Cristina:

The sixteenth was getting closer. The day this nightmare would end. She'd have the fetus evacuated, and then life would return to normal. She would again arrive at the hospital at 4am to steal all the good charts. She'd discover a medical miracle, and would be in all the journals as the intern who saved the day. She'd one up all the other interns – including Meredith. Friendship didn't have a place in the pragmatic mind of Cristina. She'd be known from wall to wall and floor to floor as the best damn intern in the hospital. She'd be Chief resident one day, and then would sail through her fellowship by pioneering her own new surgical methods. So, there was the Grey Method? Why just the singular. She would be better than Ellis Grey. There'd be 500 Yang methods. Stanford would run a course for the entirety of their med program studying each of these methods. Because she was just that good.

And somewhere in there, somehow, she'd detach herself from Burke. That was surely the only way forward

This was the plan. So why was everyone so determined to mess with it? Why did Burke decide now was a good time to ask her out?

On a date? Was he serious? Dates were for people who were getting to know each other, who were considering a relationship. Cristina didn't want anything from Burke except an occasional screaming orgasm.

Then Meredith decided to get pissy with her for not telling her that Burke was the father. How did she know that?

George saw them in the stairwell. Oh, that. Shit

In the midst of imagining the way Bambi could die (the slow, debilitating death of syphilis wasn't good enough for him), she allowed her mind to revisit that moment in the stairwell…

She'd been banging up the stairs, and threw a careless "hey" in his direction. Despite everything, she figured a greeting was a given, due to the countless times they'd seen each other naked. From several angles.

He just shook his head and continued past her. What, he didn't talk to her now he was Chief? And he was mad at her?

"You don't want to go out to dinner! You won't meet me in the on-call room, and you sure as hell don't want to talk to me."

She met his eyes and gaped at what she saw there. He was hurt. The untouchable Preston Burke was hurt by her.

He was hurt by her and yelled at her and kissed her in a way that was just as erotic as when he took her against the door of the on-call room.

Why couldn't everyone just follow the plan?

The worst flaw in the plan was the turmoil she felt within herself. She wanted to be emotionless and detached about this abortion. She wanted to stop dashing into patients rooms and vomiting. She wanted to stop caring about things. She wanted to stop considering the fact that if Burke was hurt she wouldn't go on a date with him, he sure as hell would care that she was pregnant with his child and was about to abort it, all without his knowledge.

She strode out to the vending machines, groaning. After emptying the contents of stomach into the toilet in Joe's room, she needed to put something else in there. She had the unfortunate luck of running into Alex by them. "Hey, Yang. Who'd you have to screw to get into that standstill surgery, huh?"

"The guy we've all hired to kill you."

"Someone's pissy."

"You have that natural influence on people, evil spawn." She gave the vending machine a kick. Why wouldn't it deliver her damn peanuts?

"Take the stick out of your ass and chill, Yang. It'd do wonders for you."

Why was it Alex's advice that was bouncing of the walls of her skull during Joe's surgery? She stood there, just watching Burke. He was in control of this O.R. He was the one everyone would look to when things began to get tense, when Shepherd took too long. But he was calm, and collected, and in control. He was hurt by an intern who wouldn't date him, but he was still interim Chief, and a brilliant surgeon.

Maybe Cristina could relax her plan. Just a little. Going out for a bite to eat was just sitting opposite him while they shoved food in their mouths, right? They'd done it plenty of times side-by-side in the on-call room.

There's nothing like killing a man and bringing him back to life to push you forwards.

As she approached the on-call room, she was excited. And not just because of the divine thrill of that surgery. Because a possible date with Preston Burke awaited her.

And god, who knows? Maybe even the chance to halve this burden.

She left that on-call room in a confused flurry. What the hell had just happened?

She blinked. Once. Twice. Then she went to find Meredith. They had some major drinking to do that night.

Meredith moaned and bitched about her philandering married boss. Fair enough. Cristina poured vodka down her throat as she considered how calculated and manipulating her hot arrogant boss was. He'd lowered her defenses, all right. He'd gotten into her scrubs, into her mind, even into her feelings. Then he dumped her. He dumped her. There was something very wrong with this picture.

And whether the problem was estrogen or penises or pregnant women who cared, the fact still remained that she'd lost something that night. And she was beginning to wonder how she felt about losing one more thing, the last piece of him she still carried around with her.

A/N We're getting near the end. This will end when 'coupledom' begins officially. But thank you so much for all my readers and reviews, I hope this is still fun for you!