Chances Are

Summary: Mark Sloan meets the love of his life at a bar while waiting for Addison Montgomery-Shepherd to come. He didn't think he could ever love after Addison, but then again, fate has other plans. Mark/OC, AU

Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's. No, this is not a Mina (Nina Knight/Mark Sloan) story! This is a different OC. This takes place in late season 2-ish. Also, I will be using songs for the chapter names. Listen to them to understand what I was thinking when I was writing! Enjoy!

~x~

Chapter One: Keep Breathing

~x~

The clock read just after 10:40pm and Mark had been sure that she would show up before now. Instead, he was alone, sitting at the bar on a stool, and drinking his usual single scotch. As he let his eyes drift across the room, looking for a woman to drown his sorrows in, he spotted her.

She didn't look like she belonged in the bar, sitting on a stool near the end, staring down at her whiskey. Her face was mostly blank, her pink tongue coming out to lick her lips as her red nail tapped against the glass of her cup.

Mark knew she would be easy enough to get into his bed; she would let him forget Addison even if it was just for a moment, and he made his way over to her. "Is this seat taken?" His voice purred. The woman's head lifted; his blue eyes met a stormy gray. He could tell that he had surprised her.

She shook her head. Mark sat beside the woman, taking in her form; she had shiny black hair that reminded Mark of Derek, full red lips, saddened gray eyes, and a figure that made his fingers itch. She was nothing like Addison.

"What is a lady like yourself doing in a place like this?" Mark asked, noting that she didn't seem very interested in talking. He would just need to prey a little extra into her life. She would be a good lay and he would surely forget Addison until the next morning.

She stared at Mark for a long moment. "I'm looking for someone to take home, to forget everything. Can you be that person?" She asked, with a British accent, straight to the point. Mark was surprised by her tone; no woman he usually went for was ever straight to the point. Look at Addie - she went around in circles constantly. "And I don't want to know your name. I just want a mindless one night stand."

Mark grinned at her. "Sounds like my kind of plan, shall we leave?"

The woman nodded and stood up. Mark paid Joe before he led the stranger out of the bar and to a cab, telling the taxi driver to bring them to his hotel. Tonight was going to be fun.

~x~

The first thing she realized was that she had actually done it; she had had her first one-night stand. It wasn't as dirty as she thought it would be, nor was it as passionless as she thought it was going to be. Instead, her gray eyes opened up and she found herself in a stranger's hotel room, clothes scattered everywhere and a sleeping sexy man next to her.

Lucky would surely be jealous.

Slowly, she turned to the man beside her and stared at his face, making sure that he was actually asleep and wouldn't wake up while she tried to make her escape. Surely, that was what she was supposed to do, right? Carefully, she moved to the edge of her side and pulled her sore, aching body out of the soft bed.

Checking to make sure the stranger was still asleep, she moved around the room to find her clothes. She found her black dress, black heels and bra but her panties were nowhere in sight. She sighed, as she quickly dressed, figuring she could go without one less pair of panties; she grabbed her purse and thought about just booking it. Instead, she walked over to the desk and wrote him a note. That was respectful, right? And maybe she'd like to have another bout of sex. Her life was about to just get more depressing; sex with a drop dead sexy man was good, right? It had to be.

Thanks for the sex last night,
D.H.

She quickly left the hotel room and never looked back.

~x~

"I can't believe you had sex with a stranger! A complete and utter stranger! What is your mother going to think?"

After coming home to her apartment, walking the walk of shame, she had run into her best friend Lucille or Lucky as she liked to call her. Lucky was a short, slender redhead with bright green eyes. At the moment, Lucky was pacing the living room in front of her best friend.

When she received no answer, Lucky knelt before her best friend. "You could have died, Dessa. And what then?"

Dessa shrugged her shoulders, "I needed a bit of fun in my life. It's not like I'm going to ever see him again! He didn't give me his name and I didn't give him mine. We used condoms if that's what you're worried about." Dessa answered. She played with the edge of her black dress. "He was really good looking. He was nice and very gentlemen like. I suggested we go have a shag. What's so wrong with a woman asking for a casual shag?"

"He could have been a murderer!" Lucky complained, causing Dessa to sigh and roll her eyes. "You've never been interested in anything casual before! Is this because of Brian? Because I assure you-"

"It has nothing to do with Brian! Lucky, please! Do you seriously think I want to get back together with him? He's in love you for God's sake!" Dessa stood up from the couch, needing to shower. "I know Brian loves you, Lucky. So I'm not jealous. I just needed some fun in my life and that wanker from last night was it. Okay? Now, I have to have a shower. I have work in two hours and I don't think it's nice to be late for work for your first day."

Lucky watched Dessa disappear into the bathroom to shower. She sighed, ran her hand through her red hair and then went to call her boyfriend Brian to update him on Dessa.

~x~

Mark needed to vent to someone; all he had left from his one-night stand was a note with the initials 'D.H.' and he wanted to know who the mystery woman was. She had made him feel alive in a way he felt he couldn't anymore. She was a very beautiful woman and as soon as Mark woke up to find her missing, he had picked up his phone, ready to call his best friend, Derek, but then he thought better of it.

Derek would simply not answer or yell at him. Neither of these things did Mark need nor want right now, but he needed someone to talk to about this woman. Maybe it was better that he didn't tell anyone about her - he didn't even know her name. For all he knew, the note could be a lie and her name wasn't 'D.H.'.

So that was how Mark found himself sitting at Joe's again, waiting for any sign of this mystery woman or Addison. He spotted Derek's lusty intern sitting alone drinking tequila; he felt bad for the woman since she too understood his pain. Mark made his way over and sat beside her.

Meredith lifted her head and looked at him. Mark could tell instantly that she was drunk and hurting. He did not make any moves towards her to get her into his bed - even he knew Derek would never forgive him if he slept with Meredith. Everyone, including Addison, could see that Derek loved Meredith. It was only a matter of time before Derek returned to her and left Addison.

And Mark was ready to wait for Addison, but something about that woman left him feeling…confused. He loved Addison - that much he was sure of, but then why was he looking around for that head of black hair and listening for that British accent?

~x~

Inside of the bathroom, Dessa could hear Lucky speaking to Brian; she knew it had to be Brian because Lucky never showed that sort of emotion to anyone except Brian and Dessa herself. Dessa locked the door and moved towards the sink and mirror, looking at herself in the mirror. She moved her shirt to the side to glaze at her pale flesh and staring back at her was a dark hickey.

Her one-night stand had marked her. It brought a small smile to her face - the hickey made it that much more real. Dessa moved over to the shower and turned on the water, before she pulled off her clothes. Looking at her hips, she could see the bruises from his hold and she thought of him thrusting inside of her. Dessa reached up and touched her lips, thinking of his lips on hers. She could remember every part of him and she wondered if he was thinking of her.

For a few short moments, Dessa was back in that moment, with her stranger and she enjoyed it. She was snapped from her thoughts when she heard Lucky crying in the living room, down the hall from the bathroom. Dessa stepped into the tub and sat down, letting the water run down her back and she pulled her knees to her chest.

She thought back to the reason why she was at the bar and she sighed, closing her eyes.

~x~

The reason Dessa was sitting in the OB/GYN waiting room was because she was sure she was expecting a baby. The only man she had slept with recently was Brian and that had been at least 16 weeks ago; she had taken a pregnancy test and it had come back positive. Dessa knew that Lucky would be very upset once she found out and both women knew that Brian would return to Dessa because of the baby.

Dessa was feeling nauseous, she was constantly tired and she was bloating. So there she was, waiting for the specialist, Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd, to talk about options. Dessa had never thought that she would have any children; she had never wanted any children, especially with Brian.

"Miss Hart?" Dessa stood up and made her way to the nurse, who was holding her file and smiling at her, "Right this way, dear. The doctor will be right with you." The nurse said after bringing Dessa to a small room. "Change into this." She was handed a hospital gown.

Before Dessa could say anything, the nurse was gone. She looked at the gown before changing slowly. Her thoughts were jumbled. What should she do? Brian and Lucky were in love with each other, Dessa couldn't deny that and she couldn't take Brian away from Lucky.

A few minutes later, a tall leggy redhead entered the room. "Miss Hart?" She asked, pushing her black glasses up her nose.

Dessa nodded, "That's me. You're Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd right?"

The woman nodded. "Yes, that's me. Now, your file says you took a pregnancy test? Is that correct?"

Dessa nodded once more, sitting on the bed in her uncomfortable hospital gown. "Yes, that's right. But I can't be pregnant, right? I was told to come to the hospital to have it confirmed and have an ultrasound."

The young doctor moved around the room with ease; Dessa was jealous. She wished that she could just like her. Within minutes, Dessa was having her first ever ultrasound. The room was silent for the most part; it seemed the doctor had gotten the hint that this wasn't a planned pregnancy. Dessa was so thankful that she didn't have to pretend to be happy or excited.

And then there was the news. Dessa wasn't pregnant…the doctor was pretty sure that Dessa had a tumor. Dessa had cancer. There would need to be tests to confirm it, but, there was mass on both her ovaries and the bloating was the tumor growing. After the tests were completed, Dessa ran away from the hospital and went to the closest bar. She needed something to get her mind off the news and the only drink she knew about was whiskey, so that was how she found herself at Joe's, drinking whiskey and then finally meeting him.

It was like God had answered her silent prayers.

~x~

Three days later, Dessa was at Seattle Grace, sitting on the bed again and waiting in a hospital gown for Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd. She was silent, feeling already so ill knowing that this was a 50/50 chance. She could be told she had cancer or the machine had been faulty. Dessa was hoping for the latter, obviously.

The same redhead entered the room and greeted Dessa kindly enough before getting straight to the point.

"We have a few options, Miss Hart-"

"Dessa," Dessa said quietly, staring at her lap. "Call me Dessa, please."

"Dessa," the woman replied, knowing how tough it was going to be on Dessa. "The cancer is at Stage ||A, T2a. This means that the cancer that started in the ovaries has spread to the Fallopian tubes and uterus. The best course of action is to remove the ovaries, Fallopian tubes and uterus; after we would fight back further with Chemo."

Dessa looked up at the redhead, tears slowly filling her eyes as she came to terms with that this meant. "I'll never be able to have a baby?" The doctor moved closer to comfort her as Dessa began to cry. "I've never liked children! But…but I always thought I'd have them someday! My kids were supposed to grow up with Lucky's and be best friends…Bollocks!"

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she came to terms with this. She had cancer. She could possibly die. She would never have any biological children of her own.

After she had cried herself dry, Dessa stood up. "Can I have a few days to think about this? Please? I…I understand the risks, doc, but I need to think about this. Cancer will make my hair fall out and I'll look like a total git."

The doctor nodded. "Just know that we can get you into surgery as early as tomorrow."

"Thank you," Dessa was left to dress and once she was, she walked out as fast as she could and towards the elevators. She wiped her eyes as she stood alone, in front of the elevator and thought of what this all meant. And then she stepped onto the elevator, acting like she wasn't falling apart and that her life was going to get a whole lot worse.

~x~

Up Next: Take Me the Way I Am: Without telling anyone close to her, Dessa decides to first do Chemo because she needs to shrink the tumors before they can remove them. And then there's Mark, who spots her again at the bar and then begins a short lived romance between two people who have an expiry date.

Yes, I know, I should update my other Grey's stories but I had to write this…and I like it. Dessa isn't like anything I've written before so she's really fun. Please, let me know down below if you like it. This story will be three chapters in total. I hope you enjoy it!

Xoxo,

Nerdy