Alex sat, slumped, at one of the benches between the lockers. He was carelessly tying on his shoelaces. Izzie was fixing her hair obsessively, tying it and re-tying it and glancing at Alex, trying to extract some sort of opinion from him. He would just grunt and nod and say her name, then continue on tying his laces.

"Okay, stop it." Izzie said, finally settling on a ponytail. She kicked the bench.

"What?" Alex asked, looking up. Izzie noticed his shoes were still untied. She sat down and tied it for him; Alex just stared into space, not really minding, thinking.

"Stop being sad." Izzie said, emphasizing every word, hoping that if she said it out loud he would follow.

"You baked enough muffins to feed a small country." Alex stated. "Who's upset?"

"Can't a woman bake for her friends?" Izzie scoffed, standing up and shutting her locker door. "You're getting that look again."

"What look?" Alex asked.

"That look. That faraway look Meredith and I notice." Izzie replied.

"Watching me now, are you?" Alex asked, trying to sound conceited. It was like he was saying it in a singsong manner.

"You can't even act like an asshole." Izzie rolled her eyes. "You're upset."

"I'm not sad." Alex said, his tone of voice giving him away

"Shut up!" Izzie said, suddenly annoyed. "You're sad! So stop it!"

Alex sighed. "What's wrong, Iz?"

"Denial. You're in denial. Stop being in denial!" Izzie said, sitting down beside him again. Alex tried to think of something to stop Izzie's ranting, but his mind wasn't in the condition for human empathy. All he conditioned himself to do was practice medicine and breathe. He tried patting her shoulder, awkwardly it turned out, when she burst into sobs.

"I'm sorry!" Izzie said, leaning on Alex's shoulder. "It's PMS." He put his arm around Izzie, comforted by the warmth of their physical closeness. He sighed, remembering the empty hospital room on the surgical wing, and the woman who used to occupy it. Just then, Meredith and Cristina walked into the locker room, which caused Alex to sit up and Izzie to raise her head, and upon seeing Cristina, wipe her eyes hastily to remove all traces of tears.

"You're back!" Izzie said, trying to be cheerful.

"You okay?" Alex asked.

"Meredith, make them stop acting like someone close to me died." Cristina said, grimacing. "Or maybe they did." She whispered to herself. "I'm going to change into my scrubs." Cristina gathered her scrubs and walked towards the corner of the room. Meredith walked towards Izzie and Alex, who were now eyeing her knowingly, wanting to know what was going on with Cristina.

"Burke's back." Meredith whispered, as the three of them huddled into a small circle. "No questions, act like you don't know." The two nodded in reply.

"Okay, I'm ready to cut something." Cristina announced, coming out of her corner, clad in her blue scrubs. "Does neuro have any surgeries today? Meredith?"

"I don't know." Meredith answered, getting her scrubs. "I'll ask Derek."

"Right." Cristina said, and Meredith suddenly wished she didn't say it. "Karev, the gyno squad up for one more member?"

"Addison left for LA yesterday." Alex replied, which caused his mood to further decline. "The new neonatal attending is not coming until next week." He mumbled grumpily in a barely audible voice.

"Okay." Cristina said. "Maybe Sloan's got something for me."

"Don't," Alex and Izzie said at the same time, having been under Mark Sloan's tutelage. He seems to forget that Seattle Grace is a teaching hospital, not a your-interns-fetch-everything hospital.

"Maybe the ortho doc has some cases for me." Cristina said, which caused Izzie's face to contort into a hostile grimace.

"Okay guys," Meredith said, glancing at her friends nervously, stopping them from causing any more damage. "It's time for rounds." Alex and Izzie got up, stethoscopes around their necks, trying to push their personal issues on the back of their minds to stop them from affecting their work. Cristina frowned.

"Where's Bailey?" She asked.

"Uh," Meredith started, "Bailey doesn't really help us do our rounds anymore."

"Oh." Cristina said, realizing how far she'd been away from the hospital. "Yeah, okay. Let's go."

"Here," Derek said, handing Meredith a cup of steaming coffee while Cristina, Alex and Izzie were performing tests on a cancer patient. Startled, Meredith dropped the chart she was holding in her hand. Her eyes darted to the coffee cup, to Derek, and to the room where her three friends were still preoccupied with the uncooperative patient.

"Thanks." Meredith said after a few seconds, taking a small sip.

"How's your day coming along?" Derek asked brightly, planting a kiss on Meredith's cheek.

"Don't let them see you do that." Meredith warned, hastily moving away from Derek.

"Why?" Derek asked.

"Because they're dark and twisty." Meredith explained. "Scary and damaged." Derek looked at her as if she were insane. "We can't be happy around them while they're me, about a few months ago."

"While they're you?" Derek asked. "Uh-huh. And when can we be happy?"

"Well," Meredith giggled. In the corner of her eye, Meredith saw Cristina move towards the door. "Go. Now." She said, pushing Derek away.

"Can't we dope him up to shut him up?" Cristina asked. She saw the cup of coffee and got it, taking a sip. "Where'd you get the juju?" She asked.

"Intern." Meredith said, glancing at Derek walking up the stairs.

"We can take advantage of them?" Cristina asked eagerly. Meredith was about to answer when she saw Preston Burke come out of an elevator. Panicked, she pushed Cristina to the patient's room.

"I'll ask for morphine." Meredith said, "Now go run the tests." Closing the door just in time, Meredith turned around to see a confused cardio thoracic surgeon in front of her.

"So what, I can't see her now?" Burke asked. Meredith took him by the arm and dragged him away from the room.

"She wouldn't leave the apartment, not even to cut something up. I had to visit her every few hours just to make sure she eats. All she does is sleep and eat and cry. So yes, I think I have the authority to say that you can't see her." Meredith answered, infuriated, while keeping her voice down.

"I am still the attending around here." Burke said, surprised at Meredith's audacity.

"And you are also the selfish bastard who walked out on my best friend during her wedding." Meredith turned around and headed into the patient's room to make sure Cristina doesn't come out while Burke was still walking the halls.

For the rest of the day, Meredith made sure that Cristina didn't so much as see Burke's shadow. She would let her scrub in surgeries, avoiding the ones concerned with the heart, and would not leave her side, even if she only went to the bathroom. She also asked for Alex and Izzie's help, letting them be the watch, making sure that Burke got no where near Cristina. The risk in the surgical floor was too much, so Meredith decided that they should spend the next hours in the pit. A shrieking woman was brought in by paramedics, her clothes soaked through with blood, as Cristina and Meredith tried to help her with her pain.

"28 year old Caucasian, extensive abdominal injuries, her left leg is broken. We administered a few doses of morphine to help with the pain." The paramedic said to Meredith, filling in the necessary details. "The woman and her husband got into a car accident, they slammed into a brick wall. The husband's dead, his chest was sliced through by the metal and glass. We think that the woman is three months pregnant."

"Where is he? Where's Philip?" The woman asked, crying.

"Ma'am, you have to calm down. They haven't brought your husband in yet." Cristina said, trying to wipe off some of the blood from the woman's face. Meredith came over with a pair of scissors to cut her clothes up and expose the injuries.

"Dammit." Meredith swore as she saw the damage to the woman's body. She obviously needed a cardiac surgeon, and, seeing the look on Cristina's face, she guessed that her friend has figured this out too. "Page Dr. Karev and Dr. Stevens, stat. And bring more gauze." Meredith instructed the ER nurse, who complied right away. She pulled Cristina away from the woman.

"She's looking for her husband." Cristina said.

"He's dead." Meredith replied. "Cristina, if you don't want this case, I can—"

"No," Cristina answered, after a moment. "It's fine. It's work."

"Hey," Alex said, taking deep breaths, having ran all the way down. Izzie followed, still holding an empty pack of epidural. "Whoa." He said when he saw the woman.

"That woman needs," Izzie looked at Meredith, who understood the look she cast. Meredith nodded.

"She's three months pregnant." Meredith said, and Alex immediately went beside the woman, taking the gauze and removing as much blood from the womb as possible. "We need to get her into an OR now." Meredith bent over Izzie, seeing that Cristina was preoccupied helping Alex remove shards of glass from her stomach. "Get Cristina away from here." She turned to a nurse. "Page Dr. Burke."

"Help me with this, Cristina." Izzie said, wheeling the woman into an elevator. "Alex is going to page the chief, the neonatal specialist isn't here yet." Cristina turned to Meredith, who was busy securing information from the paramedic. She pushed the gurney into an elevator.

"We had a fight," the woman said, still crying, "and we just hit the wall! I, I, I don't know," Izzie and Cristina looked at each other. "I love him, and we had a fight, I left, he came to get me, and my baby," the woman looked at her stomach. "Is my baby alright? How's my baby? Where's Philip?"

"Please calm down." Izzie said. "We're going to get you to an OR, and we're going to save you and your baby."

"Where's Philip?" The woman asked.

Cristina, silent after the woman's story, turned to her. "We don't know yet." She lied.

"He's dead, isn't he? I was calling for him in the car, he wasn't moving," the woman continued on crying, "we had a fight, he didn't even know that I still loved him, and now he's gone."

"Ma'am," Cristina said, her breath hitched in her throat. "We will let you know as soon as we hear from the paramedics, okay?"

Dr. Burke, who looked startled with Cristina there, was there when the elevator door opened. She avoided his gaze, and Izzie spoke up immediately, "She's suffered extensive damages to her abdomen and chest. I'll scrub in."

"I need two more hands for this." Burke said, hoping Cristina will take the bait.

"The woman's pregnant. I'll page Alex; I'm sure his training with Dr. Montgomery will come in handy." Izzie said, looking at Cristina, hoping that she'll leave.

"Dr. Ya—"

"I'll check with Meredith in the pit, see what happened to her husband." Cristina said, cutting Burke off, and making a dash to the elevator.

"I left," the woman wailed, "if I didn't leave, he wouldn't be gone. I shouldn't have left." She turned to Burke. "I left, I shouldn't have. Please save my baby."

A few hours later, Meredith and Cristina were waiting for the woman to come out of the OR. They were watching in the gallery, seeing Alex suture up the womb, with Addison giving instructions through the phone, and the Chief helping out.

"You can't protect me forever." Cristina finally said, after a long silence and after pondering on the woman's situation. "I appreciate what you've been doing for me, Meredith. But you have to let me handle this on my own."

Meredith turned to her. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Cristina answered.

Burke went inside the on-call room, following a cryptic page. He was tired from the surgery, successful after he managed to stop the bleeding and save the baby. He pushed the door open, surprised to see Cristina waiting for him inside. He closed the door, hesitant to go near her.

"You can't expect us to go back to normal just like that after what you did." Cristina said, refusing to look at him. "I'll be moving out of the apartment."

"What's going to happen to us?" Burke asked.

"Right now, there is no us." Cristina replied. "There's just you and me. You are my colleague; you are my boss. Nothing more."

"Look at me, Cristina." Burke said in a stern voice. Cristina continued to stare at the wall, her eyes filling with tears. "Look at me." She turned her eyes towards him, and every word she said moments before threatened to take themselves back. "I love you."

Cristina's face softened, and she stood up, went to him, and caressed his face. "Dr. Burke." She said, as a form of goodbye. She went out of the on-call room, wiping her face. He was home, and that was all that mattered.

A/N: Fin. Yey! I just wrote it in the way I want it to play out in the series, and I wanted it to end in a bittersweet note, knowing that the BurkeCristina happy ending can't happen too soon (that just wouldn't be realistic.) I played out Meredith the superfriend in this fic, and I wanted to show how much she truly cared for Cristina. Hope you liked it!