Seventeen Seconds.

by greyeyedgirl

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Those three words are said too often. They're not enough.

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"That's how they do it, huh, with the 'I love you's, with the 'move in with me's, and they suck you in, they melt your resolve and the minute you actually need something, something you totally deserve, oh forget it, you know it's not gonna happen because they're gonna pass you over for surgery or they duck behind you when somebody's shooting." Cristina Yang, Grey's Anatomy 2.25 "17 Seconds."

17 Seconds. One half plus one plus two plus three plus four plus three plus two plus one and another half.

17 Seconds. That was how long it took Cristina to tell her landlord she was moving out of her apartment.

17 Seconds. That was how long Cristina had been in the apartment after the bomb scare before she fell into bed next to Burke.

17 Seconds. That was how long Burke had been lying on the cold pavement outside Seattle Grace Hospital before Miranda Bailey found him laying with a bullet hole in his right shoulder.

A lot could happen in 17 seconds. An astounding amount for such a short period of time.

Cristina Yang stood standing outside of Preston Burke's hospital room, freshly changed from her prom dress and into her scrubs, two cups of coffee steaming in her hand. She bit the inside of her bottom lip, releasing only when she tasted blood. She closed her eyes for a moment, before exhaling strongly to blow the stray curl of hair out of her eyes.

"Hey."

His eyes traveled over to her from inside his stationary head.

"Hey."

"Feeling okay?"

"I'm fine." He sounded tired, angry. Frustrated. That was the word. He was used to being sucked-up to, not sympathized for. He was not used to her speaking to him gently, genially. This was a different side of her, and he didn't know if he liked it or not. As much as he had been silently begging to her for months for just a sign of being the loving, compassionate woman he knew she was, he hadn't expected it to come this way. He didn't know what was happening, the white linoleum of the ceiling was to scary to stare at for hours at a time.

Empty. A life without surgery was empty.

"Here. I brought you coffee." She smiled softly. Her face was uncharacteristically sweet, and her voice, her words, were careful, and lacking the sarcastic edge that always tickled his ears.

She was watching him. He blinked slightly at the blank ceiling, the white swirling in front of his eyes, as she held out the coffee to him. His left hand shook as he reluctantly reached for it, and it had nothing to do with the tremors.

"Not much use for coffee. I don't exactly need to be stimulated, just laying here all day."

Cristina was silent for a few moments. "Derek said he wants you to try walking tomorrow. It might be a slow recovery but--" Her voice broke. "But you will recover."

Burke looked at her, and then let his gaze wander to his trembling right hand. He sat up slowly, weakly, and set the coffee on the stand by the bed without drinking it. Cristina watched him without saying wanything. He didn't look at her.

"Has George been back?" Why did I say that? Why did I bring up George?

"Not since last night...I think he was probably with Callie, after the little 'prom.'" Cristina nodded, biting the inside of her lip slightly.

"How's Denny?" Burke said weakly.

Cristina froze. Dammit! "Denny?"

"Duquette. I asked you to keep an eye on him for me." Burke's voice was angry, and full of accusations.

Cristina watched his hands tremble almost as if she didn't realize wahat she was seeing. "Denny...had a stroke. After the surgery. Burke, he..."

Burke closed his eyes tightly as if in pain. Cristina stood up a little straighter, not aware of herself loosening the grip on her coffee cup.

"How's Stevens?" Burke asked quietly. Cristina just looked at him. Burke closed his eyes again, sighing.

"I haven't seen her this morning. I haven't talked to anyone. After I left last night I went to an on-call room and slept, and this morning when I woke up the locker room was empty." Cristina shrugged. "She was pretty bad off last time I saw her, though," she said quietly. Burke didn't respond.

"Are you hungry? The hospital food's really bad, I know. I can get you something better? There's...an iHop? Down the street?" Cristina mildly wondered why she was suddenly an up-talker, her declarative sentences had never before came out as interrogative.

"I'm fine. I"ll eat the breakfast they have. I'm used to hospital food." Burke closed his eyes as if he were about to go back to sleep.

"So. . . Is there anyone you want me to. . . call?"

Burke opened his eyes warily. "Call?"

Cristina hastily elaborated. "Family. In. . .Alabama? Or not there? Anyone you want to know what happened? Family, or friends, or-"

Burke broke her off. "That's not neccessary, Cristina."

Cristina tried to nod. "Right. They don't have to be here. I'm here. Right."

Burke's gaze drifted to the painting of a ship at bay on the wall to his right.

"Actually, I've been thinking."

Cristina froze.

"For my recovery. It's going to be messy. I'm going to have to work hard, and I'm going to get angry, frustrated, depressed, pretty often."

Cristina felt her eyebrows furl, she opened her mouth to speak but Burke held up a trembling hand to stop her.

"It's going to be very hard for you. Watching me." He paused, his voice oddly hoarse. "I don't want you to become my nurse, Cristina."

Cristina's frown deepened. "Burke..."

"You are an independent person, Cristina. You're strong." Burke paused, now staring back at the blank white ceiling.

"I don't want you to take care of me because you feel you have to. I want you to be with me, because you want to."

Cristina felt the need to move, to take a step, but she didn't know if she wanted to go backwards or forwards.

"I think. . .until I'm fully recovered. . .we should take a break. From each other. And this relationship. Just to...sort out what we want, for each other, and from each other. What we want in general. You know?"

Cristina's cup of coffee slipped almost completely out of her fingers, she had to grasp it tightly and hold on. "A break."

Burke wasn't looking at her. "I think it's what's best. You can't handle seeing me like this. I don't hold any grudges for it. I want you to be with me because you want to. You don't want to be here. And I need to take care of myself now. It's going to be fine eventually. But for now--"

"'Fine,'" Cristina repeated vaguely. Burke heard her and misunderstood, thinking she was agreeing with him.

"You don't have to move out of the apartment, of course. I wouldn't do that to you. I'll, ah, check into a hotel for awhile, once I get out." He now smiled weakly.

Cristina stood there for what seemed like forever to her, watching him. Her eyes never traveled down to the hand that was shaking fiercely, but stayed watching his face, observing his bottom lip once twitch. She'd watched Burke perform surgery a thousand times, and he always made clean, quick cuts. But she saw now that he had been doing it wrong. The real way to break a heart, the best way to break a heart, was what he had just done. It wasn't clean, and it wasn't quick. It took those moments afterwards that she stood there watching him, watching his vision blur from staring at white for so long, watching him blink repeatedly.

It took about seventeen seconds.

a/n: As you probably guessed, this is my latest ongoing story. :D :P I'll try to get a update up soon, but I'm having serious issues on my writing computer. Anyway, leave a review...Oh, and wish me happy birthday for today, June 5th...I'm 15 today:D