recognised it, it was designed the same as her own. 

It was the same as what kept her awake at night and appeared, like a ghastly encore in her own dreams. She pressed her lips together and broke the stare, hands fidgeting in her lap.

"Concealer," Beth said, eyes fixed on Addison's movements. 

In her peripheral, she caught the look that Derek shot in her direction, the miffed look of complete bewilderment as she shared no context to the single word. Beth looked back over at him, jaw set so tensely that she was sure the bottom half of her face would eventually go numb. 

"I use concealer," Beth cleared her throat, "A lot of it. If you don't want people to be able to tell that you're not sleeping, use concealer. I'm sure Meredith has some."

Derek didn't seem to know what to say to that. 

Beth wasn't sure whether it was toxic masculinity or the realisation that she was really having it as hard as the rest of them, but he seemed to internalise that too. He sat there, hands clasped in front of him and dark, tired eyes following the surgery, deep in thought. 

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Nightmares?" She continued as if she were discussing the weather. She didn't miss how Derek tensed, confirming her question without even speaking. Faintly, Beth nodded, wiping her sweaty palms on her leg of her pants. Her mouth, suddenly, felt like a desert. "Yeah, me too."

It appeared that there was almost a silver lining to the fact that Charlie was working so much. He'd been consistently taking all of the night shifts for a few weeks now; at first, it had been due to the visiting hours at Seattle Pres, where he'd only been able to visit in the day, but then, Beth had the sneaky suspicion it was because he couldn't sleep knowing that she'd grown so terrified of closing her eyes at the same time. He worked all nights, slept during the day and now Beth was caught in a constant loop of being quiet and awake.

"How long has it been since you've slept?" 

Derek's question made Beth's lips twitch into a smile. She leant back into her seat, crossed her arms over her chest and pretended to think about it.

"A hot minute," was what she said eventually. She looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. "You?"

"Same here," He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Beth watched his every movement. "I started sleeping in the car because I didn't want to wake my wife... but then that didn't help so now I like to drive around the city. Downtown is really quiet at night."

"Charlie works nights," Beth said in response, sharing her equivalent. "Good thing too. I think I'd run him off if he had to put up with the shit I was waking up with for a bit..." She paused and then chuckled to herself. "We're doing well, huh?"

Just as there had been over the past week with Addison, there was something familiar about this, about this conversation. 

The way Derek looked over, nodding very slowly as if to answer her rhetorical question. A beat passed, and then another-- Beth pushed her hair out of her face and wondered whether she could remember the last time she'd had an actual conversation with her ex-brother-in-law; not for a while, she guessed.

"What is it that gets you?" Beth asked, knowing that these were the exact questions they were not supposed to ask in therapy. But there was something almost satisfying about watching Derek squirm. She watched his shoulders tense and his head turn away. "The before or the after?"

He didn't respond.

"For me," She said anyway, "It's the after."

It was the after. It was that stupid boardroom with those stupid people. It's what Beth saw when she closed her eyes. 

It's what she felt, the floor beneath her, the numb distant feeling of Mark's hands on hers-- the feeling of knowing that this isn't going to end well. It was enough for Beth to have a lot of long, painful nights, in which her chest throbbed and her heart had to remind itself that Teddy had pieced it back together. (Was it too much to say that sometimes, Beth actually wished that Charlie was there? Sometimes, she just really needed a hug.) 

She'd been reliving that hour in the boardroom for two months now, bleeding out every time she fell asleep, seeing that look in Mark's eyes---

"Before," Derek said quietly, causing her train of thought to come to a sudden stop. She looked over at him, watching the way he sunk slightly in his chair. "It's always the before."

***

Mark couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to refuse a page.

When he received Archer's notice to go into the OR, he'd let out a long groan, one that caused his intern to look over at him, alarmed. 

He'd been stood in the hallway outside the ER, a steaming coffee in one hand and his pager in the other; he'd heard the intercom calling his name, exchanged a look with Jackson and tried his best to restrain the urge to kick something. 

Of course, it was surgery with Archer Montgomery. Of course, it was a page to debride a burn during brain surgery. Of course, of course, of course--

"Avery, you keep an eye on his scalpel," Mark said tightly as he scrubbed in, washing his hands so violently that he was surprised he didn't draw blood. Beside him, the surgical intern just watched, not exactly understanding why this was suddenly so life or death. "The moment you see him even think about slitting my throat, tackle the son of the bitch to the floor."

As Mark had said before, he'd had surgeries with Archer before. If he had to choose a neurosurgeon to work with, he would've seriously preferred Derek. 

At least then there was a good chance of getting through surgery without being murdered. Archer was a good surgeon, he was good at his job, but Mark didn't fancy getting the shit kicked out of him for the next two and a half hours.

"What happened?" He asked as walked out of the scrub room and into the OR, hands aloft and wet. 

It was the first time he was seeing this: Jackie laid out on the OR table, skull already cracked and legs cleaned and cleared for Mark to work on the burn.

"She suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage while in MRI," Archer didn't look up as Mark approached. He was peering down into a lens, working diligently to stop the brain bleed. "We've got some swelling too but I'm getting the bleeding under control."

"Okay," Mark nodded. 

He leant down over the patient, catching sight of the burn on her thigh. Now cleaned and the lac sutured, Mark could see that it wasn't as entirely bad as he had feared. 

He chuckled to himself. "Have to say, I don't think I've treated a minor burn like this in an OR before..."

"Well," Archer said, this time actually glancing up from his patient. He glanced between the plastic surgeon and his surgical intern, pausing only to grill his eyes deeply into Mark's skin. "There's a first time for everything."

Mark wasn't dumb. 

He knew that Archer did not like him. In fact, he knew that Archer never had. They'd first met nearly twenty-five years ago, back when Addison had first moved to Manhattan for college and she'd come into his and Derek's life like a train with no sense of breaking. 

He'd met Archer at a dinner party, much like the one Beth had hosted all those nights ago, and they'd shook hands-- the next day, Mark had found out that Archer had stolen his date from said dinner and that he had a rival when it came to the designated emotionally unavailable playboy. Archer had shaken his hand and then stole Mark's girl. 

Maybe it was just payback when Mark had messed around with both of his sisters.

Slowly, Mark took his place at the bottom of the gurney, dragging up a chair and telling Jackson to 'stay there and just look pretty' while he slowly debrided Jackie's burn. 

He hadn't lied before, an OR wasn't the place for a minor procedure like this, usually, Mark would take the patient aside into a private trauma room or use the burn unit a few floors up. But, this was time-sensitive and there was no way he'd leave a bride with a scar on her wedding day.

"So, I was saying before, Ifan," Archer seemed to pick up on whatever conversation they'd been having beforehand, leaving Mark to just eavesdrop. "I spent eight hours in that store watching her try on all of those dresses and I told her that if I saw another stupid ivory dress I was going to go insane--" The scrub nurse he was talking to chuckled. "And look what ends up on my table today."

"It's fate," The scrub nurse, Ifan, said wryly.

"It's a pain in the ass," Archer corrected him, shaking his head very slightly as he stepped back to let his assist suction. Mark glanced over at him in regular intervals, trying to make the gesture as inconspicuous as possible. "I think I'm one wedding dress away from going back to Los Angeles."

"Well," Mark cleared his throat, hoping to ease the mood a little bit. "If I'd known that was the quickest way to get you out of here, I would've gotten engaged."

Archer just laughed, "You'd have to actually commit to a relationship first, Sloan."

The passing comment made his eye twitch just slightly. 

Yeah, okay so maybe speaking was just not a good idea at all. 

He was also painfully aware that he'd walked straight into that one, but in all fairness, it made Mark laugh. He nodded, accepting it and averting his attention back down to his procedure.

"Oh, how I missed your way with words, Archie," Mark mused lightly, smiling underneath his mask as he thought about how similar Archer was to his youngest sister. "It feels like the old days."

"Right," Archer replied, not looking up from the inside of Jackie's brain. He sounded vaguely sceptical. "By 'old days' do you mean before or after you started sleeping with both of my sisters... at the same time?"

Out of the corner of Mark's eye, he could see the way that Ifan's eyes widened a tiny bit, looking completely caught off-guard by the revelation. 

Great, scrub nurses were terrible gossips. 

He already had a reputation as a dirty mistress, now he was going to be a dirty two-timer too. (He supposed that, if he was going to have a scandalous reputation like that, at least it was true and not some false rumour). 

Mark found himself stuck in a second that seemed to repeat itself over and over; he nodded again, kissed his teeth and pretended as if the burn site in front of him was one of the most interesting things he'd ever seen in his life.

"I missed it," Mark repeated, his voice a little strained this time. "I really did."

To Mark's left, Jackson was lingering like a wanton ghost that really didn't have anywhere else to go. 

(He, frankly, did not want to be here. He had no interest in Plastic Surgery and would have rather been literally anywhere than acting as Mark Sloan's caddy for the day. He was, to be honest, thinking of how there was a cardio surgery going on down the hallway that he would've much rather been involved in, not standing here watching Sloan getting his ass handed to him by one of the Montgomery siblings.)

In all honesty, Mark couldn't think of anything to say to Archer. It wasn't as if he could disprove any of the scalding comments-- they were all true. 

Hadn't he had a hard time keeping it in his pants? 

Hadn't he slept with both of them at the same time? 

It wasn't as if Mark could label it slander.

"Talking of your sisters," (Great segue Mark, really, such a great, amazing segue.) "How are they?"

Mark definitely didn't miss the expression that crossed over Archer's face. If he had to give this conversation topic a name, he would've called it, simply, 'playing with fire'. 

He wasn't exactly sure whether it was a good idea to ask (spoiler alert: it really wasn't) but there was something satisfying about seeing the muscle jump in Archer's forehead.

"Not murdering each other," was Archer's response. It was simple and effective and had Mark taken aback. He'd expected Addison to be six-feet-under by now. "So I'd say they're doing well."

"Good to hear," Mark said shortly.

He wanted to say more but his mind was straying elsewhere. 

The bride under his fingertips was not the only other engaged person in this hospital, neither was the other competition candidate downstairs-- the talk of wedding dresses and Archer's sanity was yet another reminder of a topic that lurked at the back of Mark's head. 

Of course, there was a bitter irony in this wedding bullcrap. Just when Mark had managed to forget about it--

"Yeah," Archer said slowly in agreement. He paused for a second, gesturing for the scrub nurse to step in and adjust his equipment. "Beth's on her best behaviour and Addie is too."

Mark couldn't exactly imagine it. When had things become so upside down that he couldn't even imagine Beth and Addison having a calm, collected conversation? (Oh, well, he supposed that he was to blame... just like most things. 

Mark would have to figure out how he felt about that later.) He couldn't imagine the two of them not being at each other's throats. He wondered what exactly had happened for the two of them to suddenly just be fine with each other.

Beth, especially, was the sort of person who could take grudges to the grave. He knew that, possibly, better than anyone. Once she disliked someone, it stuck. But there were a few expectations-- Mark set his eyes on Archer. 

The last remaining Montgomery sibling, in Beth's eyes, was capable of issuing pardons on the presidential level in the court of Elizabeth Montgomery. Had Archer asked Beth to lay off? Possibly. Mark knew that despite his non-committal flounces, he was first and foremost a family man. Similarly, despite everything that had happened it was still the same family dynamic: Beth was still the youngest sibling who would forever look up to her big brother.

Addison, on the other hand, had the tendency to not listen to anyone. Hence the breaking of her wedding nuptials, the code of sisterhood and whatever wanton laws she could smash on the way-- She was stubborn. Mark hadn't realised how stubborn until it had just been her and him in Manhattan, left in the ruins of it all. 

Even if Archer asked, Mark knew that she wouldn't cave if she really believed in something. Something big must've happened. Something must have changed her mind and sadly, Mark had a feeling that Beth's best efforts over dinner had not been the catalyst.

"Do you know how long I've waited for this sort of moment?" 

Archer's words came out of nowhere and at first, Mark didn't even realise he was talking to him. The Plastic Surgeon looked up only when Archer said his name. His dark eyes were glimmering from beyond the microscope piece. 

"Do you know how long I've waited to call you an asshole to your face?"

That Mark didn't have a response for.

"When Derek divorced Addie, I left him a voicemail calling him a conceited douchebag," Archer continued, taking Mark's silence as an encouraging sign to continue. "I told him the sort of things that Addie wouldn't, that he'd left her to rot in that brownstone long before that marriage had fallen apart... and that it if he was going to pin the whole blame on her then I was going to get on the first flight out here and deck him myself." He paused and chuckled to himself. "Of course, when I turned up in his office with a tonne of brain tumours I'm sure the sentiment got lost in translation but--"

He shrugged.

"I did it for my sister," It was so simple to Archer, Mark could see it behind his words. "I'll do anything for them. Even if they have extremely questionable taste in men. Even if it means humiliating myself with a head full of worms-- even if it means breaking your nose just so I can watch you piece it back together."

"I've done it before," Mark said off-handedly, playing this off as some sort of joke. However, from the look on Archer's face and the glimmer in his dark eyes, he knew that the neurosurgeon was far from joking. "The first thing Derek did when I came to Seattle was get me right in the middle--"

"It must've felt real good," Archer said, smoothly and Mark could tell he was smiling to himself. He paused and then added as an afterthought: "Well, for him. I'm sure he was really looking forward to his moment."

Mark didn't really know how he felt about this conversation. 

He wasn't exactly thrilled about spending a whole surgery talking about how good it would feel to commit battery with his face, but again, somehow he could understand where Archer was coming from. He couldn't imagine how it must feel to be in Archer's position, staring directly at Mark Sloan; a guy who had been a complete sleaze and just fucked up so badly.

(Oh fuck, Mark thought to himself as he looked up from his work, I'm an asshole.)

"So why haven't you?" He asked, mostly out of curiosity.

Mark would've been lying if he'd said that he hadn't expected something-- maybe that's why he'd been so surprised when Archer had asked him how he was and been perfectly friendly when he'd come to clear out Beth's office. 

He'd spent the last few weeks ready for Archer to pummel the shit out of him. He'd spent the last few weeks understanding why Archer felt the need to pummel the shit out of him-- he was an asshole, why wouldn't it happen?

"Oh," Archer said, shrugging almost casually. "I think Beth's got it handled."

Mark didn't disagree.

"She's perfectly capable of fighting her own battles," Archer continued, "I'm sure she's already given you hell--" Mark chuckled to himself, unable to keep himself from nodding. She definitely had. "She's not like Addie. She has a reason to everything. She lets you know what she wants you to know. Addie pretends everything's fine-- Beth lets them have it--"

"How is she?"

His question came out of nowhere. It was almost a slip of the tongue. 

It was an exhale, an extension of very tender words that made Archer pause completely. Mark almost hadn't realised he'd spoken-- it took him a few moments of staring at the neurosurgeon to realise that those words had escaped him. 

They seemed to be constantly on the tip of his tongue. Maybe it wasn't a surprise that they'd suddenly tumbled out.

"I mean with the wedding planning," Mark added, feverishly feeling as if his skin was going to bubble. 

He lowered his head, clearing his throat and trying to move onwards from the brief pause. He felt the weight of Archer's gaze on his shoulders; it made his throat feel suddenly, very dry. 

Hastily, he tripped over his own words:"I know she hates stuff like that so I don't--"

"Y'know," Archer interjected, cutting Mark short and shaking his head slightly. "I definitely woke up this morning thinking: Oh, I'd love to have a lovely conversation with Mark Sloan today about his ex-girlfriend, all while simultaneously trying to stop a girl from bleeding out before her wedding day." 

Archer paused, snorting to himself. 

"She's fine, Mark," He said, "She's doing perfectly fine."

There was an awkward pause in the OR. It felt charged. 

Mark didn't exactly know how to handle it. There was an implied end to Archer's statement that Mark felt like he really wanted to ignore-- from the pause at the end of his words, it was almost as if he was meaning to say something more. 

Without you, Mark.

She's doing perfectly fine without you.

(It made Mark halt. He wasn't sure why, he wasn't sure exactly why he froze to the spot, but it was just a very sudden realisation to have. She was fine. She was better than fine, all without him.)

"Good," Mark said, his voice catching slightly at the back of his throat. When he exhaled, he felt as though his respiratory system was on fire. When he blinked, all he saw was Beth bleeding out on the floor in front of him. "That's great to hear."

Archer kept an eye trained on him.

"Can I get irrigation on the temporal lobe please..."

Those words were the reminder that the two of them needed to bring them back to the present: this was a professional setting, they were in the middle of a surgery, Archer was genuinely inside Jackie's skull, the only thing stood between her and a body bag. 

Mark had to say, when he'd envisioned having his ass beat by Beth's brother, he hadn't imagined it being over brain matter. (He'd also not imagined being completely blindsided by the fact that Beth had gotten off better out of the two of them. It was clear now to him. She was fine. He--- well, Mark wouldn't have gone to the extent of saying he was fine.)

"Beth's stressed," Archer said lightly, seeming to answer Mark's question well after he'd asked it. The plastic surgeon refused to look upwards, despite how badly his skin prickled at the mention of her name. "She's got a lot on her plate, and you're right, she's not the sort of person who would jump at the thought of planning a wedding all on her own. But she's happy. She's really, really happy."

Happy. Mark remembered how he'd been happy with Lexie.

"Charlie's a great guy," Mark said casually, but his jaw was tense. He looked over at Ifan for assistance, asking the scrub nurse to pass him some gauze. The attendant was looking at him weird. He didn't like it. "It looks like he makes her very happy."

"He is," Archer agreed, still staring into the inside of Jackie's head. "And he does."

(There was something almost painful about this moment.)

(From Archer's perspective, it felt weird. He kept looking up from the bleed he was caortising, shooting Mark long looks to try and understand the expression on his face. Damn surgical masks made it impossible to tell anything. There was a painful pause. Archer compared it to a band-aid being pulled from scarred skin-- his brow furrowed slightly as he watched how Mark held his breath for a few seconds, seeming to will a thought to death.)

"Good," Mark breathed out, squinting down at his work with unwavering attention. 

(Despite it, Archer could tell that he was distracted. He had a telltale sign, one that was obvious enough for even Archer Montgomery to know well.) 

He bunched up, muscles tensing and shoulders falling as he irrigated. He repeated it again: 

"Good," and then paused, "It's what she deserves."

***

Derek didn't seem to be in the talkative mood.

He spent the duration of Addison's surgery just sat there, staring off into the distance as if he was deep in thought. 

Surprisingly, or not-so-surprisingly seeing as how Beth's track record with collected conversation was going, Beth didn't mind it. 

In fact, she welcomed the silence between them, only occasionally glancing across the room towards him. After all, wasn't it rude to talk through a performance?

It was weird, though. Beth was so used to Derek being the life of the party, the constant bright and shining energy that would fuel all conversation. 

He was just like Mark, incapable of silence and incapable of quiet. But now, he seemed to brood, dark and ominous like a storm cloud Beth wished she could just blow away.

She was leant forwards in her chair, watching every single movement that Addison made. She watched a resection, she watched an assist, she watched as Addison completed a very complex but successful in vitro surgery. 

She was in full auto-pilot mood, navigating through everything with such ease that Beth half thought her sister was a robot. She moved so instinctively with her every decision and call that Beth found it incredibly hard to envision her sister doing anything other--

Would Addison have survived if she'd been kicked from her internship program? Would Archer? Would Derek? 

At that thought, Beth looked down towards him. She looked at his stooped posture and his tired, heavy eyes. 

She looked at the way he reminded her of a house cards that was just two seconds away from collapsing. 

What a pitiful look for the Chief of Surgery, huh?

"When we were little, I used to have a lot of nightmares," She felt the pressure to fill the air between them, clearing her throat and stretching in her chair. "I went through a really bad phase of them when I was six. I used to have this recurring dream that would leave me terrified. I'd wake up fully screaming and crying... and completely devastated."

Derek didn't look up, he just continued the same he'd been the whole time, with the same slightly sad and distant look to him. 

They were something that Beth hadn't thought about in nearly two decades. For a long time, she'd thought that bad dreams were a kid thing. 

She'd thought that they were something that was just a irrational, childhood fear, based on the things that went bump in the night and the blind fear of the dark-- but the last two months had taught her otherwise.

"I remember once, I just gave up sleeping at all," Beth didn't have many memories from her childhood (she supposed just out of complete suppression) but that was one of them. A memory so vivid that these days just felt like a prolonged sense of deja vu. "I spent like two weeks just so scared of being asleep--"

Derek sighed into his hand.

"And Addison used to beg me to go to sleep." 

At the mention of her name, Addison almost seemed to glanced upwards towards the two of them. It was as if she'd heard, beyond the glass and the muted intercom, she heard Beth saying her name. 

"She used to get so upset with me, especially when I cried... " The memory made Beth inhale sharply, as if it almost hurt her physically. "I remember the look on her face when I'd wake up... and then she'd hug me and--"

"Amy used to have nightmares," Derek interjected, nodding slowly. His voice was guttural, as if he'd been dormant and quiet for much longer than fifteen minutes. Beth turned her head over towards him, eyebrows raising as he shuffled in his chair. "About Dad. About watching that all happen-- I used to wake up to her completely terrified and I just..." He paused. Beth felt her chest tighten. "Shot and killed."

It put things into perspective. 

The parallel. Beth had heard it before. He'd watched robbers jump his father and witnessed his murder, all while hiding at the back of the shop. He'd watched it happen, with Amelia cowering behind him. Shot and killed. Right in front of his kids. Beth couldn't imagine what it'd been like for Derek to experience it-- shot and killed. 

Derek had almost died. Had he thought of his Dad? He must've.

"It's shit," Beth breathed out, agreeing with him completely. She sunk back further into her chair and concentrated on something far away from this morbid topic. "It's super shit."

Derek didn't speak.

Throughout the past few months, there had been one thing that Beth had in excess: time. She'd had time. So much time, more than she'd had in years. 

The last time she'd had time she'd been strung out; time had meant anything then, it'd been pointless to her, but now she felt it. She felt every single second, felt every single minute and hour, and with that time had come the thoughts.

She'd thought about a lot. She'd thought about how she was sober, how her body ached sometimes with an insatiable need to not feel anymore. 

She'd spent a lot of time thinking about how she was sober, more than she would've liked to admit. She'd also thought about Derek, about how he'd gone through the exact same thing as her and yet was still powering through. 

He hadn't resigned, he hadn't taken an extended leave. He'd turned up at work, sat at his desk and challenged anyone who questioned it.

"We're the same," Beth said quietly. 

Those three words were so quiet, so gentle that she wasn't sure Derek heard them. They were almost an exhale or a whisper. A soft revelation that made the blood rush to Beth's ears. Across the room, Derek's eyes slowly found herself. They were a faded blue, slightly bloodshot. 

"You and me," She specified, "We're the same."

Derek seemed to pause. It was as if someone had lifted a television remote and hit stop. He was a frozen image on a faded screen, staring at her, his blue eyes heavy and only just bearable. Beth stared back, wondering what he saw: did she look shit too? 

Derek looked like shit. He looked exhausted and gaunt, as if he hadn't survive Gary Clark's bullet. Beth pressed her lips together and waited for him to say something. Say something, say anything. She was tired.

Was it a startling revelation to have? Was Derek surprised? Did he see what Beth saw?

They were the same, Addison and Mark had made sure of that. 

They'd both been cheated and lied to and betrayed by the closest people in their lives. They'd both fled New York in the dead of night. They'd both tried to rebuild what they'd lost-- in retrospect, they'd both neglected the people they loved, both been guilty in the destruction of their relationships. 

They'd both been shot, too. Beth knew that no one else in the world knew what it felt like to go through all of that at the same time-- Derek, Derek did.

She wanted that sort of kinship, but she couldn't bring herself to re-establish it. But, what she could manage, was to show Derek that she understood. She'd always understand. 

They were the same. The had their hero complexes and their work-obsession. They turned up and did whatever they needed to. They saved no expense.

Beth looked away.

"Amy doesn't know about the shooting," Suddenly, speaking at moderate volume was too loud. Her mouth was dry and her words crumbled on her tongue. She coughed, clearing her throat. Derek's eyes stuck to the side of her face like a spore of mould that she couldn't wash off. "I thought you'd like to tell her yourself."

"You're talking to Amelia?" His voice was slow and cautious.

 It echoed the same tone and wariness that had haunted Addison and Mark, as if questioning her whether that was a good idea.

"Yeah," Beth nodded, sighing lightly. "She's stuck in California. She's miserable."

"She's unsupervised," Derek corrected, inclining his head down towards Addison, who was very clearly not in LA anymore. "God knows what she's up to."

"Will you tell her?" was all Beth asked, brow furrowing as she listened to the exhaustion in Derek's voice. He hesitated in his answer and Beth knew that it was a no. She inhaled sharply, her shoulders bunching in a painful tense. "You should tell her. She'd want to know--"

"The others know," Derek shook his head, sighing to himself, "Kathy, Nancy, Liz-- Meredith called all of them--"

"Amy would want to know that her big brother--"

"Amy doesn't need to know," He spoke dismissively as if Beth was foolish to think he'd change his mind. (Ah, they were both stubborn too.) 

She pursed her lips, playing with her engagement ring and feeling the muscles in her lower back throb from her poor posture. Derek, on the other hand, was still staring off into the distance as if he was in some sort of dramatic movie, a superhero standing on a skyscraper and looking over the city it'd risked it's life for. 

"It'll only worry her."

Then he paused.

"I don't want to worry her."

Beth guessed that it must've made sense in that stupid head of his. His logic was flawed but at least it somewhat resembled logic. Yet all Beth could think about was the look on Amy's face when she found out that everyone in her family but her knew about Derek's close shave with death. She didn't agree with Derek's half-assed attempt to 'protect her'. 

Of course Amy was going to worry. 

She already did. 

She'd already said it to Beth over the phone, even before they'd all nearly died. Amy worried about Derek, about how his marriage had fallen apart and he'd just pretended as though he didn't care at all.

Worrying, for Beth, was one of the last Derek-things that was on her mind. There were, obviously, other decisions that Beth didn't understand or agree with.

"She worries because she cares," Beth said tenderly. There was that word again. Care. Her eyes dragged down to her sister and she let out a little, defeated breath. "I think we all need a bit more of that right now."

She wasn't sure what the silence following her words signified that Derek was thinking about what she'd just said or whether he'd just ignored her all together. She didn't know Derek that well anymore, just like she didn't know Addie or Mark. 

(The only exceptions seemed to be Archer and Amy. They didn't change.) 

She wondered what was going on in his head-- was he thinking about what she was thinking about?

"Addison cares," Derek responded, sounding oddly strained. Idly, Beth wondered whether Addie was forcing him to say it with a gun to his head. "She might not know how to show it, but she cares more than you think she does--"

"Yeah well," Her face twisted with distaste. Her jaw clenched. She really didn't feel like having this conversation again. She almost felt like groaning and saying, God, not you too... "She has a funny way of showing it."

(Nothing said caring like pretending to fly to Alaska.)

"Mark cares too--"

Oh?

"--we just don't know how to show it."

Beth was staring at him now.

"How is Mark?"

It was as if Derek had realised his mistake. 

He leant forwards in his chair and sighed. He'd been sighing so much over the past ten minutes that Beth found it impressive he had air left to spare. 

Meanwhile, Beth just rested her chin on her hand, staring at Derek until he met her gaze-- when he looked at her, there was a dent between his eyebrows.

"I think you've spoken to him more than I have--"

"You're Derek," She said, as if it was obvious. "He's Mark. You have your bromance thing going on. You know him better than I do."

(For a moment, Derek was amused. It reminded him of exactly what he'd said to Mark back when they'd learnt of Beth's engagement. You're Mark. She's Beth. Join the dots.)

(His lip curled slightly and he shook his head, tempted to chuckle. From his seat, he could see the slight smile that twitched in the corner of Beth's lip. She turned her head away from him, shaking the hair out of her face.)

"He's okay," was Derek's slow response. He seemed to hesitate in the middle of his words, pausing as if he wasn't too sure. "He went to therapy--" ("Therapy?") "--Yeah, I was surprised too, but he seems to be enjoying it." Another pause. He cleared his throat and his voice dropped slightly. "I think he took it harder than we did."

Beth's chin raised and she blinked.

"Really?"

"He wasn't okay," Derek said softly. "I think seeing you..." 

(He paused, realising that this was actually a conversation that the two of them probably should have. He pressed his lips together tightly and grimaced. Beth was hanging onto his every word, her brow furrowed as she stared at him. Her gaze was so heavy, eyes so earnest and suddenly so sad.) 

"He wasn't okay for a long time."

This time, the accompanying silence was a suspension of surprise; Beth appeared to not know exactly what to say to that. 

At the back of her mind, she was thinking about the first time she'd seen Mark outside of that boardroom-- he'd stared at her as if she was a ghost. He'd appeared out of nowhere and she'd been able to tell that he was startled by the sight of her. 

It made her think even more about that room, about how Mark had told her that she was going to die. He wasn't going to let her die. He wasn't going to call Addison and tell her that her sister had died--

When Beth blinked again, she felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. 

She willed them away, taking a deep breath through her nose and feeling very aware of Derek's stare. He couldn't look away. She couldn't allow herself to think about it too much.

There was something so alarming about that thought: Mark not being okay. 

It was the sort of thought that lurked at the back of her head. How bizarre to think that just five or six years ago, Beth would have given her soul in exchange for Mark to feel peace. Now, the thought just caused a discomfort in the centre of her chest-- Mark not being okay. 

(She didn't like it as much as she thought she would.)

"He feels bad," Beth couldn't find her voice to tell Derek to stop talking. She wanted to tell him that she didn't want to know these things, but her voice had been robbed from her chest. "He doesn't say it, but I know that he feels bad about the pericadionesis. I think he's okay now but--"

"--You can never tell," She finished for him, knowing exactly what she meant. Classic Mark. Subtly, she tried to compose herself. A beat passed. Beth chuckled. It was a hopeless chuckle, slightly wet and accompanied by a shake of her head. "Yeah, that sounds familiar."

She tried to imagine a universe in which things were different, wildly different. 

A universe where Mark Sloan was honest about how he felt, where people actually said what they really meant-- it was the same universe where Addison actually went the distance and Beth didn't feel crushed underneath the hefty weight of just existing. 

She paused. She pushed her hair behind her ear and realised that she wasn't innocent too: it wasn't as if Beth was the most honest person in the world, either.

(There were still so many things that she should've said by now.)

Beth cleared her throat. 

She wanted to change the subject, but somehow, she didn't know how. It was as if her head was suddenly stuffed with cotton. All she could think about was Mark. 

Stupid Mark. Asshole Mark. 

The guy who had fucked her sister, fucking over her in the process. The guy who had left such a mark on her that it was like a red wine stain on a white dress. He was everywhere. He'd even followed her onto her death bed. For one second, she wished she could just stop thinking about Mark Sloan--

"If we're the same," Derek said suddenly. His voice sounded tight and his eyes burned brightly. She wondered where he'd found that energy from. She sure as hell didn't have it. "Then you know Mark as well as I do."

His words held a lot of weight to them, a lot more than Beth had anticipated. She held Derek's gaze and waited for something to happen-- she wasn't sure what, but this felt like one of those moments where something was supposed to happen. 

Maybe the patient on Addison's table would bottom out or the door behind them would open or the world would just implode, but it didn't. It wasn't cinematic. It wasn't dramatic. It just was.

"I don't think so--"

"You knew Mark better than I did--"

"No I don't--"

"You two were in lov--"

"He told me that he misses me," Her interruption was cool. 

It was well delivered and it made a look of surprise dawn over Derek's face. His eyebrows twitched upwards, a dent appeared between his eyebrows and Beth was almost satisfied at the sight of such a perturbed expression. 

"Sometimes," Beth added with a short breath, "He misses me sometimes. Believe me, I don't know that man at all."

Beth thought she had known him. She'd spent a long time with him. She'd loved him. She liked to think that a part of him had loved her. 

She thought that she knew everything that made Mark Sloan who he was. She thought she knew what he would do in any situation. But she didn't. She hadn't been able to see that coming.

(She also hadn't been able to see her saying it back, but she had. (I miss you sometimes, too.) That was something she'd leave to unpack another time and definitely not anything she was going to confess to anyone. )

"Lexie must've really messed him up," She continued. "Good for her if she got the great Mark Sloan to actually feel something--"

Beth had that flighty feeling in her chest, an anxious murmur that she couldn't chase away. She shifted in her chair and tapped relentlessly against the armrests, all too aware of Derek's eyes blazing into her cheek. 

Derek smiled faintly, "I know it sounds crazy, but I think he's had feelings this whole time."

Beth pressed her lips into a thin line.

A bitter chuckle. "I don't know what to believe anymore..."

The concept of believing, specifically people that she'd once held in such high regard, made Beth's train of thought pause. Or rather, her brain hit the emergency brakes, sending her whole consciousness skittering to a halt on an abandoned track. 

(There was something so sudden about it: suddenly, there it was, that thought again, the flashing neon sign that told her to look directly at Derek and burn through him. He wasn't looking at her. (That felt like the only thing they could do right now. This room was a game of glances and exchanges and Beth could see herself going very slowly, slightly insane over it.)

That persistent voice that sounded so much like Mark's: I think Derek did it.

"All I know is that Mark slept in my hospital room for a week," Derek sighed, the breath coming straight from the deepest part of his lungs. He moved in his chair, chest heaving slightly. "And that he was suspended from surgery for a while..."

"Mark not being able to do surgery," Beth hummed to herself, shaking her head, "Do you remember when he had a coup against him by the nurses back in New York?" 

Across the room, Derek chuckled to himself, seeming to know exactly what she was referring to. His chuckle was a nice break from the tension, it seemed to ease the tension in his shoulders. 

Beth chuckled too, "He went mad. He went literally batshit over that––"

Somehow, Beth couldn't imagine Mark existing without surgery. It was just like Addison and Derek, where they seemed to exist most vividly in the confines of an OR-- She glanced back over towards her sister. 

The small stretch of time where Mark had been boycotted back in New York had been painful for both of them-- Mark had been so frustrated by it. He didn't like feeling like a lackey in the same way that Beth's heart had broken when she'd lost her job. It wasn't an option.

"Maybe he's going mad again," Derek commented off-handedly. The effect of it didn't make Beth as amused as she thought it would. Instead, it almost made her sad. She played with the sleeve of her jumper, scrunching up her nose. "You were right before... you never know. Not with Mark. He never gives it away--"

I think Derek did it.

"Do you think about New York?" Beth's question came out of nowhere and it was almost startling. She could see it plastered over Derek's face, the suddenness of a topic like this. She leant forwards in her chair and played with her fingers. "Do you ever just... do you ever think about it?"

(Derek didn't answer her question. He didn't answer for a multitude of reasons: one, he was very much thinking of something else, something other than New York. His mind hadn't touched on that city in a long time. He was focused on the future far more than the past-- but then there was Beth and the text message he'd received from Addison, telling him that he was on his own and that he needed to leave things be.)

Very slowly, Derek shrugged.

I think Derek did it.

"I miss it sometimes," She continued, turning her head back to stare down at her sister. 

Addison was oblivious to the two of them, having fallen into the pace of surgery. Gone was the excitement of having Beth there, of having her present, replaced by the tunnel vision of precarious movement and precision. 

"Before things got messy..." Beth said, "Just the city and surgery and my little apartment on the Upper West Side. I miss getting to stand in an OR like that..."

"Who would've thought?" Derek said softly, interjecting Beth's monologue on how much she missed the career he'd torn apart for her (She believed Mark. For once in a long time, Beth believed Mark Sloan.) "That out of the four of us, we're the ones that are doing better..." 

Beth almost laughed. God, what a conceited ass-- She could see what he meant, but even still, she held back her chuckle and refrained from calling him an asshole. 

"I'm married, you're engaged... Addison and Mark are..." Beth's eyebrows raised as Derek trailed off, as if trying to find the right word, "They're just stuck."

Stuck? Addison didn't look very stuck to Beth. 

In fact, she looked as though she had Beth's dream right in front of her. The scalpel in her hand was what Beth had wanted for herself for so long-- she didn't look stuck, she looked free. (Beth knew that it was not healthy and was almost like relapsing to say that she would've traded everything that was good in her life just to be in that OR.) 

Mark didn't seem stuck either. He had people he loved. He'd loved Lexie. He was okay.

If anyone was stuck, it was Beth. Stuck in that apartment, stuck in this conversation, stuck in this stupid city. It was Derek too-- he seemed incapable of leaving this room.

I think Derek did it.

Beth paused.

"I know that you got me fired from Manhattan West."

The words came out suddenly and quickly; the speed of and suddenness reminded her of a pressurised container suddenly splintering in two or a fire hydrant bursting with a rush of water. They had a lot of weight to them. They were quick, breathless and almost giddy. 

Oh, what a thought it had been to harbour this suspicion and what a weight off of her shoulders for it to be free--

Mark had been so sure of it.

From here, Beth could see the way that Derek's whole world seemed to come to a halt. She wondered if those words caused such an effect on him as they'd caused to her. 

Did he have that sick feeling in his stomach? Did he feel the slight burn of betrayal? The sting of disbelief? Did he have the same crisis that she'd had, wondering whether Mark Sloan, for once in a very, very long time, was actually telling the truth? Was it true? 

Beth didn't exactly know whether she wanted it to be true--

I think Derek did it.

(Beth couldn't remember many truths that Mark had told. She hoped that he'd told the truth when he'd said that he loved her. He hadn't said it often, but she'd thought she'd known. He was quiet in his love, despite all of the times he'd flirt shamelessly. He'd seldom said it but Beth had known. Well, that was until she hadn't. She couldn't pinpoint the moment they'd started hating each other and white and black had faded to grey.)

It would be less painful if it wasn't true, Beth concluded silently.

In an ideal world, Derek would've turned around and said that it was a lie. 

That, not for the first time in her life, Mark had lied. He would've looked over at her, shaken his head, and said that it was Mark, that Beth had always known the truth. 

Mark had reported her to the surgical board. Mark had ruined her career because they'd hated each other so much by the end that they would've done anything to ruin the other--

But he didn't.

In fact, Derek didn't deny or confirm it at all.

No, he let out a long breath and, from the way that his shoulders sagged, Beth could tell it was his last. For a moment, she thought he'd say nothing at all-- she'd been raised to believe that silence was incriminating. 

(Historically, it had been. Mark had had nothing to say for the last few months of their relationship and Beth had always hated the sound of silence.) She thought that Derek would just pretend that he hadn't heard her, but she was so sure he had. She hadn't spoken quietly. She'd spoken definitely. It was a definitive statement. He'd heard her.

I think Derek did it.

It took Derek a few moments to come up with a response. In those few moments, Beth felt something shift. She averted her gaze down back into the OR, feeling time stutter for a second-- it was in those few moments that Addison seemed to feel it too. 

It was as if she could feel the sudden tension, feel the startling shift. Her eyes lifted from her patient and stuck on them. Stuck. Like a leech. She seemed to finally notice the two of them.

Beth, very slowly, watched the blood drain from Addison's face.

(Addison knew what was going to happen seconds before it did. Seeing Derek sat there, a distant shadow just out of the glow of the OR lights, was like the creeping storm cloud that you couldn't catch until it was too late. She just watched as the thunder broke and the rain started falling.)

Derek cleared his throat. It rumbled in his chest.

"We know you were pregnant when you left New York."

A beat passed. It was a long beat. 

A long, torturous moment that left a sharp pain in the back of Beth's chest. 

She was unable to speak and unable to move. 

She was unable unable to think and unable to breathe. 

She couldn't... She wouldn't--- 

She made a choking noise at the back of her throat.

 Startled. Blind-sided. Horrified.

Derek turned to her. 

He looked her dead in the eye.

"Was it Mark's?"

***

Happiness, by Mark's standards, involved a hug.

He'd established, somewhere during his time with Lexie, that he was a hugger. 

He wasn't exactly sure how he'd come across it, nor exactly where that realisation had come from, but he liked hugs. Maybe it was because Lexie had made him happy too. 

She'd given good hugs.

He also liked coffee. That was something he'd picked up from Beth. He hadn't drank coffee until he'd met her, and now he ran on it most days. It was in his body like blood in his veins. 

There was something about a coffee, specifically a very milky coffee or something sickening sweet, that made him happy too. Maybe it was a reminiscing thing, of mornings with a french press and fancy coffee syrups and listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack in the kitchen. 

Or maybe he'd developed an addiction.

(He hoped it was the second option.)

He thought about what made him happy as he finished his surgery. It had been something that Andrew had recommended to him. Focus on the good in the midst of the bad: He liked the smell of a freshly sanitised OR and how a burn looked when it was healed without scarring. He liked it when his suture lined up perfectly. 

He really liked Tom Cruise movies. He liked listening to Andy Williams albums. He really liked driving around empty streets at night. He also hadn't admitted it aloud, but Patrick Swayze had really grown on him over the years, too.

Archer was there, still. He was a fixture in the background. He didn't talk much since talking about Beth and Mark didn't really have the energy to be thankful about it. 

Instead, he did what, to be honest, he should have done since the beginning, he kept his head down and finished what he'd started. He worked until the burn was dressed and ready for transfer. Archer had fixed the bleed, naturally.

The two of them scrubbed out in silence.

Mark had often wondered how many times he'd have to scrub in and out in one day for his hands to bleed. He kept a hand cream in the glove box of his car. His hands dried out after a long day. Beth had once made fun of him for it, but then he'd caught her stealing it after triple-stacking shifts. 

She'd shot him a smile, the sort that a kid would flash after being caught with it's hand in the cookie jar, except her hand was dry and cracked and she was stealing his moisturiser. He'd bought her her own--

Fucking hell Sloan. He very briefly closed his eyes, but that was a further mistake. He stopped scrubbing and grimaced to himself, trying to will his mind to change the subject. Think about something different for a change--

"Do you want to get a coffee?"

The question made Mark blink. 

He hadn't expected Archer to speak, talk about offer him coffee. He'd become so accustomed to just outward hostility, that for a moment, Mark didn't know what to do with himself. There wasn't a file in his head titled, 'Archer_Coffee.mp4', or 'Archer_Nice.mp4'. 

He felt exactly like he had when Archer had asked him how he was while holding a box of Beth's things. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know whether this was a joke and Archer was simply going to make him look like some dumb asshole--

Well, Mark thought to himself as he dried his hands, It's not as if I can look worse than I already do.

"Sure," He said, although he felt his brow crinkle subconsciously. 

It was a skeptical gesture, one that made Archer chuckle to himself. They were both still stood in their scrubs, two surgeons that had barely even started their day. Mark had a break, his next consultation was in a half hour. He pressed his lips together, wondered whether he'd regret this and repeated his answer. 

"Sure."

Archer shot a vaguely amused look in his direction. "I'm not going to poison you--"

"I didn't say anything," Mark dismissed, shaking his head almost shamelessly. He almost felt like raising his hands in surrender. 

(He hadn't said it, but he'd definitely thought it. He'd figured that when his back was turned Archer would spit into his coffee or pull out some of the blood thinning medication that he'd used on Jackie to clear her veins. And then Mark would be dead and Archer would carry that like a badge of honour--)

"I caught Jackson gearing up for a thigh & drive when I walked behind you to change position," Archer drawled, making Mark remember his one request that he'd made before walking into surgery. (Crap.) Another smile, "I'm not the homicidal sibling," Archer paused. "It's Beth you've got to look out for."

Mark grimaced to himself.

You're telling me.

"And besides," Archer almost sighed, tutting under his breath, "I don't think cyanide is strong enough to kill your ego."

Great.

"In all honesty, I don't hate you," Archer's next statement felt like a stretch and not at all honest, but Mark raised an eyebrow at it all the same. Archer leant against the set of scrubbing sinks and tilted his head to the side. "You might be one of the worst people I've ever had the misfortune to meet... You might rank really low on my list of people that I think have actually contributed something worthwhile to this planet... you might be one of the most conceited, arrogant, narcissistic, self-centred assholes on the planet--"

(Mark kind of hoped that there was going to be a 'but' at the end of this list, but he didn't have his hopes up.)

"--and you might have a really punchable face... no, like really, I can vividly picture my fist buried in that stupid nose of yours..." 

He had the same blunt delivery as Beth. He was concise and very oddly specific, as if he'd spent a lot of time thinking about this. Mark didn't doubt he did. 

"You also might be completely intolerable. A dirtbag, a sleaze, the sort of guy who actually ruined my family to the point where I might have to just lock Addison and Beth in a room together just to get them to be nice to each other-- A good surgeon? Sure. But just seeing your stupid smirk makes me want to drive back to Manhattan in 2004, just so I can relive the satisfaction of watching Beth dump your ass..." 

Oh lord. Archer took a breath. 

(He had surprisingly good breath control.) 

"But," He said, "I actually feel the need to thank you."

Oh?

"Thank me?"

It was a lot to get his head around, Mark found. 

It was sudden, a lot for his brain to process. He knew where Beth got it from now. Archer paused, nodded slowly and let out a slightly stunned laugh, as if couldn't believe what he was saying.

"You saved Beth's life," (Oh god, not this again. Everytime anyone brought it up, Mark just wanted to... He didn't know what he wanted to do, anything but accept what he felt was a very pointless gratitude) Archer sighed to himself, this time, suddenly shaking his head. "Not once, but twice."

Oh.

He stayed silent, staring at Archer Montgomery with a pair of frozen blue eyes. He didn't move. He just stared and stared and stared. 

Blood rushed to his ears, the world turned slightly and he lost the sensation in his knuckles as they turned white from the strain of holding onto the side of the scrubbing basin--

"It sounds shitty, but if you hadn't cheated on Beth, I don't think she would have made it out of New York alive," Mark didn't realise you could feel number than numb. In fact, he felt cold, frozen through like a corpse laying on a morgue table. He felt as if Archer was performing an autopsy right there, peeling back the layers and staring inside. "You breaking her heart like that gave her the incentive to get herself out of there. She would've died. I would've flown into Manhattan just like I'd flown over here and she wouldn't have pulled through--"

He made a noise at the back of his throat, as if the thought of it made Archer want to choke up. 

He didn't though, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared into the wall in front of them, oblivious to the expression that dawned over Mark's face.

("I know it sounds crazy, but I think he's had feelings this whole time.")

"New York wasn't good for her," Archer continued, dragging in a long breath and suddenly appearing almost scarily candid. (Mark's heart thudded violently against the inside of his chest. He felt tight all over, like a balloon seconds from bursting.) "If you and Addie hadn't fucked her over... she wouldn't have gotten clean. She wouldn't have found Charlie. She wouldn't be happy right now. She wouldn't be the strongest person I know..."

Mark just stared.

Archer cleared his throat. He shot a glance over at Mark's face but didn't really see. He nodded to himself, turned away and took his scrub cap off of his head.

"Beth's better than all of us. She's a good person," Archer dried his hands and he rolled out his shoulders, working out the tension that had built. "She cares about people more than she should. She's out in that OR gallery, playing nice with someone who broke her heart like you did... all because I asked her too-- She deserves to be happy and she is. She's found the love of her life and she's going to get married to him, and I thank you for that."

A pause.

"I hope, for her sake, you regret what you did to her..." He shrugged, almost hap-hazardly, "because I know that I'd be lost without my sister, and I know that you were lucky to have her, even when she was at her worst."

Mark didn't speak.

"For the record... I don't hate you," It was the final nail in the coffin. The final laugh and shake of the head that again, reminded Mark so much of Archer's youngest sister. Archer scrunched his scrub cap in his hand and grinned. "I feel sorry for you, because you lost one of the greatest things that's ever going to happen to you... all because you were too much of a coward to stick through the hard part."

It felt like a eulogy. There was a coffin in the ground and there were flowers being laid on it and Archer was standing above, speaking as if he'd written and memorised it.

 Maybe he'd performed it in the mirror? Maybe he'd gotten Sam or Naomi back in LA to ghost-write it? Either way, it accomplished what Archer had needed it to--

Mark didn't speak. Mark just stared.

He was left like that for a while, looking at a door that closed, leaving him alone in the scrub room with just the suds at the bottom of the basin and the words that were so fresh in the air. He paused. 

It was so silent. It was so heavy and silent and he didn't know what to do with this.

(He liked Tom Cruise movies. He liked to blast Andy Williams songs so loud that he could feel it in his bones. Feel. He liked french press coffee and the taste of coffee in kisses. He liked Dirty Dancing. He liked driving a little bit over the speeding limit and ignoring tickets. He liked missing people, only sometimes, and pretending he didn't when eyes met across rooms--)

Archer's words were bound to leave a mark. He liked the burn of it, in a way. He liked how he felt as though Archer had rubbed his skin raw, debrided him just like he'd sat and peeled back the layers of Jackie's skin. 

Maybe, if Mark paged him, he'd come pick his brain too-- because the way Mark felt, in that moment, he was sure that there must've been something wrong with him. He must've needed some sort of surgery. Neuro? Cardio? Ortho? 

Something was wrong and he sure as hell didn't know how to fix it--

Someone was yelling in the hallway.

It was distant, but the room was so quiet beyond the pounding of blood in Mark's ears. It was faint. It was far, but it was there. His first instinct was to think, oh, here we go again. 

His first instinct was to wonder if he was actually going to die this time-- but he reached out for the door. He pulled it open and he searched for the culprit.

There was something startling about the sudden movement into a bright, loud corridor, that had Mark almost dizzy. 

He blinked, once, twice, and the hallway came into focus. The OR's staff members were all looking down the hallway, their eyebrows raised and bodies halted in mid-motion. There was a commotion going on. 

Mark heard the faint buzzing of a security door and something slamming.

And then he heard her name:

"Beth."

...

Oh shit.

He really could't catch a fucking break today.

He saw her. She was storming down the corridor with hell on her heels. A mess of hair, a purse on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Her head was lowered and she was walking with purpose, straight towards him. 

Her feet slammed against the floor and Mark felt every footfall in his chest. 

One, two, three-- 

She didn't see him. 

She shoved past a OR technician and blazed straight by him, leaving the faint scent of her perfume in her trail.

Mark's immediate thought was that she'd, somehow in the trail of his luck and misfortune, overheard Archer's words. But then, he caught two people hurrying in her wake. 

The first was Addie, ashen-faced and still dressed in her scrubs, still in a gown and with her scrub cap nearly falling off of her head. Mark watched her pass too, still too stunned from his conversation with Archer to full process what was going on-- but then he saw Derek.

The Chief of Surgery was the person who answered Mark's shell-shocked question.

"What's going--"

"Mark, nows not the best time--" 

Mark couldn't pinpoint what it was about Derek, but there was something off about him-- his chest was heaving and he had this slightly crazy look in his eye as if he'd just had a very gruelling experience. It made Mark's brow furrow as he slowly, but surely, regained pieces of himself. Derek threw out a hand to stop him from following the two sisters. 

"It's really not--"

"I'm guessing the whole getting along thing didn't turn out how Addie hoped, huh?" 

Mark's joke felt strained. He let out a laugh despite the tightness in his throat. His face was still numb. Archer was not in sight. Mark wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and licked his lips, looking over Derek's shoulder as the neurosurgeon tried to block him. His joke didn't land, Derek did not laugh. He didn't even crack a smile. 

"I knew it was too good to be true--"

"Get your fucking hands off of me."

Even from half way along the corridor, Mark could feel the burn of Beth's voice. 

It caused both him and Derek to freeze, their heads turning to stare at the two sisters as Addison finally caught up. She'd reached out for Beth's shoulder and the youngest Montgomery had flinched as if Addison's touch was scalding.

"Get the hell out of my way--"

Mark's chest tightened. 

He hadn't thought it was possible-- holy crap. 

He'd never heard Beth so furious. If he'd thought some of their arguments in the past had been explosive, or that the dinner party had been venomous, he'd been wrong. 

There was something different about this. She'd spoken, or rather, exclaimed, with intent. Her tone had carried a whole different purpose to what Archer's had just moments ago--

Mens rea. Beth's tone intended to kill.

This was anger.

"Beth, please--" 

Addison, on the other hand, sounded distraught. The last time Mark had heard her sound so destroyed, they'd been stood naked in that brownstone, watching as Derek stormed out of their lives. It stirred a sense of deja vu inside of him. 

"Elizabeth, please-- just let me explain--"

"Let me guess?" Mark attempted another joke, swallowing back the sense of dread that bubbled inside of him. He looked over at Derek, trying to ignore the alarm that was in his eyes. He thought it was distasteful to elbow him in the ribs. "Addison wants to go for 'petunias' in the brides bouquet?"

"No," Beth's exclamation ran clearly down the hallway. 

Her sister had inserted herself in between the psychiatrist and the doorway and was now putting up a fight, trying her best to stop Beth from leaving. Mark couldn't see the look on Beth's face, but he knew her anger well. He could envision the murderous glare and the way that her skin crackled, almost with electricity. 

A bitter scoff echoed around them. "I think you've said enough--"

"Beth I don't think--"

"You couldn't leave it alone, could you?" 

Again, Beth's tone caused goosebumps to raise on Mark's skin. 

He glanced at Addison's face. 

Fuck, she was crying. There were tears streaming down Addison's face, heartbreak in her eyes-- this didn't feel like a wedding spat. 

"You just had to get involved?" Beth fumed, "You always getting fucking involved Addison-- I'm fucking sick of it--"

This time, there was no joke for Mark to give. 

His comedic relief dropped into a second wave of numbness. Now, came the concern, the alarm-- he was watching Beth explode into some sort of supernova. 

Archer had been right, Beth was too good for all of them. Her fuse wasn't short. She was burning hot. He looked at Derek, seeing the way that the Chief of Surgery's face twisted. 

He could've swore it was regret.

"What's going on?" Mark's question was low, wary. He was suspicious. Something was going on. This was not a wedding spat. "Derek, what's happening--"

Again, Derek didn't answer.

"I knew that I shouldn't have even bothered," Beth was yelling now. Her back stooped slightly from the effort of tearing the words from her body. She threw out a hand and Addison took a step back, eyes widening. "You're not worth shit! You hear me, Addie? All you do is fuck me over-- and I'm sick and fucking tired of! You're just like Mom! All you do is disappoint me, over and over again--"

The look on Addison's face was catastrophic.

"Are you happy with yourself?" Beth's voice was almost raw. 

It took Mark completely aback. He almost recoiled too. He could imagine how much her lungs ached. She sounded furious. She sounded completely destroyed, as if she was a bunch of fragments trying to force themselves back together-- She didn't sound happy. 

"Was it fucking worth it?"

People were staring, but Beth didn't seem to care. He knew her anger well enough to know that she was seeing red; but this was sober Beth, this was painfully present Beth, feeling everything. She'd been a nuclear fallout drunk and high, but sober, it was like watching a detonation right in front of his eyes-- his heart tore a little. 

His voice was caught at the back of his throat.

Even Derek seemed to be unable to step in. 

He was stuck. 

(Stuck to the spot and ears ringing. If he had to compare this moment to anything, he would've said any argument he'd had with Amelia. It was startling and raw. But it was necessary.) 

He didn't step in.

Someone should step in.

"Beth I don't--"

"Congratulations," Beth snapped, sarcasm falling like poison from her lips. "You figured it out-- what do you want? A scooby snack? A fucking Nobel Peace Prize-- Here, I'll give you Dom's number, he can buy you a fucking Harper Avery if you want--"

"Don't-- I-I don't--"

"What the hell do you want from me?"

Her voice broke. 

It caught in a crevice in her body and it made Mark's breath catch at the back of his throat. It was such a sudden moment. It made him falter. It made him think about how vulnerable Beth had been when she'd been dying.

"Seriously?" Beth's voice lowered and it got tight, as if she was holding back tears. Slowly, Mark took a step forwards, his chest growing tighter in response. "What the fuck do you want? Does it really... do you get off on making my life hell like this? Is this all one big thing to make me look so foolish-- I don't-- I don't understand what the fuck you want from me?"

"Beth--"

(Mark didn't know why Addison was still trying to speak. There was no space for reasons here.)

"Did you get Archer, into this?" 

Her words were fast and desperate, slightly choked. She sounded as if she was going, very slowly, mad. 

"I-Is that w-why he asked me to be nice to you?" Beth asked, audibly pained, "Did you convince him to say all of that crap about bringing our family back together? Is this- Is this some plan to just-- to ruin everything again? Are you gonna pack me off-- pack me off into some centre on the other side of the state again? Are you fuck Charlie while I'm in some straight jacket I--"

There was a break of silence. She'd broken herself off.

Addison took a step towards her, comforted by the silence. 

(Don't, Mark wanted to say, but he couldn't find his voice. It was lost, stuffed in a safe by Archer and the key had been thrown away the moment Beth had crumpled.) 

The psychiatrist stood there, what Mark guessed was, staring. Addison approached her like a wounded animal. Slowly and cautiously.

Mark looked over at his best friend. His voice was low and barely there, not enough for him to warn Addison on what was about to happen.

"What the hell did she do?"

Derek, once again, didn't respond.

"That's n-not what's happened," Addison sounded breathless, as if she'd ran a long distance in the span of the last few minutes. 

From here, Mark could see how her eyes shone with tears and how she reached out, as if to convince Beth as she spoke. Her sister tensed away, leaning back. 

"That's not it at all-- Beth-- you're not-- this isn't-- this is crazy-- I think you need to calm down--"

Mark had looked away just before it happened.

He heard the crack of it. 

It was a loud sound. It was so very loud. It was fast too. A blink of an eye, one that caused his heart to skip a beat and Derek to freeze beside him-- he looked up just in time to see Addison recoiled out of the way of Beth's hand, eyes widened in shock. 

He looked up just in time to see Beth's engagement ring catch the light and her fingers shine red, leaving a lovely print against Addison's porcelain cheek. 

He looked up, just as Beth went to throw herself at her sister, deciding that she'd finally had enough of Addison's crap--

Derek and Mark exchanged a look. A silent conversation passed between them and, in the same amount of time it took Beth to go in for the kill, they made an agreement.

Almost in sync, they launched themselves down the corridor to break up with fight.

Mark, without hesitation, went straight for Beth.

AN:

beth: u did something bad and u ruined both my career and relationship

derek: