How it is

Chapter twenty:

I can feel the chemicals,
Burn,
In my bloodstream.

Cristina's POV:

24 weeks, 1 day pregnant.

Twenty four weeks and one day meant I was finally past the mark of viability. And just like when I was pregnant with Scarlet, I began to put together a nursery.

"Basic yellow" I told Meredith, as we sat down at my kitchen table with Lexie and Arizona, getting ready to paint the nursery. The kids were all with their Dads and Timothy was with Mark, Sofia and the boys. We needed a day to ourselves, since we were on call and technically not required to be at the hospital unless we got paged.

"Are you painting one room, or two?" Lexie asked me as she sipped on some wine. Everyone around me was sipping on red wine, while I sat drinking soda because I was pregnant and not happy about it.

"One" I reply "we figure keeping them both in the same room will be easier for the first couple of years"

"It's weird seeing you pregnant, because last time you were pregnant so was I" Lexie comments "it kinda makes me miss being pregnant, but don't tell Mark I said that because he'd have me knocked up again in a second if he could"

Mark was Mr. Dad and despite having four kids, he wanted more.

"Whatever Mark is huffing, I need some" I mutter, annoyed that I was being kicked in the back again.

"He's huffing baby powder, because all he wants his baby's!" Lexie exclaimed "he's crazy. I swear to god, he's crazy. I love him, I'm so in love with him, but he spends a day with all four of the kids and he still wants another one. I spend all day with them and I want a hysterectomy!" Lexie, while she loved her kids, lacked whatever gene Mark possessed that made him Mr. Dad.

"At least he's not huffing other women" Arizona shrugged "that's always a good sign"

"Have you come to an agreement on the kids yet?" Meredith asks, placing a hand over Arizona's comfortingly. Arizona just shakes her head.

"Callie wants them to get to know Erica, but I don't want my children around her. And Mark agrees, he hates Hahn" Arizona tacks on.

"Well" Lexie sighs "why don't we just go paint the nursery, and then go shopping for itty bitty baby clothes to make Arizona feel better?"

Everybody nodded, and off we went to paint.

~

It only took a couple of hours with one person doing each wall, and before we knew it, the room was painted and we were in a car on the way to Walmart.

"What are we even getting?" I ask, as Meredith parks the car close to the doors.

"What do you need for your nursery?" Arizona asks "what do you need for your babies? Did you keep anything to reuse from when Scarlet was little"

I got out of the car and laughed as I slammed the door. "No, I got rid of anything that wasn't sentimental because I wasn't exactly planning on another kid, let alone two" or three, I mentally added, thinking of Amelia's baby that I was going to be forced to coparent.

"Are you still set on not finding out the gender?" Lexie asked, as we got into the store and I grabbed a cart.

"We want a surprise; plus, this way Owen won't be so insistent that we name them before they're born, since we have no clue what they are yet" Owen was always over enthusiastic about the babies names. He was like it with Scarlet, and he was like it with these two.

"Have you decided on any names yet?" Meredith asked me as we strolled down aisles of tiny baby clothes. If my womb wasn't full of two boxing kangaroo kids, I'd say it would be hurting with baby fever. 

"I like Olive" I tell her "for a girl. But one girl name we have set is Lydia; I like Olive better, but Owen likes Lydia more. The second girl name is Hazel, Owen is fighting for Jade but I shot that down. And for a boy, we've only got Kyle" I sigh "it's harder than you'd think, especially since Owen and I are so different"

"So you're finals are Olive, Lydia, Hazel and Kyle? You need another boy name, just in case" Meredith adds.

I nod "If it's boy-girl twins, we want to go with Lydia and Kyle, we have no idea for girl-girl twins because Hazel and Lydia don't really go together and we've only got Kyle for boy-boy twins. Owen likes Max, but Amelia likes Max too and I don't want to rely on Max if she's going to chose it" Amelia's baby name also made this a hell of a lot more difficult; I hadn't exactly asked her what she had picked out either, so that was a factor.

We strolled the aisles of Walmart, until my pager went off, saving me from the hell of baby clothes and small talk. I had a surgery, and I was excited.

"I will see you guys at the hospital tomorrow" I laugh "I have a surgery, a kickass surgery where I can be a cardio god and get a break from all things baby" let me tell you, that was the fastest time I was out of Walmart and to the hospital.

When I got there, Hahn was no where in sight, which meant I was paged instead of her. The nurses hated me, but they hated Hahn more, so they must've paged me first. Feeling smug and ready to get my hands in a chest cavity, I threw on a trauma gown and snapped on some gloves.

Throwing open the door to the trauma room, focused on my job and completely in my element, It was the most content I'd felt in weeks. Because for a little while, I wasn't worrying about Amelia and her baby, or Owen and Amelia, or Scarlet, or the twins. I was nobody's wife and nobody's Mother.

I was a doctor.

"Alright, what do we got?"