Lessons Learned

by CardioQueen

Teddy is gone and Cristina decides to find her own Cardio God this time. Enjoy! All haters will be blocked. Don't like it? Write your own stuff .

"Teddy's gone."

Cristina glances up from the computer in front of her to her husband and hears the sadness in his voice. If it weren't for the chronicles of Teddy's arrival and their history together, she would assume that he sounded sad because she no longer had a teacher. Time has taught her though that assuming anything of the sort would be foolish. She doesn't hold it against him, she has no reason to.

She just knows that his source of upset is not about her loss or her career at stake.

"I know," she answers.

Owen's brow furrows, "How do you know?"

Before Cristina can answer Richard joins them. He looks pointedly at Cristina, offers a brief escape and when she doesn't take it, continues, "Dr. Hunt."

"Richard," Owen greets, "I was just telling Cristina about Dr. Altman."

"Cristina is aware," Richard says, kind of confused by the statement. It was Cristina's actions that finally prompted Dr. Altman to leave.

"So I was finding out," Owen answers, turning back to look at Cristina who merely shrugs.

Richard clears his throat to recapture Owen's attention and he does momentarily until another man joins their gathering, "Dr. Hunt, this is Dr. Preston Burke. He'll be assuming the role of head of cardiothoracics."

Owen looks at Cristina, his jaw clenched and then to his new colleague, "You mean resuming."

The corner of Burke's mouth turns up as he offers his hand to the other man, "I suppose you could say that."

Cristina watches as the two shake hands and for the first time she shifts, slightly uncomfortable by the situation. The man she was supposed to marry and the man she did marry, standing before her. Her eyes dance between the two for a moment and then her gaze freezes when she sees the look in Owen's eye.

"I suppose you could," Owen says idly as he releases the other man's hand, "I'll see you around, Dr. Burke. I'm sure of it."

Burke watches the way that the other man stares Cristina down, makes note of the ring on his finger. The lack of a ring on hers doesn't mean anything- she doesn't do rings, but the way she shrinks in her chair says it all.

"I look forward to working with you," Burke says, looking down at Cristina one last time before Richard leads him away.

Cristina watches the two men leave before standing up and stretching as if nothing just happened, "I have patients I need to see."

"You don't have patients, Cristina. He just got here."

"Yeah," Cristina says, a tone of defiance in her voice, "that's the thing about world renowned surgeons. They bring patients with them."

"Cristina," Owen starts, reaching out to grab her arm.

"Patients," Cristina repeats, avoiding his grasp, "I'll talk to you later."

The conversation is inevitable, she knows that, but she's not going to ruin her day any time soon. She finally has a teacher that isn't going to go anywhere until she's completed her fellowship she's going to enjoy that for at least fourteen hours without addressing the consequences.

Owen paces back and forth outside Richard's office, trying to reason exactly why Richard would ask Burke to come back to Seattle when he knows the history between Cristina and his new head of cardio. There's no reasoning behind it. Not everything is personal, he understands better than most people in this hospital, but this goes beyond being personal.

When Richard comes into view he stops and walks in his direction, "I need a moment, sir."

"Only a moment, Dr. Hunt, I have a meeting to get to and I'm already running late."

"Then I'll make this brief," Owen agrees, " Why Dr. Burke? There are hundreds of cardiothoracic surgeons in this country that would have taken this position. Why him?"

Richard pauses at his office door, "Dr. Yang assured me that this wouldn't be a problem."

"Dr. Yang?"

"Yes," he answers confused, "she didn't tell you?"

Owen shakes his head, "Tell me what exactly?"

Richard shakes his head. There's not much that can be done about it now. Burke requested a fully binding five year contract, and one that would be far too lucrative to go back on, "Dr. Yang was the one who asked Dr. Burke to come out here."

"I still can't believe you called him," Meredith says, shaking her head in disbelief, "you're the only person I know that would call the guy who dumped you at the altar in order to use him for his surgical skill."

"Whatever. If you wouldn't do it you're a pathetic excuse for a surgeon," Cristina scoffs, "anybody with brains would do it."

"Anybody who's married wouldn't."

"Marriage has nothing to do with it. Besides, this is my career. Who cares if I'm married if I'm pulling tricks on the corner because I couldn't complete my residency?"

Meredith snickers, "Pulling tricks on the corner. Somehow I don't think Owen would let that happen."

"He let me bartend," Cristina points out.

"Oh. Yeah. I guess he did," Meredith remembers, "I'm sure he'd draw the line at prostitution."

"Well, he's not going to have to. I'm going to be the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the country. No hooking required," she shrugs, closing a chart and reaching for one of Teddy's last postop cases, "it's strictly professional."

"Right."

Cristina glances up at Meredith, "It's professional. There's no lingering whatever, no other crap. He owed me."

"And you think he came just because he feels bad that you didn't have a teacher?" Meredith questions her, "That he dropped his entire life wherever he was because-"

"New Orleans. He wasn't under contract, isn't married, and had no life except work. And his work follows him everywhere he goes. He wasn't dropping his life, he was just moving it."

"You're delusional," Meredith grins, "so delusional."

"Delusional or not," Cristina says, closing another chart, "my talent isn't going to waste. That's all that matters."

Cristina looks down into the open chest cavity before her with a renewed enthusiasm about her career. She knows that this procedure isn't a reward for being a good little soldier but the promise of her future instead, and it makes all the difference. She watches as Burke's fingers delicately manipulate the coronary arteries, examining their patency for grafting and it's like things haven't changed.

He's still an amazing surgeon, even when he's not doing anything.

"You're married," Burke says calmly, signaling for a needle driver and his venous graft.

"Yeah," she says casually, suctioning around the heart for the small amount of blood pooled at the bottom of the pericardium.

Burke looks up at her, his gaze relaying nothing at all, "Congratulations."

Cristina's eyes linger on his for only a moment and she looks down, "Thank you."

Owen is sitting on the couch with a full beer in hand when Cristina gets home. There's a couple empty bottles sitting on the coffee table and she knows that he already knows. She sits next to him and pulls the bottle from his hand to take a drink, "Just in case it's the last one," she explains.

"You asked him to come here," Owen says, unmoving, "you asked him to come here and you didn't bother to ask me about it first."

"You didn't ask me about Teddy coming here," Cristina shrugs, "so what?"

"It was different with Teddy. You wanted a teacher-"

"And I wanted a teacher now."

"You had Teddy," Owen argues, pulling back to look at her, "you had her and you were-"

"Not responsible for her mood swings. Not learning anything from her. She's a good surgeon, Owen, but not a great one. I know that you got her to come here for me but- I'm returning her and getting the thing I really wanted."

"So you really want Burke?" Owen says, shaking his head, "I knew it."

"I really want a teacher that's going to teach me things that I don't already know. I want a teacher who is going to help me be great. Teddy wasn't that."

"This isn't about your career, Cristina," he's frustrated with her and it's beginning to show, "You two have a history, a deep history. Bringing him here was irresponsible."

"The same could have been said for Teddy."

"You should have asked me first," Owen persists, "this affects both of us."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I had to ask for permission to advance my career," Cristina sneers, "this won't affect us nearly as much as Teddy did. There are no feelings, no hang ups. He's here to teach me. Burke recognizes the fact that I have talent that's going to waste. That's all there is to it."

"Right."

"You're jealous."

"I have nothing to be jealous of."

"Then stop acting like it," Cristina snaps at him.

Owen looks at her wounded, his brow still furrowed and he shakes his head, "I hope you know what you're doing."

The remark doesn't even deserve justification on her part. Cristina knows exactly what she's doing and she knows what's important in her life. Nothing is going to get in the way of that now, even the man she married.

The dull ache in the soles of her feet remind Cristina of exactly how long she's been working today and rather than being upset about it, she smiles to herself. These are the kind of days she's longed for, lived for. This is what she wanted for her life.

She drops into a chair behind the nurses' station, a stack of charts awaiting her. Cristina kicks her feet up onto the desk and reaches for the first one. Her eyes scan over Burke's handwriting and she shakes her head. She knows from personal experience that he's capable of neat handwriting, he'd left her several notes before.

His charts however, constantly keep the nurses scratching their heads while trying to decode his orders.

It may be the one thing she'll miss about Teddy but it's not enough to harbor any sort of feelings. If translating crappy handwriting is the only thing she has to give up in order to learn anything, she'll take it. She'd translate Lebanese at this point rather than going back to working with Teddy.

Burke watches from a distance as she works, the way her curls fall over her face, her expression focused and intent and it's like nothing has changed but everything has at the same time. There's something else about her, something he hasn't been able to put his finger on yet, but it's only been a couple of days. It will come out with time.

The phone call had surprised him, her insistence upon him returning. Burke supposes now that he should have asked for more of an explanation, that he shouldn't have given in so easily. He would have been able to prepare himself for the fact that she was married, for the fact that he had given up so much when he walked away. Though it was clear that his relationship was purely conditional upon the fact that 'he owed her' and that she desperately needed a teacher, he couldn't help but be slightly wounded to learn that another had won her heart.

He approaches her slowly through the dimmed hallway, his arms crossed behind his back. He waits until she glances up at him to address her, "You realize that it's late."

"I have work to do."

Burke nods slightly, "Work will be here in the morning. You have somebody waiting at home for you."

"And he'll be there when I'm done," she shrugs, "and I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about him."

"You don't want to discuss your husband?"

"He's not my husband," she pauses, realizing the absurdity of the comment, "he is my husband. But he has a name. I don't care about the titles and crap. If you have to talk about him, please call him Owen."

"Fine," Burke says, thinly veiling a smug grin, "you don't want to discuss Owen?"

"Not with you," she says, snapping a chart shut and sliding it across the counter to him, "there are orders on there you need to sign off."

"Why not?" He asks, ignoring the chart placed in front of him. Burke is well aware that she's not the type of woman to discuss her relationships, to obsess over the man she married. She's nothing like other women. Part of him wishes that he had realized how refreshing that difference was when he still had a chance but he tries to live his life without regret so he chalks it up to a lesson learned and tries to let go of it.

"Because, we don't need to."

"He doesn't seem too thrilled with me being here."

"Of course he isn't," Cristina answers absently, scribbling down a couple of notes and signing off an order she gave before placing another chart in front of him.

"He hasn't said much to me."

"I'm sure he hasn't had a reason to."

"We're colleagues. He could further introduce himself. Explain why I've never heard of him."

"Army," she mumbles, "he's army. He did four tours in Iraq. There isn't a lot of time to get published when you're being shot at. Or so I've heard."

"Army," Burke repeats, trying to process it. He's not exactly certain how that relationship can even begin to work with her unruliness but he's not going to press it. Burke has a feeling that he'll find out soon enough.

Cristina shoots him an angry glare, "Drop it."

"Dropped, Dr. Yang," he assures her.

Silence lingers between him as she signs off another chart and passes it in his direction, "I want the CABG tomorrow. I've done several on my own. I don't need you to babysit me for a standard procedure."

"Making demands now are we, Dr. Yang?"

"I said you owe me."

"I thought payment was my return to Seattle Grace."

"There's interest," she shrugs.

"Wait, let me get this straight. You run off four department heads and I come back but I still owe interest?"

"Three," Cristina corrects.

"Excuse me?"

"Three. I ran off three department heads. The other one was a coward who ran back to his mother after things didn't go his way. I had nothing to do with that one," she says, her eyes fixed on his.

Burke raises his head slightly, leveling their gaze and then gives a slight nod, "Three."

"And the CABG is mine."

"The CABG is yours," he relents, "but this isn't going to happen all the time. It just happens that I had planned on giving it to you anyway. I have a meeting that I have to attend."

Cristina rolls her eyes and pushes his charts more forcefully toward him, "Shut up and work on your charts. I want to go home sometime tonight."

"Then go home."

"When I'm done," she answers, looking through another chart, "and quit writing like a first grader."

A wide smile breaks out on his face and he notices the slight smile on hers. He can see that she's enjoying this little bit of power she has and he lets her have it for now, "I'll work on that, Dr. Yang."

"You're late," his voice is merely a rumble into the pillow but one that Cristina was not wanting to hear tonight. She's tired, not that she's complaining, but she just isn't in the mood to deal with his attitude about all of this.

"I was busy," she answers, infusing something akin to finality into her answer though she knows it will do no good.

"The hospital will still be there tomorrow."

"And I could have put it off until tomorrow if you didn't want me to come home tomorrow night," she mutters, adjusting the blankets around her shoulders.

Owen rolls over to look at her, "I don't like this."

"What? The fact that I can finally focus on advancing my career?"

"The fact that you're doing it with him," Owen clarifies, "I don't know how many times that I have to tell you that there's more than work, there are more important things."

"Not to me," Cristina interrupts, "surgery is my life. I've never tried to hide that from you."

"Surgery?" He asks, "That's what you value most?"

The bed shifts as Cristina leans over to flip on the light. She turns back to him while he's still squinting, trying to adjust his eyes to the sudden onslaught of brightness, "Do you really want to get into this argument now? I'm home and I didn't have to be."

"You didn't have to be," he repeats.

It's clear to Cristina that she's getting nowhere with Owen and that she's not going to so she reaches over and flips out the light. When reasoning and talking failed, she knew that she could resort to sex to shut him up. Leaning over, she put a palm against his shoulder to lay him back, "I didn't have to be," she answers in a low voice her lips hovering inches from his, "but I wanted to be."

Owen kisses her roughly, almost possessively at her words. It's not enough to make him stop questioning her plan but it's enough for tonight.

Cristina walks alongside Burke, stifling yet another yawn. It's been a while since she's only had three hours of sleep to thrive on and she knows that her day isn't going to end any time soon. She ticks another name off of their list of patients and waits until the urge to yawn again has been suppressed before talking, "4825 is next."

"Do you think you'll make it?"

"Excuse me?"

"You look like you're going to fall asleep standing up," he comments, turning towards the front entrance of the hospital rather than heading into the surgical wing.

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine and I need you to be more than half asleep. We have a heavy load today and we haven't even begun," he lectures, "maybe you should stick with the pre and post op patients today."

"No, I have my CABG this afternoon," Cristina argues, "I'm fine. I may be a little tired but I'm fine. It's whatever."

"My patients are not whatever," Burke stops at the coffee cart, "get yourself some coffee. In the meantime, I'm going to find O'Malley and ask him to help out."

Cristina's exhaustion fades quickly and she stands frozen in front of Burke, "A-about George," Cristina says softly. She can't believe that nobody has told him yet. Even more, she can't believe that she has to be the one to tell him.

"What about him?" Burke asks, remembering that he hadn't passed his intern exam the first time. A sinking feeling settles into his stomach when he realizes that it was a very real possibility that he may not pass again with whatever personal issues he was letting overwhelm his life.

"George, he, uh-" she pauses and licks her lips, "he had signed up for the military, which is completey stupid but there were things with him and Callie and Izzie had gotten sick and there was so much stuff."

Burke hears that he signed up for the military and his brow furrows, "I can't picture O'Malley as a military man."

"None of us could," Cristina mumbles, crossing her arms around her chest, "but uh, before he could go he…George, he's-" she pauses again and looks around, "George died."

The hushed tone of her voice tells him that it bothers her more than she'll ever let on. The sinking feeling that had introduced itself to his stomach only moments earlier turns into a churning and he shakes his head in disbelief, pauses to take off his glasses, "How long?"

"Couple years now," she mumbles, looking down at the ground, "he was an organ donor. His heart and lungs, kidneys, pancreas-" she rattles off, as if somehow all the people that lived because of him will make it better.

"And Stevens, you said she was sick," Burke says, not truly wanting to know the answer.

"She's fine. Doing a residency in Tacoma. She's been in remission for over a year from malignant melanoma," Cristina explains, "she's doing okay. Or at least that's what Meredith says. She doesn't come around anymore."

"That's unfortunate."

Cristina snorts, "Yeah. If you say so."

Burke turns up one corner of his mouth, that's the Cristina he knows, "Perhaps sometime you can tell me where O'Malley is buried. I'd like to pay my respects."

"Yeah," she agrees, "I will. I know he'd be excited if he were here or whatever. He tried to be Owen's guy before but it wasn't the same, I don't think."

"Of course not," he says, still half smiling, "there are no substitutions."

"No," she idly says and then realizes what she's said and then straightens out, "I mean, not for George. We're not talking about me. At all."

The half-smile turns into a cocky grin and he nods towards the coffee counter, "Get your coffee, Dr. Yang. You've got a long day ahead of you." Burke watches as she walks away without further argument. There's the slightest hint of pink about her cheeks and he can't help but enjoy her slip. He's certain that it was just that, a slip, but he'll take what he can get.

It slightly infuriates him that this stranger seemingly just walked into the place where he left off, took George and Cristina with him, and he wonders what else he gave up the day that he walked away.

Burke is sure that he'll find out soon enough.

Meredith idly runs her fingers through Zola's hair, watching as the little girl sleeps in her arms. It works, in a strange way. She had never pictured herself pregnant, going through labor and all of that crap. It wasn't that she didn't try- she had to just in case it happened so she didn't freak out- it's just that she couldn't picture it.

In a way, she knew it would never happen.

Derek's lips brush against her forehead and he sits next to her, watching their newly adopted daughter sleep, "Do you intend on sharing her any time soon?"

"Nope," Meredith says, smiling softly, "we're good right here."

Derek smiles too, happy that Meredith seems content with their decision, "Good."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the feeling of simply being a family. It's rare that they get moments like these between the court hearings, their work schedules and the temperament of their new baby. They know better than to disrupt it when they have an opportunity not to.

It's Derek who eventually breaks the silence, though, the recent changes in the hospital weighing on his mind. "Dr. Burke is back, I've seen."

"I know," Meredith says quietly, "it's weird."

"Weird in a bad way or weird in a good way?"

"I don't know. It's just weird. Cristina's talking to him like nothing ever happened and she's going home to Owen at night and it just seems weird. Like it can't be that simple."

Derek shakes his head. He's familiar with that type of scenario and it never ends well for the husband, "It's not that simple."

Meredith looks up at him, "Burke won't try anything. He's not like that."

"I know. I know he wouldn't," he says, "it's not Burke that I'm concerned about."

"Well, Cristina wouldn't either," Meredith quickly defends, "she's definitely not like that. Nothing is going to happen. She knows that she's the delusional one now. Something is going to happen because it can't be that simple but neither one of them doing anything isn't likely either. "Maybe Owen will just leave because he thinks they are," she finally adds. She's okay with blaming Owen for some reason and it makes sense that he'd just get jealous of Cristina's obsession with cardio.

Or at least Meredith thinks so.

"Maybe," Derek answers idly.

"Or maybe it really is that simple. But she's happy so I can't question it. Cristina deserves to be happy."

"I agree," and his words are true. Cristina Yang saved his life and he wants for her to be happy, perhaps more than Meredith does. If it weren't for her surgical talents, maybe some of Burke's too, he wouldn't be with them today. He wouldn't be able to sit with his wife and his daughter, "maybe it's just best that we don't question it."

"Yeah," Meredith says, "we don't question it and we stay out of it."

Derek gives her a slight nod and leans over to kiss her.

Neither one of them say it aloud but they know it will be impossible to stay out of it.

Cristina looks at the schedule tossed on the desk before her and then back up at Owen, "It's a schedule."

"You're on call with him. Twenty four hour call," Owen says, pointing at the schedule, "I'm not okay with that."

"Then you'll have to talk to Webber," she shrugs, "he made the schedule not me. I have no control over that. Maybe if I were Chief Resident I would."

"Don't," he warns her, "now is not the time for this."

"How about never?" Cristina asks, picking up the schedule and handing it back to him, "Never seems like a good time for this."

"I'm trying to talk to you, Cristina."

"And I'm trying to tell you that you're overreacting. I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to be a surgeon. The best. You've already taken Chief Resident away from me, Owen. Quit trying to take this away from me, too," she mutters before walking out of the office and slamming the door behind her.

Burke leans over the walkway, watching the evening staff slowly start to filter into the hospital. The sunlight dwindles behind him and he sighs. Everything about this place has changed; the people are different, the name is different, the soul is gone. Everything he loved about this place has changed, including Cristina.

Too many times since he's arrived, the thought that it was a mistake has entered his mind. It was that same thought that caused him to ask for a contract that was nearly unbreakable. He knew how much Cristina needed him though, the fact that she willingly called him and asked for him to come back attested to that. Burke owed her, as she often reminded him, and he intended to repay that debt.

"That used to be my favorite place to stand," Derek comments from a few feet away.

"Used to be?"

"It changed a few months ago," he answers, leaning against the railing next to his old friend, "long story."

"I've got time," Burke offers.

Derek contemplates the offer for a moment before he speaks, "The shooting," he starts out, knowing that Burke has limited knowledge of it. A madman in a hospital with a gun usually draws national media attention but he doesn't know the entire story. Derek isn't completely sure of how much he should tell him, "I was one of the victims."

Burke's eyebrow raises in surprise but he remains silent. How could one hospital be so poisonous?

"Gary Clark. His wife had been a patient of mine that we withdrew support on after a particularly long battle. He came into the hospital, killed a couple of my residents, tried to kill a couple others and finally took aim at me. Right here," Derek nods at the spot on the walkway where sometimes, he can still see his blood, "he shot me."

"I would suppose the important thing is that you lived," Burke answered, "but I know what it's like. Literally."

Derek chuckles slightly, "I suppose you do. Perhaps it was my payback."

"Doubtful. I wasn't here."

"In a way you were," Derek answers in a low voice, "the only reason I'm here is because of Cristina. You trained her. Maybe it was some sort of universal payback. Karma putting me in my place."

"Cristina?" Burke asked, his curiosity fully piqued now if it hadn't been before.

Carefully, Derek unbuttons just the top two buttons of his shirt and shows Burke the top of his scar, "The bullet shredded through my aorta. Cristina repaired it in extraordinary circumstances. I can't say that I would have been able to do the same if it were me."

"She's a gifted surgeon."

A nod of agreement is all that Derek can muster. There's more to the story but he leaves it out for now. It's likely that Burke will find out the rest later as nothing stays secret in the hospital for long, "A lot has changed since you left."

"I know."

"She's changed."

Burke looks to Derek, "She's married."

Derek chuckles again, "She is married. I have to admit that I didn't see that coming. Neither did Meredith for that matter."

"I have to admit that he's not exactly what I would have expected for Cristina," he answers, "he seems fairly intense. Cristina says he's military."

"Yeah. It's certainly not conventional but then again, neither is Cristina."

Burke smiles faintly, nearly imperceptibly, "This is true."

"You still care for her," Derek says, watching Burke closely.

"It doesn't matter," Burke assures him, "she's married and things have changed. I'm here to teach her because nobody else would or could. The kind of talent she possesses should be nurtured. She's one of the greats, Derek. A blind man could see that."

"I'm not arguing with you."

"It seems as if there are others that disagree, to let her flounder the way she has."

"Some may argue that she floundered because you left."

The words sting but Burke knows that they hold a degree of truth to them, "I'm attempting to right that, as much as she'll let me."

"And that's all that you're trying to do?" Derek asks, curiosity getting the best of him.

"That's all I want to do," Burke promises him, looking back down at the now empty lobby. He'd be foolish to want or ask for more.

"I'll do what I can to help that," Derek decides out loud, "she saved my life. It's the least I can do for her."

The sun breaks slowly on the horizon behind them and Cristina accelerates, as if trying to escape daybreak. It bothers some part of her that Burke is in the passenger seat of her car and she can't place her finger on the exact reason why but she can't and it only further annoys her. Her eyes shift to the clock on her dashboard and she knows that they don't have a lot of time to do this but it needs to be done and he shouldn't have to do it alone.

At the top of Capitol Hill she stops the car and puts it in park. She looks at Burke expectantly and when he opens his door, she follows suit. They walk alongside each other in silence, taking in the solemnity of the moment. Fog lingers over the grass, dew covering their shoes and dampening the seam of their scrub pants. The only sound between the two of them is their breathing, heavier than normal and slightly staggered from the uphill journey.

Being here makes it real for him; it changes the fact that George is dead from words to an actual state of being.

For Cristina, it's a reminder that one of theirs is forever gone. She's never done well with death and though she was never close to George, she still doesn't want to fully deal with it. She's been here one time and one time was enough except she couldn't let Burke do this alone and she couldn't just send somebody else with him.

She was the only option.

The headstone is marble, the name O'Malley etched into it in capitalized and grandiose letters, completely unlike the man that the name belonged to. Neither one of them brought flowers to lay upon the grave, it isn't like them. Instead they bring silent apologies and sorrow. Burke wonders if he's in a better place while Cristina contemplates what his body probably looks like now.

What they buried wasn't pretty, what's lying below may be an improvement.

It's morbid but she's trying to keep her mind away from the obvious.

Burke clears his throat and looks in the opposite direction, his hands clenched firmly at his side. There's a lump there that simply won't go away and he was aware that being here may have this sort of effect on him but he couldn't stay away.

There's a hand on his arm at first, lightly, almost hesitant. Then the grip tightens and arms enfold around him.

Surprised, Burke looks down at the mass of curls pressed against his chest and his arms curl easily around her body. He runs his fingers through the curls and kisses the top of her head, an act of comforting, before resting his chin atop her head. The lump is still there but it's easier to breathe with her near. She pulls away and there's a single tear lingering at the corner of her eye and he wipes it away.

Cristina pulls his hand away and looks back down at the headstone before them. She doesn't say anything out loud to George; she knows that he can't hear. But if she thought he could, she'd tell him how much he sucked for giving up before any of them made it out of the program.

How much he sucked for dying and changing things more than they needed to be changed.

"We should go," is the only thing she says while they're standing there. They linger for a few minutes longer and then walk back to the car in silence. Burke studies her from the passenger side of the car and knows better than to ask if she's okay but it doesn't stop him.

Cristina sighs heavily, pausing far too briefly at a stop sign before accelerating again, "You just can't help yourself, can you?"

"Not typically," he relents, "but Shepherd told me about the shooting at the hospital and that combined with O'Malley-"

"He told you about the shooting?" Cristina asks, angry at the notion that he knows far too much about what's happened in her life since he left.

"He told me that you saved his life."

"And what else?"

"Is there more to tell beyond that?" Burke questions, curious about why she's so defensive about the situation.

Cristina waits to see if he says anything else, she's not giving him more information than he needs. When he doesn't she shrugs, "No. There's nothing."

Her silence is answer enough for him.

"So?"

"So what?"

"Are you okay?" He repeats, his gaze intent upon her.

"Yeah. Sure. I'm fine."

Burke doesn't believe her but drops it for the time being. They're both tired and they have another long day ahead of them, "Good."

"Are you okay?"

The question catches him off guard and he looks at her, "I'm finding out that a lot has happened in my absence. I have-" Burke pauses for a moment, looking for the right words to use but comes up short, "I regret leaving. Every day. But being here and seeing what has changed, what has happened after I left. It's not easy to witness."

"It wasn't easy to deal with."

"I'm sorry."

"You're apologizing for-" Cristina asks, looking at him.

Words will never be enough of an apology, especially for her but he's sincere when he answers, "Everything."

"You can't make any assumptions about this."

Owen turns to Derek with an intent gaze, "I can't? My wife sneaks off before the sun even rises with the man she used to be engaged to and practically sneaks back into the hospital from the back of the parking lot and I'm not supposed to assume anything?"

It sounds stupid, of course it does. But Derek knows that there has to be more to it than what they're both seeing, "I'm just saying you need to legitimately talk to her about it before you jump to conclusions."

"Whose side are you on here, Shepherd?"

"Cristina's," Derek answers without hesitation, "I don't think it's what you think it is."

"Yeah, well, if I wanted your opinion, I would have told you," Owen mutters before turning on his heel and walking away. It's painfully obvious what's going on and Owen refuses to stand by looking like an idiot while it happens.

Cristina barely makes it into the locker room before Meredith grabs her arm and drags her into the restroom. She closes the door behind them and locks it, "What were you doing this morning?"

"Excuse me?" Cristina asks, caught off guard by Meredith's actions and then the subsequent question.

"You were with Burke this morning. The whole hospital is talking about it. Well, not the whole hospital. But the important people know. Including the people that you don't want to know. You know, the person you don't want to know," Meredith rambles, "I can't believe that you were that obvious. You should have- Well, you shouldn't have done it at all but if you were going to do it you should have at least been more careful."

"I should have been more careful?"

Meredith studies Cristina, "I didn't think this would happen. I know that you've had issues with Owen but I really didn't think that this would happen. I mean, it's Burke. Burke left. He screwed up."

"Burke apologized," Cristina mumbles, leaning against the wall.

Cristina's words catch Meredith off guard and her expression softens a little, "He did?"

"Yeah."

"And it was real?"

"Yeah. I think so," Cristina knew it was real but she didn't feel the need to get into it. The apology meant more to her than she wanted it to and actively ignoring it would be her way of dealing with that for the time being.

"What are you going to do? Never mind, I already know what you did. You're the worst dirty mistress ever," Meredith mutters, shaking her head, "it took way less time than I thought it would."

"What exactly do you think I was doing?"

"You mean what do I know you were doing. I'm not stupid."

Cristina crosses her arms and starts to defend herself but stops short of telling Meredith the truth. She's quiet for a moment, contemplating her options and the consequences of each option before Cristina merely shrugs, "My bad."

"Owen is pretty upset."

"Then I guess I should talk to him."

"You seem way too okay with all of this," Meredith observes, blocking Cristina's only exit.

"Maybe it's because I am."

"All of it?"

"I called him out here, didn't I?" Cristina asks. She doesn't really like lying to her person but if it stops the personal drama in her life and lets her focus on her career, it's what she's going to do. The truth will come out eventually but right now, the rumors will work to her advantage.

"Okay," Meredith says, "then, I'm glad you're happy?"

Cristina smiles faintly. Happy isn't exactly the word she'd use, but she's well on her way. "Thank you."

Every moment she spends at Burke's side, every second she spends following him around with their charts in her arms, people make another assumption. It's like everything she's been doing for the past weeks is suddenly so clear to them, the people who are talking.

Bringing Burke back couldn't have possibly been a career move, not at Seattle Grace Mercy West.

Sometimes Cristina wondered why she even bothered with the place. There were so many other better programs now, but some part of her considered Seattle to be home more than any other place she had lived.

Most of the time it was worth the ignorance that often seemed to surround her, especially today.

The sudden silence of the nurses alert her to a presence and she glances up to see Owen.

Perfect timing.

"Hey," she says nonchalantly, like she doesn't know about the rumors floating around the hospital.

"We need to talk, now."

"Not now," Cristina says, waving him off, "I've got work to do for Burke. He's working me to the bone. The man has no mercy. I thought it was just a thing he had for interns but now I know differently." Cristina realizes that she's just pouring salt on the wound but she can't help herself right now, it's too easy now that she's made her decision.

"So I've heard," Owen says, taking hold of her arm, "you can make time for your husband."

Cristina pulls her arm away, "You'll have to take it up with my attending first."

"I'm your husband."

"And he's my boss."

Owen shakes his head angrily, "No. That is not how this works. I come first. We come first."

"My career comes first."

"Over our marriage?"

"First," she repeats.

"And what you were doing this morning, sneaking back into the hospital with him when you thought nobody was looking. What do you call that? Working on your career?" Owen asks, no longer trying to preserve her dignity since she's shown so little concern for his.

Cristina glances up at their audience, waiting with baited breath for her answer and then she turns to Owen, "What do you think it was?" Her answer is perfectly evasive, playing on the niggling doubts and insecurities that he's had since the moment that Burke walked into the hospital.

"Do I really mean that little to you?"

"You mean as much to me as my career meant to you, Owen," she says coolly.

"What about forty years?" He questions her, finally managing to pry her from the desk and towards the elevators, "What about prying the scalpel out of your hand? There's more to life."

Cristina digs through the pocket of her scrub jacket until she fingers the rings he gave her and she pulls them out to place them in his hand, "You don't want a scalpel in my hand at all, Owen," she says softly, "this is not what I want. I am not what you want."

"No, I-"

"I have Burke now," she interrupts in a low voice, "he's what I want."

The words are enough to turn his gaze to stone. Owen clenches his jaw and gives her the slightest shake of his head. It's not a surprise, this turn of events. The moment that Cristina invited her former mentor out here, he knew that it would mean trouble and he did nothing to stop it. Owen knows that he should be angry at himself for letting her do it but he's angrier at her for letting it happen.

"Fine," he utters, "he's what you want. But just so I'm clear, you're making a mistake, Cristina."

"I've made enough mistakes lately to know if I'm making another one," Cristina answers, "not doing this? That would be a mistake."

This time she doesn't wait for his rebuttal, she turns and walks away. If she's lucky, her words will be enough to keep him away. If she's luckier, he'll leave the hospital all together so she can focus on rebuilding her reputation in the hospital as something other than the intern who got left at the altar, Owen Hunt's wife, the one who had the gun held to her head while operating, the one who quit, or the one who should have been Chief Resident.

Burke glances down at Cristina and clears his throat. The distance between them has definitely closed between them over the past couple of weeks and he's not entirely sure how it happened. There were apologies, yes, but he's never known Cristina to be so extremely forgiving.

"Dr. Yang," he says slowly, glancing down at her.

Cristina looks up at him and smiles faintly, "Dr. Burke."

She's well aware that they have an audience and she intends to make full use of it to get the point across. The more people talk, the more people will believe and back off. She reaches in front of Burke to grab a chart and lets her fingertips graze the top of his hand as she does so.

The action catches him off guard and his instinct is to pull his hand back, but he doesn't. The idea of a reunion had been one that he'd toyed around with but easily let go of. She's a married woman and she had made it very clear to him upon his arrival that this was strictly business, "Cristina?"

"Burke," she says, glancing over the chart, "I thought we already did this part."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm working. For another five minutes. And then I'm leaving."

"That's not what I'm talking about. What are you doing?"

The slight smirk on her face turns a little more suggestive, "What do you think I'm doing?"

There is a chance that it could get out of control but Cristina knows that she can stop it before it gets too far. She closes the chart in front of her and hands it over to the nurse before doing the same with his, "We could cut out four minutes early."

Despite his better judgment, Burke agrees, letting his curiosity get the best of him. He walks away from the counter, following closely behind her, "And what do you suggest that we do if we're 'cutting out early', Dr. Yang?"

"I have a list of things we can do," she says audibly before they turn the corner. Her voice drops then, the audience left to speculate behind them, "we could go to Joe's. Get a drink."

"You're serious?"

"Would I ask if I weren't?" Cristina counters, "Look, you apologized. It's whatever. I'm over it."

Burke's eyebrow arches high on his forehead, "You can't be serious."

"Would you rather that I hate you and hold onto it?"

"No."

She shrugs, "Then forget about it. You can buy my drinks."

"And your hus- Owen?"

Cristina shakes her head, "Not an issue. He seems to have a problem with the advancement of my career. He's leaving. He's left. Me, anyway."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm not."

Burke takes in her words and nods slightly, "So, what? He's gone and we're-"

"Getting drinks."

"That's not exactly what I was asking."

"Well," she says, "that's what I'm answering. I just know that you're here and I feel like me and I feel like getting drinks with you. Are you coming or not?"

He takes a moment to study her and feels his hopes heighten slightly. He should know better but he's never been able to help himself with Cristina, "I'm buying," he confirms.

Cristina smiles widely and pushes open the door to the locker room, "I'll meet you in the lobby."

Derek looks on in confusion from his table in the corner of the bar. Meredith nudges his side sharply with her elbow and lowers her voice as if Cristina will somehow hear her, "Stop staring."

"I can't. What the hell is going on?"

"What do you think is going on?"

"I know what it looks like is going on. It's the same thing I told Hunt wasn't going on. It's the same thing that Preston said wouldn't happen," Derek says, still staring, "That can't be what's going on."

"Well, I think it's what Cristina wants, so who cares?"

"I'm sure Hunt cares."

"Well, yeah. But I wasn't exactly talking about him," Meredith shrugs and reaches for her beer, "you're still staring."

Derek finally manages to tear his eyes away from the pair and looks at his wife, "And what do you think about it?"

"If she's happy, then who cares?" Meredith shrugs, taking her turn to stare at them. She knows there's something that isn't right about all of it. Cristina isn't the type to parade anything and it's exactly what she's doing, letting everybody see exactly what has happened. Her eyes narrow a little as she watches Cristina lay her hand across Burke's leg and she tilts her head to the side slowly.

"What?"

"Nothing," Meredith answers flatly.

He looks back up at the unlikely couple and shakes his head in disbelief, "It looks like a whole lot more than nothing."

Burke shifts in his seat at the way her fingers trace against his leg and he clears his throat, the ministrations having an effect on him. He sees the smirk playing on her lips and knows that she's aware of exactly what she's doing to him.

He's also aware of the number of drinks she's managed to consume in such a short period of time.

"We have a long day tomorrow," he says slowly, "maybe I should take you home."

"Home," Cristina repeats, "funny thing about that. I'm not sure if I should go home or if I should go somewhere else."

"And why's that?"

"I paid for the stupid place," Cristina mutters, pulling his hand away and grasping her drink instead, "funny thing, I hated it and I paid for it anyway. But he's probably still there."

"So ask him to leave."

"You missed the part where I said I hated the place. I don't give a crap about it."

"Then where are you going to go? Where have you been going?" He presses, pulling the drink from her hand.

"The hospital has beds."

Burke nods slightly, "I should have known."

Cristina smirks, "If anything, I'm slightly predictable," she slides her hand over his leg again, "but only slightly."

"Barely is more like it," he answers, his hand moving over hers.

Her eyes meet his and she feels a slight shiver travel down her spine. There's definitely something there and it's something that she shouldn't let happen, that she won't let happen. But then again, she could stand to have a little bit of fun, "We should go."

"Where are we going?"

"Like I said, the hospital has beds," she grins and slides off of her barstool. The ground feels unsteady beneath her and she takes his arm to steady herself.

"You've had too much to drink," he observes, paying for their drinks.

"I'm celebrating."

"And what exactly are you celebrating?" He asks, wrapping an arm around her waist to steady her. He pulls her close after they make their exit from the bar, reasoning that she's simply unsteady on her feet.

Cristina stops walking then and reaches out to pull his body against her, "Everything." Her fingers travel up his arms slowly and the thought that she shouldn't be doing anything like this keeps repeating itself in her head, that she'll let it get out of hand, but it still doesn't stop her from pressing her body into his.

"Cristina," his voice is strained and his restraint is quickly resolving. Her eyes are boring through him and though he knows better, he bends to her silent will.

She gasps softly when his lips brush hers the first time, her back meeting the brick wall behind them and then she quickly falls into the kiss, pulling his hips into hers, kissing him back fervently. She convinces herself that it's the alcohol talking whenever she thinks for a fleeting second that she's missed this.

A slight whimper escapes her lips when he pulls away and she tries to pull him back but he resists.

"You're drunk, Cristina," he says in a low voice.

"You are too," she murmurs, brushing her lips against his once more just briefly.

Burke doesn't let her pull away for long before he crushes his lips against hers once more. He has a lot of questions, none of which she'll answer anytime soon, if at all. But if there's the slightest opportunity that he can get his life back, he doesn't want to pass it up.

Meredith drops a chart on the counter in front of Cristina and smirks when she jumps and then scowls, "Problem, Dr. Yang?"

"Yeah. My head hurts and you just made it worse."

"So sorry," her answer is sarcastic and she's far from sorry. Meredith sits down in the chair next to Cristina and flips through the chart, not bothering to pay attention to anything on the order sheets, "I can see right through you, you know that?"

"What?"

"You. I see through you."

"Really?" Cristina asks, "And what exactly do you see?"

"I see that you're a liar. A big, big, lying liar."

Cristina rolls her eyes, "I'm not a liar."

"You're lying about what you're doing with Burke."

"Am I?" Cristina counters, "What makes you say that?"

"Because you're not trying to hide it. You're not avoiding talking about it," Meredith ticks off, "it's like you want everybody to see."

Of course Meredith would be the one to realize what's going on, even if she doesn't really get it, "I have work to do."

Meredith follows after Cristina the second she's out of her seat, "You're not supposed to walk away from me, Cristina. You're supposed to talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about. You're making assumptions about stuff but you don't know."

"That's why you're supposed to talk to me!" Meredith hisses, "I don't know why you're avoiding talking to me about this. I haven't done anything wrong."

Cristina stops, "Because if I tell you, you'll tell Derek. If Derek finds out, the hospital is eventually going to find out, including Burke. Including Owen. I can't talk about it."

"Find what out? Wait, you're not sleeping with both of them or something are you? Because I know that I haven't exactly set a good example as far as monogamy has gone but that's my thing, not yours."

"I'm not sleeping with both of them," she sighs and runs her hand through her hair. Cristina stops short of saying that she's not sleeping with either one of them, though the prior night had been a close call.

"Then what? What are you doing?"

"Will you drop it?" Cristina sighs again, "It's not important. I'm working. That's what's important. I'm working and I have my career back, and that's all that matters."

Meredith studies Cristina closely, "Is that what this is about, your career?"

"I have work to do," Cristina mutters, walking ahead of her.

"No," Meredith argues, catching up again and this time grabbing her arm, "you have to talk to me. You have to ex plain this. I'm not judging you but I'm trying to understand what the hell is going on. One minute you're married to Owen and everything is fineish and the next minute you're living in the hospital and going out with Burke and you're not talking to me. I've got this baby at home and Derek is acting all perfect dad and you're acting weird and avoiding me and I need you to stop. I need you," she reiterates and then pauses for a minute before adding once more, "what's going on?"

Cristina looks down the hallway and sees that it's empty before she turns back to Meredith, "It's a long story."

Meredith crosses her arms, "I've got time."

"Wow."

"Yeah," Owen mutters, leaning against the railing just outside Richard's office.

"Wow."

"You already said that."

Derek looks over at the man that's been a tentative friend, somewhat apologetically, "I didn't see that happening. At all."

"I did. I knew it would happen. Now I just need to decide what I'm going to do."

"What you're going to do?"

Owen nods, "I don't want to stay here. I don't want to see her."

"Understandably so, I suppose."

"I just- I gave so much for her. I gave so much and this is what she does? She goes back to the guy who took her apart? I don't understand it. I don't understand what she's thinking. Has Meredith said anything to you?"

"No, I don't think Meredith even really knows what's going on," Derek sighs and then offers a one word explanation of, "Zola."

"How's that going?"

"Good, we're happy."

Owen snorts in response to Derek's words, "Happy. You always think they're happy. They tell you that they're happy. But you never truly know. One day everything is fine and the next they're sleeping with their superior and telling you that you're not what they want."

"Somehow I don't think that's applicable to Meredith and I."

"Maybe not in that context, but it's always applicable. Meredith is just like Cristina. Neither one of them know what's good for them, what's right for them. Granted, Meredith gave into the family thing, realizes that there's more to life than her career, but something will happen. They're the same."

Derek shakes his head, "I don't think you realize how important it is to me that Cristina is so career oriented. She saved my life because of her obsession with her work."

Owen looks at Derek and shakes his head, "You were wrong about Cristina. You're wrong about Meredith too."

Meredith laughs, "That has got to be the worst plan I've ever heard. You know how gossip gets around the hospital. Burke is going to hear that you guys slept together and he's going to come to you with questions. You have to tell him Cristina."

"I don't have to tell him anything. He's Burke. He doesn't care about rumors. He doesn't listen to that crap," Cristina shrugs, leaning back against the bed, "he'll never know."

"He's going to hear about it and he's going to be hurt. Especially since you're sending him those messages. You're so wrong. I almost feel sorry for him. But he kind of deserves it."

"He apologized. It's over. He doesn't deserve it."

Meredith eyes Cristina suspiciously, "You…you have feelings for him, don't you?"

"No," Cristina answers defensively, "I'm just saying. I'm not holding a grudge. Whatever."

"No," Meredith insists, "the playing is getting to you. You're letting it get to you."

Cristina shakes her head and looks in the opposite direction, "He's Burke. I'm not stupid. It's not like he's going to stick around."

"He apologized. It's over," she prods Cristina in a mocking tone, "you're falling for him again. And lying to him. You realize that no good can come from this? You have to tell him, Cristina."

"And what?"

"I don't know. But you need to tell him."

"I don't need to tell him anything. There's nothing to tell. We're not a real thing, he doesn't listen to gossip and I've got my career back with nobody who intends to derail it. That's all that matters to me," she rattles off, "he's not going to find out."

"And what happens if he does?"

"Then I'll explain it to him then," Cristina shrugs it off. Meredith's words start to tug at her conscience and it's a war she's not prepared to battle.

"And when he gets upset because he's developed feelings for you?"

Cristina glares at Meredith, "Look, will you quit trying to shoot down my plan? It's working. For now it's working and everything is fine."

Meredith senses that Cristina's at her breaking point and she backs off, "And you're still happy?"

Cristina glances at her and offers a slight nod, "Yeah. I am. For the most part."

"More than before all of this?"

"More than before," Cristina confirms.

"Then I'm not going to question it," Meredith shrugs, "and I'll tell you about how Zola hates me instead."

There's a small laugh from Cristina and she glances at Meredith, "How does a baby hate you?"

Meredith looks at Cristina pointedly, "You haven't met Zola."

The lobby of the hospital is quiet and Cristina finds comfort in that. This hospital is her first true love and even moreso when it's not muddled with curious family members and children screaming within its walls. She sinks into one of the chairs just at the bottom of the stairwell and closes her eyes.

She just needs to think and she can't. The feeling is that of suffocating, thoughts have never been a problem, thinking has never been an issue- usually she can't shut her mind off.

A set of hands slide gently over her shoulders and she knows that it's Burke. Her eyes open slowly but she doesn't look up, "If you're doing what I think you're going to do, keep going."

A grin tugs at his lips and he massages gently at the tense muscles along her shoulders, "I was going to ask if you need a place to stay tonight."

"The hospital-"

"It has beds. But you need to get out of here every once in a while. Eat something besides take out," he interrupts.

"You mean live outside the four walls of the hospital?" She smiles faintly.

"I know that your career is everything but if you stay here long enough, you may hate the place," he answers, his fingers sliding down her shoulders, "come home with me."

Cristina's hand slides over his and she stops the movement there, "And do what?"

"Live outside the four walls of the hospital."

Silence lingers between them for a moment and she lets go of his hand to stand up. Cristina slides her bag over her shoulder and reaches out to take his hand when he offers it. They're not a thing, except they could easily become one again. In these moments, the ones where he seems to know her more than she would prefer, she thinks it would be so easy to let go.

Owen watches from a distance as Cristina walks hand in hand with the man who destroyed their relationship and he scowls. He knows that it's a waste of time to give a damn about what's going through her head or even remotely caring about what she's done to them but he can't help himself. It was her stubbornness that brought them down, her selfishness that got in the way of their relationship and he knows that there was nothing he could have done differently, except avoid the relationship all together.

Cristina had never been the giving type, the type of woman who cares about something other than herself. He thought one day she may grow up, that she may grow out of her childish ways.

He simply found out the hard way that his hopes were not founded.

Owen knew better and he let it happen anyway.

The car disappears from his sight and he turns to look at the hospital, fingers laced behind his head as he tries to contemplate his next move. Though he's almost always known Seattle to be home, there's nothing left here for him. He could stay and fight for Cristina but he knows that she isn't worth the fight.

She never has been.

"That's clearly cheating," Cristina smirks, sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter as Burke busies himself with their dinner.

"I wasn't aware that we're playing a game, Dr. Yang," his voice is vaguely laced with suggestion and despite her best efforts, she can't ignore it.

"We're always playing a game," she retorts and steals a pepper from the pile of neatly sliced vegetables he's laid out.

"Maybe we should quit playing then."

Cristina leans back on her palms, studying him closely, "Where's the fun in that?" It's her turn to let suggestion lace her voice, and her body language.

The effort is certainly not lost on him.

"There's plenty of fun to be had outside of your little game."

"Our game. We already established that it's mutual."

Burke grins, taking in the arch of her back as she leans back, "I could just be playing along."

"You'd have to know the rules to play along."

"I can improvise," he answers, this time his voice is low and their dinner has been long abandoned, but carefully removed from the burner, and he's standing between her knees, his body painfully close to hers.

"What if I don't allow for improvisation?" Cristina asks, her voice just as low. She sits up so her chest is pressed to his and her fingertips are tracing up his defined arms.

"Then I guess it's a good thing it's our game," Burke murmurs before he dips his head to kiss her gently.

Cristina edges towards the end of the counter until she's firmly pressed against him, her legs wrapped around the back of his. Her lips part slightly and their tongues meet, the kiss growing more desperate and her hips begin to grind lightly against his. She's aware of what she's doing to him, what she's doing to herself, and she has no intention of stopping.

Part of it's because she simply wants this. She wants him, aches to have him inside her. There's the lessor reasoning that if they sleep together and he hears people talking about it, then he'll never figure out the truth.

Burke's fingers curl around the bottom of her shirt and he lifts it up and over her head, discarding it carelessly in the direction of the refrigerator. His shirt follows suit, along with her bra and his belt but they remain fixed in the kitchen. He guides her back gently just enough to spread kisses down her neck as his hands glide up her sides, to her breasts, the rough pads of his thumbs finding her nipples and teasing them. He's hard now, almost painfully so, and the way she's rocking against him isn't helping.

Cristina smiles against his neck when he utters her name in such a strained voice. She drops her hands between them and unzips his jeans, eases them away from his hips just enough to run her hand over him through his boxers. Her hand moves upward, fingertips dipping inside his boxers to brush against him and he curses under his breath and she wraps her hand around him them, stroking firmly.

"Keep doing that," he manages through gritted teeth, "and we'll be done before we've started."

"I have faith in you," she purrs against his ear before she pushes him forward enough to slip off the counter and then turns them so he's the one against the counter. She drops to her knees in front of him, dragging his pants and boxers down his legs as she goes. She looks up at him with wide eyes and the slightest of grins at the expression painted across his face, one of profound arousal and pain, and then she drags her tongue over his length.

Another whispered curse escapes his lips and this time his hand tangles into her ebony curls, gripping just lightly.

It's the simple things that she missed, the way she can make him use four letter words that would make him visibly cringe under normal circumstances, the way that he's gripping the counter, the way he looks at her like she's the only thing that's ever mattered to him.

Cristina swirls her tongue around him, hand firmly stroking what she can't reach with her mouth. He tugs ever so slightly on her hair and he tenses and she smiles to herself when she comes. She drags her tongue over him, proud of the way he jerks when she flicks her tongue against the sensitive skin of his head.

Burke guides her back to her feet before moving his hands to her waist and quickly ridding her of the last shreds of clothing on her body. He lifts her easily into his arms and wraps her legs around him. While the kitchen was a good arena for foreplay, he needs more space to do everything he wants to do to her. The bedroom seems so incredibly far from the kitchen at this point, especially when he can feel how hot she is against his lower abdomen, causing him to twitch with arousal once more.

When they finally make it to the bedroom, he lays her back on the bed, crawling over her body, hips grinding into hers as he kisses her lavishly. His lips trail over her neck and shoulders to her sternum. His fingers are teasing her inner thigh, so painfully far from where she wants him to be and she whimpers each time his fingers brush closer and closer to her center but then withdraw.

She tries to raise her hips to guide him in the right direction but he's holding her down and it gets her even hotter. Again she whimpers, murmurs his name in a broken voice, she's wet and aching for him to touch her, to push inside her and stretch her deliciously.

And he's intent on taking his damn time.

It's her fault for giving him a blow job, she should have saved it for later. If she would have just fucked him first then she wouldn't have to deal with- she stops thinking when he plunges two fingers inside her, hard and deep, causing her hips to jerk and for her to cry out. His mouth abandons the delightful thing they were doing to her breasts and moves down the concave of her abdomen to her clit. He teases her with the tip of his tongue, circling the swollen bud before enclosing his lips around it completely. Her eyes widen and then squeeze tight as he teases her, sucks on the tender flesh and bites gently. He never lets up between the long and rough strokes of his fingers and his talented tongue and teeth teasing her clit and she falls apart beneath him quickly.

Cristina's tight around his fingers and Burke knows he should wait for her to relax but she's too much to resist. He removes his fingers while she's still quaking around him, her body trembling ever so slightly beneath his, and he moves to slip inside her. Her walls are unforgiving around him and he groans as he tries to ease into her. Her whimpers turn into soft moans and she keeps her body steady beneath his despite her body's overwhelming urge to shy away slightly.

There's something to be said for size differences.

Burke continues to push into her until he's all in, and he pauses there, both of them lost to the ecstasy of the moment. Her lips brush his and their fingers knot over her head and then slowly, he starts to move, withdrawing almost every bit of his rigid length before easing it back into her again. They move like this for a while, slow and gentle, experiencing and enjoying each other, before need takes over.

Their gentle movements turn frantic and his slow thrusts become harder, faster, unforgiving. Moans turn to cries and Cristina can feel herself starting to lose it. Her hand slips between them, moving to where they meet, and she flicks her fingertips across her clit until he pushes her hand away and takes over himself.

"Control issues?" she teases breathlessly but then her words dissolve as she does, body shaking and overwhelmed by orgasm.

Unable to hold back anymore, Burke's hip snaps into hers with and he comes inside her, hissing her name as he does. The air is hot around them and their skin slick with sweat but neither have a desire to pull away from each other. There was more than one reason that Cristina had decided to do this but now she can't remember. The only thing she can think of is how they should have never ended and how much she hates him for walking away.

The smell of coffee lifts her from a comfortable sleep and Cristina shifts slightly in the bed, expecting to find him gone but he's still there, arm securely wrapped around her, "So you've mastered being in two places at once?" she mumbles tiredly, her body curling into his.

"Something like that," he smirks, his voice still deep with sleep. His lips brush her forehead and his hand traces the small of her back, "we have an early surgery. I figured the coffee would at least help."

"Sleep would have helped more," she teases him gently, not that she would have traded an ounce of sleep for the night they had. Cristina lifts her head and looks at him with darkened eyes, "how early?"

"Not that early," he murmurs before claiming her lips and simultaneously lifting her on top of him.

"Where were you all night?"

Cristina glances up from her chart, "What do you mean where was I?"

Meredith looks at her doubtfully, "You know what I mean. Where were you? I tried to call you three different times."

Three different times usually translates to about sixteen for Meredith and Cristina is glad that her phone was legitimately dead, "I forgot to charge my phone."

"That's what phone chargers are for."

"I left it here," Cristina answers automatically and then inwardly flinches.

"Told you that you were somewhere," Meredith says, her finger pointed at Cristina, "and I know exactly where you were. Cristina Yang."

"What?"

"You're married."

"I'm separated and filing for an annulment," Cristina corrects her, picking up the chart.

"I told you that you were falling for him again."

"Did I say that I was?"

"No, but you slept with him," she mutters, "it's close enough. You're going to get yourself into this crap again and I'm going to be the one that has to cut you out of the dress. I don't want to cut you out of another dress, Cristina."

"You're not. I'm not wearing another dress. Quit being melodramatic," Cristina waves dismissively, "I'm getting out of one marriage. I'm not interested in another one. And I'm not letting things get out of hand. It's sex, Meredith. Did you marry every guy you ever slept with?"

"I'd feel a lot more comfortable with it if you slept around like I did. You don't."

"Who said I can't start?"

"Interesting choice to start with."

Cristina looks up at her, "Look. Everybody around her is saying we slept together. If Burke hears about it, now he won't question it. We slept together. Whatever."

Meredith looks at her doubtfully, "That is not why you slept with him."

"It could be," Cristina shrugs and snaps her chart closed, "we have surgery."

"Are you going to sleep with him again?"

"Why? Do you need a schedule?"

"Cristina."

"What? You're being all whatever about this and you don't need to be. I'm a big girl. I know what I'm doing," Cristina mutters, "I know what I'm getting myself into. Or not getting myself into."

"Fine," Meredith answers to Cristina's back as she disappears down the hallway. She can tell that Cristina has no idea what she's getting herself into just by the way she gets defensive talking about it. Meredith just doesn't know how to convince Cristina that it's a bad idea.

Owen glares at Burke from the opposite end of the board, clenches his fist at his side. He's been resisting the urge to punch the man for at least a month, but that urge has resolved. He doesn't want to hurt Burke. He doesn't have any desire to hurt the man.

The desire is to hurt Cristina.

"I can see how you couldn't stay away," Owen remarks dryly, "she's a good screw, isn't she?"

Burke's eyebrow arches high on his forehead but he doesn't respond.

"She's the first thing I'd want to do in Seattle," Owen continues, "regardless of whether or not she belonged to somebody else."

"Cristina," Burke finally answers, "is not a belonging."

"She was my wife."

"I believe that was is the operative word here."

"It wasn't until you screwed her."

Burke shakes his head, "I believe that you've gotten your facts wrong. Regardless of the reasoning, however, Cristina made her decision. Unless you have a patient with cardiac trauma or an issue that needs to be addressed by cardiothoracics, I believe this discussion is over."

"I saw the two of you with my own eyes. I know that my facts aren't wrong," Owen growls, "I saw you, coming back to the hospital that morning, both of you. We were happy."

"What morning?" Burke knows better than to bait him but he can't help himself.

"Don't play stupid with me. I'm a surgeon here. I'm exactly aware of what being on call is in this hospital. It's obvious what you were doing, what your intentions are. I've seen right through them since the moment you got here."

Burke's brow furrows as he thinks back and then he realizes, "O'Malley."

"What?"

"George O'Malley. Cristina took me to the cemetery. I hadn't heard about his passing. O'Malley and I, we were friends. She took me to his grave so I could say goodbye."

Owen studies the man responsible for shattering his life and realizes that he may not be responsible at all, "And before that?"

"We were here. Working on a case," Burke answers warily, "nothing happened."

"That's not what happened if you ask Cristina."

Burke tries to ignore the words but can't help but wonder if Hunt is telling the truth. It wouldn't make sense for Cristina to lie to Hunt about the events that had occurred, especially if it was only going to make him angry.

Unless she was lying to get out of their marriage.

"I'm sure that she was simply tired of dealing with your questions."

Owen sneers, "I'm sure that somebody is lying here and I don't think it's her."

Burke wishes that she wasn't the one lying but he knows that Hunt wouldn't have backed off unless Cristina gave him good reason to, and infidelity would be more than good reason. He tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter but he can't help but wonder how much of what's happened to them in the past weeks have been real and how much of it has been a rouse to get rid of Hunt.

"Dr. Hunt, as I said before, if you don't have a patient that needs my attention, this conversation is done."

"Fine," Owen mutters, "she's your problem now. Word to the wise, Dr. Burke, she's not worth it. She never has been and she never will be."

"If that's how you feel, then you've never known Cristina," Burke answers evenly, his fists clenched in his pocket.

"I know enough. You should ask her how she feels about you. How you took her apart and tried to change who she was," he persists, "actually, I find it funny that she's sleeping with you now. She's never had much of anything good to say about your relationship."

The words only pile onto Burke's doubts and the logic that she was using him to get rid of Hunt suddenly seems to be a more accurate possibility. He wants to believe that the previous night, this morning, would prove differently but everything is a challenge with Cristina and it always has been.

Owen can see the doubt in Burke's expression and he knows that his job is done. Wordlessly, he leaves the other man standing at the board and turns in the direction of Webber's office, his resignation in hand. He's done all the damage that he can do and he's not going to stick around for Cristina to realize what she's given up.

Cristina drops her tray on the table across from Meredith and it doesn't even earn the slightest reaction. This little bout of silent treatment has been going on all day and it's driving Cristina crazy. Now is not the best time for her person to crap out on her. She has things and Meredith is supposed to help her deal with those things.

"Fine. You're rightish. Whatever."

Meredith looks up expectantly but doesn't say a word. If she's going to speak, she's going to require some elaboration on Cristina's words.

"I-" Cristina pauses, sighs softly, "I have…a thing. For him. Whatever. It's a stupid permanent thing that won't go away. I don't want a lecture about it."

"Told you," Meredith mutters, "and like I said before, I don't want to cut you out of another dress."

"And I'm telling you that there isn't going to be another dress."

"You also said you didn't have a thing."

"A thing doesn't equal a dress," Cristina points out, pushing her tray away.

"You didn't eat."

"I'm not hungry."

Meredith eyes her friend, "Look, fine. You have a thing. But there's still the other thing. You have to talk to him Cristina. Tell him before somebody else does."

"What am I supposed to say? Hey, Owen thought we slept together and I thought it was a good out? I can't say that to him. He'll be…" her voice trails off.

Cristina doesn't have to finish her sentence for Meredith to understand, "If he runs off because of that, he doesn't deserve to be here."

She glances up at Meredith and nods slightly. Maybe Meredith is right but it doesn't mean that she wants him to leave. She can admit that she has some terminal thing for him and it's a step. Maybe it's a step he doesn't know about but it's a step nonetheless.

The hallway light flickers off as Cristina emerges from the call room with a bag over her shoulder. It's not going to be a permanent thing. She's finding her own place because even though she has a thing, she wants to be careful.

She needs to be.

Tonight though, they need to talk. And probably have a replay of the night before because it's been way too long since she's been with him and one night was not enough for her at all.

The light is on in his office and she smiles to herself before pushing the door open. He doesn't look up from the chart he's working on and doesn't say anything. She closes the door behind her and walks around to his side of the desk, leaning against it, "You're not on call tonight."

"I have work to do."

Cristina's well aware of the tone in his voice and what it means. She's heard it too many times before, though it's been years since she heard it last, "Work can wait," she says slowly, "we should go. Eat. Really eat. Not that stuff…well, that stuff too. But we should at least eat dinner first."

"I can't tonight."

"Burke."

"Cristina," he answers, putting his pen down, "I'm working. That's why I came here. It's why you asked me to come here. To work."

"Okay, and you've obviously forgotten about last night and this morning."

"Or maybe somebody clarified last night and this morning," he answers in an icy tone, "or even a couple weeks ago. I forget, exactly how long have we been sleeping together?"

Her blood runs like ice through her veins at the realization that he knows before she can tell him, "I was-"

"What? Using me to erase one of your mistakes?" Burke asks, clearly hurt by her actions.

"I wasn't trying to, no. It wasn't- this wasn't part of my plan, okay? You and me and all of this crap floating to the surface wasn't my plan."

"So it was simply convenience that you would use the man who took you apart to take apart your marriage?"

Cristina's eyes narrow. His words suddenly become clear and she realizes exactly who Burke has been talking to, "Don't take my words out of context. Don't use a conversation that you know nothing about against me. That's not fair."

"Then maybe you should tell me about that conversation, Cristina. Since it seems that your husband seems to know a great deal about our relationship."

"Ex-husband. And you know nothing about ours."

"Enlighten me," Burke answers, sitting back in his chair, "what about this man is so much better that you felt the need to engage him in a conversation in which you become the victim of our relationship?"

"It wasn't like that!" Cristina snaps at him, "Look, it was said…it was said in anger. And being hurt or whatever. It wasn't like you were just brought up randomly in a conversation. And Owen is not better. Owen- I tried to change myself for you. I tried to make you happy and I did things that I wouldn't have done. Owen, he took advantage of stuff. He wanted things and the price was my career. That's why I called you. That's why I wanted you to come back. But it's not why I want you to stay."

"Then why not tell me, Cristina? Why run around it? Why tell him that we slept together when you were taking me to the cemetery instead?" Burke asks angrily, "You could have come to me. You could have told me. You didn't have to lie about it."

"Because I didn't mean for any of it to happen! The opportunity presented itself and I took it, okay? You don't get to be pissed off for that. You walked out on me. You left me in a church. Meredith had to cut me out of a dress that I wore only for you. Your mama came to clean out our apartment. You don't get to be pissed off because I started a rumor that we slept together, I don't care what reason it was for." Cristina rattles off at him, her voice slowly growing more and more angry, "I don't care if you apologized. You should have never left. Do you know how much would be different if you hadn't left? My career. My life. Us. The hospital. You walked away, you gave up and I had to pay for it. You deserve a hell of a lot more than a rumor."

"It doesn't make it right, Cristina!"

Cristina glares at him and then shakes her head, "You know what? I'm not even going to apologize. It won't matter. You'll be gone tomorrow."

Burke doesn't even have an opportunity to answer the accusation because she walks out of his office before he can. He finds himself staring at the door, a mixture of anger and regret running through him.

There has to be a way to make it right, he simply doesn't know if he wants to.

Cristina lies back on the couch and drapes her arm over her eyes, "I should have made him get out of my house. At least then I wouldn't have to sit here and listen to Zola scream all night."

Derek smirks slightly, "You could have slept at the hospital."

"No," she mutters, "I couldn't have. Why does Meredith have to sleep? Why do you have to stay up?"

"Because Meredith," he answers, shifting Zola to his opposite arm in a feeble attempt to bounce her more, "has an important surgery in the morning and so I volunteered since I do not."

Cristina makes a sour face, "Can't you…take her somewhere? Do something with her? Meredith will never sleep with the screaming baby."

"You could just go back to your house and ask Dr. Hunt to leave if you want to sleep. Or get a hotel room. You don't have to come here, you know."

"Yes," she throws back at him sarcastically, "I do."

Derek watches Cristina carefully for a moment, "I probably won't sleep tonight. Why don't you just go up there with Meredith? I'll try to keep her quiet."

Cristina lifts her arm to look at Derek, "You're not serious."

"Does it look like she's sleeping?"

The answer is an obvious no and Cristina doesn't hesitate before getting up and heading up the stairs. She stops about halfway and then looks back down at Derek, "Thanks. I guess."

Despite the low light, Cristina can see Meredith's eyes wide open when she steps inside their room. She drops her hoodie on the end of the bed and slides into the bed next to Meredith, "Derek said you were sleeping."

"How is anybody supposed to sleep when their kid screams all night?" Meredith asks tiredly, "I thought you were going to Burke's tonight."

"Yeah, well, things change. Whatever."

Meredith senses the bitterness in her friend's voice and she turns over, "I guess the talk didn't go so well."

"He found out before I could tell him. Owen."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

She stifles a yawn before she starts to speak again, "Maybe he'll get over it. I mean, it's not like he doesn't owe you one anyway."

"I know. But it's Burke. I'll probably go to work on Tuesday and he won't even be there."

"Tuesday? Why not tomorrow?" Meredith asks, furrowing her brow.

"I have an appointment to file papers. For the annulment and all that. And I have to try to get rid of the stupid house. Or at least get my name off the papers," Cristina groans, "all the stupid stuff. And we know how fast Burke is. He'll decide to go."

"Just because of a rumor? I don't think he will."

"Oh no. It's a lot more than a rumor. Owen told him…stuff."

"Stuff?" Meredith asks, "That's all I get?"

Cristina shakes her head, shifts in the bed to get comfortable, "I don't want to talk about it. I didn't want to talk about it with him. It was a rumor and now it's just a pile of crap. And it's crap that he's not going to stick around for because it's Burke."

"Yeah. I guess."

"At least you won't have to cut me out of a dress."

"I thought you said there wouldn't be a dress," Meredith mumbles, noting that Zola has actually quieted.

"There was a thing. Maybe there wouldn't be a dress. But there was a thing," Cristina says sadly.

Meredith scoots closer to Cristina and wraps an arm around her, "Come on. We should sleep. We have long days tomorrow."

Cristina nods slightly and closes her eyes.

She knows that it will be a lot more than tomorrow that's long.

Meredith covers her mouth with the back of her hand as she fights back another yawn. The surgery was enough to keep her awake but now she can barely keep her eyes open and she has another seven hours to go before she can even think about going home.

She examines the board for a procedure that's at least half the length to help the day go by more quickly but she comes up with nothing and she groans to herself. There's no way she'll be able to get in more than thirty minutes in a call room and she knows that she probably wouldn't be able to fall asleep because she'd be too focused on what time she doesn't have left.

After a long and tiring mental debate with herself, Meredith decides to head towards the coffee cart but finds her path disrupted.

"Where's Cristina?" A voice asks behind her.

"Do I look like her babysitter?" Meredith asks in a cross tone, continuing on her path to caffeine.

"Grey, I don't have time for this right now."

"I don't have time for this either, Dr. Burke. I need coffee. It's been a long day," she answers, keeping up the rouse.

"I need to talk to her."

"Then you should have thought about that before you threw Owen's crap in her face last night. You deserve way worse than what she gave you. Way worse."

Burke sighs, knowing he's probably not going to get anywhere with her, "Meredith."

Meredith stops and turns to look at him, "I cut her out of a dress. I watched her operate with a gun held to her head. I laid on the floor of an OR with her. I watched her marry some guy when she was like a zombie and then I watched him fuck up her career. And it all started when I had to cut her out of the goddamn dress. You deserve so much worse than what she gave you."

His brow furrows at Meredith's words, "A gun- what are you talking about?"

"If you want to know, you ask her. Don't go off of my words," she answers coldly and turns around to walk away.

Burke follows her, "I could talk to her if you tell me where she's at."

Meredith stops one last time, "She's trying to get rid of her house, okay? She's there. She'll be back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow isn't good enough. I need to know where she's at now. How do I get there?"

Cristina sits on the edge of the stairs, looking at the cleaned out place. At least he saved her the hassle of dealing with packing crap up because she wasn't in the mood. There were a couple boxes, pictures and crap that he'd insisted on taking and now left behind. She dumped them in the trash without looking at them an hour ago and shuffled through the clothes she'd left behind.

A knock at the door drew her attention from her thoughts and she stood up, "It's about damn time. I've been waiting for you to get here for like three hours." She calls out to the door before she opens it. When she sees Burke, she drops her hands to her sides, "I'm busy."

"Busy waiting?" He asks, stepping inside and glancing around. The place doesn't look anything like her but it doesn't surprise him in the least.

"Yeah. What about it?"

"Cristina," he says gently, alert to the hostility in her tone already. He closes the door behind him and follows her up the stairs, "we need to talk."

"What? Trying to pass the time before your flight?"

"Cristina."

"Couldn't get one today?"

"Cristina."

She turns to look at him, "What? What do you want? I'm trying to do things."

"I want to talk to you."

"And yet the only thing you're saying is my name," she mutters, sitting at the top of the stairs once more.

Burke sits next to her, rests his elbows on his knees, "Tell me what happened after I left. Everything that happened."

Cristina looks over at him, "I thought you were the one talking. That's not talking, that's asking me things that I don't want to talk about. At all."

"We need to talk about it," his voice is low, almost calming, "I intend to stay. Forever. And every time we get into a fight, you say that I'll deserve it for leaving and I don't know what happened when I left. So, tell me what happened so I can just accept the fact that I deserve it otherwise you're going to have to find a better reason."

"Why can't you just accept that it's your fault and get over it?" She asks and there's a hint of a smile that only he would be able to see but he doesn't recognize it aloud for fear of the smile fading.

"We could," he answers, sliding an arm around her shoulders and pausing to kiss the top of her head, "but then you wouldn't be able to make me feel like an ass whenever you wanted."

"I don't need a sob story to do that."

"Cristina," he murmurs gently.

"Fine," she answers, "whatever. But not right now. Right now you can just assume you're an ass until I tell you differently."

Burke smiles and brushes his lips over her forehead once more, "Alright. I'm an ass."

It's not exactly what he'd pictured but it was a start and a start was the only thing he could ask for. And maybe much more than what he deserved.

It takes her almost eleven months, ten months and two and a half weeks to be exact, to tell him everything. She told him about Owen first, the PTSD and the marriage, but left her PTSD out of the story. After a few more weeks, she told him about Gary Clark and the day that changed her, how she quit being a surgeon but how she could never truly quit being a surgeon. She saved for their marriage, the one that never happened, for last.

Cristina remembers telling him that it wasn't as traumatic as a gun being held to her head, she's not saying that, but it's the reason that she'll always have trouble fully trusting him. It's not that she doesn't want to, it isn't that she won't, it's that she physically cannot stop thinking that there's a day and a time where he may change his mind and leave again.

There was bad before he left, but the worst was after he was gone.

Cristina has been quiet lately.

Burke watches her intently across the table as she works, moving the suction catheter when she asks him to. They've worked like this for a while, Cristina performing the surgeries and Burke there for assistance if he's needed.

She needs him less every day and the day is quickly coming where she won't need him at all and he's worried about that, worried about what will happen to them.

Even if things had occurred, even if she had said that she'd never trust him, they've still been together. They don't live together, though sometimes it may seem that way, but their lives were definitely intertwined in an intricate way. He loves her and he's told her so. She loves him too.

She just doesn't trust him.

He stands back when she closes, watches her meticulous work and knows it's only a matter of time before his name is forgotten. Once upon a time, he suspects that it would have probably bothered him but Burke has a different perspective on things now and he's proud of her.

Once she closes, they walk into the scrub room, his arm casually nudging hers with a slight grin hidden beneath his mask. She's always in her best moods after surgery and now is not an exception. Cristina nudges him back in the side, much harder than he initiated and he winces slightly.

"I don't think I deserved that," he comments after he pulled his mask off.

"You always deserve it," right now it's a joke but sometimes she's serious. Cristina knows that she can have a tendency to abuse it sometimes too, but he lets her.

"I deserve a lot of things," he answers, his voice suggestive, "I gave up my surgery this morning."

Cristina glances up at him as she dries her hands, "And what? I'm supposed to give you sex because you gave me your surgery? Does that make me a surgical prostitute?"

Burke merely grins and shrugs, slides his hand along her hip after he pulls her to him, "If the gloves fit."

"I could tell you no," Cristina says weakly, especially after her back is pressed to the corner of the scrub room, well out of sight of anybody who may walk into the OR.

"You could," Burke answers, dipping his head to kiss her neck. His hand starts at her arm, moves down her side and pauses at her breast for only a moment to tease the sensitive flesh covered by her scrubs and a thin bra before traveling lower, "but you won't," he utters against her ear as his hand slides into her panties, fingers rubbing her clit teasingly.

Cristina grips his shoulders tightly as he teases her, her legs already trembling beneath her. His fingers slip inside her, one and then two, deep and hard. He teases her clit with his thumb, driven by the little noises that she's trying so desperately to bite back. His lips trail up from her neck to find hers and he kisses her passionately, as if it's been weeks since he had her rather than hours.

If anything, he's learned to never take her, this, for granted.

She comes quickly, unraveling in his arms but he continues to work his fingers inside her until she's nearly pushing him away, her body overwhelmed by his teasing. She smiles breathlessly against his lips, coming down from the high. Before she can return the favor though, her pager goes off at her waist. Cristina looks at Burke apologetically, "Later?"

"Most definitely," he answers, kisses her briefly.

There's no way he'd turn that offer down.

"I told you to page me at 10:00," Cristina groans, "I had fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to-"

"I don't want to hear about it," Meredith says, holding her hand up, "at all. You can just stop talking."

Cristina smirks, "It's not my fault you decided to get all domestic and have no sex."

"I still can't believe you have sex in the scrub room. That's just…dangerous. What if somebody walks in?"

"It's our OR," Cristina shrugs, "our scrub room. Nobody uses it except for cardio, nobody has a reason to go in the scrub room. And it's isolated."

"Better than a vent, I guess," Meredith quips, pulling to a stop in front of Cristina's apartment complex, "You're sure you want to do this? I mean, you've said it yourself that you don't really trust him. You could just keep things the way they are now."

"It's not that I don't trust him, I just-" Cristina tries to find a way to explain it but words fail her, "I'm sure that I want to do this."

"Fine. But you're the one kicking Derek out of bed if it doesn't work out. He gets pissed off when I do."

Somewhere in the past few years, Burke decides, that Cristina formulated a different definition of later than the one he had learned. Later to him was an hour, two tops, especially in matters that involved little to no clothing. However, he hadn't seen Cristina for the rest of the day, nor had he heard from her.

He opens the door to his apartment, calls out her name and then hears the shower running. He grimaces, knowing that she will have used up all the hot water and heads towards the bathroom, "Whatever happened to later?" He calls out, tugging his shirt over his head.

"I got tied up."

"And you couldn't shower at your own place when you were all tied up?" He prods, kicking his pants off of his legs before joining her.

Cristina smiles to herself but doesn't tell him just yet. If she tells him now, he'll ask questions and get all distracted from what he should be doing, "Hot water is overrated."

"That's not what you say when I beat you to the shower in the morning," he answers, stepping into the shower and wrapping his arms around her from behind.

"Different principle. You're the one who chooses to get all sweaty and disgusting. You should enjoy cold showers after that," she murmurs, thrusting her hips back into his.

Burke grips her hips, already aroused; "Now you're going to tell me what I should enjoy?"

Her hands slide over his, guide him downward over her abdomen, "No, I'm going to show you what you can enjoy if you quit complaining."

Cristina's message is heard loud and clear. Burke trails his lips over her shoulder from behind, teases her gently, her hands still urging on. He rubs against her eagerly, groans when she thrusts her hips back once more, teasing him. Unable to resist his need anymore, he pushes her towards the wall of the shower, eases her legs apart just enough to ease into her from behind.

Curling her fingertips into his arm, Cristina moans and whimpers as he moves, as he teases her clit. The day as taken its toll on him and she can tell, his thrusts are hard and unforgiving, derivatives of need after Meredith's early interruption this morning. Despite the fact that she wants to hold on, that she wants more, Cristina lets go easily, clenches around him and feels him let go inside of her.

He kisses her shoulder, holds her against him, "I know that you say you cannot trust me," he murmurs against her skin, "and I'm to blame for that. But I love you and I'm not going anywhere."

She turns her head to look at him, turns in his arms to lock her eyes with him, "Yeah. I know."

It's a small victory, but one that Burke will take.

Cristina stretches out on the couch and glances around. She never really told Burke that she moved in but she thinks he's figured it out now that her mail as transferred. Or that he's in the process of figuring it out. He blinks at the pile of mail in his hands and then glances up at her, peering over thick black glasses, "Your mail is here."

"Yeah."

"And your stuff is here."

"Yeah."

The corner of his mouth turns up slightly, "I don't recall asking you if you wanted to move in."

Cristina bites back a grin, "Oh, I can go if you want me to."

Burke pretends as if it's a pained decision, "Well, it's done now."

"No, really, I can move back out if you want me to," she says, sitting up, "I mean, it wouldn't be that hard to pack up all my stuff. The mail might still come for a while. It took forever to get moved to the right address anyway."

"Should I assume that there's no other apartment involved in this deal?"

"It's been gone for about two weeks," she confirms.

He grins at the confirmation and sits on the couch next to her. Burke pulls his glasses from his face and drops them on the coffee table before stretching out next to her, "Good."

Cristina runs her fingertips along his jaw, "Yeah."

There are other things he wants to ask her but he bites back the questions. If anything he's learned to let her take her time, let Cristina make the steps on her own. They'll always have the past but he likes to think they've both learned from it and that they can only continue to grow.

No matter how long it takes.