A/N: Thanks to all my reviewers.
Chapter 51
"Well, Mark, this was your last surgery for the day. Are you ready to head out?" Derek stepped into the scrub room next to his best friend.
"I'm more than ready to get this over with. You have no idea how glad I am that Addison and I eloped. This is just for Bizzy and the Captain." Mark dried his hands off.
"That is the price of being married to Addison Forbes Montgomery. You're lucky both her parents like you. And I mean they genuinely like you. They just tolerated me." Derek reassured him.
"I had to go toe to toe with Bizzy to get her to accept me and respect me." Mark took his scrub cap off.
"It was about time someone did." Derek walked into the locker room with him.
Mark shrugged his shoulders and pulled his scrub top over his head. "So, what's the plan for today? You're my best man it's your job to have this planned out."
"I thought we could do something that your wife won't approve of. Cigars, scotch and a bucket full of balls at the driving range." Derek replied.
"Lord knows she'll still probably be getting ready by the time we finish with that." Mark changed his clothes.
"That's a pretty good bet." Derek agreed with him.
"We both know what my wife is like. She takes a long time to get ready on a normal day. This isn't a normal day. I heard talk that she's supposed to be having her hair and makeup done for her. Not to mention she has Sav and Nae with her. That is a recipe for disaster." Mark groaned.
"Sloan," Karev barged into the locker room.
"Karev, you're a resident this is the attendings locker room. What the hell do you need?" Mark barked at him.
"Montgomery wanted me to remind you not to forget your tux. She also wanted me to tell you that she will personally kill you and Shepherd and make it look like an accident if you two show up to the ceremony drunk." Karev told them.
"Alex, you can tell Addie not to worry. I will get Mark to the altar sober and in one piece." Derek reassured him.
"I think that's what she's worried about." Karev pointed out to them.
"She just knows us a little too well that's all, Karev." Mark shrugged his shoulders. "You can tell her I said I know what will happen to me if I show up drunk and that's not something I want to risk."
"I don't think I want to know what that means." Alex pinched the bridge of his nose.
"But you do know what it means. He's Mark Sloan there's only one thing he could be referring too." Derek laughed and patted him on the back.
Bishop walked into the locker room and groaned. "Karev, this is the Attendings' locker room. This is the one place I can go in this hospital that you can't. Montgomery has taken every other thing away from me. I'm surprised she hasn't stuck me in the residents' locker room yet. Until then let me have this place without you. Christ if just half the rumors about her and Sloan are true you would think she'd be less of a bitch." He didn't pay attention to who else was in the room.
"Bishop," Mark growled.
"Dr. Sloan," Clay stammered.
"The rumors are true. Her torturing you has nothing to do with her being sexually frustrated, it's just fun for her. And the only reason you haven't been kicked out of here and into the residents' locker room is because that thought hasn't crossed her mind yet. The last thing she needs is someone else giving her ideas." Mark snarled at him.
"Mark, you can't beat up everyone in attempt to defend your wife's honor." Derek cautioned him.
Mark glared at Clay one more time. "It doesn't have to be everyone, but I would really like for it to be him."
"I'm getting you out of here before you manage to get yourself into trouble." Derek ushered him out of the locker room.
Clay turned to glare at Alex. "Jesus, Karev, you could have warned me that he was standing right there before you let me start running off at the mouth."
Alex smirked at him. "That wouldn't have been any fun for me at all."
"It's bad enough that the wife seems to hate me. I don't need the husband hating me too." Clay rolled his eyes.
"Montgomery doesn't hate you. If she hated you, you'd know. If she hated you she wouldn't be wasting her time and energy on teaching you. Trust me, dude, she sees something in you or she wouldn't bother. That's why she's so hard on you." Alex explained to him.
"Really?" Clay asked.
"Yeah, really, I'm not talking just to hear the sound of my voice." Alex did a full body shake. "I'm getting out of here this is like no man's land for residents. It feels weird and it's making me say things I don't want to say." He excused himself without another word.
"Let me be the first to offer up a toast." Savy raised her glass of champagne.
"Oh, God, this should be good." Addison laughed.
"To Addie and Stupid. I hope you have a long and happy life together. And if not I'm a great lawyer and I can get you half of everything." Savy laughed along with her.
"I'll drink to that." Naomi agreed.
"Get it all out of your system now, Sav. I need you on your best behavior at the reception. You know how my mother is. Besides that, Mark has always been well behaved at weddings. Don't insult the man on his wedding day." Addison shook her head.
Naomi arched her eyebrow and stared her down. "He slept with bridesmaids at every wedding he's ever been to."
"Shh, you weren't supposed to remember that." Addison laughed again.
"God, Addison, you really did tame the beast." Callie observed.
"Please don't refer to him as that. That's what he likes to call a certain part of his anatomy." Addison scoffed. "I can't take the credit for taming him. His sons did that for me."
"He had to grow up sooner or later." Naomi commented.
"Seriously, guys, any snarky comments or anything else about Mark get it out of your system now." Addison told them.
"There isn't enough time in the day for me to get it out of my system." Savy laughed.
"I don't get why you guys rag on him so bad. Yeah, he's Mark and I know that it explains it all. But, he is a good and decent man. Was he a manwhore and unapologetic for that? Absolutely. You just can't keep seeing him as who he was in twenties. It may have taken him longer, but he did grow as a person and even before he grew up the asshole exterior was mostly just an act. Since the moment I met him I've seen him show compassion to people you wouldn't expect a guy like him to be compassionate to." Callie spoke up in her friend's defense.
"She's right. He's amazing with his patients and you wouldn't expect that from him. A lot of that asshole stuff is an act. He's always been an ass, but it got worse after his mom died. The great love of his life was his momma. He already had the tendency to sleep around anyway, it got way worse after she passed away. She'd also kick my ass if she heard me giving him an excuse like that. She'd say he's a Sloan man the only thing bigger than his ego is his libido." Addison added.
"Fine, I will go easy on Mark. At least for today after that I make no promises." Savy relented.
"That's all I ask for, Sav." Addison smiled at her.
"Addison, I think it's about time we got you into this dress." Callie said after checking the time.
"Before we do that I need to feed the brothers Sloan." Addison looked around for her boys.
"Bizzy has them and she left us with orders that we aren't to bother you with the boys unless we have to." Naomi reported.
"I wanna see my sons before I get into a dress I really don't want either of them to spit up on." Addison pointed out logically.
"I will go see about getting the boys from Bizzy. I seem to be the only one who isn't scared of her." Savy volunteered.
"While you're doing that I will go check on the guys to make sure that they are behaving the way that they are supposed to be." Callie said.
"Thanks, Cal, you're the best Maid of Honor ever." Addison smiled.
"Knowing what I know about your friend. I'm a little surprised that she's not Mark's best man." Naomi observed.
"The only reason she's not is we didn't want to give my mother another heart attack. Well, that's the main reason the other reason is he's known Derek longer and they are more like brothers than friends." Addison explained to her.
"You know it's not too late for me to go gas up the getaway car." Derek whispered to Mark as they stood at the altar waiting for the wedding to start.
"It would do no good I'm already legally married to her. If I ran out now she would wind up with half my shit." Mark whispered back.
"If your mother were here she would beat you for cussing at a time like this." Derek laughed softly.
"If my mother were here she'd have already asked what the hell the point of this is." Mark quipped.
"Point taken. I wish she were here just to give Bizzy a run for her money." Derek retorted.
"That would be fun." Mark agreed with him.
"You two better shut up. The mother of the bride looks about ready to kill you both." Owen cautioned them.
"She loves me I'm not really worried about it." Mark smirked. He straightened up when the music started up and the bridesmaids came down the aisle.
It didn't matter to him that he and Addison were already officially married when he saw her walking down the aisle towards him on her father's arm he found it hard to breathe. He stepped down on wobbly legs to accept her hand in his from the Captain.
The minster went through all the usual things to start the ceremony and then he came to the vows.
"The couple has chosen to share with each other today vows they wrote for themselves." He announced.
Mark took a deep breath and licked his lips. "My whole life all I've always been is the guy that has done the bare minimum to get by. The bar has been set so low for me that I never knew to expect better of myself when it comes to my behavior. It used to be that I thought I was only good for one thing when it came to relationships. You were the first person to show me that I needed to hold myself to a higher standard in my personal life. You have shown me about forty years late what it takes to be a good man. There are times that I look at myself in the mirror and think wow, a woman like Addison Montgomery wants to be with a guy like me and she actually loves me. Over the last year with you by my side I've learned to be the best version of myself with you and for you. When I look at you I know that I want to be the example our sons look to when it comes to how to treat the woman you love. I want them to be able to say I did it right because that's how dad treated mom. I think we can both agree that we don't want any future daughters we may have to fall for a guy like me and I'm ok with that. I know my past and so do you. You choose to love me and be with me anyway. That means more to me than I know how to put into words. I never knew until I had you and Casey in the apartment what the hole in my life was from. You two have made me whole and then you gave me the greatest gift I could have asked for with Jackie. You know me almost better than I know myself and I cherish that. You're not just my wife you're my best friend. I know now that I did the right thing by telling you that I hadn't made it sixty days. We both needed a little more time to get to this point. You're my best friend and I don't want to spend a day of my life without you. I haven't always been good at relationships, but I know for a fact that this is my one and only marriage. I love you, Red, it's as simple as that."
Addison wiped a tear from her eye before she began her vows. "Mark, I used to refer to you as the other guy. Only recently did it occur to me that despite your personality you're the great guy. I went for the fairytale once before and we both know how that turned out. I never dreamed that my prince charming would be a pervy manwhore, but now that I know that's who you are to me I wouldn't have it any other way. You sell yourself short when it comes to how good you truly are. You are the type of man I want our sons to be and the kind of man I would want our daughters to marry. You make me feel more loved and safe than I ever have in my entire life. There is no doubt in my mind that the me and the boys are your top priority. You show the three of us that every day. I'm so thankful that you came out here after me. I wasn't ready for your love at the time, but I am now and I never plan on letting you go again. The best thing I ever did was come running to Seattle when you called me to deliver the little boy who became our first baby. You and Carson were what was missing from my otherwise idyllic life in LA. At the risk of giving you an even bigger ego than you already have, you were the only man who is man enough to give me what I really wanted and that's the experience of being pregnant. The two greatest gifts I've been given in my life I got from you and I will never be able to properly thank you for that. The only thing I can give you that comes close to what you've given me is my love every day for the rest of my life. I can also promise you that I will never run again. Even if I do leave I will always come back. When I'm in your arms I'm home."
The minister had them exchange rings next.
"With this ring I thee wed." Mark said as he slipped Addison's wedding set on her finger.
Addison inspected Mark's ring before she went through the same thing. "What did you do to this thing?" She chuckled. "With this ring I thee wed." She put it on his finger.
"I do a lot of sutures." He grinned at her.
"By the power vested in me by God and by the state of Washington, I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss the bride."
Mark dipped Addison back and planted a deep kiss on her lips. Once he had kissed her longer than was appropriate he brought her back upright and raised their hands triumphantly.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's my pleasure to present to you for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Charles Sloan."
"I apologize in advanced for anything that Derek says in his toast. I have no control over him and neither does Meredith." Mark sat at the table reserved for the wedding party with his arm draped around Addison.
"I'm so happy right now, that I'm not even worried about what he will get up there and say." Addison smiled at him.
"I'm pretty sure he's gonna give me hell and I've earned every bit of it." Mark chuckled.
Derek stood up with a mic in his hand. "For those of you that don't know me I'm Derek and I've known Mark longer than anyone else other than Charlie. I think it's safe to say that I know him a little better than his dad does. There are things we did as teenagers I wouldn't tell him if someone paid me. The point is I know Mark very well. As well as I know him I didn't see this coming. I would have bet anything that he was going to end up the pervy old guy that always had a new girlfriend young enough to be his daughter. He always said he'd never settle down he was too smart and there were far too many women out there for him to sample. I will see that I've never seen another man attract women the way Sloan does. From the time we hit puberty he had girls sniffing around. It got much worse the minute we became doctors. So, I'm just as shocked as anyone that this guy who thinks he's God's gift to women finally found the woman who could tame him. I mean this is the most juvenile man I've ever met." He walked over and put his hand on his best friend's shoulder. "Mark, what rhymes with gross anatomy class?" He stuck the mic in his face.
"Addison's fine ass," Mark answered without missing a beat.
Addison shot him a playful glare.
Derek laughed. "What a woman like Addison Montgomery wants with him I will never know. I also have the pleasure of knowing Addison very well. For any other guy this would be a hard pill to swallow, but we are a family. He's my brother and she's damn good for him. The man I love like a brother and the woman I used to be in love with are in love and I'm pretty happy about that. Here's to, Mark and Addie, I wish them all the happiness in the world. I also wish Addison all the luck in the world she has three Sloan men to deal with. Though she knows she can always give me the one she married for a few hours and I'll keep him entertained."
Callie stood up next. "Derek is a tough act to follow, so I'll try to do my best here. Never in wildest dreams did I think that I'd be friends with a guy like Mark Sloan. Once you get to know him you figure out there is more to him than the act he puts on for the outside world to see. Every time I would make fun of plastics he'd tell me that people didn't come to him to fix what's on the outside it was to fix what's on the inside or to make their outsides match their insides. I knew what he meant by that, but I never truly knew what it meant until I saw him with Addison and his boys. He doesn't look at my boobs anymore." She waited for the laughter to die down. "Mark is one of my best friends, but he's still Mark Sloan. The first thing he used to look at when I'd walk into a room was my boobs. Since he and Addison got back together he doesn't look anymore. Addison is another one of my best friends and I happen to be thrilled that she finally has a guy who's as devoted to her as Mark is. They are more than my friends they are my family. Addison, you're an incredibly lucky woman to have this man to yourself I know that he loves you more than he can possibly put into words. Mark, you're very lucky that she decided that she can put up with you. I love you to death, but just so you know if you two ever fight I'm on her side."
"Well, you were her bodyguard for the duration of her pregnancy I'm not surprised by that at all." Mark laughed.
A little while later Lexie walked Carson over to them. He was standing on the tops of her heels and giggling.
"Casey, are you already making girls fall for you?" Mark smiled brightly.
"This one is protesting very loudly for his mommy. Uncle Alex wouldn't let him have her, so he reached for me." Lexie picked him up by his hands and let him swing like a monkey.
"He likes to argue with his Uncle Alex now." Addison took him. "Carson, can you say thank you, Lexie. Then ask her what she's doing with Clay Bishop as her date. She's better than that."
"You're welcome, little man." Lexie looked at the older woman. "He's fun an uncomplicated."
"I'm just saying you're better than a guy like him. And you're a better surgeon." Addison replied.
"She really doesn't like him if you can't tell." Mark put his hand in the small of Addison's back.
"She has to think he has the potential to be a good surgeon or she wouldn't waste her time on him." Lexie pointed out.
"He has the potential to be a decent surgeon. With the right training he will be a good surgeon." Addison corrected her.
"Thanks for bringing him over here, Lex." Mark changed the subject.
"It's no problem. Alex makes him mad a lot when he babysits him at the house and he has learned to reach for me, Mer, or April." Lexie smiled softly.
"He's his father's son that way. He appreciates a good rack." Mark winked.
"You are ridiculous, but you're not wrong." Addison rolled her eyes playfully.
Lexie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear nervously. "So, I have to say something and I've been working up the courage to say it for months now. So, I'm just gonna talk and if you couldn't say anything 'til I'm done that would be great." She cleared her throat. "Congratulations, I'm really happy that you two found your way back to each other. Mark, I don't hate you I just want you to be happy. That's all you tried to do when we were together was make me happy and I only want the best for you. You and I were just at two different places in our lives. I know that you did care about me, but it was more so that I was forbidden fruit that made you think it was more than what it was. Addison, I don't hate you either. I mean you're brilliant, and kind, and let's face it if he had to marry the woman he dated after me at least it was you." She took a deep breath. "Ok, I'm done now. And I know I probably just made myself look and sound like an idiot."
Mark chuckled, but he gave her a genuine smile. "Thanks, Lex, I hope you find your happily ever after too. You deserve good things too."
"Lexie, that means a lot to me. Just do me a favor and don't ever settle for man who doesn't treat you as well as my husband did." Addison replied.
"Look at this. Isn't this adorable." Derek walked up beside Mark.
Mark had Jackson in one arm feeding him a bottle and he had a beer in his other hand. "Shut up, Shep. I try to feed him as often as I can. His big brother is a momma's boy and I need to work on making this one a daddy's boy."
"I'm just saying it's pretty great that you're both having a bottle at the same time." Derek smirked.
"You like busting my balls entirely too much you always have." Mark shook his head.
"I really do enjoy it." Derek teased. "So, it's your wedding day and I'm your best man. I did thing that you're either gonna love or hate."
"Shep, what did you do?" Mark eyed his suspiciously.
"I didn't so much do anything as my mom did. She said that you needed a mom for the mother son dance." Derek took Jackson from him.
"Really? You don't mind?" Mark's eyes teared up.
"I don't mind at all. And I think Miss Ellie would approve." Derek assured him.
"Miss Ellie would approve. She always liked your mom and if someone had to stand in for her she'd be honored for it to be her. Of course, she'd rather be here herself if given the chance, but she'd love this. Thanks, Shep." Mark patted him on the back.
"Mark, don't mention it. You're my brother, it's what you do for family." Derek gave him a meaningful look.
A/N: Here is the next chapter I hope you guys enjoyed it. I'm so sorry for the long wait, but life got in the way as usual. I still have plenty of ideas for this story. I got inspired, because my mom recently got into Grey's and I'm rewatching it with her. Until next time please review.