PLOT. This FF starts in season 8 in the night of Owen's cheating. However, things turn out very differently!

NOTE. English is NOT my first language! I apologise for every mistake I might make. If someone would like to BETA I'd be really very thankful! If German is your first language please check out the German version of this FF. Enjoy :)


SAFE TIME-TRAVELS!

PRESENT, 01. APRIL 2012, EVENING

Owen looked at the woman sitting next to him on a bar stool. She had a slender figure. She was pretty and blonde. She was kind to him and she had a beautiful, warming laugh that tried to make him do what he did so seldomly lately: raising a smile. He had already forgotten her name, and he could not even say whether she had at all told him what it was. She had curls of the kind he liked so much on Cristina, but she was not Cristina. She listened. She hung on every word he spoke. She was truly interested in what he had to say. It felt good not to be invisible for once.

The two of them were at Joe's Bar. She had promised to buy him a drink for the great work he had accomplished today. His glass, however, stood untouched in front of him on the counter while hers was almost fully emptied. Owen feared that if he got drunk now, he would do something he would never be able to forgive himself. He was not stupid. He knew that she had taken a shine to him. She flirted with him, and he flirted back awkwardly. He just wanted to be seen and heard like that for a little while longer. That was why he did what he did, and that also was the apology he tried to silence his conscience with. It did not work.

"It's getting late", he, therefore, addressed the blonde abruptly as he rose from his seat. "I should go."

"Oh", the woman seemed disappointed but she did not surrender so easily. Soon she stood upright as well: "I should go, too."

It, thus, so happened, that both slipped over their jackets to brace themselves for the unpredictable April-weather, and, then, they walked together through the door of the bar and stepped out into the cool night. Wandering next to each other they were slowly leaving the dark alley behind and reaching the main street. He kept his distance whereas she sought closeness to him, and as they paused in their walk to say their goodbyes she attempted to kiss him.

"I'm married", Owen took one step back from her. He did not look at her anymore, but only to the ground at his feet. He felt guilty for the short moment he had considered granting his acquaintance her wish and not stopping her. He missed intimacy. Yet, he missed Cristina more than that. He lifted his glance up again and called a taxi for the woman because he was a gentleman, and he explained that he would rather go on foot when she invited him to share the pay and as such the car. Before she left she planted one kiss and a smile on his cheek. That was okay even though it did not touch him in the way he wished it had.

Owen did not want to go home right away – he could not do it. He just could not return to the silence standing tangible between him and his wife. He turned round and treaded the path he had come from back to the bar to have, now, that he was alone, the drink he had despised before. Only after a few steps, however, his heart was suddenly thumping wildly as if he had strained it too much. His hands were trembling, and his head was filled with voices he should not be able to hear. Then his legs were incapable of carrying his body any longer. He did not find hold on the wall to his left, and he slipped down the stones and to the ground right where he once had been so close to Cristina. He was unable to breathe. Everything went black.


FUTURE , 14. OCTOBER 2016, NIGHT

It was warm but it was still black around him. Confused Owen felt with his hands for the floor which had a different touch to it than the asphalt he had been kneeling on moments ago. He carefully rose to his feet as soon as he was sure that his legs would carry him effortlessly. He heard the voices again. When he attempted to reach out for the wall behind him, it was gone. Instead, he only grasped at air, and he would have fallen through it had he not, in the right moment, gotten hold of the handle of the door. A door? Why a door? Slowly he opened it, and he stepped towards a white light that blinded him for a minute. Then he could see again but he was yet precarious whether he could place his trust in this newly clear sight. He was standing in the hallway of the hospital whose chief of surgery he was. Doctors and nurses rushed past him, a ringing telephone demanded attention, someone called his name, but that could not be. Nothing of all that could be. He was not here. He could not be here.

"Owen!", he, nevertheless, heard his name again, and by the sound of her voice he identified the caller as Meredith Grey. "Owen!"

His thoughts tumbled in his head as he turned to face his approaching colleague. The first thing he noticed about her was the dark-blue scrubs that were normally reserved for surgeons in the attending position. The second thing was her smile with which she came to him. It was an honest smile and it was really intended for him.

"We were looking everywhere for you!", explained Meredith her intentions with a glint in her eye. Then she did something utterly remarkable: she put her arms around him. She let go of him when saying the following: "It's time!"

"Time?", asked Owen amazed by her cordiality. He actually thought it possible that she had lost her mind, or, when looking at the picture as a whole, that he had lost his. "Time for what?"

"For the baby", retorted Dr. Grey as if it was a part of common knowledge. She saw the look on his face and appeared to assume that it displayed his worry caused by her words: "It's just a little bit early but it'll be fine."

Baby. Had someone assigned him a surgery without his knowing? But how had he come here? Had he been drinking? Had he been drinking too much? His head hurt and he had obviously lost his memories of what had probably been a few hours – 'yes', therefore, seemed to be an answer standing to reason. He numbly followed Meredith through the halls of the hospital. He had to tell her that he could not operate like that. He should not be bearing this kind of responsibility in the state he was currently in.

When he attempted to speak his mind, though, their journey came to an end in front of a door behind which he heard the unmistakable voice of his wife very loud and clear: "I'm going to say this one last time, Karev! Keep. Your. Hands. Off. My. Vagina!"

Startled, Owen shot a glance at Meredith who simply stepped aside and signalised him to enter: "She's all yours."

So he entered and froze, while the door fell shut behind him. What he saw now was nothing he had expected to see. There were nurses present. One of them noticed him and nodded in a kindly, encouraging way. The others were too occupied attending to their bad-tempered patient: Cristina Yang was sitting on the only bed in the room, and commanding here and there how this and that should be done better. She was clad in a gown of the hospital. She was beautiful and hugely pregnant. Alex Karev was standing in front of her and with his back to Dr. Hunt.

"I explained this to you at least a hundred times", Karev spoke up, slightly annoyed. It seemed as if he had been leading the same discussion for a long time without any noticeable success. "I'm the only available OB right now. So, either you let me deliver this baby, or you do it yourself."

„Well, I want Montgomery", retorted Cristina defiantly snappish. "I want the best there is! I cannot believe this is happening! I've had a plan. Just one week! A first-class surgeon would have been flying in from LA in one week, but no: now I'm stuck here in second class because . . ." She stopped mid-sentence for she registered her husband still standing a few steps away from her and unable to move. "Owen! Where have you been?", she instantly directed her anger accusingly towards him. "You knock me up and then you leave when I tell you that I'm in labour? What is wrong with you?"

Alex turned round and raised his brows asking for help. Owen, however, remained frozen and could only stare. He now was certain that he was dreaming. This was not real. His reality had an entirely different look to it and it hurt, especially now, that he saw what could have been but was not. He did not want to see it. He did not want to be here anymore. It was too warm and he could not breathe. He tugged at his tie to loosen it around his neck and explained a bit shakily: "I can't do this right now."

"You can't do this right now?", snorted Cristina. "I'm the one in labour." She abruptly fell silent for a moment, closed her eyes and took one deep breath as a sharp pain passed through her abdomen. When she opened her lids again, she shot a furious glance at Dr. Hunt and continued in utter disbelief: "Did you change your clothes?"

"Dude", said Karev, shaking his head. "Really?"

Owen did not answer but the realisation of his wife being hurt led him to step forward and stand at her side without further contemplation. He took her hand just as she searched for his. He had to remind himself that he was still dreaming because suddenly everything around him was so real, so there, and so true. He wished for it to be true.

"Alright", announced Alex after a quick examination. "Are you ready? The baby sure is."

"No", Cristina's anger was suddenly gone and replaced by . . . Panic? Fear? "I'm not ready. I'm not a mother. This baby has to wait. It has to wait. Just one more week. This is not right."

"But it is", interrupted Owen gently her stream of words, because, even if it was not real, he still wanted to see it and hold it just once in his arms. "It is right. It is so right."

"You cannot disappear like that anymore", his wife had again found back to her strong and determining tone. "I can't do this without you. You have to promise me . . ."

"I promise", he said quickly although he did not know what she meant, or what exactly his promise was about. "I'm here. I'm staying."


PRESENT, 01. APRIL 2012, EVENING

It had been a long day, and Cristina had spent it deciding whether she should be ignoring Owen or spying on him. In the end her decision, however, had not been made by her but by Meredith who had become suspicious of her behaviour, and by Altman demanding her assistance for an important surgery. As Dr. Yang was now turning her key in the lock to open the door, she was unsure of what to expect when entering the flat. Would he be there? If yes, would he say a word to her? Or three, like: I love you? Did he love her? Did he hate her? She missed him and she missed knowing him, and his thoughts and feelings. She missed intimacy.

The lights were out. Also after switching them on for illumination Owen was still nowhere to be found. While she was trying to determine if it was appropriate to feel relieved, Cristina took her jacket off her shoulders and her shoes off her feet when she suddenly heard a noise coming from the bathroom. She froze, and then she heard it again. She lifted a pan at its handle from the kitchen counter and slowly dared to advance it – whatever it was that was hiding from her. She could not risk displaying her fear as it would have only countered the courage she needed to keep. When she arrived at her aim, she raised her weapon, held it ready and laid a hand on the handle of the door which she then pushed quickly and unexpectedly open. It noisily hit something hard.

"Ouch", protested a familiar voice behind it.

"Oh", Cristina switched on the bathroom lights in astonishment. "Owen? I'm sorry. I thought you were. . ."

". . .a burglar", ended Dr. Hunt the sentence for her in a strangely nasal voice. Hesitantly, he stepped forward, so that she could see that it was truly him. A towel wrapped around his waist was all he was wearing, but the red blood running down his pale face effectively distracted from his bare physique. "I think you broke my nose."


FUTURE, 14. OCTOBER 2016, NIGHT

Exhausted, Cristina had slipped into a well-deserved sleep. Her dark, curled hair laid spread out on the pillow in a sharp contrast to the white colour of its cover. Owen, who feared that he would awake in his real world if he would close his eyes, held their daughter safely in his arms and carefully pressed to his chest because she liked hearing his heart beat. She was little. She was warm, she was alive and healthy, and she was perfect. She was everything she should be, and she was his, even if it was just for the moment of his dream. He knew that he was happy because he remembered again how to raise a smile. Cradling his child he walked around the room. He kissed its velvet head and breathed its sweet scent for later, when he would miss it. Then he began to quietly and contently hum a lullaby.


END NOTE. I really hope it was readable! Let me know what you think :) I'd love to read your thoughts x