Author: BNScrubNurse

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Life happens in moments. Some moments we spend our entire lives waiting for- birthdays, graduations, weddings. We spend our life living for those moments, waiting for those moments. The moments we have planned. Most moments though, are the ones that we didn't plan- the ones that we never saw coming. It's those moments that leave us breathless with an ache in our heart and tears in our eyes and asking ourselves what the hell we're supposed to do now.

It's funny, the things that a person notices in a hospital room when they're on the other side of it. The neon green line on the monitor rose slightly as sterile air was forced into a partially collapsed lung and fell again. The eroded edge of an electrode seemed to free itself from a patch of badly bruised skin with each harsh breath. A red glow emitted from a swollen finger that could be likened to a sausage rather than a human digit. Yellow fluid seeped through pristine white gauze, leaving an ugly ring, yet another ugly reminder that the patient was falling apart.

Owen wondered how many more times they could put him together before he finally fell apart for good.

Rubbing his hands over his face, he heaved a great sigh. His elbows came to rest at his knees and he hunched over, trying to gather his thoughts. It had been a long time since Owen had tried to convince himself that positive thinking alone could get anybody through a tough time. That combined with medicine could save a life, no matter how dire the situation.

That was what he'd believed before- and maybe he was there. Maybe he was almost there, so close that he could taste it, so close that he could feel what freedom was again. He could almost breathe again.

The thinking should be there.

He should be believing that O'Malley could pull through this rather than wondering how long it would be before the inevitable came.

Slowly, his eyes trailed to the motionless figure in front of him- an unrecognizable version of his newfound protégé- up to the clock. Cristina would certainly be off shift by now. He wondered if she'd heard about George, that his life was in such a balance.

Owen knew that Cristina didn't care much for him, but he knew the bond between the five interns. It wasn't unlike that of a unit in the army- tough, loyal, always facing the unknown. They didn't always care for each other and sometimes it almost unbearable to be crammed into the same space for days at a time- but they were family. No matter what, they fought for their family.

Again, Owen reached up to rub his eyes. He felt his mind being pulled in a million different directions and he knew that it was worry mixed with a unhealthy serving of exhaustion. At some point, he would have to leave O'Malley and get some rest.

He just couldn't.

Not yet.

His eyes darted around the room again and he sought out anything to keep him awake, to keep his mind going. As if on cue, they found Cristina, standing just outside the sliding glass door to the tiny room he'd exiled himself too.

Her expression was one that he'd never seen before.

Cristina stood motionless, her arms wrapped around her petite frame, ceil scrubs bunched at her waist. Her eyes were empty, darkness surrounded by red rims. The lips that he loved so much were turned downward- not in a scowl or a look of discontentment, but- he couldn't place the word. It wasn't even a frown.

She almost looked as if she had lost all hope, defeated.

Owen couldn't imagine Cristina Yang ever being defeated, but he was pretty sure that he was seeing it.

When she stepped inside, he could see sadness weighing down her shoulders and bending her normally proud posture. She cleared her throat a little, looking at the monitors. "George?" She asked, her voice wavering.

He gave a slight nod, unmoving.

Cristina looked at the figure on the bed, trying to see some semblance of her colleague but she couldn't find one. He was wrecked. The next thing she sought out in the room was the monitor, followed by the multiple medications hanging at his side and then the ventilator. Her mind was whirring, analyzing each number and then matching it against the other newly obtained information.

She could diagnose him without asking a word.

The prognosis was not good.

"He's a fighter." Owen finally said, drawing her eyes to meet his. "O'Malley is. It looks bad, but he can do this. He's already done a lot today."

Her lips parted to answer, but then she pressed them closed again. The answer she had was one that shouldn't be said aloud. Especially not today of all days, not after everything that had happened. Instead, she walked across the room and sunk into the chair next to Owen. Keeping her eyes fixated on George, she felt the precarious grip on her emotions slipping away, the last piece of her control shattering and fading away.

Tears were not shed, and there were no stifled sobs. Instead, Cristina's moved from the middle of her lap slowly until it was on his, finding his hand. She wove her fingers with his, held tightly as if she could somehow siphon strength from him. Her airway constricted slightly and she looked down, clearing her throat again.

Owen knew exactly what she needed to hear. "He's acidotic. His pH was 7.19, bicarb was in the toilet. They're doing normal saline with 2 amps of bicarb and running it in at 175 an hour. Despite all of the crush injuries, his kidneys seem to be in working fashion. His hourly output is amazing all things considered. His renal function should be failing, should have failed by now."

"The labs are within normal limits?" Cristina uttered quietly, looking again at the drips. She knew that he was acidotic by the bicarb, but talking about it was easier than thinking the things she was. "He's hypotensive."

He nodded, "On levophed and neosynephrine. They tried dopamine at first, but he was already tachycardic-"

"Which launched him into a tachyarrhythmia. Probably V-tach, judging by the lidocaine drip and the amiodarone." Cristina finished, nodding towards another set of IV pumps. "Dual central lines?"

"There wasn't much of a choice. Too many incompatible medications and the road rash on his arms make it difficult to keep a bioocclusive dressing in place over a peripheral site with the continuous oozing."

Cristina nodded again, "The nurses better do proper dressing changes on those lines. If he ends up septic because of a line infection, it will be their asses."

Owen squeezed her hand gently, "Cristina. If he ends up septic it will have nothing to do with the lines."

She knew it, but it was easier to blame it on incompetent nurses rather than reality. Reality was too hard today. Closing her eyes she let out a deep breath, but it didn't seem to relieve the pressure in her chest at all.

"It's a lot to take in. Seeing your friends like this." He murmured, looking at her. Owen wanted her to know that he understood.

"It's a lot to take in when your friends die." She answered back in a voice just above a whisper. Cristina was pretty sure that George couldn't hear them, but in case he could she didn't want to say anything too loudly.

"He's not dead yet, Cristina. Don't give up on him yet." Owen chided softly.

The realization struck her in that moment that Owen didn't know. He'd been in the room all day with O'Malley and he had no clue. She shook her head slightly, a pathetic laugh coming from her lips. Because she didn't have to deliver the bad news to enough people, she had to tell him too.

Cristina had to tell him that they had already lost one of their own. That George wasn't going to be the first casualty of the day that Seattle Grace had suffered.

It's not like he cared about Izzie- like they were best friends. To Owen, Izzie's story was little more than a tragedy that had hit far too close to home. It's the bittersweet story that brings a tear to everybody's eye.

She was still a colleague though.

"I know that he isn't." She finally spoke, her voice low. "I was talking about Izzie."

Saying her name felt like a million needles in her mouth, scraping at flesh and tearing tissue away. It burned and ached and caused bile to rise up in the back of her throat and eat away at whatever was left of her. Cristina could still feel the pressure of Izzie's ribs cracking beneath her palms with each compression, feel her body growing colder.

The image of Izzie's lifeless eyes would forever be ingrained in her memory.

Owen didn't need to clarify, he could see the answers in her eyes. Letting go of her hand, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. It did not go unnoticed by him that her body wasn't shaking and that there were no tears- he knew now that the expression etched into her beautiful face was because she'd been crying.

There were no tears left.

"You should go home," He murmured into her hair, his hand stroking her back gently. "You need to rest. It's been a long day."

She shook her head against his chest, turning so that she could look at the monitors again. "I don't want to go anywhere. Not right now."

With a slight nod, he let his arms slide from around her body and resumed holding her hand. "We can sit with him. Make sure he stays where he is."

Her answer was a hollow agreement, but he knew it was probably better than any alternatives. If the things that had been said of Meredith were true, he preferred that Cristina were here with him rather than drowning her sorrows in a bottle of liquor with her friends.

Alcohol wasn't going to numb the kind of pain that they felt right now- only intensify it. He knew that from experience.

They sat together through the night, neither leaving for more than a few moments to get a drink or use the bathroom. Their hands remained firmly pressed together, a sheen layer of moisture forming between their palms.

Hands were more tangible than hope, and they each needed to hold onto something.

In any other city, seven am would have brought singing birds and a glowing sunrise. In Seattle it brought dark gray skies, reflecting only a portion of the emotion building within the four walls of the hospital. Rain flowed down the windows, one droplet colliding into another and then another until their weight carried them into the windowsill, shattering their short-lived unity.

Cristina's eyelids were heavy, but she didn't close them for fear that the next time she opened them it would be to see nurses rushing in with code carts or a flat line on the monitor screen. The sound of the door to George's room sliding open caused her to lift her head from Owen's shoulder and look up.

"The ICU nurses tell me that the two of you have been in here all night." Webber spoke, his voice as authoritarian as ever despite recent circumstances.

"Yes sir." Owen answered, straightening out a little bit.

"Were you caring for him? Working?" He continued, eyeing Cristina. Her presence wasn't a surprise to him in the least. Cristina Yang wasn't nearly as cold as most people thought and if anybody knew that, it was him. He'd seen her in her weakest moments, he knew that there was a soft side that unintentionally came out in times of high emotional stress.

"No sir," Owen answered again with a slight shake of his head.

"Yang?"

Cristina shook her head, "Nobody was here. With him. So we stayed. To make sure that everyt-"

"The ICU has visiting policies. Those policies don't include staying in a patient's room overnight. No exceptions." He interrupted. "The two of you need to leave. Get cleaned up. If you want to visit with Dr. O'Malley, you'll do it per hospital policy. Am I clear?"

Despite the fact that Owen didn't like it, he gave a slight nod once more and stood up. He raised his brow at Cristina's incredulous glance and then gestured towards the door. A slight smirk rose on his lips at the expression of indignity towards him, but he remained silent.

Sometimes he wondered if everybody realized that the world was Cristina's and that they were merely inhabitants. He loved that way about her though, even in duress like this, he could appreciate it. His hand rested just above her elbow as they walked from the room, their gait slowing as their senses were assaulted all at once.

George's room had been a vacuum- quiet outside of the whirring of the ventilator and the random beeps of the IV pumps going off, needing a new dose of medication or a new bag of fluids hung, the sound of their own breathing.

Now, there were bright lights overhead, causing them to squint. The sound of crackly alarms emitting from ancient speakers by the monitor droned- alarming nurses to the presence of a low blood pressure or a dangerous heart rhythm. People bustled around and orders were called out, family members talking on the phone- crying and emotional over Uncle Jim's heart and needing a bypass.

They weren't safe anymore. They were in reality.

As they walked the halls together, Owen felt an overwhelming urge to keep his eyes downcast. He'd been blamed for O'Malley enlisting- though he knew it wasn't rational to blame him for those things some of his colleagues did not. Some of his colleagues could go as far as to say that it was his responsibility that O'Malley was in the state that he was now because of Owen.

And maybe it was the exhaustion but Owen couldn't help but feel some sort of guilt for it.

Cristina's fingers curled into tight fists, jammed into the pocket of her wrinkled labcoat. As they passed each face, each intern in the hallway towards the surgical wing she realized that none of them would ever belong to Izzie Stevens ever again.

There wouldn't be the smell of fresh baked muffins lingering in the resident locker room. Her annoyingly perfect blond ponytail wouldn't be bouncing down the hallway in front of her. That ridiculously bright smile would no longer taunt her at five in the morning.

She was dead. Gone.

Izzie wasn't coming back.

The harshness of the sudden changes inside the world in Seattle Grace slowed their gaits as they entered the surgical unit and found the board to be empty with the exception of one appendectomy. Their colleagues had gathered, all weary and red-eyed- each affected by the events of the prior day in their own way.

They had all sought sanctuary in the one thing they knew- surgery, only to find that it had abandoned them in their time of need.

For countless minutes, hours they lingered- hoping for a tragedy to pull them out of the encroaching darkness and numb their pain. The irony was not lost on any of them either- hoping for another's pain so that they could feel something other than their own sorrows for a few fleeting hours.

When it had become painfully clear that the hospital was engaged in one of its few slow days of the year, they broke off piece by piece and went their separate ways with few words.

There wasn't anything left to say, because it had already been said ad nauseam.

After shedding the scrubs she'd worn for well over twenty four hours, Cristina stepped out of the locker room to find Owen still there and waiting for her. They walked the long hallways together towards the lobby, her hand brushing softly against his from time to time. She wasn't that girl, the cutesy one who wanted to hold hands and put on public displays of affection.

Cristina wasn't even the girl comforted by physical contact. Except for right now- for some reason, she had needed it, however short or insignificant. She found herself wondering if it was because she needed to touch him, to feel his skin hot against hers just to remember she was alive, that he was alive because everything else felt dead.

When they reached the lobby doors, they paused and looked at each other. Neither wanted to go home alone, neither wanted to lay in a bed by themselves, surrounded by the stormy Seattle weather and left to drown in their own thoughts.

Neither could forget that the last time that they'd shared a bed it resulted in his hands being wrapped around her neck, even if he was better, even if there was love. How could they be sure that it was safe?

How could he promise that he wouldn't hurt her when he didn't know for sure that the nightmares were gone for good? Owen wanted nothing more than to go home with her, to wrap her up in his arms and fall asleep next to her knowing that she was with him and whole.

He didn't even know if he was whole.

Their gazes remained fixed, trying to find a way to answer questions unasked. They'd been told to go home, to rest- they'd been given directions, they knew their ways home.

Yet, they both felt lost.

All those who wander are not lost- I can't remember who said it, but I think that he had a map. Life is confusing and the directions never stop changing. All it takes is one moment to change a path completely. The question is- do we stop moving or do we keep going forward into the unknown?