My Heart

A/N- so I got a few comments on the AN I posted with the latest chapter of one of my MerAdd fics that said I should do a Teddy x Cristina fic. I did this one shot, you can read it and see if you like it. If I get more comments saying to continue, I'll turn this oneshot into a short story. If this ship isn't exactly your cup of tea, comment that too and I'll be sure to spend my time working on more MerAdd (I already have a new one in the works lol) rather than adding to this. But if you like it, I'll definitely update it on Sundays like I do the rest of my fics. Thanks so much for reading and supporting me, I hope you enjoy this, because I definitely loved writing it!

~Daisy

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Cristina Yang was not interested in women.

Sure, she could appreciate Teddy's beauty, admire her work, watch her delicate surgeons fingers intensely, she could do all of that and be straight, thank you very much. She could be completely taken, absolutely fascinated, with Teddy and still not like women.

Okay, it stung a little when Teddy married Henry, but she figured that was just because her mentor, her teacher, would now have less time for her. That was definitely it.

But it hurt like hell when Henry died, and a piece of Teddy died with him.

Teddy was a ghost after that; a surgical beast who never took breaks, never slept, never ate. She worked, she worked and she tried to drown out the pain that suffocated her every single second of every single day.

And she worked.

The sparkle in her eye was long gone; replaced with cold, defeated eyes that didn't hold so much as a trace of the former love and care that they used to. There was no evidence of Teddy, passionate, caring, happy, Teddy. She was a shell, going through the day to day motions but not caring about any of it.

Cristina, of course, was always with her. Every single second of every single day, she was by Teddy's side, she didn't sleep or eat, she did everything Teddy asked of her in the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, the older woman would look a little less defeated, a little less heartbroken.

Owen didn't understand; Teddy needed Cristina. It certainly wasn't the other way around, Cristina definitely wasn't staying at the hospital to make sure Teddy stayed in one piece. She wasn't there to make sure Teddy didn't fall apart, and she sure as hell was not doing her damnedest to keep the other woman standing upright. That was absurd.

But it was also completely true.

Cristina stood by, endured the complaints of her husband and her friends, performed surgery after surgery, stayed up night after night, she stood by when Teddy needed someone. She was there to make the hurt dull. Even if her own heart was breaking in her chest watching Teddy so heartbroken, she stayed.

Out of obligation, of course, she definitely didn't like like Teddy. And her heart wasn't broken because of Teddy, her heart was broken for Teddy. Out of sympathy. Anything else would imply that Cristina Yang likes girls, and Cristina Yang does not like girls.

Just Teddy (not that she'd admit it).

Two weeks after Henry had died, Teddy was still a shell of her former self. She was exhausted, anybody with eyes could see, but she refused to sleep, refused to close her eyes. Cristina had snagged a couple of cat naps in between all of the surgery, but Teddy was always on her feet, always moving, and Cristina just assumed that Teddy had been injecting pure caffeine through her veins.

"Teddy, you need to sleep" Cristina had said softly, as Teddy scoured the ER for more surgery, more work, more activities to numb her mind and her broken soul. Something to keep her thinking, to keep her fixing other people's hearts while her own was in shreds.

"Yang, don't tell me what I need" Teddy snapped back, but Cristina didn't back down. Against all odds, she didn't give up.

"You need to sleep" Cristina repeated "you've been up for two weeks, you haven't slept more than an hour at a time. You can't keep up like this" and dammit, if she could ever remember her voice being this soft.

"Yang-" Teddy was about to start again, the bags under her eyes grew and the ever-present look of pain was still etched across her elegant features.

Wordlessly, Cristina took her hand and dragged her (not that her tired and worn body put up much of a fight) to the nearest on-call room. Teddy didn't argue when Cristina sat her down, she didn't argue when Cristina slipped off her shoes and tucked her into bed. She didn't put up a fight, and that wasn't Teddy.

"I can't sleep" Teddy told Cristina, once she'd been tucked in "I can't close my eyes, I can't go to sleep"

"Teddy, you're exhausted" Cristina used the same soft voice, the voice she didn't use when talking to anyone but Teddy "you need sleep, this isn't good for you"

Teddy shook her head "I close my eyes, and I see Henry. I see his face. I feel so alone, he's dead and he left me here alone and if I close my eyes I'll be hyper-aware of how alone I am" her voice broke and a tear dripped down her cheek. Without thinking, Cristina reached out and cupped her soft cheek.

Cristina Yang was not affectionate; she was not soft, she was not sympathetic and she was not a caring person. She ran whenever she was met with tears, she ran fast and far without looking back. Emotions were not her area of expertise. But Teddy's broken sob somehow made her heart throb in her chest, everything about Teddy made her react as if she had been feeling and dealing with emotions her entire life.

But not for everyone else; just for Teddy.

"You're not alone, I'm here" her thumb brushed the tear away gently, and before she could regret touching Teddy's face, she felt the other woman burrow her cheek into her own soft touch. A content sigh slipped through Teddy's lips, as if a touch as simple as this could erase all the pain, just for a short while.

Cristina was in equal parts shock and awe; her delicate fingers that held the precision, dexterity and skill of a prize winning surgeon had held many hearts; she'd felt hearts as they stopped and started beating, her hands were soft, swift and perfect for holding hearts. The thrill, the excitement, that holding hearts brought her was almost indescribable.

But somehow, gently holding Teddy was better.

She was fascinated; her thumb brushed across the sharp outline of Teddy's cheekbone, the dip of the dark bags under her eyes, the slope of her nose, the incline of her jaw and the soft, delicate curve of her soft, delicate lips. She could've sat there for hours, tracing the shapes of Teddy's gorgeous face and watching her look so at peace, so relaxed.

"Please don't leave me" Teddy said sleepily, before Cristina could take her hand away "feels good" was all she said, and Cristina was sliding onto the bed, lying on her side, not touching Teddy in the slightest except for the soft touch of her fingers tracing her face. Over and over, until the feel of skin was burned into skilled fingertips.

"I'm not leaving, you sleep, I'll be here when you wake up" Cristina traced the thin line of an eyebrow, and gently caressed a fluttering eyelash. Everything about Teddy was so elegant, so precise, just like surgery. Touching Teddy wasn't like anything Cristina had ever felt before, and she wasn't sure she ever wanted to stop feeling it.

As Teddy fell asleep, as her breaths grew long and even and her face went completely lax, as her heartbeat slowed and her mouth opened so, so slightly to make way for small, soft breaths, as Cristina sat for hours and hours, watching and tracing her fingertips lightly over valleys and crevices, cracks and curves.

Cristina realized she may like girls after all.