Guess whose back, back again? Haha Sorry for being MIA, I was moving and my sister and cousin got married! Maid of honor duties are NO joke! I needed something to help throw me back into writing and after watching the season 11 premier, I felt compelled to write this. I hope to be back full time cos we need more CROWEN writers and they wil always be my favorite couple on TV. I can't let go of the feeling that they will find each other again.
I Wrote this on my iPhone while I was suppose to be working, please review. And I'm working on the next chapter of the fault in our stars.
The heavy drops of rain slapped onto the floor and the windowsills of the fancy restaurant situated in the heart of Seattle. Across the street the space needle lit up the grim night, illuminating the sky and providing a beautiful juxtaposition to the cold, wet night. Owen sat at a table at the end of the restaurant, mindlessly looking out of the floor to wall windows to his left, admiring the storm brewing outside and lost in his own thoughts. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shut his mind off, it didn't matter the amount of hours he worked nor the amount of stress his job as chief provided, he would lay down at night and instead of getting lost in his dreams, he would lay awake, haunted by his own reality.
He was sick and tired of the people in his life who felt compelled to help him, they thought of him as a lost and lonely soul, as a man who needed rescuing and he viewed himself a lot stronger and resilient than that. He was growing tired of the sympathy stares and the way people would walk on eggshells around him as if one wrong move and he would combust. But the truth of the matter was that he was the ghost of the man he once was and the fact that he couldn't bury his grief and move on tormented him.
It had been four months since she had departed and almost immediately everyone had flocked to set him up, as if burying his loss in another women would make him forget or at the least, get by. But the truth was while everyone wanted to see him off and moved on, all he wanted was sometime to grieve her loss because everyone was acting like she never existed; maybe that is how they chose to accept that she was gone but he couldn't bring himself to believe that this was it, that it was the end for her; for them. So everyday he woke up with a spark hidden in his heart, asking himself, "would today be the day that she walked back through those doors?" And every night he lay awake wondering when or if that day would ever come.
Owen was so lost in his own train of thought that he didn't even hear the footsteps walking towards his way, or the person standing in front of him trying to get his attention.
"Excuse me," She asked for the second time louder then before.
Owen jumped from the sound of her voice, clearly frazzled from the presence of the intruder.
She starred at him for a minute, a smirk appearing at the corners of her mouth.
"Strawberry blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, broad shoulders, nice smile and you certainly look like you did a couple tours in the military." She raised her eyebrows and gave him a dashing smile that showcased her perfect pearly white teeth against her tanned olive skin. She reached over and extended her hand waiting for Owen to greet her. "I'm Sandra, and by the description Dr. Sheppard gave me, you must be Dr. Hunt."
Owen gave her a shy and reserved smile before halting to his feet and extending his hand to meet hers. "Owen." He stated
He sighed heavily, "Wow, leave it to Derek Shepard to try and market me like a piece of real estate," He motioned for her to take a seat across from him.
"Well, when he read off your repertoire, I thought he was describing someone who was way too good to be true, but then I got intrigued and I caved," She said as she brushed off her coat and took a seat. "Plus, I wanted to find out what was wrong with you." She added and waited until he reluctantly met her gaze.
He gave her a nervous chuckle, "Um, excuse me?" He asked and shifted in his chair uncomfortably.
"Well there has to be a reason why your single and another reason why you need help getting a date." She quipped. "Your highly educated, a decorated war veteran, the chief of surgery and your even easy on the eyes," She rested both elbows on the table and rested her chin on her entwined hands. "So what's the catch, chief?"
Owen's breath caught in his throat as he straightened his back and adjusted his tie, clearly uncomfortable.
"There is no catch." Owen stated with furrowed eyebrows, he couldn't even make his statement solid, his face giving him away.
Sandra gave him a chuckle and thought the deer in the headlights look on him was absolutely adorable. Owen couldn't help but join in on their muted and slightly uncomfortable laughter.
"What about you, any skeletons in your closet?" Owen asked. The women in front of him was stunning, and funny and she seemed really smart and so he concluded that maybe this wasn't such a bad idea, that Derek and the rest of his friends were right, that he had to move on eventually. He reasoned that he couldn't wait for Cristina to come around forever, because knowing her, he would probably never hear from her again, she had the ability to shut off her feelings, and to run from her fears, and he deserved the life he imagined for himself. Cristina was content in just being a surgeon, in dedicating her life to her career and he was content in building a life that revolved around much more then a job.
"Well," She started, "I'm a defense attorney, I work 24/7 because my clients are dumb, deaf and blind, and I have to clean up their messes and keep them out of the slammer. I actually have to catch the red-eye tonight, I was visiting my mother at the hospital after she had a brain aneurism and Dr. Sheppard helped save her life, and that's when he started playing 20 questions with me and insisted I meet his friend." She quipped before taking a sip of the water that lay next to her.
"I'm 36, never been married, or even close to it, I was very dedicated and passionate about my job, and wanted to excel in my field and build a reputation but every man I was ever involved with wanted to domesticate me and change me. They wanted a wife who would stay home and bake cookies and make babies for them and I had dreams about conquering the world." Owen stared intently at her, her words giving him an oddly uneasy feeling.
"So here I'm today, alone and pretty lonely, though I do have a 92% conviction rate but that doesn't really keep me warm at night, if you know what I mean. I also just found out that the one man who I actually thought about having a future with just got engaged and rumor has it that she's pregnant with his baby, so it hasn't been the best couple of weeks for me." She talked matter of factly with little to no emotion, and it reminded him of someone he once knew as well, if it weren't for the flicker of pain that momentarily danced across her eyes, he would of thought that she found her circumstances amusing and funny.
"And do you want to hear the ringer to this story?" She asked but before giving him a chance to reply, she continued, "The bastard sent me an invitation to his wedding!" She exclaimed. "I don't' know what that gesture was suppose to mean, did he think that our relationship was so irrelevant and forgettable that he wanted to treat me like an old college roommate or did he want to throw his perfect little life in my face? As if to say, F-you, I found everything you refused to give me and here's a front-row seat for you to come and watch me get my happily ever after while you sulk in misery and pine over me?"
Her voice rose with every word, clearly signaling that she was getting irritated just thinking about her ex. Before Owen could offer any support or advise the waiter came over and asked to get her a drink.
"I'll take a martini, extra dirty and extra olives." She told the waiter. "I usually drink wine, but tonight wine wont cut it." She said turning her attention back to Owen.
"So now that I have spilled my guts and probably obliterated any chance of this date turning into something substantial, please don't make me feel like a complete idiot and tell me something about yourself." Sandra pleaded.
Owen hesitated for a minute, he wasn't sure if he should share the feelings he had bottled up for months now, but her pleading eyes and the need to get it off his chest encouraged him to let his guard down and tell someone who didn't know Cristina nor him.
"I was married to you once," He started and she looked completely lost before Owen explained, "Her name was Cristina and she was brilliant, so ahead of everyone else that she outshined all her competitors, she was young and fierce and dedicated to her work, that was her passion, what she lived for, her entire happiness and worth derived from her being the best. She is a cardio-thoracic surgeon, one of the most decorated in the world. But she had wings and she wanted to fly and explore the world, and I had roots and I wanted to plant seeds. She wanted a future less stable and more spontaneous and I wanted the white-picket fence with a shaggy dog and maybe a spare room for a nursery." Owen took a swig of the scotch that he had been nursing.
"She is in Zurich now, running her own hospital, and I'm here, and we are a million miles apart but somehow I still can't let go. She got pregnant when we were married and I held her hand as she terminated the pregnancy, I was dying inside while she was breathing a sigh of relief, but I couldn't make her have the baby I wanted so I decided to support her, but it are up at me inside until I exploded and screamed that she killed our baby in front of all our friends and family and then I told her I wanted to move out and then I got drunk and cheated on her with a patients sister." Owen sighed loudly and looked down at the tablecloth unable to look Sandra in the eye. "I guess the saying is true, you only hurt the people you love. God, I wanted her to feel the pain and misery I felt when I lost my child, I wanted her to hurt, just like I had."
"And so it began, she was in a plane crash and after moved to Minnesota to get away from her cheating husband and Seattle, she came back, I asked for a divorce then we started dating again and finally she broke it off with me because she didn't want me to give up having a family for her so I met and dated this women named Emma for a while but she wasn't Cristina."
"Emma was domesticated, she baked, she wanted to get married again a have a family, she wanted to give me everything Cristina refused to, but I just realized late that I didn't want that life that I envisioned for myself unless Cristina gave it to me. "
"Wow." Sandra sighed in disbelief, "I thought my life was a crap shoot, but you definitely win." She gave him a chuckle, and again, Owen couldn't help and join in. "Well if she really is anything like me then one day she will wake up and wish she could turn back time and do things differently."
"Do you have regrets?" Owen asked, Sandra contemplated for a minute before answering.
"It doesn't matter what path you choose, because every decision you make has a consequence, whether it be positive or negative, the challenge comes in being able to live with the choices you make, the only problem is that you think your making the right choice until that choice is made and that bridge is burned and of course that's the moment you realize that you made a mistake." For the first time Owen saw the sadness and self-deprecation across her face. She quickly brushed it off and changed the subject.
"So, she moved to Zurich how long ago was that?" She asked.
"About four months." Owen answered, "Its so surreal knowing how far away we are from each other and that its really over, I guess I never thought that we would be over because somehow we always found our way back to each other but the distance between the two of us makes it real, we are finished, it's the end of the road."
"My mom always used to say that everything will be ok in the end and if it's not ok, then it's not the end." Sandra stated. Owen smiled.
"I was going to bail tonight, I'm glad I didn't." Owen admitted. Sandra gave him a wink and a smile.
"I'm glad you didn't either." She stated.
"Um…." Owen stuttered trying to find the right words. "I'm…not…ready…." But before he could continue she nodded her head and quipped, "I know."
The dinner continued with pleasant conversation and delicious food, the both of them pouring their hearts out to a complete stranger and when they said goodbye, each knew that this was probably the first and last time the two would meet, nonetheless something about their meeting felt predestined.
Sandra looked down at her watch and let out a heavy sigh, her flight was on layover for another hour, she looked around and spotted a bar near the restrooms and quickly grabbed her belongings and headed its way.
She made her way to the bar and sat on a stool and quickly motioned for the waiter's attention, she looked to her right and noticed a woman nursing a drink and deep in thought.
"Good evening Ma'am, what can I get for you?" The bartender asked. Sandra was indecisive and looked towards the woman again. "What are you drinking?" She asked, the woman was resting her head on the palm of her hand and twirling the liquid inside the shot glass with the other.
"Tequila." She answered hoarsely. Sandra turned her attention back to the waiter and ordered two shots.
"Thanks." The women reluctantly said.
"Don't mention it," "Is your flight on layover too?" She attempted to make small talk.
"No, my flight landed two hours ago," She hesitantly added, "I'm just trying to gain some liquid courage before I leave the airport, its kind of a surprise visit."
"Well then, we should drink up."
The waiter brought them the two shots, "Cheers." They both said in unison. Sandra let the warm liquid travel down her throat before speaking again.
"Has any one ever told you that you have the most gorgeous head of hair I've ever seen?..."