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Mark doesn’t know much about love, but he does know about life. He knows about second chances and third chances and every chance that comes after- ones he was undeserving of but got anyway.
He knows about grief, and solitude, and the pain of losing the one person who cared enough to heal his wounds before he could reopen them again.
He knows about sand- the tangibility of it slipping through his grasp. He knows about the ocean- the tide pulling everything in and releasing it again.
And, he knows about beauty. He’s seen its eyes fall shut forever. The darkness cascade over its bleeding body.
He never expected to know about solace, but she’s here, sitting in front of him, wrapped in the summer breeze and a loose blouse. She smiles, and God- does he know solace. He’s sure he never wants to feel anything but solace again, and again, and again.
He’s found his love, lost her, and then rediscovered her in an entirely different plane of existence; he’s angry at the people who have the chance of finding solace without dying for it.
He’s angry at Callie. He’s angry at Arizona. He watches them, more than he’d care to admit. He sees the empty bed they used to share together. He sees the toothbrush holder that only holds one, when it used to hold two. He sees the delicate shake of Arizona’s hands and the secret tears Callie would never shed in front of anyone but the mirror.
After his reunion with Lexie, he’s sure about two things: one, he’ll never let her go again. And two, his best friends are idiots for ever letting their great love story slip away like the sand on Meredith's beach.
Most nights, he follows Callie into her sleep, watching her dreams from her point of view. He realizes that her dreamscape is grey, and that they’re not actually dreams at all- they’re nightmares. Images of blood and death flash in front of his eyes. Images of Arizona bleeding out in front of her; Callie can’t do anything but scream.
Then he follows Arizona into her sleep, and he watches the same scene play over and over again: Callie, also bleeding out in front of her, but Arizona doesn’t scream like Callie does- she tries to bring her back to life.
Mark never stays for long, but he always presses a kiss to both women's sweaty foreheads, stilling their thrashing forms with a gentle touch of his hand.
They wake up with a start, but then lapse back into a dreamless sleep while Mark watches from above, praying that they find the way back to each other before their shared pain eats them alive.
He usually watches them sleep, never lingering, never breaking the barrier between life and what comes after. But tonight, he does something he’s never done before, not even when he really wanted to- he speaks to them while they’re dreaming.
He visits Callie first, stepping into her head with slow, even footsteps. She doesn’t notice him right away, since she’s too busy screaming at the lifeless form of her ex-wife. Arizona lays beneath the wing of a plane, her head lolled back. Callie’s on her hands and knees, as if pleading for Arizona to come back and love her again.
Mark flashes back to Lexie, and her death, and his death; he knows life doesn’t wait for lost love to find its way back. It stops songs mid-chorus; it stops stories mid-chapter.
“This is a metaphor, you know,” he says. He grins as Callie’s spins around to find him, standing behind her like a shadow. Her face contorts from an expression of pain to one of helplessness, tears staining her dirtied cheeks.
“A metaphor for what?” she yells, but she’s stopped screaming, which is a start.
Mark ambles closer to her, until he can almost reach out and touch her. But he keeps his distance, knowing that any slight contact can jar her out of sleep. And, he needs for her to stay asleep.
“Your fear of losing her,” he says. “Your pain of already having lost her.”
Callie scoffs, furiously wiping tears from her eyes. “I know I’m dreaming, and that you’re dead, but somehow, you’re still interfering in my relationships.”
“That’s my job,” Mark explains. “It’s my job to tell you when you’re being a dumbass- when you can’t see what’s right in front of your gorgeous face.”
“And what would that be?” Callie stands up from her spot in the dirt, dusting off her jeans. She glances back to Arizona’s body, staring longingly at her; Mark can’t take it anymore, and he snaps, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
“That she’s still alive,” he shouts. “That she came to New York for you.”
“She came for Sofia,” Callie protests weakly, but Mark just lets out a sharp laugh and shakes his head, disbelieving.
“She came for you, Cal,” he says. “I’ve seen her text you, and the smile that lights up her face, every single time, without fail? It’s all for you. It’s always been for you.”
“You watch her?” Callie asks, her voice small and scared and just a little bit confused. Her eyes still leak with tears, but Mark wills them away with a flick of his wrist.
“I watch the both of you, every day, and I see the same pain and regret reflected in everything you do,” he says. “She misses you just as bad as you miss her. You have to believe that.”
Callie looks like she doesn’t, but then she walks over to Arizona and lightly strokes her hair. She gasps at the feel of it- the reunion of touch, the homecoming of closeness. There, surrounded by trees and the smell of decay, she’s found her home again.
“I’m scared, Mark,” she whispers, but he just shushes her and shoots her a warm smile.
“So is she. But being scared together beats being scared by yourself.”
He leaves her there, surrounded by everything she wants within her grasp. Everything she just has to reach out and touch.
When she wakes up, she starts to cry.
+++
Arizona notices him right away, but she doesn’t acknowledge his presence until he’s standing right in front of her. She’s too busy doing compressions, one after the other, pressing down on Callie’s chest. She’s strewn over the hood of a car, broken glass digging into her skin, blood seeping from her wounds.
“Arizona,” Mark tries, but she doesn’t listen. She just keeps pushing, blocking out everything but the pliant body beneath her hands.
“Arizona, this isn’t real,” he tries again, and this time, Arizona shoots her head up. Her eyes are wild as they bore into his, desperation blurring the edges of her vision.
“Help me save her!” She cries, frantically ushering him over to her side. “C-call an ambulance and- and try to stop the bleeding. God , there’s so much blood , Mark.”
“I know, I know,” he coos, but doesn’t move any closer. “Calm down, Z. She’s safe. You’re safe.”
She chokes on a sob, shaking her head over and over, returning to her task of resuscitation. She counts pumps under her breath, stopping after every thirty to breathe into Callie’s mouth. She only stops when Mark takes the chance of her waking up and lays a gentle hand on her shoulder, grounding her.
Slowly, she releases her hold on Callie, and looks up at Mark; he notices that the desperation is gone, and what's left is defeat. It’s heavy enough to sink her down to the concrete. She wraps her arms around her knees, as if attempting to hold herself together with string and glue.
“She’s dying,” she whispers. “She’s dying and I can’t save her.”
“Yes, you can,” Mark says. “You already did.”
He drops down beside her, resting his head against the car. He wonders how the collision of metal and skin feels so real, even in a dream. He wonders how Arizona can relive this every night when everything feels so real, even in a dream.
“I tried so hard,” Arizona murmurs into the empty space between them. “I tried so hard and she still left me.”
“She needed time to grow,” Mark says. “And so did you.”
“I don’t blame her,” Arizona says, “for leaving. What I did was unforgivable and she had every right to find someone worthy of her. Because, God.” The corners of her mouth tilt up, just a tiny bit. “Calliope’s a force of nature. She’s strong and beautiful and- and miraculous. ”
Mark hums in agreement, chuckling lowly. “A real pain in my ass, that's for sure. But she’s a good one.” He stops and stares into the eyes that he couldn’t blame Callie for falling in love with. “And, so are you, Arizona.”
Arizona makes a small noise of disagreement, burrowing herself closer to her own body. “I used to be,” she says. “But then I cheated and lost the one person who loved me when I couldn’t even love myself.”
“She’s still here, you know,” Mark says. “She still loves you, even if you can’t love yourself.”
Arizona sighs, wilting like a flower without sunlight, as she asks, “what if that’s not enough?”
Mark lifts himself up, turning back to Arizona as he shrugs. “But what if it is?”
When he leaves, Arizona doesn’t wake up right away. Instead, her nightmare morphs into visions of a house, of laughter, of happiness.
She wonders if it’s as fleeting as it appears.
+++
“You did good,” Lexie says, wrapping her arm around Mark’s torso, pulling herself closer to him. Together, they watch the tide ebb to the shore, waves crashing lightly against the sand.
“You think so?” He asks, stroking the skin of her back lightly, tracing patterns.
Lexie smiles and presses a gentle kiss against his cheek. In it, she says a million things: I love you, I’m so happy you’re here with me again, I’ve missed you longer than I’ve even known you, please don’t let go of me.
But she just smiles and settles on a simple answer. “Yeah, I do.”
The sun sets, and then rises again. They watch it all from their place above the stars, basking in a warm, effervescent glow of a life well lived, and an afterlife that has just begun.
+++
Below them, Callie rings the buzzer to Arizona’s apartment, and then she steps inside.