Pairing: Cristina Yang and Teddy Altman, pre-femmeslash

Rating: T, for language

Tag and Spoilers for: 8x12, "Hope for the Hopeless"

A/N: I have like three unfinished Callie/Arizona stories, and THIS? is what I publish first…yikes! These two…after so much pain, a little pleasure.

Enjoying My Nap

Cristina could not believe—COULD NOT BELIEVE!—that Owen had kicked her and Altman out of the trauma room. So what if they'd been up for 48 hrs and so what if she'd already kicked the ass out of eight other surgeries in that span of time?…there was a dude with a freaking piece of wrought iron sticking out of his chest. If that doesn't scream "Yang-Altman duo to the rescue", she didn't know what did. Thank the gods for Teddy's boundless grief…that woman was in the zone!

It felt good to stroll out of the room knowing that Owen was still rooted to the spot and realizing that she was pissed at him. Maybe he was getting used to it. After how he handled the whole Henry thing, he should feel guilty. He should feel guilt and pain and every other bad feeling that could plague a human being. Grief, definitely grief. But that wasn't something Cristina could harp on. Right now she was more interested in getting her and Teddy's hands in on the coolest cardio surgery of the day. And she knew just the way they would do it…

Sneaking around with Teddy—avoiding Owen and poaching the on-call cardio surgeon's massively awesome patient ("Oh, Dr. McQueen? Uh, sure. He's fine!")—was just what Cristina needed to feel back to a semblance of normal. Who could blame them? The guy's heart was as big as a freaking football! Owen blamed them. Owen blamed her. Her own husband blamed her because he had enough sense not to blame Teddy.

What shocked Cristina was what Owen blamed her for. It wasn't for the laughing behind his back in the surgery room, though he should have taken a little bit of pleasure from hearing Teddy laugh because it had been music to Cristina's ears. It wasn't even because Teddy didn't blame Cristina for Henry's death, placing all her ill-will towards the chief of surgery. Owen blamed her for the abortion; he was still holding it over her head. This was supposed to be a happy celebration welcoming Zola into the strangest combination of people that was their family with a birthday-slash-ten-thousandth-surgery bash. Instead it was soon becoming a screaming match between a husband and wife whose marriage was dissolving before the eyes of the gathered.

"She gets anything she wants from me. Ever." The words echoed in Cristina's brain. When she said it to Owen, she'd meant it. Owen was still dealing with the loss of his unborn child while Cristina was trying to come to terms with killing her mentor's husband. More than that: her friend's husband. When Cristina flashed back to the day Henry died, she didn't see herself over his body as her and Webber performed extraordinary measures to try and revive the already-lifeless body of the man she'd just been beginning to come to know. She instead remembered in vivid detail the moments leading up to the reveal of the man's death. Cristina remembered being summoned to help Teddy in another surgery just minutes after learning Henry had been the patient who coded on her OR table. Cristina remembered changing the subject as Teddy asked if she'd had a chance to check on Henry in post-op. Cristina remembered the "whooos!" she'd been forced to mimic in an attempt to keep her awake. But most of all she remembered her eyes welling with tears as she finally relayed Henry's fate to his wife. How many death notifications had Cristina done in her career? Countless times she'd said the words "we did everything within our powers to revive them" but this time, being forced to say "Henry is dead" and hearing Teddy thank her, nearly pushed her over the edge.

Where else could Cristina run to after her public fight with Owen but the hospital? Feigning a need to check on her patient, she wandered the hallways of the ICU before she entered Mr. Vandenberg's room. The lights had been dimmed for the night shift and she could just make out the outline of Teddy's seated form slumped in the corner of the observation space. Before she knew it, Cristina was standing in from of the other surgeon.

As Cristina's hand drifted across Teddy's strong cheek bone, the blonde woke. She wasn't even startled because she knew it'd been Cristina standing near her. After logging so many hours with the younger woman in the operating room, Teddy would be able to sense her anywhere. The older woman kept her eyes closed, thinking about the slight pressure the back of Cristina's palm caused. This hand, this magical hand that had brought countless people back to life. This was the hand that last touched Henry's body while he was alive. This was the hand that felt him die. One would think that would cause Teddy to pull away in revulsion. Instead the older woman was drawn to the touch, relishing the feeling it caused. She had been dead too, knowing the man she had loved was gone for good. Now, here was this electric shock pressed against her flesh, jolting her to get on with her life.

"Hey," Teddy whispered, her voice cracking with exhaustion and unexpected emotion. "Why are you here?"

"Go back to sleep. Everything's fine." Everything was of course far from fine. But lying to Teddy had become second-nature, a necessity Cristina never wanted to fully accept. The brunette swiped the pad of her thumb under a bag that'd recently formed under Teddy's right eye. Cristina heard the older woman whimper softly as she pressed closer into her hand. Feeling a blush begin to form along her neck and creep up her face, Cristina thought it best to remove the physical contact she'd initiated with her mentor. But she was definitely not going to leave anytime soon.

Cristina quietly dragged over a chair to rest next to Teddy. Because she was tired. She was tired of fighting and she knew that Teddy was too. They could be tired of fighting together—in this room—watching the steady rise and fall of the sinus rhythm of a man they saved from certain death: together. No one could understand their bond, it was unexplainable. It had morphed from this standoffish loathing to mutual admiration to here, holding each other's hand and knowing that there was at least once other person in the world who just knew what it was to lose a husband. Owen might still be alive, but he was just as lost to Cristina as Henry was to Teddy. Squeezing her hand, Cristina allowed silent tears to fall down her cheeks as Teddy's head came to rest on her shoulder. The screen ahead of her blurred but she could still hear the steady "beep, beep, beep" of the monitor. The younger woman let her eyes slip closed as the weight of the day (and the week) caught up with her. You know what? She was going to enjoy her nap. Because she knew she would wake to a day where she would be given the opportunity to save lives and make up just a little bit for all her previous misdoings.

The End