Cristina wasn't feeling well. She had that groggy, slept way too much sluggishness and felt run down. Admittedly, she hadn't been taking care of herself the last few weeks, working too many hours, eating meals of whatever happened to be lying around her kitchen, grabbing snacks on the go from the coffee cart on the second floor. Today she felt queasy, and wondered if she was coming down with something. Or maybe she had given herself food poisoning with her own bad cooking.
She decided she was just going to have to ignore the signs her body was giving her and focus on her work. She was excited today; in fact, she was bubbly. Or as close to bubbly as Cristina Yang got. She was on Owen's service, and couldn't wait to spend the day with him. Those weeks spent apart from him had been the worst she had ever experienced, even worse than when Burke had left. But finally, at Izzie and Alex's wedding, they had the courage to tell each other how they felt and quickly realized how ridiculous and painful it was to try to stay apart when it was so inevitable that they should be together. From that moment on, they had been inseparable, both emotionally and physically. They had done pretty much everything but sleep together again; Owen was still in therapy and wanted to be sure his nightmares were over before he chanced staying at her place. However, they were spending almost every spare minute they had together. Rather than making Cristina sick by being the mushy lovey dovey couple that normally made her cringe, she secretly adored sneaking off at any available moment to kiss in an on-call room, holding hands under the table so others couldn't see, or exchanging coded, loaded three word phrases that made no sense to anyone but them.
Cristina was in love, like a silly, giggly teenager. And oddly enough, it suited her. She tried not to smile so much, but she couldn't hold herself back, and neither could Owen. But they tried to maintain their professionalism as best as they could, even if there was an underlying giddiness to their moods these days.
She entered the ER and took a glance around the room. There were very few patients; it appeared to be a slow day, and Owen was chatting with George and Bailey by the desk. She moved over to them, and stood between Owen and Bailey. Owen glanced down at her and gave her a half smile. She looked up at him and suddenly felt a bit dizzy. She reached her hand out to the desk to steady herself.
"Cristina, are you okay?" George asked. "You don't look so good. You're really pale." Owen took her in more closely, concern etched on his face.
She waved him off. "I'm fine. It's nothing." She pointed at the empty beds. "Where's all the blood and gore?"
"Don't say anything. You'll jinx it," replied George.
Before anyone could reply, the phone rang, and their quiet day in the ER was over. Soon, ambulances began arriving and the four of them worked on patients in various states of distress. Three hours had passed by the time the wounded had been sent off to hospital rooms and George had left to scrub in on a surgery. Cristina had worked quickly but knew something was not quite right. Her reflexes weren't as fast as usual and she felt like she was making decisions a split second slower than she normally did. Maybe she was coming down with the flu after all.
Owen watched Cristina as she leaned heavily against the nurse's station and filled out some charts. She didn't look right, and he was worried. Something was definitely wrong. He called out to her. "Dr. Yang?"
She didn't respond. He began to walk towards her and said her name again. "Dr. Yang?"
Cristina looked up at Owen with a confused expression on her face, and then as if in slow motion, began to slump towards the floor. Owen ran the last few steps and grabbed her just before she hit the ground. "Cristina!" He yelled, but she just flopped back into his arms, unconscious. Bailey ran over and helped him move her to a bed. They checked her vitals and as they worked Bailey noticed that Owen continually touched her hair and her face, and held her hand. He was being so gentle, so intimate, so concerned. Bailey immediately knew there was something more to these two than she had realized.
Slowly Cristina became aware that she was lying down and that Owen was holding her hand. He squeezed it gently, and she lightly squeezed back. She felt woozy, but thought if she could just get moving she would be fine. She began to sit up.
"Whoa, there," said Bailey. "Lie yourself back down until we figure out what's wrong."
"I'm fine," Cristina insisted, still trying to sit up.
"You're not fine," Owen said sternly, leaning over her in a way that, to an outsider would have looked menacing, but that she knew was protective; he was fraught with worry.
"I'm okay. Really," she insisted, unconvincingly, lying back against the pillow. "It's just the flu or something. It's nothing. I haven't fainted since I…" And with that, her eyes widened with realization; she looked over at Bailey, stricken. Bailey was looking right at her, and she knew Bailey was thinking the exact same thing.
"Dr. Hunt, why don't I move Yang up to a regular room while you keep an eye on the ER?" Owen looked at Bailey and then down at Cristina, the anxiety all over his face, "I'll come back down and cover you once Dr. Yang gets settled and you can come check on her." He looked between the two of them, wanting assurance that Cristina was okay, and that Bailey would take good care of her.
"It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry. I probably have low blood sugar or something," Cristina said, trying to sound calm despite the fact that her heart was beating a mile a minute and she was silently freaking out. "Really. It's okay. Dr. Bailey will take care of everything."
Owen watched her a moment, his brow furrowed. "Are you sure? I'll come up with you right now if you need me."
"Seriously, it's nothing. Stop worrying. Stay here and take care of the ER and the real patients." She squeezed his hand again, and he nodded at her. He glanced over at Bailey, then back to Cristina.
"Take care, now," he said. She gave a half smile, trying not to be too obvious in front of Bailey.
"You take care, too," she replied. Bailey watched the two of them and then rolled her eyes. As if they think they're getting away with something, she thought.
**
As soon as they were out of Owen's hearing, Cristina turned to Bailey, frantic and exasperated. "You know the last time I fainted I was pregnant. How could I be pregnant again? I'm on the pill. I have one tube, for God's sake. I mean, what the hell?"
"Yang, you know as well as I do that having one fallopian tube does not mean you're not going to get pregnant. But we don't know that yet." Bailey helped Cristina onto the bed. "Now relax. Let's just do some blood work and see what's going on." Bailey turned to leave the room, then turned back to her new patient.
"And once we get some results you can tell your boyfriend Dr. Hunt all about it." Cristina looked up sharply in surprise. "Oh, don't you give me that look," laughed Bailey. "You two, thinking you're all sly. Please. Trying to pull the wool over my eyes like that." She turned, and chuckled her way out the door, pausing before she shut it behind her.
"Oh, and Yang?"
"What?" Asked Cristina.
"Being pregnant is not such a terrible thing. You know, just in case." And with that, the door shut and Cristina was left alone with thoughts of how her life might completely change within the next few minutes.
**
A short while later, the traffic through the pit had lightened up again, and Owen was left with free time to fill his mind with all the awful things that might be happening to Cristina. He had paged Bailey already, but hadn't heard back from her yet, and immediately took that to mean something terrible was going on. In the back of his mind, he knew he was being ridiculous, but the thought of anything bad happening to her terrified him. When George finally came back down to the ER from his surgery, Owen told him he was in charge and left to find his girlfriend.
A few floors upstairs he bumped into Bailey as she left Cristina's room. Bailey could tell immediately that he had already worked himself into a frantic state over Cristina.
"What is it, Dr. Bailey? Is she okay? Did she faint again?" Owen could see Cristina resting in the bed through the pane of glass in the window of the door.
"Dr. Hunt, Dr. Yang seems to be a bit anemic. She hasn't been paying very much attention to her own body lately. But I'll let her tell you about it." Owen reached towards the door handle when Bailey reached out and touched his arm. "She's one of my babies, Dr. Hunt. And I'm saying to you right now that she's going to need someone to take good care of her. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
Owen was not at all surprised at Bailey's comprehension of his and Cristina's relationship. And he also knew that he could not let Bailey down, just as he couldn't let Cristina down at this moment when she needed him. "I understand completely, Dr. Bailey," he said quietly, looking at the floor. He paused for a moment, and then looked into her eyes. "You don't have to worry about anything. I will make sure that she is well taken care of."
"I don't doubt that you will," Bailey said. "Now go talk to her. I'll be down in the pit if she needs me." She turned and headed towards the elevator.
**
Owen moved across the hospital room in a few quick strides and leaned down to kiss Cristina.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." He kissed her twice more, and then sat next to her, taking her tiny hand in his.
"So Dr. Bailey says you're anemic. That's not so bad. You had me worried there." Owen reached out to brush some of her curls away from her face. Cristina smiled at him wistfully. She reached out and touched his cheek. He turned to kiss the palm of her hand, and then tilted his head, looking at her questioningly, worriedly. "What is it? Is there something else?"
Cristina sighed and looked at the wall across the room, mindlessly wondering who picked out the ugly drawings of birds that hung in all the rooms of the hospital. She was avoiding telling him, but it had to come out at some time. She turned back to face him.
"I'm pregnant."
Owen's mouth dropped open in surprise. He didn't know what to say, and shook his head in disbelief. "What? Are you sure? How did this happen?"
Cristina smiled wryly. "Well, Dr. Hunt, when two people love each other very much, they—"
"No, not that, I know how that happens," Owen said, shaking his head and dismissing her joke without laughter. "I mean, we only…just the once…how is it possible?"
Cristina shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her hand in his. "I don't know. Strong swimmers, I guess. I mean, I only have one fallopian tube, so it's just as much of a surprise to me. But that's a whole other story." She looked back up at him with worry in her eyes. They watched each other cautiously.
"What are you thinking?" She asked, quietly.
A thousand things ran through his mind: I'm not ready for a baby. We just got together. I'm not far enough along in my therapy. I haven't even seen my mom yet. My mom's going to be so excited. Cristina's going to be a mom. I'm going to be a dad. We're having a baby.
And then he laughed.
"We're having a baby?" He asked, smiling.
She had watched a variety of emotions travel across his face and finish with a look of wonderment. And his happy laugh made her laugh, too.
"Yeah. A baby. We're having a baby. We're having a baby? Oh my God, we're having a baby!" She replied, her shocked excitement equal to his.
He reached down and put his hand on Cristina's belly as if he might already feel a little foot kicking him to let him know she was in there. He looked over at Cristina, at how beautiful she was and saw how it really was true that pregnancy could make a woman glow. He saw how lovingly she looked back at him, and he knew right then that they would be okay, that they would work this out together and make themselves into the family they were already becoming because this baby was created out of the complete and utter love they had for one another. The only thing he didn't know was how he had been so lucky to find her.
He reached over and gave her a long slow kiss. When he pulled away, she smiled back at him, and put her hand over his on her stomach. She knew by the way he was looking at her with a mixture of love and amazement that despite the surprise, they would work this out. She had gotten her second chance at happiness, and it was better than she had ever imagined. Not long ago, she had no one to love her. Now she had not one, but two people to love and to love her back. She lay back contentedly on the pillow and considered all the possibilities of her new little family.
They sat together quietly, holding hands, knowing this was right. It was as if fate had confirmed that their lives should be intertwined from now on. It was the way things ought to be. And they were happy.
