Chapter Text
Despite the events in front of the hospital on that rainy morning, Teddy was still cold– colder than Minnesota had been in winters– and refusing to talk, to even look at her. Cristina guessed that she would just have to learn to live with it. She was stuck here for the next five years, at least.
Days blurred into a month, and she was becoming more accustomed to Teddy walking away, refusing to be in the same room as her every time she could. The stomach never ceased to not clench at the rejection, but she was getting used to it. It also helped that she drowned that hurt in Elaine whom she had developed a half relationship with.
Was it called a relationship when it was simply just an escape, a convenience? It wasn’t subtstantial, either. Cristina settled on calling it a ‘half.’
McQueen, as Cristina found, was still ordinary . But, at least she could convince him to give her solo on the mitral valve replacement. Between dangling an opportunity for him to spend more time with his research, and assuring him that she could do it, she finally had a solo case.
Even if it had been a while since she was on a solo– lately, the only solo she had was giving stitches in the ER– she refused to acknowledge that she was slightly nervous.
The research library, Cristina came to find, was quickly becoming her sanctuary. Book in her lap, a suture kit on the floor, she began visualizing the procedure, recalling the Minnesotan OR.
“What am I seeing about you on a valve replacement without an attending to supervise?”
Cristina nearly dropped the balance of the opened book at Teddy’s barging in. It was the first time they had even been in the same room together. “McQueen’s supervising,” she protested.
“It’s a valve replacement. Open heart surgery. McQueen will do it. You’re off the case.” Teddy folded her arms, leaning against the bookshelf.
“I’m not your resident!”
“No, in case you forgot, I’m Chief of Cardio, and you’re an intern at Seattle Grace,” Teddy fired back without missing a beat.
“It was McQueen’s call,” she said, more hushedly at a fellow intern’s stink eye at her for being loud in a quiet zone. Her words weren’t entirely true, though, but she only did the swaying and the pestering. McQueen just gave her the green light. “I caught the defect. I deserve to do it.”
“Well then, I don’t trust his call. McQueen can consider himself off of this. I’m taking the case.”
“What?”
“You want to do the replacement? Fine, but I’m supervising.”
“I…” she stammered, at a loss of what to say. She didn’t have to come up with anything as Teddy had already pushed herself off the shelf and left the library.
What the hell had just happened?
Her first solo surgery since the shooting– nerve wrecking in its own right– plus, the presence of Teddy looming over her each stitch and clamp?
Cristina wondered what she had ever done to piss the universe off so badly.
—————————— 𖤓 ——————————
Ruthie Carlin laid on the operating table, heavily under anesthesia, as Cristina’s forceps finally retrieved the old valve. Teddy was sitting somewhere behind her with a magazine in hand. Cristina briefly wondered why she would switch with McQueen if all she was going to do was sit and read the Atlantic Monthly.
The monitors roared. Her clamp on the bleeding came off, followed by too much blood.
Dr. Parker, opened chest and bloodied, gun muzzle to the back of her ear.
“Breathe, Cristina,” her therapist said.
Antiseptic. Blood. The sharp scent of a sterile mask.
Ruthie Carlin. Mitral Valve Replacement.
A mitral valve replacement, a procedure that she had assisted many times, had dreamed of performing herself.
Cristina forced herself to focus on the chest cavity, quickly filling up with blood. The clamp wouldn’t hold– but it would be too risky to secure a stitch.
“Dr. Altman,” she turned around hastily, only to see Teddy completely unbothered, flipping through the next page of her magazine.
“Keep going, Yang,” Teddy said, unfazed.
Cristina wondered just how far Teddy’s hatred of her went, how far she would risk this patient. She wanted to yell that if this was because of their history, then Teddy wasn’t being professional about this. “Dr. Altman-”
“What does it tell you?”
That they were about to kill this patient, and face a ten million dollar lawsuit. She barely kept her mouth shut of the retort in favor of the emergency before her.
“That I could clamp, but it wouldn’t hold, or I could stitch and risk exacerbating it,” Cristina said rushedly, directing a suction at the critical area. “And, I don’t know what to do.”
A calm, unbothered “I don’t know either,” was all she got.
So, she stitched. She stitched, and it held. Like a snap of the finger, she regained control again.
Cristina could dance right now.
—————————— 𖤓 ——————————
Teddy released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding when the monitor’s blares stabilized.
Maybe she had bit off more than she could chew, and that this was a miracle– a surgical miracle that Cristina had pulled off.
She could tell herself that she wasn’t going to let that patient get any worse, or that she had utterly complete faith in Cristina but that would be a lie, if she was being truthful to herself.
The monitors signaled Ruthie’s stable vitals steadily. Teddy slinked back to the chair and looked up at the gallery. She saw Grey and Karev at the edges of their seats, a few fresh faces in light blue scrubs with ghostly pale faces whispering among themselves, and Arizona who was looking straight at her with a pointed look.
At least her screw up did not go through.
—————————— 𖤓 ——————————
After calling Grey down to supervise Cristina’s closing, Teddy fled the OR quickly. She found an empty bench in one of the empty hallways and sunk into the cushion wearily.
Arizona was quick to catch up, seating herself next to her. She asked softly, “what happened in there?”
“She’s Cristina. I know her style,” Teddy quickly defended– she knew her style, yes. But, it scared her just how far she was about to take things.
“They were whispering ‘007’ in the gallery, you know.”
Teddy rolled her eyes, defensive. “She needs to be pushed. McQueen’s not going to challenge her.”
“So that is what going on? You had a change of heart?” Arizona probed.
“No. It’s a one time thing. She wants to do the surgery, and I’m teaching her.” Teddy shifted on the uncomfortable mattress, fidgeting with her cleanly trimmed nails.
“By letting her fail and not stepping in?”
“It’s how she learns. She learns by doing.” It sounded weak, even to her own ears.
“Teddy, it’s me.” Arizona’s voice was soft, unjudging. Teddy felt her resolve breaking slightly. “Is that all that was happening in that OR? You teaching your intern?”
Teddy bit her lip and took off her scrub cap, burying her face in it. It served as an answer of its own.
“As your friend, you need to fix this thing with her. You can’t let this into the OR,” Arizona said with a resolute tone, before gently adding, “I know what she’s done to you. I was there when…”
She flinched at the memory of the week following their breakup. Arizona let the unspoken words hang in the air.
“But had the patient not been okay, it would have been your license on the line. She might have the training of a fourth year, but on paper, she’s still an intern. Her status meant more scrutiny.”
“I know. I know. I don't…” Teddy sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I’ll talk to her.”
Arizona patted her knee supportively before leaving Teddy to her thoughts.
—————————— 𖤓 ——————————
She found Cristina on one of the empty gurney in the hallway, focused on the thread and needle on a banana which was bent and folded in a peculiar shape. Clearing her throat, she tugs a stray hair back behind her ear in mental preparation.
Unexpectedly, she was met with enthusiasm.
“Teddy! Oh my god, did you see that?” Cristina exclaimed, bouncing off of the gurney after shoving the grape and medical textbook off her lap.
It was hard to not feel something when she saw sparks in Cristina’s eyes again, or the proud smile adorning her oval face.
“It was like I had air in my lungs for the first time since…” Cristina shook her head in dismissal of that train of thought. “I was on fire! The OR was on fire!”
Teddy hated the guilt slowly setting inside of her stomach. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I should have stepped in when you asked. My intentions weren't pure, and,” she sighed, smiling wryly as she looked at the ground in search of words. “Had the patient not been okay, had you not controlled the bleed when you did, it would have been malpractice. Your career. My license.”
“But I did. I’m trained,” Cristina pointed out. “I’ve seen this done a few times in Minnesota, just not after, you know. I have a license, too.”
“But on the record, you’re…” Teddy trailed off before waving a hand. She knew better than to keep arguing with Cristina when she had her mind set. Cristina didn’t like being told; she was an experiencer. “It was a good save, Cristina,” she paused at seeing Cristina’s genuine smile. “You were good.”
“Thanks,” Cristina said, her voice nearly a surprised whisper.
Teddy’s eyes flicked back to the messy pile of things on the gurney. “What were you doing?”
“What?”
“With the banana,” she clarified.
“Oh, uh, I’m practicing stitches. I don’t want to be caught off guard when something comes up.” Cristina scratches the back of her neck before meeting her eyes.
Picking the abused banana up, Teddy had to admit that it was a creative practice dummy. The skin was folded into a familiar shape. “Is that supposed to be the aorta? A valve?”
“Yeah,” Cristina shrugged. “I just can’t get the suture to look clean yet. Here,” she pointed, “doesn’t allow me an angle yet but this is as anatomically accurate as I’m sure.”
She didn’t even get to pause and think before the words departed her lips.
“Here, I’ll show you.” Teddy moved behind Cristina, settling where she can get a good visual on the dummy heart, which Teddy was trying her best to both not be impressed nor amused by. “Hold your instrument.”
Cristina did, and Teddy covered the lean hands with hers, rotating the wrist to the angle she knew like second nature as the thread went through the banana peel with ease.
It took a second before Teddy realized just how close they were. The PA system was paging some guy in neurology; it finally reminded her of their current relationship, how it wasn’t her and Cristina and their vision to challenge the cardiothoracics surgery field anymore.
Now, they weren’t together. This wasn’t school. Cristina had used her. The things she was so in love with were a lie.
Then, she heard Cristina’s breath hitched– she knew that hitch; she loved it then, she hated it now. It was her flustered hitch, the one that Teddy used to love eliciting.
While familiarity was setting an ugly fire to Teddy’s mind, she tried her best to secure the suture despite her all-too-aware hands on Cristina’s slightly shaky ones.
She could try to pretend that everything was as light as when she approached Cristina on the gurney with a quick apology on her lips. But, the air had shifted, and this was too real. Teddy needed an exit. An escape. A removal of herself from this situation that would haunt her night.
With experienced moves, finishing off the tie didn’t take long. She let go of Cristina’s warm hands less gently than she should have. “There. That’s how you do it.”
“I… Thanks.” Cristina said with a soft tone; she could hear the slight confusion in it.
“Yup,” popping the 'p,' Teddy slowly backed away. She knew that Cristina was staring, most likely taken aback by her quick switch of behavior, but she couldn’t really afford to care. Caring meant even more thoughts, and her own thoughts were threatening to spill all over her mind already.
Navigating herself hurriedly, Teddy found the elevator, her finger jabbing the buttons repeatedly as if it would help accelerate the speed.
Mess. She was a mess. She was messed up.
She pushed back all the messy thoughts, shoving them all inside a box, and took a deep breath. Her palms tingled, but they would pass. The side of her neck and a part of upper torso that felt Cristina’s curls still clung to the nostalgic feeling, but if Teddy could find something else to pour her energy into, she could forget it.
The elevator dinged; the door to the metal box opened, and she was grateful that it was empty. Teddy pressed the floor where the ER was.
A new environment, no matter the size, meant new thoughts.
To avoid dealing with the messy feelings, Teddy should avoid Cristina. It would easily work with Cristina being on McQueen’s service. It was a plan. She just had to stop putting herself in situations like today. She needed to keep sticking to her plan, like she had been doing.
It was a plan.
It was a good plan. A doable plan.
A ding rang out as the elevator door opened, and Teddy slithered through the gaggle of people who were trying to get in. A trauma case would put her mind off of Cristina. She was sticking to her plan.
She had it under control.