Derek Shepherd looked up from the chart and found Cristina Yang standing in front of him and his blood ran cold.
He had requested her with the very intention of trying in some vain sort of way to make it up to her that the love of her life was gone. But as she came into his view, there were no words, he couldn't find the right thing to say to her.
What was he going to do? Promise her numerous surgeries?
Like cutting was going to cure the void that Preston Burke had left in her life? Like the sigh of blood and brains was going to heal the permanent wound in her heart.
He mentally cursed himself for thinking of such ridiculous things.
Preston Burke would never be replaced by surgeries, and Cristina Yang would never be cured from her pain by cutting.
She appeared before him while he was lost in thought and he looked up from the chart that he prepared to be buried in, "Cristina.." He breathed her name, fighting for oxygen. Fighting for the words.
"Please do not address me by my first name, Dr. Shepherd, it's not professional." Her reply was icy, exacted and precise in it's delivery. Her gaze cut through him, sharper than a 10 blade and he immediately began to regret his decision to request her for the day.
"Dr. Yang. We have a busy board today, you'll be scrubbing in on everything, of course. I need you to got work up room 4815 for an aneurysm repair, and meet me in the OR in 15 minutes." He tried to be professional, but he couldn't hide the pain and concern in his eyes.
Cristina watched as the man walked away from her, and the nausea intensified in her stomach and she ran for the bathroom, unable to choke down the acid burning away at her esophagus any longer.
She huddled over the toilet, her hair falling around her face as she vomited bile and coffee, her eyes watering heavily. She fought the reflex as hard as she could, but it kept coming, and she remained over the toilet for a period of time, heaving and crying.
Was it the emptiness and the being in the hospital that caused the tears or the pain in her abdomen from heaving that was making her cry? She did not know for sure, but she preferred to think it was the latter.
When her body finally relented she stumbled back against the wall, her mouth soured from the taste of vomit and she wiped angrily at her eyes.
She would not succumb to weakness.
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Derek watched from a darkened corner of the nurse's station as she exited the bathroom and went to the water fountain, rinsing out her mouth.
He had played over the events in his head, time and time again since the very moment that Burke had died.
She was so dedicated to him.
He remembered vividly the look in her eyes as he and Burke got on the elevator, the fierce determination in her eyes as she followed them into the exam room, questioning him regarding the facts about the surgery as Burke remained menacingly silent.
In his mind, that is when he knew for sure that Cristina was committed to that relationship, that's when Cristina Yang quit being Cristina Yang and started being Burke's girlfriend.
And he destroyed that.
But she was not living.
He brought his fist to his mouth, cursing himself for thinking of such things, for getting himself so worked up before surgery, but the very sight of this woman now was frightening to him.
She was not Cristina Yang.
She was not Burke's girlfriend.
She was a stranger, she was a ghost of a woman that used to be strong and fierce. A woman that used to be a force to be reckoned with. Her radiant skin had paled, and she'd lost weight, no doubt from eating barely anything, even her wild black tresses seemed to hang lifelessly from her head.
Not only was Burke's blood on his hands, but Cristina's was as well, only her heart was still beating. She was still breathing.
But she would never be the same.
And the blood was on his hands.