Side A: Teddy

Teddy slowly sucked mineral water through straw from a glass bottle, while Cristina was wiping her face with a cold wet towel. The cold touch slowed down her racing heartbeat; thank god she didn't feel like having an explosive heart any more. Anyway, she didn't really care about it. The only thought in her mind was piercing her ceaselessly like a dagger—"He is dead. Henry is dead and now this patient is dead, too." Teddy wasn't going to collapse though, not only because she was an attending in front of a dozen of residents, interns, nurses and other fellow-workers in the OR, but because part of her intellect had already acknowledged the bad prognosis. She knew what would happen. In fact, she was the person who explained all the risks and possibilities to the patient's family, his freaking-out wife in particular. She just hated to admit she could do nothing. Of all people being a cardio surgeon, she was not capable to save someone's beloved, including her own. Reassuring Cristina that she had done enough and forgiving her was one thing, but facing the same case again herself was a completely different level Teddy had never taken. Besides, she was too tired to do anything right now.

"You should take a shower and get some sleep." It took Teddy quite a while to recognize that Cristina was talking to her. Cristina might make all kinds of statement in an insensibility way, but Teddy could tell that she was hiding concern behind an indifferent facade.

"Umm…No, thanks. I am fine. Really…" Teddy tried to argue. Their shift started only a couple of hours before. There was no way that the head of Cardiothoracic Surgery would spend the whole night in bed.

Cristina raised a brow in disagreement, "Do I need to find you A GURNEY, Dr. Altman?" she growled. Teddy found it half amusing and half scary when Cristina did this. She was so fatigued that she was unable to put up an I-am-your-attending argument. Without the authority as an attending, arguing with Cristina Yang usually meant putting herself on the losing end. Teddy decided that she'd better go with it; she allowed Cristina to support her with a hand and help her to the attending's locker room.

Teddy sat on the bench, watching Cristina collect bath things from her locker. She simply nodded or shook when Cristina grabbed something and asked if she would need it. Minutes later, she found herself pushed into the shower.

"Take your time. But don't be in there too long. Don't hind somewhere in the hospital or sneak out. Sleep in the On-Call Room. We still need our attending on the shift." Cristina said with an extreme solemn expression, which made Teddy feel as small as a 5-year-old being lectured. In stead of taking offense at the bold resident, Teddy just nodded quietly. A small smirk of release appeared on the brunette's face. She left immediately and closed the door behind.

Teddy was alone in the shower. She felt lonely. Usually she was a kick-ass surgeon but a narrow dim room could change her into a vulnerable mode easily. When the bitterness engulfed her, the only thing she could do was to imagine Henry was somewhere in the shower. It was as ineffectual as usually the case though.

She sighed, staggered towards the bench to undress herself. It took her like a million years to finish, since her overstrained limbs was still shaking violently and could barely carry out her instructions. Cristina was right. She really needed some rest before holding scalpels again.

Teddy was going to follow Cristina's words. Yes, she was a intelligent, independent woman, maybe a little bit assertive or stubborn sometimes, but she was really proud of her personality and appreciated her own decisions. Any attempts to give her orders or judgement about her personal life would surely enrage her. But things were different with the most desperate moments, when obeying orders would be like grasping a life line. During the horrible days on the war field, she obeyed her superior officer. When it turned out that she had lost Owen forever, Arizona jumped right in and offered to be her friend. There was certain reason why she and Arizona became closest friends so fast: Arizona always knew when to show up to push her a little, no matter how reluctant she seemed towards that. And Henry. Henry would never compel her to do anything; he gave good suggestions instead. When she failed a surgery, had a terrible date, or was pissed at her residents (Usually means Cristina Yang), he would picked up a couple of activities or topics. Each time she took his lead, it turned out to be really charming and funny.

So tonight, much harder than her expectation, Teddy was more than delighted to have some orders to obey, even they were from Cristina Yang. In fact, she was sort of grateful that it came from Cristina Yang. It sounded ridiculous, but Cristina Yang was a spitting image of her, as skillful, talented and headstrong as she once had been during her residency. Months ago, she had kept criticizing Cristina for every single movement in and outside OR, which was an incredibly tough time for both of them. It seemed that she tortured the young brunette on purpose sometimes, but deep inside her heart, she understood the young brunette. She had been a resident herself and Cristina was exactly her spitting image.

Teddy stepped towards the spray. Her head was jammed with multiple thoughts, which was the only way to distract her from grief at present, resulting in a lack of cautiousness. She flinched as her bare feet met the freezing, slippery, tiled floor and then she stumbled. She tried to rebalance herself but her soft leg helped nothing with the situation. Before a scream could form in the throat, she had fallen down on her hips.

Dull pain spread out along the skeleton, intensifying the muscular sore Teddy was already suffering from. She could tell some of her muscles was convulsing against the pain, as well as the damn cold floor. Fresh tears spilled out before she could shut it down. To make things worse, the spray above somehow decided that it was time to work and suddenly poured warm water over, right into her widely-opened eyes.

Teddy was pretty sure there wouldn't be another living creature in human history who was as humiliated, embarrassed and pathetic as she was right now. Tears rushed uncontrollably down her cheeks and sobs escaped from her mouth. She wasn't able to stop it. It was too painful to make any effort or even think about it at this moment. She curled up under the spray of warm water; buried her face in her knees. In this way, she could keep herself warm at the very least. She hated to be a sad widow, yet she could do nothing but gave in and let the grief take over her.


Side B: Cristina

Cristina had been standing outside the shower for a while. As the sobs from the other side of the door turned into a heartbreaking cry and gasp, she winced slightly but with no surprise. She knew there would be a meltdown for Teddy; it was only a matter of time.

As far as she knew, Teddy had been stoically calm since Henry's death. She didn't even take a day-off except for the funeral day. A professional smile was on her face when she dealt with the arrival of Henry's families, conciliation from colleagues, or other annoying issues which came along with a dead husband.

Teddy never did shutting people out. On the contrary, she chatted with fellow-workers and patients a lot, and Cristina even overheard her planning girls' night with Arizona once. As a woman who lost her husband, Teddy seemed to be optimistic enough. She insisted all the time that she was fine. But to Cristina's mind, She was just trying so hard to hide her grief.

The No.1 indicator was that she turned into a babbler. Listening to her complaining the food of hospital cafeteria during an eight-hour surgery only drove Cristina crazy. Everyone in the hospital learned smile-and-listen when Teddy was around, which, to Cristina's idea, helped nothing.

Cristina knew that Teddy stuck at hospital for one 72-hour after another. She carried on her overloaded schedule until Chief Hunt forbade her entering her office. She didn't bother to fight against him at all. She still hated Owen so much and she gave up fighting against him only for Cristina's sake. Cristina guessed Teddy must have heard about the quarrel between she and Owen on Zola's birthday party. Maybe it was because she knew what it was like to lose a husband, and didn't want Cristina go through the same thing. In fact, when it turned out that she and Owen both needed more time to repair their marriage, it was Teddy who took over most of Cristina's post-ops, allowing her to go home as early as possible. Even their patients were talking about the conscientious Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery, who often did pre-ops and post-ops in person. Cristina understood that She was just afraid of being at home alone and cutting into someones' heart would make her feel better. She also noticed that on the days Teddy was involuntarily off duty, she'd sit in the waiting room sipping coffee until caffeine could not keep her awake any more; and then she'd crash in an On-Call room.

A couple of days before, Teddy started a leading-edge stem-cell research, which gave her more reasons to stay at the hospital. She devoted herself to it, however managed to give Cristina, her No.1 lab assistant, a nine-to-five lab schedule. When extra work occurred, she came over and finished that with interns. Cristina didn't mean to feel good about herself, but she could tell Teddy needed her badly. Interns messed things up all the time. When she and Owen finally worked things out, Cristina realized that they couldn't have achieve it without Teddy's support. She owed Teddy a huge thank you. She didn't plan to say it. She wasn't an emotionally expressive person and "thank you" usually wasn't on her speak-out-loud list. Besides, doing was better than saying this time.

Long time ago, when she told Meredith that she loved the cardio goddess, she'd meant it. When she shouted at Owen that Teddy could get anything she wanted, she'd meant it. She and Teddy never got close to each other outside the hospital. Not to mention that they had a long period of mutual standoffish loathing at work. But somehow, Teddy became more and more special to her. Teddy was the first one who trusted her more than she trusted herself, the one who said "thank you" to her after she technically killed her husband, the one who told her "You were me in that OR." Owen, Cardio, Henry…These had just created a miraculous, unexplainable bond between the two of them.

A smirk spread out on Cristina's face as she thought about just how similar she and Teddy were. Owen had such a stable taste! They were both hatchet-faced, flat-chest women with slim figure and strong personalty. They both wouldn't get involved easily; but if they were indeed involved, they might fling caution to the winds. Cristina observed the way Teddy bore with her sorrow, then realized they were much more similar than she was once aware of.

According to her own experience, she knew there was going to be a meltdown. Cristina went through hers after her break-up with Burke and an ovariectomy. To a certain extend, the meltdown saved her. Yet she had to let Meredith give her a shot of sedative to calm herself down, which embarrassed her for a long time. She was surrounded by her caring friends at that time, but if she had had a choice, she would have preferred some privacy. That was the reason why she chose a shower for Teddy. A narrow, empty shower with plenty of warm water was somewhere safe enough to be vulnerable. Teddy, the blue-eyed beautiful perky Barbie, with a self-respect like a real goddess, deserved a safe place to collapse.

Knowing that the cry probably wasn't coming to an end soon, Cristina roused herself from her thoughts and left the lock room quietly. She thought seriously about coming back to check on Teddy later, in case that she would need some sedative too.