A/N: My goal is to make everyone believe in Cristina/Teddy so whoever reads this and believes, please review! Anyway, I've decided to try something new so tell what you think.

X

The first thing Teddy noticed was how emaciated she looked. Cristina had always been petit, barely a hundred pounds but this was something different, something awful. Her cheeks looked sunken, skin pulled taut over her skull. Her hips bones jutted out sharply under thin scrub pants and her arms looked spindly under constricting, long sleeves. She was built wiry like a greyhound and bore the tired look of someone who's seen too much.

Her fingers fumbled over patient files, unsure, trembling like a junkie's. The thought made Teddy's stomach churn. No, Cristina would never do that, at least… not again. Teddy's brain scanned her subconscious for memories her heart hadn't allowed her to relive. Her back hurts from the cheap hotel mattress. She realizes she's staring; gawking awkwardly in the middle of the surgical wing liked some lunatic. Code blues and useless chatter circulated around her, pumping through the place like the blood in her veins

"You have to leave. Now." A sharp voice cuts into her psyche. She looks up, stunned and maybe a bit flustered. Miranda Bailey is the last person she expected to see but that doesn't mean she isn't happy to see her. The maternal feeling Bailey seemed to exude was more than calming, it was solidifying.

Bailey glared at her, mouth pulled down into a furious scowl. "Did your time away make you deaf?" she asked, voice a quiet, furious bark. She glanced from the blonde to Cristina then back at her again. Cristina hadn't noticed, she was still searching and looking more flustered by the minute. Teddy wanted to reach out to her, embrace her and reassure her. But she had forfeited that right when she had walked out six months before over a petty argument she couldn't even remember the cause of.

Cristina huffed from her oblivious position. Her breathing was hurried, heart dancing dully behind her ribcage. She shouldn't be bothered by this so much, but she is. She rubbed her forehead while a headache bounced around like a ball between her temples. She hadn't slept in at least a week, not that it mattered anymore. With a deep sigh she found the right file, extracted the X-ray and held it up to the light.

Teddy watched as Cristina's eyes met hers. They were small, brown and bloodshot, red-rimmed with fatigue. They flashed slightly, ignited by recognition before becoming hollow once more.

A shiver clawed up Teddy's spinal cord at the raw lifelessness. Bailey watched the entire encounter, possessiveness filling her as she eloquently let a muffled "fuck" flow from her mouth.

"You need to leave," Bailey said once Cristina turned away from them, placing the file neatly back in place. The resident's back and shoulders were rigid, the only sign giving away her discomfort. The motion was too still, restlessly still.

"Maybe I should," She trailed off as Cristina retreated suddenly, like a bat out of hell, a scared animal.

Without a second thought, she followed.

X

Cristina flew down the hall, breath rapid, oxygen barely leaving her lungs before escaping her throat in deep, choking gasps. Her skin felt too small, spread tight over muscles and bones and tendons. She was desperate, mind replaying the look in her former lover's eyes but not able to decipher it. Wetness stung the corners of her eyes and she barely had the energy to stop them.

She collided with an on-call room door, hard enough to bruise her shoulders, uncaring of who she could be barging in on. An empty room greeted her, the silence draping her with an all too familiar sense of unease and dread. Rocks rolled in her stomach as she strained against her body, coughing on vomit that threatened to escape her parted lips. She recognized the signs of a panic attack when she saw them, but she refused to believe she was capable of it. She raked a hand through greasy, unwashed hair as anxiety coursed through her veins like a shot of adrenaline.

A pair of arms that weren't her own wrapped around her, feather light and warm, too familiar. She jumped then, strangled noise of surprise erupting from her exhausted frame, before pulling away, staggering into a corner. Her head hit the wall with a dizzy force that she was too proud to let show.

"Cristina." The taller woman held her palms up in a surrendering gesture and tried to calm her facial features. Cristina looked like a jittery animal, backed into a corner visibly trembling. She looked like an abused dog afraid of getting hit again, like she had been many times before. She looked like the girl that Teddy had left with a text message as a goodbye.

"No." It was said vehemently. She shook her head in fierce denial. Teddy moved to approach but Cristina held up a hand to stop her, pressing deeper in the wall, eyes turning slightly crazed.

"No."

"Cristina-

"No, no, no." She was shaking her head harder, voice thick with tears and rage. She clawed at her own skin, tension making her practically vibrate in her position. Everything was too close, the air too suffocating, and that scent was destroying her, ripping apart already bruised flesh and reopening scarred wounds that were best left forgotten. She should be better now, able to move past the tremors and cravings. But she was weak, Teddy had made her weak, love had made her weak.

"I'm sorry."

Cristina turned to her with all the righteous fury of a scorned girlfriend. Her eyes cleared, her back straightened and her head cocked to the side in utter disbelief. She was the girl Teddy once knew if only for a moment, if only in anger.

"You're sorry?" Cristina asks, voice low and cruel. Gone are the tears and denial. Anger takes its place. "You left Theodora."

Teddy cringes at her full name, a name that used to sound so beautiful from those very same lips, though the only time those lips ever said during arguments.

"I know," Teddy agrees, voice tinged with drops of shame. Her shoulders sag, voice dropping to one step above pitiful. "And I'm sorry."

Cristina snorts then, high-pitched and unapologetic, before full on laughing, high octaves stabbing the air. "And what did you think? That I was just going to…what…forgive and forget? Like we're teenagers and I caught you making out with some skanky cheerleader but oh it's okay because I'm the one you really love?" Her voice turned mocking at the end and there was no doubt in Teddy's mind that she loves every minute of it.

The Asian woman crossed her arms over her chest and waited because that's what Cristina did. She cut people to pieces with her venom-laced words then expected them to get back up and retort.

"I…no," Teddy said after gathering her bearings. She felt like she had been punched in the stomach. "I don't expect you to forgive me…yet." She's pushing it with that last part, throwing away her plan to just appease the girl she hurt so deeply.

Cristina caught it like always. She went to run a hand through her hair again but it was attacked by tremors half way through its journey. Teddy followed the motion, the unsteady shaking, as the feeling of guilt-ridden nausea ached in her intestines.

"Have you relap-" Her question is cut off by the look Cristina shoots her. Anger, disbelief, and pain swirl behind her irises like dirty laundry. It was a silencing look, a look that made a chill crawl up Teddy's spine at the unbelievable coldness found there. The look was there, and the meaning was clear.

She had lost the right to ask that long ago.

"Cristina…"

"No. You…you don't get to do that. You don't get to come back here and…just don't." Her voice was calm and calculating as every word was said with absolute clarity, but she was seething under the surface.

"I'm…"

"Leave. Now." She echoes Bailey's earlier words with an air of sad resignation. Above all she was a smart girl, and she knew Teddy wouldn't be here just to catch-up. No, Teddy was back.

"How long will you be here?" The attending was nearly out the door, bright fluorescents flooding in after her. She turned back to Cristina surprised that she was being addressed without malice, just honest curiosity.

"Forever." Just before the door closed, Cristina could swear she heard a sniffle.

X

A/N: So what do you think? Good? Bad? Please review!