4
When he saw the thread of blood under the scalpel, Burke breathed nervously under his surgical mask.
"Good job, O'Malley. Gently move your scalpel down until you touch the aorta." Burke was grateful that Richard stood up for him and let the hospital administration give him a second chance, but he knew his time would soon be up if he could not prove himself to be capable before the next board meeting.
So far, the only thing Burke was confident enough to do was supervising surgeries. Standing behind the surgeon in charge, Burke's hands always moved in unison, as if the hands on the patients' body were his own.
"Now, pull that out from the other side. When you're done with that, you can close her up."
"Yes, Sir." George continued the procedure under Burke's guidance. Things were going so smoothly that Nurse Olivia was beginning to imagine George O'Malley as the new Preston Burke. Of course, anyone with a sound mind would have questioned if syphilis had already gone up to her brain.
At that critical moment, Burke's hand began to tremble. Thanks to George's much improved skills, no one up in the gallery noticed that, except Bailey.
What would have happened if he was the one holding the scalpel today? Baffled by a sense of uselessness, Burke left the OR in silence. Leaning against the wall, he clasped his hand in frustration.
"Dr. Burke." Bailey looked at her attending, placing one hand behind her head to straighten her hair. "You know what they call O'Malley?"
Burke frowned a little. "No."
"007. Licensed to kill."
"I see."
"And now you're leaving him alone in the OR with your patient?" Bailey pressed her fingers on the white surface behind him. "What's it, Preston Xavier Burke?"
Burke glared down at the ground.
"Look, Dr. Burke. I'm not here to play your shrink. If you've got a problem, spill it. Otherwise, you know you have the responsibility to stay in that OR."
"I'm fine, Dr. Bailey. I don't have a problem."
"Well, of course you don't." Bailey nodded forcefully. "You don't have an ear or a nose missing, your limps are still attached to your body." Bailey quickly scanned through Burke. "But you're standing here, looking sorry for yourself. Where's the Dr. Burke I used to know? That cocky, demanding, brilliant surgeon who worked his interns and residents to hell?"
"I'm not sorry for myself." Burke tried to stay calm.
"Yes, you are. Or why are you looking at that hand of yours as if it has caught the plague?"
Burke could not hide his irritation any longer. "My hand was shaking, Dr. Bailey. It was shaking! How can I operate when I can't control my hand?" Burke held his fist so tightly that his nails were beginning to hurt the inside of his palm.
Clearly her throat, Bailey asked, "What did the rehab team say?"
"They said I've recovered." Burke sneered at the thought. "Why then would my hand still shake at important moments?"
The two doctors exchanged looks in absolute silence, until George O'Malley came out looking absolutely proud. "Dr. Burke, I'm done. Is there anything else I can help?"
"Go get your post-op notes done, O'Malley. Then you may go."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Great work, O'Malley." Burke delivered his praise in monotone and was quickly out of sight.
"Hey George, you're good!" Meredith gave him a pat before she grabbed a chair around the cafeteria table.
"Thanks, Mer." George smiled cordially as his hand beneath the table reached for Callie's. It had been 3 months since he moved out and got a new place for himself and his girlfriend. He swore that Meredith was history and it felt good just to be friends.
Throwing a stack of reference books on the table, Cristina joined the crowd, "Did I miss anything?"
"George performed a CABG on his own." Callie smiled, not taking her eyes off him for a second.
"Seriously? You did the whole thing on your own? I would have killed to do that!" Cristina fed herself a spoonful of food.
Everyone went silent.
Cristina took another stab at her salad as she turned a page of her book. "Hey guys, do you know how I can make a girl walk again?"
"What case is that? Is it neurological or psychological?" Meredith tried to sound professional.
"This girl fainted while she's dancing. Everything's fine, but she refuses to walk." Cristina folded her arm. "The Prada devil put me on this boring case. How I wish I were you, Bambi."
"No, you don't." Meredith looked at her friend sympathetically.
"Why?" Cristina wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "There's no surgery I don't want to get my hands dirty with."
"It's supervised by Dr. Burke," George murmured, "Although he left the OR when we're almost done."
"Oh." Cristina feigned a smile and pretended she did not hear the remark. "So back to my patient. How can I make her walk again?"
Nobody had the guts to move their gaze away from their salad. They found it a bigger taboo to talk about Burke in front of Cristina than calling Bailey the Nazi right at her face.
When Cristina sought to take over Callie's dwelling place 3 months ago, nobody dared to ask what happened. Meredith did make a friendly gesture of offering her a room at her mother's house, but it was turned down right away. Apparently, Cristina concealed her disdain towards her friends' relentlessly messy love affairs and the odor of chocolate cupcakes very well by locking herself up in the basement cell.
Emotionally arrested. That was how everyone thought about Cristina.
"C'mon, people. You can't grow another plate of lettuce just by looking at it." Cristina knew what was on their mind, but she pulled it off as the only person who did not seem to care about Burke.
Indeed, as Jackie Ames viciously but rightfully noted, Cristina was not in the position to be concerned. She and Burke were not a couple anymore. Why would one care about someone whom she had not seen or talked to for a quarter of a year?
At the same time, Cristina could not stop wondering why Burke left the OR. She reasoned that if the Chief allowed Burke to work on the surgical floor, it meant he must have fully recovered. And if he did not need her during his recovery, he surely would not need her now that he was fit again.
"Ok, I have to go see my ballerina. Have fun with salad-gazing!" Cristina picked up her books and left, leaving her friends in a state of uncertainty.
"Am I the only person who thinks that Cristina is still in love with Dr. Burke?"
"She's Cristina, George." Frankly, Meredith did not know what to expect from her friend either. All she knew was that Cristina did not deserve to be placed at the center of another round of gossip. The past few months had not been easy, even though Cristina did not show it on her face.