Chapter Eleven: Make Me Scared

I am a person first.

Cristina always hated those movies and TV shows when a line was repeated over and over in a characters head, very obviously for emphasis. It pissed her off.

So she hated the fact that this one line of Burke's was stuck inside of her brain all day. What the hell was he thinking to make him say something like that? What must he think of her?

He had no right to gaze at her for so long like that. When they were at Joe's the night before, he was imagining her face on that dart board, she knew it. So why did he feel the need to keep looking at her? Just looking, nothing else.

And in a rare moment when he was completely unprofessional; he passed her over for Alex to go and collect a heart for Mercy West, he was intent on holding her gaze until the helicopter was out of sight. She wished he'd decided if he was angry at her, or not.

But enough with the looking, already.

She was pissed. As hell. They were adept at keeping their professional and personal lives separate. Well, most of the time. There'd been a couple of slips. When they first started sleeping together, at her request he told her to get a patient's history, to enable her to scrub in on Annie's surgery, the woman with the enormous tumour. And he'd heeded her complaints against the painful cheerleader who temporarily replaced Bailey as their resident. That plagued him afterwards, second guessing a colleague's judgment.

But what pissed her off when he did the opposite of what most people expected. When an intern was sleeping with an attending, there was the natural cynical assumption attached that sexual favours translated into surgical favours.

Not for Preston Burke. When he was mad at his girlfriend, he withheld surgeries. He'd done it twice now. Once, when she wanted in on the surgery of the guy who ended up having a bazooka in his chest, he'd said no (okay, so perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing). Instead, he assigned her to find out from the wife what happened – that was her thing, he said disdainfully. He was just pissed that she'd left without saying anything before he woke up that morning. Only so she could get that headcase, otherwise known as her best friend, out of bed.

Then there was now. Cristina Yang could forget transplant surgery if she fell asleep during sex. She slammed a patient's chart down on the nurses station.

And of all the patients she could be assigned to on a day of multiple gunshot wounds? She got the dysfunctional couple. Neil had ducked behind his fiancée – or ex-fiancee, it was unresolved – to avoid getting shot. Cristina told her firmly to not take him back. She told Cristina she was bitter.

Of course she was bitter! What was happening to her lately? This was her surgical residency. She'd been working towards this most of her life. And instead of focusing on securing the best surgeries, getting as far ahead as she could, she was embroiled in the issues of her fellow interns. And constantly wondering what was going on in her boyfriend's head, and how to make her relationship work.

And she cared. About her boyfriend, her friends, and her patients on a personal level. When the hell did that start happening? And how could she get it to stop?

It was about control again. Everything seemed to boil down to that. How could she get it back?

She thought the chance might come when she heard gunshot wounds outside the hospital. Had Petey come back? Oh god, what a day. Still, she realized, this could mean emergency surgeries…

Her natural instinct kicked in. Swiftly pulling on a surgery gown, she dashed down into the pit. She spotted the chief and dashed over, ready to start groveling. He told her she could run trauma two.

Seriously?!?

Oh, they were going to be so jealous. Especially Alex and Meredith. She was going to run the hell out of trauma two, it wouldn't know what hit it.

She'd got the shooter – he'd turned the gun on himself. Cristina's chest swelled as she ordered them to begin compressions.

"You're running this?" she was asked incredulously.

She grinned, ecstatic to finally have her moment. "You bet I am." This would be the biggest high she'd ever get. She was running on pure adrenaline. And pure skill, of course. She was Cristina Yang, after all.

Through the window, Cristina saw Shepherd stride purposefully into trauma one. She glanced up, curious about the condition of that patient, and wondering if she was getting the best action.

And she saw Burke lying on the bed.

She immediately tasted bile in her mouth. She blinked to clear her vision, as everything seemed to blur. She numbly wondered into the room. Was he dead? No, he wasn't head. His heart monitor showed activity.

"You're shot," she heard herself state evenly.

"Cristina?" he called out, struggling to catch her in his vision. The sound of his voice was terrifying. He was weak, frightened. The Burke she knew was never weak or frightened.

"Are you shot?" she asks incredulously, more loudly. Bailey tried to usher her out of the room, and adrenaline kicked back in. She strode back into trauma one – her domain, where she had the control. She aggressively began compressions. "You do not get off that easily," she told Petey though gritted teeth. Her internal monologue was much more rapid. 'You do NOT get to shoot the best damn cardiothoracic surgeon in the country – screw that, in the world - and die! You don't get to shoot my boyfriend – you hear that, MY boyfriend! I'm the best goddamn intern in Seattle, and I love him. So you don't get out of that, you BASTARD!'

"I want to tell his family I did everything I could to save the rat bastard!" she exclaimed to her doubting colleagues.

Cristina did everything she could, and more. Her ability to run such an operation in that atmosphere was a testament both to her skills, and her utter terror. This terror took hold of her core after Petey was moved upstairs, and she went straight back to trauma 1. She'd processed her initial dread, and went back.

The edges of her vision were still blurry. "My patient's been moved upstairs!" she exclaimed by way of an opener. It was important the chief know she'd done her job. He nodded sympathetically, but Bailey tried to get her out of the room. Her adrenaline kicked up a notch, to desperation. She had to see him – and if Cristina was stubborn and strong willed in a normal situation, she was outright obstinate in that moment. The weakness in Burke's voice when he asked for a moment terrified her again.

She blinked to clear her vision as she stepped up to his bedside. She was a surgeon; she was used to blood. But this was Burke's lifeblood, staining the sheets. It had drained out of him, leaving him a shell of his former self. She could barely recognize the man lying on that gurney.

It was his eyes that haunted her the most. She knew them intimately, better than any other part of him. They threw her curious stares and smoldering glances. They were liquid chocolate when they made love, and dark pools of anger when they fought. When he was in surgery, his entire face was obscured. But not his eyes; she could read his entire expression in his eyes.

But now they were hollow, weak, struggling to focus on her.

She took his hand anyway.

She knew she was ranting, telling him she wasn't mad about him taking Alex, or withholding surgeries…well, not anymore. Oh, she was ranting. When Cristina felt trapped, or uncertain, she did one of two things: she ran, or she ranted. Like when he'd stood there at the door of her apartment, and she'd been exposed. She ranted.

Now, she couldn't run. So she ranted, emphasizing she was there for him. She finally quieted down when she saw him struggling to get something out. She stood as still as she could, somehow fearing what he was about to say. It took a while, but he managed to gasp out "I need…..you to check….on Denny Duquette."

Of all the things to say? But she nodded. "Ok. But that was my best supportive girlfriend act, and you kind of ruined it with medicine."

A shadow of the Burke she recognized stirred within his eyes. Even if he couldn't because of the pain, she knew he wanted to smirk at her for this.