Meredith pushed the door open to Cristina's apartment, as she'd trained herself so hard to think and Cristina shuffled in after her, her jeans muddied and hair dampened from the rain.
The apartment was dark and empty, much like Cristina felt and she flipped on the light, surveying it, somewhere in her mind wishing that he'd be there, that it was still all a bad dream, but every time she flipped on the light, she opened the door, she opened her eyes, he was still gone, and she was still there.
"I'm going to go shower." She told Meredith quietly, and disappeared from sight, and Meredith laid her head in her hands, tears falling freely from her eyes in Cristina's absence.
She gazed around the apartment, and everything in it. It looked as if Burke were still here.
Cristina compulsively cleaned everything, picked up every journal that Meredith pulled out and put it back in it's rightful place. She washed the dishes, she folded towels, she did laundry. She had become everything that Cristina never was.
Meredith pulled down a pan from the cupboard and her mind flashed back to the first time that Cristina cried, and the tears fell harder as the image of her fallen on the cold ground, doubled over in so much unimaginable pain burned into her memory uninvited.
She wondered if she'd ever see the Cristina she came to love ever again. It had been three weeks, and she'd never seen one faked smile, heard a snarky comment, or seen a single glimpse of her old smart ass self. She knew that she had lost the man she loved, and she knew it must be painful, but she thought that she'd at least have one good day.
One day where the pain was dulled at least a little, and where she could feel something other than bitterness and sorrow.
Today, though, would not be that day.
Mark Sloane saw to that.
She pondered for a moment, what he had said or done to Cristina to make her go in the call room with her, and then she wondered if she'd done it of her own free will.
Meredith decided it was the latter.
When her McDreamy had left her, though he was still very much alive, she felt numb on the insides, and it was about the one-night stands. Anyone who could ease the pain, give her physical pleasure and then go about there business.
Detached sex.
Being detached was easier. There was no mess left behind. No egos wounded, and certainly no broken hearts.
Cristina was simply looking for a temporary cure for her pain, and it became too much before it was ever over.
It only made her pain worse.
Meredith knew in her heart, that this child was the best for her, because if she didn't have the baby, that she'd be alone for the rest of her life.
She'd never be able to love again.