Disclaimer: Obviously I own no part of Grey's Anatomy. I'm just having fun with some of the characters

A/N: This takes place immediately after Six Days Part II; so beware of spoilers. Also the episodes following don't happen so I guess this would be AU.

Mark Sloan leaned against the railing of the pier, looking in the direction of the water but not looking at it. He twirled a sprig of baby's breath between his thumb and his forefinger, seemingly engrossed in the motion. It had been a tough day for him despite the nonchalant front he had managed to put up at the hospital. Today could have been the day he was welcoming his son or daughter into the world if Addison hadn't gone and aborted the baby. He hadn't admitted it to anyone but that act cut him deep. He was snapped out of his pondering when he felt someone bump into him. His fingers immediately tightened on the baby's breath and he quickly pulled it behind him as he turned to see who had invaded his personal space in such a rude way.

"Oh as if this day wasn't stressful enough already." Izzie Stevens said with a roll of her eyes, pointedly not looking at the doctor in front of her if for no other reason than to hide her tear filled eyes from him.

Mark raised his eyebrows as a smirk spread across his face. "Nice to see you too Doctor Stevens."

"I'm just going to turn around and pretend I never saw your arrogant, cocky face in the vain attempt at believing this night couldn't get worse." Izzie turned around and got two steps before Mark spoke up.

"You're not the only one who's entitled to have a shitty day Stevens." There was a sharp edge to his voice as he spoke the words.

Izzie stopped in her tracks and quickly wiped away her tears before turning around to face Sloan. "What qualifies as a shitty day for you? Only sleeping with two nurses rather than your usual four?"

"Where the hell do you get off throwing around comments like that? You have no clue who I am so it would be courteous of you to keep that pretty little mouth of yours shut on things that you know nothing about."

Izzie was surprised by his tone but she didn't back down. "Enlighten me then. Because everything I've seen and heard shows that I know everything there is to know."

Mark looked away and shook his head before gazing back at Izzie. "I really thought you were different from everybody else. Not only that you could see through but also didn't give a damn about the fronts and pretensions. I guess I was wrong."

Izzie was momentarily speechless mainly that Mark could, much less would, take note of something like that. She took a much more gentle approach this time her anger at the world ebbing away. She didn't really have a right to be taking it out on Mark after all. "What happened?"

Mark looked at Izzie for several long moments. If only Izzie didn't remind him so damn much of her, he'd find it a lot easier to blow Izzie off. Ultimately though he slowly brought his arm from behind his back and held up the baby's breath in front of her. "Do you know what this is?"

"Yeah, it's baby's breath." Izzie responded a tad perplexed as to what Mark would be doing with that.

"I could have been a father today. But Addison decided that since I wasn't Derek she didn't want to have the baby so she got an abortion." Mark tried to say this matter of factly but there was an underlying tone that was undeniable.

Izzie's brown eyes widened in shock before a guilty look washed over her face. "Oh Jesus. I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

Mark smiled ruefully. "No idea about what? About the baby or that I am indeed a human?"

Despite her shame and embarrassment Izzie steadily held his gaze. "I'm sorry about both."

Mark shrugged and looked out at the water. "It's okay. Callie and Addison both made it a point to make it clear to me how lousy of a father I would have been. Maybe it was for the best."

"They had no business doing that. People change when they have a baby." Izzie tried to keep the little tremble out of her voice as memories of holding her daughter for the first and last time filled her head. Normally she wouldn't have sided with Mark but she was more than a bit disgusted by Addison's actions and she had never really liked Callie.

"I didn't know you have a kid."

"Had." Izzie corrected him. "I gave her up for adoption. I was too young and too poor to be a mother. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I still think about her every day."

"Have you ever tried finding her?"

Izzie shook her head as she pressed her back into the railing. "I don't feel like I have the right. Why should I go intruding into her life when I gave up my chance?"

Perhaps it was missing out on his own child that made Mark uncannily sympathetic. "That's got to be rough."

Izzie smiled a bit but it was painful. "I just tell myself that she has a good life. That's what matters to me."

Mark smiled in return. "So what happened today that got you in such a tizzy Izzie?" He couldn't resist teasing her a bit if only to slightly relieve that expression on her face. He also wanted to test using her first name and jokingly was a safe way to do it.

Izzie rolled her eyes but did not make any further comment. She wasn't bothered by his lame attempt at a joke people had been saying things like that to her her whole life. She was perplexed at how easy it was to talk to him. For now she was chalking it up to her defenses being low. She was probably going to regret it but she would deal with that later. "I deposited my inheritance check today."

Mark raised an eyebrow. He had heard bits and pieces of the story through the regular gossip mill but he didn't really know any details. He wasn't sure exactly what to say. "Do you find getting money difficult?"

Izzie shook her head as she gazed off into the distance. "It was a weird thing really. I was holding onto it because it was the last part of Denny I had but it was the part of him that I didn't know about. Yet I just couldn't let it go. Every time I looked at that check on the fridge, I felt like he was there with me. I didn't want to give that up."

Mark turned his face away from her and took a deep breath. Izzie was unknowingly treading into dangerous territory with him. It was the reason he had done the things he had over the past couple of years. "Why did you deposit it then?"

Izzie failed to take note of his tone, too wrapped up in her own thoughts and pain. "It was the only way I'd be able to ever scrub in. I had to listen to people say day after day that I needed to think about the thousands of dollars I was losing on interest each day I didn't deposit the check. I didn't get how they could compare the money I was losing to what I had already lost. I wanted to get on with my life though. I needed to get on with my life. It would have been a slap in the face of Denny's memory if I had kept going on like I was. I just couldn't bring myself to let go. I've known in my head for months that Denny's gone. But by depositing that check, I've accepted in my heart that he's never coming back. It's like…"

Mark tilted his head up to look at the darkened sky. "It's like your losing them all over again." His voice cracked the slightest as he closed his eyes.

Izzie's head whipped around to look at Mark. She stared at him and suddenly realization hit her. Mark Sloan was the last person on earth Izzie would have guessed to be the one to understand her but yet there he was. Izzie recognized his expression because she had seen it in the mirror every day. "You get it" she softly said, a bit of marvel in her voice.

Mark finally faced her and this time he was the one to wear a painful smile. "Didn't you ever wonder why it took me over a decade to go for Addison?"

"I…I guess I never gave it much thought."

Mark looked away from Izzie not because he was offended by what she had said but because it was easier to talk that way. "Her name was Sasha. I met her back when I was an intern."

"Was she a doctor too?"

Mark smiled as his face took on that distant look. "Not at all. The girl got queasy at the sight of a paper cut. She was an artist. A sculptor to be exact. You remind me a lot of her actually."

"Really? How so?"

"Definitely not physically. Sasha was short, brunette with mint green eyes. It's your attitude that's so similar to her. She had no qualms about putting people in their place and she never took any crap from anybody."

Izzie smiled slightly. That was one thing she had always prided herself on. "Even from you?"

Mark chuckled at the question. "Especially from me."

"What happened?"

At this, Mark's face fell. "Hemangioblastoma. All the odds were against her having one but like she said she was always one to go against the odds." He smiled bitterly. "She insisted that Derek perform the surgery. She and Addison had become the closest of friends and Derek was still like my brother. He was the only one we trusted to do it. She went into the OR smiling. She was positive everything was going to be fine. I let myself believe her. There ended up being complications and she didn't make it. I remember the look on Derek's face when he came out of the OR like it was yesterday."

"It was like someone was just about to rip the world out from under you."

Mark gazed back at Izzie and slowly nodded. "Exactly. I lost it for a while. When I came back around though all I could think of was payback. I wanted to hurt Derek. I wanted to hurt him because he failed me, but even more because he failed Sasha. So when Addison started talking to me about her strained marriage I saw my opportunity. Derek made me lose my wife so I was going to make him lose his. For what it's worth, I did care about Addison. I had hated the way he was treating her. I hated how he was pissing on what I would have killed to have back."

Before she realized what she was doing Izzie laid her hand over Mark's. What he had done and who he had been suddenly seemed a lot less reprehensible.

Mark was surprised by this gesture but rather than pulling back he turned his hand over and gripped onto Izzie's. "I didn't mean to hurt Addison. I slept with those other women out of guilt. No matter what I told myself, I knew Sasha would be enraged at what I was doing. I just couldn't help myself. Those other women were just distractions. But when Addison told me she was pregnant, it was like I was being given another chance. I swore to myself that I was going to go back to being the person I was when I was with Sasha. Then Addison took that away. The reason I didn't give up on her after that was because she was the only one who knew everything I had been through. I didn't have to explain it."

A single tear trickled down Izzie's cheek but she ignored it. She had been feeling that same way. "I know." Izzie softly said.

Mark locked eyes with Izzie and seeing the hailstorm of emotions in her eyes realized she was telling the truth. He slipped the baby's breath in his pocket then reached up and brushed the tear away. He let his hand rest there for several moments before he pulled Izzie's face towards his. He released his hand from Izzie's to wrap his arm around her waist before softly pressing his lips to hers.

For a couple of heartbeats Izzie stood there out of surprise and confusion but then she slowly started kissing Mark back. She weaved her arms around him and gripped onto him physically while her mind gripped onto the feeling of the blood rushing through her veins. She was feeling alive for the first time in weeks. As caring and supportive as her friends had been they didn't know. They couldn't really understand. But Mark, out of all the people in the world, got it.

Mark moved his hand to the back of Izzie's head as he deepened the kiss. It wasn't aggressive and demanding like a lot of his other kisses on other women had been. It was sensual and slow. He could have gone on like this for hours but he found himself undeniably wanting more. It already felt incredible the way her body was pressed against his. He could only imagine how much better it would be if they didn't have annoying fabric between them. He didn't know if this was going to totally blow everything but he couldn't help himself. He pulled his mouth back from Izzie's and rested his forehead against hers, looking straight into her eyes. "Come home with me Isobel." Mark huskily whispered.

As Izzie had a mental debate, she pulled her arm back around and ran her fingers up and down Mark's cheek. She hadn't realized how desperately she had been wanting to hold somebody again and to be held by somebody. Now that the opportunity was right in front of her, she didn't think she could walk away from it. She was so scared of getting hurt but the feelings he was causing in her were making it damn near impossible to turn him down. "I will." Izzie softly said.

Mark pulled her in for another kiss as he wrapped her hand over his. It wasn't long though before he pulled back. He kept his arm tightly around Izzie's waist as he led her in the direction of his car.

Izzie laid her head on Mark's shoulder. She wasn't thinking about what her friends would say or how others would be talking. All she was caring about was the rush that was going through her. There was no telling where this would lead, if anywhere. She wasn't caring about that right now though. She was simply focusing on the moment. She just focused on feeling life again and was determined to see it through.

A/N: This had started as a one shot but I changed my mind and decided to make it a full-fledged chapter story. I just want to say that this is the first fanfic I've published so please no flames. Yes I understand Mark probably doesn't seem in character but as the show has shown us time and time again there's always more than meets the eye. Please let me know what you think by leaving a review.