Christopher didn't blink. He let a slow, mocking smirk spread across his face, the kind that suggested Derek was remarkably dim for a world-class neurosurgeon. Around them, the lobby was still vibrating from Addison's nuclear entrance, but Christopher focused entirely on the man whose perfect life he'd just dismantled.
"Derek, please," Christopher said, his voice a silky cocktail of condescension and boredom. "I'm a triple-board-certified surgeon at an age when most people are still figuring out how to do their own laundry. Do you really think I don't track the tail numbers of private jets arriving from New York? Or that I don't notice when the Chief's secret correspondence file suddenly grows a 'Montgomery' tab?"
Derek's eyes narrowed, the 'McDreamy' charm replaced by a sharp, jagged suspicion. "That's a lot of effort for a consultant's personal life."
"It's not effort if it's effortless," Christopher countered, stepping closer so his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I have a gift for patterns. You, Derek, are a very predictable pattern: the guilt, the ferry boat scrub caps, the penchant for blonde interns with 'legacy' issues. It doesn't take a psychic to see the storm clouds when you're standing in a hurricane."
Addison cleared her throat, her patience for being ignored by two men—one her husband, one a bratty genius—evaporating. "Derek, are we going to stand here and discuss this child's hobby of stalking your travel logs, or are we going to talk about the fact that you haven't called me in months?"
"I'll leave you to the domestic bliss," Christopher said, offering a mock two-finger salute.
He spun around and headed for the service elevators, his heart finally slowing down. The lie had worked; he'd played into his "insufferable prodigy" persona so well that Derek's suspicion was masked by irritation.
He reached the private surgical suite on the fifth floor, the one Andrew DeLuca had "requisitioned." He pushed through the doors to find Cristina on the table, her face pale under the blue drapes, and DeLuca's hands deep in her abdomen.
"Status?" Christopher asked, his sarcasm vanishing as he stepped into the sterile zone.
"She's stable, but the internal bleeding was three times what the original chart said," DeLuca muttered, his brow furrowed in concentration. "If we hadn't started five minutes ago, she would have coded. The timeline is trying to kill her, Christopher. It's like the universe is a jealous editor."
"Well, tell the universe I don't like its revisions," Christopher said, reaching for a pair of gloves. "I'm scrubbing in. We need to finish this before Bailey notices her star intern is missing from the drama in the lobby."
As he moved to the sink, the automatic doors hissed open. Christopher expected a nurse or an angry Chief. Instead, he saw Izzie Stevens standing there, holding a tray of lab results, her eyes wide as she looked at Cristina on the table—and then at the "trauma surgeon" she'd never seen before.
"Who are you?" Izzie whispered, her gaze landing on DeLuca. "And why is Cristina in a secret surgery?"