The sun shone brightly through the tightened blinds of their bedroom, piercing Cristina's deep sleep.
Her hand flew over to Burke's side of the bed and found it empty.
He had already left for the hospital without disturbing her.
She slid from the bed and walked into the living room to find a small note next to the coffee pot in his meticulously perfect handwriting.
"C-
I'll be back around 5 tonight. Call me if you need me.
I love you.
-B"
She let a small smile spread across her lips at the written I love you, and felt ashamed that saying it did not come as easily to her as it did to him.
She sat the note back down and walked into the bathroom to shower. She pulled away her pajama top and pants and stood in front of the mirror naked, examining the damage that the accident had left behind, never truly seeing it before.
She traced a dark pink scar down her sternum starting just below her mid-clavicular notch all the way down past where her Xiphoid process would've been.
Another scar marred her porcelain skin on the right side, a smaller one, maybe only an inch, and it was more faded, where the chest tube had been, then her hands drifted up to the back of her neck, where at least 5 inches of hair was missing on one side, on the underside of her thick mane from having two surgeries, as well as a spot that had soft fine short hairs where Shepard had shaved it away.
Her hand dropped to the small incision that lay across her abdomen, now nearly white and invisible unless one knew it was there. The skin was soft and shinier than the rest, and her fingers felt odd running over it, as she'd lost some of the nerve tissue in the area.
She turned on the shower, letting the water steam as she pulled at her hair with a hairbrush, trying to straighten out the mess of black curls that she was known for.
Her eyes were soft as she watched herself in the mirror, going through the motions of going back to normal, but she did not feel it.
The person in the mirror was not Cristina Yang.
The person in the mirror was weak, feeble, vulnerable, dependent. This person in the mirror couldn't be her.
She stepped into the shower, everything feeling surreal as she let the hot water trickle down her face and chest, reaching for her cherry and almond shampoo to wash her hair.
Her mind wandered to the papers on the table as she showered, thinking about her options.
She had sutured the banana last night, and she could remember the movements this morning.
Why did she have to resign to being a cardiologist.
Granted, the reverse stitch was only one of many, and it certainly wasn't a running whipstitch but that didn't mean that she couldn't learn them again.
She stopped for a moment, dropping the bath pouf to the floor of the shower.
It would take her at least a year to pick up the muscle memory again to do those stitches.
Her mind wandered back and forth between the possibilities over and over again as she dressed and stood in front of the mirror once again to pull her hair back from her face, only to realize that the missing hair was quite obvious once she pulled it back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck as a large chunk wouldn't even go into the clip.
She threw the clip at the wall in anger, sending it into two pieces and leaned against the cabinet.
Everything was different.
Unrecognizable.
She finally understood why Burke was so different, why he was so irritable and depressed after he was shot.
Why she couldn't get through to him.
She let out a long exhale and left the bathroom, grabbing for her bag and running out the door of the apartment.
She was not going to fight the motion of the ocean today, rather she was going to go with the current.
She pondered for a moment if she should call him before leaving the apartment, then shook her head at herself.
"You're only dependent if you want to be." she mumbled, and left the apartment.
The wind was bitter against her face as she walked quietly down the street towards her destination. She should've at least dried her hair before leaving, she thought errantly as she arrived at the small shop she'd seen a million times on her way to work.
She pulled the door open and was overwhelmed with the smell of hair dyes and perms, shampoos and fingernail polishes.
A plump woman behind the register with much too much make up on flashed a fake smile at her, "Can I help you, ma'am?"
"Don't call me ma'am." she replied quickly, then pressed her lips together, "Sorry. I just want to get my haircut...and I don't want to talk about it."
The woman looked as if she'd been smacked, but nodded curtly, "Follow me."
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Burke walked into the darkened apartment, and glanced at his watch. It was 3 in the afternoon, she should've been awake by now.
His chest tightened and his heart rate increased as he approached the bedroom, afraid of what he might find.
A million possibilities raced through his mind as he pushed the door open. She could've had a PE, or another DVT, or an SVT.
She'd had so many complications in the hospital.
But the bed was empty.
He felt relief, but at the same time he felt angered as he searched their small apartment for any sign of her, and he looked to the counter.
There was no note.
He picked up the phone, his hands trembling as he dialed her phone number, but when he heard a ring coming from the bureau behind him, he calmly placed the phone on the counter letting out a deep exhale.
She'd been so much, he wasn't ready for her to be independent yet.
But he had to accept that his Cristina was his free spirit, it just wasn't always easy.
He took a seat on the couch, and placed his head in his hands, gently massaging his temples, trying to relieve the stress that was quickly surmounting in his body.
Moments later she appeared in the doorway, a couple of shopping bags in her hands, and a look of surprise on her face, "I thought you weren't coming home until 5."
"I got done early." he mumbled, not looking up at her.
"I'm sorry...I just went to go do some things." she mumbled, dropping a large bag from the local bookstore on the floor next to the counter.
He looked up to her to see that her long black curls were absent from her shoulders, he stood to meet her, and laid his hand against the back of her head.
She'd cut her hair shorter, so it fell just above her chin, the curls were still there, but the wild appearance they once gave was tamed.
"I tried to pull it back today, but Shepard isn't a very good hairdresser." she tried to joke. "So I got it cut."
He ran his fingers through it, but there wasn't much to run his fingers through, "It's nice." he mumbled, feeling as though a part of her was missing.
"Yeah." she sighed, letting herself lean against him for just a moment, then pulling away.
She picked the bag up from the ground slowly, her body aching from pushing herself too hard and placed it on the table, "I got a bunch of books today at the bookstore so that I could try to work on my sutures...I was thinking maybe when you go back to work next week that you could maybe pick up some suture packets and stuff for me."
"Cristina.", he started, his heart heavy with the news that the Chief had delivered to him today, "It's been too long since you've been out of the program."
She dropped a book lightly on the table, "Too long? What do you mean too long? I was in the hospital."
The dread in her heart grew, she knew what the contract was that she'd signed.
She knew the stipulations like she knew the back of her hand.
"You'd have to reapply to the internship program, and it'd be at least another 13 months before you could get back into the program..."
"This book is amazing." she started, trying to brush his comment from the back of her mind, "I think I could pick up on how to do all these sutures again in like, 2 weeks if you brought me the stuff."
"Cristina."
"And y'know, maybe I could talk to the Chief and he'd let me come back if I could prove myself...maybe just work in the pit doing sutures for a while."
"What about the 48 hour shifts?" he argued, "Do you think you're ready to handle 48 hour shifts after what your body has been through?"
She dropped another book to the table, a little harder this time. "There's got to be something that he can do. I'm the best intern he has."
"Had." Burke corrected her.
She dropped one more book to the table, causing the delicate glass top to break, a large chunk of it falling to the ground and shattering into a thousand pieces at her feet along with her newly purchased books.
"I'm not settling." she replied, her voice even and strong.
Burke was without words as he watched her, the resolve in her voice, in her will inhumanly strong.
"You expect me to believe that you're going to go 13 months without working?" he questioned her, his eyes falling to the glass shattered at her feet.
"I'll be working the entire time." she assured him, stooping gingerly to pick up the books.
He let out a long exhale as he watched her picking up the book, then brace her side, a grimace on her face, then he lowered himself to help her with the books, setting them on the counter, then helping her to her feet.
"Go sit down, I'll clean this up. You've done too much today."
She stood there, pushing a short curl from her face, "You have to stand by me, Burke."
His hands came to rest on her upper arms, his eyes connecting with her, "I would never leave your side, Cristina...but this won't be easy. For either of us."
She kissed him lightly and smiled at him with her eyes, "Since when have I ever done easy?"