Wishing and hoping

The rain in Seattle did not fall so much as it hovered, a heavy, gray mist that settled into the wool of Mark Sloan’s coat and refused to evaporate. He stood beneath the concrete overhang of the ambulance bay, holding a cardboard cup of lukewarm coffee he had no intention of drinking, watching the tail lights of a cab dissolve into the drizzle.

Addison was gone. Not from the hospital, unfortunately, but from him.

She had stood in the quiet dimness of an empty stairwell twenty minutes ago, smelling of lavender and antiseptic, her blue eyes colder than the Atlantic in February. The divorce from Derek was final. The ink was dry. The stage had been set, the path cleared. Mark had packed up his penthouse, handed over a multi-million-dollar Upper East Side practice to his partners, and chased her across three thousand miles of continent like a lovesick schoolboy. He had been ready to trade the scotch, the parade of twenty-something socialites, and the reckless penthouse mornings for nursery paint swatches and grocery lists. He had wanted it so badly his teeth ached with it.

“It’s over, Mark,” she had said, not even raising her voice. “It was over the minute we left New York. You were a mistake I made while trying to drown Derek. I’m not drowning anymore.”

A mistake. A Band-Aid ripped off and tossed in the biohazard bin.

He took a slow, measured breath, letting the damp chill bite the back of his throat. He was Mark Sloan. He was McSteamy. He was the golden boy of Manhattan plastics, the man who could reconstruct a shattered zygomatic arch with the delicate precision of a Renaissance jeweler and seduce an heiress before the dessert course was cleared. Women wept when he walked into a room; men instinctively checked their posture.

Yet underneath the tailored scrubs, the handmade Italian loafers, and the effortless, predatory grin that kept the interns terrified, Mark was hollow. The penthouse in Manhattan had been enormous and silent. His grandfather’s trust fund—an obscene, eight-figure cushion of blue-blood colonial wealth that he went to painstaking lengths to hide behind his surgical fees—sat in high-yield portfolios, utterly useless at three in the morning. He had all the money in the world. He had hands blessed by God. And he was completely, profoundly alone.

He crushed the paper cup in his fist and tossed it into the trash can. He turned back toward the double doors of Seattle Grace, squaring his shoulders, letting the mask slide smoothly into place. If he couldn't have a life, he could at least carve up someone else’s cartilage.

Inside, the hospital smelled of floor wax and cafeteria chili. Mark stepped out of the lobby elevators on the surgical floor, his eyes skimming the nurses’ station out of habit.

Then he stopped.

Standing in the center of the hallway, looking like an exotic bird trapped in an underground bunker, was Isobel Stevens.

She wasn't in scrubs. She wore a soft, cornflower-blue cardigan that looked hand-knit, a white sundress that billowed slightly around her shins, and white canvas sneakers. Her blonde hair was pulled into a messy, impatient knot at the crown of her head, loose tendrils framing a face that was stunning enough to have graced billboard campaigns, yet currently pinched with an agony so raw it stopped people in their tracks.

In her right hand, held between thumb and forefinger as if it were a venomous snake, was an open envelope.

"George, I'm serious," her voice carried down the linoleum, high, breathless, and rapid-fire. She was cornering O'Malley, who looked desperately toward the nearest supply closet for an escape route. "It’s eight million seven hundred thousand dollars. Do you understand what that means? It means Denny is dead, and someone handed me an obscene amount of paper to make up for it. What am I supposed to do with it? Buy an island? Sponsor a zoo? Do you think the Bronx Zoo lets you sponsor a penguin colony? I can't deposit it. If I deposit it, the bank teller looks at me, and I look at the teller, and then Denny is really gone, George!"

"Izzie, please," O'Malley whispered frantically, glancing around. "Keep your voice down. Bailey is right around the corner, and you're not even supposed to be cleared for the surgical floor yet."

"I don't care about Bailey! I care about the fact that I am carrying a dead man's fortune in my pocket, and every time I look at it, I smell heart failure and gardenias!" Her cheeks flushed a violent, furious pink. Her eyes were wide, luminous, and terrifyingly overstimulated. "I baked three hundred muffins yesterday, George. Three. Hundred. The kitchen smells like almond extract and despair. Cristina wouldn't even take one. She said they tasted like emotional projection!"

"They kind of do, Iz," George muttered softly.

"You're dead to me," she snapped, though her lower lip wobbled dangerously. She spun on her heel, her dress swirling, and marched blindly toward the nurses' desk.

Mark leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He watched her with an intensity that had nothing to do with surgical curiosity and everything to do with recognition.

He knew women. He had studied them in every iteration—the bored Upper East Side wives seeking perfection, the ambitious residents clawing for power, the fragile socialites drowning their self-loathing in gin. But Izzie Stevens was an entirely different creature. She was loud, stubborn, fiercely domestic, and wore her heart so close to the surface that anyone brushing past her risked getting blood on their sleeves.

She was a girl who had climbed out of a Chehalis trailer park on grit, beauty, and sheer, unrelenting will. She had posed in lace underwear to pay for tuition, endured the snickers of arrogant men, and still came out on the other side wanting to bake pies and save lives. She had cut an LVAD wire because she loved a dying man so fiercely that she had abandoned reason, logic, and self-preservation. It was reckless. It was borderline insane.

It was also the most purely loyal, maternal, devoted thing Mark had ever witnessed.

She was drowning. Just like him. She was wandering the halls of a hospital that wouldn't let her touch a scalpel, clutching an unfathomable fortune she didn't know how to navigate, begging someone—anyone—to tell her who she was now that the man she loved was in the ground.

She has everything to give, Mark thought, the sudden clarity hitting him with the force of an electric shock. And no one to give it to.

He pushed off the wall and fell into step behind her.

Izzie had abandoned George and was now staring intently at a plastic bulletin board near the waiting room, her fingers unconsciously crumpling the edge of the multi-million-dollar check. She was mumbling to herself, her foot tapping an erratic rhythm against the floor.

"If you crease the routing number, the automated scanner rejects it," Mark said smoothly, pausing just over her shoulder. "Then you have to go to a branch in person and sit in an uncomfortable leather chair while a manager named Gary asks you fifty intrusive questions."

Izzie jumped, spinning around with a sharp intake of breath. When she saw him, her defenses snapped into place instantly. Her spine stiffened, her chin jutted out, and her eyes narrowed into blue ice.

"Doctor Sloan," she said stiffly, taking a half-step back. "Don't you have a rhinoplasty to ruin?"

Mark flashed his slow, trademark grin—the one that usually caused junior residents to stammer. "Ouch, Stevens. Hostile. And for the record, my rhinoplasties are works of art. But I'm off the clock. Which means you can address me as Mark. Or 'savior,' depending on how this conversation goes."

"I don't need a savior," she said loudly, drawing the attention of an elderly man in a wheelchair nearby. She flushed, lowering her volume slightly, though her glare remained lethal. "I'm having a very normal, completely rational contemplation of my life choices."

"Right. You look extremely rational clutching eight point seven million dollars like it's a parking ticket." He tilted his head, his sharp hazel eyes scanning her face. The dark circles beneath her eyes were powdered over, but he could see the strain in the delicate skin of her temples. "Walk with me, Stevens."

"No."

"I have real coffee. Colombian roast. Ground this morning in my temporary apartment. Not the battery acid the Chief keeps in the lounge."

Izzie wavered. Her throat swallowed. "I don't drink coffee with men who sleep with their best friends' wives."

Mark didn't flinch. Six months ago, the barb might have provoked a smirk or a callous retort. Today, with the phantom scent of Addison's lavender perfume still clinging to his collar, it merely settled like a stone in his gut.

"Fair enough," he said quietly, his voice dropping into a register that made Izzie's defensive posture falter. "Then drink it with a guy who knows what it feels like to lose everything he planned his entire life around in the span of five minutes. Your choice."

He didn't wait for her. He turned and walked down the hall toward the secondary surgical consultation rooms—private, wood-paneled spaces reserved for wealthy donors and families needing bad news delivered softly.

He heard the soft, scuffing sound of canvas sneakers hesitating, then hurrying to catch up.

---

The consultation room was quiet, insulated from the hospital’s intercom chatter by heavy oak doors. Outside, the Seattle rain pelted against the expansive window overlooking the sound.

Mark gestured toward a plush armchair. Izzie hovered for a second before dropping into it, immediately pulling her knees toward her chest before remembering where she was and planting her feet firmly on the carpet. She clutched the check in both hands, resting it on her lap.

Mark poured dark, steaming coffee from a thermal carafe into two ceramic mugs and handed one to her.

"Sugar?" he asked.

"Two," she muttered, not looking at him. "And milk, if you have it."

"No milk. Half-and-half."

"Fine."

He handed her the mug. She took a sip, and the immediate, involuntary relaxation of her shoulders told him everything he needed to know. The girl was running on pure adrenaline and grief.

Mark pulled a rolling desk chair over, sitting directly across from her. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped. He didn't look like McSteamy right now. He looked like the grandson of Arthur Sloan III—poised, authoritative, and utterly grounded in the terrifying world of high-stakes reality.

"All right, Stevens. Let's talk about Denny's money."

Her eyes flashed again. "It's not your business. It's... it's blood money. It's him trying to take care of me from beyond the grave, but I didn't want his money, Mark! I wanted him. I wanted a house with a porch and a stupid dog that barks at squirrels. I wanted to pack lunches and argue about whose turn it was to fold the laundry. What am I supposed to do with millions of dollars? Every time I look at that number, I see the monitor flatlining. I see the look on his face right before his heart gave out."

A tear slipped free, tracing a quick, hot line down her pale cheek. She scrubbed it away with the heel of her hand, furious with herself.

"You're a baker, right?" Mark asked quietly.

Izzie blinked, startled by the shift. "What?"

"I heard you telling O'Malley. Three hundred muffins. Almond extract."

"I... yeah. When I get stressed, I bake. It’s comforting. It requires exact measurements. If you follow the recipe, the cake rises. People don't rise just because you follow the rules, but sourdough does." She sniffled, ducking her head. "It's stupid."

"It's not stupid," Mark said, his voice entirely devoid of mockery. "It's nurturing. You're a caretaker, Isobel. You build homes. You take care of people. Even when they're broken, even when they're miserable bastards who don't deserve it. You took care of Denny. You tried to fix him."

"And I failed," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I killed him. That's what Bailey thinks. That's what the board thinks."

"The board thinks you violated protocol. Denny had an end-stage cardiomyopathy; he was on borrowed time the day he was admitted," Mark countered with brutal, surgical factuality. "You didn't kill him. You loved him too much, and you made a catastrophic, emotional mistake. But you didn't kill him."

Izzie stared at him, her lips parted. Nobody had said that to her. Meredith gave her dark, twisty solidarity; George gave her anxious pity; Cristina gave her clinical detachment. Nobody had simply stripped the drama away and offered her cold, compassionate truth.

"Why are you being nice to me?" she asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes. "You don't do nice. You do smirks and interns."

Mark let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh. He looked down at his own hands—long, immaculate fingers that could sew an ear back onto a skull, but couldn't keep a woman who had sworn she loved him.

"Addison turned me down," he said simply.

Izzie blinked. "She... what? Derek signed the papers. She's free."

"She's free of Derek. And she's free of me." Mark leaned back, running a hand over his trimmed beard. The pain was there, raw and jagged, but he kept his voice steady. "I threw away my entire life in New York. I blew up a twenty-year friendship. I gave up my reputation. I came out here thinking that if I proved to her I could be the guy who stays, the guy who builds a family... she’d want it. She looked me in the eye twenty minutes ago and told me I was an eraser she used to scrub Derek out of her head."

Izzie’s expression softened, the hard, defensive edges melting away into pure, instinctive empathy. "Mark... I'm so sorry. That's awful."

"It is what it is," he said, waving a hand dismissively, though his jaw remained clenched. "The point is, Isobel, we're both sitting here in the wreckage of what we thought our lives were supposed to be. You're an extraordinary surgeon with an enormous heart, wandering around the halls like a ghost because your purpose vanished when Denny died. And I'm a world-class plastic surgeon with an eight-figure inheritance I never talk about, wandering around because the woman I wanted to build a family with thinks I'm a joke."

Izzie caught the phrase instantly. "An eight-figure inheritance?"

Mark smiled faintly, a hint of his old, charming arrogance surfacing. "My great-grandfather owned half the shipping docks in Brooklyn, Stevens. My trust fund makes Denny Duquette's check look like a signing bonus at a community college. I don't work for the money. I work because if I don't cut, I lose my mind."

Izzie stared at him, utterly bewildered. "So why are you telling me this? To brag?"

"No," Mark said. He leaned forward again, his gaze locking onto hers with such absolute, unwavering intensity that Izzie felt the breath leave her lungs. "I'm telling you this because you need an anchor, and I need a future. And I have a proposition for you."

"A proposition," she repeated warily. "Doctor Sloan, if you think I am in any state to—"

"Have a baby with me."

The silence that descended upon the room was absolute. It was so profound that the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock sounded like gunshot retorts.

Izzie sat entirely paralyzed, her mug frozen halfway between the table and her mouth. Her eyes widened until the whites showed all around her irises.

"What?" she squeaked.

"Have a child with me," Mark repeated, his voice calm, measured, and entirely serious. "Not sex. Not a messy, tragic romance where we try to fix each other's broken hearts and end up screaming in an on-call room. A contract. A legal, ironclad, co-parenting partnership."

Izzie slowly set the coffee mug down. Her hands were shaking. She stood up abruptly, backing away from him as if he had just pulled a scalpel on her.

"You're out of your mind," she said, her voice rising in pitch. "You are clinically, certifiably insane! You just got dumped, your ego is bruised, and you're projecting your midlife crisis onto me because I'm vulnerable and sitting here holding a check!"

"Isobel, sit down."

"No! I will not sit down! You're McSteamy! You sleep with nurses in linen closets! You broke up Derek and Addison's marriage! And now you're asking me—me—to have a baby with you like we're picking out a set of patio furniture at Costco?!" She began pacing the small room, her hands gesturing wildly, the paper check fluttering in the air. "I'm a mess! I cut an LVAD wire! I'm on probation! I can't even enter an OR without Richard Webber watching me through the gallery window! I can't raise a child!"

"You're the only person in this entire godforsaken hospital who actually knows how to love something without wanting an award for it," Mark said, his voice cutting through her panic like a laser.

Izzie stopped pacing. She looked at him, chest heaving.

Mark stood up slowly, keeping his distance so she wouldn't feel cornered. He spoke with the quiet, undeniable authority of a man who had thought through every single angle.

"Listen to me," he said gently. "You want a family. You've always wanted a family. You want to make pancakes on Sunday mornings, you want to buy school supplies, you want to pour all that ridiculous, overflowing, motherly devotion into something that will actually thrive because of it. You were ready to do it with Denny, but Denny was an escape from your loneliness. This wouldn't be an escape. This would be a life."

"Mark—"

"You're terrified of that check," he pressed, taking a slow step closer. "You're terrified because you grew up with nothing, and suddenly you have eight million dollars, and you think having that money makes you a traitor to Denny's memory. You don't know how to set up a blind trust. You don't know how to shield it from capital gains, or establish an endowment, or set up a foundation so that money actually saves people instead of rotting in a checking account. But I do."

Izzie’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"I have lawyers in Manhattan who eat tax codes for breakfast," Mark continued smoothly. "I can take that check, place it into a private charitable trust in Denny Duquette's name, and structure it so you fund pediatric surgeries, cardiac research, whatever the hell you want, for the next fifty years. You never have to touch a dime of it. You never have to feel dirty about it."

"And... and what do you get?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "What does Mark Sloan get out of saving the trailer-park girl?"

Mark's jaw tightened. The charming, untouchable veneer cracked completely, leaving behind a man stripped bare by his own choices.

"I get a child," he said, and for the first time, his voice held a tremor of raw, aching vulnerability. "I get someone to come home to. I get to be a father. I don't want to die in a high-rise with five million dollars in the bank and a black book full of women who don't care if I wake up tomorrow. I want a son, or a daughter. I want to teach a kid how to ride a bike. I want to be the guy who stays."

He looked at her, his hazel eyes dark with an emotion so deep it made Izzie's breath catch.

"And I want that kid to have a mother who loves them like you do. You're fiercely loyal, Isobel. You're stubborn, you're loud, you bake too much, and you care too deeply. You would be an extraordinary mother. The kind of mother I never had. The kind of mother Addison didn't want to be with me."

Izzie stared at him. Her mind, usually a chaotic, swirling mess of grief, guilt, and overthinking, suddenly screeched to a halt.

She looked at Mark Sloan. Really looked at him.

Beneant the tailored clothes, the scruff, and the reputation, she saw the boy who had grown up in an empty, cold Manhattan townhouse, neglected by wealthy parents, clinging to Derek Shepherd’s family just to feel warmth. She saw the man who had ruined his life chasing a woman who didn't want him, desperately trying to prove he was worthy of a hearth and a home.

They were two orphans of love, standing in a windowed room while the rain battered Seattle.

"A contract?" she managed to whisper, her pragmatic, trailer-park survival instinct kicking in beneath the shock.

"A contract," Mark affirmed, sensing the shift in the air. He stepped toward the table, picking up a pen and a pad of hospital stationery. "Fifty-fifty legal custody. Complete financial support from me—housing, healthcare, private school, college trusts, everything. You wouldn't have to spend a cent of Denny's money, or even your surgical salary. You could take two years off to complete your residency on your own terms, or stay home, or work part-time. Whatever you want."

"And where... where would we live?"

"I buy a brownstone. Or a house with a yard. A big yard, Stevens. With grass, and a porch, and a fence where a stupid dog can bark at squirrels." He watched her closely, a faint, tentative smile touching his lips. "Two separate suites. Private entrances if you want them. Or shared living spaces. We live as partners. Co-parents. We share dinners, we split the night feedings, we navigate the chaos together. No romantic expectations. If you meet someone down the line, we adjust. If I meet someone, we adjust. But our priority is the child. Always."

Izzie’s chest tightened painfully. "Artificial insemination?"

"Obviously," Mark said without missing a beat. "Unless you develop a sudden, uncontrollable craving for my rugged good looks, I'm purely clinical."

A tiny, wet laugh escaped Izzie's lips before she could stop it. She quickly pressed her fingers against her mouth, horrified that she was laughing, but the absurdity of it—the sheer, unadulterated madness of the proposal—broke the suffocating tension in her chest.

"You're insane," she said, shaking her head, though the tears were falling again, softer this time. "This is insane. People don't do this. People fall in love, they get married, they have babies."

"And then half of them cheat, break each other's hearts, and spend ten years screaming through divorce attorneys," Mark countered smoothly. "Love is volatile, Isobel. You loved Denny, and his heart gave out. I loved Addison, and she chose Derek, then chose herself. Love is an open-heart surgery with an unsterilized scalpel. But a partnership? A shared commitment to raise a child with honesty, infinite resources, and mutual respect? That's structural integrity. That lasts."

Izzie looked down at the crumpled check in her hands.

Eight million seven hundred thousand dollars.

If she kept it, it would poison her. If she gave it away blindly, she would always wonder what Denny had wanted her to become. But an endowment... a foundation. Denny Duquette’s name carved into the stone of a pediatric wing. Saving babies who were born with failing hearts.

And a baby of her own.

A baby to hold. A little boy with messy hair, or a little girl with big, curious eyes. Someone to bake cookies for. Someone to love with all the terrifying, overwhelming ferocity that currently felt like a tumor inside her chest. Someone who wouldn't die on a surgical table. Someone who would stay.

She looked up at Mark.

He was watching her, not with the predatory smirk he gave the nurses, but with a quiet, breath-held vulnerability that made him look completely human. He was waiting for her verdict. The great Mark Sloan, offering up his pride, his fortune, and his future, terrified that she would say no.

"You really have lawyers who can fix the tax stuff?" she asked, her voice small.

Mark's eyes flared with an electric spark of hope. "The best in the country. By Friday, the Denny Duquette Pediatric Care Foundation will exist legally. You'll be the chairwoman. Not a penny in your personal account to feel guilty about."

"And... the house?" she pressed, her stubborn, detailed-oriented nature taking over. "If we do this, I pick the house. I want a kitchen with a gas range and a double oven. A real double oven, Mark. Not an apartment unit. And a big island where a kid can do homework while I bake."

Mark’s lips twitched into a genuine, brilliant smile that reached all the way to his eyes. "You can have three ovens, Stevens. You can have a commercial bakery in the basement if it keeps you happy."

"And no smoking. Anywhere near the house."

"I don't smoke."

"And you don't bring your random surgical groupies anywhere near our child," she added, her voice gaining strength, the fiery, protective mother in her already waking up. "If you want to be McSteamy, you do it in hotels. Under our roof, you are a father. You show up for dinner. You read bedtime stories. You don't get to be a ghost."

Mark took a step closer, stopping just a foot away from her. The height difference was pronounced, but Izzie didn't shrink. She met his gaze squarely, her chin held high, the grief on her face giving way to a fierce, stubborn resolve.

"Isobel," Mark said, his voice dropping into a solemn, sacred promise. "I have spent my entire life being the guy who leaves before breakfast. If you give me a child, I will never walk out of that house. I will be there for every fever, every scraped knee, every burned batch of muffins. You have my word. On my life. On my career."

Izzie swallowed the lump in her throat. Her heart was beating violently, hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

It was crazy. It was completely, utterly unhinged. If Bailey found out, she would have them both committed to psych. If Meredith and Cristina found out, they would mock her relentlessly.

But Meredith and Cristina lived in the dark and the twisty. They found comfort in the cold, sharp edges of pain.

Izzie Stevens was made of sunlight, flour, and stubborn hope. She couldn't live in the dark anymore. She was suffocating in it.

She extended her hand, the one not holding Denny's check.

"I want the contract drafted by independent lawyers," she said firmly, her big mouth setting into an uncompromising line. "Mine and yours. Every single detail in writing."

Mark looked down at her small, delicate hand, then looked back up into her bright, tear-streaked blue eyes.

He took her hand in his. His grip was warm, strong, and steady—the hands of a surgeon, but also the hands of an ally.

"Deal," he whispered.

As their fingers clasped, a sudden, blinding flash of lightning split the Seattle sky outside, followed seconds later by a low, rumbling crack of thunder that shook the glass panes of the window.

Neither of them flinched.

Izzie looked down at their joined hands, then took a deep, shuddering breath. For the first time since the flatline in Denny’s room, the crushing weight on her chest eased. The phantom smell of gardenias and heart failure faded, replaced by the rich aroma of dark roast coffee, rain, and the faint, grounding scent of cedarwood cologne.

"Mark?" she murmured, looking up at him through her lashes.

"Yeah?"

"You're paying for the lawyer."

Mark threw his head back and laughed—a rich, booming, joyous sound that echoed off the oak walls and chased the gray Seattle dampness entirely out of the room.

"Stevens," he said, squeezing her hand, "I'm paying for everything."