A/N: This is where I verge to my personal choice of fictional ending in the episode where Meredith chose to stay with Derek instead of choosing to have a fresh start with Mark.

CHAPTER TITLE: Lost

So there really is no starting over for me here in Seattle. To the rest of the world, I'm the chump who seduced his bestfriend's wife. In Seattle, I'm the 'Dirty Mistress.' Honestly, I did believe I was in love with Addison. And when I want something, I fight to get it.

After all, I am Mark Sloan.

I never really fit in anywhere. Growing up was hell; my parents were quarrelling most of the time. Amidst the fights and screaming, I mentally blocked out everything. I took to the streets and been with juvenile gangs in those days. Yet in spite of everything, I became disgusted when my so-called friends began drug trafficking and doping up. I wanted more from life than to be an addict and a criminal. I realized that the only way that I could truly escape my family was if I become independent. My choice was either to go on a downward spiral into a black hole or to stick it out and fight like hell to get out.

I made my choice. I am going to survive. I stopped cutting classes and cleaned up. I began studying, got excellent grades, and worked my way through college. It was hard, juggling the academic work with physical labor, but it paid off.

In Columbia, a lot of snobby, preppy girls came on to me. I had a summer job then after my first year of college, working as the pool maintenance guy in the country club. I'd see their perfect, tanned bodies sunbathing, sipping their little umbrella'd cocktails, and flirting with me. I once tried dating a socialite after weeks of flirting with me and that experience taught me a lot.

"Do turn off the lights, Mark," Adrienne asked, pulling her silky hair into a ponytail. I turned off the lights, slowed her little red convertible, and parked under a tree a block from her mansion. "I'll pick you up same time tomorrow at the back of the diner." She zipped up her jacket and smoothened her skirt.

I was getting sick of the booty calls in the middle of the night and the secret dates we had. They weren't actually dates; we would just have sex in a nearby motel. "This is the last time I'll go out like this with you, Adrienne. I can't take all this secrecy anymore. If you want to go out with me, I'll take you out on a regular date. I'll pick you up from your house in my pick-up and we'll actually eat in the diner with what my meager salary can afford."

She looked at me and crossed her arms across her chest. "Honey, I know you need the money that's why I insist on paying. Plus you know very well we can't go out in public. My family will be scandalized and my dad's going to kill me!" Adrienne is the only daughter of the Governor. She purred and began rubbing my thigh. "He's going to run in the upcoming elections."

I looked at her in her pastels and cardigan and expensive manicure as if seeing her for the first time. She's nothing more than a mindless, rich, spoiled brat who wouldn't be able to survive without Daddy's money.

I raised an eyebrow and gave her my signature deadly smile. "Then I'll just make this easier for the both of us. It's over." I quickly got out of her car and walked down the quiet tree-lined street without ever looking back.

After that, I learned to use women and let them use me. There were no pretensions, no promises, and no guilt. I never had a failed relationship; I conveniently never had one.

My parents died in a car accident sometime before I chose to pursue Medicine. They left me quite a hefty sum of money from the insurance I never knew my dad had. So I researched on how I could make more money out of it and placed half of it in the stock market, buying shares of a company named Microsoft. It paid off, so well in fact that when I had entered medical school I was already a self-made man.

I bought a whole floor in a building in the Upper East and converted it into a bachelor's pad. I bought a couple of Harleys and a Ducati. I had millions in the bank. I had everything I needed.

I went to Harvard for med school and met Derek there. We were always in competition for the highest grades, for being captain of the rowing team, and for the women. Years had passed and I was still attracted to the wrong women – women too beautiful, too rich, and too good to be with someone like me who came from the Bronx.

Like I said, I always felt like the outsider, even after I was done with my surgical residency and finished a subspecialty in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. There is just something about my shady past and unorthodox upbringing that made a handful of women I've gone out with, who were surprisingly astute enough to sense that I was not what I seem to be, become disgusted with me. Being with people like Derek who came from a distinguished clan with very serious 'old money' immediately placed me among the crème de la crème of the East coast society. Yet, the women always found my aloofness, arrogance, and cynicism both intriguing and exciting.

Then came Addison. I had been in training in Thailand for two years while she and Derek met and dated. A month before they were married, Derek called me to come home to New York and be the best man in his wedding.

I had leased my pad for the past two years that I was abroad so I naturally crashed at Derek's house. I opened the door to his townhouse and brought my suitcases upstairs. Years ago, I always stayed there whenever we'd go out to a boys' night out in town, far safer than going home drunk-driving on a motorcycle. I showered and changed into boxers, meaning to get a glass of scotch after the long intercontinental flight. I quickly went downstairs to the kitchen.

Someone immediately gasped. "Ach!" A beautiful, red-haired woman clad in a flimsy floral nightgown materialized in the kitchen. "You scared me to death!"

I chuckled, offering my hand. "I take it you're to be the future Mrs. Shepherd? Mark Sloan."

Shaking my hand, she smiled. "I'm Addison Montgomery."

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I was both their bestfriend. I was there for both of them. I never knew what having a family felt like until I was irrevocably adopted into theirs. They took care of me and I took care of them. Then came the Christmases, the Thanksgivings, the birthdays, the anniversaries, and the reunions.

You see, this thing with Addison surreptitiously made its way into my heart. One never bites the hand that feeds him. She was family to me. Looking back on all things said and done, I had no foresight on what was to happen. I never thought of her in a romantic kind of way. Plainly, I just had never been in love before. So it was never just a one-night stand for me; this thing took years in the making. I never consciously tried to break up their marriage. And I swear that I was sure to stop myself had I figured earlier what was to happen.

Late into their marriage, Addison and I were left alone most of the time. Derek had become lazy in working on their marriage. Knowing Derek, he had become indifferent to Addison and preoccupied with work. With Derek always away, Addison became more preoccupied with me. I noticed the 'little things.' She goes to my pad and brings groceries. She sometimes drops by to have my clothes laundered with theirs. I never asked her for these things and yet she just does.

I became more and more aware of her qualities – her kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness, vulnerability, strength, and sincerity. Naturally, I began taking care of her too. I'd call in by lunchtime to ask her if she'd eaten or just call to ask how her day was. I took Addison to dinner, to plays, and eventually their family gatherings even. They saw more of us than they saw of them together.

That fateful night, I saw her crying over the rack of lamb that she was marinating for dinner.

I placed my keys on the kitchen counter to let her know I was there. "What's wrong?"

I never saw her looked so sad and so tired before. Taking in her puffy, red-rimmed eyes, I held her there in the middle of their kitchen. "Tell me what's wrong, Addison."

Addison buried her face and cried some more. "I had just finished marinating the lamb and I don't know what came over me. It just hit me that I'll be dining alone again and here I am crying and I can't seem to stop."

"You want me to call Derek?" I stroke her back, gently urging her to cry it all out.

Awkwardly, she stepped out of our embrace. "I don't want to disturb him. He's probably saving a life, you know." She sat, dousing her face with water from the faucet and wiping her eyes. Addison looked down on her hands. "I'm sorry you saw me like that. I've been having a hard time pretending Derek hasn't been indifferent to me for a long time now. I just don't know what to do anymore. I just feel so lonely sometimes."

Sitting down across the counter, I sighed. "You know I know absolutely nothing about relationships. I don't know what to say. But I know Derek. He's just really preoccupied with work. You know how he can be so attached to his patients." I snatched the recipe book from the bookstand. "Well, I'm here, aren't I? And I'm famished. Come on, I'll help you cook that lamb." I got up and began tying the strings of her ridiculous "Kiss The Cook" apron behind my back.

Seeing me decked out in a frilly pink apron and oven mittens, Addison forgot about herself momentarily and raised an eyebrow. That statement wrung a laugh out of her. "The great Sloan can cook a rack of lamb?"

I winked at her, got the baking pan with the lamb on it, and placed it inside the oven.. "Of course, I can!" I looked down on the recipe book and quoted. "'Turn oven to 345°C and bake for 30 minutes.' See, any idiot can do that." I place both my hands on my hips and nodded to the oven.

We had a delightful dinner that night, as always. Over candlelight, we talked and laughed and drank a lot of wine. When we ran out of wine, we finished off the scotch and the vodka.

After a while, Addison was slurring and jabbing her finger on my chest. "You know, you shouldn't be right here consoling me. You should be out there on the streets, prowling for some unsuspecting woman, and making her fall head over heels in love with you. You've been on the market for too long, Mark." She laughed out loud and slapped her thigh at her 'brilliant' idea. "Time for you to make someone miserable too!"

I wiggled my eyebrows. "Maybe you're right." I was slurring a bit myself. "I just hope as hell I'd be as lucky as Derek to find someone like you." I laughed and pinched her cheek like a cute toddler's.

In retaliation, she swung her arm to punch me playfully on the arm. Outbalanced, Addison fell on her side and hit her head on the floor.

Setting my glass on the table, I laughed and nudged her leg with my foot. "Hey, Addison. You're so stinking drunk."

When she didn't appear to move at all, I got down on my knees and lightly touched her cheek. "Addison? Wake up!"

A smile playfully tugged at the corners of her mouth. She opened one eye. "Gotcha."

"You asked for it!" I began tickling her sides mercilessly until she was laughing with big fat tears were rolling down her face and was begging me to stop. I stopped and she stopped laughing. Addison suddenly crumpled into my arms and began sobbing this time. I just held her there, both of us on the carpeted floor. I felt sorry for her then. Derek should be the one holding her now. He was, after all, the cause.

I began stroking her hair and brushing the tears from her eyes.

I never consoled a crying woman before; I always ended my relationship with a quick 'This isn't working out' speech and quickly walking away before I see them cry. This was different. I was not breaking up with her; she was a friend. I didn't know what to say.

I kissed her hair, and then her forehead. She looked up at me with those beautiful tear-filled eyes with so much longing. I kissed her eyelids and her cheeks. "Oh Addison."

Her pleading eyes, her soft body clinging to me, and the scent of her hair. All that and the liberal, alcoholic pre-loading that we had imbibed had suddenly filled my senses. All my self-control left me. I closed my eyes and kissed her lips.

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I guess the reason why I was drawn to them was because I envied them. They had each other, have wonderful families, and were respected. I see every look that passed between them in silent communication, the way one of them unconsciously touches the other, or even the way they move were subtly alike. I envied their happiness. Maybe for some unknown, unspoken wish, I had wanted some of that could rub off on me too and that I would be able to find someone who's like Addison to Derek.

I never imagined I would end up breaking the marriage that I swore to protect, and hurting the two people I loved and trusted most in the world.

Sorry just doesn't begin to cover it.

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See? Mark isn't as shallow as they depict them to be on screen. He just hasn't found someone to shake that cynicism off him even just a little bit. Read and review please!