[CW: mention of su1cide & assault]

S6 EP20

MARK DID NOT SLEEP THE entire night, he could not rest, at all.

One being Sloan had reappeared in the middle of the night, going into labor. The surgeons from across the hall had helped with the birth, but he remained lost in his head. Holding his grandson in his arms was the sole thing he had a recollection of.

The rest of the night was a blank recollection for him.

Lying on the couch, he had listened for the soft footsteps or the jingling of keys or the door opening-even if it was from the door down the hall. But all he heard was silence, other than the droplets of water dripping down the kitchen sink.

It was a rhythm; now he knew why she had always found the small rhythms soothing.

❦

THE FIRST THING HE DID when he arrived at the hospital the next morning was to flag down Timothy.

He eventually found him talking to Lexie by one of the coffee carts and pulled him aside despite interrupting the conversation of the two residents.

"Dr Sloan?" Timothy's voice was fairly exasperated.

"Did Norah go to your apartment last night?" Mark asked, his breathing uneven and his brows knitted worriedly.

Timothy narrowed his eyes at the attending. "What do you mean?" he questioned back.

That was a 'no', then.

When the realisation sank in, the resident's face paled. He took a step towards the attending, clutching the collar of his scrubs and staring at him straight in the eyes. "What the fuck did you do?"

"I didn't... I-" Mark was at a loss of words as he exhaled heavily.

Timothy's expression was frozen, concerned, afraid. "She... broke up with you?" he asked carefully, letting go of the attending's shirt.

"I... I don't..."

The colour on the resident's face drained, a bubble of panic started to rise in his chest. Mark looked stressfully back at him when he noticed the resident's eyes searching frantically for something-someone.

"Dr Lawrence, Dr Shepherd is looking for you," a voice called from behind.

"J-Just give me a min-"

"Right now? Alright, fine," another voice replied instead, "Thanks, Thompson."

Both heads snapped towards the direction of the voice and saw a tired-looking Norah handing the scans in her hands to the younger resident in front of her.

They exhaled in relief. Mark was about to walk up to her when Timothy held him back. "Don't," he warned sharply, his whole 'protective brother' mode was flickered into activation within a minute.

❦ ❦ ❦

NORAH KNOCKED ON THE door of the Chief of Surgery's office and entered after the voice told her to go in. Derek sat at his seat behind the desk looking worn out before it was even noon.

Before she could close the door behind her, it was swung open again and Timothy marched in with a growing smile on his face. "Tim? What are you-"

Her words were cut off when Timothy wrapped his arms around her tightly.

Although he was nearly a head taller than her, it was still as if they were children, and he dug his face into her shoulder. Derek raised a brow at her and she returned it with a confusing look.

"I thought you fucking ran away again," Timothy explained with a relieved sigh.

Norah cocked a brow at him. "I run away from problems, but now my problem is dead," she stated, "Why would I run away this time?"

"I don't know, the last you quit your internship in New York, wrapped up everything and moved across the country," he rambled while shutting the office door behind him. "And then when Sloan told me you broke up with him-"

"You broke up with Mark?" Derek questioned loudly, staring at her like she had grown five heads.

"I-what?"

Sounded like it, didn't it? I just had to mess up everything, don't I?

Norah dropped herself onto the couch in the office, staring between the two men. Timothy frowned at her seemingly collected look, he knew that it was fake-a mask she was hiding behind-he just knew it.

"What really happened in New York?" Derek asked, noticing her look as well. Her mouth gaped open, but she did not know how to speak about it.

"You look like you're about to fucking explode, Nor," Timothy added sharply, "I believe that right now, you'd rather talk to Shepherd than Sloan. So talk, or I'll get you checked into psych again, then you can talk to a therapist stranger."

"Again?" Derek looked more confused than ever.

Norah sent his brother a hard glare and he raised his arms in surrender. "Hey, I'm just trying to help," Timothy defended himself, "I can't risk you snapping again..."

She sighed, "I know... and sometimes I hate you for it."

He returned her with a small grin. "Nor, you can't fucking hate me even if you try."

Kicking her legs up on the couch, she exhaled heavily. The two people in the room with her were people she trusted, yet opening arm was never her strong suit.

"Hanson was actually a friend of mine before everything went wrong," she started, hugging the pillow with a lack of stuffing in her arms. "He was a great friend. Fun, charismatic before I wrecked his face... He was nice.

"He guided me to climb up a mountain. He helped me, he really did..." she trailed off, shaking her head, "before kicking me down a cliff and continued shoving me at the bottom." Derek frowned at her sentence while Timothy stared back at her.

"And everything was downhill after that, but I didn't know how to escape from him." She remembered the nights where she would lock herself in the bathroom just so she could have some 'alone time', but Jeffrey would pound at the door until she unlocked it.

"He became controlling, and it scared the crap out of me," she grimaced at the memory. The hair on her hand stood up at the thought of it. "It was torture with him, you know? He wasn't quite physically abusive, but mentally? It was the deepest layer of hell. And I just... There was one thing I could think of that can spare me from him for good..."

"By... taking your own life?" Derek guessed carefully.

Bingo. Norah let out a dry chuckle, staring at the magazines on the rectangular table in front of her knees. "When you're really down there, it is the only thing echoing in your head," she spoke, her voice was smaller this time. This was her first time speaking about it, except for her therapist that she had quit before leaving the East Coast.

"The sleeping pills did not work the first time," she gulped, it was as though she could feel the bottle of pills in her hand. "And then... I uh... I..." She lifted her eyes to Timothy who had his arms folded in front of his chest as he leaned against the wall.

"I caught her before she got carbon monoxide poisoning," Timothy finished her sentence.

Derek looked between the two siblings, a look of compassion passing among them. Despite her being his favourite student and even a very close friend, he had never known this side of her.

"Yeah... The day I quit the internship in New York, the same night I was checked into a psych ward," she admitted throatily, her hand fidgeting with the pillow in front of her chest. "That's about it..."

"The part where he stalked you and you beat him up?" Derek queried, recalling the time she 'summarised' her life in New York to him during her intern year. "Was that made up?"

"Oh, no," she turned her head to him, "When Jeffrey got controlling, he was stalking me, watching my every choice and move. So, I did end up with vodka and beat him into a pulp. That did happen."

"I bet it felt good," Timothy spoke up with a half-grin she barely returned.

She sighed while lying on the couch, there was a soft ticking sound coming from somewhere that did ease her mind up. She felt like the weight on her shoulders had finally been taking off, she felt relaxed-and she felt tired.

"Talking it out actually helps."

Derek snorted, "Why do you think therapists exist?"

"Why do you think I got a degree in Psychology?" Norah cocked a brow back at him.

"That isn't relevant."

"I'm aware."

Timothy had thrown a pen at her before she drifted off to sleep on the couch. She returned with a scowl and a long line of swear words, hurling the pen right to his face. Of course, he caught it effortlessly. Derek shook his head at them and scolded them like two little kids.

He leaned back at his chair, the load of paperwork in front of him made him sigh. "You and Mark broke up?" he decided to point out the elephant in the room that had yet to be addressed.

"I-I don't know, I don't..." she sighed in defeat, "Is that what he said?"

Timothy did not answer, though; he had an unreadable expression on his face.

"Well, it's mostly my fault, I guess-no, I know," she muttered, "I didn't tell him anything. I couldn't. And then we got into a big fight last night-my fault-but their words sounded too similar, a-and I lost it and snapped at him...Regretted every word, but it's too late now..."

She did not want him to know that part of her life, because she was broken pieces. It was a part of her that was fragments of an explosive that blew up, but it did nothing more than self-demolish.

"I guess I didn't want him to see me as pieces of shattered parts..." she spoke, adding a weak chuckle to the end of her words, "But in the end, that still happened, didn't it? I'm self-destructive. Pathetic, really."

The room was quiet while Timothy shuffled at his spot against the wall and Derek's chair making a noise when he leaned forwards. "You know, by leaving Mark out of the blue, you weren't protecting him," the latter stated.

Yeah, I know that now.

"I made the choice to stay, you know? That day, he offered me a chance to flee again, but I made the choice to stay," Norah shook her head, "I was trying to protect the both of us-well, tried-and I ended up hurting us both..."

She could see the look in his eyes whenever he looked at her for the past two weeks; the pain of not knowing and the yearning for her to just stay by him.

"The look in his eyes will haunt me at night," she swallowed, "I had to look him in the eye and lie to him, for god's sake-the worst part is I actually did it with relief. What the hell is wrong with me?"

What's done is done, right?

"God-I really love him, you know? I really do," she chuckled weakly before shaking her head, "Which is why I can't find the piece of me to forgive myself for hurting him."

There was a long moment of shared silence between the three of them before Derek spoke up, "Well, it is your fault..."

"Screw you, Shepherd," she rolled her eyes, "Not helping at all."

"Alright," he clapped his hands and sat up straight. "We need to discuss matters about Jeffrey Hanson, because believe it or not, he put your contact as his emergency."

Yes, I believe that. Of course, he did.

Timothy excused himself from the room since there was no need for him to be there anymore. He twisted the doorknob and stepped into the corridor, his eyes meeting with the pair of blues right next to the door.

There was a pause between them as he narrowed his eyes, before he questioned, "How much did you hear?"

From the look of the attending-the pain in his glistering eyes, the way he was blinking quickly with his head dropped-he knew that the attending had heard more than enough.

"Walk away, Sloan," Timothy stated, his voice hard, "She never wanted you to know any of it."

❦ ❦ ❦

NORAH WAS PULLED ASIDE by Arizona who looked stressed. "You gotta talk to Mark, because I don't think he's gonna let the baby go."

"Baby? What..." the brunette furrowed her brows, "Sloan had the baby?"

"Yes, last night, at the apartment after you... Well, Mark's getting attached," Arizona continued.

The brunette merely stared back with her eyes narrowed. "He thinks I, uh, broke up with him, and truth be told, I don't even know what I think," she responded grimly, "Mark's a good guy. Just convince him, he will listen... Send Sloan my regards."

Before the resident could walk away, the attending held her back. "What happened last night?" Arizona queried and Norah chuckled drily.

The fight had been playing in her head like a movie, haunting her every thought. Yet the blame was all on her, she snapped and she failed to hold back.

The line between New York and Seattle was blurred, and she failed to separate both coasts.

All she needed to do-and he wanted her to do-was to open up just a piece of her mind, and that was exactly what she failed to do, failed to compromise.

She failed.

And she loathed herself for her self-centeredness.

"I pushed him away when I needed him the most, because I'm a world-wrecker when it comes to personal problems," she muttered tonelessly, "I regret every single word, but if given the opportunity to turn back, I wouldn't change a thing-isn't that just purely twisted?"

"You're really... over now? You can't do that to... to either of you."

"I don't know... But I have no idea how to mend our relationship with me being broken glass shards all over the place," Norah let out a deep exhale, shaking her head, "I had a great thing, a perfect thing. Everything was brilliant and I just have to screw it all up...

"And trust me, he's better off without my insanity."

Yet even with the things she said toppling out her mouth, she did not really trust her own words.

❦ ❦ ❦

"NOW JUST REMEMBER, THE Sloans, we bloom early," Mark spoke softly to the baby boy in his arms, "So when you start to grow hair on your face, don't be shy. Live it up."

Norah was standing outside the family room, against the wall where he could not see him, but she could still hear his voice through the gap at the door. It stung her repeatedly when she heard the baby cooing and his dear voice talking to the baby.

"All the other guys will be jealous. And it's okay to rub it in a little bit," she heard him continuing inside the room, "But not a lot. You don't want to be considered too full of yourself. No one likes a vain guy in the locker room."

There were several sets of shuffling footsteps approaching and she pushed herself away from the wall. Callie was walking towards her, along with an excited-looking couple following closely behind the attending.

"Is Mark..."

"Yeah, he's... inside," Norah replied and gave the couple a polite smile.

Callie nodded and knocked on the door, before leading the new parents into the room.

"Oh my god," the woman spoke breathlessly with a wide smile on her face as she approached Mark in the room, "Is that him?"

"You should stay, you know?" Callie muttered softly to the resident who was right about to walk away.

Norah spared one last glance into the room through the widened gap of the door. Mark had handed the baby boy to the couple, passing them a bag and a teddy bear he bought from the gift shop as a remembrance.

Perhaps she should start to trust herself, to trust her own words, because he could, in fact, do well without her.

In the end, she sighed and shook her head. "I shouldn't..." she mumbled, catching one last glance at him in the room where he flashed the new parents a smile, "...I really shouldn't."

Callie watched as Norah walked away, her head hung low and her steps heavy.

Mark came out of the room just shortly after, following Callie's gaze and vaguely saw her shadow trailing away from the hallway.

"She was here, wasn't she?" he asked, his voice weary.

Callie nodded and sighed at the gloomy look on his face. "What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know, Torres... I really don't."

❦ ❦ ❦

THAT NIGHT AFTER WORK, Mark knew that something was different the moment he stepped into the apartment. He had no idea how, or when, but her belongings had been cleared out.

He stepped into the bedroom, feeling the rug under his feet and the smell of scented candles filling his lungs. The familiar sound of the ticking clock was still coming from the nightstand, but other traces of her was gone.

She was gone.

His phone calls were never picked up.

She was gone.

He lost his daughter, his grandchild and her, all in the same night; it was quite unbelievable that he had not lost himself, too.

Where did everything go wrong?