Disclaimer:
I do not own the rights to the characters used. This fanfic is a non-profit, amateur effort not intended to infringe on the rights of anyone.
There was a little person in the room. He wasn't making any noise, but even in her early morning grogginess she could feel his eyes on her. Slowly, so as not to attract attention, she slid her arm slowly under the covers to the other side of the bed, searching. No Owen.
The little person, sensing motion, pounced.
"S'Tina—S'Tina, you're the tickle monster!"
Aidan was small for nearly being three years old. A very petite boy with that familiar goofy red hair, cobalt blue eyes and a strange aversion to defecating in the toilet (the last trait being one that, luckily, he did not share with his uncle). There were three of them in this house, three mini gingers, but the others were toilet trained and generally left her alone, preferring Uncle Owen to the woman who'd spent most of dinner last night watching them nervously, as if they might throw food at any moment. Aidan, though, didn't have any reservations about getting to know "S'Tina".
Aidan stood on the bed, his petite little frame wobbling as he negotiated himself up her body toward her head.
"Tickle me!" he squealed, kicking her in the ribs. He didn't have enough control over his little legs to hurt her. She felt herself smiling, burying her face further into the pillow before breathing in the beginning of a sigh and, still on her stomach, reached an arm behind her to grab a handful of belly. Aidan exploded into laughter and collapsed across her hips.
"Ssh," Cristina said softly, snaking an arm around his body and pulling him up, next to her. "It's sleepy time."
Aidan let himself be pulled against her, into the space between her arm and her body. It should have been an awkward pose, her lying on her stomach, her arm out and curled backwards around his little body as he nestled against her. But it was not uncomfortable, and she was suddenly hit with a memory. Of being little, not as little as Aidan, but of being a little girl nestled against her father in the middle of the night. Emotion welled up inside her, and she blinked back tears. She turned her head toward Aidan, to remind herself she was in the present. She looked down, expecting to see the top of a heedful of copper locks. Instead she found herself looking into a sea of blue. Aidan smiled mischievously.
"TICKLE ME, S'TINA!" he shouted, directly into her face, scrambling to his legs again. Cristina rolled her head back, pressed her face into the pillow. It was too early for anyone to be out of bed. So where the hell was Owen?
To stop the noise she reached up blindly toward him, grabbed a handful of toddler belly and squeezed, then pushed. As expected, he fell over in a fit of giggles. Cristina closed her eyes, willing the game to be over. Having different ideas, he repositioned himself to a standing position and stepped closer to her, still giggling. Another kick to the ribs, and this time she thought absentmindedly that she should say something, tell him 'no', because the last thing Owen's sister wanted was Cristina teaching her son there are no consequences when he kicks people. But she's heard this little volcano's reaction to being told 'no', and she wasn't about to be on the receiving end. At least not this early in the morning. "Again, S'Tina, again!" he barked happily.
She reached up again, turning her head away from him and trying to relax. She could do this. She could tickle and rest. And wherever the hell Owen was, maybe he'd come back with coffee and she wouldn't have to resent him for the rest of the morning. He should be the one stuck in the tickling game with the little terror.
Aidan exploded into another fit of giggles as Cristina found his belly again, squeezing him before giving him another shove down onto the soft down bedding. He landed on his back, half on her legs and half in the billowy down comforter, but was up again in seconds, swaying from side to side as he moved up the bed, unsteady on the cushioned surface. She winced when one little foot landed on her lower back and he actually made an effort to walk on her, which hurt much worse than the ineffectual little kicks. She went for a belly grab, pushed him down, and his laughter filled the room like music.
This time when he came back it was on his hands and knees. He scampered up and put a hand next to her cheek. He opened and closed his fist, stretching his fingers out and poking her face before closing the fist again. "I tickle you, S'Tina." She wanted to laugh at the attempt to tickle her, but she bit her tongue so as not to encourage him. His fingers were oddly sticky, which worried her. Most likely she was going to break out. Who knows when the last time he washed his hands was?
"No tickling faces," she protested, moving his hand away. To soften the blow to his little man ego she rolled over and reached for him, pulling him against her chest as she dug the tips of her fingers into his armpits. The laughing was immediate and was soon joined by a lower rumble, coming from the doorway. Cristina looked up to find Owen standing in the open door, holding two cups of coffee and a brown paper bag.
Their eyes met over the top of Aidan's head and Cristina's breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. He looked relaxed, and refreshed, and so strikingly handsome she almost couldn't believe her luck. He was like a different man in this little house by the lake, around the kids and the dog and his sister. In the last year he'd progressed remarkably, less tenseness, less sleepless nights, less panic. He was already like a new man back home in Seattle, and more and more she would look across the room and see the confident, brazen man he was before. But here there was something else. A playfulness that normally she only saw when they were alone, which was not much. She was a third year resident now, was at the hospital even longer hours (who would have thought that was possible?).
"Uncl'owen!" Aidan squealed, rocketing off her toward the edge of the bed where he stood, arms out, waiting for his hug. Owen set the cups of coffee and the bag on the nightstand as Cristina collapsed back into the pillows, her eyes never leaving him.
Owen scooped Aidan into his arms and hoisted him into the air. "Your mommy and I just got back from the store. She has donuts in the kitchen."
Cristina knew immediately that this would work, this tiny little creature was a whore for food and would eat constantly if everything in the kitchen wasn't above what he could get to by standing on the little white chair that went with his art table. Owen set him on the floor and he went running, bare feet slapping against the hard wood. Owen closed and locked the door, and something intense—almost animal—entered his eyes. She knew the look, and she felt her body respond immediately.
"What?" she asked. It wasn't so much a What do you want? Because that was clear. It was a Why now, before I've had my coffee? She threw a wistful glance toward the nightstand, but the bed was so high and the nightstand so short that the cardboard cup was out of sight.
Owen pulled back the covers, revealing her flannel pajamas, and crawled up onto the bed. Her snaked an arm under her back and pulled her up, his mouth finding hers as his free hand did battle with her pajama bottoms. As she was very nearly in a seated position, the pants weren't going anywhere. Cristina inhaled shakily when he leaned her back down and curled two fingers from each hand into the waistband of her pants. Heat flushed her body where his skin touched hers, his fingers cold against each side of her hips. Never breaking eye contact, he tugged on the waistband. She lifted he hips slightly off the bed, toward him, to allow the pants to come off.
The shock of cold air against her bare legs was an unexpected delight; especially considering every other part of her body was heating up solely under the power of his gaze. The man was hot. Insanely hot. A roiling boil sort of hot that made other men's hotness look like bathwater. With other men, one was safe to jump in without risk of horrible burns. How was she ever going to feel this way with another man? The Mark Sloans of the world would have to do a whole lot more than stitch up their own faces to turn her on again. She would have to keep Owen around forever, even if it meant buying a house and locking him in the basement.
"What are you smirking at?" Owen asked huskily, tossing her pajama bottoms off the bed and sliding his hands up her calves, lingering on the backs of her knees before moving up her thighs. "You look like a cat with a mouse." He eased her legs apart and watched as she trembled in response to his touch.
He used a finger to push her panties to the side, was lowering his head when the door handle shook. Finding it locked, the intruder pounded a fist on the door. "S'Tina, read books. Come OUT!" Pound, pound, pound.
Owen looked up at her from between her legs, a smirk on his lips. "I think there's a three year old trying to steal my girlfriend."
"He's two and three-quarters. A little over sixteen years and we can be married. It's perfect timing, I should be done with training by then," she said, dryly.
"Aidan!" Owen's sister called from somewhere in the house. "Come on, bug, we're going to the lake."
She'd give him one thing, the kid was easily diverted. "Bye, S'Tina, we're going to the lake!" Pound, pound, pound. "S'Tina, say 'bye'! Say 'bye', S'Tina!"
"Bye, Aidan," Cristina called as Owen pushed her flannel button-down top up, exposing a pale, bare midriff. She frowned unhappily, his hand no longer near her panties, his mouth laying gentle kisses across the flat exposed surface.
"I'm pretty pleased with my catch, yes. But what's this all about?" She had meant to sound blasé, but the way her breath was now coming in shallow, ragged gasps she sounded less the composed, cool surgeon and more the sex-crazed nymph.
"I think it's best not to tell you," he said to her belly, nuzzling the skin with his nose before sliding his tongue along the bottom of her ribcage.
Cristina let her head fall back on the bed, her mouth falling open as she felt the familiar ache growing. The need for him inside her nearly won out over her curiosity. "Talk or no nookie."
Owen shook his head, slid his hand down her side and caught hold of her panties. She lifted her hips again, allowing him to pull and then push the lace down her legs. He gave a small laugh, a self-satisfied chuckle that would have irritated her any other time. He could be such a smug bastard.
He sat up and, in a matter of seconds had unbuttoned and pushed down his jeans and had positioned himself between her legs. He moved on top of her, lining up their faces, and kissed her. The sweet earnestness of the kiss nearly took her breath away. "You have to tell me," she whispered when they pulled apart.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, then, relenting, said, "I need to go through the motions." He opened his eyes to find her gaze confused. "Seeing you with Aidan, you fight it but you are so adorable with him. And I know it's completely by accident and it's unintentional, and maybe it's kid-specific, but I can't help but fantasize about getting you pregnant," he took a breath and she immediately stiffened. She didn't know how to respond, of sexual fantasies it was pretty tame and non-perverse but she still felt rather shocked and ill at ease with his admission.
He continued on in a rush to get it out, to calm her down, "And I know you're on the pill, and I know we're both too busy right now, I know. And I know I'm still not in a good place, I know I'm the last person that should be thinking about getting someone pregnant. And I don't even know if I want kids, and I think maybe you don't. Maybe you never will. But I just need to go through the motions. I just need to make love to you."
His eyes found hers and he brought a hand up to cradle her face, slid a thumb along her mouth, still slightly open from the surprise. "And I promise to pretend I never said any of this when we're done." He smiled sheepishly, and against her better judgment she found herself smiling, too.
She felt like it was okay to have this fantasy here, in this house by the lake away from the city and their lives. A place almost out of space, out of time. A place like the vent, where they could go to clear their heads. But she knew he was aware they couldn't stay in these places. They could no more stand over the vent all day than they could move into this house and be different people for anything other than a vacation.
So when they did make love she let herself feel the small thrill that had worked it's way into her heart. The thought of being pregnant with his child. Because it was only a fantasy, and it belong in this place, in this little house, and when they were done they could leave it behind.