When Angels Fly Away

Chapter 2

By greyeyedgirl

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"And do you, Cristina Yang, take this man, Preston Xavier Burke, to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, from this day forward, to love and to cherish, as long as you both shall live?"

Cristina's head felt foggy, and she looked around, confused. She was standing in a church. Burke was wearing a jogging suit, holding a cappuccino. Meredith stood in her scrubs, her hair curly and falling around her face. Izzie was in her prom dress. She turned to look at the guests. Bailey, in the back, holding Cristina's motorcycle helmet. The chief staring at Meredith. Derek wearing his ferryboat scrubcap, and Addison in her old-school salmon-colored scrubs. She turned to look back at Burke. What do I do? What do I do?

"I do."

"And do you, Preston Burke, take this woman, Cristina Nichole Yang, to be your lawfully wedded wife…to have and to hold…for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…"

Cristina felt her heart beating, sleep crashing over her in the steamy church. Wiping her hair from off of her sweaty forehead, she looked back at Burke, who was just finishing-"do." Suddenly the jacket of Burke's jogging suit burst open, and as Cristina stepped forward blood began to start gushing from Burke's chest. Cristina screamed, barely being able to hear herself over the fly-like buzzing in the room. Screaming and screaming and screaming, she took a step backwards, tripping over the wedding dress, tears streaming down her face. "Noooooo."

"Noooooo!" Cristina's head shot up, hitting the top bunk of the bed in the on-call room. Moaning and sweating, Cristina looked around, pulling on her scrub top that had started to stick to her skin. She moaned again, rolling out of the bed, pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she headed to the locker room.

She swung the door open to the changing room, heading towards her locker and ignoring the stares. She knew she'd get stares, what with all the things that had went on 2 nights ago. People were still in shock. Word was already spreading on the reasons why Isobel Stevens had quit the program, and Cristina didn't think there were enough beds in the hospital for how many times she'd heard the words "Denny Duquette" "LVAD," and "Fell in love with a patient" strung together. And after seeing how Meredith and Derek reacted to each other during rounds, and then with the news that Preston Burke, man most-likely to get Chief of Surgery, had gotten shot…Cristina was in the middle of it all, and it was obvious by the way Raj the Psych intern had stared at her in the hall and Tyler the nurse had looked at her sadly, telling her he had put Dr. Burke in his prayers.

After yelling at Meredith that morning, Cristina had ran off to do rounds, then spent the day in the Pit on Bailey's orders. She'd visited Burke three times for about half an hour each, but all three times he was sleeping. At lunch Meredith hadn't spoken to her, George had been with Callie, Izzie was gone, and Alex didn't seem to be speaking to anyone. So Cristina had grabbed a coffee from the cart outside, bought a Snickers from the vending machine in the underground tunnel the interns sometimes hung out at, and sat on an abandoned gurney lining the hallway with The Textbook of Surgery on her lap. She'd went to visit Burke one more time, briefly, when she got off work, but left almost immediately, after finding George in his room.

She should probably apologize to Meredith. She should call Izzie, and see how she was doing. She should go see Burke and make sure his pre-rounds with Derek had went alright. She should, but she didn't. She grabbed a fresh pair of scrubs from her locker, headed into the bathroom to wash her face, and headed to the nurses' station to see if she could find a good case.

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