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A Superstitious Man: Part One
Owen Hunt was not a superstitious man in spite of the multitude of mini miracles he had witnessed in Iraq. Recoveries that would stun a layman only made him dig deeper to quantify the cause. There was always a reason. He was a man of science and proofs, which made his deteriorating psyche difficult to accept but no less real. Consequently, Friday the thirteenth was no different than any other day. He got up from yet another restless night, showered, dressed and headed for the hospital. The ladder leaning against his neighbor's roof proved easier to go under than around due to the icy patches between his car and theirs. The dead black cat lying across the mouth of the driveway just another obstacle to be avoided as he backed onto the street. The three-car accident at the bottom of the highway off ramp was merely a delay when he stopped to assess the situation. The ambulance had already been dispatched and he would beat it back to the trauma center at Seattle Grace. The injuries were serious, but not life threatening.
He should have known better.
The accident victims kept Owen busy for the first two hours of his shift. He was focused, professional and inwardly pleased that the usually acerbic Alex Karev was on his service. He liked the younger man and hoped that his personal dalliances would not derail a promising career. Karev showed an aptitude for the rapid-fire assessments needed in trauma situations. He only lacked confidence and experience. Owen recognized a younger, less damaged form of himself in the Resident. Taking him in hand helped stave off the mental meanderings that frequently interrupted Owen's train of thought. The last accident victim had just been sent off to a hospital room when another more pleasant distraction walked into the trauma center.
The grapevine at Seattle Grace was impossible to ignore. Owen had struggled to remain above it for months. People like the well-meaning Callie Torres kept pulling him back down with an offhand comment or a knowing arch of an eyebrow. Consequently, he knew that Cristina Yang did not have the reputation of a peacemaker. One look at her posse of interns scampering like chickens amidst the slaughter proved the point. To say nothing of the daggers she had given him after Beth's arrival. None of that knowledge meant a wit to Owen whenever she crossed his path during the day. His back was to the door when she entered. He listened to her murmured conversations with one of the interns and suppressed a smile when she barked at the man for what she considered the obvious. Obvious only to a brilliant young surgeon who read more and tried harder than almost anyone Owen had ever met.
"Dr. Yang," he acknowledged without looking up from the chart he was writing in.
"Dr. Hunt." She read over his shoulder for a minute.
"You'll be ready for seven?" he asked casually, hoping that his nerves did not show.
"Unless something comes up, yes."
Owen nodded as he flipped the chart closed. He turned to find her standing with her arms loosely folded. She looked him up and down, a frown on her lips.
"What?" Owen prompted.
"I hope the food is good. You're too damn thin."
"Is that a medical opinion?"
"Look in a mirror once in a while."
Owen watched her walk out of the room, enjoying the view and trying hard to ignore the chill spreading through his weary frame. It was getting harder to maintain a state of normalcy even with the calm Cristina's presence induced. He had reached an understanding with her since Beth's departure. A clean slate that included the imminent do over of the first date he had so badly botched. She was watching him more closely now though, and her observations were accurate. Later was soon enough to consider his waning stamina and oversized clothes however. A wry smile touched Owen's lips as he walked out into the hall. Cristina Yang was as subtle as a brick to the head and twice as hard. Just one trait of many that drew him.
~*~*~
It was seven thirty when Owen finally parked his late 90s blue Mustang outside of Cristina's apartment. As predicted, an incoming trauma had held him up. She exited the building moments later holding a newspaper over her head to shield against the light drizzle. Owen smiled as she plopped into the front seat and grunted irritably beneath her breath. "You're late." She sniffed the air experimentally. "No detours this time?"
He ignored the jibe and shifted the car into gear. "I called ahead. They're holding our table."
"Good idea." She pushed back curls gone frizzy with the rain and studied his profile. "Ever consider losing the beard?"
"I never grew one until I...uh…I left the Army." He cleared his throat. "I'm used to it now."
"I was just curious."
Owen shrugged stiffly. "Have you ever had short hair?"
She smirked. "No."
"Good."
"Why do you say that?" she asked as she slouched down in the leather seat and looked out the window from beneath lowered lashes.
"It looks good long."
"Thought you liked the back of my neck?"
"I like variety. Long hair on a woman adds a bit of mystery."
"Yeah, you need more mystery in your life."
He tilted his head, conceding the point. "Some mysteries are better than others."
They drove across town in an uneasy silence. There was no denying that Cristina was right, again. The biggest mystery of all being the person he had become since the ambush. Owen barely remembered the story he had told while standing fully clothed in the cold spray of her shower. One memory of horror was much like another. The edges blurred, the details so vivid they made his eyes burn and his throat clog with the glare and the smoke. Beth's arrival provoked a totally unexpected fit of panic. Owen clenched his jaw unconsciously as the sensation of Cristina's small arms pulling him close thrilled anew across his nerves. Her words were clinical and detached:her presence a comfort he had never expected. Cristina would shield him from the world but she would not let him hide from her. When he could finally stand erect, Owen could not bear to look at her. Embarrassed by his loss of control and scared to death that she would walk out the door and never look back. An hour later she made her choice and led him to the on-call room without a word of explanation. Lying in her lap, his sleep was deep and dreamless for the first time in months.
Owen rolled his shoulders at Cristina's quizzical look. She was not one to ask questions unlike the effervescent Beth. The teacher in Beth would not allow Owen to brood on any subject for an extended period of time. She would always ask and listen with almost inhuman patience to the answer even if it was clearly out of the realm of her experience. There was a time when he could tolerate that level of intrusion. See it for the intimacy is was meant to be. No longer.
Now he was stuck with a dull ache that turned his insides to molten jelly and closed his throat whenever he heard a car backfire. Crowds made him edgy and a whisper was as good as a scream to quicken his pulse until the blood roared in his ears. The man Cristina met the day of the ice storm would not have cared if she ever saw who he truly was. That Owen was forever on a search for adventure. Always at play, even when he grabbed a virtual stranger and kissed her senseless. A far cry from the man who stood in the darkened on-call room and begged Cristina to see inside his soul in a way no one from Before ever could.
"You okay?"
Owen forced his hands to relax their white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. "Yeah."
"Okay. So, where are we going?"
"Surprise."
"Uh…I'm not really big on those."
"You'll like it." Owen assured with more conviction than he actually felt.
"Not the lighthouse?"
"No."
Cristina reached over and pulled back the collar of his coat. "You got the Armani on under there?"
Owen chuckled.
"You owe me a sweater by the way."
"It shrank, didn't it?"
"I'm kidding."
"I'll buy you a new one."
"Never mind, stupid joke."
"I'll replace the sweater."
Cristina shook her head and looked back out the window. "Don't be an ass."
He concentrated on a group of pedestrians crossing the street, unsure what to say.
"You don't owe me a sweater, Owen. It's not like you dragged me into that shower."
"No?" The hazy recollection was solidifying rapidly the more they talked. She had asked the question earlier that day. For a brief, lucid moment he had wanted to answer, in spite of the liter of Scotch scorching through his veins by the time he knocked on her door. Cristina was a surgeon, she would appreciate the details. So he called her into the bathroom though he was already hip deep and sinking fast into a mire of sensations thick with blood and sand. The memory had spun out of control very quickly and taken him back to a frigid dawn years in the past. To the soldier screaming in fear, trembling in shock as his life leaked out beneath Owen's hands and limbs. "I think I might have," he whispered distantly.
Cristina's eyes rested on his cheek. She did not speak, merely watched him focusing on the road as he forced the ghosts back behind the walls.
"Tell me something happy, would you?" he muttered. "Tonight…it's not about that…"
Cristina laughed shortly. "I don't do happy."
"You do."
"You're pretty sure of yourself for someone who doesn't know much about me."
"And whose fault is that?" Her discomfiture was a palpable chilling of the air. For a moment Owen regretted the question and wanted to take it back. The feeling passed as he drew up to a traffic light. He looked over and caught Cristina's eyes. Holding fast until the flash of green in his periphery drew his attention back to the street.
"Happy is a sham, you know? Cliché, like a fairytale."
"Old and new, borrowed and blue?" he mused, thinking of the wedding adage and the dead cat lying across the driveway.
"Something like that."
"For other people?" Beth's face slid across Owen's vision. He blinked to clear the mirage and swallowed back the ache in his throat. She had spoken of their wedding day many times before he left on his last tour of duty. He had nodded and smiled, done everything expected. Then the world blew apart. For other people…
"Like Meredith. She wants all that crap. At least I think she does."
"And Derek?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"I don't know. Look, where are we going?"
"I told you, it's a surprise."
"Owen…"
"Just wait," he said with a tolerant smile. "You're not good at patience."
"You noticed?"
"Army training has its uses in the civilian world."
"So you said during the surgery with Campbell."
"People make mistakes."
Cristina sighed loudly. "Whatever."
She was not going to give an inch. Owen shook his head and let the subject drop. "Something happy?" he prompted eventually.
"Happy? Ummm, well, I've been reading Ellis Grey's journals."
"Who?"
"Meredith's mother. She was an Attending at the hospital." Cristina's voice took on a derisive edge. "Worked with Margaret Campbell actually. Anyway, I've been reading her journals…"
"Cristina," Owen guided the car into the lanes of traffic heading north of the city. "Something happy and not work related." She did not reply. After a few minutes Owen chanced a look at her face. The skin was painted an unearthly green by the dashboard lights. Drawn tight over a clamped jaw and flattened lips. "What?" he asked gently.
"Work makes me happy, Owen."
"There's more to life than work."
"And you would be an authority on that subject?"
He refused the bait and concentrated on exiting the highway and merging onto the secondary road pointed towards the west. The fading remnants of sunset painted the horizon in hues of dusty magenta and amber. Jagged shadows cut a razor's edge between sky and earth, split evenly by the silvery asphalt they traveled. Owen pushed down hard on the accelerator, making the Mustang roar and jump forward.
"You do a stint at Indianapolis in a past life?"
Owen shrugged dismissively.
The distant shadows gradually resolved into ghostly details picked out by the car's halogen headlights. Low crags dotted with scrub trees and sparse grass. The gleam of rocks washed clean by the wind and frequent rain. The white belly of a sea bird spinning up and away into the spreading darkness. Owen down shifted as the car climbed the increasing grade. The pavement at the summit gleamed blood red, kissed by the salted air and a lingering sun beam. Cristina gasped as they crested the hill and Owen drove the car into the pull-off to the right of the road.
The ocean lay before them. From this angle, sunset was rich red and gold slanting across the water. Frosted waves chased one another to the shore and pulled back to leave a beach encrusted with flotsam. Strands of seaweed, shells and stones textured the gray sand. Shallow pools mirrored thin clouds scudding across the sky. Tattered tails of pink and burnt orange streamed behind them as the last rays of daylight retreated into the sea. Owen sighed in relief. Ten minutes later and they would have missed the show.
Cristina was sitting forward in the seat. Her full lips formed a perfect 'O' of surprise. "It's amazing…really something," she whispered.
"It is."
Her hand came to rest light and warm on his thigh. "Do you come here often?" she asked, still looking at the changing view.
"I…used to."
The pressure on his leg increased. "Before?"
Owen nodded. Thankful that she was giving him space by focusing on the landscape and certain that she would sense if not see his affirmation.
"Maybe you should come here more often, now."
"Maybe." Owen fidgeted in his seat, feeling the need to say more and totally unprepared for what tumbled out of his mouth. "I never took Beth here."
"I didn't ask."
"I always came here alone, until now."
Cristina's dark head dipped towards her chest. "And what's changed? I mean…well you know what I mean."
He smiled shakily. Secretly relieved that she sounded as nervous as he felt by the turn their conversation had taken. Time to lighten the mood! "Let's find out."
"Surprise?" she said, the hand not straying from his leg.
"Yeah."
"You've no idea how much I hate those."
Owen shifted the car into gear and pulled back onto the road. They dropped down towards the beach, the pavement a darkening ribbon stitched with cracks and speckled with sand. He braked as it curved unexpectedly to the right and heard Cristina grunt as she landed against his shoulder.
"A little warning would be nice."
"You falling on top of me isn't something I want to avoid," he quipped, enjoying her snort of suppressed laughter.
"What the…" The pressure on his leg increased and then abruptly vanished as she sat forward for a second time in as many minutes. "What did you do?"
"Surprise."
To be continued…