Handling It (Grey's Anatomy, Cristina/Addison, PG)
You handled it for a whole two months. Two months of watching him fall apart. Two months of trying to help him, trying to be supportive and other girlfriend-like qualities as you watched your boyfriend and the best damn surgeon you knew talk about how there were plenty of other paths he could follow even if he couldn’t hold a scalpel, how there were always advancements in science and it didn’t have to be permanent… two months of being there as he pretended that he was okay when he wasn’t, two months of being the better one instead of the protégée.
And then you ran away. Because you just couldn’t be that supportive girlfriend. Not when he was falling apart. Not when he was so completely different from the man you’d fallen in love with. Of course you loved him. That was never in question. But he changed. Things happened, and he got shot, and he changed, and you couldn’t do it anymore.
You ran to her, and you still don’t know why. You wonder if she judges you, running out on the man you love when the going got tough when she stuck around to try to make things work with her husband above and beyond the call of duty. Everyone knew she didn’t stand a chance and still she tried.
You wonder if that’s why you ran to her, because she was proof that sticking around in a hopeless situation didn’t work. Because she was as bitter and as cynical as you, clear evidence that whether you tried to handle what was thrown at you or not, you ended up the same anyway.
You end up just out for yourself, because you can’t be any other way, and you end up looking for someone who’s just as drained as you are, because that at least is something you can trust.