Thank you all so very much for the reviews. It's so amazing to know that you all like my writing.
Cristina takes the stage in chapter 4, as well as Meredith, Arizona, Lexie, and Mark. I don't consider myself a terribly graphic writer, but I don't hesitate to describe things as I envision them, so be prepared for that more in future chapters, but for this one as well to some degree.
I tried very hard to fill in the gaps that Grey's leaves out in the show in this chapter. Since the show gives us the initial view from Meredith's perspective and this story is from Cristina's perspective, I had fun (in a sadistic kind of way) inserting small things to explain what Shonda left out, such as how Meredith hurt her leg and how Cristina woke up from the crash. I fill in much bigger chunks in later chapters, so this is a little taste of the aforementioned "convoluted, haphazard poetic license." I hope you all enjoy.
Why does my face feel itchy? she wondered. And why do I feel like I'm suffocating?
As her physical strength returned to her, so did her senses. She jerked her head up in a panic. A plane crash. A freaking PLANE CRASH?! A PLANE crash. She quickly tried to swing her hands underneath her to push herself up, but a stabbing pain shot through her left arm as she did so. She cried out, fear outlining her features as she attempted to assess her surroundings. After collecting herself, she used her right arm to push herself onto her back, giving her much more lung capacity to breath.
Her hearing returned abruptly, causing her to cry out in horror as she heard a woman wailing close by. She heard flames cracking each time she felt the wind brush her body and plane debris making loud thuds on the ground as it continued to fall from the sky. The sky was literally falling.
Suddenly, it occurred to her. That wasn't just any woman. That was Arizona Robbins. She turned her head in the direction of the screaming and saw only Robbins' torso. Her lower body was blanketed by the airliner's wing. Cristina's senses returned fully to her then as she pushed her body up with her right arm. She headed in the direction of Arizona when she looked up to see a piece of debris plummeting toward the ground. She looked directly to her right and found a possibly-dazed-possibly-dead Meredith directly in its path.
Mer. Cristina hadn't even realized she was right next to her. With excruciating effort, she moved to Meredith's right side and quickly pulled her limp body to lay on its side. It was all she could do with mere seconds before the debris hit and only one useful arm. The shards of metal narrowly missed Meredith's upper body, but unfortunately, Cristina could not move her fast enough to avoid the piece that punctured her left thigh.
Dammit! Cristina stared in horror at the metal shard buried in Meredith's thigh but quickly recovered as more metal crashed around her. She had to move. Fast. She returned Meredith to her back and quickly straddled her. Meredith had shown no signs of life that Cristina could see in the very brief seconds she had to assess her before the debris came falling down. When she looked down on her, her pupils were slowly moving from east to west, indicating that she was at the very least alive.
Thank God. "Mer?" She saw her friend gaze around aimlessly, obviously still not aware enough to know what had happened. That wasn't going to do for Cristina. The sky was FUCKING FALLING for God's sake. She had to snap out of it. "Meredith!" She gasped, helplessly looking around for help. "Meredith!" This time, Meredith seemed to regain some consciousness, her eyes growing and her mouth gaping as she realized she was in danger. "Get up! You have to get up now!" Cristina yanked on her arm with her one good arm. She still didn't budge. Cristina reached full-fledged panic mode, screaming relentlessly in Meredith's face, "Meredith, get up!"
Finally, Meredith snapped out of her daze and supported her own weight as Cristina pulled her upright. "Oh God," Cristina moaned, grunting and doubling over in pain. She let go of Meredith and clutched her left bicep, swaying to the side despite her efforts to steady herself.
"How long was I out?" Meredith asked her. Cristina yanked her own body upright once more, gasping for air and pain relief. The hell if I know. I barely beat you to it.
"I don't-I…" Cristina trailed off, unable to form a coherent sentence through the blinding pain blurring her vision. "I don't know, I-I…" she looked down at her feet for the first time, observing that one foot looked smaller than the other…and a different color. Shoes and socks, you idiot. That is one foot with a shoe on it, and one with just a sock. "I lost my shoe." She turned her body left then right, searching for her missing shoe. She couldn't function without that shoe. She didn't know why, but she just knew she couldn't get around without it.
As she continued to search for her shoe, she remembered Robbins-or rather, she tuned back in to her entire surroundings and noticed Arizona's wails of pain once more. Panic struck her as she saw Mark stumbling weakly toward them, catching himself with each step with one hand and using the other to clutch his chest. "Where's-Where's Derek and Lexie?" She heard Meredith ask from behind her.
Cristina's mind was elsewhere, so she absentmindedly answered, "I don't-I don't know." She stared once again at her feet then lifted her head, seeming to be directing her comments at someone, but staring simply at the crash site as she repeated, "I lost a shoe."
Meredith regained some strength at that point, walking down through the trees. "What happened?" she asked, her back to Cristina.
This triggered Cristina. This was a question she could answer confidently. "The plane crashed, that's what happened," she passionately responded. "We were in a plane, and it crashed. Plane crash," she practically yelled in Meredith's direction.
"Where is Derek?" Meredith threw her hands down toward her side, limping toward the crash site. Her words echoed through the trees as she turned to face Cristina. She gasped, her body physically heaving along with her breaths as she tried to answer, but Meredith asked again. "Cristina, where is Derek?"
Cristina dropped to her knees, her mouth agape as she remembered a small snippet of what happened. "He was sucked out of the side when we hit the trees." She gestured with her good hand in an attempt to further emphasize her point. "And then the back of the plane it-it came off!" She grasped her hair, gesturing wildly.
Meredith looked at her with eyes that sent shivers down her spine. Blue, intense, and riddled with psychosis, or so it seemed to Cristina. "Lexie was in the back of the plane."
Cristina barely let her finish before continuing her statement of events. "I-I looked to the back, and all I could see was freakin' sky." She spoke rapidly and seemingly more to herself than Meredith. She looked up to the sky then, gazing at the tree branches shading her from the sun above. She thought that she'd heard…
"Where is she?" Meredith asked again, as if expecting a different answer than Cristina had previously given her.
Cristina snapped her head forward to look at Meredith. "I don't know!" she screamed impatiently. "I only have one shoe!"
Suddenly, Meredith stopped, feeling the back of her head. "I'm bleeding…" she observed, examining her blood-stained hand.
Cristina grew overwhelmed suddenly and lost control of herself. At that moment, she understood what "blind rage" was. For a few seconds in time, she lost sight of who she was, where she was, and why she was there. All she knew was Robbins' relentless screaming from beneath the plane wing had to stop, and it had to stop before her rage got them all killed. "Shut up! Shut up!" She screamed in Arizona's direction. Her face twisted in a way that made her nearly unrecognizable. "Shut UP!" She screamed one last time in an attempt to attain some quiet. Her methods proved effective as Robbins looked in her direction and promptly stopped screaming.
"Do you hear-Do you hear that sound?" Meredith said quietly, looking around for the source. "Where is that sound coming from?"
Both Cristina and Meredith searched their surroundings, but all in vain, as Robbins lifted a pale, weak finger, pointing toward what she knew to be the source. "There," she mustered. "It's coming from over there."
Mark approached them at that moment, looking weak, barely able to stand on his feet. The three able-bodied survivors walked in the direction Robbins had pointed. Meredith screamed for Derek and Lexie, hoping to hear any signs of life from her sister and husband, both of which had yet to be found. The knocking grew louder, guiding them in the right direction. Then they saw it.
The back of the plane had landed a small distance from the main crash site and was splayed all about the area. The largest portion had a…hand? Yes, Cristina recognized that a hand was stretched from below the weight of the massive debris. She almost spoke up, but Mark beat her to it. "Lexie…" he gasped, hurtling toward his love.
Cristina and Meredith followed shortly after, horrified at the site before them. Lexie was trapped beneath the debris and much like Robbins, only her torso was visible. She had retrieved a small piece of metal and proceeded to bang on the exterior of the plane to alert her family that she was trapped.
Mark dropped to his stomach to get a better look at her, using his newfound strength to help her. "Lexie…Lexie," he whispered, feeling for her pulse. She looked at him with glassed-over eyes. Her skin was as white as a sheet, and she had blood seeping through the numerous lacerations on her head. If he hadn't seen her knocking just moments ago on the side of the plane, he would've taken her for dead.
She smiled so faintly, it was difficult to tell if she was smiling or cringing. "I knew you'd show up." Her words slurred as the blood in her mouth began to collect.
"How is she?" Meredith asked, fully alert. This made Cristina relax, as Meredith was not one to externalize her crazy, and she had done so earlier. The fact that Meredith was returning to normal eased Cristina's mind, allowing her to retain focus as well. They had to help Lexie now.
Mark turned around, his hand never leaving Lexie's pulse point, as if she could crash at any moment. "She's awake and responsive," he said, also regaining his focus. "How're you doing in there?" His voice was gentle, his eyes concerned and pained.
"I'm-I'm great," Lexie said, her words short and weak, her breaths rapid, and her eyes wandering up and around, as if it took so much effort to speak that she had to use every part of her body to communicate.
"Yeah?" Mark smiled at her, putting on a brave face as he soothed her worries. "Good girl. We're going to get you out of here, okay?" He neared his face as close as he could to Lexie to let her know he meant it. He would do everything in his power to save her.
"Okay." She simply said, a delirious smile spreading across her bloodstained face. Her eyes continued to roll back and forth, concerning Mark.
Cristina grunted as they stood from the ground. They walked a brief step from the plane to discuss their medical plan. "She's tachycardic and short of breath," Mark said simply, short of breath himself. Cristina nodded, gripping her bad arm, the pain getting harder and harder to ignore as the adrenaline wore off. She was devising a plan in her head to get Lexie out when Meredith spoke up.
"We have to find Derek," she said calmly, refusing to panic. Her self-control was usually next to none. She had to find a way to stay calm, if they were going to make it through this.
Knowing Meredith would be absolutely no help in Lexie's rescue as long as Derek was still missing, Cristina sent her off, assuring her they could handle Lexie. With Meredith gone, Mark spoke urgently to Cristina. "We gotta get her outa there," he said, his words slurring as he held his chest once more. Cristina noticed, but decided to prioritize. When multiple traumas came through the hospital at once, the protocol was to assess each trauma, label them from least critical to most critical, to…fatal, and act accordingly. Of course, in the hospital, there were more than two doctors, and none of them were injured, but this was the situation they were in, and she had to adapt…like Owen would. Owen…Owen would know what to do. God, how she wished he were here. He would have stepped up as the leader; would have assessed each doctor and split them up accordingly so that no one would have to die. No one would have to suffer the consequences of their incompetence. She shook the thought from her mind. Owen wasn't here now, so she had to do what she thought he would do. She had to make him proud.
She squeezed her eyes shut, mustering the strength to say the words she desperately did not want to say. She sucked in a large breath and said it with confidence. "Pop it back in," she said. Make him proud, she thought as she braced herself for the pain. "Pop it back in," she said with a little more fear in her voice. Mark nodded, and approached her, grabbing her by the shoulder. Cristina lost her courage. "Ah, wait, wait, wait…wait." Mark looked up at her, and she looked up at the sky. She braced herself once more, picturing Owen, imagining what he would be telling her. He would soothe her; tell her it was going to hurt, but only for a moment. It would all be over soon. She imagined his voice in her head. You can do this. You can do this, and you can save Lexie. "Okay, do it," she said looking resolutely into Mark's eyes. He nodded and braced himself on her shoulder, straddling his legs to garner more leverage against the ground. He grunted and then…"AHHH," Cristina screamed like a stuck pig as Mark embraced her. She flailed miserably, cursing the day she was born; the moment she got on that plane; the moment she uttered the words "I'm leaving."