Come lie with me

Chapter 21

When Derek returned to the waiting area, Mark was pacing like a mad man. Derek felt his heart drop into his stomach, as he looked for some indication as to why Mark was so agitated.

"What happened?"

Mark turned to him, a wild look in his eyes. "She is in the ICU. Bailey is letting me go in for a few minutes."

Derek breathed a sigh of relief. "That's great. So she will be okay?"

Mark sat down heavily on one of the chairs, putting his head into his hands. "She lost a kidney, Derek. A mother-fucking kidney."

"People live full lives with only one—"

"Don't give me that bull, I know that. Do you think I don't know that?" Mark's breaths were heavy, and lacking in consistency. In fact, it seemed as though he was breathing without taking in any air. "That doesn't change the fact that she lost an organ. And blood. So much blood. How am I supposed to get over the fact that she almost died?"

"Do you want the standard answer?"

"How 'bout the truth," Mark said.

Derek shook his head, as if he were trying to clear his mind. "You won't get over it. Now, in the beginning it is fresh and new. It will drive you crazy if you let it. And when she wakes up you will feel as though every move she makes needs to be monitored and analyzed so that she is safe. Eventually, you will move that panic, that fear, to one small corner of your mind, but it will always be there, haunting you. When she is fifteen minutes late, when there is an accident nearby, when she wants to take a risk…you will never forget or get over it, but it does fade." Derek took a shuddering breath. "I am sorry to say that I know exactly how you feel. So I can be here for you…if you want."

"Sorry, no." Mark said, his eyes looking into Derek's. "You don't know how I feel." His voice contained some small challenge, as if he were daring Derek to test him.

"With Mere—"

"Meredith was, and is, the woman that you love," Mark replied. "So in that way, yes, you know what I am going through. But as for the rest, you really have no idea."

"I don't know what you mean," Derek said. "What 'rest'?"

"You have had a charmed life, Derek. Before Meredith, there were many other people who loved you. Your mom, your sisters, numerous girlfriends, Addison, they all would have lined up to take a bullet for you. And you don't know how lucky that makes you. But me, I have never had anyone. No one who ever saw any good in me and chose to love me."

"That's not true," Derek argued. "My mom—"

"Your mom loves me because of you, Derek," Mark said. "Perhaps that has changed now, but in the beginning that was certainly true. And I don't begrudge you any of it; don't think I do. It's just that I never had that. But Lexie…well, everything was different with her from the beginning. She came into my life and just exploded everything that I knew about relationships and love and what I was capable of. So yeah, Lexie is like how you feel about Meredith in that sense, but the difference is, is that Lexie is it for me Derek. She is the only person in the world who loves me, and she is the only person that I have ever been able to trust enough to love."

Derek had never heard such words come out of his friend's mouth; he didn't know he was even capable of such feelings.

Mark continued, "So if I lose her, if this doesn't turn into the reunion that you and Meredith had, then that is it for me. I'm done; I'm out. I couldn't even begin to imagine living without her and I am not sure that I would even want to try. I think I could operate and do paperwork, and exist, but I would never want to feel anything again. So no, Derek, I don't think that you could, for even a moment, relate to what I am going through."