Chapter Text
“Oh my God, would you put that thing away? ” Cristina demands, irritation spiking like a geyser as she reaches out and attempts to swat the disposable camera that is currently the bane of her existence from Izzie’s fist. Meredith giggles behind her as Izzie dodges.
“Ha, ha, you’re too short,” George snickers from a chaise in the living room’s corner. Every so often Doc shimmies his hips and lunges towards George’s lap, only to be blocked by an arm.
“Dude, stop it with the sad eyes,” Alex whispers at Doc, then crouches down and starts to pet him.
“Aww,” croons Meredith. Alex glares at her. Cristina resumes her combative endeavors against Izzie.
“Look who’s talking,” she snaps back at George. She rises to her tiptoes in another vain attempt to swipe the camera.
“Stop. Mer, tell her to stop,” Izzie begs through hysterical giggles. She waves one hand above her head like she’s drowning, craning her head at Meredith.
“I can’t,” says Meredith. “You don’t tell Cristina what to do. I thought we knew this.”
“I’m a force of nature, baby.” The vicious force that Cristina exerts on Izzie’s arm is ultimately fruitless.
“She is,” Meredith confirms. Cristina bites back a grin.
“I don’t care. Stop. Your dirty fingernails are gonna leave a mark.”
“I’ll stop if you promise to give it a break with the–the damn scrapbook, or whatever it is you’re planning,” says Cristina.
“I just think it’s important to preserve these special moments in our lives,” Izzie insists, emphasizing words like special and important in a way that borders dangerously on sarcasm. “But I’ll give it a break. For the evening. Pinkie promise.”
“Thank you.” Cristina stands down. A journey to the kitchen is initiated once she’s decided to raid the fridge for beer.
“Good. Sorry, Iz, but that thing was starting to annoy me, too,” Alex admits. His voice has faded to a faint rumble by the time Cristina arrives at the fridge.
The fridge, upon examination, is sorely lacking in good beer. “Meredith! Where the hell is your Budweiser? You’ve only got the shitty stuff.”
“It’s gotta be in there,” Meredith shouts back. With the shouting comes the cute little strain and squeak of her raised voice. The pitch goes hoarse for just a second and–Cristina seems to have lost her train of thought. She clears her throat, then runs a hand through her hair.
“Yeah, well, it’s not. You can’t be out of the good beer. Doesn’t that crap, like, fuel your will to live?”
“I go to Joe’s,” Meredith reasons as she navigates the kitchen. She nudges her way to Cristina’s side and pokes through the beers. Their arms brush together. Pale hair skims Cristina’s shoulders.
“You’re pathetic,” Cristina accuses. “If you’re gonna be a borderline alcoholic you should at least do it well.”
“I drink responsibly.” Meredith reaches a skinny arm towards a beer with a Keystone label. Her skin is cold, her nails bitten. “See, it’s a safety precaution. If I had Budweiser I’d never drink water.”
“Hardly do anyways,” Cristina snarks back in a weak murmur. “Ugh, give me that shitty-ass beer, you–you absolute failure of a drunk. D-minus.”
“Funny, I think my mother said once,” Meredith giggles. Her nose and her eyes scrunch up, revealing adorable little creases in her face. Her back straightens and she drawls out, “My disappointment is immeasurable. Do better, Meredith. ”
Cristina cackles at that, relaxing as Meredith pushes a sweating bottle of Keystone at her.
“Hey. Let’s drink in my room.” Meredith nudges the bottle into Cristina’s chest. Her fingers, wet from the bottle, brush against Cristina’s collarbone.
Cristina is just opening her mouth to decline when the crescendo of a loud and passionate argument between Izzie and Alex slices through the air. The dispute is over whether cake or yeasted donuts taste better.
“Yeast, obviously,” Meredith whispers, mouth angled at Cristina’s ear. She smiles like they’re sharing a secret. Her eyes glint in the refrigerator light and–
And–
Well, Cristina can’t get the cap off her beer fast enough.
*
“You were right. This stuff blows,” Meredith concedes through an inebriated snicker. Her head slings all the way back, hinging loosely on her throat. It thumps against the bed’s headboard and hair spills everywhere. Her lips part, and her tongue flicks through to catch a drop of beer at their corner.
“I told you so. Ha. I’m always, always right.”
“Mhm,” says Meredith patiently. Her eyes rake over the ceiling. Maybe she’s looking for something. Cristina decides to look with her.
“Where’re the stars?” Cristina points at the plain, off-white ceiling.
“What?”
“You’re stargazing. Where are the stars?” Cristina nudges Meredith in the side with her elbow, free hand floating around above their heads to indicate the lack of stars.
Meredith’s hand fumbles over Cristina’s until it’s laying on underneath it. The condensation from the beer bottle seeps into Cristina’s skin. Her tipsy self relaxes under the touch. Doc whines out in boredom from the end of the bed.
“Where are the stars?” Cristina asks again.
“Well, you’ve got to close your eyes, like, really hard and look at the colors.”
Cristina tries that. Little indigo dots dance like a light show over the black canvas of her eyelids, contrasting splotches of red. “...Huh.”
“What’d you think?”
“That’s… hmm.” Cristina opens her eyes again. She winces against the light. “No stars. Do better.”
“You were always lacking in imagination. I won’t take it personally,” Meredith slurs out. Her head rolls to the side. Her eyes catch Cristina’s for the second time that night.
I think I found the stars. Fuck.
Meredith squints, pupils roaming from side to side. “You’re pretty,” she says. Then, carefully, “I think you should kiss me.”
Cristina’s head raises from its slump, all words caught in her throat. She’s still staring at Meredith’s eyes and mouth like a drunk idiot.
“Just an idea,” Meredith backtracks, retreating farther across the bed. Their hands come apart, and Cristina realizes that hers is shaking. Her heart pounds forcefully, and she breaks into an odd laugh.
Meredith joins her. They laugh about it, and Cristina listens to the drug-like quality in Meredith’s voice until it dies in her throat and all that’s left is Meredith, and the too thick atmosphere between them. There’s a delicate smile on Meredith’s lips.
“But your mouth probably tastes like shitty beer.”
“Yours already does.”
“I–” Cristina tries to think of a good why not. Her mind comes up with a static nothingness, like when the TV won’t work. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Meredith giggles at her, chest heaving with those heavy breaths. She’s fidgeting with her own slim fingers.
“Yeah. I mean, we’re out of beer.”
Cristina reaches out and cups a hand against Meredith’s jaw. The contact is hard and clumsy. Then she leans in and puts their mouths together. Meredith’s does taste like shitty beer. Her lips are chapped but steady, willing Cristina to press in further. Her nose prods at Cristina’s cheek, and Cristina’s hands just won’t stop shaking.
It takes a very long time for her to pull away.
“That wasn’t so bad, now was it,” Meredith teases, weight pushed forward and tone slight as they study each other. Cristina barely notices the thud of a draft swaying the ajar door shut.
“Should I give you a review on Yelp?”
“I actually think that would be a waste of time.”
“Why? Do I have anything better to do?”
“You could still be kissing me.”
*
“Hey, Cristina.” Izzie’s hoarse voice sounds from her room. Cristina stops in her tracks, hands going taut over the binder she holds.
“Yeah?”
“Come here.”
Cristina stares through the doorway. Her feet are stuck to the floor. Izzie’s room smells like sickness. There are purple bags under her eyes that make everything feel cursed. It’s an alternate universe nobody should be living in, but that cannot be fled. Even though Izzie is recovering well… this should never have happened.
Cristina swallows down the icky feelings and stalks casually through the doorway. She sets aside the binder and shoves her fists into her pockets.
“What’s up, Stevens? Need me to fetch Evil Spawn again?”
“If I wanted to see Alex I would have paged Alex,” says Izzie in a monotone. She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand.
“O-okay.” Cristina shifts uneasily in place. One hand plants itself on Izzie’s bed frame. “French fries, then. You want french fries.”
“God. Why is it so hard for you to fathom the idea that sometimes, people might not be needing a dumb favor? God forbid they might… I don’t know… want company. Forget it, I’m sure you’re busy.”
Cristina sits stiffly down on the foot of the bed anyways and offers her friend the world’s most pathetic smile. It’s her poker face; the reason everybody always assumes she’s immune to sympathy, or grief.
“Bastard attendings didn’t schedule me ‘til two,” Cristina mutters, slouching over in an attempt to look somewhat casual. Perhaps even comfortable. Her foot swings from side to side over the bed’s edge. “All yours, Stevens.”
“Great. So, I lied. I do want something from you.”
Cristina sighs out a heavy breath. “‘Course you do, you two-faced brat. What’s the deal? My wish is your command.”
Izzie reaches her out and fumbles at the contents of her side-table. It takes a couple of tries for her to produce a thick orange manilla envelope. She pulls it to her chest, pulls the bracket open, then grabs a smaller white envelope from inside. She thrusts it expectantly towards Cristina.
“I need you to look at these pictures.”
Incredulous, Cristina scoffs. “You called me in here to look at pictures. Who are you, my grandma? Should’ve put them in a scrapbook for the full effect. Or one of those ratty old photo albums.”
“Maybe I will,” says Izzie. Izzie is also giving her a death glare. “You know, nobody will call you chicken if you go five minutes without tearing into someone.”
Cristina’s face goes completely red with shame at that; she ducks her head down, muttering out a string of incomprehensible excuses. Finally she says, “Sorry.”
“J-just look at the pictures,” Izzie directs her.
Cristina focuses on tearing open the envelope. It’s sealed shut, she notices. Her fingers stumble over the top a couple of times.
“Careful,” cautions Izzie.
“Mhm,” says Cristina, distracted by the task at hand. Eventually she dives a finger through the top and tears a long gash in the paper. She reaches in and fishes one of the photos out. The surface is glossy, the paper thick.
Cristina almost forgets to breathe at what she sees: a younger version of herself, tongue jutting rudely from her mouth. Besides her is Izzie, still tall and bright–then there’s Alex, and Mer, and George. Cristina stares at it for a long while, then swallows down the lump in her throat. Her eyes sting with tears.
“Let me see,” Izzie murmurs. She outstretches a trembling hand. Cristina places the photo into her palm, careful not to bend it. “Remember that disposable camera I had?”
Cristina’s eyes widen in recollection. “Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t stop taking pictures of us.”
“It drove you nuts,” Izzie says with a wistful little smirk. “Part of why I did it. Anyways, I thought I’d get them developed before I died but then I remembered they’d have George in them and I… you know. Needed some moral support.”
“Okay.” Cristina’s head rises with no small effort to meet Izzie’s gaze. “Why me? I’m not very morally supportive.”
“I’ve trusted you with everything else,” Izzie reasons softly. She stares down at the envelope, poking her fingers through and, every so often, lifting one of the photos out. She hands Cristina one that immortalizes Doc, the deceased dog. “Give this one to Mer, will you?”
“You should do it,” Cristina says, nudging the picture back at her.
“Yeah,” Izzie mumbles. “Hey, can you hand me that?”
She points at something on the ledge of the window that leads out of her room. Cristina turns around, squints, and sees a Sharpie marker.
*
The morning after Izzie skips town and leaves an irreparable tear in the fabric of everybody’s reality, she leaves yet another envelope on Cristina’s desk. She’s gone through the effort of clearing a small ring of maple wood in the mountain of papers to draw attention to her own handiwork. Cristina shows it to Meredith.
“I didn’t get one,” Meredith says. Her voice tightens with hurt and Cristina immediately feels guilty for having shown her.
There are two things inside: one is a letter, on college grade lined paper. Cristina leaves it in the envelope, neglecting it in favor of the second item: a photo on familiar glossy cardstock of her lounging in a bed with Meredith, each keeping a loose hold on the neck of an individual sized bottle of Keystone beer. They’re laughing together.
On the back of the picture is a note scribbled out that reads as follows:
Always knew you two had something special
--Iz
It’s not the moment captured in the picture that makes Cristina want to vomit; that moment is sweet. That moment is one she’s glad has been immortalized. It’s what happens afterwards– right afterwards, and Cristina knows it from the way her hand is angled subtly towards Mer’s arm–that has that effect.
If there was any doubt that it was that night, it vanishes when Cristina sees the labels on the beer they’re drinking–she remembers that. It’s practically seared into the back of her brain.
She hears the low thud of footsteps outside the closed door, and she scrambles to hide the envelope. She makes a useless attempt to stuff it into the pocket of the worn leather jacket she’s wearing, but it won’t fit. Damn you, women’s pockets.
Then her fingers find a tear in the lining. On a whim she splits the leather even wider and shoves the envelope in the opening, where it will remain for nearly another decade.
That picture stays buried in a drawer in Cristina’s closet right up until it becomes buried in a suitcase, shortly after which it’s buried under a mountain of crap on an inconspicuous side table. It will remain under that mountain of crap for another four years.