A Love That Will Never Grow Old

Chapter 6!

Chapter Title: "Insane"

A/N: I know I said I was going to write this chapter right after I got done with chapter 5. To make a long story short...I lied. To make a long story longer, I shall just say that I wrote Down for Love chapter 9 instead. Then I studied for my math test. And I got a 95, which is awesome:D I love math. Except not always. Plus I love writing soooo much more. Please don't yell if this chapter sucks. I was getting lots of private messages/email to write more, so I scrambled to finish those last 2, which I know suck. But I know exactly where my story is going! So shut up and read, please. : ) Except if you LIKE it, write lots of nice things at the end. Thank you. (Sorry, I'm cranky right now. My mother was tickin' me off. :D)

This chapter is dedicated to coldqueen, because I am happy to have another C/B writer here. Plus, she gave me a shoutout in chapter 4 of Moody Monday, which is flippin' awesome! If she happens to read this, I want her to know I'm listening to DR's "Insane" right now, and it's a YAYYYY awesome song. :P As you can see from the chapter title! Okay, now ON to the story! ;)

by greyeyedgirl

Go. Run. Faster! Shut up! Cristina ran, breathing hard, slamming and locking the door to the on-call room so Burke couldn't come in after her. She could hear him, just outside the door, waiting patiently for her to let him in.

It was chaos, it was...pandemonium. And all of it was happening right inside Cristina's body. The thoughts were racing through her mind, reminding her of angry flies, buzzing hurriedly around a dead animal on the side of the road. She really, really wanted to throw something.

The railings on the bunkbed were metal, and she could see her reflection in the mirroring surfaces. The tears were so fast, so hot, she was surprised her face didn't catch on fire. She was slowly slowing down, her body was calming, her legs weren't fidgeting anymore.

Cristina sat down on the bottom bunk in the on-call room, her hair falling loosely around her face, the ponytail long abandoned. There was still an andrenaline pumping through her body, making her want to run, but her mind was calm.

Ashley was going to be fine. Dr. Shepherd was examining her now, and Meredith was waiting for Ashley's CT results. Cristina still wasn't sure exactly what Ashley was doing here, fully across the country from where she lived, but she pushed her curiousity firmly away.

This was much too much. She didn't know what had reawakened her nightmares, wasn't aware why all this was coming back for her right now. And now Ashley was laying in a hospital bed in the other side of the building, and Cristina was crying in an on-call room while her boyfriend knocked gently on the door.

How had this happened to her? She was Cristina Yang. First in her class at Stanford Med, valedictorian of her high school class. She had worked so, so hard to get to this place, to be able to walk into Seattle Grace Hospital every morning. Every day of high school had sucked, every time she had had to pull herself out of bed she had hated herself, but she had done it. For 1,980 days, through high school, college, and med school, she had worked her ass off, and all of it only added up to not being able to escape it. No matter what she did, Cristina Yang could never escape her past.

Cristina stood up, her legs scrambling and shaking, and forced her body to hold still as she stared down at her reflection in the bed railings. Cristina had always thought, oddly, privately, of course, that she looked prettier when she cried. The color escaping from her body, she was darker, tinges of red glittering on her bone structure. And her eyes...her patient had told her she had nice eyes. She looked down into her reflection and pondered this, the tears still ranting fast and hard. They were glowing a little, a dark light shining incandescently. Yes. Cristina Yang was more beautiful when she cried. Beauty, that which we all strive so greatly to achieve, was a delicate flower against her face, and it struck Cristina that beauty was so much more powerful when it came from sadness. But was beauty really dark? Didn't those that seem lit from within, shining with the brightness of their lives, seem full of beauty too? What was beauty? How could you distinguish it? And how could you achieve something if you were not sure what it was?

In her tired, scared, pained state Cristina was full of bumbling psychochatter. She shook her head fast, back on the bed, her hair a metaphor for the pain rattling inside her.

Buck up, Cristina. Cristina nodded along, agreeing with her thoughts. She wiped her tears away, pulling her hair back as she removed the large silver clip from the pocket of her scrubs.

Cristina opened the door and began to step out, but stopped abruptly when she saw Burke leaning against the wall just outside the room, hunched over to the point of almost sitting, a tired, stoic look on his face. He didn't seem to hear the door to the on-call room open, and Cristina watched him for a moment, carefully examining each deep dimple and curve in the face she loved so much. The product of her question was answered. There was no doubt in her mind what beauty was, because as she looked down at Preston's poetic composure, it was looking her in the face. Cristina moved a step closer to him, and he opened his eyes, looking up at her.

He was up in a flash, but just his movements were graceful, there was a sense of agileness in the way he jumped quickly to his feet, his eyes locked on her. "Do you-" He cleared his throat. "How are you?"

She knew he was noting the color in her cheeks, and that it worried him. "Let's go check on her, okay?"

He led the way to the hospital room occupied by Ashley and Doctor Shepherd, holding the door and letting Cristina pass through first.

Ashley was sitting up in bed. "Hey!" She said happily to Cristina. "My god, it's so boring here, I swear. Mr. McPheirson-" She started laughing, her face twinkling pink. "Mr. McPheirson nearly had a heart attack, he's the chaperone, a couple kids in my Youth in Government progam at school were supposed to come here for this thing, but Emma Spader caught mono, and we needed four reps from my school, so Mr. McPheirson picked me to come instead." She grinned at Cristina. "I figured as long as I was in town, I'd see you, but I-eh-forgot- to tell Mr. McP I was leaving, so..." She smiled charmingly.

Derek winked at Ashley as he sent her an amused grin. "Can't forget things like that."

The door to the room opened suddenly once again, and Meredith walked in, pausing to notice the expressions on everyone's faces. "We have the labs back," she told Derek. "Ashley's MRI showed that their is some bruising of the brain, a hemorrhage near her cerebellium below the left side." She glanced at Ashley. "Did you hit you head recently?"

Ashley looked stricken. "I fell down the stairs..." Her voice drifted off hesitantly. Derek frowned slightly. He took in Dr. Yang's face, asking the interns, "And this is a sign off...?" He looked at Dr. Yang expectantly.

"Succingtinoctic Neuroitis." It was Meredith who spoke. Cristina was staring vaguely at the wall. Burke looked at her, concerned.

Derek stared at Cristina's expressionless face. "So we should?"

"Preform a sincto-neuroctic resection and subdyrral in order to stop the bleeding. The rest should heal on its own, providing antibiotics and severe bedrest."

"You have to do surgery?" Ashley stared up at Dr. Shepherd. Derek smiled down at her. "I'm afraid so. But we can start prepping you now, and with proper rest you should be back at school within the next month."

"Month?" Ashley looked stricken. "Just because I bumped my head?"

Derek smiled at her. "It was more than a bump. And we're talking highly dangerous, invasive brain surgery." He continued. "We've had your parents on the phone, they're flying in right now, they've given approval for-"

"Dad's coming?" Cristina had snapped back to attention, and she had unsteadily taken a step backwards towards the door. Ashley was watching her.

"Yes," Derek said absently, looking down at the charts Meredith had handed him. "They should be here in a couple of hours." He closed the chart with a snap. "Well, what do you say, Dr. Grey? Ready to get back to work?"

Meredith smiled weakly back at him.