I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono
I wonder if Yoko Ono
Ever thought of staying solo
If she thought of other men and
If she doubted John Lennon
Worrying that he'd distract her art
"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap." Cristina ran through the halls of Seattle Grace Hospital, cursing any and everything that had happened that year. Yes, everything. And particularly everything that had led to her having to go to this meeting. And she was late. She was good; she knew she was good. She had a MD from Stanford and a PhD from Berkeley. She knew medicine. She was the best intern in her year. She would rather perform a colostomy on herself than go to this. . .meeting. And she was late. But still, she was the best.
So why am I so nervous that it will all come crashing down? Cristina found the door she was looking for and crashed through. "Crap!"Sitting in the Apple sessions
Giving John her music lessons
Challenging the warring nations
With her paper installations
Did she guard her Yoko human heart
The kid behind the desk looked up at her. "Cristina Yang, you're late."
"You can't just waltz out of the OR when you're saving a life you know." Cristina pulled out a sure-win excuse. "Not my fault. Who are you?"
"I'm the nobody who gets to tell big scary doctors they need to be on time. So be on time! Go on in, she's waiting for you." The kid pointed to the cracked door to her left. For a moment, Cristina didn't move. . .but then her love for her career, her need to cut powered her feet, and she entered the office.
"Christina Yang, come in." The voice was soft, unassuming. "I'm Susan Burson. Have a seat."
"Actually, I don't know that I'll need to. There are plenty of interns who could benefit from being here, but I am not one of them. So, if you could just write that memo for Baily or Chief Webber. . ."
"Cristina." Now there was a little more firmness in the voice. "Sit down."
Cristina sat.
"You could at least pretend you didn't think I was an idiot." Yep, that would be the smart way to go, Dr. Yang. Don't piss off the rapist.
"I'm sorry?" Cristina injected a note of apology in her voice, but kept it a question. Never admit anything.
"I see here that you suffered a miscarriage, which resulted in the loss of one of your fallopian tubes. I see that you are in a relationship with an attending, which is against hospital policy. I see that you have a note in your personnell file about participating in hiding said-attending's physical disability which could easily have cost a patient's life. So, yes. I think that there is probably enough going on within Cristina Yang to at least fill up a few moments of my time. I know you aren't here because you think you need therapy, and you've made it clear you don't want it."
"You're right. I don't."
"But if someone got up and walked out before surgery, when they had a festering something that would kill them, telling you they didn't need it, would you respect that patient?"
"Well," Cristina managed to put words together for this tiny, pissed-off woman. "It's called going Against Medical Advice, and I don't like it, but it happens."
"When it happens, what happens to the patient?" pressed Susan.
"Nothing good," answered Cristina, meeting her eyes defiantly.
"Well then. If you want something good to happen, you'll tell me a story about your year. Otherwise, you're going AMA."
Cristina clenched her jaw. Seriously? Seriously, this woman thinks I'm going to sit here and tell her, talk to her about Burke?
"Fine." She was terse. "The one thing about this year? It's changed me. I've changed. I'm soft."
"Soft, how?"
"I'm no longer the best. I'm not the doctor I want to be."
Well, they could talk about me
Yeah, they could talk about me
Throw me to the velvet dogs of pop star history
But I won't be your Yoko Ono
If you're not good enough for me.
"What kind of doctor is that?" Susan's voice had become soft again, but Cristina was wise to her now. That softness was an act.
"I used to have an edge. I could do what needed to be done. Now. . .I'm blunt at the edges, I've dulled. I care."
"You care. And this is a bad thing?"
"My choices aren't mine any more. I can't. . .I'm having a freaking wedding!" Cristina jumped up and began pacing around the office, walking from chair to couch and back. "I don't want a wedding, I never walked around with a pillowcase on my head pretending to be the bride. I never bought a Bride's magazine, even when I was a teenager. I don't want the Easter Egg colored dresses for my friends—I don't really want friends." Chair. Couch. Chair. "Who cares whether the invitations are actually engraved? Oh, I'll tell you who. . .Burke. Burke cares. And he wants me to care." Cristina's frustration was evident. "I keep making these changes, taking a step back from what I wanted, to give him what's important to him. And the changes are not a problem, they aren't the problem here. The problem is that the decisions aren't mine. I wouldn't have to decide about puffy frilly dresses because I'd be wearing a hot dress from my closet."
"But you are deciding to take those steps, have the bridesmaids, wear the dress. You aren't being coerced into anything, right?"
"As if. No one could coerce me. I'm doing it by myself. I want to do it. You don't get it."
"Then tell me! Explain it."
"I don't have an opinion on cakes. Let the caterer decide! I want Meredith to wear whatever she wants!"
"Those things aren't important to you, the things that make up the wedding part?"
"They're trivial. They are distractions, they are details that, quite frankly, someone else can handle. But he takes it like a mortal wound if I say that. If I tell him that I don't care whether the embossed matchbooks have gold lettering or silver lettering. So it steals my attention from the things that really do matter."
Susan saw an in. "Which is?"
"Giving my attention to the goal I've been working on most of my life! I can't become some other person that Burke wants me to be, someone who cares about crap like flowers and matchbooks and cakes. If I become that person now, when do I change back? Or do I give up? That's the problem, that I'm giving up something I should be keeping. I'm giving up."
"What are you giving up?"
Cristina Yang did not cry. That was a well known fact, much like giraffe's have long necks. Mice have tails. Yang doesn't cry. Okay, there was that one breakdown into hysterics after the baby. . .but that was the drugs, mostly. And her mother. Who wouldn't cry dealing with that?
"Me. I'm giving up me."
And with that, she sank to the floor clutching her knees, not sobbing hysterically as she had all those months ago, but still. . . two incriminating drops of saline-laden liquid began a journey from her eyes.
Some will give their love for fashion
Others trade their gold for passion
Susan got up and knelt next to Cristina, not wanting to break into her personal space but willing to comfort her if asked.
I don't have the goods to start with
Never had the reins to part with
Still, I hope you take me seriously.
And there they stayed, until Cristina sucked her lips into her mouth and stood up.
"Does that count?"
Susan had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the lengths the other woman would go to just to lock away emotion.
"Sure. But you need to make another appointment before I write the memo."
'Cause I think I could go
Deep as the sea of Yoko
You don't know a person like me
I could sell your songs to Nike
And for all you know.
I could save your soul
As only true love can change your mind
Make you leave your screaming fans behind
A/N: This was really hard for me for a couple of reasons. First off, I'm feeling a lack of reviews. That's pretty sad, because this chapter & the Derek chapters are the ones I am the most unsure about. I'm trying not to get all McEmo about it, but I will tell you that the next bit is going to be hard to write, and feeling the love from someone who enjoyed reading this would be nice. Or getting constructive crit would be good as well. Heck, even a "THIS SUX" would mean that someone took the trouble. . .don't make me beg, it's so. . .pathetic. Please?