Once again, thanks to all my reviewers! This chappie is dedicated to HPxTWWxGAxJulia. Yeah...let's be honest...my love of DR, made you want to check out DR...and now you love DR!

Also, shout out to Francesca Jean for the great review...it was really nice...

And on a side note, I'm also working on a new one-shot based on tonight's epi "Yesterday". I can't help it...I loved the interplay in it between Burke and Cristina...even if they can't dance. I know you all want to know who's going to be chief...and I think you'll be surprised...but you're not gonna find out for a couple chapters...or...well...I actually have no idea how long this will be...seriously...no idea...

Please note, this takes place in between "As We Know It", the Superbowl two-parter epi and tonight's epi "Yesterday". The song for this chapter is "Strange Fruit". Specifically, the Nine Simone version because I think she sings it best. Yeah, yeah, I know...Billie Holliday did it first, but seriously, I like Nina better...so Billie...pshht!

Cristina and Izzie ran to catch up with the longer-legged doctors Burke and Shepard. The corridors of the third floor, the OR floor were serene compared to ER. ER was like hell...full of hot tempers, hot air, and just a lot of general pain. There was more than one reason it was called the pit.

The two girls caught up to the doctors just as they hit the stairs. Together, all four of them trooped down at full speed, sending idling nurses and lab technicians into the spaces on the side to hide.

Finally, they were on the first floor and on their way to the trauma room where the emergency wail was coming from. The first thing Cristina noticed as she ran into the room, a second behind Burke, was that a very large Caucasian man had a large briefcase in his hand. He didn't look like any businessman Cristina had ever seen.

A yell from Shepard had her attention snapping to the business at hand. She grabbed the nurse and began to question her as Izzie and Burke assessed the wound while Shepard called upstairs to get an OR. Despite the shakiness of the nurse, who was obviously intimidated just a bit by the Briefcase Man, Cristina managed to get some information.

The patient had been carried into the ER by Briefcase Man. He'd explained as he carried said patient into this room that as he'd been cleaning his gun, it'd gone off and hit his cousin. He'd immediately brought his cousin here. When asked why he hadn't called the paramedics, he'd merely glared at the young nurse, which accounted for the shakiness. Cristina finally gestured for the girl to leave and turned to give her report to Burke.

"It's an accidental gunshot wound. The patient's cousin was cleaning his weapon when the patient was shot."

Burke looked up from where he'd been studying the wound that Izzie was even now cleaning so as to get a better picture of what was happening. He turned to Briefcase Man. "What's your name?"

"John."

"Well, John, you want to tell me what kind of gun shot your cousin?"

John turned and set his briefcase on a nearby counter. Cristina and Burke watched curiously as he opened it...and pulled out a mini-Uzi. "This one."

Suddenly, Shepard took notice of the gun. "Whoa! This is a hospital! Why don't we just put that back in the briefcase...or even better, give it to me?" Shepard looked hopefully, but John's face closed down. He put it back in the briefcase and shut it. Obviously, he wasn't giving it to anyone.

Burke glanced at Izzie where she cleaned the wound and back at John. "You're quite sure it was that gun?"

Big John glowered. "Yeah."

Burke nodded and gave some unrecognized signal to Shepard. Shepard eased past Big John, and slid from the room. With the major glare John had on Burke, he didn't even notice. Cristina slid over so she was next to Izzie and across from Burke. Together, all three of them and two nurses stared at the patient, who was rapidly bleeding out from a shot to the heart.

With the chatter of the ER through the open door, Izzie felt safe enough to whisper, "That is not an Uzi shot. This is a shotgun blast."

Burke barely glanced at her. "I know that."

Cristina couldn't help adding her own two cents. "So he's lying. I saw a ski mask in that briefcase when he opened it."

Burke nodded and sent the two nurses around the room on various tasks, trying to get them out of the line of fire. "We have to assume this is gonna get hostile. Cristina, leave."

"No," came out instinctively. Cristina was not going to leave him in peril again. She'd done that once and she wasn't going to again. Besides, this promised to be an exciting surgery.

"Cristina..."

"No."

"What's going on over there? Are you gonna fix him or what?" Big John asked, not liking the furtive glances and the slow emptying of the room.

"We're gonna need to move him to an OR before we can do anything, Mr...?" Burke said, with a pleasant but deceiving smile on his face.

"Gravies. John Gravies. That there is Brian Gravies. You're gonna save his life, doc."

Burke nodded. "I'll try."

John smiled, and moved to shut the door, taking the briefcase with him. "You're gonna do it."

Burke could recognize the rising tension and was glad he'd gotten the nurses and Shepard out of the room. Shepard was phoning the police right now, but as Mr. Gravies pulled out the mini-Uzi and pointed at him, Burke wondered if they'd be on time. "What are you doing, Mr. Gravies?" Burke asked, while behind him Cristina and Izzie froze in the movements they'd been making to temporary close the wound while preparing to head upstairs.

John kept the gun pointed at the tall black doctor as he started to close the blinds on all the windows. Within seconds the feeling of isolation in Cristina had escalated as all visions of outside the room slowly faded away. Suddenly, it was just the four of them in that room. The four of them, a dying patient, a madman, and a very powerful gun. Cristina had grown up in Beverly Hills. It was close enough to Los Angeles that she'd seen what a machine gun could do to a person. A machine gun could cut a person in half, if they were lucky. That violence that plagued her home city was one of the reasons she'd become a doctor. That, and the awesome money.

"Mr. Gravies, we need to get your cousin up to surgery to save his life. Please put down the gun so that we can get through," Burke kept his voice smooth, very comforting. It wasn't working.

"You're not going anywhere. You're gonna sew him up right here so we can get out of here. Got it, doc? Or do I need to shoot up a pretty little nurse over there so that we can get on with it?"

"I'm not a nurse," Cristina blurted out before she could help herself. Thankfully, all that got her were glares from both males in the room. Beneath her hands, she felt the heartbeat of the patient start to slow. "But we do have to work here. Your cousin is bleeding out. We need to help him."

John smiled. "Then do it, but you're not going anywhere."

Burke sighed, and moved back to his patient. At the door, John sat down on a counter and watched them, his arm steady the entire time. He could hold that position for hours.

Cristina leaned close to say something to Burke but a noise from John had her looking at him. "No secrets pretty girl. What do you wanna say?"

"I was just going to say that we need a monitor. There isn't one in here and if we're going to do surgery we need one."

"Can't you do without just this once?"

"Well, I-..."

"THIS IS THE POLICE! OPEN UP!"

John jumped away from the door like it suddenly caught on fire and in a moment of panic started shooting through the small window in it. Immediately Burke pulled Cristina and Izzie down to the floor, throwing himself on top of them.

It seemed as if small explosions were going off right above them, for all the noise it was making. Even as Burke feared for his life, he feared for Cristina more. He'd wanted her to go. He'd wanted her safe. He didn't know if he could function knowing she was in immediate danger. All of a sudden he was back in that OR, that fateful day a month ago. She was holding the oxygen mask and looking at him with liquid eyes. She didn't want to go, but she was going to...for him. The tension in his stomach had eased when he'd seen that she'd left. Late at night, that vision of her eyes haunted him. Kept him up. Just as he had no idea what he'd do without her, she had no idea what she'd do without him. She hadn't said it, but in that moment he'd known. She loved him. She knew he loved her. They hadn't ever addressed the situation, preferring to stay in this ridiculous half-state relationship. They'd gotten comfortable. As Burke breathed in the heady scent of his girlfriend's hair...he wished she'd left.

Finally, it was silent. Burke risked a glance up and saw that John had basically decimated the door. There were bullet holes and scorch marks all over it, and the glass was everywhere. After the echoes of the machine gun faded, Burke thought he was deaf, then he realized that it was just reaaally silent. There was no noise anywhere except for the fading whir of the mini-Uzi. Finally, Big John turned and looked at them.

"Get up and get back to work."

Okay, so...it's getting exciting, yes? REVIEW! LOVE ME! TELL ME YOU LOVE ME!