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May 2022
Dr. Cristina Yang, Chief Medical Officer and Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Klausman Institute, was not having a great month. Or rather she was not having a great year. Which also described her previous two years as well.
The year had started with COVID numbers skyrocketing (because after two years people still could not stay inside their fucking houses during the holidays) and back in Seattle Owen was being a nuisance (because GI Joes don’t need physical therapy) but in February the numbers finally started to drop and Owen was allowed to go home and Cristina felt that maybe 2022 would be the year everything would turn to normal, or as normal as things could get.
That feeling lasted 20 days, give or take, because on the eastern side of Europe, a bald incarnation of Hitler decided to escalate his war on a peaceful country. Which meant refugees were everywhere across Europe, including Switzerland. The Institute decided to open a clinic near the Polish-Ukrainian border which meant some of the staff were sent there as well but also meant doctors and nurses had to pull more weight back in Zurich.
And that wasn’t enough – COVID numbers were on a rise. Again.
2022 was a bitch.
All that kept her busy so she didn’t have time to deal with whatever Meredith was going through in Seattle, in a COVID-free America (which, in Cristina’s opinion, had to be a hoax, no way the US would be the only place in the world without that plague). Sure, she got the updates about Owen and maybe even some gossip from her but one text about Grey-Sloan equaled three texts about Minnesota (and some boytoy who very much did not have Cristina Yang’s stamp of approval). And Cristina couldn’t care less about that frozen wasteland and its inhabitants. So she was kind of ignoring her person, hoping that the Minnesota phase would end soon.
March and April went by in a blur trying to put out fires that just would not go out.
When May rolled in, COVID cases were dropping; the influx of refugees who needed medical help had stagnated; and the Institute had found temporary replacements for the staff in Poland. Things were starting to settle down.
She had the morning off so she could run some errands – replenish the drink cabinet and maybe buy some food (read: frozen meals). For the past months, Cristina had been only home to sleep and shower and so the only thing she had in her apartment was a six-pack of drinking water that she bought last year (why, Cristina couldn’t remember).
Getting ready for the trip to the supermarket, she was looking for her jacket when three knocks could be heard from her front door.
Cristina’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her door. No one dared to show up at her place unannounced. Correction: no one showed up at her place.
She had a feeling that whoever was behind her door was going to ruin whatever peace she had reached.
She was not wrong.
Opening the door, she saw the faces of her ex-husband, ex-mentor and their children.
Shit.
Cristina closed the door. Alarm bells went off in her head. One month of normalcy, is that too much to ask?, she thought and looked up at the ceiling.
“Cristina, could you open the door, please?” Owen’s voice was muffled by the metal door.
Cristina sighed and then opened the door once again.
“Owen. Teddy. Munchkins,” she nodded at them with a fake cheerful smile.
Owen was holding his oldest who was sleeping in his arms, face smushed in the crook of Owen’s neck. Teddy was holding a carrier with their youngest. Both looked tired.
“May we come in?” Teddy’s eyes were darting all over the place.
Nope, that’s not ominous at all.
Cristina pursed her lips and then stepped aside, allowing the Hunt-Altman family to enter the apartment.
“There’s a guest bedroom down the corridor, second door on the left,” Cristina said while moving towards the kitchen. “For the children,” she added when she received questioning looks, “or you can hold them for whatever the conversation we’re going to have.”
Owen and Teddy looked at each other for a second and then moved towards the guest bedroom.
Cristina went to her fridge and took out a bottle of water. Taking a sip, she tried to will it to turn into tequila.
But alas, she was not God.
Her mind was in overdrive, thinking about reasons why his ex with his family would show up at her door unannounced. And the reasons she came up with screamed trouble to her. So she had a big gulp of water which still didn’t resemble any type of alcoholic beverage.
Cristina rested her palms against the countertop, fingers tapping on the cold marble. Owen and Teddy came to stand across her. Cristina did not want to look at them, did not want to know what mess Owen had caused for them to leave the US.
Owen broke the silence first. “Nice place.”
“You did not come here to say that,” Cristina looked up at him with her best no-nonsense face, the one that made all the interns cry. “What did you do?”
“Why do you think I did something?” Owen was trying to buy time and Cristina was not having it.
“Am I wrong?” Another sip of water.
“Owen.” Teddy looked at him tiredly.
Owen sighed and began his story. As he was going on about how he had to help his 'brothers' and blah-blah-blah, Cristina fought the urge to bang her head against her wall. Rarely, once in a while, she had thought what if she had stayed in Seattle with Owen and if she would have found joy in her work at Grey-Sloan but this now just affirmed her beliefs that she dodged a fucking bullet. Poor Teddy, though.
Owen managed to end his monologue and he only justified his bullshit twice. That’s got to be a new record. Cristina looked at him. “Is there anyone else from the hospital that knows about the stunt you pulled?”
Please, not Mer.
Teddy cut in before Owen could open his mouth to defend his actions once again, “Bailey found out yesterday but she gave us a head start before she called the cops.”
“And Hayes as well,” Owen added with his arms crossed, “but he resigned and went back to Ireland so most likely the police will not bother him.”
Wait, what??
“Hayes resigned?” Cristina was absolutely blindsided by this. “When?”
“After the accident,” Teddy looked at Owen confusedly and then at Cristina, “You didn’t know?”
“No, Mer didn’t mention it,” Cristina’s brow was furrowed, trying to think back to every text she had sent her in the past 5 months. Meredith had told her that Hayes had been in the car with Owen and Teddy but he had been okay.
But apparently he was not. Why didn’t she tell her that? Wait, not important right now.
“Hold on,” mind in overdrive, Cristina pointed her finger at Owen, “did Hayes leave because of a thing you did?”. Eyes narrowed, voice raising in volume – she was getting ready to throttle her ex-husband.
Teddy was quiet while Owen opened and closed his mouth, like a fish out of water, trying to say something that would calm Cristina down.
But nothing would calm her down now.
Owen was an idiot. Cristina knew that. If he messed up, that’s fine, it happens every six months. To be honest, Cristina was angry at Owen now but after a while she would calm down and maybe – and that is a very small maybe – she even would come to understand why he did that.
But Owen had made the mistake of inadvertently making her gift leave Seattle and Cristina was fuming.
Stealing? Okay. Murder? Okay. Ruining her meddling with Meredith and Hayes? Abso-fuckin-lutely not okay.
So she did the only thing she could without hurting her multi-million dollar hands.
The plastic bottle was now empty and sitting on the countertop. Cristina grabbed it and smacked it against Owen’s head.
“Oh, I feel so much better now.”
And then she hit Owen’s head once again. For good measure.
After sending the fugitive family away with some money and words of warning ( “I don’t care where you will go, just get as far away as possible. I will not rat you out but I will not risk my career for you. Maybe find a place that doesn’t extradite to the US. I do not care.” ), Cristina decided to go into the Institute early and maybe steal a surgery from some resident.
It seemed luck was in her favor as she grabbed an aortic valve replacement away from Ross.
“I’m an attending now, Yang,” Shane Ross looked like someone kicked his puppy, “You can’t do this.”
Scrub cap on and scrubbing her hands meticulously, Cristina looked at Ross unimpressed. “Stop that. You look like a four year old throwing a temper tantrum.”
Pressing the lever on the floor with her foot, she washed her hands. “You’re gonna stomp your feet as well?”
Looking ahead into the OR, Cristina felt that Ross wanted to say something. But in the end he just turned around and left the scrub room.
Never gets old, she smirked.
Three hours later, Cristina left the OR on a high. The patient will live and he will live longer, thanks to her brilliance. She did it once again. She was amazing, brilliant, et cetera, et cetera.
She grabbed herself a cup of coffee to keep her awake during the rest of the night. Back in the sanctuary of her office, she sat behind her desk and propped her feet on the table, took off her cap and N95 mask (because unlike America, COVID hadn’t gone anywhere) and leaned back in her chair.
She looked at the time and calculated that it would still be morning in Seattle and opened her messages with Meredith.
Scrolling through the texts, she saw what she had been ignoring for months now. Research, Minnesota, moving, boytoy. Honestly Cristina could not see Meredith leaving her home, her support system to move to, of all the fucking places, Minnesota. Even if she puts aside the disdain she feels for that place, she still couldn’t imagine Meredith being there.
Maybe that’s why she didn’t pay that much attention to the potential move. That and she thought Hayes would keep her grounded. Cristina knew very well that they were not indifferent to one another and that they had even gone out on a date. But one of his kids had panicked and so they put dating on hold. After that came Minnesota along and somehow everything Cristina had been pushing for so long unraveled. And now with Hayes gone, the move to Minnesota felt more likely. Near-death experiences always made people go a little bit insane; Cristina knew that very well. But Minnesota??
Cristina looked at the last message Meredith had sent her two days ago about an accreditation committee coming to review the residency program.
Cristina: How did it go?
After a minute, a reply came through.
Meredith: The program was shut down. Owen and Teddy quit and left with the kids and I don't even know why. Richard took a sabbatical and Bailey decided to quit as well and told me to fix it ‘the mess I made’. And Jackson talked me into staying. And I'm the chief now.
Well, Cristina definitely didn’t expect that, apart from the Owen-Teddy issue. Maybe she should tell her about her unwanted guests later in the future. Much, much later.
Cristina: Oh shit.
Meredith: That’s one way to put it.
She watched the text bubble appear and then disappear but then…
Meredith: I told Nick to go back to Minnesota. And he did.
Good fucking riddance, thought Cristina, though she realized it was not appropriate to tell her that. Well, at least, not now.
Cristina: I’m sorry, Mer.
Meredith: Yeah, me too. I got to go to a board meeting. I’ll talk to you later.
It was not the time to ask Meredith “Why the fuck did you let my gift leave and why didn’t you tell me?” but there was another person involved in this.
She opened the messages with Hayes and scrolled through them.
Yang: Stop monitoring her. Go to sleep.
Hayes: Who told you I was here?
Yang: You did, dumbass.
***
Yang: You better be planning a date now.
Hayes: She woke up an hour ago.
Yang: Doesn’t mean you can’t plan 😜
Hayes: Good night, Yang.
***
Yang: Seriously?
Yang: I can see your heart eyes all the way to Switzerland.
Yang: Ask her out, idiot.
Yang: You know I can also see that you have left me on read.
Hayes: ‘Left you on read’ Did one of the residents teach you that?
Yang: No.
Yang: I’m young.
Yang: Shut up.
***
Yang: [Link: How to Ask Someone Out: 12 Steps (with Pictures) – Wikihow]
Hayes: Good morning to you too, Yang!
Hayes: And I know how to ask someone out.
Yang: Then what are you waiting for?
Yang: Another plague to come?
***
Hayes: How do you have the time to send me an envelope with photos of resected lungs?
Yang: Multitasking.
***
Yang: How is it that the plague is over in the fucking US??
Hayes: I honestly don’t know.
Yang: I hate you.
***
Yang: Heard you left Seattle.
Cristina looked at the unsent text and then deleted it. Perhaps it isn’t the best idea to text Hayes and really, what could she say – she knows why he left and if Hayes wanted to leave, then who was she to judge? He’s an adult and she’s an adult. If he and Mer didn’t work out, then that’s the way of life. People get together and people break up.
Probably it’s for the best as well that Hayes ran away from that hellhole – the curse of Grey-Sloan would have killed him eventually or traumatized him for the rest of his life (which, if you think about it, already happened).
And Hayes didn’t tell her about leaving Seattle for the land of the leprechauns. It’s almost been six months. If he wanted to talk, he would have called or sent a text. So why should she?
Cristina deliberately ignored the fact that she too had not reached out to him since December, ever since… No, not going there.
Closing her phone and placing it far from her sight, Cristina turned her attention to her computer and began working on her paperwork which had a habit of piling up every couple of weeks. The thing with Meredith and Hayes was now far from her list of priorities.
Or so she thought.
“Flight EI343 to Dublin now boarding”
Okay, maybe, just maybe, she was a little bit invested in this. Sue her. And maybe she was feeling a bit guilty for sending Hayes to Seattle and it not working out. But if anyone asked her, then she would absolutely deny it.
Also going to Ireland would keep her from going after Owen to finish him off.
“Ross, listen, I’m out of the country for a bit so you are in charge until I get back. Don’t mess it up or I will fire you.” She closed the call before Ross got a word out. What’s the point of being the boss if you can’t take a ‘vacation’ on short notice.
She felt somewhat calm while stepping onto the plane but that might have been the drink (or three) that she had in the airport lounge talking.
Getting into her seat and ignoring the small part of the brain yelling at her – which was getting smaller and smaller every time she had to fly – to run off the plane, she closed her eyes and tried to think about anything else other than the metal cylinder of death.
Her mind settled on the last drink she had together with Hayes.
November 2019
“Look at you, going to Seattle. I hope you have life insurance. That place is like the Bermuda triangle of hospitals.” Cristina downed her umpteenth shot of tequila.
With his second glass of whiskey in his hand, Hayes turned to look at Cristina confusedly.
“Hold on, you have been pushing me towards that job ever since they posted about the opening,” brow furrowed, he leaned against the bar counter. “Still haven’t figured out why though,” he muttered to himself and then took another sip from his glass.
Oh, but you will, Cristina laughed in her mind and signaled the bartender for another round.
“I’m drunk enough to deny I ever said this, but…” Cristina held the shot glass in her hand like a toast, “I’m going to miss you, Hayes.”
Seeing the teasing glint in his eyes and the big grin on his face made Cristina backtrack immediately. “I take it back. I never said anything.”
“Aw, Yang, you are gonna miss me,” Hayes’ stupid grin managed to grow even bigger.
“I took it back. I’m glad you are leaving.”
“Nope, no take-backs,” like a dog with a bone, Hayes was not going to let go of an opportunity to tease Cristina. “Wow, I am a friend of Cristina Yang. Might have to put that on my résumé.”
“If you were my friend, then you absolutely should but you’re not so,” she sipped her tequila, turning her face to the bottle shelf.
Hayes kept his mouth shut and turned his back against the counter. He watched the rest of the bar’s visitors.
Cristina raised her glass and—
“Are we going to braid each other’s hair?” Hayes was still poking fun at her.
She stared at him and deadpanned, “You have no hair, dumbass.” She took a sip and decided enough is enough.
Turning to face Hayes once again, she said, “Now, stop being annoying before I tell Bailey to fire you before you even leave Zurich.”
“Somehow I get the feeling that Chief Bailey would like me even more then,” he said with a smile. He downed whatever was left in his tumbler.
Cristina was not amused (and not only because Hayes was probably right).
Hayes raised his hands. “Alright, alright, I get it.” He turned to the counter and took the whiskey bottle that was there and poured himself another glass.
“Are you gonna tell me their names?” asked Hayes.
“Whose?” Cristina was confused.
“The devil, your ‘twisted sister’ – I have heard many things about them but I can’t seem to recall their names. So what are their names?”
“Hmm, let me think,” Cristina put on her thinking face and tapped her chin with her finger, “No.”
“Why not?”
“Why would I make it easy for you?”
Hayes laughed at this.
“I gave you the keys to the house and now you want me to give you a house tour as well? No.” She took another sip of tequila.
“What is it with you and house analogies?”
“What is it with you and being irritating?”
Hayes gave her a look that said ‘Is that the best you can do?’.
Cristina yielded a bit.
“Fine, Evil Spawn – not the devil but close – his name is Karev, Alex Karev, but he doesn’t work there anymore. Went off to run a hospital on his own to various degrees of success.”
“He’s the guy whose job I’m taking over, right?”
Cristina hummed affirmatively.
“Oh,” she remembered something important, “when you see them, act like you don’t know me. Or better yet, pretend it was hell to work with me.” Just because she was sending Meredith a man-sized gift did not mean that she would have to make it easy for her.
“Well, there’s no need to pretend.” Cristina threw daggers with her eyes at Hayes who was looking at his phone smiling. The particular half-smile that appeared on his face meant that one of his boys had sent him a text.
“How are Luke and Dallas?”
“Liam and Austin are fine. Irene came here to bring them to San Diego first so they could spend time together. And the lads love her. I think she’s more excited about us moving to the West Coast than we are,” he laughed.
He looked at the time on his phone and then back at Cristina. “Right, I should get going. Early flight and all.”
His tumbler was half-full and he raised it. Mirroring him, Cristina raised her glass as well.
“Well, Yang, you were a pain in the arse,” Cristina’s eyes narrowed at that and Hayes just grinned, “but I appreciate the drinks we had, so thank you for that.”
His eyes were unbelievably earnest which made Cristina bite back a quip and instead she just said, “You’re welcome,” and clinked her glass against his.
Glass empty, Hayes put it on the counter next to some banknotes and then turned around and moved towards the door. Cristina followed his back with her eyes. Hayes opened the door and then looked back at where Cristina was sitting. He gave her a half-smile and a nod. Then he walked into the windy Swiss night.
Cristina twirled her empty shot glass in her hand, deep in her thoughts.
At first, she and Hayes didn’t get along at all. He had just lost his wife and moved with his sons across the Atlantic but no one at the Institute knew what he was going through. He was a brilliant surgeon who had a great ability to communicate with his patients’ loved ones – even when they were yelling at him, he was ridiculously calm – but with his fellow doctors, he was temperamental at times, picking fights with his colleagues (including Cristina) when they had different approaches to treating patients. She was so close to kicking his ass to the curb, even though she had been the one to give him the job.
After a month of tolerating Hayes’ mood swings, they were operating together on a 12-year-old and fighting like cats and dogs. Until Cristina had asked, “Tell me, were you such an ass back in Boston as well?” and Hayes’ hackles raised immediately, itching for a fight… then his shoulders drooped and said that he wasn’t but he didn’t stop there. Words kept pouring out of him like a dam was broken and everything clicked for Cristina. Dead wife, cancer, two young boys, running away… She didn’t say anything, just let him get it off his chest.
Afterwards, in the scrub room, he had apologized for throwing all his trauma and anger on her but Cristina waved it off and then told him to buy her a drink or a dozen as an apology.
Truth be told, she could have just accepted his apology without the drinking part but in a way, he was just like Meredith. Cristina couldn’t be there for her person when she needed her the most and she did feel guilty for that. Drinking with Hayes and sometimes lending him her (drunken) ear helped a bit with the guilt. But then it wasn’t just that – she began to tell him stories about Seattle and those were stories she hadn’t told anyone before. Sure, she got together with the staff from time to time but was she close enough to them to tell them about her previous life in Seattle that wasn’t related to some surgical case? No.
She may deny it but in those two years, Cormac Hayes had turned into one of her closest confidants and while she was sad that he was leaving, she knew that Meredith would need him more than her (and vice versa). And she really hoped that it would work out.
Tossing some cash on the counter, she then left the bar.
2 hours and 15 minutes later, Cristina landed in Dublin. Ireland greeted her with wind and pouring rain. “Great”, annoyed, she muttered to herself, “just great.” Pulling her carry-on behind her, she found a taxi which took her to the hotel she had booked before she had her drinks in the airport lounge in Switzerland.
Checked into the hotel and dumped her carry-on to her room, she left the hotel quickly to catch another cab. She was on a mission. With the taxi driving towards her destination, she went over everything she managed to find out about Hayes and the hospital he was now working at ever since last night.
He was working at some children’s hospital in Dublin as a cardiothoracic surgeon. Cristina liked to think it was her brilliance rubbing off on him. She probably should’ve made an appointment with him but between after finishing her shift, going home once again and then impulsively going to the airport to fly to the Emerald Isle, she did not have the time. That and the fact she was not sure Hayes would not escape if he knew she was coming.
After 15 minutes, Cristina arrived at the hospital which looked huge compared to the regular two storey houses encircling the hospital. Cristina thought the facade looked extremely miserable with the pouring rain. Paying the fare to the taxi driver, she left the cab and quickly ran to the entrance.
Adjusting the mask on her face, she stepped through the automatic doors and walked to the reception desk where a 20ish woman wearing a visor was sitting, flipping through a magazine. She looked like she would’ve been anywhere but here.
“Hello, I’m here to see Dr. Hayes. He’s in the cardiac unit,” Cristina tried to be as polite as possible, knowing that the bored receptionist was the key to finding her former colleague.
“Do you have an appointment?” The woman, whose name tag said ‘Ciara’, did not look up from her magazine.
Cristina knew this question was only asked because no one wanted random visitors wandering around the hospital during COVID and the only ones who had access to the appointment schedule were the secretaries whose work hours, as of half an hour ago, were now over (her research had been very thorough).
“Yes,” she lied through her teeth, hoping that Ciara did not check the time.
Ciara then looked up at her for a second with a blank expression. “Go left and there’s a lift near the fish tank, take it to the third floor and go right,” she said boredly and gave her a visitor’s pass and went back to her magazine.
“Thank you,” Cristina clipped on the badge and walked away from the desk.
Well, that was–
“Oi!” sounded behind her.
Shit, she thought and then plastered on a bright smile that was covered by the mask and turned around where Ciara was looking at her unimpressed.
“Keep a mask on at all times, keep a two metre distance with others and,” she paused for a second and looked at Cristina very pointedly, “walk on the right side of the corridor.”
Cristina looked around and realized she was on the left side. “Oh. Thank you again,” she then swiveled around and moving to the right side, she left the lobby as fast as she could without looking too suspicious.
O’Connor. Graczyk. Hayes.
Cristina stopped at Hayes’ office door which was closed. She took a second to think what she should say but drew a blank so she just knocked on the door.
“Enter!” sounded from the inside. Cristina opened the door and stepped in.
Hayes’ office was smaller than the one he had in Switzerland, painted in neutral colors. On the right was a leather couch and on the left were the filing cabinets. His desk was in front of a huge window facing the door and behind the desk was the man, the myth, the gift himself, doing paperwork.
“Graczyk, if you have come to ask me to change shifts just because,” Hayes was focused on the paper before him, “you and your husband are fighting, then for the last time, the answer is no.” Being in his homeland made his accent thicker.
He then looked up and saw Cristina. The surprise was very clear on his face.
“Yang? What are you doing here?”
Cristina now got a good look at him. Bags under his tired eyes, sunken cheeks, a faded scar on his forehead – looked like the Grey-Sloan curse got him good because he looked much worse than three years ago. And she told him that.
“You look like crap.” She was never the one to coddle anyone.
Snorting, he threw the pen he was holding onto the table and leaned back in his chair, fingers loosely laced together. “I’ve been in the hospital for almost 36 hours, what’s your excuse?” Hayes retorted.
“I flew here after a night shift.”
“Why?” he asked.
Cristina walked over to the filing cabinets where there was an abstract painting hanging on the wall. It looked like one of those blobs in the Rorschach test. She tilted her head trying to figure it out.
“I came here to get a drink. When does your shift end?” She could not take her eyes off the blob.
He was still looking at her like he could not believe what his eyes were seeing – and that was a tipsy former colleague of his, staring at a painting hanging in his office in Ireland… which was far away from Switzerland – and then said, “In about 30 minutes.”
“Great, where’s the nearest bar or tavern or whatever you call it?” Cristina was now squinting at the painting.
Hayes had known Cristina long enough that it was easier to indulge her rather than argue with her.
“I’ll text you the address,” he sighed.
Cristina hummed and then left the office, leaving behind a still confused looking Hayes.
The bar was full of people – which was not a surprise as it was a Friday evening – but they were unmasked. And seeing them all with their lower faces uncovered made Cristina uncomfortable. It had been a while since she’d been in a bar.
She was sitting in a booth, enjoying the very nice (and expensive) bottle of tequila when Hayes slid into the booth. Cristina slid an unopened bottle of whiskey and a glass across the table. Hayes poured himself a hefty amount of whiskey and gulped it down.
Back in Switzerland, when one of them had a rough day, they would go out and drink in silence until the alcohol kicked in and then they would spill whatever was on their mind. Usually it would take less than 10 minutes. But 20 minutes in (not that Cristina was checking the time or anything) and Hayes was sitting on the other side of the table, mute, looking at the bottom of his tumbler, swirling the drink inside, like it held the answers to all of his questions. Except the answers were in a foreign language.
So once again, Cristina decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I smacked the hell out of Owen with a plastic bottle,” she said matter-of-factly. Jolted, Hayes looked at her like he had forgotten she was sitting there. “Twice”, Cristina added, holding up two fingers.
She looked at him as his mind processed the information and what it meant. Confusion, bewilderment, realization, denial and then acceptance. All the five stages of dealing with a mess made by Owen Hunt.
“You know,” he said it as a statement and not a question.
“Yep.” She downed the shot glass.
“The man I was once married to and the woman I looked up to are now outlaws, criminals on the run,” she grumbled.
“What?!” Hayes looked like he got hit with a frying pan. Oh right, he did not know that.
“Yes, I was married to Owen, big whoop.”
“No, I knew that. He mentioned that. It’s the ‘on the run’ part I’m having trouble understanding.”
“Oh.” That made more sense. “Yeah, they ran from Seattle – Bailey let them before calling the cops – and those dumbasses came to me for reasons I still don’t understand. Also I made it very clear to them that when they get caught – because let’s face it, it’s going to happen – they weren’t going to mention you. Or there would be hell to pay. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Hayes opened his mouth but nothing came out. Cristina had never seen him so stunned. It was unsettling but also amusing.
She continued. “And like that wasn’t enough, I had to find out from them that you resigned months ago.”
Pouring herself another shot, she did not miss the flash of hurt that appeared on Hayes’ face upon the realization that Meredith had not told her about his move back to Europe; like he was dispensable.
Cristina loved her person – she would kill for her – but right now she wanted to shake her and ask what was wrong with her. God, what a mess. COVID was gone in the US but it seemed like it took all the working brain cells with it.
“You could’ve called the cops,” Cristina said.
“Would you?” Hayes asked, the pained expression now replaced with a carefully blank one.
“I am not a widowed parent of two,” she threw back, growing more agitated.
“He saved my life, choosing my life over his. He almost died, Yang. I could not report him.”
“He shouldn’t have put you in that position in the first place.” Cristina let out a breath. “Okay, let’s stop there. I did not come here to argue with you over Owen fucking Hunt.” She took another sip. “How are the boys?”
“Angry,” he snorted and raised the half-empty glass to his lips. “Angry that I uprooted their lives once again, angry that we left Seattle, angry that I took them far away from their aunt.” He downed his whiskey.
He looked down at his hands which were clasping the empty glass.
“And they’re right to feel like that. They were making friends. Life had just settled down with COVID being over. Austin was making progress with his therapist.” He poured himself another glass. “And I,” he chuckled without joy, “moved them across the Atlantic – in the middle of the school year – for a country, which is familiar to me, but to them – it’s a new place. New faces, new school and the bloody pandemic has not ended here.”
He rubbed his hand tiredly across his face.
“The first month was tough. They barely spoke to me. My mother and sister helped a lot but it was… hard. Now it is a bit easier. But the anger is still there. And I can’t change that.”
Hayes pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Hey, you’re doing the best you can and they know that, even if they are mad. And eventually it will pass,” Cristina said.
“Aye, time heals all wounds and all that shite.” He was looking intently at the table between them. “I would have left Seattle, sooner or later,” he then said.
“Because Meredith and…” Cristina trailed off, not remembering the name of that man.
From Minnesota. God, how she despised that place.
“No, not because of that,” he shook his head. “I never met the man. Grey… She didn’t even tell me. About him.” A frown appeared on his face. “Told me about Minnesota before Bailey and Webber but not that. But I could tell there was someone. I’m not blind.”
He took a sip and grimaced.
“Not that I expected her to talk to me about everything or I didn’t expect her to find someone. She is just great and amazing and–”
Hayes was rambling. Cristina gave him an exasperated look to indicate that she was not interested in listening to a monologue about Meredith Grey.
Hayes got the point and with a sigh, got back on track.
“I went back to therapy – which, by the way, still feels like someone is trying to remove your teeth without anesthesia – and she, the therapist, said that I had a tendency to run.”
“You needed to pay money for someone to tell you that?” Cristina arched her eyebrow.
“Aye, I know,” Hayes laughed but then grew serious once again, “but it has helped a bit – the talking.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “She said I was making progress, slowly but surely. Whatever the fuck that means. It doesn’t feel like ‘progress’ to me.” He shook his head.
Cristina let out a snort at that.
“Got to love the shrinks.” She clinked her glass with his.
They sat there in comfortable silence, drinking for a while until Cristina spoke up again.
“I don’t like him.”
“Who?” Hayes was confused.
“Rick… Mick… Dick,” She waved her hand. “That guy… from Minnesota.” She spat the last word out like it was foul.
Hayes’ brow furrowed.
“Have you even met him?”
“He is from Minnesota.” She drawled, like trying to explain something obvious to a six-year-old.
Hayes just guffawed.
“Right,” he grinned, “I forgot your hatred for the entire state of Minnesota and its residents.”
Cristina may or may have not ranted many times in the past on the topic of that icy tundra and how much she wanted to set it on fire.
Hayes was still smiling, probably remembering all those previous times. His eyes were dancing with mirth, reminiscent of the man who left Switzerland two and a half years ago who was yet to be hurt by Seattle. It was good to see him like that.
“How’s Jonas?”
“Married.”
Hayes looked down at her hand – which had no ring – and then back at her.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s okay.” And she was telling the truth; he had been a fling, nothing to cry about.
“So why are you here?” he asked kindly. “You wouldn’t have come here just because I left Seattle.” Cristina opened her mouth to throw back something snarky but Hayes raised his eyebrow and gave her a look. She hated when he did that and she said so.
“Do what?” he replied confused.
“Make me talk.” Hayes had an uncanny ability to see right through her bullshit, almost like Meredith. Except he wasn’t so twisty.
She sighed and downed her glass. Time to face the music.
“Remember Müller?”
“The gaffer who was obsessed with horses and wheat beer? Kind of hard to forget him when he whipped my arse with a towel because I scrubbed my hands ‘wrong’,” Hayes let out a laugh.
But Cristina did not laugh – she looked at the empty glass that she was twirling in her hand – and he noticed that and realized what it meant.
“No,” he murmured.
Cristina just grabbed the almost empty bottle of tequila and poured herself another shot.
“Yeah.”
Niklas Müller had been at the Klausman Institute before Cristina took over from Burke and seemed like he was going to be there even after Cristina. Nevermind that the man was in his 70s, the general surgeon seemed eternal. But four months after Hayes left, he suddenly retired without any fanfare. He said that it was the right moment. He wanted to travel the world with his wife of 50 years. Then, a month later, COVID came along and they were back in Zurich.
The first wave took his wife. She had been in a hospital across the city and he couldn’t even say his last goodbyes in person. Three months after burying his Rosalie, he came to Cristina to get his job back. She sent him away two times before agreeing on the third time because doctors were in a short supply and they needed all the help they could get. A year passed. He kept trying to change her mind on wheat beer (which she thought tasted awful) and shared the most random facts about horse breeds. In a way, he gave her a sense of normalcy when the rest of the world was on fire. Until last November when he got hit and didn’t shake it off.
“I tried everything. He was vaxxed. We knew more than in 2020. I tried everything. And nothing.” She paused to take a breath. Her eyes were prickling but she moved on.
“The case reminded me so much of Mer,” her voice cracked, “even though he was in the risk group. I… I thought because he was as stubborn as she is, he would come out of it.”
Hayes looked at her understandingly and it was too much for her. She looked down at the table and cleared her throat.
“He signed a DNR.” There was a lump in her throat. “I held his hand when he died.” A few tears escaped her eyes and she wiped them away furiously. She hated feeling like this, tearful and helpless. That was the reason why she had told no one about how much she had been affected by Müller’s death. Not to mention it brought back memories of a certain cardiac surgeon who was having his eternal rest six feet deep into the Minnesotan soil.
“We buried him next to his wife – they had no kids, no living relatives close by – so it was just me and Ross.” She paused to take a sip, tried to focus on the burn in the back of her throat but the feeling of frustration did not want to leave her system. “And then the hits just would not stop coming; two days later, Owen got hurt, you got hurt – by the way, I’m sorry I did not check in – and then the new year came and I was hopeful; that maybe this would get better; that we would finally get rid of that fucking plague and then… There was a full-scale war and COVID numbers were rising and… now it is getting ‘better’ but it doesn’t feel like that. Not to me.” Her voice wavered. She felt infuriated by the situation that she had no way to control.
She downed her shot and then let out a shaky breath, trying to reign in the anger that was coursing through her veins. She flexed her hand once, twice. Breathe in, breathe out.
Hayes didn’t say anything, just sat there quietly and let her get a handle on her emotions. Cristina was grateful for that. She shook her head and looked at the bar’s visitors who were drinking their night away.
“Maybe I should move in the middle of nowhere and open a bar or something,” she wondered. “I have money.”
“Well, you can always move to Ireland. Plenty of potential customers.” She finally looked up at Hayes who had a neutral look on his face. Except for his eyes that were twinkling impishly.
Cristina tried to imagine herself in the rural Irish countryside in a bar, serving pints to the locals whose accents she wouldn’t understand. The thought brought back a memory from more than a decade ago. One night in the bar near Seattle Grace Mercy West (because back then there was no need to name the hospital Grey-Sloan; because Lexie and Mark were alive). When she thought she would not return to the OR, when she was coping with her PTSD by mixing drinks and getting extremely drunk with random bachelors.
But in the present, in a bar in Dublin, Cristina burst out laughing, probably too loudly than she should’ve but the sound was drowned out by the rest of the bar’s patrons. But laughing felt cathartic; like a heavy boulder was lifted off her chest.
Grinning, Hayes poured her the last shot of tequila and topped off his whiskey.
He raised his glass and grew a bit subdued.
“To those we have lost to this plague.”
Cristina echoed his words and they clinked their glasses together.
They sat in silence once again.
Head resting on her palm, Cristina was looking at the bartender and then said to Hayes, “You know I was a bartender once.”
“I find it very hard to believe.”
“It was a ‘one night only’ kind of a thing.” But then, a lightbulb went off in Cristina’s head.
“I’ll be right back.” She left Hayes at the booth – with him whispering her name in apprehension – and moved towards the bar counter. She quickly got the attention of the man working behind the counter and told him the list of things she needed.
Couple of minutes later, she waltzed back to the booth with two glasses and gave Hayes one of them.
“I thought you were going to commandeer the bar by yourself.”
“Shut up and drink my specialty drink.”
Hayes looked at the glass and the drink inside suspiciously.
“What is this?” He took a sip.
“Early On-set Alzheimer’s.”
Hayes choked on the drink and pulled a face. “Bloody hell, Yang, that’s disgusting,” he coughed out.
“Hey, that’s rude,” Cristina took a swig from her glass, grimacing a little. She remembered the taste a little bit differently but she was not going to mention it to him. Hayes looked at her like she had gone totally off the rails.
“Are you sure you have not had COVID? Because I’m sincerely concerned for your taste buds.”
“I’ll have you know that Bailey loved it,” she said indignantly, “You can ask her if you want.”
Hayes just shook his head.
“I’ll get some water to get that taste out my mouth.” He grimaced again and rose from his side of the table.
Cristina looked at the drink in her hand and nodded sagely, “He doesn't know good drinks. Only Dr. Bailey does.”
Bailey. Dr. Bailey. She missed her. Hmm, maybe she should call her.
And before the sober part of her mind could tell that it wasn’t a good idea to call someone drunk, she was facetiming Bailey.
“Dr. Bailey!” she exclaimed when Bailey picked up, “Hi!” She drew out the ‘i’.
“What the– Yang?!” Bailey’s voice boomed through the phone’s speakers. Guessing by her surroundings she was at home and she was looking very confused why she had called her.
“Dr. Bailey, you liked my drink, right?” she held up her glass and waved it to the camera.
“Yang, what in the hell–,” she paused when she noticed the electric blue concoction in her hand, “Is that what I think it is?”
Before Cristina could say yes, Hayes returned to the booth with two glasses of water. Placing one in front of her and taking away the drink in her hand.
“Hey!” Cristina was not amused.
“Right, you need to drink some water.” He put Cristina’s drink far away from her reach.
“No, give me back my drink.” She moved to take back her drink but then Bailey decided to insert herself into the conversation.
“Hayes, is that you?”
Hayes looked suddenly very alarmed, eyes darting all over the place, like he expected Bailey to jump out of nowhere and start shouting at him.
But for Cristina, it was like Christmas had come early or rather a difficult surgical case had fallen into her lap. “Uh-oh,” she laughed.
“Hayes, pick up the damn phone!” Bailey said, her tone similar to when she would castigate interns who had messed up.
Looking at Cristina and the phone in her hand, he then sat down next to Cristina and did as he was told while looking like he was going to the gallows.
Hayes looked at Cristina. “Drink your water,” he muttered to her. His tone was what Cristina liked to call his ‘dad’ voice. She obliged because she knew whatever was going to happen was definitely more fun than arguing over her drink.
“Chief Bailey,” he nodded at the phone.
Bailey was gearing up for a rant with her eyes blazing, nostrils flaring and mouth in a taut line. Cristina knew the signs all too well. But as always, it was fun to watch someone else get absolutely berated by her former superior.
“Is that all you’re going to say to me? Left without a proper goodbye. No calls, no texts, no emails, except for the one that only said ‘We’re fine.’ four months ago. Four months–”
“Well, it did not say only that, ” Hayes tried to interject but Cristina whispered to him, “You can’t stop her now. She’s on a roll.”
Meanwhile, Bailey was still ranting on Cristina’s phone without acknowledging that they had spoken.
“–I invited you to my house. You and your boys ate my food. Our children still talk to one another and you can’t call or text me back? And now you show your face accidentally on one of my former intern’s phone? What do you have to say for yourself?”
Hayes’ ears were burning red. “Chief, I truly am sorry,” he said sheepishly, “but I just haven’t had the time.”
“Oof, wrong answer,” Cristina whispered and got an elbow to the ribs. She glared at him.
Bailey looked like she was getting ready for a round two but then she looked at something off-camera. Muffled voices followed.
“I’ve got to go. But, Hayes, this conversation is not over.” She pointed a finger at her phone camera. “And Yang,” Cristina perked up, lest Bailey would yell at her as well. “Send me a recipe for that drink, Lord knows I need it.” With that, she ended the call.
Hayes placed the phone on the table and leaned back in the booth.
“Well,” Cristina drawled with a smile she didn’t even try to hide, “that could’ve gone worse.”
Hayes’ ears were starting to return to its regular color. His eyes were closed.
“How? How could that have been worse? I feel like I’m back in third class and Mrs. Murphy reprimanded me in front of the class because I accidentally kicked the football at the Headmistress’ head.” He leaned against the backrest. So dramatic, she shook her head.
“Well,” Cristina surmised, “Bailey could have been here in person.”
“I don’t think a Chief of Surgery of a top US hospital has the time to travel to Ireland, of all places, to yell at her former employee.”
Oh, she forgot to tell him everything.
“She quit, so she actually has all the time in the world,” she said.
Hayes snapped his eyes open and turned his head to look at her.
“What?!” he said for the second time that night and it was still amusing to see him so shocked.
“So, you really should answer her next call.”
“Chief quit? When?”
“Uh, yesterday, I think? Or the day before yesterday, I don’t know.” Cristina said. Trying to work out time zones and time itself, after a night shift and copious amounts of alcohol, made her brain hurt.
“Who is the new chief then?” Hayes asked incredulously.
“Mer.”
If it would’ve been physically possible, Hayes’ eyebrows would have been at the top of his head. Cristina thought if she already started dropping bombshells, then why not go all in.
“The resident program is dead, probably can also blame Owen for this. Wouldn’t be too surprised if Meredith asks me to take in all the abandoned residents; it wouldn’t be the first time and… Oh! Richard went on a vacation,” she said like this happened every day. “And before you’re going to think that you leaving helped along to the demise of the program, then no, it is not your fault.”
If blaming one’s self was a sport then Hayes would get a gold medal every time.
“How is it not? Chief, Dr. Bailey,” he corrected himself, “asked me to stay until they could find a replacement, I knew about the employment issues and I still just left.”
“Pfft. You’re just a man. You’re not that important,” she snorted but then grew serious. Or as serious as one can be while being quite drunk. “Look, things like these happen and the hospital will come out of it… eventually.” She added and raised the glass of water to her lips. Her drink was still too far from her reach.
Hayes did not look that convinced but he hasn’t had the full Grey-Sloan experience. Luckily.
Cristina wondered if she should tell him about the other thing as well. But once again, Hayes just saw through her.
“Out with it, Yang. There’s something else, isn’t there?” he asked tiredly.
“Dick went back to Minnesota.” She turned her head to watch his reaction. But Hayes looked just at her with a blank face. “Mer sent him back.” Still no change on his face. He reached across the table to grab his glass and the half-empty bottle of whiskey. He poured himself another glass. Cristina kept looking at him. Nothing.
“Well,” he took a sip, “then he is a fuckin’ gobshite.”
Cristina mentally went through her Irish-American English slang dictionary and then cackled.
The rain had stopped and dusk had fallen on Dublin. Street lights basked the street in its yellow light. The sky was slightly overcast and even though it was May, the air was still chilly. Cristina pulled her jacket more tightly around her. The cold helped her to sober up a bit. She and Hayes were waiting for their cabs together.
“Why didn’t you come back to Zurich?” she inquired.
Hayes turned to her with his hands in his jacket pockets. “You would’ve needled me until I told you why I left Seattle,” he said. “You can be very annoying.”
Cristina harrumphed at that. “I am not,” she defended, “I’m a delight to be around.”
“Tell me, do the interns still run away when they see you in the corridors?” he asked.
Cristina stared at him with her lips pursed.
“I can now see the obnoxiousness,” she waved her hand at him.
“Oh please, that’s not what you said to Grey,” he was smirking at her. “What was it you called me? Right,” he had a faux-recalling look on his face. “A gift, was it not?”
Cristina did not even look apologetic for essentially pimping out her friend. “Who told you? Mer?” she questioned.
Hayes looked to the left and to the right, then conspiratorially leaned closer to her – Cristina rolled her eyes at that – and whispered. “Wilson.”
“Oh,” she muttered wickedly under her breath, “I am going to kick her pink scrub covered ass.”
Hayes let out a hearty laugh.
“So you were playing Cupid?” he asked. “Is that why you wanted me to take that job?” He didn’t seem that irritated by the idea.
“Do I look like I’m a diaper-wearing baby?” Cristina deadpanned, not wanting to admit that she in fact may have been playing matchmaker.
Hayes gave her a look that said she wasn’t fooling anyone.
“But if you had gotten together, I would’ve taken full credit,” she then admitted. “Hypothetically, obviously.”
“Obviously,” he snorted. Cristina crossed her arms to keep herself warm. Hayes – who still had his hands stuffed in his pockets – was scuffing the pavement with the toe of his shoe. “Me and Grey…” he looked down at his shoes, trying to find words. “It was just bad timing,” he sighed.
And that could be the title for the chapter on Meredith’s romantic relationships in her future biography. If Cristina was a bit more caring or comforting, she probably would’ve said something Kepneresque, like ‘love comes back around’ or shit like that. But she wasn’t, so she just nudged his arm.
A cab arrived and Hayes, like the gentleman he was, offered the taxi to her. But before she got in the backseat, she turned back to look at him.
“I’ll be fine, Yang,” he said. He gave her a half-smile. “Thank you.” It reminded her of their last goodbye in a bar in Switzerland what seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Thank you,” she repeated his words back at him. Hayes looked at her with his head tilted. “For listening.”
He nodded. Cristina got in the cab and Hayes moved to close the door.
“But if you feel like running again,” she turned her head to look at him one last time, “then I can give you your old job back. And I won’t even torment you…” She then added, “For a week.”
Hayes laughed. “Noted. Goodbye, Yang.”
“Bye, Hayes.”
He closed the cab door and the taxi pulled away from the bar and Hayes.
Cristina sank back into the seat contentedly. This trip was well worth the awful headache she was going to have in the morning.
After her impromptu two day vacation to Ireland, she came back to work to find that Ross had not burnt down the hospital to her great surprise.
Meredith still had not called her but she knew she would when she’s ready (and Meredith knew that she knew – it’s their thing). Cristina wouldn’t be too surprised if she was going through some soul searching in Seattle.
Cristina was sitting in her office, scrolling something random article on her phone when a reminder popped up. Smirking, she then opened the photo gallery until she found the folder of pictures she had saved just for this occasion. Selecting four pictures, she opened the text function.
Yang: Happy four year anniversary of me being right and you being wrong! 🤩🎉
Yang: [File: Four pictures of resected lungs]
The reply didn’t even take 5 seconds.
Hayes: Fuck off
Yang: 😘😘😘