Grey's Anatomy Somebody Loved

A/N: this was written for a challenge over at Grey's Haven. The pairing was assigned - not that I'm complaining! - and the story had to incorporate a marriage proposal.

Reviews would be very much appreciated.

* * *

_Nights when the heat had gone out__  
We danced together alone__  
Cold turned our breath into clouds__  
We never said what we were dreaming of  
But you turned me into somebody loved_

_**Somebody Loved**_, The Weepies

* * *

You watch him—the Chief, your boss . . . the manwhore. And you wonder when he changed, in your eyes, from superfluous man candy into the person you most want to see each day.

Right now, he's defending you. You're not someone who needs defending, or you don't like to think so. But today you're one of the ritual sacrifices at the M&M, and his professional loyalty touches you in a place you keep hidden most of the time. You thought a fifth year resident was ready to fly solo on a mitral valve replacement. Uncharacteristically, you made a wrong call. And although nothing this M&M could do to you will ever compare with the way you castigate yourself, you have to sit through it anyway. But you're not listening. These people don't understand Cardio. Let that arrogant jerk from Psych do the next heart procedure if he's so freaking good! All you're listening to is the sound of Mark Sloan's voice diplomatically reassuring them that he still 'has the utmost faith in the Head of Cardiothoracics.' It's sweet when he acts all Chief-like. So unlike himself and yet so fitting to the role he's assumed. So unlike McSteamy, the guy who once turned you on, in a half-attentive way – you were with Burke and anyway he wasn't your type - when he sutured his own face. It seems like such a long time ago. You're 41 years old; you're a prominent heart surgeon; you have a nice apartment, a tolerant housekeeper and a series of interchangeable boys to fuck and to bring you Chinese food in bed afterwards. You have everything you ever wanted. No. . . everything you _thought_ you ever wanted. You overlooked something . . . someone. You overlooked him.

Now he's stepping down from the podium and sauntering off the stage in that way he has that still manages to look hot—and when did you start thinking this? You used to think he just looked obvious, if you thought about him at all. Even though his 50th birthday is coming up and even though he's the Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace Hospital, he's still a manwhore at heart. You smirk a little just . . . imagining! Certainly, nobody ever meant the word _manwhore_ as a compliment, but _you_ do. It turns you on just thinking about him that way. And when he turns you on now, you're the exact opposite of half-attentive.

"Dr. Yang!" You're startled, but you don't let them see it. The chunky, self-important Rheumatologist—now where is he in the hospital food chain again? Somewhere below the janitor?—clears his throat irritably, because evidently he's called you more than once. You roll your eyes and stretch and slowly stand up. You're still you; you're still hard-core; you can take these idiots.

You catch sight of _him_, now leaning against the wall at the back of the room, his arms folded across his chest. And he winks at you and grins and mouths something like "Knock 'em dead, baby." Because he calls you that, highly unprofessionally, and even though you're not his 'baby.' He does it deliberately because he thinks you hate it. But you don't. You like it. It gives you something extra to get through the day with. And, right now, that's enough. It's only when the adrenalin has receded and you've acquitted yourself well and everyone's gone back to wherever it is they go back to, that you'll notice again the ache that's inside you and wish that when he called you 'baby' it was because you really were.

* * *

"So, Yang," you sigh and run one hand through your hair. "We've been going through your personnel file and your emergency contact is out of date." Today has to be the one day that having to deal with this kind of crap isn't a world-class pain in the ass. You hate being Chief. It's mind-numbingly dull. If you'd wanted to be a fucking administrator, you'd have chosen a different career. But you want something out of this meeting, something personal, and you're hiding behind the 'we,' which implies your assistant when really it's just you; and behind the need to update Yang's file, which is your way of finding out if she likes you.

"She's my person," she says obdurately. It's only since you've gotten to know her that obduracy—it's not a word you used much before, but it could be her middle name—has become a turn-on. Sometimes you sit and watch her and wonder whether she loses this trait when she's screwing a guy or whether it gets more pronounced. You're not sure which would be better. Obduracy probably: more opportunity, that way, for slamming her up against walls and fucking her passionately until— Ah, shit! Now you're getting hard, behind the camouflage of your Chief's desk, so you think about administration again.

"Face it, Yang. She's in Europe; she's a screwed-up mess. Neither of those is any use when you're lying on the highway with your head splattered all over the tarmac."

You watch her fight to stifle an urge to laugh. You think she likes you, even though she acts like you're just in her way most of the time. You just don't know how much.

"I won't _be_ 'splattered!'" she snorts. "I'm . . . unsplatterable." She's disdainful of the notion that she could ever be injured. Injuries are for patients, not surgeons.

You sigh again. "Hospital policy states that all staff members have to have an emergency contact," you state wearily. "Just choose somebody, will you?"

She sits in silence for a few seconds and then shrugs. She looks perplexed and almost helpless. She doesn't know who to choose.

"What about what's-his-face?" you suggest. You mean the latest in the succession of younger, well-endowed men with less education than her and no opinions. You hope she'll say 'no.'

She shakes her head and then looks into your eyes. For one moment you see the defiant, unwilling softness that she sometimes shows, and you try to answer it with a look of your own. You're never sure if she understands the looks you think of as shared, but you always hope she does.

You breathe in, because you're nervous, like a teenage boy, and you never get like this with women. Only with Addison, anyway; and that's all so long ago now it doesn't matter anymore.

"You want _me_ to be your emergency contact?" you ask her. "Until—"

"Yes!" she blurts out. She looks surprised and a little desolate and like somehow you just invaded her privacy. But then she smiles . . . well, sort of . . . as much as she knows how. "Yes," she says again, more softly. "I can't think of anybody better."

You grin at her because you can't help it. "Well, all right then!" Shit, you're even talking like Richard Webber now! That's seriously got to stop.

It's taken you four years to get to this point. It's kind of pathetic when you think about it. But you're happy. She likes you. Now you can work on love.

* * *

When Derek and Meredith got divorced and he went back to New York, Meredith stopped wanting to spend so much time with you. She focused on work. She was nearly as driven as you. Except it never quite got her where she wanted to go. Neurosurgery didn't quite fill her void in the way Cardio did for you. Because of this she was never quite good enough to get the results she wanted. And this fueled her feeling that she wasn't quite good enough in any aspect of her life. You felt for her. She was your person. But, eventually, conversations got difficult and, although she was still your best friend, you drifted apart. You never wanted to admit this and so, when she left to go to Europe, you 'forgot' to replace her as your emergency contact. You didn't need one anyway; you weren't going to get sick.

You took to going to Joe's after work to pick up inappropriate men. You still looked good and younger men liked you and you could call the shots with them, which made the fact that you weren't really that into them more bearable.

Then one evening, when there were no sexual candidates that met your standards, Mark Sloan had shown up and bought you a drink. He had just made Chief and you snarked at him disparagingly, but when the evening came to an end you found that you'd had a good time. So you did it again.

It became a regular thing. In the end, you were meeting three times a week for drinks or even dinner occasionally. He took you to a conference with him. He bought you breakfast and coffee—more coffee than you wanted or could drink which, given your caffeine habit, was quite an achievement. He took you to a Seahawks game and bitched at you for days afterwards because you talked about surgeries the whole way through it. And one time he took you to a fundraiser and you had to dress up and he said you looked hot, and when you tried to snark back at him you found you couldn't. You just blushed!

Then you started jogging together. Excuse me . . . _running_. Manwhores don't jog, evidently, they _run_. Not as fast as you, though, although you never let him know this. He was still more or less his McSteamy self. But he was pushing 50 and his hair was completely gray now and he looked as though life had beaten him up somehow and you supposed it had. It was this act . . . this anomaly in your life; this quashing of your visceral need to compete and win in favor of preserving his ego . . . it was this that made you realize that you loved him.

You love him. McSteamy. Mark Sloan. The Chief. You love him and you don't think you'll ever be able to tell him. Because, sure, he'll do you; but you already have men for sex. With him, you want something more. And so you settle for friendship. And, apart from heart surgery, it's the best thing in your life.

* * *

"I need someone to do sutures on my Ross Procedure this morning."

You're swamped with paperwork from a fucking screwed-up DNR you're going to get nailed to the wall over, and you hate your damn job and everything that goes with it even more than usual. Why the hell had you ever aspired to be Chief?

"So pick a resident," you grunt at her. "Is there some reason you need to share this with me? I get that my office door reads 'Dr. Mark Sloan, Chief of Trivial Crap,' but who stitches up your patient is not my concern."

She doesn't say anything, which is strange in itself and, when you look up, she's standing in the doorway of your office looking . . . abandoned.

"I need someone good," she says. "It has to be done right."

You would make some kind of remark, but your instincts tell you that something's up with her and so you wait.

She swallows and then says, quickly, in a low voice. "I want _you_ to do it. I want you to be in the OR with me."

"Yang," you say. "You don't have to take the M&M to heart. It's a bunch of bullshit."

"It's not the M&M," she says. "It's . . . personal." She doesn't like seeming vulnerable, so she gives you a pissed-off look and gears up for a fight. "Just do it already," she snaps. "I'm not going to stand here and beg you."

Someone else wouldn't see beyond her abrasiveness, but you've known her long enough and well enough now that you see something else there, something almost like need. So you stand up, groaning when your back protests. You'll have to start lifting lighter weights and get a better chair.

"I'm all yours," you say adding, as you walk over to her, "I see we've decided to stop playing the game where we pretend you give a goddamn that I'm your boss."

She raises an eyebrow. "You're delusional," she snarks, trying not to smile. "When did I _ever_ give the impression that I care what you think?" She's got her way, so she's happy. "If you were playing a game, you were playing with yourself." And she laughs at her own joke.

"You're very funny," you say dryly. She smiles; she agrees. She's so fucking cute, even though she's Cristina Yang and she'd kill you if she knew you thought that. But you love her. And you think today could be the day you let her know.

* * *

"We're done here." You end the procedure with your customary curt phrase and move towards the scrub room, where Mark joins you.

As you scrub out, side by side, you say, "Thank you for—" You had been about to say 'suturing,' but suddenly you have the urge to be open with him. "Thank you for being there for me."

He doesn't reply, but looks questioningly into your eyes and you briefly return his gaze, before dropping your head and scrubbing vigorously at your hands.

"I needed . . . today is a hard day for . . . " This is unfamiliar territory for you and you falter. But you take a deep breath, brace yourself against the sink and say, "When I was 9, my father . . . there was a car accident and he . . . Today's the anniversary and, usually, I cope. But this year, for some reason, I'm not . . . coping." You pause because this is about the most exposed you've ever made yourself to him. "Your being here, in the OR, made it better. I needed you to be here."

Mark doesn't say anything. When you look at him again he's standing, almost frozen and staring at you.

Self-conscious that you've revealed so much, you take refuge in comforting sarcasm. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah . . ." he says uncertainly. "I hope so, anyway."

You raise an eyebrow challengingly. "So . . . ?"

He looks down for a few seconds and then back up at you and you see, really see, his grayish blue eyes and what appears to be love in them and it takes your breath away.

"Want to get hitched, Yang?" he asks almost shyly.

"Do I want to _what_?" you ask, unable to process what he's said.

He shrugs. He looks so uncomfortable and part of you wishes you could take back your reaction.

"Want to get hitched. . . Cristina?'

You stare at him. "But we're not fucking!" you exclaim, because you can't take this in properly. "We're not even dating! Why would you—"

"We've seen each other three nights a week for the past four years," he says, sounding a little hurt. "We run together. We have dinner. We have coffee. I like. . ." he looks down again briefly. "I love you. You think we could maybe stretch the point and call that 'dating?'"

You pause and try to think of a contradiction, but only because that's what you do. You contradict; it's your M.O. But you don't really want to this time and you're glad when you can't.

God, you hope this isn't some kind of joke, and you scrutinize his face to see if you can find any evidence of this. There is none. He looks sincere and . . . like he's waiting to be executed!

"Okay," you say cautiously.

"Okay?" he asks.

"Okay," you repeat. "Yes."

He swallows. "I didn't know if . . . women don't . . . they don't pick the dirty mistress." He smiles crookedly at you.

"Well, I did . . . do . . . whatever," you say. "_I_ pick you. And, seriously, wasn't all that 'dirty mistress' stuff 10 years ago? Can't we move on?" It sounds harsh, but you mean that you love him, and you can tell from the relieved look in his eyes that he understands this.

"We're going to need a new espresso machine," he says gruffly in an attempt to cover his emotions. "I wore the old one out." And as he says this, he smirks.

You nod dryly, knowing the rest of your life is going to be spent listening to smutty innuendo. And this makes you strangely happy, even though you know exactly what's coming next.

He leans in close to you. "I'll wear you out too, if you let me try," he growls softly in your ear and your body throbs a little in response. "I'm pretty good for that."

Again, you nod. But this time you follow it with a reserved kiss, conscious that the scrub nurse and intern working on post-op are watching you.

He smiles. "About the not-fucking thing," he says quietly. "Want to find an on-call room and rectify that?"

You hesitate, because there's one question you need to know the answer to. His answer won't change anything, but you need to be prepared. "You don't have a mother, do you? Burke had a—"

"I've got Derek," he says. "That's it. He's an ass, but he's in New York and, as far as I know, he's pretty open-minded about wedding cake and what brand of toilet cleaner to buy." He pauses and then smiles again. "It's just you and me, baby. That's how I want it."

And you swallow back the emotions that are threatening to make you melt and the trembling that's started up somewhere deep inside you, and pretend you're still exactly the same as you were five minutes ago, yesterday and most of the years before that.

"The on-call room, huh?" you say. "Yeah . . . fuck me, McSteamy. If we're going to do this, I definitely want a test drive first!"

"Or two . . ." he smirks.

"You think _two_ will wear me out?" you ask, smirking back.

"I was thinking of _you_." He shrugs. "I'm told I'm mind-blowing."

You give him a dirty smile. "You have no idea what you're letting yourself in for, do you?"

"On-call room, now!" he says hoarsely and you notice the bulge in his dark blue scrub pants.

"Why yes, Sir. Anything you say!"

The Chief; your boss; McSteamy is now just Mark, your lover. Your husband, for all intents and purposes, because you have never cared about rings and pieces of paper. And you're not quite sure you expected this from life, but you're _happy_. You have everything you want now. You're somebody loved and you're going to spend the rest of your life showing him that he is too.


End file.

Grey's Anatomy, Humor, Romance