Lexie Grey-Sloan

## Alexandra Caroline Grey-Sloan

**Lexie Grey-Sloan** is an attending neurosurgeon and otolaryngologist at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. She is the daughter of Susan and Thatcher Grey. She is married to Mark Sloan and they have three children; two sons, Theodore and Maxwell, and a daughter, Geneva.

## History

### Early Life

Lexie was born on at 1:37 AM on August 24, 1984, at Seattle Grace Hospital in Seattle, Washington. She is the daughter of Thatcher Grey and his second wife, Susan. She was conceived when the two met in a college bar as graduate students. She has a younger sister, Molly Grey-Thompson. She also has an older half-sister, Meredith Grey, born to Thatcher and his ex-wife Ellis.

Lexie grew up in the Wallingford neighbourhood of Seattle. She attended Green Lake Elementary School and Hamilton Middle School. As a child, she was bright and skipped third grade. At the age of six, she was a flower girl in her parents' wedding. When she turned seven, her parents threw her a surprise party, which she has always remembered as one of her best birthdays. Lexie attended Roosevelt High School. She was very popular in high school, having been a cheerleader, as well as being crowned prom queen and awarded class valedictorian.

Lexie attended Harvard University for both her undergraduate and medical degrees. As an undergraduate student, she majored in applied mathematics and wrote an honours thesis on applications in computational neuroscience. She lived in Lionel Hall as a freshman and Quincy House as an upperclassman.

When she was in her first year of medical school, Lexie was sent on a blind date with a lab partner of one of her previous roommate’s friends. The two went out for dinner, and the date, having gone well, ended with Lexie being invited over to his apartment for dessert. Lexie does not remember this occurring, and after noting her coffee was strange tasting, she recalls waking up at home. A few weeks later, Lexie had to travel to Seattle to attend the funeral of her best friend, Jennifer. While in Seattle, Lexie realized she had become pregnant as a result of a sexual assault that had occurred after her date. After returning to Harvard, Lexie did not want to seek medical attention at an affiliated facility, fearing that her classmates would discover her pregnancy. She had a friend who was an upperclassman perform an abortion. An ultrasound performed before the abortion revealed Lexie was carrying twins. It took Lexie several years to acknowledge her abortion in non-medical contexts, and she notably discussed her abortion several decades later with Lucas Alvarez during his pregnancy.

Lexie initially matched into a surgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, but re-matched at Seattle Grace Hospital after her mother's death in June 2008.

### Mother's Death

When her mother died of complications related to treatment of the hiccups, her father took to drinking and soon developed alcoholism. Despite this, Lexie continued to live with Thatcher and care for him, even though he would often unreasonably and randomly lash out at her.

By the time of Susan's death, both Lexie and Molly knew about Meredith's existence, though Lexie had never met Meredith. Despite her mother's Jewishness, the family decided not to sit Shiva and hold a relatively simple funeral. Lexie would later admit that even though she was supposed to pray every day for a year after her mother's death, she found it difficult to speak to G-d, feeling as though she was talking to herself. On the day of her mother's funeral, Lexie waited in the car while Thatcher, accompanied by Molly, went to tell Meredith that she wasn't welcome at Susan's funeral. After the funeral, Lexie went to Joe's bar where she offered to buy Derek a drink. He was visibly charmed and called her forward, to which she replied that she had a bad day, so she got to be forward today. He confessed to having a bad day too but decided not to accept her offer because he was there with some friends.

### Plane Crash and Recovery

While travelling to Boise to perform a surgery to separate conjoined twins, Lexie was on a plane that crashed with Meredith, Cristina, Arizona, Derek, and Mark. A piece of the wing of the plane landed on top of her, which Mark was able to lift. He performed CPR on and off for several hours before they were rescued and airlifted to Boise Memorial Hospital, where they were treated.

She was sedated for several weeks after the crash. After she woke up, tests were performed which determined that Lexie had sustained an incomplete spinal cord injury. The injury was located at T12, causing a loss of sensation and paralysis in her torso and lower limbs. She woke up to find that she also had several severe fractures in her limbs. Her surgeons also reported that she had lost one of her kidneys and part of her colon, which resulted in her having a temporary colostomy. Over several weeks, several surgeries were performed including fracture repairs and an eventual colostomy reversal.

After being discharged from the hospital, Lexie attended an inpatient rehabilitation facility for nine weeks, where she underwent several hours of physical therapy daily, as well as received an experimental treatment involving stem cells. She responded well to treatment and was able to regain previously lost function in her legs and injured arm.

Lexie did not find out she was pregnant with Theo until the beginning of her second trimester. In addition to having irregular periods after the plane crash, she was also told that her chances of successful conception were near zero, causing her not to consider the possibility of pregnancy for several weeks. When she expressed fertility concerns to her OB/GYN, Dr. Keating informed her that between her recent trauma and her partner's age Lexie becoming pregnant as fast as she did was both stunning success and strong evidence that her fertility had not been greatly influenced by her injuries. Lexie chose to attend her first appointment before telling Mark, the idea that she could be pregnant completely out of the question for her, though upon finding she was fourteen weeks pregnant decided to come back later in the day with Mark, remembering how hurt she had been when she wasn't invited to hear Sofia's heartbeat.

Arizona and Callie learned Lexie was pregnant when they cornered her with their suspicions, sources including that her "boobs were massive" and "Mark was way too happy."

### The Blip and BRRDS Outbreak

The night before the Blip, Sofia had nightmares and crawled into bed with Lexie and Mark, causing her siblings to join them. Since the Blip happened in the early morning hours on Seattle time, Lexie woke up to find her pager buzzing and her entire family gone.

Even though she had been on maternity leave, the sudden shortage of physicians combined with traumas related to the Blip resulted in Lexie not being able to leave the hospital for several weeks. She wasn't able to fully recognize the absence of her husband and children until her first day off in ten weeks. After this realization, she went several days having no contact with the outside world, during which she spent her time moving back and forth between her children's rooms wearing Mark's clothes and sobbing from grief. This eventually led to a period of psychosis, during which she believed that neither Mark nor their children were ever real and that they had been figments of her imagination. During this period, she was still working sixteen-hour shifts almost every day with very few breaks in between. While Maggie expressed concern about the safety of Lexie continuing to practice medicine, Meredith insisted that Lexie was otherwise completely fine and that it would be less safe to lose another neurosurgeon than to take the risk and let her continue to operate.

## Relationships

### Romantic

When Carolyn Shepherd came to Seattle, she asked Lexie how many sexual partners she had, to which she replied that she had six or seven.

#### Mark Sloan

Mark and Lexie's relationship started off professionally, with Lexie being the intern on several of Mark's cases and developing an interest in plastic surgery and otolaryngology.

Meredith started to worry that Mark was flirting with Lexie, causing Derek to tell Mark to "keep little Sloan out of Little Grey." However, Mark began to notice her romantically shortly after. Mark was initially reluctant to pursue a relationship out of loyalty to Derek, as Lexie was the sister of his best friend's wife. He was also put off by the large difference in their ages.

After encouragement from Sadie Harris, Lexie went to Mark's hotel room, stripped, and asked him to "teach her," which served as the beginning of a secret relationship. They grew close very quickly and Mark developed true feelings for her.

Lexie soon grew tired of keeping secrets and told Mark she wasn't going to be his girlfriend until he told Derek. Mark confessed, and Derek was initially outraged, but grew to accept their relationship after realizing how deeply Mark really cared for Lexie. Their relationship continued successfully for months.

Later, Lexie finally told Mark she was still in love with him. He said nothing in response. Mark told Derek that he was torn between Lexie, the woman he loved but who he didn't think wanted anything that he wanted, and Julia, who was willing to give him everything he wanted. Mark and Lexie boarded the plane to Idaho with their feelings unresolved.

During the plane crash, Mark fought to save Lexie despite the extent of her injuries. He was able to lift the piece of the plane that was crushing her, and managed to keep her alive for several hours until help arrived. Before she fell unconscious, Mark confessed his love to her, stating that they would get married and have children and that she would become an amazing surgeon.

After the plane crash, Lexie and Mark got together for the third and final time. They reached an unspoken mutual agreement to get married once they had recovered. Mark tried to propose several times while they were in the hospital, which Lexie always denied, knowing how important everything being perfect was to him.

Mark and Lexie were married on May 25, 2013.

#### George O'Malley

Lexie learned that George was repeating his intern year and helped him keep the other interns aware of his having been held back. She and George developed a friendship over intern struggles and their strained relationships with Meredith and Callie, respectively. Mark Sloan noticed that Lexie had feelings for George and vowed to be less mean to George if she'd admit her feelings to him. As a result, Mark was slightly more polite to the two of them and George misunderstood, thinking Lexie and Mark were sleeping together while Lexie continued to vie for George's affections.

George finally passed his intern exam and seemed to pay less attention to Lexie. The final straw occurred when he received his new interns and Lexie discovered he hadn't had the decency to even ask to have her assigned to him. She broke down in front of him, calling him a jerk and herself stupid. Lexie chose to forgive George and made a peace offering of macaroni and cheese, keeping her feelings for him quiet.

#### Jackson Avery

Since Mark was still in love with Lexie, he recruited Jackson and bribed him with surgery in exchange for information about Lexie. Jackson, however, began to have feelings for Lexie and the two began dating. Lexie told Mark that she was seeing someone else when they were at Callie's baby shower. He asked if it was someone he knew, but Lexie walked away. Lexie and Jackson's relationship later became complicated as Mark was Jackson's mentor and it became clear to Jackson that Lexie was still in love with Mark. Jackson chose to end things with Lexie, saying that he "chose Mark."

### Familial

#### Sofia Sloan-Torres

When Sofia was in the NICU, Lexie would frequently sneak in over the night shift to see her.

#### Molly Grey-Thompson

As children, Lexie was extremely close with her younger sister, Molly. Being less than a year and a half apart in age, they were able to share most things.

Their relationship became rocky after the death of their mother. Molly, being married and having just had a baby, was able to leave the state to live with her husband, while Lexie was stuck in Seattle caring for their father. Lexie called her sister and begged her to help several times, to which she would always respond "you're Lexie, I'm sure you can figure it out."

#### Thatcher Grey

Lexie generally had a good relationship with her father. Lexie protected his reputation during his alcoholism following Susan's death. She was annoyed when he began dating again, though Meredith eventually convinced Lexie it wasn't worth being angry over.

Though Meredith stated that Lexie "never saw [Thatcher's] bad side," after becoming a parent herself Lexie realized that her childhood was far from perfect.

### Friendships

#### Lucas Alvarez

Lexie took an immediate liking to Lucas when he began working at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. Lexie often joked with Lucas that she was glad to have someone her same height around the hospital, though this was an unfair measurement as Lexie was really a foot taller than Lucas and going off her height while in a wheelchair.

#### Jennifer Shapiro

Jennifer was Lexie's childhood best friend. The two met in junior high, and became close after Jennifer successfully convinced Lexie to try out for the cheerleading squad. Once both girls made the team they were inseparable for years.

While they grew apart after Lexie's move to the east coast, they still maintained regular correspondence through email, talking at least once a week.

Lexie was at school when Jennifer died. When Jennifer's parents phoned her the morning after their daughter's death, Lexie was devastated. She would later tell Mark that she didn't eat for days and had nearly failed her final exams. Coming home over Christmas break that year was when Seattle truly stopped feeling like home to her.

Years after her death, Lexie named her daughter in part after Jennifer, nicknaming her Genny in honour of her friend.

## Career

Lexie graduated from Harvard Medical School. She was in the top quartile of her class. As a medical student, she aced her psychiatry clerkship, and completed an elective in medical genetics.

After the NRMP, Lexie matched into a surgical residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Shortly after this match, her mother died, causing Lexie to express a need to move back to Seattle to be with her father, who was struggling to take care of himself due to his grief and alcoholism. Having also ranked Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital highly, she reached out to Richard Webber directly and asked for a position in their residency program.

In her fourth year of residency, Lexie began to take an interest in neurosurgery. She spent large amounts of time on Derek's service, tackling several cases that were deemed inoperable by other neurosurgeons.

After the plane crash, Lexie's long recovery period inhibited her fifth year of residency. She was given the option to either take the year as a leave of absence and return to graduate with the class of 2014, or to use her vacation allowance and add a research block to the beginning of the year, of which she chose the latter. In the hospital and while recovering at home, she participated in research related to Derek Shepherd's blacklisted Alzheimer's research, and was published. While she was initially considered to be a shoe-in for Chief Resident, due to the limitations of Lexie's recovery the position was given to Steve Mostow.

After finishing her residency and passing her boards, Lexie completed a two-year fellowship in neurosurgery working under Derek Shepherd. After her fellowship, she was offered a position as an attending neurosurgeon and ENT at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital, where she took on the role of training other young surgeons such as Heather Brooks and later Lucas Alvarez.

## Notes and Trivia

* She is a Virgo Sun, Cancer Moon, and Cancer Rising.
* She drove a 1983 Toyota Corolla from the time she was sixteen to three weeks before the birth of her son Theo. She finally totalled the car in the hospital parking lot on the way to a routine ultrasound.
* She is allergic to eggs.
* She is a perfect artist using an "Etch-a-Sketch."
* She likes math, and was an applied math major in college.
* She plays the trombone, badly.
* Her blood type is A negative.
* She drinks her coffee black.
* She is Jewish.
* She enjoys explaining math proofs to her friends while high.
* She is missing her left kidney and sigmoid colon.
* She has a photographic memory.
* She likes her residents to call her "Lexie."
* She is EVERYTHING to me.