Secret smile

53

Mark cast a glance towards his girlfriend as she slipped off her shirt and let it fall to the floor. She hadn't said a damn word in the last forty minutes, which was usually not too much of a deal, but he already missed her long rambles about nothing. Or when she would recite an article to him word for word when he was trying to read it, just so they could get around to having some hot sex. She hadn't said a word since they had gotten home from Thatcher's. Mark liked Thatcher, he liked Lexie's family. It was a fucked up family but compared to his original one, they looked pretty good. But he hated when something happened there that made Lexie not talk and it was the only time that it ever happened. Lexie always managed to be quiet after a family dinner.

Of course, this family dinner had been worse than the few times he actually saw his parents. Usually, those were complete and total disasters that ended with his mother drunkenly announcing it had been a mistake to him and his father rolling his eyes and telling his mother to have more to drink. But tonight definitely beat those dinners. After Mer and Shep had left, Susan and Thatch had gotten into a rare fight. Not that it surprised him this time. Susan seemed to adore Meredith and was trying far too damn hard to get Meredith to fit into that family and Thatcher didn't seem to care one way or another what happened. Mark was pretty sure that to Big Grey, her dad was the one that needed to bend. But no one else got that, you need your own fucked up parents to get someone else's fucked up parents. Lexie didn't have fucked up parents. She still asked sometimes when she was going to meet Andrew and Carol, which was probably never going to happen. But she asked because she figured everyone had great parents like hers. If he hadn't known Thatcher Grey had another kid, he would have figured the man was the perfect father. But he wasn't, and it was killing Little Grey. Which was the real problem for him. He liked Big Grey, but that was Derek's problem, Derek was Meredith's anchor or whatever it was they said about each other and Mark was pretty sure Derek could handle it. But Lexie adored her big sister and if this was hurting Lexie, it hurt him or some cheesy shit like that. He loved her. He loved Little Grey and it wasn't right that she got hurt.

"Lex," he sighed.

"Hmmm?"

"You know I'm shit at this thing," he sighed. "I'm learning."

"What thing?"

"The thing where I ask you what's going on."

"Oh," Lexie shrugged. "Long night."

"Not pissed at me?"

"What? Why?"

"Hey, just making sure."

"Mark, did you do something that means I should be mad at you?"

"No."

"Are you sure?" she frowned.

"Why the hell don't you believe me?"

"Because you're you and usually when you think I'm mad at you, it's because you did something."

"No, this time I know it was your dad being an ass that pissed you off."

"Then why did you ask?"

"You are related to Big Grey," Mark smirked as he took off his shirt.

"What?"

"You did a great avoiding job there."

"I wasn't avoiding!"

"I said your dad was an ass and you wanted to know if I had actually done something wrong."

"I don't like you, Mark."

"You love me," he smirked.

"I know."