Well, half a year has gone by. I'm very sorry. I have been receiving such lovely reviews and you haven't been getting nearly as many updates as you deserve. But here I am again!

I would like to start writing a new fanfic aside from this one, but I don't have any ideas. Please let me know if you have any ideas on what I could write, it doesn't necessarily have to be Grey's.

I'm gonna let you enjoy this very late chapter now!

Derek was doing his morning rounds. Meeting with patients he would, or already had, given surgery. Comforting their friends and relatives, telling them that everything would be alright. But the truth was, he felt like he needed to be comforted too. Death was painful, for everyone involved. There was constantly something in the air. Even when they didn't talk about it, he knew it was the only thing on every doctors mind, but obviously it was worse for those who were close to Lexie.

Derek would consider himself close. The last couple of years he'd grown very fond of her. He felt devastated.

While he visited a patient, an old lady on her deathbed, he couldn't help but to think that soon that would be Lexie. Too weak to speak or breathe on her own, just waiting. Waiting for that last breath to come. The old man by the window, a friend of the patient's he guessed, that would be himself. And the crying lady in the old man's embrace would be Meredith. By the dying old woman's bed sat her lover. Hope leaving him as he stroked her hair. That old man would soon be Mark. The only difference was that Lexie was so young. Far too young to be in this position. In the room of this old lady, there were both kids and grandkids saying their goodbyes. Lexie didn't have that. She hadn't had enough time.

"You seem distracted", the chief mentioned somewhere during the day.

"Of course I am", Derek stated and sighed. "It's hard to think about much else these days.

Dr Webber nodded.

"I feel the same way", he admitted. "It really gets to you, these things. It affects all of us. I'm not sure Mark will ever recover from this."

"I'm sure", Derek answered. "He won't, ever."

A deep feeling of helplessness haunted him the entire day. Every day that passed, the end was getting closer. He checked her blood counts and oxygen levels, everything multiple times per day. He could see that slowly but steadily they were getting worse, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Mark seemed to have reached some sort of acceptance. Instead of denying it, instead of fighting he'd just settled down next to her. Talking, telling stories, creating some final memories. Derek did not want to accept that this was how it would end.

"40 days", Meredith said out of the blue, breaking the silence around the lunch table.

"What?" April asked in confusion.

"That's how long she has, approximately", she explained. "Not that I'm counting days or anything..."

An awkward silence once again settled around the table.

"You really shouldn't do that", Alex tried. "It's not doing you any good."

"Well I can't help it, can I?" she snapped.

Everyone was tense. There was no knowing who would snap if you said something inappropriate. There was no knowing what was inappropriate to say. The worse part was the wait. Nobody wants to just wait for someone to die. With Izzie there had always been hope. It's when that hope disappears that things get ugly.

They all had to deal with their regrets too. Lexie had assured and reassured them all that she didn't hold any kind of grudge towards any of them, but that didn't seem to soothe enough. There's always something you wan't to go back and change. Both Jackson and Alex regretted the way they had dealt with their relationships with her. Most of the others just regretted not spending enough time with her, or maybe taking advantage of her and her photographic memory. A lot of small things that were hard to let go. Some let it consume them, and some were able to shake it off.

"I have to go to surgery", Christina said, and stood up to leave the strained atmosphere behind.

"Yeah, I'm really behind on charts", April continued, happy that she was not the one who was weak enough to leave first.

Surely she should be able to eat lunch with her friends, but lately it seemed so different from what it used to. There was always someone missing.

"I have to see what those jerks we call interns are up to", Alex excused himself, quickly followed by Jackson.

Meredith was the only one left at the table. People around her in the cafeteria seemed to have noticed her friends deserting her and she found herself being watched by the tables around her.

"Yepp, it's me", she said loudly. "The pest! Don't want to get too close, do you. I might bite you."

She was tired of being stared at. Of being the target of everyone's pity. She sighed and closed her eyes. Of course it was not as bad as it was for Lexie, she had to remind herself of that. Nurses were almost afraid to talk to her. It had to be awful. She had enough on her plate without all that pity.

It was in the afternoon. Mark had brought some good music for his love to listen to. They were falling in and out of sleep next to each other. This was a moment he wanted to keep. Her pain had been managed by medication. She was relaxed and not too anxious. Moments like these came more rarely now.

Lexie whispered something and he couldn't hear her clearly.

"What was that, sweetie?" he asked.

She opened her eyes, looked deep into his and smiled.

"I think we've done alright", she said with pride. "I know that we made things harder for ourselves than they had to be, but in the end I think we did good. Lying here with you, I'm thinking that a lot of people never get to have what we have, experience what we've experienced."

He smiled back at her.

"Only you could still be this positive towards life after everything you've been through", he said. "I'm proud of you for that. You still manage to shed some light over the people around you. I don't know anyone else who could have done that."

"Oh, stop it", Lexie giggled and blushed as she looked away.

Mark wondered how it was possible for love to fade away. He had known her for such a long time now, and he was still madly in love with her. He couldn't imagine those feelings ever going away.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" he asked, teasing her.

"No", she smiled. "You couldn't do that."

They were interrupted when the door was violently pulled open by Derek. He had a wild look in his eyes and they flickered around for a while before he spoke.

"Mark", he said quickly. "Could I talk to you for a second?"

"This better be important", Mark said suspiciously and leaned down to place a kiss on Lexie's lips. "You're making me leave my girl."

"Trust me", he answered. "It's important."

Mark shrugged his shoulder and followed him out into the corridor.

"What's this all about?" he asked.

Derek looked around as if to see if someone was eavesdropping.

"Look..." he started. "I don't want to get her hopes up, but..."

"But what?" Mark asked.

Derek had his full attention now, but seemed afraid to continue.

"It might be nothing", he explained. "But I found something..."

He took a long paus and Mark was getting impatient.

"What did you find?" he asked.

"A clinical trial", Derek said in a heavy breath. "I just felt like I had to keep on looking, and I found an excellent oncologist from Pennsylvania who is experimenting with a new drug. The few tests that he's made have been very successfull. There was an example of a man in his 40's who was suffering from a very progressed lymphoma. This drug helped shrink the tumors enough for them to be removed by radiation. He's in remission now. I just thought, what have we got to lose?"

Mark was in shock. There was a battle going on inside him, weather he should let himself be happy or not allow himself to hope too much.

"That's... amazing!" he stuttered. "But, wait a second. Do we have to move her to Pennsylvania?"

"See, that's the thing", Derek answered. "I came in contact with him, and convinced him to do the trial here, if you want to try it, of course..."

"Of course I want to try it!" Mark yelled a little too loud, his face breaking into a smile.

Derek smiled too.

"Do you want to tell her?" he asked.

Mark nodded and ran back into the room.

"What's going on?" Lexie asked when she saw the two grinning men.

"Derek has found you a clinical trial!"

Mark couldn't contain himself enough to break the news slowly. Lexie looked surprised.

"What kind of trial?" she asked suspiciously.

"A new drug", Derek explained. "I don't know much about it, but it looks very promising."

"Do you want to try it?" Mark asked eagerly.

She let her gaze wander back and forth between them until she too broke into a smile.

"I want to try it."

"You want to try it?" Mark smiled, full of hope for the first time in a while.

"Yes!" she laughed, and was soon completely covered in Mark's warm and excited embrace.