Bloody Valentine
By Greyeyedgirl
A/N: Named after the Good Charlotte song, which I really like, even though the title doesn't quite match up with the finished fic. It actually goes more along with one of the lines, "...mourn the death, of our bloody valentine..." I actually started writing this fic when I was bored during my study hour, aka Advisory, then wrote more after I finished my English final, which was ubereasy and left me with like 45 minutes of freedom time. AKA, I was EXTREMELY bored when I scribbled this fic into a notebook, while some girl kept nervously kicking the back of my chair and whispering urgently, "Sorry, Ruthi!" So please forgive me if this story totally sucks.
Inspired by the clip shown for episode 2x13. No actual spoilers involved except what was shown in the preview.
Disclaimer: NOBODY sues little kids over fanfic! I love ya, but ya gotta get over yo'selves.
Summary: C/B fic based on the preview for 2x13. "The baby. What were you planning to do?"
Have you ever heard that stupid, insipid little cliche, "Sometimes you have to learn things the hard way?" Well, in educational, factual terms, Cristina Yang didn't fit that description at ALL. But in any matter that couldn't be learned directly out of a textbook-
She closed her eyes, remembering the conversation.
They had been standing in a hallway in the hospital, talking about a patient. She was in her element. Then he'd had to open up his big, fat, stupid, nasty freakin mouth. And her world had crashed down all around her.
"What were you going to do?"
Her head had snapped up. "What?"
"The baby. What were you planning to do?"
At first she had been scared when she realized her heart had stop beating. Her fear had done nothing but erupt in a cannon-wall of adrenaline, though, when she acknowledged that it had also exploded.
"What?" She'd whispered.
She leaned her head against the wall, breathing hard. No, no, no. A million "French" words flew through her mind as she remembered his face. Why couldn't I have answered?
"Cristina?" She turned her head towards the sound of Meredith's voice, as Meredith sat down next to her on the gurney in the interns' little corner of the hospital. Cristina inspected Meredith's face for a moment, before raising her eyebrows. Meredith sighed. "I told Derek I was over him."
Cristina snickered even in her misery.
Meredith forced a weak smile. "Shut up."
Cristina heard herself begin to laugh, and was hit with the realization that if she stopped, she'd start to cry.
Meredith looked at her carefully, confusion written all over her face. "Cristina?"
The tears were falling down her face before she could struggle to withhold them, and her brain felt like it was on fire. Her eyelashes were...too heavy.
"Cristina!" Meredith stared at her, confused. "What happened?" She asked quietly.
Cristina's voice was quiet, and her whisper was like the wind. "Burke."
She slipped down the stairway in silence, shooting glances behind her to assure herself that she was alone. It was during one of these brief looks that she turned her head forward and found herself looking straight-on at Burke. The thought of "deer in the headlights" passed through her mind, and she had a clear inclination to throw up on it.
"Um. Hi." Why did I say that? That was possibly the stupidest thing you could have said. Right after letting him think you were ready tokill our baby, that is...
"Cristina." No one else could say her name like he could.
Cristina bent her head down uncomfortably, her voice rattling out of her like a snake crawling out of a hole but getting stuck. "There's something I...I mean, maybe you..." She paused, trying to force her lungs to inhale and exhale regularly. "You might have got the wrong idea about what happened. From me...not answering."
Burke was staring at her. "Really."
"I mean, I wasn't...Well, I." She did the breath-relapse thing once again. Her voice got softer. "Can we do this somewhere else?"
"Okay. We're somewhere else. Talk."
Cristina shot him a look, closing the door behind her as she entered the on-call room. "You're a very impatient man, you know."
Burke looked at her, his expression and his eyes ideal oxymorons. "And you are a very avoidant woman, you know."
Cristina shoved him down onto the bed, sitting next to him as she curled her knees up, hugging them closely to her chest. Her voice was quiet, hesitant but unwavering. "I found out I was pregnant. I didn't know what to do-"
Burke interrupted her impatiently. "You should have come to me!"
Cristina exhaled furiously. "We'd been sleeping together for a week. I didn't even know you! I didn't know what to do! I-"
"Planned an abortion."
"Wha-No! Well, ye-Would you please let me finish? No interruptions."
Burke looked at her steadily. "Fine."
"I was scared, okay? I didn't know how you would react. I knew you wanted Chief. Your career seemed so important to you-"
Burke opened his mouth to protest but stopped at the look in her eyes.
"I...made an appointment. But I didn't want to..." Her voice had dwindled down to almost nothing, her voice was like sticky, sour syrup, and her breathing felt rough to her chest.
"I didn't want to make things harder than they might have to be. I didn't want it to get...messy. I thought maybe a...clean break...was best."
Burke's breath came out harsh and rough, but it was directed more to himself than to her. "Are you finished?" Her murmured quietly.
Cristina continued as if he hadn't spoken. "I watched you. For a couple of weeks, I watched you. And...I started getting these...feelings. Not...new ones, though. Just...firmer ones. Deeper."
She averted her gaze from the stark, empty-looking white sheet so she was looking directly at him. "I was falling in love with you. And I didn't know what to do. I knew you'd be mature, and nice, and understanding, if I told you about the baby. But I was still scared, scared of becoming a mom, and also scared because...I knew you wouldn't be. Bad about it. I knew you'd be perfect, and I was scared of what would happen."
Burke was staring at her intently, trying not to flinch. He was so much braver than she was.
"Then...you asked me out...and I had all these...conflicts. And I didn't know what to do about them. And you kept giving me these, these ultimatums, and acting like-" Her voice broke off, as she choked over the small breaths exiting her body. "I was still scared, but...it was almost...nice scared. A little bit nice. Like... anticipation, maybe? Exhilaration. But I knew I wanted to...I mean, these feelings were...intense, and I..." She closed her eyes, her voice quiet and breathy. "Right after Joe's surgery. A few minutes before I went in the on-call room. I...called the clinic. And I, um...canceled it. The-"
Burke looked distressed, his arm reached out timidly to comfort her, but she was shaking too hard, and she evaded his touch. "What about...after. After the..."
"After you dumped me?" Cristina's voice was haggard, her heart feeling like shattered ice and her stomach a gymnast that had fallen too hard onto the mat.
"Cristina, I-"
"I...made the appointment back on. It was for...It was for the day after all that happened. And I went, with the memory of you looking at me, and your voice etched into my skull, and the lady called my name 6 times."
"What?"
"I could hear her voice, but it was like...I was sleeping. Because I could hear the baby crying too. I could see it in my head and I couldn't move."
She collapsed against him, the tears falling onto his scrubs, and he laid with her just like he had when she was in the hospital, pushing her hair back from her face, his voice quiet and soothing, whispering, "Shhh, shhhh."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry, I was never very good with endings, but hopefully I made this one kind of pretty. I know this is drabble fic, and obviously it won't happen because on GA things have to be all dramatic and no one gets to be FREAKIN' happy (I'm sorry, I'm just really nervous and scared that C/B will break up in this episode, which would break my heart and make me cry a lot because I'm a big obsessed loser.) Anyway, I hope you liked this fic anyway? Review, because I like getting emails.