Disclaimer: I own nothing except for my writing.

Note: Lexie Grey is my favourite character on Grey's Anatomy and I've been meaning to write this story for a while. Please read and if you like it (or hate it) leave me a review!

Chapter 1:

She's alone at the bar until the door chimes. He sits across from her at a respectable distance. She tries to be nonchalant as she searches his expression. "How'd it go?" she asks. He stares at her, saying nothing. She relents. "I know. I'm pathetic. And George doesn't know I exist and I missed my surgery and blah blah blah. Could you please just tell me how it went with Mr. Patmore?" Already regretting her outburst, she's surprised when he replies calmly.

"We didn't get to do the surgery. Mr. Patmore's been shipped off to another hospital and he'll be free of pain by this time tomorrow." Silence as they watch each other. She wonders what he could be thinking. Is he upset that he lost a surgery? Upset that he's sitting across from her in a bar when he should be in the OR?

He speaks first. "Photographic memory, huh?" She nods, surprised. He listened more than she would have thought. His eyes meet hers and a smile quirks his features. "Periodic table. Go."

This is something she can do, and she knows it. "Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur... I can keep going!" Her laugh catches him off-guard, and when it fades back into silence they find themselves staring at each other. There, in the clamor and noise in the bar, at the end of a long and difficult day, they both feel it for the first time.

Love.

...

I hate Mark Sloan. Lexie Grey climbed up into the plane, trying not to look at Mark as he sat near the front. The night before, she had walked out of Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital and spewed her heart out to him in a confession of love. And of all things, the moron came back with "Thank you for your candor." She glowered as she walked past him, eyes trained stubbornly forward. Thank you for your candor? Jackass.

"Lexie!" Derek's voice snapped her away from her thoughts. "Come sit beside me so we can go over these scans." Derek shot Meredith a cold glare over Lexie's shoulder. Lexie blinked, sitting down beside him and watching Meredith stalk to the back of the plane.

"Trouble in paradise?" Lexie murmured, pulling out the scans.

"Something like that." Derek lowered his voice. "I want to move us to Boston. It's an incredible opportunity for us both and she can't see it." Lexie felt her heart drop to her stomach. Derek and Meredith were moving to Boston? Four years ago the two sisters could barely look at each other, but now they were genuinely close. She didn't want to lose her now. Lexie wished she were brave enough to argue that maybe Meredith was right, maybe they should stay, but instead she smiled tightly.

"I'm sure you two will work it out." In spite of herself, she glanced over at Mark. Was there any chance of being able to work it out with him?

Derek raised an eyebrow. "So, you finally told him how you feel?"

"Yes. And it was a total disaster that I don't really want to talk about. So let's please just focus on work, okay?"

"Okay."

For a while, Lexie and Derek buried themselves in the case. But eventually the scans and labs were put away and Lexie was left to her own thoughts. The familiar wheel was turning over and over in her head, the same questions surfacing in the same order. How can he not love me back? What on earth is he thinking? How did this go so wrong? Why did I tell him at all? She hated it, hated all the yearning and self-doubt. She hated that all the power had somehow ended up in his hands. But most of all, if she was honest with herself, she hated that she was here beside her brother-in-law while the seat beside Mark sat empty.

I hate Mark Sl-Lexie's thoughts were cut off by the ugly groan of bending metal.

And then the world fell to pieces.