Amelia had seen Cristina more than a few times during the days that followed.
In fact, she seemed to be everywhere. In Owen's room. At Meredith's house. In the cafeteria, even in the OR.
Amelia wondered how many more surgeries till she had to do one with her.
With her luck, she might as well just schedule it.
It wasn't Cristina, not really. It was how badly she reminded Amelia she didn't belong here, with these people.
She's never been one to cry over not feeling at home. Then again, she always seemed to take off when something was going wrong.
Not this time, though.
This time, she was going to fight for it.
If she could, of course.
Right now, the only other person in the whole hospital unaffected by Cristina's return was Maggie.
But she was in surgery, leaving Amelia alone with her depressing thoughts. Since when had she become so melodramatic anyway?
She used to be fun.

It was a while later that Amelia was paged for a consult. She figured it was a brain tumor in less than 2 minutes, which, to be fair, had to be some kind of record.
The only problem was with how big the tumor was.
It was literally borderline between operable and inoperable, and that was coming from her.
She closed her eyes, after she saw the scans.
There was a patient with a probably inoperable tumor sitting in front of her, that was the logical point of view.
But she was hardly ever logical and rational.
And the patient was a ten year old boy with a smile so big, it broke her heart every time she saw it.
"Alright." She started, as she made her way into the room. The two parents turned their heads as soon as they heard her voice.
The mother spoke before Amelia could say anything more:
"It's an inoperable tumor. I know, we've been told that. But we've also read about the miracles you've preformed." Her voice was breaking slightly. "Dr. Shepherd, you are our last chance."
Amelia was already willing to do the surgery, but now... Now she knew she had to do it as quick and as perfect as she could.
She nodded, before speaking herself.
"I'm going to do the surgery. Today, actually. But I need you to know all the possible consequences."
The father spoke this time:
"We know them all. Permanent loss of eye sight. Loss of functioning in legs or arms... Death. We've heard them."
It hurt her tremendously to hear those two people know the possibilities of how an operation could go wrong by heart.
But they weren't the first, and everyone knew they wouldn't be the last.
The little boy's tumor was quite like Herman's in both size and position, which eased the operation, slightly.
But it also meant the surgery was going to be a damn difficult one.

"Amelia, you're exposing yourself again."
This time, she didn't waste time using the second pair of gloves. She was doing it better, quicker that way.
"I'll be done faster this way."
"You're not doing anyone a favor." Edwards was insisting, which was pissing Amelia off.
"Edwards. In my OR and you agree to my methods or out."
The resident stayed without further complaints. Still, Amelia could feel her eyes on her.
She herself felt slightly wary about the situation, as well. After all, a few glasses weren't what made a person drunk. It was a few bottles.
The tumor was harder to get than she had expected.
Deeper, closer to everything vital.
One wrong move and everything could go to hell. On the other hand, moving too slow meant endangering both her and the boy on the table.
She breathed in, trying to regain her focus.
She had done this once before, and she had managed just fine. The only thing was, she couldn't let a little kid sightless. Nor could she let him without function in his legs or arms.
He had his whole life ahead of him, had yet to make any mistake.
So why, just why did the universe found it amusing to torture him like that?
Put an almost inoperable tumor in that innocent brain of his.
Sure, do that. What could possibly be wrong about that?
"Doctor Shepherd!"
"Yes!"
Amelia stopped, brought back by Edwards's distressed voice.
"You haven't moved in two minutes. Time is running out." The resident informed her.
Time was running out, it had been too long for her to be exposed to radiation.
Now or never, she thought. Either she gave this kid a life, or she took it from him.

Her whole body felt numb to the outside world.
She could feel sweat dripping off her face, could see the tears falling in the sink. She didn't dare to look up in the mirror.
She already knew what she would find: a broken person. A red face from the effort. Puffy eyes from the crying. An empty look from the sadness she was trying to conceal.
Amelia was at least grateful there was no one else in the room.
Maybe she could just disappear, like a teardrop down the sink. Go low, low, lower until you got mixed with everything else and no one could guess your contour any longer.
Or maybe, she could go even lower than that. Just reach for the very bottom, dug herself a hole and then, stay there.
It sounded so simple, so perfectly peaceful.
So much better than having to walk out of that safe room, into the hallways, parading your failure. Pretending you didn't just murder a ten year old. Sure, it was a scalpel, and sure she had lost many patients before but...
But he was just so much like how she had imagined her baby.
Someone walked in the bathroom, but Amelia didn't bother to look up. She had no interest whatsoever to give this hospital another reason for gossip.
But what she heard, instead, stopped her heart.
"He's awake."
Two words.
Two words and her heart wasn't working anymore, neither were her lungs nor her brain.
She wasn't Amelia Shepherd anymore. She was just death.
And then, she was more alive than she had ever been in her entire life. And she was running frantically, slipping with every turn she took and bumping into people more often than not.
But she couldn't find it in herself to care.
She was mad, utterly crazy.
And she was in love.
As soon as she saw his room, she suddenly slowed down.
It wasn't only her legs, it was her whole body. Suddenly, her brain was working again, screaming at her for imagining she had any right to burst in.
And just as suddenly, she could breath again, though hard. She sounded as if she was suffocating.
Maybe she was.
Still, she dared to look into his room again, trying her hardest not to be noticed.
She wasn't.
Instead, she saw Cristina sitting right next to him, both laughing like old friends. His laugh echoed in her ears, such a beautiful noise that she had missed so terribly much.
For a second, she considered turning around and just leaving them be. That's when she felt someone else's presence next to her. A moment later, Amelia was basically thrown into the room by Meredith, forced to meet his eyes as he looked up.
And he looked at her.
It made her feel as if she was floating through the air, as if she was some stupid teenager.
Oh, and those eyes.
She hadn't seen those eyes in so long, the blue to them.
The gray.
There was something else in them, but she couldn't quite pinpoint it.
But it didn't matter.
He was looking at her, with life radiating through him and for a moment, everything else had disappeared.
"Amelia." His voice was slightly rasped, although she guessed it couldn't have been any other way.
At the sound of her own name, she made a few tentative steps.
"Hey." She greeted him, as if they were only two colleagues who hadn't seen each other in a few days.
He chuckled, making her heart tighten in her chest.
What was it about him that drove her completely insane?
"I think I'm gonna go." Cristina suddenly said, already getting up.
Her figure was perfectly composed, though Amelia guessed she always looked like that.
"Go out of here, or back to Switzerland?" Owen asked her, his voice staying neutral.
"Both." She answered, before throwing him a smile.
Amelia tried to find one other time she had seem her smile, but failed to.
Owen only nodded, as he watched Cristina walk away.
It wasn't until she was out of sight that Amelia dared to move closer to him.
"She's quite something." She tried to joke.
She watched as Owen raised his eyebrows, while laughing lightly. "That's an... understatement."
And then, he looked at her, truly took her in, like he had done only minutes before.
"Are you jealous?" He asked her, suddenly, a shy smirk playing on his lips.
"What?" Amelia tried to laugh it off.

When she was six, her mother had tried to make her take up acting courses. She regretted not listening to her at that moment.
"Amelia, I have spent my last few days in a comma. I'm not big on wasting time right now." When she didn't say anything, he went on, trying to lighten the mood. "Although it would probably pass in a few weeks."
"And if I was jealous?" She bursted. "Would that make me pathetic or just bipolar in your eyes?" She spoke bitterly, but didn't wait for the reply.
Instead, she took off, for whatever reason searching for Cristina Yang.

"You know he loves you."
Amelia had found Cristina in the parking lot, chatting with Meredith while she waited for a cab. It was Cristina who had asked Meredith to give her and Amelia a moment to talk, to both the other's surprise. And now she was talking to her.
Her sentences were spoken as if they were undeniable facts, although Amelia could enumerate a thousand motives of why this one at least surely wasn't.
"I doubt-" Amelia tried, but she was cut off.
"Don't. He does."
For a second, there was silence. In the parking lot of a busy hospital, there was silence.
And then, there was a horn that broke the peacefulness and with that, Cristina Yang was off, like a hurricane that had hit a town and then disappeared.

I'm gonna have to cut this story short and stop here. I truly thought I could write a multichapter while balancing everything else that I'm doing, but turns out, I can't.

I'm truly sorry, and I hope you find it it yourself to forgive me.

As a person who also reads fanfics, I know how horrible it is for a story to end sooner than planned.

So, I'm really, really sorry.