Chapter Text
"Why are you still here?" Meredith looked away from group of drunk college kids playing darts, having been wondering what the chances were of one of them injuring themselves, and over at Mark. For the past half hour, he'd been slumped forward with his head buried in his arms. Now his face was turned towards Meredith, cheek pressed against his forearm and his face flushed from all of the alcohol they'd had. "Don't you want to sleep or something? Interns never get enough sleep."
"Because I was you," Meredith told him. He made a soft sound, intrigued. Meredith took a deep breath before saying, "I told Derek to choose and that if he chose me, I would be here waiting for him."
"He didn't come."
"I don't know," Meredith said. "We got called into the hospital for an emergency."
"But he wasn't here when the call came?"
"But he wasn't here when the call came," Meredith confirmed.
Mark was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Addison isn't coming either, is she?" Meredith hadn't known Mark for more than a day, but she could already tell that the low and unhappy tone in Mark's voice wasn't very characteristic.
"No. I don't think she is," Meredith said. She reached out, settling her hand on Mark's shoulder blade. "But I didn't get to wait as long as I wanted to wait, so I'll sit here with you as long as you want to wait."
"You don't have to," he said.
"Of course I do," Meredith said. "I'm President of the Dirty Mistress Club too. And as President, my job is to take care of the members when the people they were seeing decide they'd rather have their husband than their mistress."
Mark stared at her for a moment before a smile settled on his lips, something a little sad. "You, Meredith Grey, are far too good to have been a dirty mistress."
"Well, it doesn't feel like too many other people share that opinion."
"Who cares what other people think?" he asked. "I'm Mark Sloan. I'm always right."
Deciding that arguing with someone as drunk as Mark was wouldn't prove anything, Meredith just hummed before asking, "You want another drink?"
"God yes," Mark said, turning his face back into his arm. "I'm done with Scotch. Get me some tequila."
"Tequila it is then."
Addison's Dirty Mistress
Since I'm a guy
can i still be called a dirty mistress? or am I a dirty master?
Why are you texting me?"
You gave me your number.
Was I not supposed to take that as an invitation?
I'm not really sure why I gave you my number.
But it definitely wasn't any kind of invitation.
Not even an invitation to be dirty mistress friends?
Didn't you text me to argue that you AREN'T a dirty mistress?
Therefore negating said friendship?
Shit. You're right.
Addison's Dirty Mistress
Is that dirty mistress friends offer still on the table?
Well, I'm not going to tell a pretty lady to stay of my life,
so I suppose.
But why?
I did a very bad thing, so my options are friendship with you or friendship with
Derek
I'm better than friendship with Derek?
I agreed to friendship with Derek, but considering I'm the dirty mistress
I don't think this friendship is going to last very long.
And since I don't know how long my other friends are going to be upset with me
I might as well accept your offer as well.
Jesus
What'd you do to make them hate you so badly that you
don't know when they'll stop?
I slept with someone that I really shouldn't have slept with.
Very dirty mistress of you.
He's not married.
What's worse than sleeping with a married man?
Sleeping with a friend that's been in love with you for ages.
Ah.
Yes. I'd say that's probably worse than being a dirty mistress.
Addison's Dirty Mistress
Do you believe in death clusters?
Why? Seattle Grace has a death cluster?
Maybe.
Ouch. Three or seven?
Seven. We've lost four already.
Three to go then.
That's not helping.
I'm a surgeon.
Helpful is my middle name.
I'm pretty sure with you 'arrogant' is more likely.
Well, that too I suppose.
Mark Helpful Arrogant Sloan?
Absolutely.
Good luck today. I hope your patient doesn't
end up as one of the remaining three.
Me too.
"We're friends now right?" Meredith said, speaking in a rush before Mark could get so much as hello in.
"Hello lusty intern," Mark said, sounding amused. Meredith wasn't sure where he was, but she could hear noise in the background that made her think he was probably in a hospital. She knew that Mark had a private practice. She wondered if he was at a hospital to perform a surgery and what it was. "And yes. I do believe that's what the constant text messaging means."
Meredith was quiet for a moment, thinking.
She wasn't entirely certain why she had called Mark.
The two of them were texting a lot, mostly about surgeon stuff but occasionally about the few hobbies they had outside of surgery, but it wasn't as though they were having a lot of deeply personal discussions. Maybe it was because Mark was so far away, because it felt safe to unload on Mark and know that he wouldn't tell anyone about the vulnerable squishy parts of her. Maybe it was just because there was something about Mark that drew people in, something underneath the arrogance and womanizing that was genuine and open. Maybe it was because she knew that that facade existed, knew that he had to be just as messed up as her to cling to it so tightly.
"Do you remember what I told you at the bar? About my father?" Meredith said.
"You saw him for the first time in a few decades, right?"
"Yes and now he's here," Meredith said. "With his wife and a daughter that I didn't even know he had!"
Mark was quiet for a moment before Meredith heard him let out a low whistle. "Wow. That's...."
"Insane! That's insane!" Meredith hissed. "I don't know how to deal with this! I can handle absent mothers. I grew up with an absent mother! I can't handle fathers showing up out of nowhere with their second family."
"I don't exactly know how to deal with that either," Mark said. There was some shuffling on the other end of the line before he said, "But I've got some time right now if you want to talk about it and see if the two of us together can figure out how to deal with absentee fathers and their second families."
Meredith thought about how she couldn't tell her other friends about this - how George wasn't talking to her, how Izzie would be too sympathetic, how Cristina and Alex would be too unsympathetic.
"Yes," Meredith said, relief flooding her chest. "God yes, please."
"Alright," Mark said. "Let's do this then."