Lexie Grey had always admired Cristina Yang. She admired her drive, her ambition, her work ethic, her intelligence and biting wit, but most of all, Lexie admired the fierce loyalty that Cristina had for her friends. Nobody ever noticed Cristina's loyalty, all that they ever saw was a highly intelligent woman who would give up anything and everything to further her career, they thought that she was ruthless and cutthroat and was only out for herself. Lexie knew that there was more to Cristina than this. She had many admirable qualities, and Lexie looked up to her, one might even say that Lexie had a crush on her, but she knew that it wouldn't go anywhere. Even though Cristina had just broken up with Owen, Cristina was her sister's best friend, not to mention completely straight as far as Lexie knew. The knowledge that she had no chance in hell with such a smart, witty and driven woman was unfortunate, but hey, she could always dream, couldn't she?
Cristina shut her eyes in the on-call room, ever since her break-up with Owen, to keep her mind off of it, she had been working herself to the bone and was starting to feel the effects. Even she couldn't work sixteen hours a day without experiencing any negative side effects. Cristina knew that she didn't have to do this to herself, but even though she was the one who broke up with Owen, she still felt like something was missing in her life, and she thought that if she filled that hole with surgeries, maybe she would get back to her old self instead of this sad, pathetic ex-girlfriend she felt like she was becoming. As she was contemplating this, her pager went off. Cristina swung her legs over the side of the bed, rushed down to the OR, and scrubbed in to her surgery. Cristina needed to find another distraction fast, because she wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer.
As Lexie was walking out of the hospital, she saw Cristina a couple of yards ahead of her, so Lexie called out and asked Cristina to wait for her. Lexie was pleasantly surprised when Cristina obliged because waiting for anyone other than Meredith was out of character for her. Lexie quickened her pace so that she could catch up to Cristina.
"Thanks for waiting for me." Lexie smiled at down at Cristina. "Are you okay? You look really tired. Is everything alright?" When Lexie saw the bags under Cristina's eyes she started rambling like she always did when she was worried or nervous.
"I'm fine." Cristina said. Lexie was skeptical, but she knew that the best tactic with Cristina was to just keep her mouth shut. They walked in silence for awhile, but eventually, Lexie just couldn't help herself. She'd always had a problem with meddling because she just cared too much about people and when she could tell that they were hurting, she just couldn't resist trying to ease their pain, even if the person she was trying to help really didn't want it.
"Are you sure you're okay? I mean, I know that the way that you cope with emotional pain is to throw yourself into work, but it doesn't really seem to be working, because I've seen you, and you're working your ass off and you look really tired, and really unhappy, and I'm sorry, but you need to stop because you're going to make yourself sick and you're the best cardio surgeon I know and you need to be healthy to make other people healthy, so just talk to me, please, I think I can help."
Cristina spun around to face Lexie. "Just drop it okay, Lexie! I don't want to talk about it." She snapped at Lexie and started walking quickly away from her. Lexie grabbed her arm, spun Cristina back around, and kissed her. Cristina stood for a second, shocked, not kissing Lexie back, but not pushing her away either, then she started kissing Lexie back, and it was the best kiss of her life. She'd never had a physical relationship with a woman before, even though she sometimes fantasized about Meredith, but now she thought that a relationship with a woman might be exactly what she needed. She kissed Lexie harder, and for the first time in a long time, surgery was the farthest thing from her mind.