A/N: So this is going be to be the last chapter of this story! But since this chapter is too long, I am going to post it as two parts. The following chapter is the PAST, and the next chapter will be PRESENT. I decided I would add a Meredith-Jackson-Cristina conversation in this chapter, as I really love Meredith and Jackson's bonding in season 9's beginning (can't really remember which episode). Thanks for reading and I will be thrilled to see reviews.

Chapter 8 (Part 1)

"Page Dr Meredith Grey for me right now." Cristina marched into the surgical floor of Grey-Sloan Memorial angrily. She headed directly to the closest nursing station and ordered the nurse there fiercely.

The young nurse seemed to be new to the hospital, as she didn't recognize Cristina and is clearly frightened by her. "Ma'am, I am very sorry, but I couldn't page a surgeon for you if you don't have a reason. What can I do for you?"

"Can you speak English? I told you to page Dr Grey for me! Stat! That's what I want you to do for me!' She shouted impatiently. The noise attracted almost everyone in the hall. People stared at them curiously, trying to figure out why is this woman yelling at a nurse. The young nurse's tears started to gather in her eyes, her lips was shivering but she couldn't make any sound.

"What's going on here? Yang?" Hearing the noise, Alex put down the chart he was holding and walked towards that nurse station. He approaches and found out that the angry woman is Cristina.

"Evil spawn! It's great to see you here. Ugh, can't believe I would feel great seeing you."

"Why are you here bullying nurses? Aren't there nurse in Zurich?"

"I got a text from Callie saying that Mer is back. So I hopped on the first plane and got here as soon as I can. While weepy here refused to page Meredith for me!"

"Oh please, you marched in here looking all angry and crazy, who knows what you gonna do when you see Mer? If I don't know you, I would think of you as a shooter. Come on, I will find her with you, let the poor nurse do her work." Alex pulled Cristina's arm while gestured for the nurse to get back to work. Cristina nodded and followed Alex.

As they walk through the hallways, they saw a lot of trauma patients on gurneys or wheelchairs. People are moaning in pain, frightened children are crying and screaming loudly.

"Whoa, what happened? So many traumas!" Cristina asked.

"I don't know, I just got out from a 12 hours surgery. I don't even know it is day or night now." Alex shrugged and replied. He stopped and looked around to see if anyone can answer them. He saw Ben walking towards his direction with a serious face on, so he grabbed him and asked. "Hey Warren, what happened?"

"I don't know exactly, sounds like some tunnel collapsed."

"Okay, alright, thank you. Do you know where Meredith is?"

"Um, Dr Hunt and Dr Webber just assigned her, Pierce, Shepherd and Kepner to the scene, a man was trapped in his car, not good."

"Well, sounds like you are not going to see her in a while. Wanna help?" Alex turned around to talk to Cristina.

"Yeah, of course! Get me some scrubs." She ordered a nurse near her and decided to help. She is gonna wait for Meredith no matter what, wouldn't hurt to help a little.

"Hunt, what do you got?" Alex walked into trauma room 2 to see if Owen needs anything.

"40 year old male being tossed out from his car. He's got an open book fracture and cardiac tamponade with possible C-spine fracture. I paged Ortho, Cardio and Neuro, turns out none of them are free. Could you help me to log roll him? I need to check his back." Owen filled Alex in quickly and asked for his help. Alex then held the patient's neck and rolled him when Owen counts to three.

"You need Cardio? Yang's here. I can page her if you need."

"Cristina? What is she doing here?"

"She knows Mer is back, so she wanted to see if everything's okay, or she just want to kick her ass for disappearing."

"Okay then, um, page Dr. Yang."

A few seconds later, Cristina walked into the room. "You paged me? What do we got?"

"A cardiac tamponade, need a pericardiocentesis."

"I am gonna do an ultra-sound first to see how serious is this. I really miss traumas, gross, bloody trauma." Cristina squeezed a generous amount of jelly onto the man's chest. And she located the probe on the patient's heart. "Not much fluid there, I can handle it here."

She took out a syringe and a spinal needle, finding the landmark on the chest and started to insert the needle into chest cavity. A pager went off suddenly, the nurse nearby checked and said, "Dr Hunt, they need you outside, a severe trauma incoming."

"Okay I am coming, you two can handle here?" Owen looked at Cristina and Alex, asking them to continue their work as he ran to the entrance of the ER.

The patient Cristina and Alex was dealing with stabilized after Cristina did the pericardiocentesis. Callie also arrived to check on the man's fracture. She walked into the room and was surprised by Cristina. The two women hugged each other before continue with their work. The three of them chatted happily when Owen rushed back in, asking for Cristina anxiously.

"What happened?" Cristina disposed her gloves and her gown into a bin nearby and asked.

"Grey and Pierce just came back with a patient. She's got a metal rod sticking through her chest, her heart is basically shredded. Pierce will need another set of hands, I want you to go help her. They are in OR 3."

"Yeah sure, right away."

"What do we got?" Cristina walked into OR 3 as she tie her scrub cap.

"Cristina? Why are you here?" Meredith turned around and was surprised to see her here. Cristina was already annoyed as Meredith didn't return any of her calls in the last year, when she heard Meredith's surprised tone, she was infuriated.

"I am here because someone disappeared a year ago and never returned any of my calls. Where have you been! Why don't you answer my calls?" She yelled angrily.

"I am sorry! But I was kind of…busy, I couldn't handle everything at once!"

"You are busy. Busy doing what?"

"I… Cristina, I was pregnant."

Cristina had imagined thousands of things that may keep Meredith from calling her back, but she certainly didn't come up with the answer "pregnant".

"You what?"

"I found out that I was pregnant on the day of Derek's funeral. I couldn't stand people feeling pity for me or comforting me, and I couldn't bear to live in our dream house when I know… he will never come home. So I took Zola and Bailey and moved to San Diego."

"Why didn't you call me? I am your person!" Cristina is no longer furious, her tone softened and she was sad for her friend.

"I couldn't. I needed time to think what am I gonna do, and I needed time to accept the fact that Derek is dead." Meredith sighed and wiped away a drop of tear on her cheek. Cristina hugged Meredith and closed her eyes. She was a terrible friend. Her best friend just lost the love of her life, and all she could think of is why she is not calling her.

"Um, I hate interrupting, but I really need to start saving this woman now. Can we get back to the surgery first?" Maggie had been quiet since the beginning. She wanted to give them time to talk, but their talking has been going on for too long now, and the patient is running of time. She has to stop them.

"Oh, right. What do you want me to do Dr Pierce?"

"Maggie, just, call me Maggie. Um, I was thinking we should try and repair as much of the heart as we can. Her aorta is completely shredded, and the right atrium is crushed. We will have to replace the heart valves as well as reconstructing her heart chambers. We can put in a graft to replace the aorta. What do you think Dr Yang?" Maggie pointed at the CT and told Cristina her surgical plan.

"That should work. But to play on the safe side, I think we should call UNOS to find a match for our patient, in case the injury is too severe that we couldn't do much."

"Good idea. You, go call UNOS and tell them we have an urgent patient that may needed a heart." Maggie ordered an intern to call for her, while she gathered everyone to begin their surgery.

"It's a beautiful day to save lives." Meredith whispered as she took the scalpel from the kidney dish next to her. Cristina looked at her, suddenly felt an urge to cry. She suddenly remembered that this is the OR where she performed an open heart surgery for Derek with a maniac holding a gun to her head. She never realize that, but Derek is definitely one of the most important person to her in the past 10 years. The sound of the bovie brings Cristina back to the present. She took a deep breath and picked up the saw next to her, focusing on the injured heart in front of her.

Time passed quickly in an OR. It was already the seventh hour of the surgery. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Meredith had already finished her hepatectomy and is closing up. Turns out Cristina and Maggie are great partners, they have already finish repairing the heart chambers and heart valves, and are going to put in a graft. The door of the OR opened, and Jackson came in.

"Hey Meredith, my mom and Webber decided to cancel their huge ceremony in the hotel tonight. Instead they wanted to borrow your place to have a small party, just for us. Are you okay with that?"

"Um, yeah, sure. But they do realize I only have tequila at home right?" Meredith thought about it for a few seconds, and quickly agreed.

"No problem, my mom had hired people to take care of those things."

"Wait, Catherine Avery and Richard Webber are getting married? I wasn't gone for a decade am I? " Cristina exclaimed disbelievingly. She had always know about the relationship between Catherine and Richard, but they getting married is certainly something she didn't see coming.

"Yang? Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be doing clinical trials on babies in Zurich now?" Same with most of the Grey-Sloan staff, Jackson was surprised by Cristina's presence.

"I have told that story too many times now, not going to repeat anymore. Clamps."

"Alright, I can see that you are still the bitchy Cristina Yang. Awesome." Jackson rolled his eyes and stepped towards the door, and something came into his mind suddenly, "Hey Yang, you are coming tonight right?"

"Yeah whatever, if Mer's going I will go too." She doesn't even look up while she mumbles. Jackson smiled reluctantly and left.

Cristina was sitting beside the bar table alone, sipping wine from the glass she was holding. It was a PARTY but all she was doing is sitting alone at a corner. Meredith was dancing with the chief, Alex was flirting with Jo, Owen had disappeared with Amelia… And seems like no one wanted to chat with her.

Someone patted on her shoulder; she turned around and saw that it was Meredith.

"I thought you are dancing with Webber!"

"Yes but that just ended. He have to dance with his bride. Why are you sitting here? Alone? Come on it's a party, go have some fun."

"Nah, no one seems wanted to talk with me. But that's fine, I have wine, and tequila." She shook her glass slightly.

"Tequila! I am going to get some for us. Wait." Meredith hopped off her chair and opened a cupboard. She pulled out two bottles of tequila, pushing them towards Cristina.

The two women cheered and gulped down the liquor. Then they looked at each other and laughed. Both of them had grown from an intern to an outstanding surgeon now, but their crave for tequila is as strong as usual.

"Wow, are you two trying to drunk yourselves on my mother's wedding? Seriously she will go crazy." Jackson with an emptying glass in his hand walked past the women, and found himself amazed by how much alcohol they can handle.

"You are not with April?" Meredith asked, sounded a bit tipsy.

"She… is gone. She left for Jordan again. She said they needed her there. Yeah, like I don't need her here." He grabbed the bottle away from Cristina and took a big sip of it.

"Aw, poor Avery. Come drink with us then, we are all lonely people here." Cristina opened a new bottle of tequila and poured it down her throat.

"I don't understand. We promised to be together for better of for worst. We lost Samuel, that is the worst in our marriage, but she didn't stay. She left me without saying anything. Then she came back, still didn't say anything. And now, she stayed for a month or so and she is back to Jordan." He washed down the tequila and continued, "Seriously, I don't know what I should do. I can't always be the one who fight for our marriage."

"At least she is not dead. My husband died and left three children for me. I am widow Grey now. You are not the most miserable person here." Meredith said as she patted on Jackson's shoulder. Both Cristina and Jackson nodded, agree that she is the saddest person in the room.

"Crap, we all have crappy love lives! " Cristina exclaimed suddenly. She waved the bottle in her hand and said, "Avery has a wife while technically equals to not exist. Mer's husband died and she can say goodbye to orgasms forever. We are so pathetic."

"Says the slutty mistress who of McMarried. Right? McMarried?" Jackson smirked and imitated Cristina's sarcastic tone. He then whispered to Meredith's ears, "She is definitely drunk." Meredith nodded in agreement.

"I am not drunk! Avery."

"Well then stop pretend you are in the Crappy Marriage Club. Cause you are not! You have a perfect love life!" Jackson argued as he took the empty bottle away from Cristina's grip.

"Perfect is shit." Cristina rolled her eyes. She pulled out another bottle of wine and took a sip of it. She cleaned the wine of her face with the back of her hand.

"I thought I am satisfied with being in love. I thought I don't give a damn about him being married. I thought I won't care being the mistress. I thought being loved by him is enough. But now, I am no longer satisfied being his "another woman". I want more. I want every bits of him." She put her hand on her forehead when she confessed her feelings to her friends. The three of them sighed and drank from the bottle in their hands. No one knows what to say exactly; after all emotional stuff wasn't one of the talents owns by a surgeon.

"I am gonna check on the kids." Meredith putted down the bottle in her hands and headed towards the stairs.

"I should call April, right?" Jackson asked Cristina, who nodded obscurely. He hopped off his chair and went to the porch.

Cristina finished the last drop of the liquor in the bottle, and then she whipped her phone out from the clutch beside her. She clicked into facetime and called the first number on her caller's log.

The other side answers quickly.

"Marry me Preston Burke. Marry me."