Disclaimer: Grey's Anatomy is the property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC. This writing is for entertainment purposes only and is not for profit.
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#01 – Ring
The engagement ring really was quite gorgeous, and there were some days where Cristina actually considered wearing it.
#02 – Hero
When she first met him, he was one of her heroes – when he left her, she wanted to believe that he was a villain, but she simply couldn't.
#03 – Memory
Years later, he catches a glimpse of her from across the convention hall and panics; for a split second, he wonders if there was any possible chance that she could have suffered from amnesia and wouldn't remember him; then, he wonders if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.
#04 – Box
He tells her to cauterize, and it's like she's a child opening a huge wrapped box on Christmas morning; her enthusiasm is scary and twisted but so her which made it wonderful.
#05 – Run
"You really like to run, don't you?" she asked, breathlessly spent, as she collapsed in the grass, as he stared down at her with a look on his face that said they hadn't even begun.
#06 – Hurricane
Preston Burke had never laughed harder than he did when he heard Cristina belting "Rock You Like a Hurricane" in the shower, blissfully unaware of his presence.
#07 – Wings
"Gives you wings, but isn't so good for you," he observes smugly, nodding toward the beverage in her hand; she rolls her eyes (-"since when has that worried me…red meat, remember?").
#08 – Cold
She was trapped in The Pit with a kid with a bad case of the common cold; she begged him for a way out, ended up scrubbing in on an aortic dissection, and he never let her forget that she was forever in his debt.
#09 – Red
She spread more scarlet paint over the pristine white wall; red made her think of blood, which made her think of the heart, which made her think of Burke, which defeated the purpose of re-painting the wall in the first place.
#10 – Drink
"Tequila?" he asked, trying not to frown disdainfully, fingering the stem of his martini glass; she quirked her eyebrows in a silent duh.
#11 – Midnight
Midnight was his favorite time of night; she was asleep and he was awake, allowing him to watch her intently without receiving an annoyed glance.
#12 – Temptation
She looks so good today that if there wasn't a whole surgical team watching them and a patient on the operating table between them, he would have taken her right then and there – somehow, he knows that she wouldn't mind.
#13 – View
"Hope you're enjoying the view," Cristina commented with a satisfied smirk when she felt his eyes burning holes into her the first time she walked around Burke's apartment naked.
#14 – Music
As Burke looked through Cristina's iPod (she had forgotten it at home one day), he was elated when he saw that she had downloaded the entire Eugene Foote collection without him even knowing.
#15 – Silk
It never ceased to amaze Burke that, as abrasive and rough her personality was, her skin was as smooth as silk.
#16 – Cover
Burke woke suddenly with a chill, covered in goose bumps; Cristina had stolen the cover from him, sleeping peacefully, wrapped snugly in the flannel – he decided to let her be the comfortable one that night.
#17 – Promise
Addison and the rest of that particular surgical team heard his promise - she, the one person who mattered, did not.
#18 – Dream
He let her scrub in, cooked her an amazing dinner, and rubbed her feet; afterwards, she looked at him and said languidly, "you're still not the man of my dreams, you know."
#19 – Candle
"He really is a woman," Cristina said incredulously when she noticed the jasmine-scented candle burning on the coffee table in his apartment.
#20 – Talent
When speaking with the Chief, Burke only told of her surgical talent; her other talents were not exactly appropriate for Richard Webber's ears.
#21 – Silence
To him, her silence – a steeled jaw, a sharp glare, a languid glance in a different direction, a sigh, a frozen shoulder – was somehow completely deafening.
#22 – Journey
After the horrendous failure at charades, the four played musical trivia; he outdid himself in the clueless department when he couldn't guess the artist to her rendition of "Don't Stop Believing" (it wasn't an exactly accurate rendition, to give him some kind of credit).
#23 – Fire
Whenever she wanted to annoy him, she would bring up the time when a woman's heart had caught fire while he was operating; Cristina could not remember one instance in which it didn't work.
#24 – Strength
His tie was loose and the first button of his dress shirt was undone as he braced himself by his palms over the bathroom sink, avoiding his reflection in the mirror above, repeating his mental mantra of she's strong, she'll be alright, she's strong, she'll be alright; he hoped her strength would be enough.
#25 – Mask
He watched her perform her first running whip-stitch, and, although he was wearing his surgical mask, it was obvious to everyone in the O.R. that he was smiling.
#26 – Ice
Owen Hunt might have been the one to literally pull the ice from her body, but Preston Burke had been the first to melt it away; that fact always nagged at the back of her mind.
#27 – Fall
Burke couldn't help but smirk as he read that Seattle Grace had fallen to number twelve in the ranks of teaching hospitals – his reaction was not out of spite for the hospital, but humor for what he was sure Cristina's outrage was like.
#28 – Forgotten
Years later, she catches a glimpse of him from across the convention hall and panics; for a split second, she wonders he can tell without looking that she hasn't forgotten about him yet; then, she wonders if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.
#29 – Dance
When they danced together in the kitchen, they were teenagers again; not thinking of carotid stenosis or coronary artery disease, but letting their bodies move carefree to the beat of the techno.
#30 – Body
In medical school, they had learned everything there was to know about the body – its systems, its weaknesses, its intricate inner workings; yet when they explored each other, every time, they both discovered subtleties that they hadn't known before.
#31 – Sacred
Marriage is a sacred union; too late, Cristina realized that, all along, she didn't think she wanted it – she knew.
#32 – Farewells
Farewells are never easy, especially when you're ready and wearing the dress.
#33 – World
He glanced resignedly at his trembling hand, willing it to stop, for her; he would go along with her plan and lie, conceal; because he's realized, for her, he would set the world on fire.
#34 – Formal
When preparing for their first official date, Cristina worried that her dress was too formal, and Burke worried that his suit was not formal enough.
#35 – Fever
"Dogged," he had remarked that morning when she charged out the door, ready for work despite the pale face and the dark circles under her eyes; when he saw her next, hours later, it was in an on-call room where she was motionless, face-down, and asleep on the bed – he shook his head fondly and sat beside her, placing a hand on her back.
#36 – Laugh
Her laugh was charming, feminine, and downright cute, all of the things Burke imagined she really was on the inside; to make it come out was the only reason he danced like a fool in front of her.
#37 – Lies
It was the lies that chipped away at them and eventually broke them – lying to their friends, lying to their colleagues, lying to each other, lying to themselves; but, even afterward, the undeniable of truth remained in wispy quantities serving as a painful and eternal reminder.
#38 – Forever
Cristina's breath hitched as she glanced around the store they had taken her to – white dresses meant a wedding, a wedding meant forever, and forever meant forever; she considered it a horrifying sign when she got stuck in one and it took the efforts of Meredith, Izzie, and Callie to wrench her free from its grip.
#39 – Overwhelmed
When she was overwhelmed, she would seek out the vent; when she was particularly distressed, she would take a deep breath and imagine that Burke was there – then, she would feel overwhelmed and guilty.
#40 – Whisper
Their fingers were entwined, mirroring their bodies, and deep inside felt so agonizingly good, all fluid motion and rough gasps; his lips found her ear and he whispered incoherent promises, and her grip on his hands increased considerably.
#41 – Wait
"Thanks for waiting," he murmured, standing in the doorway with a bag fresh groceries for dinner in his hand, when he saw that she was already three-quarters of the way through a take-out container of chicken lo mein.
#42 – Talk
"You certainly are one to talk about perfectionism, Mister Dewey Decimal System."
#43 – Search
Burke tore through his apartment, searching frantically for his lucky scrub cap; a strange mixture of relief, shock, and arousal came upon him when he discovered Cristina in the bedroom – wearing the cap and nothing else – waiting for him.
#44 – Hope
When she peeked into the other trauma bay and realized that he, not some random stranger, was the other GSW, it felt like all the hope in the world had crumpled to the speckled-tile floor.
#45 – Eclipse
The concrete was hard beneath him, his shoulder seared, there were sirens and he was vaguely aware that he was losing blood - thoughts fleeted through his mind, regrets, dreams, hopes, his parents, his friends, his family; just before he blacked out, her face eclipsed all of them.
#46 – Gravity
She had a specific gravity about her, with perfectionism, skill, determination, sarcasm, and this certain endearing quality he couldn't put a name to orbiting her; he was a helpless victim of her pull (and he didn't particularly mind).
#47 – Highway
After he commented about how fast she drove, masked terror in his eyes and white-knuckled grip on the safety handle, she replied flatly, "you should see me on my motorcycle."
#48 – Unknown
It was something neither had experienced before, a grayness that extended forever where it seemed like one mistake, one false move and it would all-
#49 – Lock
That first time, when Cristina locked the on-call room door, Burke knew his life was about to change.
#50 – Breathe
The wind rushed around her, propelled from below, as she professed her love, feeling as though tiny pieces of herself were breaking off and melting through the perforated metal floor – she claimed not to be able to breathe, but little did the man in front of her know that she had already been left breathless before.