You Promised | Mark Sloan ✓

28┃love letter

S4 EP14

NORAH WAS ON HER WAY to the nurses' station when she felt someone bumping the side of her arm. Turning her head, she got greeted with a coffee cup in front of her eyes.

"Thanks," she said to him with a smile playing on her lips. "You want a sip?" she offered when she noticed his gaze on her drink.

He cleared his throat before shaking his head. Truth be told, he was silently panicking.

"What's that?"

"Love letter," he blurted out a little too quickly, and his eyes widened; Norah glanced at him with a bewildered look on her face.

"I'm pretty sure we won't have a lobby full of staff staring at a love letter pinned on the bulletin board, Mark," she chuckled, "Missing panties, maybe. Love letter? Nah." He nodded wordlessly, lowering his head out of sudden embarrassment.

Norah stopped abruptly at her steps, causing Mark to nearly walk right into her. "Alright, what's going on with you?"

"What? Me? I-I... Uh... I-nothing."

She folded her arms, staring at him; he raised a brow curiously at her. "You're stammering. And you've been awfully quiet with a lack of dirty jokes-which is the first thing you'll say to me every morning, along with coffee."

Her fingers tapped against her cup of coffee; he was eyeing the piece of paper tucked under the coffee sleeve, silently cursing at himself for not placing it in a more easily noticed position.

She furrowed her brows at the conflicted look on his face, not knowing what was on his mind. Taking a step closer to him, she heard his breath hitching, which only made her more confused. "What's going on, Mark?" she asked, her voice softer this time.

"Nothing," he managed out with a small smile on his face, but it was not convincing her at all. "It's nothing, no... well, not really..." he let out a nervous chuckle, his hand rubbing along his jaw.

When she reached for his wrist to stop him, his eyes met hers; his body relaxed almost immediately, not knowing that it had been tense in the first place. "You sure?" she asked again, and he responded with a shrug.

She was still holding his hand, as though a string was tying around both their hands and not allowing them to let go. The way his gaze repeatedly dropped to the floor made her puzzled-and concerned.

Something was off, but she was not sure what.

When his pager called for him, his hand did not leave hers, but she continued eyeing him worriedly.

The attending cleared his throat as he was about to excuse himself, but as he lifted his head, he got taken aback when she reached up to press a kiss on his cheek-something she had never done before, yet it felt too natural for her doing it.

Mark stared back at her wordlessly; Norah seemed stunned at her own doing, too. "I'll, uh... see you," she spoke after the longest second ever. "Thanks for the coffee... again."

"N-No problem," he mumbled back to her; the dumbfounded grin on his face made her smile. When she hurried off to join the other residents, he let out a shaky breath and a low curse, running a hand through his hair. "Oh, fuck..."

She was driving his mind in circles, and he had no intention of escaping the dizziness she brought.

The quickening of the pulse on his wrist when she did that left her with a dazed wonder.

❦

NORAH GULPED DOWN THE cappuccino as she approached Meredith, Izzie, George and Lexie standing in front of the bulletin board. They were eyeing the newly-put up newspaper clip: Burke had won the Harper Avery Award.