A/N Sorry for the delay guys! I'll update the next chapter in the next couple of days because I was so slack before Christmas  Thanks for the feedback everyone whose still giving it, I really appreciate it.

Chapter Twelve: A Second Too Late

Cristina Yang had a clear memory. An impeccable memory. That's how she topped her class at Stanford. That's how she always knew the answers to the questions asked in rounds, and during surgeries. It didn't just apply to surgery: she remembered details. Birthdays, peoples quirks, every single damn look Burke had every given her. She remembered.

But later, when she looked back over these few days at the hospital, she couldn't distinguish a clear sequence of events. She ran on adrenaline for so many hours, and that until the moment she collapsed against the door in the on-call room, yells of desperation, the beeping of machines and faces just blurred into each other.

When she thought hard, there were two distinctions in the blur. The first was Izzie, as she pumped Denny's heart, begging her to understand that she did love Denny. That was why she had to cut the LVAD. Cristina just met her gaze blankly. Didn't anyone understand that she loved Burke? That was why she was in there: he'd asked her to go. That simple request was even more powerful than the demands of friendship that held her in the room at that moment.

The other clear memory was Bailey telling her Burke was asking her. That released her momentarily from the Izzie Stevens Saga, and she went to his side immediately.

She didn't wait for the elevator. She took the stairs. Two or three at a time, quite a feat for someone as vertically challenged as her. The ghosts of the stairwell surrounded her as she went – him finding her there after Liz Fallon died, him grabbing her and kissing her with a suppressed passion, even as he ordered her to figure out what she wanted.

When she saw him lying there, exposed, the adrenaline began to slow. It came to a dead standstill when he asked her what she thought he should do. She understood in a horrifying second that this was his entire career, the essence of his identity being threatened.

This is what it meant to be needed. When it was difficult to breathe in and out, just to see him lying there. He asked her to do.

He needed her. She needed to breathe.

This was the time to classic Cristina Yang survival instincts kicked in. Age old instincts, that date back to before we as humans emerged from caves. If something is too difficult, to challenging, something deep inside us screams out 'it's too hard! Get out! Save yourself!'

She got out, and went straight to the darkened on call room. This time, the light was off, and she didn't lock the door. She was just grasping wildly at the door, trying to find something to hold onto.

She needed anesthesia in this, and she had nothing. She thought she'd understood what it meant to lose control; she was wrong.

This was loss. This was out of control. She tried to gain some back, but her survival instincts kicked in again when she saw Burke on the table in the O.R, writing and thrashing with pain. How do you watch the man who has turned you inside out, looked over every inch of your imperfections, and chose to stay anyway, writhe with pain?

She hid. She wasn't strong enough for this.

She needed anesthesia. She needed to hang onto something. She wracked the corners of her brain.

She pretended she was studying. She was a scientist, so she came up with a formula. She needed answers for the following:

Why did she keep freezing when Burke needed her?

Why the hell was she helping her fellow interns steal a heart?

When did she start to give a damn?

And, most importantly:

How could she make it stop?

This was far more desperate than a cry of "somebody sedate me!" Burke had been her anesthesia that time. She needed something stronger this time around.

That's when she became fixated with the idea of having lost her edge. Of course! That's what had gone wrong. When she started this internship, she was cutthroat, she was detached, she was by-the-book. She didn't make friends, didn't form attachments, wasn't a hormonal idiot who slept with attendings.

She tried to go and see Burke. She really did. But she only made it to the window of his room.

So she desperately sought an answer for the chief. He wanted to know what had happened with Denny; she wanted to know how to get her edge back. She figured it was a fair trade.

But he wouldn't tell her. He claimed to not want to be responsible for making her less human.

Make me less human! Her mind screamed. If I'm less human, I won't be so desperately craving anesthesia. Something lesser would do. Perhaps she should ask McVet for something, and animal tranquilizer…

She groaned at herself as she paced the halls. She really was losing it.

The nightmare had a way of getting worse. Burke was having tremors. And he offered her a way out of the relationship. Her biggest mistake was the miscommunication between her brain and her mouth. Her brain was screaming supportive words, but they got lost somewhere on her journey to her vocal cords.

Meredith found her by the coffee cart. Her face was blank. She purchased a coffee, and silently leant against the railing with Cristina. She glanced over at her friend.

"You first." Cristina sipped her coffee.

"My mother had an affair with the Chief. She left my Dad for him, but he wouldn't leave his wife. My dog's dying. Derek's giving me looks. Izzie's a freaking headcase."

"Burke told me he wouldn't bear a grudge if I had to leave him. I didn't answer. I am a freaking headcase."

Meredith slipped an arm around her shoulders. "This time, you win."

"Funny how quickly everything can change, huh?"

Meredith sighed, and nodded. "Yeah. Well, I have to go put Doc down, then get changed for the prom."

Cristina was scared in their apartment, without Burke. His absence was so glaringly obvious, and she didn't know how to fill it. She left the lights off. She got changed in the dark.

She quickly stepped into the bathroom before leaving. She reached for his aftershave, and unscrewed the lid. Lifting it to her nostrils, she allowed the scent to waft into her brain. She slowly lowered her hand, screwed the lid back on, and placed it back by the basin.

She dropped to the bathroom floor and cried. For the second time in five years.

Then she went to the prom.