Title: Time Passes

Characters/Pairing: Teddy/Henry

Rating: K+

Summary: 'The first time, she's wakes very early in the morning, the usual dull ache in her chest having changed. It's clawing at her heart now, pulling it apart, making sleep impossible. She goes to the window and watches the leaden skies and knows that today, it will snow.' - Teddy copes with the anniversaries of Henry's death (oneshot)

i

The first time, she's wakes very early in the morning, the usual dull ache in her chest having changed. It's clawing at her heart now, pulling it apart, making sleep impossible. She goes to the window and watches the leaden skies and knows that today, it will snow.

She glances at the clock. It's half past four in the morning, far too early for her to be doing anything useful. In a little under five hours, she'll be at work, surrounded by work and by people who don't know. She thinks it's better that way. There's no point sharing her pain – why drag someone else's life down with her troubles? She watches the skies again, wondering if he's up there, looking down on her. She hopes he is.

Then she wonders if this burning ache in her chest will ever go away. She's not sure it will. Today, it hurts more than most days – scratch that, it hurts just like it did the moment she was first told. The other days are better – slightly – but today isn't another day.

Today is the first anniversary of her husband's death.

Teddy turns away from the window and goes back to bed.

...

ii

Midnight chimes when she's in surgery, saving the life of a fifteen year old boy. She's not watching the clock – focusing, of course, on the boy on the table instead – so the flick of the hand goes unnoticed, until the resident assisting her speaks up.

"Welcome, January 5th," the woman says, and Teddy's hands freeze. In the rush of her last shift – full of emergency after emergency – she'd forgotten that in the morning, it would be two years to the day since her husband lost his life on a table just like the one in front of her.

Suddenly she feels sick and she knows that she can't do this. Not now. Any time but now and it'd be fine – it's not as if the surgery is particularly hard. She'd be fine if it today was any other day.

But it's not.

She's flees the operating theatre, calling over her shoulder as she does so. "Winters, take over the surgery." She's pulling off her scrub gown when the resident replies, confusion evident to hear in her tone.

"What..? Dr Altman, what the hell is going on?"

"Take over the surgery," she snaps in response, pulling scrub cap off her head and moving to the door.

"But I can't...I've never done...I can't do it!" Teddy puts her palm flat on the cool door and closes her eyes, remembering another OR on the other side of the country, on another day two years ago. She remembers the pain and the feeling that was her heart breaking into two. One for her to keep. One for Henry to take wherever the hell dead people go. Teddy knows she can't stay in her, not with all the memories it's is bringing up. Not today. Tomorrow, she'll march back in her like she owns the place but today, she can't stay in here a moment longer.

"Winters," Teddy replies, her back still facing the nervous resident. "Take. Over. The. Surgery." Then she pushes open the door.

She just hopes that Winters will do a good enough job.

...

iii

She's in a bar the next time, drinking. Midnight comes in a haze but this time it's different because she's expecting it – that's why she's drinking herself to oblivion. She doesn't want to remember. Anything. Not a single moment. Not even the way he said her name. Somehow, as the years move on, each anniversary gets harder and harder. She thought the opposite would be true. Time heals all wounds, or something like that, right? Wrong.

She remembered not to schedule a surgery for today this year. A repeat of last year would not be good for her. By some miracle – though, not really a miracle, seeing as Teddy taught her well – Zara Winters managed to finish the operation and close up without the boy on the table dying. The resident had been commended and Teddy had been vilified by the powers that be. She hadn't really cared – she knew, with almost certainty that if she'd stayed in that OR, tried to battle through, that the boy would have died. This way, the patient survived and Teddy hadn't passed out at the table. In her eyes, it looked like the best possible outcome, but to the chief, it had been a bad thing to do. A very bad thing. She'd nearly lost her job.

But she hadn't and here she was, drowning her sorrows in a bottle of whiskey.

She's due back at the hospital at twelve the next day – a full twelve hours away now – and Teddy's plan is to drink herself stupid for the foreseeable future, get some sleep and then go to work. She's not sure if it will work – if she'll actually be useful at the hospital, but she doesn't fancy just moping around the house. She has to be busy – must be. She can't be allowed to remember. Because remembering hurts, hurts like hell, and she doesn't want to do it.

Doesn't want to see his kind face in her head.

But it's the anniversary. It's what has to happen.

The haze of the alcohol takes the edge of the memories when they come and Teddy's too tired to fight them away, but it doesn't stop the pain. Nothing can.

...

iv

It's eleven o'clock on the fifth of January when Teddy realises that she's an hour away from missing the anniversary completely. The guilt that it wreaks in her chest is unbearable and it means she can't think straight.

And because she can't think straight, she jumps on a plane to Seattle. It takes her hours and hours and technically she's already missed the day and she's probably going to lose her job, but she knows that she has to go there. She has to put his ghost to rest.

Today, she operated on a twenty-four year old runner who had four holes in his heart and then she went out with her friends to celebrate one of their birthdays and then she went home and listened to country music and danced in her living room. Today she was happy.

And it doesn't feel right. It's only been four years. She shouldn't be forgetting about it, about the anniversary, not when it's so important, not when it's the one day of the year when she can hurt and cry and pretend not to want to remember but secretly want to. Hurting means that she cared and as his memories fade from her – the way he said her name, the way he smiled at her, the way he held her, the way he said 'I love you' – she needs to remember how it felt to love him. Because she's forgetting. She doesn't want to, but it's what happens with time.

She moves on with her life, with her work, and the pain fades and the memories fade and when she tries to remember she can't and it kills her and the fact it kills her means that she cared – because she wants to remember.

Standing at his grave - the only reason she came to Seattle, because he's here – she's not quite sure if that makes sense, but to her it does.

The guilt is eating up at her. She forgot. She freaking forgot the anniversary of her husband's death. The day she lost the man she loved more than any man ever. And she forgot.

But standing here, in the early January drizzle – though, in Seattle, doesn't it always rain? – Teddy realises something. Henry wouldn't want her to feel guilty, to hurt. He'd want her to move on. Marry another man. Be happy. Have seven kids, knowing him.

Her being happy would be the most important thing to him.

And today she was. And for most of the other days of the year she is to. Sometimes she gets sad – but then doesn't everyone? – because something crappy happens, or she remembers that she's a widow – that makes her the most sad - but her life is good. And she can tell that Henry would be smiling down at her.

She has to let go. That doesn't mean that Henry didn't mean enough to her but he's not here and she has to move on. She has to let go of the hurt, the guilt. That doesn't mean she'll forget him – Teddy doesn't think she could – but it means that she can remember him when she's in theatre and not freak out or that she has to drink herself to oblivion to try and drown out the pain of the happiness she once had. She should just be proud that she had someone so good. She should celebrate him and the Teddy he made her become. Because he made her better, it was as simple as that. So now, she has to be better for his sake and for hers. She should tell her colleagues about how she lost the man she loved and she won't cry because then they'll understand and he won't her like a dirty little secret anymore.

And next year, she'll remember or maybe she won't and whatever happens, it will be okay.

...

v

In the end, next year, she remembers. She wakes up and remembers straight away, but unlike last year and the year before and the year before that, it doesn't hurt. There's a dull twinge in her heart that he isn't here with her but it's only a flash and then she just smiles.

There's no guilt. Not this year.

She goes to work. She goes home. She doesn't cry. But she remembers. And she smiles.

When she gets home, she pours herself a glass of wine and smiles.

"I miss you, Henry," she says to the empty room. She's talking to a ghost, someone who's not there, who'll never be there, but it feels comforting. "And I still love you. Okay?" She waits in vain for an answer that will never come.

"I hope you're proud of me."

...