Cristina Yang and the Leaving
Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy, or any of the characters. I just like writing about them.
It's a relief to be in the locker room. After the day Cristina's had, she much deserves the cupcake, and regular clothes, and distinct lack of both her dragon attending and idiot interns waiting for her. And, yeah, there's the lack of him too.
Preston Burke.
...Though, maybe she can just stay in the locker room, because Callie dancing around in her underwear is making her one play of 'Just Dance' away from using her steak knife for an entirely different purpose. She's halfway out of her scrubs already, peeling back the weightless shirt and generally looking forward to her dartboard and the tequila stored in her bottom cupboard.
…That is, if Mer hasn't already stolen it.
Did they drink it last weekend?
Regardless, she doesn't want to go home. Maybe she'll kick Callie to the curb, or maybe she'll kill her, and she still kind of wants to get into some surgeries, so it's not a good idea for her to go home. But Izzie's been hanging around all day, and Hahn still hates her. And her interns are idiots. There's that too.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the subject of them. Well, no, because tequila doesn't talk (unless very, very drunk), but the secondary subject is.
And okay, maybe staying in the locker room isn't the best idea.
"…I brought a dress. This is the dress I wore when McSteamy and McDreamy both wanted into my pants on the same night. You are my size." What an infernal shrew. Cristina contemplates killing Meredith. 007. She laughs a little.
"You're doing that thing."
"What thing?"
"That thing. That thing, where you're thinking about something very sadistic and mean, which either means you have released some of your twisted-ness, or you're about to dismember me."
"Mer…"
"No. Don't. That wasn't a question. Besides, I brought you my dress."
"Did you forget that you actually did get into McDreamy's pants that night?"
"Well, no. Wasn't that the point?"
"Couldn't you be normal? Couldn't you be normal and pay attention to when I'm Yang-bitch?" Meredith shakes her head, which is precisely when Cristina realizes that the rest of the residents are still in the locker room.
…Waiting.
"Nope. No sirree. I'm going to get you spectacularly laid."
Easy for Meredith to say. She's getting 'spectacularly laid' practically daily with none of the boyfriend stress. Not that Cristina needed a boyfriend. Boyfriends are stupid, and she's decidedly anti-boyfriend right now.
"I don't need to get laid."
"Yes, you do. And if not, we can just get drunk and talk about boys. Stupid boys. Stupid, stupid boys." She drops the dress onto Cristina's head. Cristina huffs. "You're in a slump. Slump is over."
Cristina hates that word. Slump. She's never been in one. Not when her mother told her she was, not when Burke moved out of the apartment and in with McDreamy, nope. Slumps are just not for Cristina Yang. They are for Izzie and her lost husband, and Callie and her lost husband, and George and his lost balls. "Slumps are for losers. And if I am slightly more of a McBitch than yesterday, I can just terrorize my interns as the new Nazi and get my kicks from that, right?"
"Ew. No. No, you can't."
"Yes I can. I can do whatever I want. That was a rhetorical question, because I don't need to go out, I don't need to get laid, and I am not in a slump!"
"I won't have this argument with you. Since you are much more screwy than my breakup sex and mother, father, and sister issues, you are in a slump."
"Nope. Although, I do have small mercies. At least you didn't send Izzie." The woman was like a goddamn puppy, all smiley-happy and always wanting to do well and she kind of huff-puffed when people weren't shiny and polished like her. Very puppy-like. Which is disgusting.
"I could do that, you know. Izzie would come. You know she would. Any chance to be good, and nice, and she'll come. And you'll hate it."
"…You're a bitch. A bitch that's going to play darts with me and stick that slutty monstrosity out of my face."
"Whatever. It's only 8. I still have like, four hours to make you go out."
"Did somebody call me?" Oh, horror of horrors. Did the world not hate Cristina Yang enough? Not only was Burke in her face all the time, and she was living with a deranged divorcee, and her person was actually smiling, and the gods were ignoring her wish to strike down one Miss Hahn, but Izzie Stevens, Queen of Perk, was now standing in front of her.
"No. Nobody called you."
"…Called who?" O'Malley. George O'Malley, otherwise known as Burke's lackey. The day was seriously not looking up. O'Malley walks over to his locker, opens it and sticks his name tag into the space inside.
"God!"
"Cris…"
"Somebody…" Wait just a goddamn second. Cristina peers into her locker, and no more Miss Nice Yang. "Who the hell ate my goddamn cupcake?"
She looks around. Let's see… O'Malley. He's twitching, shifting back and forth with those stupid Bambi eyes that she kind of now wants to use a fire poker on.
"O'Malley? Bambi, you idiot, I am going to ki-"
"Yang! Kill?" Karev. She hardly even noticed that he's here.
Meredith sighs exasperatedly at her. "Yeah, you see? You have a problem. You're pissed. Usually, you'd just like, dismember him or something."
"Mer. That is my sugar, and you don't mess. Besides. Don't I have an excuse? My interns are bumbling idiots. They do nothing right, and it's not nearly up to last year's par, even though I get to order people around. They're imbeciles!"
"Hey!" protests George.
"Especially you."
"Yang, don't take it out on Bambi that you miss Burke."
Oh, God. Whenever anybody says his name anymore, she gets the flash. The flash, like when you're dying and you're about to see that infernal light, and you see your whole life flash through your eyes. Memories flicker across her eyelids like a movie in fast pace, from the moment she first saw him, admired him, to the very last time he spoke to her as a human being.
'Cristina Yang, I love you.'
The flash ranges between five seconds and five minutes, and it still causes a rush of adrenaline to run through her veins, worse than any drug.
Preston Burke.
Every day he stays, and every day she fades. But she stays too. She's stronger than that. Stronger than him. Like everything, it's a competition, and she won't be the first one to go on a bar rampage with her friend in a dress up to her ass.
"Shut up."
"Alex. I think you should leave now."
"Why is nobody saying it? Why won't anybody goddamn call her on her truth?" He stops, right in front of her face, which she kind of wants to punch in. "…You love him. Loved him, and still do. He's here, and you see him, every day, and he calls you Dr. Yang and doesn't refer to you as his ex-fiancée and he forgot you. And you, you're breaking faster than anybody in here. Faster than George and his fake marriage and failed intern exam, faster than Izzie, the home wrecker, faster than me, faster than Meredith and her commitment issues. So much so that you're pretty much glass pieces on the surgery room floor."
"Alex, I really don't think this is appropriate..."
"Bambi. Talking here."
"No. No, you're not talking. You don't talk to me. I will not be broken pieces of glass on the floor. Whatever. You want me to talk about him leaving me? How he's perfect and normal, and I'm not? Whatever. Maybe I'm Yang-bitch, and I'm not normal, but that doesn't mean I'm broken. In fact, it means I'm not. I don't sleep in prom dresses on the floor or go crazy. I'm fine. I do fine."
And Cristina does. She does fine. She's painted the apartment, and Callie's always there, and Burke's not, so it's her space; he doesn't belong to any part of it.
Silence is what she hears. Silence. Cristina doesn't dare look at any of them. Pity makes her sick, sick with wanting to both punch them all out. And now she feels like barfing. Meredith, why isn't Meredith saving her? She can't possibly be so dense that she doesn't understand.
"...Should we, I don't know..."
"Izz. No. She's...I...can't explain it to you." Cristina wonders if she's even here anymore. Maybe Hahn has a surgery for her or something. Cutting into someone with a scalpel is infinitely more interesting than this.
"Why not?"
Surprisingly enough, O'Malley is the one to clarify. "Izzie. You're not...you're special. Very special."
"I swear to God, George..."
"No, really. It's part of what we like about you." Cristina scoffs. When the hell did I spout that kind of rubbish? Oh. Maybe that's where my tequila went.
She can practically hear the exasperated grimace as Karev cuts in. "Yang, shut up."
"Anyways," continues O'Malley. "You're awesome, and perky, and lovely. Cristina...well, she isn't. It's just, not the same thing as her and Meredith and sometimes Alex. I mean, they're... they're..."
"Deep and darkly twisted."
"Yeah, thanks Mer. And you're..."
"...Scarily perky."
"Cristina."
"Look, will you all just let me go if I go out tonight?"
Meredith beams. "Winner!"
"No. I will not do the dress. I hate the dress, and I am not a dirty whore like you. I am also not going clubbing. No excess makeup, no drunken men hovering around me. There will be brandy, and tequila, and I won't be paying for any of it."
"Whatever. Now I have an excuse too."
She walks out of the room. She doesn't look at any of them, least of all Meredith, especially when she tosses the dress at Cristina like 'you forgot this' even though they both know she didn't.
Perhaps she's safe. Maybe Callie sucks, but being around the rest of them is just…irritating. Especially Izzie. Pots of niceness do not go well with her. Scalpels and dark places and, usually, Meredith Grey. So maybe all of that is true, but her fairytale has already ended, so maybe she can just go home now.
But no. God hates her again. Because Preston Burke, her ex-almost-husband and current attending, is waiting in the elevator.
You can't possibly be serious. She can practically hear Meredith singing: 'Not just me with the elevator issues, oh no!' Bitch. She scowls, hopefully menacingly to the smiling object of all her problems.
"Evening, Dr. Yang. How was your day?"
Not a trace of unhappiness. Perk, and perk, and perk. Seems Cristina didn't have any influence on him, after all.
"Dr. Yang. Is something bothering you?" …And that sentence, it's like a branding iron, so easily falling from the acclaimed cardiologist's mouth. So far from the 'we're a team' chorus of not so long ago. When she was an intern. She's forgotten how much she's wanted to avoid him lately. Idiot. So smug and bitter, she wants to punch him too. God, no. Her mother always said she needed therapy.
"No, Dr. Burke. Everything is simply peachy."
Ding! Small mercies, the elevator's at the bottom. She feels his breath on her neck for only a second, and he's gone a second later, brushing past her.
Everything has changed. She's not an intern. As his 'assistant', his partner in crime, she did surgeries that nobody else had the opportunity to, and now, she's been reduced. Erased. Cristina's starting to wonder if Dr. Burke now sees Dr. Yang, the intern.
The intern?
No. She's not an intern, she's Cristina Yang. Cristina Yang, the third best cardiologist at Seattle Grace, soon to be the best, and she's strong, and boyfriendless. She's…God, she's fine. She does fine. Her and Mer, they do fine.
Fairy tale's over.
No, no, no, no, no! She sees Burke drive away, his perfect car and perfect new life wrapped up so perfectly. Cristina looks at the dress in her hand.
Why didn't he just goddamn leave her alone? Alone, bitter, anything but this.
She gets into her car, pounds the steering wheel for a couple minutes until her precious hands are throbbing and aching, but who'll cover for her?
"Goddamn nobody."
………..
"Mer. I'm not going tonight. No need to send in the happy brigade, I just…can't. Sorry. Am I, I mean, I don't know how sorry I am. Sorry for a lot of things. I saw Burke, he called me Dr. Yang, and there's no slump, I'm fine. He's fine, and I'm going to stay home. Don't bother coming over. I'm bolting the door right now. Hear that? That's the unwelcome sign. I'll have my scalpel tomorrow, you bring the surgeries. That's all I need."
Of course, she comes anyway.
"I brought tequila, Cristina. You know you have none left. I don't have any other dresses here. I have a list of all my surgeries tomorrow, and they're yours. I have movies and popcorn, and a dart board, and did I mention that I brought tequila?"
Better judgement suggests Cristina keep the bolted door, well, bolted. Better judgement is not her strong suit. Meredith gives her that smile, that irritating, 'I understand you' smile.
"Hi."
Cristina holds her hand, beckons. "Booze. Here."
"All yours. Except for the half that's mine."
"That's the only reason you're coming in, you know."
Meredith pauses to put her bag on the couch, and Cristina notices that she's got no makeup on. Not going out then. She takes a swig from Cristina's already open bottle of beer. "You know, sometimes, even as your deep, dark, twisty person, I don't know how to be your person. Sometimes, I just pretend like I do."
Cristina looks at her. "Okay." Flops next to her on the couch, grabs the tequila bottle and the shot glasses. After the first one, she sighs in relief. Meredith does too. There's a symphony of things unsaid, floating through the air.
"…You're so not fine."
Cristina stares at the only remnant left of Burke in the room, his coffee cup, mostly used in the late-night sessions of practice surgery on frozen chickens. It sits on the counter, unused and untouched for a month.
"…So not fine."