Down for Love
Chapter 10-Shake the World Around
A/N: LOL, how long has it been since I've updated this fic:P Sorry, I've been busy with "A Love That Will Never Grow Old." And now I'm mondo-tired and listening to a Good Charlotte song, and hopefully this turns okay, I'm trying out a new method for producing brilliant writing, it's called being lazy and sitting tiredly, typing idly at 2 o'clock in the morning while I sip at my blue raspberry kool-aid, which is some seriously yummy stuff.
Disclaimer: I think if you've ever read my writing, you know it's not good enough to be affiliated with Grey's Anatomy. Derrrrr.
D4L!
Shhh.
Drip. Drop.
Cristina decided she liked this spot. Most of the time, she became tied up with the rushing of time, the early, fast-paced mornings in which she pushed herself through rounds, the tired, slinting nights when she walked bleary-eyed up to hers and Burke's apartment.
Now, though, she stood, in the aftermath of a storm. It hit her suddenly that it rained too much in Seattle. It was depressing. Or, more importantly, it didn't make you feel any better, in the event that were already depressed.
She shivered beneath Burke's jacket, her hair shaking. She brought her hand back, absentmindedly fumbling with a clip as she tried to tame to the flowing mane.
Burke was still in bed. He'd taken, lately, to sleeping in, then when he finally awoke he could only stare at her blankly.
Cristina shivered again, hating the rain, and storms, and the cold chill in which death hung in the air, subtle to the unsuspecting eye, but cold and unrelenting all the same. Cristina longed for the warmth of 'McDreamy,' of Burke's smile, of the twinkle in Meredith's eye when she viewed Derek. She had the distinct feeling she would never witness any of these things again. Her lungs seemed to explode inside her, and she felt the tears shake, trying to break out. She shivered restlessly, her legs twitching, before she gave herself into the tears, sheltering herself with Burke's heavy jacket and rubbing her eyes neurotically, turning tiredly and making her way back to the elevator.
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PRESTON BURKE, MD.
The small, indented sign on the door to his office was the same, the grey familiarity of it doing nothing to assuage his guilty conscience. Conscious of the nurses bustling around him, he pushed open the door to the room. While others' movements were fast, frantic, moving, he stayed still, calm, careful, and mild.
It looked the same. His lab coat hung off the hook on the door, his desk was clean, immaculate, there were no stray bits of fuzz on the carpet. It even smelled the same, the small hint of peroxide hidden beneath his oaky desk. The paperwork he'd been working on was right where he'd left it, the pen sticking out from where he'd hazardly slammed the file when the code had been called.
His first surgery was today. The first since...
He didn't want to think about that.
What if something went wrong?
Burke threw the file off of his desk, papers went flying, as Burke sunk into the chair and rested his head into his hands.
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"Katelyn Renaldi, 27, presents with multiple scyclosis and cardio-rhythmic abnormalities. In need of a intravascular release valve replacement and endothermic cardotomy." Izzie stepped back, her mind still on Denny.
"Surgery scheduled for 7 o'clock this morning, currently being prepped for pre-op with a dose of E.N.G and albiteron." Cristina glanced back down at her chart.
"Grey?" Burke said softly.
"Surgical history of a valve replacement cardoradicy and multiple valve prolapse in 2003."
"Excellent." He forced down a smile at the young woman lying in front of him. "Well, Mrs. Renaldi, let's get you prepped for surgery."
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Burke always liked the rush. Not the rush of the control, the playing God, the knowledge that one screw-up could take away this person's life. No, that rush was scary as hell...Burke liked the rush of the movements, the subtle delicacy of each thread being pulled, each cut being made. He liked that it took such careful control of his hands to do such little work.
He liked being a surgeon.
Sometimes, like moments like this, he would pause for the tiniest splinter of a second, and that first rush would hit him. He would see for the first time the blood, feel the pulsing of the body beneath him. He was in control. He was literally putting in his hand and taking out death.
Her surgery was going well, he decided.
He couldn't allow himself to think about the last surgery. How the monitor had flatlined, how Derek's heart had looked sliced open and gory.
It hadn't been his fault.
What if, though, they blamed him? For not succeeding with his job? For not being able to grasp the death, for taking a lunge at it and letting it slip right...through...his fingers...?
Goddammit.
"Pump 3 levels of O negative."
"Forceps."
He took them silently from the nurse. "We need to insert the replacement valve before she has time to bleed out. Someone jerked, it wasn't me, causing the stringing to tear."
"Sorry, Dr. Burke." Izzie's voice came out terrified.
Burke's voice was crisp as he finished his job. "It happens."
He closed up quickly, each sew quick and delicate. "She'll be fine," he assured her. Izzie stared at him, trembling.
"Don't worry about it, Stevens."
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"What are you doing?"
"Hellooooo."
"Meredith!"
Meredith yelled out loud, grabbing the blanket back from Cristina before she could hit her with it again. "Sleeping," she grumbled. "I already checked on my patient."
"Go home. You're sick."
"I am not."
"I heard you! In the bathroom."
"You didn't go home."
"I was pregnant. Not sick. Go home."
"Bite me."
"Is that a dare?" Cristina ripped the blanket out of Meredith's hand, whipping her with the pillow. "Get...up."
"Nooooooooo."
"Do you think your little depression slash flu slash 'my-mom-is-sick-my-life-is-hell-my-world-is-over' thing is going to work on me? Get up!"
Meredith groaned, rolling over and shivering. "Whyyyy?"
"I want this bed."
Meredith sat up. "Cristina!"
Cristina's only response was to whip her with the blanket again.
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Meredith frowned the next morning as she stood in her bedroom, her jeans pulled up as far as they would go, resting tightly on her waist.
Her jeans didn't fit.
How could her jeans not fit? She hadn't gained weight, had she? She tried to think back, wondering, and could only remember eating less, not more. She frowned, the lines cutting even deeper into her skin.
How could her jeans not fit?