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If days could be rollercoasters, today would qualify.
Cristina stands before the large silver sinks, watching as her barely alive patient is wheeled out of the OR by a team of nurses. She lets out a long and heavy sigh trying her best to recount exactly where it had all gone wrong.
When Teddy had offered to let her take the lead on the case, she was elated; almost to an uncharacteristic degree but she couldn't help herself. She hadn't been able to get her hands on a case like this since Burke and she had needed it.
Cristina needed to prove to herself that she still wanted surgery.
That high quickly bottomed out though as Owen proceeded to doubt her skill, doubt Teddy's decision to let her take the lead. Typically, Cristina wouldn't have cared.
Except that he is her boyfriend and she's stood by him through hell and the least he could do was give her a little bit of encouragement or something.
Not that she needs it.
Her mind traces over the surgery again and once more, Owen emerges in her thoughts. This time as the man who burst into her OR and argued in hushed tones behind her back with her mentor. He knew that she was too proud to ask for help. He knew that she would rather let a patient die than ask for help.
Obviously, he doesn't know her at all.
Cristina isn't sure if she saved the patients life because she's that awesome or if it was to piss him off and show him that she could handle anything. Right now, the patient's life is barely saved as it is. There are tubes coming out everywhere and he's sitting on a modified bypass and Teddy doesn't know what the hell to do to save him. It's all in Cristina's hands.
As far as Cristina knows, she doesn't know how to save her patient either but she's sure as hell not going to let the patient die on her watch. Especially after Owen.
Especially when there's so much more weighing on this than the patient's life.
Determined that she knows the answer to this question, even though she doesn't like it, Cristina bolts out of the scrub room and runs through the hallways. She's not even sure that Teddy is in the hospital. There's a huge chance that she could just be running like an idiot through the halls for no reason at all.
Thankfully, her day lets up on her just enough that she's wrong and Teddy is in the lobby. She calls after her, using her first name instead of her last and there's an urgency in her voice that earns a quick response.
Teddy looks at the Cristina and sees an intensity that she hasn't been privy to before. "Dr. Yang," Teddy says slowly, more of a question than a greeting.
"I-" Cristina starts and then her voice falters a little. Her stomach churns slightly at the idea and there's this indescribable feeling threatening to overwhelm her. She swallows hard and tries to focus on the patient rather than the connotations of what she's suggesting. "I know somebody who can help me," Her voice is shaky at best, "Us. I mean he can help us. With the patient."
"Really? Is he close by?" Teddy asks, sensing something different all of the sudden about her protege.
Cristina glances down and clears her throat, "No. But he'll be on the next flight out."
Teddy seems impressed by this and she nods with approval, "It's your case, Dr. Yang. You call in whatever consults you deem necessary."
Ignoring all of the feelings that were threatening to surface through her already weak facade, Cristina simply nodded and turned to walk back up the stairs calmly.
Her hand slips into her pocket and retrieves her phone. With a delicate touch but shaking fingers, she scans through her contacts and finds the psuedonym she gave him- P. Avery. To Meredith, it may have been obvious but she likes to think it would take at least a little bit of thought and Owen would never get it.
She's never used the number before today and even though she knows that he'll come, she can't help but wonder how he'll react.
When he answers, she ignores the way her flesh rises with goosebumps and she lets out a soft breath, "Burke," She murmurs softly into the phone, "It's Cristina."
x-x-x-x-x
If there's one thing that Lexie knows for certain it's that there's no such thing as a photographic imagination. Her photographic memory has never carried her into dangerous territory though. Lexie would simply remind herself that the images ingrained in her cerebrum were memories- they had already happened.
They weren't visions of the future.
This particular image however had morphed into more than just a memory. She could see Mark kissing Addison, sliding his hand up over her painfully perfect legs (just how did she get those legs anyway?) and doing a whole bunch of other things that just made her cheeks turn red and her eyes well with tears.
She wasn't supposed to have a photographic imagination, it was supposed to be a photographic memory.
As she tosses back another shot, doing her best to self medicate just like her older sister does, she wonders bitterly if her brain is trying to tell her something. Maybe it is a photographic memory. Maybe it has already happened.
"What's your deal?" A slurred voice asks from behind her.
Lexie turns to see Alex standing there. He's bleary eyed and there's a nearly empty glass of something ridiculously strong smelling in his hand and he looks as lost as she feels.
"What's yours?" Lexie asks, turning back to her drink.
"I don't have a deal. I don't have anything." Or anyone, he adds to himself in silence.
"Having nothing is better." It's an uncharacteristic answer for somebody who had smiley face posters on her wall as a child but she's working on being drunk and she's not in a good place right now.
"Yeah?" Alex asks, looking over at her in surprise, "And why is that?"
"Because you don't have anything to lose."
Alex looks at the woman but can't find the right words to tell her that she's right. Instead he calls out for Joe to refill their drinks.
It's going to be a long night.
x-x-x-x-x
Cristina stands at the foot of her patient's bed, watching every little number closely. Green lines trace across a black screen and even though they look strong, Cristina knows that they're anything but.
She doesn't know whose fault it is that the patient is barely hanging on by a thread but she knows that she's not letting this patient go.
He only needs to make it for a few more hours, that's all. Watching more medication fall into the IV drip chambers, she pleads with her dying patient silently to just hold on.
That help is on the way.
Teddy joins Cristina's side and evaluates the numbers quietly. She wants to believe that this patient is going to make it, she's always tried to be a positive person.
It doesn't look promising.
"Did you call your consult, Dr. Yang?" She asks, wondering if it will be a pointless phone call.
"He's on his way from New Orleans right now," Cristina answers in a hollow voice.
"Who did you call?"
Cristina hesitates for a beat, "Preston Burke."
Teddy eyes widen and her mouth falls open in awe, "Preston Burke. You mean the Preston Burke?"
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Cristina looks back at her patient. "Yes."
"How do you know him?" Teddy asks, still marveling at just his name.
"He worked here," It's a mumbled answer and one that inadvertantly leads to more questions just by intonation alone.
Cristina glances up at Teddy and then back at the patient and she finally walks over to close the door. Rather than fielding more questions, Cristina has a better plan.
She hopes.
"I need to talk to you. About Dr. Burke. Without anybody ever finding out."
Teddy's eyebrows raise high on her forehead, "Anybody meaning anybody or anybody meaning Owen?"
Cristina's lack of an answer is an answer on its own.
"You can tell me," Teddy speaks softly, knowing how hard it may be for her to share whatever information it is that she's holding onto.
"He worked here," Cristina says slowly, "Burke did. When I started here, he was working here and he left at the end of my first year. After..." She pauses. After what? "It's just that, Owen doesn't know about us. He doesn't know that I was engaged to him and he doesn't know about the things that went on while Burke was here."
"Things that went on?"
"Have you ever wondered why I can do a maze procedure in just over an hour when the fifth years take two and a half?" Cristina asked, "Or why a pulmonary autograph is like second nature for me?"
Teddy shook her head, "You're gifted. There's nothing that unusual about being gifted." She knew well that Cristina's abilities for the amount of time she had been a resident was more than unusual.
"I had practice," Cristina explains. "A lot of it."
It takes a few minutes but she explains to Teddy everything about Burke's hand. The tremors, the cover-up, the procedures. All of the things that she'd never tell Owen because she can't stand the thought of him looking at her like that- like she's one of the rebellious ones. Like she's unruly and too hard to handle and it would mean that he saw just a little bit less of her.
Owen would never understand that she did those things to help the man she loved in the only way that she could.
No, in his eyes it would purely be insuboordinance. Breaking the rules. He wouldn't understand and he couldn't find out.
Teddy promises that it will stay between the two of them when Cristina finishes. She knows how much Owen loves the woman before her and she wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his happiness.
He's had enough sorrow in his life.
Cristina feels like she should be relieved now that it's out and now that she has somebody to help carry the burden of her secret. Somebody that can help her cover if questions come up. Cristina knows that Teddy isn't trying to sabotage any relationships and that she would be the best person to help field supsicions from Owen.
She isn't relieved though.
Whatever it is that she's feeling is the farthest thing possible from relief.
Nervously, she shifts next to Teddy and looks at the time. There's something stirring inside her and it's like she can feel Burke getting closer to Seattle. She wills the anxiety to leave her body and tries to build her walls up.
She knows that they'll fail miserably.
x-x-x-x-x
Lexie's vision is blurring badly and when she glances around the bar the only thing that she can seem to see clearly is Alex. She reaches for her beer, the one that she promised Joe would be her last and she takes a drink.
Alex looks back at her and he smirks, "You're wasted."
"I am. I'm completely and utterly inebriated." The word inebriated comes out over a long span of seconds in an effort to make sure that it's pronounced properly. "And it feels good to be inebriated."
"It doesn't feel anything to be drunk. That's the point," Alex corrects her before taking a swig of his own beer.
Lexie is still feeling a lot of things and she's still seeing a lot of things in her head. Somehow this time though, the alcohol leads to a bad place. It leads her thoughts away from Mark and to Alex. Her glance slides over at him again and she tilts her head to the side, "You really didn't remember sleeping with me that one time did you?"
"What?" Alex asks, putting his beer down. "What are you talking about?"
"Nevermind. I get the point." Lexie sighs.
She's the forgettable one.
Glancing up at the clock, she feels sadness sinking into her gut and she sighs softly. Mark has probably long forgotten about her by now. Everybody warned her and it's not like she didn't know what he was like.
Somehow she thought that she could change him.
Now she knows she was wrong.
"Joe," She asks in an obviously miserable tone, "Can I have another beer?"