It starts as needles, lightly pricking the tips of her fingers, one after another. It's a feeling that she's used to, one that never really goes away. The feeling of those needles dragging through her flesh is a new, one searing movement up through her wrists and forearms relentlessly.
That feeling pulls her off of the bed and she hunches over, trying to shake the feeling out of her arms. She wants to rub them, massage the pain away but her hands are so overwhelmed with pain that she can't move them. Droplets of sweat bead against her skin, cool and pale and she bites her lip to stifle a small whimper.
Cristina tries to tell herself that if she waits it will go away but it quickly becomes too much, it's all too much. The part of her body she used to value the most has turned against her. The quiet whimpers escaping from her lips turn to stifled sobs and she leans over her knees, fighting to keep it all in.
On the other side of the door he waits for only a few moments, waits to see if he's hearing things or if she calls out for him. When she doesn't, he knocks but doesn't wait for her to answer. The sight of the woman he loves doubled over on the bed frightens him and Burke scoops her up into her arms.
There are no questions of what's wrong and no explanations of where they're going. He simply gathers her up, grabs her bag and carries her to the car.
He gauges her reaction as he takes her left hand into his own, massages gently, starting at the palm. Cristina's features, contorted in pain only a few moments ago seem to relax slightly and he continues, working his way up over her wrist.
Burke wants to promise her that it will be okay, that she'll be fine but once again he knows that he can't. Promising her something like that would be cruel, so he continues to work in silence, offering the only relief that he can.
A timid voice calls out her name and the curtain separating them from the rest of the ER opens. A nebbish old man glances over her chart and then looks up at his patient, "Cristina Yang?" he asks, observes Burke massaging her wrist and sets the chart aside. "Is that helping your pain?"
"Yeah," she admits, looking away from Burke, "a little."
The old man smiles, taking a seat on the rolling chair in front of her bed, "Good. Massage has been proven to be an effective pain relief technique for your disease," he turns to Burke, "may I?"
"Of course," Burke answers, reluctantly letting go of her hand.
"I'm Dr. Wilkinson, I'm a neurologist here on staff. The ER physician asked me to come in and take a look at you. I see that you suffered some pretty serious trauma a few months ago."
"Something like that," Cristina mutters, looking on as the man assesses her hands with methods she's well familiar with.
"And when did these symptoms set on?"
Her tone is bitter when she answers, "I'm going to go with when a bullet grazed my spinal cord. I could be wrong."
The doctor doesn't need to look up at her to see the pain in her expression, he can hear it in her words, "Cristina, what you have is an aggressive form of neuropathy from that insult. The disease is progressive, meaning it's not going to get better-"
"Spare me the explanation," she interrupts, "I'm a surgeon, was a surgeon. I know what neuropathy is."
"Of course," Dr. Wilkinson speaks, unoffended by her response. If anything, he's more understanding now of her attitude, "then you know we can prescribe something for the pain. We'll start you on the lowest dosage possible. You'll still have the loss of sensation but it should help with attacks like these. It may even help with the numbness in your hands. Not to the degree that you would like but enough that it shouldn't interfere with daily tasks."
"Are there any studies?" Burke asks almost immediately, fighting for some sort of hope in all of it. It's instinctual to find something for Cristina to focus on that's good, that's promising. There's nothing he can do for her but there certainly has to be somebody who can.
"I can look into some trials if you'd like."
"That would be-" Burke starts, but is quickly cut off.
"Don't bother," Cristina interrupts, "You can just write the prescription and let me go? There's no reason for me to stay."
"I don't see why you should. I'd like for you to follow up with me in about a month though, unless you have a different neurologist already following your case," his last words are a formality. The doctor knows that she's not seeing anybody and he's not certain that he'll ever see her again.
"Yeah," she mumbles, "whatever."
Burke offers a slight smile to the doctor and watches as he disappears from the room to write some prescriptions and discharge instructions. He reaches out for her right hand to massage it while they wait, "Better?"
"I'm not going to say it again."
"I'm sorry," he says softly, fingertips brushing her wrist until she pulls her hand away.
"Quit apologizing. I don't need your pity. I'm tired of pity," she reaches over to pull on his jacket since hers is at the apartment.
"Then tell me what you need, Cristina. I'll do whatever I can," he urges her softly.
"Dr. Kevorkian," she mutters, standing up. Cristina takes note of his concerned expression and she sighs, "it's a joke, Burke. I just want to go home."
They both know that it's not.
The blinds are drawn in the living room when he gets home from the grocery store and he sees her hair hanging off of the side of the couch. Quietly, he sets the bags down and creeps across the floor to check on her. Once he hears her breathing, deep and even, he walks back into the kitchen to start their dinner. Leaving her alone is never easy for him, not because he worries about the potential of Cristina hurting herself, but because he worries about complications arising from her injuries or the side effects of the medication.
Burke hates the medication. It offers relief but it's drained what little life is left out of her. The only thing she seems to do is sleep, a common side effect until her body adjusts, or so her neurologist promised.
His eyes trace up to her sleeping form on the couch and he frowns. Her life can't amount to this, he has to give her something more, help her do something else. He calls out gently to her and when she doesn't move, he returns to her side and shakes her gently to stir her from sleep.
"Cristina," he murmurs, brushing her hair from her face, "Cristina, wake up,"
She opens her eyes and looks up at him, visibly irritated by his intrusion, "What?"
"I thought maybe," he starts and feels almost foolish suggesting it, but his hands are tied, "come help me with dinner," Burke finally finishes.
It's something where he's got nothing.
"I'm tired," she mumbles, turning so that her back is to him, "you can do it yourself."
He gives up as easily as she has and returns to the kitchen. There's nothing he can do.
Cristina rubs her fingertip along the edge of her fork, taking in the sensation of the dull edge against her skin. There's more prominent feeling there than before, the pins and needles feeling having subsided significantly. She shifts in her chair and finally sighs, unable to take his staring at her anymore, "Why are you even here? It's not like you're getting any."
Burke offers her a smug grin, "Are you offering?"
"Go home, Burke," she mutters, pushing her half eaten dinner away, "go back to work."
He pushes her dinner back towards her, "I resigned."
With widened eyes, she looks up at him, "You what?"
"I resigned," he repeats, "Seattle has always been home to me. I didn't want to stay away." His words are true, even if Seattle being home wasn't his only reason for staying.
"I told you that I didn't want or need your pity, Burke. Go home."
"I want and need you," he responds, his tone genuine, "this is where I belong."
"You're confused."
"I've never been more sure."
Cristina narrows her eyes at him, anger running through her veins, "Yeah, well, I'm not and I can't deal with getting dumped for not being Betty Crocker right now. I've got other things on my mind. Just go."
Her words sting and he takes every one of them to heart. Clearly, he has a lot more to make up for than her trauma and he's not backing down, "I'm not going anywhere."
"Yeah, well," she mutters, standing up, "you're about two years too late."
"And the pain?"
Cristina looks at her doctor as he touches the tips of her fingers with a needle, testing her sensation. It doesn't feel like it should, "It's fine," she mumbles, "the Neurontin works fine."
"Fine or gone?" He presses, disposing of the needle and turning back to her.
"It won't ever go away completely," Cristina answers, "you don't need to ask me trick questions and you don't need to increase the dosage. I'm tired of sleeping all the time."
Dr. Wilkinson looks at her knowingly and stands firmly in front of her, "Cristina, that's not the medication. You've been on it long enough that it shouldn't affect you like that."
"It's in the side effects. The half life is-"
"Not enough to make you sleep all day," he concludes, "you've suffered a lot of loss over the past year. Your friends who died in the shooting, your career. Dr. Burke said that you were in a pretty significant relationship prior to the incident that didn't end well and your best friend-"
"Look, I'm fine. If you're trying to say that I'm depressed or something, I'm not. I'm fine," she repeats. She'll say it as many times as she has to in order to make herself believe it. She isn't some sort of pill popping psych case and she's not going to be.
"Regardless," he says, pulling out a prescription pad, "I'm going to write you a prescription for something. I can't force you to take it and if you do choose to take it, you'll have to follow up with the appropriate service. But you need this, Cristina. It's not abnormal for somebody who has suffered the kind of loss that you have to need a little extra help for a while."
"I don't."
Rather than giving her the prescription, Dr. Wilkinson sets it aside and turns back to her, "When do you plan to return to work?"
Cristina narrows her eyes, "I think we're both well aware that returning to work isn't an option."
"And I think we're both well aware that a medical degree provides you the opportunity to specialize in more than just surgery. There are several medical fields that you'd be able to perform well in, exceptionally well from what I hear. You have a gift and for the medical community to lose that, for you to give that up would be a shame," he explains himself, "You may have limitations but you're not completely limited. There's cardiology if you want to stay on a similar track-"
"Are we done here?" she asks, not waiting for an answer to get up from the table and grab her bag. Before he can say anything else, she's out the door and Burke is standing on the other side of it.
Burke looks on as Cristina walks away and then to her doctor, "She's a handful sometimes."
"All the time, I suspect," Dr. Wilkinson offers apologetically, "I tried to talk to her about taking something maybe, for her depression but she was closed off to it. I wrote something for her but she'll have to follow up with the appropriate physician. If you can even get her to take it."
"I'll do what I can," Burke promises, taking the prescription and tucking it away in his wallet without looking at it. "When should I schedule her follow up?"
"Three months would be appropriate. At this point, it's all up to Cristina, which way she goes. If she continues with the medications, starts some new ones, she has a future. "
"She has a future," Burke echoes, looking in the direction that she left. He just doesn't know how to make her see it.
The railing beneath her hand is cool and she can't help but notice that it's the first time she's really noticed that kind of a temperature difference, that the numbness in her hands hasn't been completely overwhelming. She shoves the thought out of her mind, knowing that there's no reason to be hopeful over it.
She turns and overlooks the bridge, eyes glancing out the window before a man in a dark jacket catches her eyes. It's not the man who shot Derek but it brings back vivid images to mind and suddenly the cold she feels isn't the railing beneath her hand but that of a gun against her neck. Her heart rate increases and her chest tightens and she closes her eyes, trying to steady herself. The feeling of somebody's hand on her shoulder snaps her out of it and she turns to see Burke.
"It's about time," she says, keeping her voice even, "next time you want to conspire with my doctor, why don't you do it on your own time?"
Cristina walks away without him, guilt niggling at the back of her mind for snapping at him. She freezes a few feet away from him and turns around to see him still standing where she left him and she produces an exaggerated sigh, "Are you just going to stand there all day?"
Burke smiles inwardly and follows after her, pressing a hand into the small of her back when he gets to her side. Not often enough he sees little glimpses of the person she used to be, the woman that he loved so much, and he silently hopes that they'll rediscover that person again.
Her fingers dig into her wrists, rubbing as hard as she can but she's not getting anywhere. A grimace spreads across her face and she silently hopes for her meds to kick in sooner rather than later. In an effort to prove her doctor wrong about her sleeping, she'd halved her dose and now she's paying for it.
Burke looks up from his book and sees her pained expression. In only a few seconds, his book is on the coffee table and he's at her side, taking her petite hand into his. Silence lingers between them for a few moments before he asks, "What does it feel like?"
It's almost automatic for her to answer 'nothing' but then she stops. When she finally speaks, her voice is more quiet than normal, "It's not like I can't feel them at all. They're there. Sometimes they feel almost normal, except for the very tips of my fingers. They always have that feeling, like when you fall asleep on your arm and wake up. Sometimes it's my hands and wrists, rarely my forearms. The worst is when it gets to my forearms, feels like my hands are burning up, clamping down. Like someone is trying to use a blowtorch to amputate."
He wants to offer an apology but he knows that she doesn't want them and that it won't be enough. After a few minutes, he sees her start to relax and is relieved when the pained expression fades. It's then that he lifts her hand to his lips, kisses her fingertips. His lips move down to her palms and her wrist, then finally forearm.
Gently, he guides her arm around his neck and pulls her into his lap. Burke wraps his arms around her and buries his face against her hair, breathing her in. Her arms tighten around him and her body shakes against his. He pulls her closer and kisses her forehead.
"It's not fair," she whispers against his shoulder.
Her words slice through him and he swears to himself that he'll find a way to make it better, "I know."
The sun has barely made its emergence from the horizon when Burke gets back to their apartment. He pulls off his sweaty shirt to discard it into the hamper and jumps slightly when Cristina emerges from the kitchen behind him. There's a slight grin on her face as she takes him in and he allows her to stare for a moment, if only to enjoy the look of something besides hopelessness on her face.
And perhaps to entertain the thought of what that grin means.
"You're up early," he greets, dropping his shirt into the hamper before toeing off his shoes.
Cristina can't help but stare at his toned upper body and blames it on being stuck in a confined area for too long, "I couldn't sleep."
"I can make you some coffee," he offers, "before I get in the shower."
"I already made some."
An awkward silence hangs between them as they take each other in, the mischief in her eyes and his painfully beautiful body. Cristina forces herself to turn away and she reaches for her coffee, "Thank you," she mumbles above her mug, "for last night."
"Don't thank me. I want to help. I want to be here for you."
The sincerity of his tone reaches something inside her and Cristina turns to face him, moves closer to him with her eyes searching his, "I don't know why."
"Yes you do."
Her hands come to rest on his upper arms and rather than responding to his comment, she goes for the easiest response she can think of, "You are sweaty and disgusting."
Burke chuckles but it's cut off by her lips on his. He doesn't hesitate to kiss her back, arms wrapping tightly around her.
"Now I need a shower too," she murmurs in a suggestive tone against his lips.
He pulls back to look at her in question, making sure that Cristina knows exactly what she's doing. The last thing he'd ever want to do is take advantage of her, to hurt her when she's already hurting.
Cristina senses his hesitation and she brushes her lips against his, "You're not going anywhere."
"I'm not going anywhere," he promises in a low voice.
"Then I need a shower too," she concludes, pulling backwards to lead him towards the shower.
There are scars on his body that he was aware of but that he's not used to. The small one in her throat from the trach, the large jagged one along the edge of her hairline from the gunshot, a small puncture in her abdomen from where she'd had a PEG tube placed. Her body isn't the one he remembers and it only serves as a reminder of everything she's been through.
Everything that she still has to come back from.
His lips travel along the side of her neck, over the scar at the top of her sternum. He lifts her into his arms and backs her against the cool tile of the shower wall, causing her to gasp. Burke smiles against her skin before he moves his lips farther down, raises her in his arms until his mouth meets her breast.
Cristina holds onto the shower head with one hand and braces herself against Burke's shoulder with the other. Her fingertips brush against the flesh of his shoulder, the scar from where he'd been shot before and the moment seems surreal.
Somehow, she'd forgotten that he'd been through the same thing before, or at least something close.
Burke looks up to her face, takes in the look of pure ecstasy there before lowering his head once more. He's hard against her and he can feel that she's already wet and it's killing him. It apparently kills her too because she writhes in his arms just enough that she can take hold of him and pull him to her.
She kisses him then as he pushes inside her, pulls back and pushes again, stretching her walls to accommodate him. Their tongues meet, rub together hungrily as they start to move under the warm spray of the shower. The grip that he has on her hips is more secure than it should be considering that they're wet and she moves harder against him.
For the first time in months, she's focusing on feeling something other than a lack of feeling.
His name is a broken murmur on her lips as she shudders in his arms, digs her nails into his chiseled shoulders. The cold tiles meet her back again and she gasps once more but it dissolves into a moan when he moves his hand between them, flicks her clit and pinches it gently.
It only takes a few moments for her to dissolve around him, her forehead resting against his shoulder and her hair falling in wet tendrils down his arm. He comes inside her with a last ruthless thrust and holds her close as they both catch their breath.
When he pulls away and takes in the expression on her face, he smiles slightly. The pain ingrained into her expression is still very much there but it's lightly masked by something else.
"I'm not going anywhere," he promises her once more, his arms wrapping around her.
Cristina closes her eyes, taking in the moment.
She believes him.
Cristina drags her lips across his neck, hips grinding against his sinuously. She can feel the twitch of arousal against her thigh but his hands speak a very different language. When she finds herself pushed gently away from his body, she scowls, "What?"
"You tell me what," Burke says, his gaze intense.
He's always been able to see right through her.
"You do not get to turn down sex."
"And you don't get to use it to avoid the issue at hand," he counters.
She sighed and crawls off of him, flopping onto the couch, "I hate you."
A smirk traces his lips, "No you don't."
"You won't be so self-assured when you're sleeping on the couch again," Cristina mutters, crossing her arms.
Burke lowers her voice, his dark eyes flashing with the slightest hint of suggestion, "You'll never kick me out of your bed now."
"I have a vibrator,"
He grins, "I know."
Cristina shifts at the remark, fond memories from only a few nights ago surfacing, "Shut up."
It's always been uncanny to Cristina, how Burke can go from suggestive to dead serious in a matter of moments and that doesn't cease when he speaks again, "I'll shut up when you start talking."
"Then keep going because I don't have anything to say," she mumbles, glancing down at the floor.
"Cardiology is an option," he offers, "maybe even interventional cardiology to an extent."
"I said I don't have anything to say," she repeats and pushes herself off the couch before walking into the kitchen.
Determined not to let her give up, Burke follows her, "It's not surgery. There's no blood, no cracked chests, and it will never feel the same. But it's something, Cristina and right now, you have nothing."
"I have you," she states plainly, examining the wine rack before giving up and pulling a beer from the refrigerator again.
"I'm not enough for you, Cristina. I never could be."
Her eyes move up to meet his. She knows that he's right but she won't admit to it out loud. There's a lot that she won't say out loud these days, "I'm fine."
"No you're not."
"Well, I will be."
Burke takes the beer from her hand and sets it aside on the counter before taking hold of her hands, "You may not have these anymore," he murmurs, "but there's so much more to you than your hands."
"Funny," she spouts, pulling her hands out of his, "you didn't seem to think so when it was you."
Without waiting for him to respond, Cristina walks into the bedroom and slams the door, effectively ending the discussion. Burke can only stare at the closed door, wishing he'd just let her seduce him instead.
It would have been better than the alternative.
Silence lingers heavily through the apartment as it has for days. She's quit speaking to him but she hasn't gone as far as kicking him out of bed. It most definitely hasn't gone as far as keeping her hands to herself when they're in bed together.
Life should be good.
The pain is under control, the meds aren't making her tired all the time. Most days, the numbness is isolated to the very tips of her fingers and that's it.
Life should be good but it's not.
Most days, she lies around the apartment and sleeps even though she's not tired. She drifts off watching mind numbing television, sleeps until the day is half over and goes to sleep earlier in the evening. She's alive but she's far from leaving.
Burke knows that he can't give up on her, that he can't let her drift off into nothingness the way that she has. It's why he had the prescription filled for her. It's why he's willing to risk further angering her. Anything is better than watching her give up.
Cristina is lying on the couch when he gets home from the pharmacy, staring off into space and he stops to fill a glass of water before he joins her on the couch. He gently puts the pill bottle on the coffee table in front of her, the glass of water alongside it, and he looks at her.
His voice is weak when he finally speaks, "Watching you give up is killing me."
"Then go," she answers in an empty voice.
"Cristina," he says softly, "I'm not going anywhere and I never will. But you, you're already gone. You lie around the house. You sleep all the time. You've lost purpose and you won't let yourself have one. No matter what, I want you. I want you for better or for worse but I know that you want to be better. I know that for you, better is going back to the life you had and that you can't so you've given up. I know you can't see it but there are other ways to be better. Life can be better than what you're making it but I can't make you do that. You have to take the first step on your own."
He leaves her alone to ponder his words without waiting to see if she takes the medication. He hopes that she will but he's not going to push her into it. She has to make her own choices.
Cristina chooses to ignore the medication sitting in front of her and lie back down.
Nothing will ever be good enough.
Cristina watches him with annoyance clearly painted across her expression. She's not all rainbows and sunshine so now he's going to mope around. There's a lingering urge at the back of her mind to smack him for being so impossible.
Giving into his moping is easier though.
"You know, you're so obsessed with me just doing nothing but it's not like you're giving me anything to do. You never take me anywhere. You used to take me out all the time before," she mutters, reaching over to grab his book and close it without even trying to save his page.
Burke looks at her with an arched eyebrow, "Do you want to go out?"
"I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't want to."
A smirk tugs up the corner of his lips and he hopes that it's a sign that things are going to change, "I suppose I can plan something. Do you want to do something right now?"
"We just ate," she points out, picking at the hem of her shirt, "your timing sucks."
"We could go for a walk," he offers, "it's nice out today."
"A walk," she echoes, "not a run. You are never going to talk me into jogging. Ever."
This earns a slight laugh and he leans over to kiss her gently, even though there's an urge to kiss her more passionately. This is a step and he can't help himself. He knows if he kisses her the way that he wants to, however, that there's a very good chance they won't leave the house, "We won't jog. Today."
"Ever," she reminds him, watching as he gets up a little too eagerly to get his shoes on. She follows with a hint of reluctance. It's good to get out and she is tired of being stuck between the four walls of their apartment.
A few minutes later, they leave the apartment with his arm around her waist. They walk in silence until they cross the street in front of the hospital and she stops. Her eyes trace over the glass and concrete edifice, the place she once loved now looming over her and taunting her. Reminding her of her failures and losses.
"Cristina?" There's concern in his voice.
"I always thought that it would be my life," she says, her eyes fixed on the hospital, "I knew that being a surgeon was the only thing that mattered and now it doesn't and-"
Words fail her.
"You still have potential, limitless possibilities."
"I don't think I can do it," Cristina admits, avoiding his gaze.
"Try anyway."
She sighs softly and starts walking again. His hand finds hers and squeezes gently, drawing more admissions from her, "I just want everything to go back to the way it was before."
"As do I," he answers gently, "but trying to change the past isn't going to make the future any better."
It started with little things: an appointment written in barely legible handwriting with Dr. Wyatt on the fourteenth at three, a refilled prescription, the occasional laughter and her unmistakable snark. The little things continued to build, evenings out with Meredith, late nights spent touching and talking, up early the next morning for his famous omelets.
There are things still lacking in her life, she hasn't looked into residencies but she can admit that she's not ready for that yet. It isn't that it's not an option; it's just not an option right now.
Bemused, Burke stands in the doorway, watching her dance around in only his t-shirt with iPod in hand and for the first time believes that things will be fine. She has a long journey ahead of her but she's taken the first steps.
Her life will never be what she once dreamt it would be, but she'll make the best of what she has left.
They both will.