Teddy Altman’s famous, in the right circles. A few years of leading a high-profile research team landed her on the cover of a surgical journal with the caption The Princess of Cardiothoracics. It’s the kind of journal that surgical residents get a monthly subscription to, never have the time to read, and then forget to cancel. All the same, the public relations team at Seattle Grace Mercy West is delighted.
The problem lies in the collision of fame - ‘fame’, meaning the cover and the picture and the fundraisers one of the sponsors insists on hosting - and scientific illiteracy. A patient with certain comorbidities doesn’t fit the criteria for the trial, and meets with death not long after. The family blame her.
Her lawyer’s dealing with it all until one day Teddy walks into the Chief’s office to find security, the police, HR, one of the hospital’s legal team, and her own lawyer waiting for her. Chief Webber tells her there’s been a death threat, and whoever wrote it knows where she lives.
The threat itself is quite short. It starts with her address.
To Theodora Altman -
We’re watching.
You won’t get away with the pain you caused.
One day soon you’ll choke on it.
One week later she has a bodyguard.
She’s told that Cristina Yang is an excellent ‘personal security specialist’. The woman comes with her own file, which gets handed to Teddy the day before, like a pre-introduction introduction.
It’s a sparse file. There’s a photo of Yang, looking serious, her hair tied up. A curl peeks out from behind her neck. There’s a list of qualifications, most of which sound security-based. At the bottom is first aid and CPR. She’s in her 30s, not much younger than Teddy.
The hospital is paying for her. It’s an odd arrangement. “Just until the police stop whoever’s behind these threats,” the Chief tells her. “After all, you’re my star surgeon.” And Seattle Grace Mercy West can’t afford any hits to its reputation.
Teddy gets in to work early the day her bodyguard’s meant to show up. It’s partially wanting to savour the last hours of independent work and partially because her home hasn’t felt safe for the last week.
She finds the Chief and half the attendings gathered, overly casually, at the nurses’ station come 9am.
She plonks down her stack of charts and the Chief jumps. Derek just smiles, caught out. She demands, “Don’t you have something better to do?”
“Rounding can wait a few minutes,” Derek says, shifting over so she can lean against the counter. “It’s not every day your colleague gets a bodyguard.”
“I’m glad you’re entertained,” Teddy says dryly.
Callie and Arizona arrive, rushing around the corner. “Did we miss it?”
“No,” Teddy says, accepting Arizona’s hug.
“I bet she’s really badass,” Arizona whispers.
“If you’re looking for Ms Yang,” Patricia interjects, looking characteristically unimpressed with them all, “she’s up there.” She nods at the stairs. They all turn.
Cristina Yang’s in dark jeans and a leather jacket, watching them from the landing. She lifts a hand in greeting.
“Oh,” the Chief says.
“I’ll be with you 24/7 until my contract finishes or the threat’s taken care of, whichever comes first,” Yang says, and at the faint surprise on Teddy’s face adds, “Sometimes companies get sick of paying my fees.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t want to get in your way but I do want to be in the room whenever possible,” Yang continues. “That means trauma bays, ORs, labs, anywhere you are. Uh, if you’re showering or sleeping and you’d rather I stand at the door, that’s the furthest I’ll go.”
“Sleeping,” Teddy repeats. She raises one eyebrow.
“Sleeping,” Yang says, straight-faced, but her eyes give away her laughter.
Teddy looks at her. Under the leather jacket there’s a gun, holstered at her hip. “If you’re going to be in trauma bays or ORs you’ll have to follow sterile procedures and stay out of the way. If I tell you to get out, you get out. Am I clear?”
“Fine,” Yang says. “Will you wear a bulletproof vest?”
“You should probably change into scrubs,” Teddy says, and turns right for a supply closet. “And no.”
“Bulletproof vest when you’re outside the hospital,” Yang bargains. Teddy holds open the supply closet door for her.
“Fine. And-” Teddy turns away to give her some privacy, “-please don’t walk around with that gun on your hip.”
“I’ll move it to an ankle holster,” Yang says. “What’s your day look like?”
“Research, skills lab, surgeries. Subject to change for emergencies.”
“Hm,” says Yang. “Got anywhere I can put my clothes?”
Teddy turns. She’s changed into light blue scrubs, a STAFF tag hanging from the pocket. Her clothes are piled haphazardly in one hand. It’s so at odds with the brisk professionalism she’s displayed so far that Teddy almost smiles.
“There should be a spare locker in the attendings’ lounge.”
“Can we stop there or should I leave these here?”
Teddy checks her watch. “We’ve got time.” And they won’t be the worst thing this closet has ever seen, but it seems unnecessarily harsh to make her leave her clothes here.
Cristina pulls the door open and gestures. “Lead the way.”
“This is Cristina Yang,” Teddy tells her research colleagues. “She’ll be shadowing me for a while.”
“Hey,” Yang says, and spends the next hour wandering the lab and peering curiously at slides. One of the med students spends ten minutes talking her through the basic structure and function of the heart.
Teddy turns to her own microscope and tries to focus on her work.
“This one needs help,” Yang says midway through the skills lab, pointing out one of the interns. “He screwed up a while ago and doesn’t know how to fix it.”
“Sorry,” the intern mutters.
Teddy crosses the room to reach his table. She’s right, he’s made a hash of things.
Part of her is rankled by Yang’s interference. The other part tries to think nice things about how this will ultimately benefit the interns.
“Are you squeamish?” Teddy asks, one hand on the door to the scrub room. “Cos we have medical students who faint every year.”
“Try me,” Yang says, nonchalant.
“DId she faint?” Mark demands, abandoning his sandwich to give them his full focus.
“She did not,” Yang informs the table at large. She reaches out and snags a bit of ham that fell onto his plate. “That’s for asking, Dr Sloan.”
“Give me that,” Mark says, no bite to it. If anything he sounds slightly impressed.
“Ah, the bodyguard,” Derek says, putting down his tray. “How was your first day?”
Yang leans back in her chair, rocking it on its back legs. “I’ve learned about atria and ventricles, how to ‘scrub’, the way Dr Altman likes her coffee, and I did half of Dr Warren’s crossword. Just cos I could.”
Derek chuckles. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full with this one, Altman.”
“Tell me about it,” Teddy says. She starts on her third coffee. “She’s scared all my interns into actually paying attention in the skills lab. I might forget how to keep them in line.”
“They’re interns,” Mark says, long-suffering. “You won’t forget.”
Teddy’s pager beeps. She checks it and sighs. “Yang. We’re wanted in the pit.”
“Have fun!” Mark calls after them.
Generally, Yang is good at staying out of the way. She keeps family out of trauma bays and stands unobtrusively at the back of the OR and spins around in a chair while Teddy looks at scans and test results.
It’s a little different at the end of the day when Teddy drives them both back to her house. Yang sticks her own rear view mirror onto the windshield and spends the ride slouched in her seat. Only her eyes roving around the car and between mirrors give her away.
“There’s no alarm system,” Teddy says, as they pull in.
“Hm,” Yang says. She retrieves her gun. “Give me the keys, let me check the house. I want you to stay in the car and keep the doors locked until I tell you otherwise.”
Teddy fishes out her keys and hands them over.
“Doors locked,” Yang says again, before disappearing around the back of the house.
Teddy keeps the engine on. There’s a little noise, like a tiny hammer, and she checks the mirrors obsessively until she realises it’s her, tapping her fingers rapidly against the back of the steering wheel.
It seems like a long time before Yang comes out the front door.
Yang doesn’t cook. She does wash up, sleeves rolled up haphazardly and leather jacket slung across the back of a chair. Teddy brings her dirty dishes and tries not to stare at the easy strength in her forearms, glistening under the water.
“Um,” she starts, hating it, the unsure way she’s standing in her own home, and closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, Yang’s staring back at her. “Can I shower?”
Her bodyguard glances at the bathroom door, just in view from the sink. “Yeah.”
Teddy flees without saying thanks.
Teddy shifts in her bed. If she turns over she’ll see Yang, sitting in the chair she dragged in from the living room. Teddy left her a blanket. She doesn’t know if she’s using it. Maybe she’s asleep.
There’s the quiet padding of footsteps, and a little cold air flows into the room, like the blinds have been lifted.
Teddy opens her eyes.
Yang is a dark shadow at the edge of the window. “Most people are uncomfortable the first night,” she says, softly, the words running into each other like she’s said it a hundred times. Probably she has. Without turning, she adds, “You’ll get used to it.”
Teddy shifts higher up the bed, propping herself up on an elbow. “What are you looking at?”
Yang lets the blinds fall. Teddy’s eyes are adjusting to the dark, now, but her face is still unreadable. “Right now? You.” She crosses the room again, out of Teddy’s line of sight.
“Go to sleep, Dr Altman. I’ve got this.”
“Teddy,” she says, running one hand through her hair.
Yang turns from where she’s considering the coffee machine. “What?”
“You can call me Teddy.”
“The milk’s expired,” Yang says, like that’s a reply.
Teddy sniffs the milk in question, left out on the counter. “Augh.”
“Yeah.”
“Hospital security,” Teddy says, offhandedly, and sets the chart back down.
“Oh,” the patient says, politely confused. Yang gives her a blank, professional smile. Alex Karev, who’s with her today, smiles too. The combination is not as reassuring as they mean it to be.
“Chest pain,” Teddy says brightly, and moves to block them from the patient. “Any chest pain?”
The patient blinks and refocuses. “No.”
“Hold still,” Yang says, tersely readjusting the Velcro straps.
“Yang,” Teddy says, sighing, “it’s not going anywhere.”
“Cristina,” Yang corrects, and knocks the vest the same way someone might pat another person on the back.
“Cristina,” Teddy amends after a moment.
Cristina slips her own vest on with casual ease and pulls the door open. “Shall we?”
The Chief looks between them. Cristina looks at Teddy. Teddy looks at her. They both look at the Chief.
“Well?” he says.
“Well what,” Teddy says, exasperated.
Chief Webber looks mildly discomfited. “Well, how’s it all working? Yang?”
Cristina’s face is decidedly neutral. “As you can see, Dr Altman is not dead.”
Teddy works very hard to keep her face straight.
Cristina takes careful aim. Mark cheers. The dart lands on the outer rings. Mark’s cheers die off.
“I hate darts,” Cristina says darkly.
“Don’t,” Cristina says firmly, muffled. Teddy opens one eye to a dark on-call room.
“I need her to look at these,” someone says. It sounds like one of the interns. Cristina’s left the door slightly ajar, and light angles down the wall.
“Can it wait?” Cristina asks, biting, and the intern says, “I- yes, but it’s best-”
“Dr Altman just got out of surgery and she hasn’t slept for-” Cristina pauses for emphasis, and Teddy can picture her checking her watch. “Twenty-two hours. So come back later.”
After a minute, Cristina eases back into the room. “Oh, go back to sleep,” she says, dismissive, like she doesn’t want Teddy to know she cares. Teddy just yawns.
“Are you dating?” That’s from Lizzie Cotham, 26, in the ER because she felt faint, tripped, and hit her head while thoroughly inebriated.
“No,” Teddy says distractedly, waiting for the ECG to print out.
“Oh,” Lizzie says, disappointed in the overwhelming, all-encompassing way that drunk young women can be. Teddy flashes her a half smile.
“It’s just-” she says, sitting up, “the way she watches you, you know.”
“Lizzie,” her friend interjects, and smiles helplessly at Teddy in wordless apology.
“It’s okay,” Teddy says. Cristina’s leaning against a wall, her eyes on her, and she looks down hastily to avoid thinking about how Cristina might look at her if they were dating. If she was interested in Teddy.
She clears her throat. “Everything cardio-related looks fine. Neuro will be down to assess you soon, so just sit tight, alright?”
“Okay,” Lizzie says, definitely not paying attention, and the friend sends an I’ve got this look at Teddy.
If they’re lucky, the pit will be quiet long enough for her and Cristina to pick up some food from Joe’s. Teddy checks the time.
“Yang,” she says, already starting to turn away. But Cristina is still, and not looking at her. Teddy follows her gaze to the other side of the room, where Meredith Grey is standing at the end of a bed, talking to a guy who’s a head taller than her in what looks like the very beginning of an argument.
“Give me a minute,” Cristina says, intent on them the way Derek gets when he’s in the middle of someone’s brain.
Meredith takes a step back, and the guy follows. And then she brings her hands up between them, and says something, and he swears loudly enough to be heard across the room and shoves her hard enough she falls backwards.
Alex Karev is running for him before Meredith hits the floor. The guy takes one look at him and makes a break for it the other way, which happens to be towards them.
She doesn’t even see Cristina move until she’s past her. They collide mid-air, Cristina slamming him into the wall of Trauma Two with enough force that the blinds rattle. Then he’s on the floor, and Alex catches up, flanked by hospital security.
Cristina gets up like nothing happened, yanking her scrub top straight and fixing her STAFF tag, now askew. That done, she looks at Teddy expectantly. “Joe’s?”
Lizzie says, dreamily, “She’s so cool.”
She’s not really sure if Cristina sleeps. The blanket she gave her is crumpled on her chair, but it’s only ever folded right out of the laundry. She can count the number of times she’s seen her yawn on one hand.
The days pass, and then weeks. Teddy sleeps, and wakes, and operates, and runs in the park, and talks to patients, and no matter the hour, Cristina’s there. That’s all she knows, after a month with Cristina: she’s always there.
The lift is partially under maintenance. It’s one of the necessary but inconvenient parts of working in a hospital. What it means is when they take a patient from Trauma Four to the OR, there’s only space for Teddy, two nurses, and Cristina, squished into a corner.
The patient goes into cardiac arrest just after the doors close. Teddy shoves at the gurney, uselessly; the wheels are locked and there’s not enough space for her to jump the rails. A glance at the nurses confirms they’re blocked in as well.
“Yang,” Teddy says sharply, “CPR, now.”
She doesn’t know how Cristina manages it, but she gets on, somehow, and is straddling the patient in the next minute, doing compressions, and Teddy says, “Straight to the OR at a run,” to the nurses.
He survives. Later, side by side in the scrub room, Teddy says, “Well done.”
“No,” Cristina says, “loop it twice, and then pull the other end through.”
Teddy comes closer. “Are you teaching my class, Yang?”
“I’ve watched you teach three of these,” Cristina says, watching the intern look miserably for scissors, “and I don’t know how these kids graduated.”
“You’re stressing me out,” the intern says, pleading, and Cristina says, “Surgery is stressful. Now do it again.”
“Hey, Yang,” Teddy says, putting aside the empty beer bottle with great care, “I think I’m not legal to drive home.”
“I think most of them aren’t,” Joe says, nodding at the other attendings.
“Yeah, well, I’m only paid to look after her,” Cristina says, fishing Teddy’s keys out of her coat pocket. “Can you get them in cabs?”
“Sure thing.”
“Okay,” Cristina says, slinging Teddy’s bag over her shoulder. “C’mon, Altman, let’s get you home.”
“You know I’m not that drunk,” Teddy says, when they reach the car. Cristina holds the door for her. “I could still place a chest tube.”
“Sure,” Cristina says, and goes around to get to the driver’s seat, and Teddy’s upset, briefly, that she wasn’t impressed. She decides sober Teddy can handle the thinking about why she wants to impress Cristina Yang.
“You’re not hitting it right,” Callie insists. She kicks the base of the vending machine and it rattles obligingly, but the chocolate doesn’t fall.
“Maybe you should hit it harder,” Cristina suggests, and Arizona steps in between all of them and the machine.
“Okay, no more violence,” she says, and Callie looks between her and the chocolate, teetering, and says, “You’re just gonna leave it there? Really?”
“If we rock the machine from side to side,” Yang says, looking at it critically, “it might fall.”
“Sure,” Callie says immediately. She takes off her lab coat. “Get ready, Yang.”
“Hang on,” Teddy says, “you’re not seriously-”
“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” Bailey asks, sticking her head around the corner. They all freeze.
“Okay,” Bailey says, coming towards them briskly. “You’re doing this all wrong. This vending machine has a faulty seal in the door.”
“A what,” Callie says. Bailey shooes her out of the way and runs her fingers along the door, and then yanks.
The door opens a little, and the chocolate falls out.
“That,” Bailey says, with no small amount of satisfaction, “is how you do it.”
Task complete, she slams the door closed and leaves.
After a minute, Callie says, “Woah.”
Arizona picks up the chocolate. “Anyone want some?”
“I’m gonna get a doughnut,” Teddy says decisively, staring across the market, and Cristina says, “Let me guess, you want a coffee too?”
“If I get both,” Teddy says, beginning to pick her way through the stalls, “there’s a discount, and if you’re nice, you can have a bite of my doughnut.”
It’s a very gently suburban market. They pass secondhand books and vinyls in tattered sleeves and more than a few rusty old bits and pieces generously dubbed ‘antiques’.
And then a sharp noise, rupturing the air, so loud and sudden Teddy doesn’t understand, at first, why Cristina’s yanked her down. Someone screams to her right. Then everyone is screaming.
“Your vest,” Cristina says, sick with fury, and Teddy realises it’s in the car, “damn, I should’ve checked-”
“I’m sorry,” Teddy says, “I’m sorry, Cristina-”
Velcro rips beside her ear, and Cristina, one one knee between her and a cardboard 2ND HAND ITEMS sign, almost hits her with her own vest as she slides it off. “Put that on, stay down-”
Cristina’s got her gun out but she doesn’t move until Teddy’s got the vest on, and then she says, “We’re gonna move towards the car. Keep your head down and keep moving, okay?”
“Okay,” Teddy says automatically, and in the next second there’s another shot and glass is raining down on them, shards from an ugly display. Cristina pushes her head down with one hand.
She moves forward, and trusts Cristina’s got them going in the right direction. Only once, she dares to look back. Cristina’s popped up behind an overturned table, aiming. Two shots go off.
Someone’s plants are trampled in front of her, a flower torn to pieces and squashed into the road. She crawls over them.
The market hadn’t seemed so large when everything was quiet.
“Teddy,” Cristina says roughly, just behind her, and she almost cries. “Turn left, and wait for me at the road.”
She turns, blindly. Cristina’s shooting behind her, probably. All the shooting is behind her.
And then Cristina’s lifting her up, her hand tight around Teddy’s upper arm, and they’re running for the car.
Cristina holsters her gun and starts the car in the same second, and then they’re moving, turning onto the main road, and Teddy has no idea where they’re going until they’re outside the hospital and Cristina says, suddenly, “You need to steer.”
Teddy grabs the wheel just in time to stop them drifting into the opposite lane, and Cristina says, “I can’t breathe,” her voice mangled by fear.
Teddy wrestles the car into the ambulance bay and says, “Brake, Yang, I’m parking,” and grabs for the gear stick. Her hand lands on Cristina’s, warm and wet.
People are spilling out of the pit, security personnel and nurses and Kepner, already pulling on a gown. Teddy yells for a gurney.
When they pull Cristina out of the car she sees it: a piece of glass, thick and blood-streaked, jutting out between two ribs. It snags on the seatbelt when they lift her.
“Get her to a trauma room,” Teddy orders. “And book an OR.”
“Is that-” Kepner asks, horrified, as they wheel Cristina through to Trauma One, and Teddy says, “Yes. She probably has a haemothorax. Kepner, take over while I gown and glove, and set up for a chest tube.”
Kepner sets up efficiently, getting all the basics going, and by the time Teddy comes in to get the chest tube ready Cristina’s got a line in and some pain relief.
“Chest tube,” Teddy says, nodding at it, and Kepner moves at once.
Teddy leans down next to Cristina’s face. She’s never seen her scared before, and it’s so hard to bear that she almost calls Kepner back to take her place. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “You have to trust us. You have to trust me now, Yang. I’ve got you.”
She’s no stranger to running these. Antibiotics go in and blood’s on standby. Kepner gets the chest tube in easily and as expected blood begins draining.
“OR’s ready,” the Chief says behind her, hanging back enough to let Teddy stay in command.
“BP’s dropping,” Kepner says sharply.
“No wonder,” Teddy says, peering at the blood collecting from the chest tube, “half her chest cavity’s filled with blood. Let’s start transfusion and get more blood on hand. And an x-ray.”
After that it’s a matter of stabilising and shipping her off to the OR. The x-ray shows what’s expected. The glass stayed in one piece.
The Chief hangs back as they wheel Cristina out. Teddy folds her arms across her chest, aware he wants to say something. She doesn’t ask; she can’t bring herself to care.
When the last person’s left the room, he says, “Your hands are bloody.”
“I’m fine,” she says. There is blood beneath her gloves. Cristina’s blood, and hers. Scratches from the gravel burn on the heels of her hands. “There was a shooting at the market.”
“Okay,” he says, patient. His gaze lingers on the vest she’s still got on over her clothes. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” Teddy says at once, and thinks about Cristina crouched behind a table, aiming, still and focused. She must’ve known even then, with that glass grating against her ribs. And yet she’d waited for Teddy. She looks at the Chief. “She saved my life. I have to do it.”
He nods slowly. “Alright.”
Teddy showers. She hangs up Cristina’s vest in the locker that’s become hers. She cleans out the scrapes in her hands.
With her lawyer present, she talks to the police. They tell her the shooter was wounded, and that they think he was behind the threats. They say Cristina’s actions could have saved a lot of people.
She gets a long, long hug from Arizona. Her hair leaves wet patches on her lab coat.
Cristina is, for now, in the ICU. Her room is much like the others, with the clear walls. Teddy thinks she might find it difficult to keep up her usual impassive stare, given the close supervision and constant flow of people.
She’s making a valiant attempt when Teddy comes in.
“Hey,” Teddy says. It comes out easier than she thought it would. She rests her hands on the frame of the bed for lack of something to hold.
“Hey,” Cristina says. Her face is dulled by pain and exhaustion. Her eyes are warm. “You’re not dead.”
Teddy smiles.
The Chief puts her on leave. Teddy doesn’t put up a fight, which seems to surprise him.
She cleans her car. Cristina’s blood made its way down the rubber seal of the door, so that when she wipes it down, the rag comes away red. She has to look up if seatbelts can be washed.
The milk’s gone bad again. She does laundry. Out of habit she leaves Cristina’s blanket folded on her chair, and then can’t bring herself to put it back in the cupboard.
“Hey,” Teddy says, leaning on the door jamb, “I’ve got food, Yang.” She dangles the bag, filled with takeaway from Cristina’s favoured Korean restaurant.
“Gimme,” Cristina says, drawing her legs up. She starts pulling food out as Teddy makes herself comfortable on the end of the bed.
“You know,” Cristina says, handing Teddy her food, “some people ask before arriving with dinner, but this is fine.”
Teddy laughs, focusing on opening her container. The plastic lid has a hole cut in one corner, to let the steam out. Cristina pours water for both of them.
She chews slowly. The last time they’d had this was around Teddy’s kitchen table, and they’d ordered too little rice. This time feels different.
“Hey,” Cristina says, leaning forward. “Teddy. I was kidding.”
“I know,” Teddy says. She sets her chopsticks down. “Cristina, if I asked…”
Cristina’s silent, and Teddy can read her now, after all this time. She’s tentative, and waiting, and open.
Teddy says, “Would you have said yes?”
“Yes,” Cristina says, like it’s always been that simple. She says it again, stronger. “Yes. If you’re asking, Teddy, the answer is yes.”