Hi guys :) Just to warn you that I've kind of followed what happened in the last episode (9x06, so if you haven't watched it then stop reading now!) however i haven't included the part about them suing Owen or the hospital because i genuinely have no idea how that's going to work out or how to write that into a story, it also breaks my heart to think about it! I also haven't taken in to account the promo for 9x07 because that also makes me sad.

At the moment I think this is gonna be a oneshot, I have a few idea's about continuing it but nothing in writing yet so I'm not 100% certain that I will carry it on. Thanks for reading it in advance :)

Here goes nothing...

"Yang!"

"What?" she called idly as she flicked through a patients chart, not even bothering to turn round and see who was shouting at her until a steaming cup of coffee was places directly in front of her. "Oh thank God" she breathed before dropping the chart and taking a large gulp of the scalding liquid. She raised an eyebrow at Alex Karev who looked slightly uncomfortable under her questioning gaze.

"Figured you could use it. Early surgery an' all" he shifted before looking at the chart she'd dropped, eager to divert the conversation to safer grounds, like the emergency valve replacement she'd dragged herself out of bed for at 5am this morning. "Valve replacement. Cool"

"Yeah, needed doing as soon as we got the mechanical valve in. Russell's basically giving me free reign of the Cardio wing. It's my new playground" she grinned at him smugly "And thank you…for the coffee" she added just as awkwardly, her hands still wrapped tightly around the steaming take away cup. Neither of them had ever been very good at giving or accepting thanks.

Cristina had been renting a room from him for just over a month now and, despite having told Alex he'd never know she was there, he had gone out of his way to make her feel at home. The day after she'd moved in she'd come back to find him waiting for her with a takeout menu and surgical tapes he'd borrowed off Meredith, apparently having heard she'd been stuck working with Owen all day, something that had been particularly painful and had drained her emotionally.

Since then they'd managed to work out a pretty good routine. He began feeding her actual meals, trying and failing to teach her the basics of cooking and leaving her food out if she got stuck at the hospital or was on call, and she introduced him to all of her favourite take out places and the joys of 30 seconds dance party's which often included Meredith and a bottle of tequila. Once he'd even held back her hair as she'd emptied her stomach the next morning, swearing to never do it again no matter how sick she was.

This new found niceness didn't stop him from slamming every door and banging every pot and pan in the house though as she nursed her hangover and it definitely didn't stop her bitching at him when she woke up to find half naked interns in her kitchen.

"Oh, I found the panties of your latest conquest in the hallway this morning" she smirked up at him as she snatched her chart back "I took the liberty of burning them"

"Right…Melissa. I think. From the first floor…I think"

"The one with the abnormally large crooked nose? You should introduce her to Sloan…"

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, slipping from behind her guard, slipping between her lips and hanging heavily in the silence that follows them as Alex turns to stare at her. A wall of pain slams into her body and her heart skips a few beats as the colour drains from her face.

"Jackson…You mean Avery right?" Alex questions her, his voice unusually soft, like he's talking to one of his younger patients, like she's a child. She'd been back at Seattle Grace for over a month now, snapping at interns and earning her reputation as the Queen of Mean, but no-one's really forgotten the shell of herself she'd been after the plane crash, no-one's really gotten over seeing her so broken and in some ways, Cristina thinks, they're all waiting with baited breath for her to relapse.

"Jackson, right. Mark's dead." She muttered before turning away from Alex's worried gaze. The vice like grip on her heart hasn't lessened yet and her breathing was shallow. Thoughts of the plane crash tumble through her mind, of Mark constantly trying to die on her, as she tries to focus on the coffee that was now burning her palm as she gripped the cup tightly.

Alex moved to take the coffee cup from her hands but as he opened his mouth to speak Meredith rushed over to join them at the nurses' station, a crying Zola in her arms.

The high pitched wailing dragged Cristina back to the present as she tugged the crying toddler from a frazzled looking Meredith, ignoring the worried glances Alex was shooting in her direction.

"Hey there ZoZo. Have you been a naughty girl for Mommy?"

"She's getting another tooth through which means she cries. All the time. And now I'm going to be late for my shift and Webbers gonna kick my ass. And my hairs a mess" Meredith wailed in almost the same fashion as her daughter as she flailed her arms, gesturing wildly to her unruly hair.

"Give her whiskey. That's what my Ma did" Both Meredith and Cristina turned to stare at Alex in shock.

"Wow, you really did grow up out back with the trashcans" Cristina giggled as she mimicked Bailey from a time where there had been 5 of them, before they'd had to grow up. There had only been the three of them sitting at the table that day and maybe that should have set off the warning bells. Maybe they should have seen all that pain and suffering coming, maybe they should have seen the change before it knocked the air from their lungs and left the three of them to cling to each other like lifelines as they struggled to keep their heads above water.

"I will not!" Meredith sounded outraged at the idea so Cristina could only imagine what McDreamy's response to Alex's idea of parenting.

"Yeah, we don't want ZoZo here to turn out like us do we now" she laughed as Zola stopped crying and instead flung her chubby little arms around Cristina's neck and rooting her hands firmly in the curls she'd left loose. Tying her hair up only reminded her of Owen and how much he loved the back of her neck.

"That's a good point, can't have our baby turning into a renowned tequila loving whore like her mother" Alex smirked as Meredith landed a punch to his chest, his laugh quickly turning into a gasp for air.

Both women began laughing as Alex gasped for breath, ignoring the dirty looks they were getting from some of the nurses, and only laughing harder when Zola let out a little giggle of her own.

"Do you like that baby? Do you like when Mommy hurts Uncle Alex?" Meredith cooed at Zola, shuffling the diaper bag as she leaned down to kiss her daughters cheek. Cristina couldn't help but notice how much motherhood suited Meredith, despite the knotted hair.

"Mommy's a bitch Zo!" Alex exclaimed, still fighting to keep his breathing even.

"Language!" both Meredith and Cristina chided almost in unison before cracking up with laughter again.

Zola was still tugging gently on Cristina's curls like she usually did, giving them all her best toothy smile, the toothy smile that had started this whole conversation.

"Karev!"

They all turned to face the approaching voice that had called Alex from down the hall. Cristina quickly adverted her gaze, her eyes landing on the floor, as Owen jogged over to the group, his white coat in on hand and his other busy clipping his pager into the pocket in his scrubs.

"There's a trauma coming in, victims 12. S'yours if you want it, ambulance is 10 minutes out"

Silence enveloped the group as Alex nodded at Hunt before dropping his gaze to Cristina who everyone knew was still finding it hard to be around Owen. The silence was broken however by Zola's giggling and a sharp tug on a strand of dark curly hair.

"Stina!"

"Yes ZoZo?" she answer instinctively the way she always did with Zola, her voice soft and the ever-present sarcastic edge that was used with everyone else gone.

"I'll meet you out there Karev" Owen's voice had changed, turned cold in a matter of a few seconds but as Cristina raised her gaze to meet the piercing blue eyes that were trained on her she could see the pain building in them and the longing she was sure could be seen reflected in her own.

He quickly broke eye contact and turned to stride away, the soldier in him evident in the brisk pace and the strong, square set of his shoulders. She watched as his hand came up to rub at the back of his neck, ruffling his ginger hair in a subconscious movement he only did when he was hurt.

Looking down at Zola, she tried to disguise the pain it caused her to know she hurt him, was still hurting him. Faking a smile, she handed Zola back to a concerned looking Meredith but Cristina Yang didn't do hurt or sad. She was indifferent to it all; she was a surgeon, a Cardio God.

"Shouldn't you be getting her to day care? You're already running late" She asked, ignoring the looks she was getting from her friends and sipping at the coffee that Alex had balanced on top of her now forgotten chart.

"Actually…"Meredith began hesitantly, still shooting Cristina worried looks and trying to gauge the mood of Alex who was also still glancing down at Cristina every few seconds. "I actually came over to ask if one of you guys could pick her up from day care and take her for a few hours. Derek has surgery and I'm scheduled for a bowel resection at 4"

"Sure, I can take her" Cristina answered, quickly signing her charts and handing it off to an irritated looking nurse.

"You sure?"

"Yes I'm sure. I'm not going to break down because Owen still won't talk to me or even look at me properly. I can handle a child. And anyways, Evil Spawn'll be finished his shift soon after me"

"Hopefully this kids not too messed up, if I get this trauma sorted pretty quickly then I've only got an appy on a 6 year old to do today. Shit…trauma! I gotta go" Alex rushed as both Meredith and Cristina protested against his language yet again. He ruffled Zola's hair as he passed Meredith and headed in the direction she'd watched Owen walk away from her. "Give me a lift home?" he called over his shoulder to Cristina, not stopping and waiting to hear her answer, like it was a given she'd hang around for him with Zola. Either that or didn't trust her alone with the kid, an option she didn't want to even think about.

"Home?" Meredith questioned as she silenced her beeping pager and shifted Zola higher up on her hip."

"It's his home now, y'know, and he's trying really hard to make it home for me too. But it's just as house to me. My homes with…" she trailed off, trying hard to ignore the stinging in her eyes as she fought to keep the tears at bay. "My homes with Owen" she repeated, refusing to let her voice waver or crack, she was strong, like she'd always been.

"And if he never takes you back?" Meredith asked, sensing in her dark and twisted sister her fear that he never would without Cristina having to actually say anything.

The hurt she saw cloud her friends dark eyes almost broke Meredith herself, she had no idea how Cristina was coping without her other half. The few times her and Derek had had an argument bad enough to warrant him sleeping in his trailer had led to her being an emotional wreck that had to be sedated with a bottle of tequila and a night curled up in bed with Cristina. Yet here was Cristina, not only surviving but functioning at work with Owen only a few feet away, neither of them able to conjure up the words that would fix their undeniably broken marriage.

Cristina turned to walk away from Meredith, her heart breaking all over again, after answering her question with the painful truth.

"Then I'll never feel at home again"