Stitches of Life

Suicide is Painless

"We can make this place like home, you know?" Kim gave a small smiled as Cristina went to work with lowering her pain meds. "Get rid of all these machines and... get some of our stuff- my quilt, some pictures... some wine. Can we have wine?"

"I don't see why not." Cristina shrugged.

"If you need wine..." Sean began. "Then maybe you don't really want-"

"I don't." She cut him off. "I don't need wine. I want the wine. But I think you're gonna need it. You seem scared. Are you scared?"

"Stop worrying about me." He shook his head.

"All these things are happening, and I'm making all these choices, and I have no idea how you're feeling." Kim pointed out.

"I'm not feeling anything." Sean shrugged.

"Sean, I'm talking about where I'm gonna die." Kim's voice grew sharp, annoyed at how indifferent her husband was acting about her death. "You have to be feeling something."

"I'll go home and get the stuff, all right?" He told her.

"Sean." She frowned.

"Red or white?" He asked.

"Red." She sighed, giving up. "In a wine glass, not a plastic cup."

"Okay." He nodded before heading out of the room.

"It never changes." Kim looked at Cristina and I. "You have the same fights. I mean, even when you're dying, you have the same fights. You want to know how they're feeling, and they don't want to tell you. Sorry. I'm-"

"Don't be." I told her.

"I think they don't know." Kim guessed. "You know, when you ask them how they're feeling, and they don't want to tell you, and you think they're being difficult? I think they really don't know."

"Relax." Cristina told Kim as her breathing started to become more labored. "Deep breaths. Deep breaths."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"I swear, if Hunt weren't my superior, I'd kill him." I muttered as I took a seat in the cafeteria, joining Meredith, Lexie, and Jackson.

"Derek, too." Meredith nodded in agreement, stabbing her fork into her salad.

"What's wrong with you two?" Lexie looked between her sister and I with a raised brow.

"Derek stole my surgery." Meredith informed us.

"Hunt seems to have a problem with patients exercising their medical rights." I shook my head. "Now my patient has to be put through more pain with a pointless procedure, just because he has cold feet."

"Explain." Jackson requested through bites of his sandwich.

"I have a terminal patient who just wants to exercise her right to die through physician assisted suicide." I explained to them. "She only has weeks to live, and those weeks would just be filled with pain and suffering. She just wants to be able to die on her own terms and fits all the criteria required for this, but Hunt can't seem to just let her do what she wants. No offense to Cristina, but I hate her boyfriend."

"Why do I feel like there's more to this?" Jackson frowned, glancing from the Grey sisters to me. Before I could say anything though, Teddy came over to our table.

"Watley, come on." She said. I didn't bother questioning her, abandoning my lunch on the table and following her through the halls and downstairs to the pit, finding Cristina already there with Kim and Sean.

"Hey, Kim." I smiled slightly at the woman laying in the hospital bed, an oxygen mask over her mouth to help her breathe.

"You know the drill," Teddy got to the point, speaking softly to the couple, mainly Kim. "We've put you in a twilight state, next we're gonna spray lidocaine on the back of your throat and pass the scope-"