chapter seventy

sympathy for the parents.season six, episode nineteen.

.

This fact had been established for years, , even. It had made it's way into the metaphorical history books of his youth, hundreds of pages filled with the names of his conquests, all tied together with a pretty pink ribbon. Women, men, and a few people somewhere in between, each one of them falling victim to his charms over the span of his adulthood; honestly, he'd lost count ages ago.

He took pride in the harsh title, a faint blush rising to the apples of his cheeks each time it was brought up. In a way, he liked to think it made him a good feminist. Gone were the days of calling a woman a whore for sleeping with one or two guys; with Mark around, anyone with a body count less than fifty looked like the goddamn Virgin Mary. It was of him, if anything.

Sure, Mark spent the majority of his young adulthood sleeping with anyone who was willing, but only once in his life had he ever fallen in love.

Cassie didn't come into his life on whim. It wasn't a meet-cute turned sudden romance, or a budding cliche between a naive girl and her prince charming. They were friends, who may or may not have slept with each other on occasion; though, that was just due to their mutual loneliness. No, his love for Cassie didn't develop overnight, or even over the span of several nights. It took years of friendship, years of platonic love, and years of for him to finally accept that he had fallen for her, and that had fallen for , too.

But as hard as it was to accept that he loved her, it was a million times harder to accept that he had to stop.

What hard, though, was falling back into old habits. Sure, sleeping with the same nurse who publicly and shamelessly ruined Lexie and Rue's relationship wasn't , but beggars can't be choosers, right?

Besides, it's not like was one to judge.

The nurse — , he remembered her name after a moment of concentration — tossed him his scrubs which had been discarded onto the floor of the on-call room, dark blue colliding with his skin, though, his focus was elsewhere.

"Stop , Dr. Sloan," she teased him, mistaking his spaced-out gaze as a flirtatious one. "Or else we might need to make this a two-time thing."

But Mark wasn't staring because he wanted it to happen ; no, he was staring, because he regretted it happening . And despite what he'd been trying to convince himself throughout their twenty minute tryst on the twin sized mattress, Sophie really did look similar to Cassie.

Not necessarily to the naked eye, but to , the comparison was obvious. It wasn't just that their names were sort of similar, but so was their hair color, and their height, and the shape of their body. Their facial features were different, sure, but they also in the same way, the way that made people stop and stare for a moment each time they passed. Maybe his subconscious was playing tricks on him, or maybe, he slept with Sophie just so he could feel a remnant of .

()

Mark couldn't vividly recall getting dressed, only snapping his mind back into focus when his pager went off, the consistent drawing him back to reality.

"I gotta go," he said dumbly, showing Sophie his pager as if she needed any more proof than she already had. As if he her proof. She looked back at him while reapplying her red lipstick, forced naivety in her gaze. "Uh, this was— "

Now, Mark was rather used to desperate people clinging to him after they hooked up. But being roughly kissed on the mouth with zero warning, long they'd both already finished, was a rather new development; though, he did suppose the kiss helped his brain differentiate between her and his ex. Cassie had always been a good kisser.

Not that this girl was — because she wasn't, not at all — but the whole thing just felt so .

As gently as he could without breaking her spirit, Mark put his hands on each of her shoulders, detaching her from his lips almost immediately. The first rule of being a whore, .

"Well, I have a patient, so," he gestured for her to move out of the way, just enough so that he could squeeze by and get to the door, "This was, uh, ."

Sophie smiled up at him. "It was."

Mark used to be damn good at the quick goodbyes, and yet, here he was, feeling like an awkward college kid all over again. Dating Cassie had thrown him off his game.

"I..." he nodded to himself, "Okay, well, I should..."

Hesitating for longer than what was necessary, Mark slipped past her, exiting the on-call room and reentering the land of the people who just have meaningless sex with a lookalike of their ex-girlfriends. Sophie carefully slipped out behind him, not saying a word of goodbye other than a brief touch on his arm.

But whatever peace he'd felt after she left didn't last for long; of course, the universe wouldn't dare allow him to get a fucking for five minutes.

Cassie stood at the nurses station near the end of the hallway, alone, going over the details of whatever case she was assigned to that day. Her head was stuck in a chart, and Mark took a brief moment to thank that she didn't see him with the nurse.

Not that he was cheating, because he , or that he felt guilty, because he , but, . The thought of her seeing him with another woman just felt wrong, whether he was mad at her or not.

Once again, his pager sounded out, reminding him that he actually have a patient he needed to get to. Sparing one last glance at an occupied Cassie, he dusted himself off, ready to spend the entire rest of the day as if nothing had happened at all.