A/N: It is my first Alex-centered writing, and essentially I'm trying to bring out things about Cristina and Burke. Pardon me if it seems out of character. I would love to hear from you.

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Ch.2

Nobody called him a hypocrite. In fact, nobody called Alex Karev any names before Cristina Yang came up with the infamous "Evil Spawn".

Alex did not see himself as a hypocrite. True, he did not tell George that he was the one who gave syphilis to Nurse Olivia as he laughed at poor Bambi's body part. True, he did not tell Izzie he was going out with other women before her. But surely there were a few things in life that one could keep to himself without being called a hypocrite?

Perhaps he just didn't know how to spit things out when it came to love and emotions in general. It was easy to be the slightly sardonic joker, it was even easier to take action and punch a few people when necessary. Alex was a wrestler, a doer, just like Yang. The two of them might be fighting all the time, but they had the most in common.

Saying what he actually meant was much harder. What good was there to open his heart and be vulnerable? Didn't they say that action speak louder than words?

Alex never told Izzie he loved her, but he heard that Yang never said that to Dr. Burke either. And they were a couple, an actually dating couple who lived together. When Izzie was watching over one of the premies overnight, Alex checked up on her. Not a lot of people knew it, just as not a lot of people saw Yang sneaking in and out of Dr. Burke's room after he was shot.

When Izzie was completely broken by the death of Denny Duquette, Alex did not go and talk to her in Meredith's house, but he was the one who forced Bailey to talk the girl back to the program. Yang was not spending a lot of time by Dr. Burke's side after the shooting, but she was the one who discussed with Sheppard about rehabilitation and doing additional research in the basement while her boyfriend was enjoying his role as his Mama's little prince.

In fact, if Alex had to nominate hypocrites in the love department, he would pick Dr. Burke. He, of all men, should have known the boundary between his personal life and work, because he was the self-righteous workaholic cardiothoracic surgeon.

Instead, look at what Burke did to his intern girlfriend. He punished her for falling asleep during sex by not allowing her to join the organ harvest trip. He wrongfully questioned another resident's judgment because he was putting his boyfriend hat over his surgeon hat; yet, in the end, he forced Yang to apologize while he himself stayed aloof, only because he was the attending and attendings were not supposed to apologize.

Although Cristina Yang was spiteful and she always called him names, Alex had more respect for her than others. If anyone was to compete with him for being honest, he would win any day, or at least he and Yang would be sharing the title. They were the real doctors. They would not conceal anything from their patients.

Alex never hid from his patients the fact that he hated physical contact as much as Yang did. It still made him proud when thinking of how he beat Cristina Yang on the first day by a tenth of a second in breaking good news to patients without being hugged.

When he knew his lung-cancer patient was dying, he stepped up to tell the mother and daughter to deal with it instead of shying away from the ugly realities of life. Dr. Burke was the one who reprimanded him for doing so. To Alex, Burke was, in that regard, the hypocrite.

Alex thought he was an honest man, with the best interest of his patients in mind. When he made a mistake, he wracked his brain to look for a solution. He actually found a way to save Dr. Sheppard's over-hydrated patient. It was Derek Sheppard who refused to operate on the guy. Why did Sheppard think that sharing his personal experience of killing a patient would make him appear as a genuinely concerned mentor? In any case, Sheppard looked bad on Alex's hypocrite rating scale.

Some day, people might start to call him a hypocrite. Alex knew it, although he wouldn't have cared less if he did get labeled that way. The price of being judgmental was to be judged. When Yang passed harsh comments on everyone and everything at the hospital, she should have known that one day someone would come up to her and give her a merciless verdict the way how Burke's Mama did.

Alex knew people were going to gossip about his sexual encounter with the chocolate-cake lady at Joe's the other night. They would question him for being in love with Izzie while sleeping with someone else. He knew Joe was disgusted to see him sleeping with a woman almost twice his age and was clearly not that appealing to him.

They all missed the point. If making a patient happy could prompt her to go back and fight for her life, why wasn't it worth a try? If stripping in front of Burke would brighten up his day, why should they punish Yang for her behavior?

Of course, it was probably also gratifying for the two of them, but being selfish did not mean they were hypocrites. Besides, they were not only selfish. They actually cared. Perhaps, they even cared a lot more than others did.

Alex was not a hypocrite, neither was Yang.