You Promised | Mark Sloan ✓

58┃aftermath

[CW: dealing with grief, alcohol consumption]

Pre-S7

THE REMAINING DAY AFTER the shooting felt surreal, as though the catastrophe was simply a nightmare. But it wasn't, and the lives lost were still lost.

Most of the hospital staff had taken days off from the hospital to spend time with their family. Norah had taken a month of leave of absence; it was well needed, to say the least.

That night, she sat in Meredith's kitchen, along with April and Jackson who were mourning over the deaths of their friends, and Alex who was still shaken up. The latter had been near the Pediatrics floor when the gunshot rang out, he had managed to shield several children and brought them to safety.

Meredith was in the hospital with Derek, Cristina accompanying her. Lexie was at Seattle Presbyterian with Timothy, whose sister could not bring herself to spend the night there after everything that happened. He did not blame her, of course, he hated that he was stuck in a hospital, too.

The four in the kitchen were passing a bottle of tequila-one of the many that Meredith had stashed up for emergent use-among themselves. They were quiet, nobody wanted to talk. April was sobbing once in a while with the tissue box nearly empty in front of her; Norah had offered her a comforting hand.

Mark's look from the afternoon still surfaced in her mind every other minute, one that she had repeatedly tried to wipe off her head. Perhaps it was for the better; she did not believe that, or maybe, she did not want to believe that.

When Jackson's phone rang, all four of them jumped, feeling their souls leaving their bodies. "Sorry, I'm sorry," he quickly muttered an apology before getting up from the kitchen stool, "I... Sorry."

The three remaining fell back into silence, with only the sound of the tequila bottle scraping against the countertop filling the entire night.

❦

MARK SAT IN THE MIDDLE of the apartment, staring at the TV screen with a glass and a bottle sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

He did not know what to do, he was lost.

Her words never left his head, and the look on her face when he pulled away despite his own protest circled his mind. The look of sudden hurt, adding another coat of pain onto the one that was already screaming in ache.

Yet this pain was different-it originated from the centre, the deepest part of the human heart. It was flushed in every vein and artery, transporting the pain throughout the body and back. It was tiny needles piercing every muscle on the heart that pricks one's soul in its every contraction.

The feeling in his chest was a mix of grief, sorrow, confuse and anger. Anger was something that was fuelling his mind with every shot of scotch he took; the searing of the liquid down his throat had never felt as good.

He wanted to trash the place out of anger and hatred, but every time he picked up an object to hurl, his arm would freeze in mid-air. It felt as though he could vaguely see her around the apartment, watching him.

He despised the feeling more than anything.

But above all, he hated her for making him hate her.

❦ ❦ ❦

IT HAD BEEN A WEEK SINCE the shooting, and Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital was slowly-really slowly-adjusting its way back to running.

The walls were in their usual white, but the floors seemed to have a lingering vision of red. It did not have actual red left on it, of course, but it was the haunting image in their heads causing the view that way.